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All while directly supporting the podcast. Subscribe today at thepodcasttherapist.com slash ad free or visit the show notes or description of your podcast player to get started. Today on the Podcast Therapist, learn how to turn your podcast into a business tool with strategies that delivers results like creating lead magnets, engaging your audience and building a system for growth.
When you're one unbalanced piece of audio from losing your... This is the Podcast Therapist. That is right. Welcome to another episode of the Podcast Therapist.
I'm your host, Shannon Hernandez, radio broadcaster, podcaster and a podcast producer. And of course, this is a podcast program that helps podcast businesses, entrepreneurs and solopreneurs leverage tools and strategies to attract their ideal listeners and grow their subscriber base and convert them into loyal customers or listeners. And I wanna thank you guys so much for tuning in to this episode.
And of course, previous episodes, for those of you who are returning listeners, it means a lot to me that you guys are listening to these episodes. I realized that the business of podcasting isn't exactly the sexiest of topics to talk about. It's not wildly entertaining.
I try to make it as entertaining as possible, but I get it. I understand it. But I think those of you who are tuned in or are tuning in for the very first time, you are serious about building out a business with your podcast.
And you are willing to go through the non-sexy pieces of content to get to your goal, to achieve what you need. So I certainly do understand where some might be coming from, but those of you who are here, I wanna thank you. And of course, listening to the previous episodes, especially my YouTube episode.
And if you haven't had a chance, go back and listen to my episode last week about objectives and growth. One thing that I'm going to try and do, I think, and I think it goes with just podcasting in general, is that podcasting, it's evolutionary. And you are always willing to change the format of your podcast at any point in time that you want to see what works and what doesn't work.
And I think that is one of the important things that we have to really focus on. I've been listening to an audio book by Brad Stolberg called Master of Change. And he really emphasizes this point of being flexible with your time, flexible with what you're doing, flexible with the changing of times in terms of what is happening in society today.
But this change can also happen within your own podcast itself. You can obviously change how you create the format for your own podcast. So just kind of keep that in mind when you're developing your own program.
You're always welcome to change what works and what doesn't work. And that leads into my point about, I know that I kind of gave you a fire hose of information last week. There was information on workflows.
And then I gave all this information on, of course, objectives. And then I answered a bunch of questions. Now, if this is something that you want me to go ahead and continue to do, I am more than happy and willing to listen to that feedback.
You can leave a comment on my YouTube channel right now. If you're watching this on YouTube, leave a comment and let me know if that is something that you want to go ahead and want me to do. Do you like the more dense filled episodes or do you want shorter episodes that make more sense for you? You're always welcome to reach out to me on social media, whether that be LinkedIn.
I said last week, I don't check threads. I still do check threads. I'm just not checking it as much, but you can reach out to me on threads at Shannon J. Hernandez, or I'll leave the links for that in the description of this podcast below or the show notes below.
And one last thing I want to share with you is that, of course, if you are a business owner looking to start your own podcast, use it as leverage for a marketing tool, and you don't have the equipment, download my free essential equipment guide to starting a podcast. That will give you all the equipment you need to start your podcast. Link for that is down in the description below.
So today we're talking about strategies, right? If last week was about objectives, we need to now talk about the strategies that go into your podcast business, all right? And your podcast business could be anything. It could be about real estate. It could be about finance.
It could be about health and wellness. It could be about video gaming. It could be about just about anything, but you're trying to build a business around it.
And this is something, I think this is something that can be confused with people that say like, oh, well, podcasting isn't a business. I disagree. I think podcasting is a business because you build business strategies behind the scenes.
And that's what we're talking about here. We're talking about building the strategies behind the scenes of what you are creating. Now, it's going to come with, I guess you could say some rules.
Don't worry. Rules are meant to be broken and they're meant to be bent. You got to know when to break the rules, but there are some rules that you need to follow here.
All right? So what we're going to talk about are these strategies, but I got to start first with a quote. And I want you to take note of this quote because I think it's very important when it comes down to building your own podcast and structuring your podcast for consumption. All right? This quote comes from Jay Baer's book, Utility.
I was reading this last weekend over at a coffee shop and this really, really stuck out to me. And this is what he says. Quote, you can do better.
You can break through the noise and the clutter and grab the attention of your customers by employing a different approach that is reliable, scalable, and functional. And it has to be effective. I paraphrase that part right there.
