Morgan Franklin: When you sit down to record a podcast
episode, who are you thinking about? Are you thinking about
the listener that's casually listening to an episode on the
way to work while they're thinking about 30 other things
that they need to get done? Or what about the listener who just
came across your podcast on LinkedIn and thinks that you'd
be a great consultant to work with, but they figured that they
should listen to a few of your episodes before they send you a
message. Or what about the listener that is patiently
waiting for your new episodes every single time they drop?
These are three very different listeners, and if you want to
get the most out of your podcast, you'll need to
understand all three. Hello and welcome to podcast for profit.
My name is Morgan Franklin. I'm a Podcast Producer, strategist
and educator. This podcast will help you create and grow a
podcast that cuts through the noise of social media and speaks
directly to your target audience. If you're ready to
create a podcast that will align you with the experts in your
industry, position yourself as a trusted leader and create
another source of revenue for your business. You're in the
right place. So often we're creating our podcast without
really having an end goal in mind. Now why do we do that? Why
would we do that? Why would we record a whole podcast episode
without knowing what we want to come from it. Now there are a
few different reasons. The first and most consistent I see is we
like it. We're interested in this topic. We think it's funny
or interesting or cool, and we want to share it with our
audience. And you know what? That's okay. There are chart
topping podcast made from the content of what the host thinks
is cool, and everyone follows along. However, for most of us,
we don't have the time and energy and money to make a
podcast about things we just like or interested in, and hang
around long enough to see if other people like it too. But
it's funny, because so many people that I talk to think this
is how podcasts are made. So if we're not creating a podcast
from the things that we think are cool and that we like, what
are other reasons that we might be making it? Usually it's to
promote our brand, and whether that's a personal brand
ourselves or a business or industry, it has something to do
with promoting a larger vision of ourselves, and I think that
that's one of the best uses of a podcast. What better way to
build a relationship with people and earn credibility in a field
or subject than talking about it every week, and sharing your
thoughts and where this inevitably will go wrong is not
understanding why the audience is listening. We talk about this
all the time, but that's what we need to figure out. Are our
audience members? Casual listeners? Are they die hard
fans, or are they customers? Who are we serving and how are we
serving them? Let's talk about casual listeners. I think most
of us underestimate the power of a casual listener, the person
that just stumbled across our podcast from a friend
recommendation, or another podcast that we guessed it on,
or even just knowing the host outside of their podcast. Weak
connections make the world go round, and I think that we all
have to pay a little bit more attention to the person that
randomly listened to one of our episodes from three months ago.
You have to have casual listeners before you can have
fans, and that's something that we tend to overlook as
podcasters. This is a relationship like any other, and
listeners have to get to know you. They have to trust you,
make sure that you're giving them that opportunity. A few
ways that you can speak more directly to casual listeners is
having episodes that aren't built on each other, and what do
I mean by that? I mean when you're recording an episode,
you're recording it as if this listener has never heard an
episode before. This can be really easy. Things like, let's
say that you bring up your wife Carla in every episode. So
instead of saying something like, Carla loves baby carrots,
you should see her scarf down a bag of baby carrots. Instead
maybe say, my wife Carla loves baby carrots, you should see her
scarf down a bag of baby carrots. You don't have to go
way out of your way to make small changes like that. They
have a huge impact on someone that is listening to your
podcast for the first time, they feel part of the conversation.
Instead of wondering, who is Carla? Who is Carla eating these
carrots? Another thing is having some kind of introduction for
yourself and the host of this show. So I do this in a pre
recorded bit in my intro. But you can also do this just at the
beginning of your show, in the first three minutes. Listeners
should have some idea of who you are and who is coming on this
episode, and what is going on. And again, this doesn't have to
be. Super formal, but have a moment to explain. Hey, I'm
Morgan. I'm a Podcast Producer. I'm going to help you grow your
podcast. Let's get into the episode of XYZ, just setting up
so people know who you are and what this episode is going to be
about. The last thing is to have everything listed in the episode
description. Now, what do I mean by everything? I mean all the
links that you talked about in the episode number one,
obviously, that should be in your episode description, but
all your social links, ways to get a hold of you, ways to find
out more any relevant information for a first time
listener or a casual listener who might want to find out more
about you in the show, I see some podcasters do something
like they'll have a link that says, Did you like this episode?
Here are two other episodes that you might like. And I think that
is genius, and it keeps listeners listening at the
least. Make sure people know how to learn more about you and how
they can follow you on other platforms and ask them to
subscribe to the podcast, and that sounds so Elementary, there
needs to be something in your sign off, or in your pre
recorded sign off, that says, make sure you subscribe to the
podcast. For more episodes like this, we need to remind our
audience what we want them to do, and think about how much
more likely you are to listen to a podcast that you subscribe to.
