Lessons

Lesson Info

Growing and Monetizing Your Podcast 1

It's going to go over now the top five ways to grow your podcast audience we've gone through the create section where I showed you how to create a podcast of should you had a launch that podcast the equipment that you need how to do it in under three minutes and now I want to show you some real specifics about growing that audience which is so critical so there are three major podcast directories out there that you as a podcast host can leverage and need to be leveraging number one is soundcloud soundcloud is really a newer player on the scene they do a lot of really cool things in the spoken word area with comedy with music artists and now they're really moving into the podcasting room which is really exciting stitcher radio is another great resource because they're really right now the go to for all things and joy for all things pc so you definitely want to be on the stitch your platform and that's just at stitcher radio but the elephants in the room by far the biggest and the best d...

irectory that you can focus on and that you should be focusing on is itunes itunes is where I get eighty five percent of my downloads and you likely will is well is that is slowly changing as these other directories step up and really do some pretty powerful things but right now itunes is a directory that you should be focusing on and really should be putting all of your time and effort into because right now this is where the listenership is coming from so when you get some specific demographics on itunes and the reality that there's five hundred and twenty five million active subscribers toe itunes right now that means within the last month almost double the population of the entire united states came to itunes to search for content maybe was a book maybe was a movie you know maybe was a podcast made was itunes university but people are coming in droves and this is a directory that's asking you to send you to send them your content so that they can you promote into into shell forty five million people search itunes every single month using that search bar right there you could see that yellow search bar where I actually enter the word entrepreneur now the result of that I got when I entered entrepreneur was the following you see smart passive income autumn you're on fire school greatness this is a word that I want my listeners to find me for I want them to find me when they search entrepreneur when they search expert interviews when they when they search social media when they search passive income these are things that want people to find before and I rank incredibly well for all these key words so when you're in the audience right now you know, I want you to be thinking about key words you want to be ranking for actually like to kind of throw a question to the audience that we had earlier about your biathlon like pick up a microphone real quick and share with us you know what some key words that you would like to be found for with a night it's so first clarification it's triathlon, swim, bike run I buy a tv I believe by atthe one is the cross country skiing and shooting eso maybe in the winter weaken weaken branch into that it should be done. You can expand my listenership picking up a gun so so travel on is obviously a key word I'm looking for multi sport endurance san francisco bay area possibly, um nutrition training, racing um those air, some of the key words that I would we want to focus on is to actually powerful that is like a lot of people might say, well, san francisco such a broad keyword or the bay area but it's not in conjunction with your other key words. So when you match them together and itunes is doing their crawl they're going to see ok, the this person lives in this area because they have all there of our demographics they say this is the results were going to offer them and so that's why being in these directories like having your voice out there than utilizing the keyword tools to the best of your abilities with an itunes to allow yourself to be found by people who you want to find you for specific keywords in specific areas is incredibly powerful, and this allows you to do that three hundred and fifteen million people are accessing itunes through their iphone every single month now think about that for a second twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. People have access to your voice, your message, your brands all over the world within arm's reach that's the key word there that is such a powerful thing that didn't exist in two thousand eight two thousand ten because that tipping point hadn't happened with smartphones yet the smartphone changed everything for podcast it changed everything for us people that are creating audio or video that can be consumed streaming, downloading wifi for g this is putting your voice you were message your brands into the hands into the pockets of this many people every single day apple carplay just announced they're going to be going into the dashboard of every single make and model car coming out of two thousand fifteen and beyond this is literally going to be a game changer because what's been holding a lot of people back from listening to podcasts is just the reality of there's a barrier in place that they had toe downloaded onto their ipod and then plug it into their I mean, by the time they got out of the driveway like five minutes have gone by. That barrier is being shattered because it's going in the dashboard, as you see right here and in fact it's, already in the dashboard of honda's of bmw's stitcher radio is going into stew is going into cars called stitcher dash. Um, android auto is also making a big play in this and going to the dash of all cars as well. This is going to become the new thing, and the question I have to ask yourselves is who will be listening to radio when you have on demand targeted free content at your fingertips and that's a podcast so number two is maximize, knew and know where they just a real quick rundown? What new and know where he is? Is the first eight weeks you have a podcast, you have the ability to be featured in the new and noteworthy section. I just launched a podcast a couple