Quote, it's simply this. Stop trying to be amazing and start being useful, end quote. So that line right there stuck out to me a lot.
I highlighted it and I was like, I got to use this in the podcast at some point. I didn't realize it was going to be this podcast. Stop trying to be amazing and start being useful.
I would like to add on to that, that you are already, already amazing. As a business owner, as someone who knows what they are doing, like I said, whether it be in finance, health and wellness, video gaming, writing books, it could be something that has to deal with landscaping maybe, I don't know. You're already amazing at that thing.
Your personality is probably already amazing. If it's not, you can always improve upon it. We all can improve on this.
But stop trying to be amazing and be more useful because the internet is used as a tool, I would say, the majority of the time. It's used as a discovery tool for all of us to learn a little bit more. Stop trying to be amazing and start being useful.
So let's present a problem. Many podcasters, many of them, they struggle to move beyond just creating content to creating a strategic plan that drives real results, whether that's building an audience, generating leads or growing their business. The problem, without a clear strategy that puts the audience first and aligns with your business goals, it's very easy to get lost in the noise.
This last week, today is January 21st, this last week or weekend, TikTok went down and all the creators freaked out. If you were someone who liked to consume content on TikTok, I wasn't losing my mind, but it was a bummer. I couldn't consume the content that I wanted on TikTok.
But for those creators who put all their eggs in that basket because there is such a high return on their investment and spending on that app, they almost went to nothing. They almost lost their entire income from that, whether that be through the posts that they earn money from, whether that be for the sponsorships that they earn or the live streams that they do where they earn money, all of that could, all of that almost went away. But these content creators are now under a time crunch.
They're under a time crunch to figure out how to get their followers off of TikTok and onto another platform. And when I say another platform, I'm not talking about another social media platform, even though most of them are planning on doing that. They are moving a lot of their followers from TikTok to something like YouTube, which I would still recommend against.
We'll talk about that here shortly. If you know anything about me, you know that it's just, you do not create content and have it live completely on rented land. You have to build in a back, like a back end of your business in order to keep the lights on.
So that is the problem that we face is that as content creators, trying to cut through the noise or lack of noise, or say the shutdown of an entire social media network, trying to cut through that does take more of a strategy. And I wanna break that down for you today, okay? So I wanna share with you today two case studies that I personally experienced from clients. Now, I wanna preface this and keep in mind that I don't have a bad relationship with these former clients.
Did I see eye to eye with them on everything? Absolutely not. But I left because, well, I didn't leave, but the reason why I am no longer with them, it's not because I left, but the reason I am no longer with them is because I chose to move to a different area in my business. I chose to help out other podcasters who saw my vision of what growing a podcast was about.
It doesn't mean that they didn't evolve into that. It just means that at that moment in time, I felt as though I needed to grow beyond what the thinking was. I needed to choose who I wanted to work with at that point.
They are not bad people at all, I promise you that. So I have two case studies we wanna talk about today. And then I'm going to share with you how these stories can lead to actionable strategies.
So let's start with our first case study, which was a company that basically wanted to be a media company, and a great person overall. But the company, so here's what happened. The company, they invested heavily in podcasting equipment, mixing boards, microphones, cameras, you name it.
And they began producing episodes, but without a clear plan. Now, while they had access to a variety of guests, and they had a lot of star power with those guests, the topics, they typically were scattered. They lacked a unifying theme.
They didn't have a connection to the end goal, the end business goal. Remember, you're trying to connect your goal through little baby objectives. Go back to last episode, listen to my episode on objectives and goals.
That's where this connects together. So this company had a disconnection in themes and business goals. So what we faced as challenges for this business were three things.
I'll name them one by one. Inconsistent topics, there was no clear audience focus, there was a lack of business integration, and missed opportunities to leverage a specific niche. In this certain case, we'll talk about point number one, inconsistent topics.
There were a lot of guests that had philanthropic backgrounds, which could have worked easily as a niche. But each topic or maybe each episode, it jumped from like a trending topic or a newsworthy topic, or the guests were newsworthy, to creating this disconnect of what was showing up in the feed or in the content. And the content was leaving the audience completely confused.
Was this a health podcast? Was this an inspirational podcast? Was this a podcast about politics? Was this a podcast about health and wellness and CrossFit? What exactly are we talking about here? And that's what made it very difficult. The topics jumped around too much. And then one week, the focus was on inspiring stories, and then it went from charitable, or like, what was it, charitable organizations, and then it was like a headline story about politics, and it just, it made no sense when you looked at it in the feed.
