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Podcast

6 Steps To Start A Podcast – PTC 338

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If you want to start a podcast, don’t make it harder than it needs to be. Follow these 6 steps and you can launch a podcast in 30 days.

The first thing you need to remember is patients.

FISH

Download numbers are is like a fishing stories. The fish in the story is always bigger than the actual fish.

Many podcasters twist the numbers and inflate their stats to make their downloads look better.

A podcaster might say, “I am getting 3,000 downloads.” That could be true.

It could also be true that our podcaster is doing a daily show that gets 100 downloads with each episode. When added together, the show had 3,000 downloads total last month.

The statistic is true, yet a bit misleading.

Here is the truth. The median number of downloads for an episode is 121.

Yes, not 1,210. One hundred twenty one.

First, a math refresher before the details. To calculate the median, you stack up all of the numbers smallest to largest. The one right in the middle is the median number.

This means 50% are higher and 50% are lower than the median number. It is the middle.

“The Feed” is the official podcast of podcast audio host Libsyn. Each month on the show, VP of Podcast Relations for Libsyn Rob Walch presents the actual numbers.

This data is based on active shows hosted on Libsyn released in the month of March 2021. Downloads are measured to the end of April 2021.

For the month of March 2021, according to Rob, the median number of downloads for an episode of an active podcast on Libsyn is 121 downloads.

This means if your podcast is getting 121 downloads, you are doing better than half of actively published podcasts on Libsyn.

For perspective, only 6.2% of the active shows are getting over 5,000 downloads during that period.

Getting 1,000 per episode would put you in the top 20%.

2,800 downloads would make you better than 90% of the active podcasts.

Only 5% of active shows get more than 6,600 downloads per episode.

Next time you compare yourself to another show, keep these numbers in mind.

6 STEPS TO START A PODCAST

There are 6 steps to launch your podcast. Those are purpose, program, platform, produce, promote, and profit.

Let’s take each of these one by one.

PURPOSE

Define your why. Without a strong why, it will be difficult to find the motivation to produce every week.

PROGRAM

Define your topic. Make sure it is something you can talk about for hours on end.

PLATFORM

What will be the structure of your podcast? You can choose interview, solo show, multiple hosts, magazine style or a variety of these. Then, develop a show clock.

PRODUCE

Record your show. Use Audacity (free) or Hindenburg (paid). Record your interviews with Zoom. Edit the audio, and export it as an .mp3. Post it on your audio host and website for your potential clients to enjoy.

PROMOTE

Don’t believe if you build it they will come. It doesn’t happen that way. Tell everyone about it. Find ways to get in front of new listeners.

PROFIT

Build a system to monetize your podcast. Use your podcast to build authority and relationships. Send your listeners to your e-mail list and nurture the relationship even further. Be sure you have something to sell.

ACCOUNTABILITY

The other important piece you need is an accountability partner. You’ve been wanting to start a podcast, but haven’t pulled the trigger.

Anne joined me in my Podcast Fast Blueprint program. She said she wanted to start a podcast for a long time. She just never pulled the trigger.

After going through the program and launching her show in 30 days, she finally accomplished her goal.

She said the program was so helpful. Anne just needed someone pushing her to get it across the line.

That is the power of accountability. Sometimes we have a desire to do something. We just need that accountability partner to help push us to get it done.

That’s what Podcast Fast Blueprint can do for you. Are you ready to launch your show? Would you like to see if Podcast Fast Blueprint makes sense for you?

If you don’t have a mentor who can take your hand and walk you every step of the way, go to www.PodcastTalentCoach.com/apply, click the button and apply to have a chat with me. We will develop your plan and see how I can help and support you to achieve your podcast goals.

Podcast

How To Keep Listeners Returning – PTC 301

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How can you keep you listeners returning week after week? We are going to talk about that along with marketing tips and podcast profits this week.

We are answering your questions on this episode of Podcast Talent Coach. If you have a question, e-mail me at Coach@PodcastTalentCoach.com. I read all of those notes and answer as many as I can here on the show.

MARKETING

I’m looking for marketing tips on how to get the podcast noticed and ranked.

