Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer

How to Successfully Create, Launch, and Promote Your Podcast

November 03, 2022 Neal Schaffer Episode 291
Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer
How to Successfully Create, Launch, and Promote Your Podcast
Show Notes Transcript

While not as popular as blogging, YouTube, or social media, podcasting still continues to grow and has tremendous value for those that get it and use it right. Whether you are a current podcaster or are thinking of launching a new podcast, this episode is a virtual masterclass of best practices in:

  • why you might consider starting your own podcast
  • what is the minimal equipment you need to get started
  • how to technically get started
  • do you need a special "launch" plan for your podcast or not
  • how to promote your podcast once its launched

Key Highlights

[02:30] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Tom from Podcastpage.io

[05:54] How Tom Start Getting Into Podcasting

[08:30] Why Should You Start A Podcast

[14:14] Steps You Need To Do In Starting Podcast

[26:58] The Other Things You Should Be Aware of For A Successful Podcast Launch

[29:14] Quality Over Quantity

[31:17] Best Practices in Promoting Podcast

[38:31] Key Features of Podcastpage.io That Will Help You Promote Your Podcast

[47:32] Final Thoughts

Notable Quotes

  • The best in my opinion, is just to kind of like and enjoy the process. That's the the best part of of your decision to start a podcast. So at the end of the day, there are many, many different things you can kind of get from it, whether that was the initial goal or not, but you can meet a lot of different people through networking. 
  • If you don't know where to start with content, I almost think that you start with a podcast.
  • At the beginning, we said that consistency is key to pretty much business marketing, podcasting, and sports, almost everything. So just keep going and don't kind of leave it after two or three episodes. 
  • If you are to start one, you know, just by continuing, you're gonna find success. We talk in marketing a lot about being consistent, I think, with podcasts, and it really does make a difference.
  • A podcast is a great way if you're looking to create content.
  • And to me, I guess the the most important thing here is to to produce quality content. You don't need to have this massive subject that doesn't doesn't give the listeners enough value. Just make sure you have the the right content and put all your efforts into it.
  • There are a lot of different things you could use to actually bring a better experience and a better you know, just improve your listeners experience, that's the probably the bottom line. And then you also have a direct channel with them. 
  • Keep releasing quality content and be consistent. And that's probably the bread and butter of you know, podcasting. 

Guest Links:

Learn More:

Neal Schaffer:

Are you thinking about launching a podcast in 2023? Or do you currently have a podcast and you're looking for a way to better promote it regardless of which boat you're in? You're gonna love this next special episode of The your digital marketing coach podcast. Digital social media content, influencer marketing, blogging, podcasting, blogging, tick talking LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, SEO, SEM, PPC, email marketing, whew. There's a lot to cover. Whether you're a marketing professional entrepreneur, or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got Neil, on your side, because Neal Schaffer is your digital digital marketing marketing coach, helping you grow your business with digital first marketing one episode at a time. This is your digital marketing coach. And this is Neal Schaffer. Hey, everybody, Neal Schaffer, here, your digital marketing coach, and welcome to my podcast. So last week, I gave you some lessons from my digital entrepreneur journey, I'm really excited to announce the launch of this cohort course, the course is going to be in late November, early December, you can actually go to Neal schaffer.com/maven. M, as in Mary a V, as in Volkswagen en, I'll have the link in the show notes as well, to actually check out what this course is about. And if you're interested, you could actually purchase the course. So this isn't for everybody. It's just devoted to those that want to learn more about influencer marketing, whether it's for their career, or whether you want to actually build and implement an influencer marketing strategy. So I hope you'll check that out. I look forward to reporting back to you on another episode as to how that all does. Today, though, we're gonna switch gears and talk about podcasting. Now, about three months ago, I came back from Podcast Movement, the largest podcasting conference, and there's an episode there on my takeaways from that conference. So if you want to get deeper, you'll want to go back to my episode of September 28. This is episode number 282, where I talked about 11 takeaways from Podcast Movement. 2022 obviously now, we are already at episode 291. Closing in on 300. And today, I have a very special guest, Tom from podcast page.io. If you were to go to podcast dot Neal schaffer.com. That is my podcast website for this your digital marketing coach podcast. You can search and listen to any and all of my episodes there, you can find out more you can leave customer reviews, what have you and view other reviews that have been published on other sites. But that site is being hosted or completely developed by podcast page.io. So I've developed a relationship with Tom who is the founder for NACA developer, and because his technology is used by so many podcasters as their website technology, he's really, really knowledgeable about podcasting. So I thought it'd be a great idea to invite them on. And to talk about how to, well, we'll talk about the why as well, you know, but how to, once you're about to how to successfully create, launch, and then promote the podcast, whether you are new, or you already have one, I think there's gonna be a lot of interesting takeaways, because the fact that you're listening to this podcast means that you might have an interest in podcasting, whether it's for your own personal passion, your personal brand, your your company, perhaps as more and more companies start doing podcasting. So I think there's a little bit in it for everybody. Tom was really generous with all the advice he gave. And really, I believe, when we talk at the end about promoting your podcast that a website is the type of website that you can create with podcast page.io Once can go to podcast dot Neal schaffer.com to check it out. That it's pretty compelling what you can do and it's, it's completely automated. In all honesty, there's very little that you have to do. You pull in your RSS feed, it automates everything. There's some, you know, templates, and you can play around with some of the design. But you can be done developing your podcast website in literally an hour, if not much. And if you run into any problems, the support team there is great. So, you know, you're probably thinking what the heck is this technology? We'll talk about in this podcast. So without further ado, let's get on with my interview with Tom from podcast page.io. You're listening to your digital marketing coach. This is Neal Schaffer. Tom from podcast page.io. Welcome to the digital marketing coach podcast.