All right? So you have to have consistent topics. Point number two was that there was no clear audience focus. There wasn't a definition of a target audience, or what the value of the podcast meant to provide to that audience.
The inconsistency made it difficult to trust the host, trust the company, trust the brand, amongst loyal listeners. So that made it very difficult. Another challenge was that the lack of business integration.
The podcast, it wasn't aligned with the broader goal. What was the broader goal? We never defined that. It's defined now, and I'm so happy that they have defined it, but it was not defined then.
Now, without a strategic plan, this didn't generate leads. It didn't build authority, or it didn't position the company effectively. And then, of course, I thought, number four, there was missed opportunities to leverage the niche.
I thought the philanthropic niche could have been a huge differentiator. It appealed to a passionate and engaged audience. I think it would have really done well.
But when the topics were straight, or the episodes were straight off from the niche, it really diluted the message of what this podcast was all about. It lost potential listeners, who might have connected with a consistent theme. Instead, what we're getting, or what we were getting, were listeners that were bouncing in for one or two episodes, and then bouncing out, because not all of them did wanna hear about some political banter.
They were more than interested in something that had to deal more with philanthropy. So the missed opportunities that we saw, at least I saw within this company's strategy, was that creating a podcast with a clear niche to attract and retain a loyal audience, missed opportunity. Second missed opportunity, to build authority in a specific niche, philanthropy, or maybe even nonprofit leadership.
And then the third one that was a missed opportunity was using the podcast as a tool to promote their business as a trusted partner in philanthropic or corporate social responsibility, in that space. So the outcome eventually, they ended up pivoting and branding themselves as a media company that would produce high-end brand podcasts, which I'm very glad that they have done this. It has shown that there has been a mindset shift and some growth there, that is huge.
And the inconsistent content in the early days, it may have cost them valuable time and credibility, but they did learn from it. So what are the lessons that you need to learn from this? All right, your podcast content or your podcast topics, they need to connect to a core theme that aligns with your audience's interests and your business goals. When you're inconsistent, that confuses your audience and prevents you from building trust.
If you identify a niche like philanthropy, stick with it and make it a cornerstone of your podcast value, proposition. What can it hurt? If it doesn't work, you can always change and rebrand. But if this is something that you are passionate about, I recommend that you stick with it.
So that's case study number one. Case study number two. Let's talk about the coach that avoided lead captures.
So the background on this is that there was a coach that I was working with, and the goal was is that they wanted to use a podcast to generate leads for their coaching program that specifically focused on women. They had the right building blocks, and of course, they were great content ideas, and they even had a really, really sharp-looking WordPress site. It was really polished up great.
There was a coaching program that was all ready to sell, but there was this resistance to implement lead magnets or an email capture form, believing that these tools didn't work. And I wouldn't say that there wasn't a belief that the tools didn't work. I would say that it was along the lines of having to put the work into creating the quality lead magnets and the quality landing pages to collect those leads.
I might also add that there was this resistance to be patient, to be patient to wait to collect the leads, to be patient to build out a campaign. So that's where I saw some difficulties in this, I guess, this consultation or this working with this particular coach. Now, they were already great at what they did, but it was about the lead that they were struggling with.
So let's talk about the challenges. So the challenges that they faced were resistance to lead magnets, no value exchange for listeners like a lead magnet, missed opportunities to build a relationship through nurturing, and the impatience factor. There was just such an impatience factor with the strategy execution.
So let's break them down one by one. So number one, resistance to lead magnets. So this coach, I wouldn't say totally dismissed the idea of lead magnets, but I remember specifically them saying that they don't work, that they aren't worth the effort.
I remember that. And with that resistance, I guess it came from some previous efforts that they had created or they tried to attempt to build, but it lacked a strategy. It lacked actually the patience and the execution.
And that's a huge, huge thing is the patience to build these things out. I'll share with you how we build them out. It's so easy.
It's so easy. That I believe will be in a bonus episode for you if you wanna check that out. So another challenge, number two challenge that they had was that there was no value exchange for the listener.
Now, even though she wanted to start a podcast that was educational, there was no incentive or next step for the listener to engage further. They were just creating these episodes, all right? They were creating these episodes and there really wasn't anything that was strategic within the episode to drive them to a lead magnet. So without a free resource or an offer of some type, the listeners really didn't have a reason to connect beyond passively consuming or listening to the content.