– Dirk

In order to get your podcast noticed, you need to get in front of new listeners.

So many podcasters try to grow their podcast audience by posting on Facebook and sending e-mail to their list. The problem with this tactic is that all of these people already know you. They are already aware of your podcast.

If you are active on Facebook in groups and are allowed to mention your show there, you could get in front of new listeners. Be careful with regard to the rules of the group.

Many group owners don’t want you to promote in their group. You will need to mention your show while you serve.

If someone asks a question in a group regarding podcast growth, I might say, “On my podcast, I often recommend podcasters find ways to get in front of new audiences.” By doing this, I mention my podcast while answering the question and serving.

There are many other ways to get in front of new listeners. This could include summits, podcast interviews, guest blogging, e-mail shares and others.

GROW YOUR AUDIENCE

If you would like to learn how to grow your downloads, join me for a free training. It is called “How To Explode Your Podcast Audience In 6 Weeks Or Less”. It will be a live, hour-long training on Oct. 6, 2020 at 12 Noon CT.

You can register for this free training at www.PodcastTalentCoach.com/growth.

Do you want to grow your audience, increase your downloads and add subscribers to your podcast?

Would you like to become a respected authority in your niche that will help you monetize your show?

Do you want to learn time-saving tips to consistently produce your podcast, find interesting guests, promote your episodes, record the podcast and edit your content?

In this free training, you will discover how to create a simple plan that you can consistently follow in just a few minutes a day to grow your podcast.

You can register for this free training at www.PodcastTalentCoach.com/growth.

BORED LISTENERS

I would really like to learn how to create content that will keep listeners returning. I haven’t started yet, but I’m worried of running out of ideas or guests to interview, or that listeners will get bored and not listen anymore.

– Elizabeth

Wow, Elizabeth. What a packed question. Let’s take these in parts.

First, let’s start with the last part. How do you prevent listeners from getting bored and not listening anymore?

Many podcasters make the mistake of trying to create content for others. You need to create content that you find interesting and engaging. The key to being interesting is being interested.

When you try to force content simply because you think your audience wants to hear that information, you will suffer three problems. The content will feel hollow, because you aren’t excited about it. Producing the content will start to feel like work, because it isn’t your passion. Finally, your audience won’t grow, because you will be creating average content.

Instead, create content that stirs your passion. You will have great stories. Your shows will bubble with excitement. Listeners will be attracted to the energy of your show, because it is designed specifically for them. If you love it, they will love it. Be interesting by being interested.

GET THEM TO RETURN

Next, how do you create content that will keep listeners returning? The first thing to understand is the difference between promoting your content and teasing your content.

Promoting your content is just information. In my free training I mentioned, you will learn how to grow your audience. That is only the info. It doesn’t pique your interest or create any excitement.

Teasing my training creates interest, excitement and fear of missing out. When I say, “In this free training, you will discover how to create a simple plan that you can consistently follow in just a few minutes a day to grow your podcast”, that creates some excitement.

A tease is more than the ingredients in the box. A tease is the benefit and transformation the information provides.

TOPIC IDEAS

Let’s talk about your ideas. If you are worried about running out of ideas, you may not be in the right niche. If you are creating a podcast around your passion, the ideas should come easily.

Here is how you can be sure you are in the right niche. Take out a piece of paper and start brainstorming possible podcast topic ideas. You should be able to come up with 40 or 50 ideas in about 10 minutes.

What do beginners need to know? Talk about the biggest mistakes made by people in your niche? What do people need to know about your topic.

Don’t worry about the quality of the topics. Just write. Let topics lead to other topics. If you concern yourself about evaluating the topic, you won’t open your mind to produce 50. Just write.

INTERVIEW GUESTS

Finally, how can you get guests when you have very little to offer?

It is a misconception that people won’t come on your show simply because you are new. You won’t always be new. When you are on episode 50, episode 2 will still be there.

Episode 2 may only have 23 downloads this week. A year from now, episode 2 could have hundreds of downloads.

Your episode can live for years. Smart guests understand that value.