Tom:

Hey, Neil. Thanks for having me on the show. I'm excited to be here.

Neal Schaffer:

Yeah, Tom, I'm really excited to have you we've man we've been communicating back and forth. I think for A year now. And finally, I'm really excited to announce that the your digital marketing coach podcast website, if you haven't been there, it's at podcast dot Neal schaffer.com. It has now actually been powered by podcast page.io. So I think just by saying that, you might be wondering, what is podcast page.io? Why does a podcast need a website? What is a podcast website, we're going to cover all that in this episode, but actually want to take a step back, and really provide because Tom works with a number of podcasters providing them this technology, which helps him develop a website. He is obviously an expert in podcasting. So I really want to tap into his his experience and his knowledge to serve all of us today. But Tom, can you start? Just you know, how did you start getting into podcasting? Obviously, you've developed some technology. So I'm assuming that your background is on the IT side, is that correct?

Tom:

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I come from the IT side of things. I'm a software developer, and I just randomly had to help a friend set up an app for his podcast, this was probably about six or seven years ago. And then I kind of realized this was still not as advanced as it is today. So I kind of get to the conclusion that some tools are missing. And podcasters can really kind of use different tools to probably get their workflows streamline better and more efficient. So at that point, I started kind of doing a couple of small side projects, which didn't go very far. And after some time, I was playing around with websites, podcasts, websites, and then three years ago, more or less a, I started, podcast page.io. And yeah, what we do is basically, everything around the websites. So if you have a podcast, you probably want to create a website for it. And we'll go into this later. But the platform is really doing a lot of different stuff and automations around websites.

Neal Schaffer:

Yeah, definitely want to dig into that. Because I think for a lot of people that have a podcast, you know, podcast providers, like Buzzsprout, they'll provide like a single page website, right, but they're going, you know, your listeners are going to their website, not yours. And you want them to come over to your website where not only can they listen to the podcast, but they can buy your products, you know, book a call with you. And on the other hand, there is a solution like Burberry and when I started WordPress, back in 2008, is when I launched my first blog, I launched my podcast, very earliest iteration of this podcast back in 2013, there was pretty much as Berber and Burberry had a WordPress plugin, the outside a host, but it wasn't really I don't know, it seemed like it was a it was a hack, rather than the complete solution that podcasters need. On the other hand, you know, I was talking to a podcaster yesterday, there aren't that many good ways to promote a podcast, it's it's a really interesting area where some have been really successful, but most podcasters really struggle with promotion. And I know we're going to talk about at the end, but I want to begin really, you know, obviously, my listeners, they listen to a podcast, so they're bought in and they understand that it's a great way of connecting and sharing information and storytelling, what have you. From your perspective, you know, of all the podcasts as a user why? Why have they started? And I guess for any newbie that reaches out to you, why should they have a podcast? You know, now that we're going into 2023?