So that made for a missed opportunity, right? Point number three, the missed opportunity to build a relationship or nurturing by not collecting the email addresses or doing some type of outreach. The coach couldn't nurture potential clients and keep them engaged after an initial podcast interaction. There was no time given in producing these episodes consistently over time.
And that's the key is that the consistency really does matter. And it's not like you have to give it three weeks, you have to give it four weeks. A lot of podcasters will give up after a couple of months and then they're done.
This is a long game. Give it six months to a year, see what happens. The reason why I say six months to a year is that I had heard this idea of six months to a year many, many years ago where it was YouTubers saying, yeah, I just started developing YouTube videos and it took about six months for it to happen.
I thought, oh, that's a bunch of shit. No one has the same amount of time that it takes for their podcast or their YouTube channel to grow. I'm not saying that that is the general idea or that's the end all be all exact time in which you'll start seeing the growth, but you gotta give the algorithm time, you have to give the consistency to push that content into the feed so that you can start showing the algorithm that you are producing regular content over and over and over.
And the more that you do that, it's going to start populating your podcast or populating your content more and more into a feed. So you have to give it time, give it time. When I started my YouTube channel, same thing happened.
It was about six months, I would say it was close to that, but it was about a year before I really started seeing things taking off. So by the end of 2020, it was really taking off. Now, granted, it was 2020 and everyone was looking at how to start a podcast and my videos were the ones that were popping up, but still, it still works because I know it works if you were to take case study number three on the side.
My sister has a YouTube channel that she started and it took about six months to a year to grow that channel. Nevertheless, going back, sorry to get off track there. Number four challenge that we faced with this coach was that the impatience.
I mentioned the impatience with the strategy execution. They didn't want to spend the time building out quality lead magnets, quality landing pages. They wanted instant results from the podcast and underestimated the time and the consistency required to see the return, just like I said, just like I said.
So what were the missed opportunities in this circumstance and in this case? Well, number one, the missed opportunity was that building an email list leads to nurturing over time. Simple. Number two, providing valuable resources like a lead magnet that showcase expertise and attract ideal clients.
And missed opportunity number three was that turning listeners into paying customers through structured funnels. Now, don't get me wrong. This person did eventually work their own way to get clients to come through the door.
However, I never saw new clients coming through the door. It's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing.
They had repeatable clients, but new clients coming through the door that needed to be vetted, that wasn't even happening. That wasn't happening. So the ultimate outcome was that the podcast, it went while it was well-produced because yours truly was working on that, but it disconnected from the coach's program growth strategy without a system that could capture or nurture leads, the coach couldn't even convert their audience into a paying client.
Like I said, no new people were coming in even if they had to vet them, it wasn't coming, they weren't coming through. And it's just, it all was based around this impatience of building a quality lead magnet, a quality lead magnet. I need to emphasize that there, a quality lead magnet.
So the lesson here is that lead magnets, they are going to be essential to bridge the gap between creating great content and driving business results. And you need to have the patience and the strategy. That's key right there for you because building trust, it does take time.
You have to take the time to build these things out. All right? So those are two case studies that I shared with you. What I wanna go into in this next break or after the break is that I wanna share with you how these stories can lead to actionable strategies.
We'll take both case studies and we'll break them down and share them with you, okay? So that's all coming up next on the Podcast Therapist. The Podcast Therapist. If you're trying to grow your YouTube channel, let me tell you about a tool that's made a huge difference in my life.
It's called TubeBuddy. How's it going? It's Shannon. And when I started using TubeBuddy back in 2019, I realized that if I wanted my videos to actually get views, I needed to focus on YouTube SEO.
But figuring out what topics would work, which keywords to target and how to optimize my videos, honestly, it felt completely overwhelming. And that's where TubeBuddy came in and completely changed the game for me. With their Chrome extension, TubeBuddy gives me a dashboard right inside YouTube that shows me which keywords are competitive and which ones are worth targeting.
And it's not just for prerecorded uploads. I use it for my live video streams too. And after I finish a live stream, I can go back, tweak the title, add better keywords, and optimize the video so it has a real shot at getting discovered.
And here's one of my favorite features. I can revamp older videos that didn't perform as well as I had hoped. TubeBuddy gives me the tools to update the keywords, descriptions, and even titles so those videos can rank better over time.