When doing interviews, you won’t start at the top with the biggest guests. Let your guests build on each other. At the end of every interview, ask your guest if they know two or three people who might make great guests for your show and find a benefit by appearing on your show.

If they can provide you a couple names, ask them if they will make an introduction. A warm introduction is much more likely to land you additional interviews. This is especially true if your guest had a great experience.

In each of these points, don’t let that little voice in your head get in your way. Getting your listeners to return, running out of ideas, a lack of interviews and bored listeners are all just symptoms of the Impostor Syndrome. You’ll be great. Just get started.

PODCAST PROFITS

I’m at that critical place of needing to make my podcast significantly profitable in order to continue. As my wife told me, “You are spending an enormous amount of time for a freebie.” I’d like to set up an efficient process to provide paid consulting for listeners. I did a little free consulting to test the waters and it went well, but I let the hurdle of logistics get in the way of moving forward with offering paid consulting.

– Dean

So many people want to make the process much more complicated than it needs to be. Don’t get all hung up in the funnels and back end and all the jargon.

When I started, my first client was from Canada. He reached out to me looking for help to refine his content and make it more engaging.

I quickly created a coaching program. For $500, he would receive 4 coaching calls with me. We discussed his goals and I made him the offer.

When he accepted the deal, I emailed him an overview of the plan and an invoice for our coaching. He mailed me a money order. We started coaching.

He had discovered a blog I was writing. Then he listened to my podcast. In that content, I would mention my coaching. That got things started.

As I picked up more clients, I moved to having clients send me payments through PayPal. My systems grew as my business grew.

It was no more complicated than that.

If you want to scale and begin doing group coaching, webinars and joint ventures, you will need more back end systems. But, you don’t need all of that to begin. Just find someone you can help and give them a way to pay you.

If you have questions, e-mail me any time at Coach@PodcastTalentCoach.com. Let’s see what we can do.

GROW YOUR AUDIENCE

If you would like to learn how to grow your downloads, join me for a free training. It is called “How To Explode Your Podcast Audience In 6 Weeks Or Less”. It will be a live, hour-long training on Oct. 6, 2020 at 12 Noon CT.

You can register for this free training at www.PodcastTalentCoach.com/growth.

Do you want to grow your audience, increase your downloads and add subscribers to your podcast?

Would you like to become a respected authority in your niche that will help you monetize your show?

Do you want to learn time-saving tips to consistently produce your podcast, find interesting guests, promote your episodes, record the podcast and edit your content?

In this free training, you will discover how to create a simple plan that you can consistently follow in just a few minutes a day to grow your podcast.

You can register for this free training at www.PodcastTalentCoach.com/growth.

You can find my podcast and other tools to help you create great content at www.PodcastTalentCoach.com.

Let’s turn your information into engaging entertainment.

Podcast

The Podcast Profit Path – PTC265

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Let’s talk about creating your plan to make money with your podcast. What would it mean to you to generate some profit from your podcast?

You could be looking to make this a business and career. You might want your podcast to be your side hustle. Maybe you are just looking to make a few dollars to cover the costs of this crazy hobby.

Whatever the goal, you need a plan. You cannot succeed unless you know what the destination of success looks like and then develop a plan to get there.

There are four steps to creating your plan. And then there is some special sauce that can make it incredibly powerful.

THE AUTHOR

I was on a coaching call with a client the other night. He is an author. Doesn’t that sound impressive? We worked together to refine his plan and get him closer to doing this full-time.

When I tell you he is an author, I actually mean he self-published a book. The book is available on Amazon, and anyone can buy it. It looks a lot like every other book on Amazon, especially when you buy it on Kindle.

It has never been easier and cheaper to self-publish. The book gives him big credibility.

However, the book shouldn’t be the way to profits. It is took difficult to sell enough books to make a living.

That is where we started on his plan.

We talk about this show being a way for you to learn how to transform your information into entertainment so we can turn your podcast into powerful, profitable relationships.

People do business with those they know, like and trust. The content I give you each week is designed to move your listeners along that continuum.

We want your listeners to first become aware of you. Then they decide they like you. Finally, they trust you enough to do business with you.