months ago called quotes on fire and because I had an audience and because I knew the correct launch strategy, I was pinned as a number one race podcast and new and noteworthy for over ten days. And that drove an incredible amount of traffic to my podcast because what itunes does, which is so powerful and I don't see it changing any time soon, and I hope it doesn't they reward new podcast hosts with the best advertising space in the podcasting world and that's incredibly exciting they will put you in the top two rows for eight weeks a k a fifty seven fifty six days and that is just a great place to be to start building your organic traffic perfect launch plan is so critical and you really need to focus on this perfect launch plan if you are going to maximize, knew and know where they number one you want haven't episode zero zero zero which is you're a belt me page for your podcast people are going to find your party as an episode twelve or twenty and guess what? They don't want to know you. You don't want to know a little bit more about you, the host about what your podcast is about about where you're located at but what you're going to talk about the future that's your belt me page that's episode zero zero zero make sure you launch with that if you don't have an already very lost your podcast create one predated to your first episode and that's where it will be you could do it at any point your pod casting process launch with a minimum of three shows the power behind that is, if you launched in one show, there's nothing to subscribe tio there's no like big buildup behind that. This is one show that if you drive people to that, they'll listen to it and they'll like it, hopefully and that'll be awesome, but if you launch with three shows that gives people the ability to go there and subscribe to become subscribers to your podcast the next time they log in, they will automatically download your next handful of episodes because their subscribers to your podcast now so that's critical in those words, subscriber rate review need to become part of your vocabulary? Hey, don't don't ask people to listen to your podcast those people to download your podcast don't listen don't ask people to hear your podcast say, will you please subscribe to my podcast? Subscribe? Subscribes describe is your vocabulary training them to subscribe? So they're not just listening once, but they're becoming listeners rating and reviewing is bigas well, ottoman or fire has over fifteen hundred five star reviews. So when people come to my podcast page and they see that in itunes that's social credibility, that's proof that other people have viewed it just like any of us have gone to amazon. And we've checked out those proxies services we go right to the one star reviews to see what are people complaining about? And we also know the five star reviews to say, what are people loving about this product? Same thing goes with itunes in with your podcast, and we do have an incredibly detailed launch plan. I just can't go into everything but within podcasters paradise is a detailed launch plan step by step by seven, about how you can make the most of those eight weeks, which is critical, so number three is leveraging the audience of your guests, and if you're gonna be an interview based podcaster like, listen up because this is huge. Seth golden, tim ferriss, chris broken, gary vaynerchuk, barbara corcoran these air all guessed that I had on my show within the first ninety days of launching a podcast because I am a platform think of people in your industry in your niche that you want to talk to those people. Now we'll see the u of a platform and will become so much more accessible to you, it's a game change? I never would have even dreamed of talking to these people within two years of launching a podcast I did it within two months because I had a platform, and if I really could have missed a huge opportunity of leveraging their audience, but I did realize the power of their audience so every single morning my first email is to that guest who's interviewer live and I say seth chris gary your interview just went live on autumn you're fired today you shared an amazing journey I would be honored if you was shared that journey with your audience hears all the links to do so so every single day the week entrepreneur fires being exposed to a brand new audience that's never heard of aunt remember fire before this hearing about me for the first time listening subscribing rating reviewing sharing becoming evangelist seven days a week and that snowball effect is massive that you can use to your benefit as a podcast host leveraging existing communities guys they're out there and nobody does it because of one word lisi because it takes time to do the stuff linked in groups google plus group's facebook groups meetup dot com all of these are out there they are free powerful engaged thriving communities of your avatars every single one of you that are creating your avatars there are groups of tens of hundreds of thousands of avatars living within these groups right now talking to each other every single day why not find these groups why not join the conversation? Why not be a valuable member of these groups and then when the time is right and somebody asked a question you proven value you could say hey we covered that an episode x y z here's the link and not just a person that has asked the question, but everybody else in that group that has the same question, which is hasn't voiced it is now going to become a listener of your podcast and we actually have a path lynn protest for you, my buddy and I path flynn had a exclusive webinar for podcasters paradise a couple weeks ago, we were talking about this very thing and pat said, why not? Just, you know, the group leader for an interview? I mean that's, brilliant disguise the leader of thousands and thousands of your avatars reach us then to say, hey, I love what you've done here you, you've built an amazing tribe. Can I interview you? Can I just pick your brain for a couple minutes, that's powerful stuff and then have and then release it as a podcast? That person you better believe will share that with their audience. The number one podcast in group