Now, if you're serious about getting your podcast noticed on YouTube, you gotta check out TubeBuddy at thepodcasttherapist.com slash TubeBuddy. Now, that's my affiliate link, so if you decide to give it a try, I may earn a small commission and no extra cost to you, but I'd recommend it if I wasn't an affiliate. Again, you could check it out at thepodcasttherapist.com slash TubeBuddy or check the link in the show notes of this podcast right now.
Hey, what's up, guys? It's Shannon, and I wanna take a moment to share one of my favorite tools for podcasting and live streaming. It's called Ecamm. I've been using it since 2022, and it's completely changed how I create my content.
Now, when I first started, I used Ecamm for just simple videos. Even at a basic level, it saved me so much time, letting me record directly to my computer with no need to use SD cards or transferring files to a computer. But as I got more serious about my podcast, I discovered just how powerful Ecamm really is.
I can now stream live to my YouTube and record the entire show at the same time, complete with separate audio and video tracks for editing. I've built custom scenes with animations, graphics, and overlays that make my live streams a lot better and a little more professional. Plus, inviting guests is a breeze, and I just send them to a private link and they join me in a virtual green room before going live.
Ecamm is hands down the tool that I rely on for every podcast and live stream I do. And if you're ready to take your content to the next level, check it out by using my affiliate link at thepodcasttherapist.com slash Ecamm or check the link in the show notes below. That means if you decide to give it a try, I might earn a small commission at no extra cost to you, but honestly, I wouldn't recommend it if I didn't use it myself.
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Mixdown. Mixdown. Mixdown.
It's time for the Mixdown. Mixdown. On the Podcast Therapist.
Mixdown. That's right, time for the Mixdown. This is our chance to go ahead and take a topic and mix it down, make it a little bit more consumable and understandable for you so that you can grow your podcast, as you can become a better business owner with your podcast.
Mixdown, of course, being a hat tip to Adobe Audition in the Mixdown after you do something in a multi-track session. So, to recap the last segment, we talked about these two different case studies. We talked about case study number one, which was a media company, and then case study number two, which was a coach, all right? I wanna just share with you the key insights that I have on those two particular case studies and just really recap the core problems, but I wanna get into the actionable strategies based on these case studies, all right? So, if the key insights for both of these stories for case study number one, let's start with that one.
If the key insight is, for case study number one, excuse me, I'm repeating this over and over, but it would be inconsistent topics and a lack of a niche confused the audience and it really diluted the podcast's potential impact. As for case study number two, the avoidance of lead magnets and the lack of follow through on a strategy meant that the podcast couldn't drive leads or nurture relationships effectively. So, the core problems are is that there's no clear alignment between content and business objectives.
And number two, there's a lack of a strategy to serve the audience and build trust consistently. I see this all the time with people whether I'm coaching them or whether or not I'm reading about it on threads, anything like that, I'm always seeing that there is a disconnect there. And so, you have to almost always, always, always go back to the previous episode of this podcast, go back and you need to listen to the objectives and the goals section of that podcast.
That is going to make a break and make the complete difference in impact on how your podcast will be positioned. It's going to be positioned for your ideal listener, all right? Now, let's talk about the actionable strategies based on the case studies that I had, all right? Now, I think these will really help you out and then I am going to create a bonus episode of an example case study. It's actually, we'll call it a strategy session that let's say if I were to sit down with a client, this is the basic strategy or structure that I would go ahead and create for them.
I will create that in a bonus episode. So, if you are interested in that, you can go ahead and grab that over at thepodcasttherapist.com slash ad free. So, let's start first with these actionable strategies based on the case studies, all right? So, number one, let's start with this.
Start with clear objectives and a niche. You have to identify those. Define the primary goal of what your podcast is going to be about.
Is it to build authority? Is it to generate leads? Or is it to sell a product? That's all gotta be up to you. Can you do all three at the same time? I would say absolutely yes. Would it be better to focus on one more of a yes, all right? Now, if you aren't generating things like leads or you feel as though you're not giving the authority, maybe you need to tweak the message of what you're sharing a little bit differently.
But you need to identify your primary goal. What is that goal? Is it to generate leads? I would say in your position as a podcaster, it would be to generate leads because the authority piece is already gonna work for you, especially if you're getting on doing things like solo podcasts. It really can help build your authority.