Tom:

Yeah, so this really depends on the goal, or actually the format or what you want to do with the podcast, I've been lucky enough to work with countless of different podcasters. And this could be like, just regular people doing this as a hobby. Some podcasters just use it as their own personal business. And then there are also businesses and agencies that are using podcasting to leverage their services or their products. So the kind of the reason why people decide to go into podcasting and start a podcast can really differ depending on the project and why white people really need or want to create this podcast. The best in my opinion, is just to kind of like and enjoy the process. That's the the best part of of your decision to start a podcast. So at the end of the day, there are many, many different things you can kind of get from it, whether that was the initial goal or not, but you can meet a lot of different people through networking. And we're bringing them as guests, you can promote your business or your personal brand, if that's what you're after podcasting, and we'll, we'll get to this later as well. But podcasting can also help your SEO score, if you have an existing websites, or if you create a new website for it. So that's, that's something to keep in mind. And yeah, at the end of the day, it's a great meeting that is just improving, and it's, it's not so old, it's probably 2025 years around us. But in the last four or five years, it really exploded between all the the tech giants going in and investing money in this world, and a lot of new podcasters coming in. There are also a lot of new listeners. So you, you can really see the growth. And yeah, I mean, whether you have like 20 downloads a week, or 20 listeners a week, or you have 20,000 As long as you enjoyed the process and like what you're doing, I think it's really a good idea to keep going because it can always go.

Neal Schaffer:

Yeah, I think those are all great points. Tom, thank you, you know, I go to all these podcasting conferences, and the stat is always, you know, 80% of podcasts die after 10 episodes. So the number of active podcasts is actually really low. Meaning that if you are to start one, you you know, just by continuing, you're gonna find success. It's almost like, you know, we have a friend, my son plays soccer in high school. And a friend of ours, he ended up getting a full ride scholarship to University of California, Berkeley, and was captain of their soccer team. And he said, you know, a lot of kids just dropped out, right? They got into high school, they started dating girls, they gotten to drugs, you know, what have you. But he continued. And, you know, obviously, it was more than just that. But just being you know, we talk in marketing a lot about being consistent, I think, with podcasts, and it really does make a difference. And I also, you know, Tom, in preparing for this interview, I also wanted to, you know, provide my own thoughts to the audience. I see now having podcasts that for so long, I see two areas where if you're looking for a utilitarian business purpose as to why you should launch a podcast, I'll say, number one, and you hinted at at Tom was the networking, if there are people in your industry you want to connect with, right? If you want to better connect with your customers, there is something sexy about a podcast, like you can reach out to authors of books, they'll never respond to you. But if you say you have a podcast and you want to interview them, and they just came out with a new book, you have a much better chance of actually being able to engage with them. So in this scenario, it doesn't matter if you get 1200, or even $10 notes, it's about the connection. And I do I have been on a podcast where they chose me, because they thought that I was a prospect. And so it was part of their marketing funnel to interview me as part of that. So I just want to throw it out there, the other one I'm gonna throw out. And I'm really excited because I'm going to be recording this interview next Monday with Amy woods, who's the founder of the content TEDx podcast, one of my favorite people in the content or in the marketing world, per se. And we're going to talk about repurposing, right. And a podcast is a great way if you're looking to create content, right? You can, I mean, I don't do the video, I'm going to start doing the video soon. But you can live stream, you then have an archived version, you could take out snippets of the video, not to mention the audio, not to mention a blog post that you can repurpose, and then not to mention, you know, sound bites that you can offer up in social media. So if you don't know where to start with content, I almost think that you start with a podcast. But as you said, Tom, and coming back from Adobe MAX last week, I'm even more bought into the fact that you gotta love what you do. If you don't love what you do, why you doing it. So enjoy the process, enjoy the journey. And I think if you pick one of these two, I think you'll do really well. So I just want to throw that out there. I'm sorry to sorry, to kind of what you're saying. But just in addition to that, so hopefully, more and more my listeners are bought into. Okay, you know what, Neil 2023 New Year, I'm going to launch a podcast, what are the steps that they would need to go to in order to create a podcast from your perspective?

Tom:

Yeah, so this also goes goes down to probably their ambitions and goals here as well. So you can in half an hour, just pull up your phone and download an app and then start recording. This is probably not going to be the best show ever. Not going to be in the best quality. But it's it's really easy and accessible today. This wasn't the case 15 or even 10 years ago. Most people were, I don't know used to go to studios or or have a home studio. Which is it So much veteran recommended, but the barrier of entry is really low today. So that's great news, I think. And basically, the one thing that people will generally have to buy is just a microphone. Obviously, there are dozens of different types of devices and mixers and sound cards, and you can, you know, you can remodel your house just to make it work. But, uh, you don't have to do all these different things. And at the end of the day, if you just want to get started, you can just pick a mic. And that's pretty much what you'll need in terms of, of gear. And then if you do plan to work with other people, or interview guests, you probably need headphones. But that's, that's pretty everyone is probably already with either air pods or, or anything. So yeah, that's in terms of equipment, that's what you need. And then before you start actually recording, you need to, at least in your in your head have a topic. So you need to think about what you will be talking about, not for half an hour or an hour. But for weeks and weeks, if you plan to continue and be consistent and release the episodes in a weekly or daily or monthly doesn't matter. But you'll need to have enough content to cover. Now this, this can be something around your profession, or it can be around daily news or sports can be about anything, but you need to have enough kind of meat to work with. Once you do that, you'll probably need to find a good name for the podcast. A lot of people probably overlook this part. But if you just pick a random name, and don't add like a nice artwork, and don't put too much work into the description, it's going to make it harder for new listeners to find you. So these are like the the very basic, three things you have, when you launch a new podcast, you have the name, the artwork, or the thumbnail, and the description. And I do recommend to kind of make it you know, have it written and planned in a professional and attractive ways so people can actually find you. And then this is this is just in terms of planning. And then you also need to find a good format that would work for you. So some people prefer to work just by themselves, some people prefer to have a co host. So you can share either in the same room or remotely, you can kind of have a conversation between two people or even more, you can plan to have a different guests on each episode. And this brings a new aspect, right brings a fresh pair of eyes to any new episode. And you can get a different perspective or a different story every time. So a lot of people are bringing guests to their shows. And then you probably have to think also how long each episode is going to is going to run. I've seen some podcasts do like a five minute episode every day. And that that works for them. And some podcasters they just do like an hour or two hours. But every three or four weeks, so you need to think about all these kind of technicalities and just have a plan in mind before you jump in. Some people work with with scripts, so they would just write down at least a few bullet points or you know, the full transcript for the show. That's really up to you to decide if you want to do it this way, or just improvise. But I would say preparation is kind of important. And then in terms of actually recording the show. This is kind of the the less last step right. When you talk about how to start a podcast, you have all these different aspects. And then you actually record the show and if you have co hosts or guests they probably need to get prepared as well. So you need to kind of be on the same page with them. And yeah, that's that's probably all you need to just to get started. And then I think most podcasters, or just starting out, can record probably two or three episodes or even four episodes before they actually released the show. So they have like a batch, the first batch ready, you don't have to release it immediately all the initial episodes, but it's good to have at least a few episodes done. So you don't kind of play catch up with once you launch, you don't have to kind of be in this stress of, I don't have my next episode. So that's a that's always kind of a pressure. But yeah, that's at this point, you probably have a few episodes, they're all on your laptop or on your device. So from this point, to actually launching your podcast, you need to find the hosts to distribute the podcast to all the different platforms. And I wouldn't say you need to have the podcast on all platforms. But uh, I mean, it's really up to you. Some people prefer to be exclusive or just work with one or two platforms. But there are really, at least 40 Or, I don't know, maybe even close to 100 different directories and aggregators, like Spotify, or Apple podcasts, but there are dozens of others. So yeah, once your podcast is there, it's officially live and people can access it from any corner of the world.

Neal Schaffer:

Yeah, Tom, that was amazing. You basically just gave a free masterclass in all the things you need to do to create a funnel, I'm gonna, I'm going to just like give a little cheat sheet just based on my own experience. So obviously, we start with what's the podcast is going to be about that's going to come down to your strategy, is it going to be like personal branding for your company? Is it a hobby, you know, one of my favorite podcasters Pat Flynn, smart, passive income, he's become a big YouTuber around Pokemon cards, right? Just he got into him with his son over, you know, COVID. And it's become a new passion. So it can also be a personal passion that could be fulfilling, and you could also monetize that as well. The second one is the format really important. Generally speaking, there's two different formats. There's a solo or an interview from from my experience, you could also have co hosts where like two or three of you do it together. But that's really an important thing. If the objective is to reach out to other people than the interviewer is going to be like what we're doing here, I used to be 100% solo. And I have incorporated interviews because I wanted to have diversity, equity inclusion and include lots of different voices and lots of different perspectives. So that's why I do on and off, it's 50%, solo 50% interviews. Just two more points here. equipment, you don't need to go overboard. I actually started this podcast, it was originally called Social Business unplugged. For those few of you that might remember that was recorded on my iPhone using the Voice app, which maxes out at eight minutes at the time with that version of iOS. So these were maximum eight minute episodes. You don't need to do it more than once a week. Most podcasters I think it's once a week. So you don't need to go overboard. There are some that do twice a week, but I would just start once a week. But getting back to the equipment. Right I started with that. I then went to a dedicated IC recorder. It's a Sony you could buy it for like $50. I then went to $100 Yeti Blue Microphone. And when I would do zoom calls during COVID with you know, old friends, they'd go, Neil, it sounds like you're a DJ on radio station. That sounds really good. But I realized that there's a difference between condenser mics and dynamic mics, I don't want to get lost in the weeds. I moved to a Rode Podcaster which is about a $200 mic. The Yeti mic was about$100. And in my ninth year of podcasting, I am very close to pulling the trigger on moving to a another mic called the Shure MV seven. This is a $270 mic, I might wait for Black Friday to see if it gets on sale. And actually, it's not even it's a$250 mic, it's 270 with the Stan, I heard someone use this mic and I really thought it was high quality. So So there you have it, you don't need to spend, you can start with your phone, although I recommend starting with like $100 mic, if you have 200 or 250. That's really all you need. So don't go overboard on that. And then the final one is, you know, the whole idea is that you're recording an audio, you're recording a.wa V A dot mp3 file, right? So if you're doing an interview, like I'm doing matam This is being recorded over zoom. Right? When I do my solo interviews, or I should say my solo episodes, I'm recording over GarageBand on Mac, if you have Windows, you're going to use Audacity. This is free software. So it's not rocket science. I think where people get confused, Tom is that final point? You need to have a host if you want to launch a website, you need to launch it somewhere right? Like sites like one Wix and Squarespace they have their own host. So they're both a website builder, and a website host. If you use WordPress, then you need to have a separate website host WordPress, being the website builder, the host being, you know, GoDaddy or Bluehost, or what have you. So podcast is the same, I use Buzzsprout. Big fan. And if you you know, there's others that you can use as well. But basically, if you're on Buzzsprout, they have this whole one click to get featured on Apple podcast, click here. To get featured in Google podcasts, click here to get features and Spotify, click here. And they basically, and a lot of these sites will pull from Apple podcasts, meaning that if you registered Apple podcasts, you will automatically be syndicated to others. So really, Apple, Google, Spotify, maybe our Heart Radio, there might be a few others. But if you're with Buzzsprout, they literally have this dashboard, that'll walk you through it. And that's it. And then once you record an episode and audio and you hire an editor, you clean it up, whatever, I will say that I have used Fiverr, to find the artwork creator, you could do it in Canva, or Adobe express my personal choice, or you can just hire someone on Fiverr 50 $100, get some really nice artwork done. You can also hire podcast, audio editors on Fiverr. Now I have hired someone he's actually out of Serbia on Upwork. That's another option. But if you just want to try it out, you know, 10 $20, an episode on Fiverr. That's where I started, right? So you don't have to overthink it, then you get the final file, which you upload to the host. And then it gets published and it goes out. So I hope that wasn't overly complicated. But I you know, for those, if you're in podcasting, you're like nodding, you're probably you've already fast forwarded, right. But if you're not in podcasts, and you're curious, I really want to give you the confidence with this knowledge, that it's doable. Okay. So launching the podcast, you already hinted Tom, that we want to batch a few episodes before we launch? What are the other things that we should if we decide we want to create a podcast? What are those other things that we should be aware of, in order to have the best success, or the best chance of a successful launch?

Tom:

Well, I kind of played down this whole launch like phase of the podcast, because at the beginning, you kind of work hard and record episodes. And you probably put like, I don't know, like hours into it. And the day you click publish, you may have like zero downloads. So I wouldn't be too frustrated or I mean, it's it's potentially you can have like hundreds of listeners directly on the first day, but don't build like expectations. Too soon, I would say. And then you talked before, we both mentioned that. But at the beginning, we said that consistency is key to pretty much business marketing, podcasting, and sports, almost everything. So just keep going and don't kind of leave it after two or three episodes. So just building this consistency and releasing an episode and on the same schedule every week, or every two weeks doesn't matter. So this is kind of important. And then, in terms of the actual launch, if you have an existing audience, for example, if you have an email list or a YouTube channel, or if you if you have a lot of colleagues who might be interested or people who can just send this podcast to you can create a list of people or a newsletter, and then kind of start sending those on the first day. Obviously, you can also use social media. But again, I'm probably personally not not really I just say that the first day is not not your goal, you want to keep going. And in order to get that continuity, you need to constantly promote the podcast and get new episodes. And to me, I guess the the most important thing here is to to produce quality content. So you don't want to have like a, you know, just a four minute podcast about like this massive subject that doesn't doesn't give the listeners enough value. So just make sure you have the the right content and put all your efforts into it. And I'm sure it will. We'll go go.