a little bit prejudice, but by far this podcast is paradise is a private facebook group amongst many other things within our community, but we have over a thousand members in this private facebook group who, every single day or so supporting each other, giving children guidance, feedback, knowledge we have paid for friday's every single friday where we exchange honest reviews and that just helps in so many different ways and look an example here of ft geary, who had a question about a logo within twelve hours there were over forty comments giving him feedback, advice, suggestions, powerful stuff and the power of the community right here you're looking at the new and noteworthy section. Every red circle you see is a podcast, paradise member and that's because of the support, the ratings and reviews that we honestly give each other because of these subscribes the listens, the shares that we all within the community, so find your community find that support, you know, whatever that might be create that community for doesn't exist and social media guys is a whole another game, which is powerful. You need to be leveraging social media there's so many different platforms are so many different ways to do it, but find where your listeners are and focus on that first before you just tried to a scattershot effects, maybe it's, instagram maybes, pinch arrest who knows? So now we're talking about monetizing I'm going to be kind of going fast here because we're getting close to the ends and I want to leave a couple minutes for questions, so monetizing podcast and the number one question that I get is john, how do you monetize to the tune of over two hundred thousand dollars a month and it's a fair question is one that I wouldn't even have thought would ever be asked to me when I first launched because I don't even know how is going to monetize to the tune of two hundred dollars a month when I first launched but I'm going to show you the top five in september number five is coaching now coaching I typically generate eight thousand dollars per month of this one on one mentor ship I actually starting in september no longer personally mental I no longer do the one on one is I focused on more scaleable or in leverage of all activities but for the podcast host that was the first way that I monetize and that's an incredible way for you to monetize because people are going to know like and trust you didn't look at us authority figures in your niches and if you put yourself out there as a person that will mentor then they're going to want to have that personal one on one time with you and perception's reality guys if you're a podcast ocean you're interviewing seth goat and its affairs who in my industry might be I don't know in your industry who those high level people would be but if you're interviewing them you are getting into that realm of like you're having a conversation like oh she's friends with x y and z like that perception is reality and again if you want to be two if you want to be a coach coach no you're not gonna be great your first couple times get over it it's okay you're going to get better every single time you have to actually start master minds is number four way and fire nation aly we generate over five figures every single month since we've launched recurring revenue which is over sixteen months ago in the month of september alone, we did over eleven thousand dollars for this paid membership mastermind because people want to be part of a tribe they want to pay to surround tio surround themselves by others who are taking business seriously who are really looking to elevate each other's business and a couple things I want to point out is a certain percentage of your listeners want more offered them a place they could interact with other talk entrepreneurs or whatever nature industry you're in you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with that's a classic jim rule quote and if you just continue to harp on that within your podcast within your show and people realize that they're going to understand that all ships will rise in the high tide and so create that high tide people are gonna want to jump on board and rise with you number three's affiliate income and we generated over twenty thousand dollars in a filly in income just in the month of september alone leave pages fizzle often monster bloo host these air just a couple of the many resource is that I use, and I recommend on my show, my listeners know like and trust me, they know that I don't recommend or talk about proctor sources that I don't, I don't actually like it have tested, and then I could just send them back to a resource is page and this world and getting to right here. If you, as a podcast host, talk about product and services, you know, like and trust on your show, direct them backto a resource is page on your site for me, it's just slash resource is every client that you send their way every listener that you have, the describes gets a hosting account of blue host or does x y z, you're going to get a commission and as you can see with the over twenty thousand dollars that we generated, that can add up. And of course, if you want to sign to be an affiliate, that will just happen and pretty much the bottom of any page of any company. So if you like, I really love this company, I use them just go their whole page, go to the bottom there's, a sign to be an affiliate link there because they want you to promote them as well. Sponsorships is a big daddy sixty two thousand dollars we generated in just the month of september alone for sponsorships if anybody's heard my show, they've heard me say a fifteen second pre rule about legalzoom or ninety nine designs they've heard me a sixty second mid rule about the same companies I have eight full time sponsors which each pay a thousand dollars a month to sponsor one up sort of osman were on fire and I have thirty episodes minimum per month that adds up legalzoom ninety nine designs all sponsors that I've had in this form or and these sponsors are seeing an incredible our ally because again me the host is sharing the fact that I know these services I've tested him I've used them and I'm recommending them on my show they know