That will really resonate with your ideal listener. So, build the generation of leads, but do it by creating useful content, okay? Under this section right here, what are the clear objectives or the niche, all right? You need to pick a niche that aligns with your business objectives or your audience's needs. So, for the media company, a philanthropic niche could have really, really positioned them as leaders in social responsibility content.
Now, for the coach, tying episodes of common client pain points could have made the podcast a lead-generating machine. It's worth giving a shot. I would have tried that.
This would have been part of a strategy that I would have loved. Actually, this is what I recommended at one point in time. So, point number two is that as a strategy, you gotta create content that serves and it just doesn't entertain, all right? Remember, you can entertain, you can be amusing, you could be amazing, but within what you're trying to create as far as your business is concerned, you need to create something that is useful.
You gotta ensure that every episode provides actionable value that solves a problem for your audience. Now, for the coach, as an example, the content that could have been created, maybe it could have been a podcast episode, top five mistakes people make when starting a coaching program. Let's take it outside of another niche.
Let's say health. Health could be like simple workouts for busy parents to stay fit at home. So, you gotta create content that really helps out, that will help people solve the problem they're currently having.
Another strategy would be to develop and promote a lead magnet. You hear me do it here. I promote the free lead magnet for the Essential Equipment Guide.
That's free. I'm hoping that you would download that if you're looking to start a podcast. I have other lead magnets in my, they're in the hopper, they're ready to go.
And you're gonna likely hear me talk about those lead magnets at one point in time. But you should be creating those lead magnets. So, develop and create a quick win resource that aligns with your audience's biggest pain point.
For the media company, as an example, a lead magnet could have been how to tell your philanthropic brand story in three simple steps. I mean, seriously. I mean, that's a great lead magnet right there.
Or for the coach, it could have been a free coaching session worksheet. Set goals and achieve them faster. Coaches don't, they aren't cheap, right? Coaches, they're, I've seen them, I'm like, I've seen them at $300 to $400 an hour.
What would it take for you to get a free worksheet? Like you're sitting down with the coach and that PDF had all the prompts that the coach would be asking. That's basically how I created my essential equipment guide. I kept going out on consultation call, consultation call.
Those were all free. And then I thought to myself, well, damn, I need to just create this as a free guide. This is the beginning of the journey.
This is the beginning of the journey that they're starting on. They need these, I am actually kind of tired of talking about all of this equipment. So, wouldn't it be better if I created this PDF guide that serves as a lead magnet? We'll talk about contents of the lead magnet later, but serves as a lead magnet so that they can use the resource and contact you and you're also nurturing the relationship.
That's where I started, it started clicking for me. But instead, you can promote the lead magnet not only on your podcast, but it can go on your website as well. You can say in the podcast, download my free resource, see the link in the description or you can say the URL if you want.
And then of course, you can say stuff like, start seeing results today or something like that. Don't be as cheesy, but you can say something like that, all right? But definitely promote it on your podcast, promote it on your website, promote it when you're guesting on a podcast, promote it in your YouTube video, promote it in wherever you can. You wanna get that lead, all right? Another strategy would be to build a funnel with a digital product.
Now, when someone gets that lead magnet, you need to have some type of email marketing software. I've mentioned this in the last episode, you need to have something like ConvertKit or MailChimp or something, and you need to build in a funnel that eventually gets them to buy something, all right? Now we could talk about what that funnel will look like in a future episode, all right? But it's gonna be a low ticket digital product, all right? This doesn't have to be anything major, it doesn't have to be a course that you build. All through the pandemic, when I was doing more stuff on YouTube, if you wanna call this the case study, call this the case study, but when I was doing this, I created a $17 product or it was $15, I can't remember what it was, but it was a $17 product, and it was just a PDF is all it was.
And it was on launching a podcast, that's all it was. I still sell it to this day. You could do the same thing, it doesn't have to be crazy, it doesn't have to be done in InDesign, it can just be done in Google Docs and created as a PDF.
For the media company, as an example, they could have created a training course or something, or like an ebook, maybe an ebook. The ebook could have been, excuse me, it could have been storytelling for social impact brands. Sell it for 30 bucks, $27, whatever you want it to be.
For the coach, what about maybe a blueprint? The ultimate coaching program, let's try that again. The ultimate coaching program blueprint, maybe that's $47, maybe that's an ebook. It's up to you.