Neal Schaffer:

Yeah, you know, Tom, thank you so much. It's funny, because when we went over our notes of what we were going to talk about sort of the launch was part of that talk, but I agree with you, I think, you know, there are some things where if you learn launch a new product and you have a big advertising budget. And maybe you have, you know, discounts. You know, I think in marketing this concept of a launch, it doesn't apply to everything. And I agree with you, the podcast is what you might want to call a slow burn. It is something that's like to tumble weed at the beginning, it's not going to be much, but it's over time when it picks up because then when someone new subscribe to your podcast, and they already have 10 episodes that they can listen to, they're now listening to you talk for like two hours, and you're building this intimate relationship that is only possible through podcasting. So I agree 100% I guess the only thing I would add, there is just that getting a few episodes ready. If you can get 10 episodes ready before launch awesome. If not just have a few readies that you have a few weeks worth. But yeah, I agree, just want to get the word out to all you know, get the word out to your list your your network, right? post about it on social media. So okay, so we've we've now launched for better or worse, and hopefully we get to 10 podcast episodes. But even if we don't, let's talk about and we'll talk more about podcast page.io here, but I want to talk about some of the other outside of the website to begin with, whether there's some other best practices that you see in how you can best promote your podcast.

Tom:

Okay, so yeah, obviously, website would be my, my number one number one point, but if we ignore this, just for now, I would say yeah, I would say probably having some kind of channel or way to talk with your, your audience. So for example, you can have either someone from the audience, leaving you like a recorded message, and then you can play it during the show or, or just learn from your listeners about about the show, kind of see if they have feedback. Or if they want to hear about, hear you talk about a specific topic or so feedback, especially at the beginning is pretty important. And then in terms of promotion, social media is kind of the obvious, you can always go to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, there's so many different platforms, and there are many podcasts that are active on those platforms. And then beyond just being active, you can really network, and then find guests. And like we talked about this before, but if you manage to bring like high profile guests, or if you you can go as a guest on another podcast that can help kind of promote your own your own show. And I've seen this is just a random example. But we have a few social posts on Twitter, I think. And there was one time we posted about who would be your, like, number one guests on the show, if you could, if you could just bring anyone. And I think one of the comments just tagged like a someone, like pretty popular or I can't remember. But the guy actually commented that piece down and he's gonna, and I think they ended up recording an episode together. So it's very cool. Yeah, you know, so it's like you said before, it's it's more attractive for some people to really go on podcasts. Yeah. So if you can, if you can do that, this really helps. And then the next step is probably to get reviews. There are reviews on on Apple podcasts on pod chaser. I think that Spotify is they already have ratings, but they will probably add reviews at some point. Yes, just get as many you know, like some kind of social proof for or just find people who recommend your podcast. This is always helpful. And you can always repurpose the podcast content. So you can if you do videos, you can upload it to YouTube. You can transcribe everything and put it into a blog. You can send like short snippets and emails. So it can really become like a full content engine. It depends you don't really have to do that this way. But if you if you want to kind of leverage the work you put in the podcast then you can send it to a lot of different platforms. And yeah, that's probably that's probably the the main few points I would recommend in terms of promoting the show.

Neal Schaffer:

Yeah, thank you, Tom. I think that, so I'm gonna, like try to give a cheat sheet just based on my own experience as well. But that the feedback loop, right that engagement. So I've seen different podcasters try different things in one second here to me, it started to get into the 70s here in Southern California a little bit cold for me. So that feedback loop is critical, because you want to get reviews, which are going to help you in the algorithm like for Apple podcasts. You want to get engagement. And does podcasts. page.io have a way to record a message. Or do you would I need to use like a third party tool like SpeakPipe for that?