the sponsors that they have a targeted user base then they love that targeted user base they know my listeners fire nation they know that they're hitting the right people if you know it was a nike running shoes maybe would want to hit a podcast about triathlons they know that the listeners of that podcast are very targeted in that our ally return on investment is incredibly high they know that they know that the users know like and trust you the host there's a trackable down to the exact number of listeners and this is really critical I can share with my my sponsors exactly how many listens that podcast got where those lessons came from what device all these demographics are all in lips and understands which is really powerful sponsors love that they can't get that with tv with a radio with magazines it's just impressions and here's an example of nine nine designs if you had a ninety nine designs dot com slash fire which is where I direct people when it's a nine nine design sponsorship this is a custom page that nine designs made for my listeners so they feel like hey we got here we are we are fire nation we are going to get a great nine nine dollars power pack for free if we get started now and this is something that your sponsors will work with you on because they want that trackable our lives and in paradise guys we break down how to find sponsors email templates how to negotiate cpm versus cd a c p a contracts that we use in so much more number one the best way that you could ever monetize as an entrepreneur as a podcast host is using products and services our flagship podcast is paradise in september alone generated one hundred thirty two thousand dollars webinar on fire which is another product that week that we've created to teach people how to create and present webinars that convert did almost twelve thousand dollars in the mother's september alone and the powerful thing behind this because people's first question is how do you create that product? You need to ask this one question to your audience what are you struggling with when they ask you we're in the reality of the email, social media, whatever that might be a they're going to ask you they're going to give you they're going to say I love your show that's so great like x y z your response to that needs to be what are you struggling with and then you just need to listen and they're going to share with you their pain points, their obstacles, their struggles, their challenges and then you're going to be listening, taking those notes down creating the solution for those off schools for those challenges for those problems in the form of products, services, coaching programs, whatever that might be all because they reached out to you because they're your audience you ask them the right question, what are they struggling with? If you listened, they tell you their pain points their obstacles, you create the solution and there's your products and there's your services. So in september alone, entrepreneur fired generated two hundred and forty one thousand dollars in revenue and as you can see, we actually list out all of our income reports at our site you'll fire dot com slash income case spends a lot of time on these income reports to share with podcasters an aspiring podcasters, what's working, what's successful stephen emulate those successes, but just as importantly, what's not working what's failing so you can you can, because we share all those failures tail so you can avoid those pitfalls. You can avoid those mistakes, so check those out. You'll fire dot com slash income in detail reports, so take a deep breath. We're gonna take it kind of thinking that you take a deep breath, everybody, I really I'm really hammering a lot of stuff in here in the end because we have some great questions, but because those great questions were really crunching down to the end, some taking us home, taking us home really strong right here. This is the home stretch, but the next five minutes I'm just going to be buzzing through podcasters paradise. So paradise is the number one podcast community in the world for those they're looking to create, grow and monetize they're podcast has grown over fourteen hundred members now people again, that air just aspiring to encourage to engage to be the best podcaster that bacon day it's made up of three components, capone number one is over two hundred video tutorials. These videos tutorials walk you through how to create and launch your podcast, whether it be a topic avatar name logo formats record edits, upload schedule published those things that took you through in two hours and forty two seconds. I take you through an incredibly detailed explanations within paradise. We also have the intermediates video editorials about how to grow that audience. What you've gone through that creation and launch face. And then of course, we take you through all the processes of how to monetize you are podcast component number two is the community, we have a forum, and we also have a private facebook group in that community is incredibly engaging that's the over thousand members that you saw people getting feedback on logo support all this stuff. In fact, I want to get into detail about what the community allows you to d'oh exchange honest itunes reviews, find guests for your shows that's, not always easy find shows you could be a guest on if there's two triathlete podcast you guys should be co mingling audiences, you should be on her show, or he should be on your show and vice versa like that, cho mailing is powerful exchange latest tips, tools and tactics with podcasters like I keep abreast of a lot of things, guys, but I'm just one person, but the power of the fourteen hundred people in podcast is paradise keeps us razor sharp and at the top of all of our games. Hone your interview skills, guys. When I first interviewed like I was so bad I was interviewing and holding my skills during the actual interviews with seth goat and with ten fares that's not what you should dio you can use people with in paradise and within communities that you find tow home you interview skills to practice before it's game time. Find accountability partners share your winds, commiseration your