You gotta use this product to guide listeners further into your own universe, into your own ecosystem, because eventually at some point, you will want to get them to buy something a little bit more expensive. This is just general sales 101 when you're selling online. And of course, another strategy and the final strategy that I wanna share with you is that you've gotta stay consistent with all this stuff.
You have to. Am I always good at staying consistent? No, I'm not, but I do my best to try to stay consistent. And that I think is the key, is that you have to be consistent with building out your content.
That's where the rubber will meet the road, all right? Stay consistent because what you'll wanna do is you'll want to analyze, you'll wanna analyze what your efforts look like. You've gotta use tools like Google Analytics. If you're creating podcasts and publishing them up on YouTube, you will want to look at the YouTube analytics over time.
Since I rebooted the Podcast Therapist as a YouTube podcast, I've started to see this slow growth going up. Hasn't been enough growth because, well, I wouldn't say it hasn't been enough growth as a bad thing. I'm just saying that I started republishing or publishing new episodes back in November.
We're in January, so it's only been two months for me. I'm starting to see slow growth. Once again, on my podcast, on my videos.
Look at the watch time. How long are they watching? Maybe you need to create shorter videos. Maybe you need to include timestamps for specific areas that you really want them to watch.
Think about those things. Look at the analytics. Look at the podcast hosting analytics.
Look at Apple Podcasts analytics, Spotify analytics. See what it says. See where the key points are, where they're listening.
See if your efforts are being heard. I would say another metric to look at is how many opt -ins are you getting? How many people are downloading that lead magnet? If they're not downloading it, then maybe you need to adjust the content or the strategy based on what is going to really resonate with your audience. This isn't gonna take one or two episodes.
It might take at least five to 10 episodes for you to figure out if it's working. You've gotta figure this out. It will take time, but you have to be patient.
Don't fall into the trap like the coaching client where there was impatience. Now, if you wanted to speed up, and I'll use this as an aside, if you wanted to speed up that process, you can definitely take out ads, but there is a whole other strategy that goes into that, like a whole retargeting strategy, all that. So we'll talk about that, I'm sure, at some point.
So my final thoughts here on this is that if we were to recap everything that we talked about today with these two clients, all right, and these case studies, I want you to look at it this way. The core takeaway is that I want you to look at it this way. We explored how to align your podcast with your business goals and focusing on providing value that can transform your efforts into real results, but it's not about just creating content.
It's about creating an impact with the listener. Are you impacting the listener? Are you making a difference with the listener? It is my hope as the podcast therapist that I am able to walk you through and talk you through these pieces or portions of these areas of podcasting that can create an impact for you on your own website, on your own podcast, on your own lead magnets, on your own landing pages, wherever it may be. I am hoping that I create impact for you.
So think about that and how you will go into this next week in building your content or maybe even revamping your content, your podcast content, your YouTube content, your social media strategy, your lead magnet strategy. Think about creating impact versus entertainment. Once again, I wanna quote Jay Baer.
You can do better. You can break through the noise and the clutter and grab the attention of your customers by employing a different approach that is reliable, scalable, functional, and effective. It's simply this.
Stop trying to be amazing and start being useful. This mindset is your compass for crafting a podcast that stands out. I hope that this has really helped you out as far as this content is concerned, this episode.
I want you to think about one quick win. If you're gonna take something away today, I want you to take some action today. I want you to think of one quick win you can offer to your audience today, a lead magnet that solves their most immediate problem and start building your strategy from there.
If you need to recap and think about your objectives and your goals, go back to the previous episode. That episode walks you through that in the second segment of the episode. It walks you directly through what objectives and goals are, and it leads directly into this episode.
Again, start building your strategy with the most immediate problem that you can solve. I've enjoyed talking about this topic because I am passionate about generating leads for my own content, but also helping you generate leads for your own content, all right? So if you are a podcaster or podcast business that's looking to start up a podcast itself, you can download my essential equipment guide to get started, and of course, if you're ready to dive deeper, you can check out my paid podcast where I'm gonna be doing a strategy session, an example strategy session, where I will use a homeowners association strategy session that will walk you through what we're going to create for people who wanna help homeowners associations run an effective and impactful homeowners association for all their owners. I wanna thank you guys so much for listening to the Podcast Therapist.
Until next time, remember, you gotta serve first and the success will follow, I'll see you next time. Bye-bye. Love you.
Bye -bye. Love you. Love you.
Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
The Podcast Therapist.