Those three elements are part of the process to developing a business around your show. Attract an audience. Create a relationship with them. Turn that relationship into a trusting friendship and help them solve their problems.

We fold those steps into your plan to generating money with your show. Without a plan, you could end up anywhere. A plan helps you focus on the destination.

4 STEPS

There are four steps in creating your money plan. First, build your audience. Second, create a relationship with that audience.

Next, build a framework to move your audience from casual observer to consumer of your content to client. Finally, offer to sell them something they want and need in order to solve their problems.

AUDIENCE

The first step in the path is your audience. You need to define your ideal target listener.

We talked about the benefit of creating a target listener in various episodes.

When you are hyper-focused on one, single individual, you can define exactly what they want, need and desire. You can articulate their hopes, dreams and fears. You will know exactly what they need and are willing to pay for.

Focus on a single person makes your content much more relevant. You can frame it from their perspective. Your focus allows you to speak their language in their terms.

When you know everything about your target listener, you will know exactly where to find them. That makes your marketing easier and cheaper.

You won’t need to fish in the ocean. You can look for your ideal fish right in the middle of their school. It will be easy to see where they are all congregating.

When the message is laser focused, the conversion rate is much higher. The message is relevant to a greater share of the audience. Your content means more.

Define who do you help, what do you help them do and why.

My “who” is podcasters.

My “what” is transforming information into entertainment. Making their content more engaging.

My “why” is all about growing a business. It is to help podcasters create powerful, profitable relationships. I want to help them make money by creating engagement with their audience.

RELATIONSHIP

That relationship is the second step in your profit path.

Once you gain attention by knowing exactly whom you are targeting, you then need to begin the relationship. Begin helping her.

How will you attract your target audience other than with your podcast? How will they begin to know things about you?

People get to know you by the things you share. Tell them what you believe and value. This will happen through the stories you tell on your podcast, on social media, in your e-mail and various other ways you connect with your audience.

FRAMEWORK

Now that your audience knows a little about you, they want to see what you have to offer. She wants to know how you can help her achieve her goals.

What could you offer your audience for free to help them solve their problems and overcome their struggles?

Create a lead magnet that you can offer your listener in exchange for her name and e-mail address. This will allow you to begin sharing even more information with her.

Your lead magnet should be short and easy to consume. It should also solve one specific problem.

Examples of great lead magnets are worksheets, checklists, top 10 lists, a list of resources and case a study.

Help her solve a problem that she knows she has. This begins to create goodwill and strengthen your relationship.

PRODUCT OR SERVICE

Now that you have created a relationship with your listener, it is time to offer her even more help. This is a chance to go a little deeper with you.

How can you turn what you have to offer into a product or service?

As you try to create this product or service, look for two things.

Find your lead magnets that are getting the most traction. If they are getting downloaded a lot, this is a sign that your listeners want more of that.

You should also see what your audience is asking. If there are frequent questions, that is another sign. If you are asked the same question three or four times, there is a good chance you could turn that into a product or service.

SPECIAL SAUCE

As you have developing these four steps, there is one thing you can do to make it easier to succeed. The special sauce is focus.

When you focus on one thing, it makes it much easier to accomplish that thing. Focus prevent a bunch of projects that are half way complete.

Start one lead magnet. Promote it for a while to see if it gets any traction. Center your content around that topic. Focus.

Once you have determined whether or not that lead magnet has any potential, you can then start a second.

Offer one product or service until you determine if it a viable product.

Focus will help you reach your goals much faster.

 

Do you need help with your podcast? E-mail me any time at Coach@PodcastTalentCoach.com. Let’s see what we can do.

You can find my podcast and other tools to help you create great content at www.PodcastTalentCoach.com.

Let’s turn your information into engaging entertainment.

Podcast

The Podcast and Profit Connection – Episode 240

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Many people want to make money with their podcast. However, the podcast isn’t structured to help achieve that goal. How do you generate a profit?

If you would like ideas to make money with your show, get my free guide “6 Ways To Make Money With A Free Podcast” at PodcastTalentCoach.com/MakingMoney.

I see a lot of podcasts and online businesses in my coaching. Podcasters reach out to me to help make their show stronger and help drive a business, but they are missing the connection.

