How to use a podcast to grow your business

Have you heard that a podcast great tool to grow your business?

Maybe you already have a podcast and it isn’t having the desired effect on your sales or maybe you are thinking about starting a podcast for your business?

The fact is like any marketing channel a podcast CAN be a great way to grow your business, but you have to be strategic about how you use it.

In this post, I’m going to show you how to use a podcast to grow your business

 

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1. Be clear about how you’d like the podcast to grow your business

Whether you’ve already got a podcast or you are thinking about starting one I urge you to not skip this step. Take some time to think and then write down the purpose of your podcast. If you are reading this then I know you want to use the podcast to grow your business, but how do you envision that happening.

Here are some examples of the purpose of a podcast:

• To generate more enquiries to work with you
• To increase sales of a specific service or product
• To drive more traffic to your website
• To position you as a thought leader which allows you to increase your fees.
• To be an additional revenue stream via sponsorship
• To increase the income you generate via affiliate marketing
• To grow your network within the industry
• To showcase your speaking skills to increase the number of speaking gigs you book per year
• To build a community of raving fans

Now it might feel ridiculous to write down how your podcast would grow your business, but by being clear from the start it will help you when you start planning your episodes.

 

2. Choose a format that supports the purpose of your podcast

Podcasts come in different shapes and sizes. Some are short and some are long (For example The Tim Ferris Show often has episodes over 2 hours). Some will be recorded just by the hosts, whilst others always feature a guest. Some have adverts and others don’t.

You can change the format of your podcast and you can have a mixture, but you should initially choose a format that matches the purposes. For example, if you identified that you want to have a podcast to help you network in the industry then you’d definitely want to be interviewing people.

 

3. Have a content plan

If you want your podcast to grow your business then you are going to need a content plan so you can be strategic about the episodes you create. Here is an example.

 

Date
This is the date you will release the episode.

Theme / Topic
This is an overview of what the episode will be about. In the majority of cases, the theme or topic should directly relate to your business.

Purpose
This is the “why” for your episode. It could be you are speaking about a more personal topic because you want to increase the “know, like and trust” factor in your listeners to build more raving fans or gain more enquiries. You might be recording an episode that mentions a specific product or service that you are an affiliate for because you want to drive more people to buy via you. You could have an episode that directly relates a lead-magnet that you’ve created and want people to sign up for. Now the purpose of your podcast episode should relate back to what you wrote in Step 1.

Call To Action
You aren’t creating podcast episodes for the sake of it. You are creating podcast episodes to grow your business therefore you need your listeners to take action. Again there are lots of options for actions and maybe you are always asking for the same action and maybe it is a different action every week. Some options are actions could be:

• Send this podcast episode to friend – Encouraging listeners to become raving fans and widening your podcast reach in a targeted away
• Book a discovery call – Asking people to directly get in touch with you to find out more about working with you
• Download your lead-magnet or freebie – Increasing downloads of your lead-magnet or freebie, as well as building your email list
• Buy – Making a sale on your own services and products, or making a commission on someone else’s.
• Share on social media – Encouraging listeners to share on social media that they are listening to your podcast. This widens the reach of your podcast and also acts as a form of social proof.
• Visit – Driving more people to your website. If you have a re-targeting strategy it may be that you then have a follow-up marketing strategy based on them visiting the specific page you mentioned.

 

 4. Create great podcast episodes

There is no point being strategic about the intention behind an episode if the end result isn’t great. Now I don’t expect any independent podcaster to make a podcaster to the standard of the major networks. However, as a minimum, you should endeavour to make the sound quality the best you can and provide great value in your podcast episodes.

 

5. Grow the listenership of your podcast

In order for your podcast to grow your business people need to be listening to your podcast. In the first instance, you might want to get the people in your current audience (blog readers, email subscribers, social media followers) to also listen to your podcast. In order to do this, you should create a marketing strategy for your launch where you communicate on all your marketing channels that you are launching a new podcast.

Once your podcast is live you’ll need to create an ongoing marketing strategy for how you market each new episode that you publish. This strategy should look at ensuring your current audience knows about new episodes, but also that you are constantly getting your podcast in front of new potential listeners.

 

There you go! You now know how to use a podcast to grow your business.

As you can see to ensure your podcast grows your business requires some thought.  It working through that process by yourself seems too much I’m here to help.

On an Intensive Strategy Day, I’ll create a strategy plan for your podcast that directly feed sinto your overall marketing plan. You’ll leave the day clear about your content for the next 3 months and an action plan on how to launch your podcast (if necessary) and how to grow your listenership. If that sounds like a dream you can find out more about what is involved in an intensive strategy by clicking here. You can find out how to work with me ongoing or via an intensive strategy day.