losses be part of a family of fellow podcasters and so much more component. Number three guys is our monthly webinars. We deal with top podcasters path leeann lewis algebra meet michael hi any porterfield james al touches coming on this month could be a powerful one. We do exclusive webinars with top podcasters just for the paradise community to really do a deep dive. We do a monthly q and a session to when it's just me and you, whoever wants to be on this live hang out asking me questions for at least an hour often times it goes over because if you have fun and here's your some screen shots of paradise guys, we have the creates ab the growth have all of these are different video tutorials? The eight ways to monetize resource is all those webinars that we d'oh everybody's podcast is listed. We have the hangouts frequently asked questions page, the facebook group and this is where I want to get into now some people say is my topic to niche and my thinking about to niche of a podcast is miss my podcast gonna even potentially have an audience well, guys, we have a savvy painter. We have a house flipper we have a boomer. We have a teenage entrepreneur. We have a fit pro. We have somebody this tipping scales we have a marine, his social media marketing maven we have a dhd. We have yoga, so as you can see, no niche is too small. No industry is too difference are out there to be a podcast. If it's your passion, your voice, your expertise make it happen and I'll leave you with these exciting stats. Look at the trend of podcasting. Edison research showed that for the first time podcast listeners over thirty percent and I'm going to tell you that number is going to jump skyrocket at the end of twenty fourteen early twenty fifteen. This is huge right here because in twenty thirteen, only thirty four percent of people were listening during a using a portable device in just one year's over fifty percent. And greg is going to be talking a lot about this in his mole mobile segment look at a picture of a paradise or she took this when she was driving in a car she's like this is me and my dashboard right here as I'm driving, coming through my car speakers and actually even rephrase this was one of her listeners took this says studying at the university of pam she took a picture while she was driving hopefully maybe is there who knows but this is this is where podcasting is going guys is already here and it's growing even more so where do you go from here? Well, podcasters paradise is a place if you really want to take everything to the next level you'll fire dot com slash podcasting is where I have the ultimate podcast guide it's just as epic post of like twenty thousand words images video tutorials it's a great place to start and now it's time for some q and a I think we have like twelve seconds left on the podcast dot com all right, well we actually we had a bunch of questions coming in from the chat room will try to get to as many as we can diner of seville says what about recording a podcast offsite any any away from a computer what's the best digital recorder would you suggest using a laptop in a microphone when you're out in the field? Yes we were on the field there's such things called digital recorders I recommended the role and digital recorder if you just google that they'll pop right up so roland r o l and e it's about the size of this you can plug in eighteen or twenty one hundred microphone into its and just talk like this and is going according to a little s d chip that will just save it there and you could just pop into your computer at any point if you don't do any editing but it's amazing to be mobile with it ok, great and this one comes from wayne e p and they say, do you think that I could maintain interest among listeners with a podcast there's a new edition every two weeks? What is the optimum frequency? Or is that just going to completely depend on the subject and the shape? So is going to complete depend on your avatar? And we talked about this for a little while, but basically two weeks is a great frequency. If that's your avatar wants once a week once a month it's really getting out there and just crafting that avatar and then once you watch that podcast, keep your ears open cause that avatar can adjust as the rial avatar start to come forward and ask you those questions. Okay, now here's a personal question for you what is your routine for preparing yourself and your guests to make sure everything flows during your podcast? So I will say that I have quite the routine and it has been honed over seven hundred plus interviews and the reality is is that I use a method called matching so I do a daily show, but every single tuesday is my studio day and I have eight interviews back to back on the hour every single hour now believe me, it's a long day I have to wake up I have to do my job in jackson get all fired up for every single interview, but the reality is because I bash because I know that's my studio day by the end of that one day I am complete for the week and allows me to build other parts of my business out that's really important. So it's a great question I highly recommend matching when you can you might have you to start that way because you have establish yourself yet, but now I'm booked out through the end of two thousand fourteen on my studio days because of the inbound request that I get. Okay, cool! All right, let's see, we have one more here. What sort of licensing do you need when you're starting a podcast or when you start to use it to earn money, their tax ideas registering a business? I know we don't have time to get too deep into it, but any advice for people when you're getting started by how they recommend starting with loc on the minimum, you don't wanna protect yourself and make the loc the entity, not your personal southie entity. So just in case, worse things happen that they could only go after the llc, which is its own corporation, not you, so always be separate itself. With that, I have a great accountant, his name's, josh bauer, lee. If you just go to see p a on fire dot com. Yep, he branded himself after me. Then I hope you answer all those questions for you and really help you out with that first step.