THE PROFIT CONNECTION

A consultant got in touch with me to help refine his show to drive his business.

One of the first questions I ask is about goals. If we are a year down the road, what would you like to see happen over the next 12 months to be happy with the results?

Answers to that question range from revenue to profit to downloads to speaking engagements and a variety of other things.

This guy wanted to do 2 things. He wanted to get more speaking engagements and wanted to build his authority in the space in order to get more clients. Perfect. We can make that happen.

Then, we listen to the show. It never fails. I listen to the show and nowhere in the episode does he mention he is a speaker. Nor does he talk much about his consultancy.

The podcast is an interview show. He does a nice job interviewing the guest. The show demonstrates the expertise and authority of the guest. He even does a nice job directing listeners to the guest’s website.

How is this building this podcaster’s authority or gaining him speaking gigs?

THE GOAL

Each episode must have a goal in mind that builds your authority and moves your listeners closer to becoming clients.

We simply refined the structure of the show a bit to allow him space to do these two things. We added a little at the beginning and a segment at the end where he could talk about speaking and consulting while giving the listener something they could use.

Once you determine what you hope to accomplish, look at the format of your show. Is it conducive to your goals? Are you doing a solo show that has room for you to really nail your goals, or are you doing interviews where you need to build in features to help you accomplish your goals?

Maybe you’re doing a magazine-style show or one with narration. Whatever the format happens to be, you need to make sure there is room in the episode to achieve your goals.

How many hosts are on your show? Make sure everyone is aware of the goals.

Will there be any listener interaction? How does that connect to your goals? You might use questions to help build your authority or demonstrate your service.

Determine the length of the show. There is no right answer. There is never too long. There is only too boring. Keep the momentum moving forward.

How will your audience benefit from each show? Give them a taste of your superpower and what you can do for them.

Find ways to demonstrate your authority in each episode. This should be part of your show prep.

Create your show clock. Lay out the plan for each part of the show.

COACHING

I have worksheets that will help you through each of these steps to monetize your show. It is part of my new coaching program that will help you start making money and generating a profit with your podcast. It is called …

POWERFUL, PROFITABLE PODCASTING

12-WEEK COACHING PROGRAM

Each week, you will get a module of videos to help you build your podcast business.

Once a week, you also get access to a workshop where I teach some of the nuance of building your podcast business and I answer any of your questions regarding the modules.

To make sure you are making progress specifically for your business, you and I have a one-on-one coaching call once a month.

The 12 modules include …

1. YOUR MONEY BASE

The show focus and foundation for your business

2. ATTRACTING YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER

Focus your show on your ideal listener. The more you know about your listener, the better you will be able to communicate. Keep this person in mind while recording each show.

3. THE PODCAST AND PROFIT CONNECTION

Each episode must have a goal in mind that builds your authority and moves your listeners closer to becoming clients.

4. GET YOUR LISTENERS TO TAKE ACTION

Defining a goal for your show

5. THE POWER OF STORY

Use storytelling to engage your audience

6. GROW YOUR AUDIENCE

How to use interviews to grow your audience

7. MONEY MAKING IDEAS

Using your podcast to build a business and generate a profit

8. CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT AND GROWTH

Review your show with a purpose

9. GROW YOUR NETWORK

Creating engagement and building relationships

10. ATTRACT MORE POTENTIAL CLIENTS

Building ideal lead magnets

11. SHOW ME THE MONEY

Tying it all together

12. THE LONGEVITY PROCESS

Podfade prevention

ARE YOU READY?

Are you ready to connect your podcast to a business and start making money? Let’s see if this program is right for you.

Take advantage of my free podcast strategy call. We can develop a strategy for your podcast to build your structure and reach your goals.

The strategy call is free. There are no strings attached. It isn’t a sales pitch in disguise. I just help you get clear. At the end of the call, if you feel like Powerful, Profitable Podcasting coaching programis right for you, we can talk about it. That is up to you.

Visit PodcastTalentCoach.com/coaching. Let’s get you started today.

Let’s turn your information into engaging entertainment.