How to build a profitable podcast.
Before we decide whether to invest in podcast marketing, we must first understand what, how and what the results could be.
Every business has a goal, and the goal – no matter what type of business...
Is to add as much value as you possibly can.
At least... it should be!
And to do this, you need to influence people to take the action required to receive the value you create, this could be:
And to do this, you need marketing.
Whilst there are several ways to market... a BIG opportunity in the online world right now is using a podcast to do this marketing.
In this post, we will be talking about how to build a marketing plan around a podcast; though of course for this to help and make sense to you, you need a podcast.
If you don't then refer back to these recent posts to get started on that journey:
And if you don't have a podcast and don't want to do all the work to start a podcast yourself... you should check out Fame, our sister company that will start and grow a podcast for you.
If you do have one, let's get started...
Podcast marketing is simply the act of marketing yourself, your products or your services through the creation and distribution of audio content. You share free audio content o listeners to ideally influence them in such a way that will sell your products or services... that will lead to them realizing the value you create.
Before we go further into why podcast marketing is a channel you should be investing in right now... let's get some context:
Source – podcast insights
More so, according to Statista, podcast listenership in the United Kingdom has been increasing year-on-year and is estimated at 15.6 million listeners in 2020.
Recently, the growth in number was as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, causing podcast listening jump by 42%.
More and more of the people that you can add value to are adopting podcasts to consume their information... you need to be in the game.
Before we jump into how to market your business with a podcast, we must first understand the potential benefits:
Increased brand reach and awareness: every impression your podcast gets... your brand gets.
Improved connection: podcasting is not a great way to grow an audience, it is an AWESOME way to build a connection with an audience... I mean who else is a voice within your potential customers first thing in the morning?
Heightened authority: when people listen to you, learn from and take your advice... you form a kind of authority over them. This increases the likelihood that you will be able to influence them to take the action needed (e.g. buy your product) to realise the value you provide.
More traffic: when people listen to you, you can ask them to consume more information on your own domain, increasing your traffic.
Advertising revenue: the beautiful thing about podcast marketing... is that even if you build an audience that either doesn't like or isn't a fit for your product or service, they will be for someone else. And therefore you can go to them and charge them to get the attention of your audience, generating advertising revenue.
Now that you are aware of the benefits of podcast marketing, it is time to learn how you can leverage this type of marketing to grow your business...
By definition, podcast marketing is a form of content marketing.
Content marketing is simply the creation of information that builds the authority of and trust in your business in the eyes of your potential customers.
In short, the more content you produce that adds value to the lives of your potential customers, the more successful your marketing will be. This is because if you teach your potential customers something, they will start to like and trust you... increasing the likelihood that they will buy.
Traffic is simply a hit on your website.
If we really think about what that means... it means that you have someone's attention. And when you have someone's attention you can attempt to influence them to do something: sign up for your email list, read your content or buy your product.
When someone if listening to your podcast, you have their attention.
Aside from adding value to their life through your content you also want to direct that attention to a place on the internet where you can attempt to influence them further: your website.
What do I mean by community?
Simply a group of similar people that come together around a common cause or goal.
If you can inspire a mission with your show, you will attract like-minded people. These people will then attract other people similar to them... growing your show (and business) through word of mouth.
Russell Brunson of Clickfunnels does an awesome job building his community through their podcast: Marketing Secrets, check out Step 10 of this post to find out more.
This is the big one...
How can you transition a podcast listener into a customer?
This is actually quite hard to do. Especially in the early days of your show.
So we actually recommend that you focus on the first three from a listener perspective in the first year of your show... and then when you have a BIG audience later on, look to monetise.
In the short term, it's actually better to develop relationships with the guests of your show that could lead to revenue.
You may:
In the short term, these strategies are much more likely to lead to revenue.
OK, so we understand what podcast marketing is AND the value it could bring to your business, let's now dig into seventeen specific strategies that can help you whilst marketing the podcast itself:
Someone who just discovered your podcast yesterday may have missed that awesome episode you released last year. There is no downside to releasing an episode onto your feed again... simply add an extra introduction explaining why you're doing it.
This is massive. Get a good microphone, get a sound shield and a pop filter and record in a small room with soft walls. This will have a massive impact on growth.
It improves SEO, which means it will rank highly in search engines. Your podcast will be easily discoverable.
NOTE - if you want AI to write your podcast show notes for you, you can sign up to a Freemium plan to Abney (Podcast AI) here 🤓
It is not easy to maintain an adequate level of consistency with creating episodes for your podcast. However, this builds trust with your audience over time.
Very low effort but high reward. bCast will soon have a feature to do this automatically ;)
Publicity is vital for your podcast to grow. One way you can do this is by linking your podcast to podcast networks – this improves the chances of your podcast being discovered.
Find out where your perfect listeners are on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin, add value to them and the link back to your show.
Both 1-1 emails - add your latest episode into your email signature... and bulk emails always link to your latest episode.
You want your audience and listeners to give you more publicity, so you have to make it easy for them. Share buttons will do the trick.
What are the top three keywords that your ideal listener will search for before finding your show? Bid on them.
Paid the social platforms for the attention of your ideal listeners. You can find a full guide to paid promotion strategies here.
I ask people to review in the intro and outro of every show and then read out a review and give the reviewer a shout out to incentivise this behaviour. More reviews adds more social proof to your show whilst also boosting your ranking on Apple Podcasts.
Storytelling is a great way to pass information. If you tell a story through a number of episodes, people are more likely to listen to them all.
This is a simple one... but just refer back to old episodes in your content and then link to them from your show notes. This simple strategy can easy convert a single download into two or three... increasing the likelihood you will generate a subscriber.
Work out how to solve your listeners biggest problem with some information... then give it to them in exchange for their email address. Now you can send all future episodes to them by email.
There is probably 75 people out there with an audience of your ideal listeners. Find them, make friends with them and then promote each other.
If some gives you their time and attention... go above and beyond to answer their question and thank them... this will snowball over time.
Haha, I know that was a lot of information...
OK OK OK
There we go.
A brief introduction to marketing your products or services through starting and growing a podcast.
But as you close the browser and return to normal life I would like you to remember one thing...
Before marketing anything (through a podcast or not), you must make the thing (product or service) really good FIRST. Without a great product or service, you will merely be pouring water into a leaky bucket.
Your podcast marketing will be 10x more impactful if you spend some more time making your product or service amazing first.
And with that... thank you for reading and stay tuned to this blog as we dive deeper into how to build a profitable podcast.