Tom:

Yeah, so we do support SpeakPipe. But we also have our built in widgets. So Well, there

Neal Schaffer:

you go. So hey, you know, if you use podcasts peds IO, you can actually request people. If you have any questions, I'd love to feature on the show, go to this URL to record your question. And then there'll be on your podcast website powered by podcast based IO. And then you will be able to actually use that snippet. And by doing that, you're going to make a fan for life. Right? I will say that, the feedback loop also is, hey, you know, feel free to share this with your network reach out to me on social. If you get to a point where you have a consistent number of downloads, you can create your own Facebook group or a discord community, which seems to be in fashion these days. But if you deepen that relationship, it's going to help you meet all the goals you have. I will say my own experience, social media is the opposite of you know, basically any marketing channel you have, you should be promoting your podcast, like you would promote a blog post, like you promote a YouTube video. I think the other two areas I'd focus on and Tom, you hinted at it, which is you know, collaborating with other podcasters. So trying to get interviewed on other shows podcasters love guesting on other podcasts because they understand when they are on someone else's podcast. They're already talking to people that are listening to podcasts. So for instance, if you were to do a Facebook ad, you don't know if those people are actually listened to podcasts or not right. But when you're on someone else's podcast, you you have 100% certainty. So you're sort of preaching to the choir, and that is, you know, I've seen John Lee Dumas and a number Jordan Harbinger, Pat Flynn, a number of these podcasting gurus, that's always the one bit of advice they will give another one that Jordan Harbinger, in particular will tell you about is podcast advertising. So it is not cheap. But there are sites I have advertised both with overcast and with podcast addict. These are the easiest ones to advertise with, it's still going to be a few $100 a month. And Buzzsprout has started if you are a Buzzsprout customer, you can promote your podcast on other bud cat Buzzsprout podcasts, they've started their own internal ad network, and I think other podcast hosts are doing this as well, that might be a really inexpensive way for you to get started doing this as well. But that would be another thing I recommend you doing after you have, you know, get those first 10 episodes on your belt, do your reps as as the great Kobe Bryant would have said, and I think everything else will flow. So finally the website. So you know, Tom, you know, running when you go to podcast dot Neal schaffer.com I'm sort of living proof of, of what podcasts page.io has to offer, what are what are some of the key features that you would like to point out to those listening that still aren't sure how a podcast website would would help them promote the podcast?

Tom:

Yeah. So I think this there are like a few different parts that can I can I can break this question into like, the why. So why you need the website to begin with? And then what types of features or what types of pages or items you need to put on the website. So if we go back and talk about websites in general, generally speaking, there are dozens of different website platforms, right, you don't have to take my word for it. You can use WordPress or SquareSpace or Wix. And these are great platforms overall, but they're like, very broad and not made for podcasting. So these are great platforms. But at the end of the day, if you have a podcast, it means that you need to kind of sync or if you can sync it automatically. That's great. But many times you'll you'll have to upload all the episodes of the previous episodes manually. And then all the the future episodes you will have to do every week on the platform. So in contrast to that we do that automatically. On purpose To cast page. So just building a website for a podcast is not like the most simple task. At least it's it used to be kind of difficult, because all the episodes, so bringing the episodes and syncing the feed is one thing, and then you have to display an audio player, and you have to have the Subscribe buttons or the the platform buttons. So there are too many things to kind of handle. And then this is kind of where we go into the picture and kind of offer a service that would cut like 90% of the work. So that's the main reason why we decided to start podcasts page. So that's, that's just like, the beginning of the story. But, uh, in terms of why you need the website, you probably have your own show. So this show is available on Apple podcasts or on Spotify. So it's always great to have your, your podcasts published in all these different platforms, you may even have a profile on Twitter or in social networks, but it's never really kind of your own. So if you have your own domain, and your own website, it's kind of your main hub, which is yours and promoting your brand only. You don't have like related episodes from other creators. You don't have like a different domain name, or banners or advertisement to like other services. If you have your own website, you control pretty much everything that is on there. So that's a pretty big reason to kind of decide to go with your own on own website. And then, on top of that, the website can help you in a few different phases, I would say. So one, you can promote the podcast even further from the website. So once you have all the episodes, then you probably add transcripts, and you add more content and pages, possibly blog posts as well. The website starts getting ranked. And you can you can get a lot of SEO traffic. So organic traffic coming from search search engines. And that can eventually lead into having more listeners. So that's a pretty important aspect. And on the website, you can offer a lot more content as well. So if you have a podcast on Apple podcasts, you can include videos or images or different types of attachments or links. So that's kind of limited. So once you have a website, you can offer a lot more types of content. So you can have videos, a blog, and all these different types of things. And eventually, you'll have better analytics, and you'll be able to monetize your your podcast from the website. Now in terms of features you might want to have, I would say that the number one thing is to have automation. And make sure you don't have to work too much to do the same. The same thing twice. So you don't want to upload your episode in your podcast host and then to the website manually. So you want that to be automatic, you'll probably want to have a nice audio player, you'll want to be able to customize everything easily and have your own color scheme. Or just add images or your your content. You want to have flexibility in terms of the layouts. So just decide how the page is going to look and where you place your episodes. And then having Subscribe buttons to point the audience to the different platforms like Spotify, Apple podcasts, that's quite important as well. And yeah, beyond those like super obvious and simple kind of concepts. We offer a wide range of features. We have, you know a full integration with YouTube. So you can import an entire channel of videos. There are deep links and timestamps that you can click on to jump into a certain point in the in the episode. So yeah, there are a lot of different things you could use to actually bring a better experience and a better You know, just improve your listeners experience, that's the probably the bottom line. And then you also have a direct channel with them. So they can go on the website and then leave a comment or send you a message via the contact form or the voice, the voice recording widget. So that's, that's a pretty important aspect of the website as well.

Neal Schaffer:

Yeah, thank you for the time. And and you know, those of you that know me, I launched a conference just around marketing technology called the social tool summits, I often get asked to advise companies on their technology. And, and, you know, I always did, why doesn't this tool have more functionality? Right. But I will say that the amount of functionality in podcast based on the amount of settings and things you can customize is absolutely crazy. If you want to see what's possible, once you go to podcast dot, Neal schaffer.com, we'll have the link for podcasts. bates.io in the in the show notes, obviously, if you can remember podcast page.io, you'll find them. But the amount of functionality is crazy. And I just want to say, you know, Tom, while you were talking, you're probably like, why isn't he Oh, like on his calculator. And I was calculating the amount of traffic that I get to I put my podcasts in a subdomain. And I recommend you do as well. You want to have a separate channel, it's the same reason why haven't launched this podcast in YouTube yet. I want to create a separate channel for it, right. So you have your blog content, your main products and services. And then you have a subdomain. For me, it's podcast dot Neal schaffer.com. You're telling Google, look, this is all based around the podcast, because the person that comes from your podcast is going to be different than the person that might be coming to your website for products and services. And if you can do that, what I've been able to measure is that the amount of traffic i get to that podcast, my podcast website, is pretty much equivalent to all the traffic that I get referred to from social media combined. Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, if you add up all that together, it's pretty much equivalent to the traffic that I am getting to podcast dot Neal schaffer.com. A lot of that, obviously is coming from Google. Some of it's also coming from my newsletter, what have you. But that is the potential right? I'm not going to say you're going to triple your your search engine traffic with a podcast website. But it can be a really, really good supplement, especially if you don't have a lot of traffic. So, man, I'm Tom, we covered a lot of ground. Thank you so much for, you know, providing so much advice to everybody. Any, you know, obviously we'll we'll send people to podcast feeds, if any sort of parting advice or thoughts that you have that we might not have covered?

Tom:

No, I will just repeat the the main main point I think we will be discussed today is just to keep releasing quality content and be consistent. And that's probably the bread and butter of you know, podcasting. That's kind of the basic things you'll need in terms of, you know, having success in the longer run

Neal Schaffer:

in any format of comment content. That is that is the Holy Bible. Well, thank you so much for your time, Tom. And I know that we'll be in touch and and thank you for all the support that you've given me and, and hey, if you're if you, you know, start using podcasts, page IO, and you run into issues and you you know, send it over to support, they're going to be extremely helpful as they have to me. So thank you so much, Tom. Thank you. All right. If we were in a room right now, I'd have you raise your hand if you think you want to start a podcast now. It's not that hard. This ended up being a complete masterclass really on podcasting. So, I hope you enjoyed that episode and might be one to listen to, again, when you're ready to start your podcast. I'm hoping that the combination of Tom's advice as well as my own experience will serve you well. Well, we are at the end of another episode. You know, if you've been listening to this for a while, you might not have heard me talk about it. But I do on my website have a number of free ebooks. I also have a number of discounts on tools, different social media, digital marketing tools, where because of my relationships with these companies, they provided exclusive discounts for my community. You can get all this information on Neal schaffer.com/freebies. That's FREB i e s. I hope you'll check it out. And that's it for another episode. Remember to keep your eye on the goal, be an option. And we'll see you on the next episode. This is your digital marketing coach Neal Schaffer signing off. You've been listening to your digital marketing coach, questions, comments, requests, links, go to podcast dot Neal schaffer.com. Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes at Neal schaffer.com to tap into the 400 Plus blog posts that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neil's Digital First group Coaching membership community if you or your business needs a little helping hand, see you next time on your digital marketing coach