So make sure that you're encouraging your audience to
subscribe to your podcast. Being aware of new listeners and
casual listeners is the best way to turn someone that would have
just listened to one episode or a couple episodes of your show
into a fan of your podcast. Speaking of fans, what about
fans? I'm talking about the audience members that are
listening to every single episode of your podcast the day
that it comes out. How are you making content with these
listeners in mind? Because while we need casual listeners to turn
into fans, 80% of your listens are normally coming from 20% of
your listeners. So how do we cultivate that 20% the first
thing is understanding why they're coming to your podcast.
I feel like I say this on every episode, but you don't have to
remake the wheel. Someone is normally a fan of something
because they know what to expect. Think about your
favorite restaurant, I bet it's your favorite, because you know
what to expect, whether you're thinking about it or not. They
do an amazing job. The food is consistently delicious. You love
what they do, and they do it consistently. We have to be more
like our listeners favorite restaurants, meaning we have to
be consistent. If you are putting out a variety of the
same content over and over and over and people are loving it,
that is not a sign that they are bored or that you need to change
something up. It is a sign that you are doing something right.
And again, this is why it is so important to have your eyes on
the analytics of your podcast. What are your download numbers?
What is your episode retention rate? Are you consistently
getting new followers on Spotify and Apple podcast and the other
platforms that you track? What do people like to hear from you
don't be afraid of these numbers. I know so many
podcasters that are terrified to look at their downloads. The
numbers are your friend. Because think about this. Let's say that
you had an episode that only got 100 downloads when you normally
get 1000 downloads on new episodes. Well, what was that
episode title? What did you talk about? What do those episodes
that normally get 1000 downloads have in common? These are all
things that we can find out from the analytics. And it is so
important for you to know this information when you are turning
a casual listener into a fan and keeping them a fan. If you need
help figuring this out, I have a one hour strategy call that is
perfect for this. The information for booking will be
in the episode description, and something else to consider is
how you are cultivating your community outside of this
podcast, I'm working on a full episode on building a community
around your podcast so make sure that you're subscribed. But how
are you creating a place where people can talk about your
podcast and get excited about your podcast. Are you connecting
people with the podcast and with each other? Because that is
where the real magic is. You can have fans, you can have people
that love your podcast, but the true magic will come when the
people who love your podcast are able to find each other. Any
good brand strategist will tell you that the magic isn't in the
brand or the company or the podcast. It's in how you create
a community that identifies with your podcast. Listening to your
favorite podcast is a status symbol. It's something that we
talk about with other people. It's a. Connection point, and
that's why I say that is where the real magic happens. You need
to know how you are creating a community around your podcast to
have fans of your podcast. So we've talked about casual
listeners and we talked about fans, and that leaves us with
one group of our audience to talk about, and that is our
customers. So working with podcasters, this is probably the
most forgotten group of listeners, and although most of
my clients, this is their number one priority, is to get in touch
with these customers, it's kind of out of reach. So that's why I
go back to the beginning of this episode where I say most of us
are not making episodes and podcast content for the true
intention of our podcast. And I know it's scary, I know it is
not the easy road out, but if you're creating a podcast for
the intention of growing your customer base or reaching new
clients or making money of any kind, you need to make a podcast
that fulfills that mission. So how can we do this more
effectively? First of all, making content that positions
you as the authority on a subject. That's what I do every
week with this podcast. I come in here to position myself as an
authority in podcasting. I know for some of us, this is going to
take some internal belief in ourselves, maybe even lying to
ourselves. Well, let's just call it a fit, maybe even fibbing to
ourselves. We've all heard about imposter syndrome, and you might
be patient one of imposter syndrome, but you have to get
out there and start showing up as the person that you want your
clients to see you as because having a podcast is such an
outstanding tool in business and marketing and personal branding,
but you have to use it correctly. So step one is show
up as your authentic self and believe in that self. Step two
is know what your audience wants to learn about and how you can
effectively help them learn that. So let's say that you're a
leadership strategist, and you help mid to high level managers
improve in their role. What do these executives need? What is
already being provided from podcasts in your market. How can
you answer questions that they didn't even know to ask. How do
you position yourself as the leader in the industry and the
go to resource in this niche, especially that second part, how
are you positioning yourself as the go to resource in this
niche? Step three is have an offer. That's what so many of us
are missing. If you want to turn a listener into a customer, you
need to have an offer, and preferably three offers, one at
a low introductory price point, one at a mid price point and one
at a high price point. These offers should be a natural
extension of what you talk about on your podcast and what
listeners are coming for. So explain a problem in an episode
and then pitch your service as the solution no matter what you
do have an offer, and consistently pitch it on every
episode and put it in every episode description. Our
customers need to know what they can buy, where they can buy it,
and why they should buy it. And you as a podcast host, you have
so many opportunities. All three of these points can be easily
covered in every single podcast episode. So the next time that
you sit down to record a podcast episode, I want you to take a
moment to think about these three listeners, the first being
the casual or first time listener, how do we capture
their attention and turn them into a fan? For our fans, how do
we consistently provide them with the podcast content and
community to keep them engaged? And then finally, what about our
customers? How can we effectively position ourselves
as the industry leaders and create offers that are an
extension of our podcast? If you have questions about how to
better reach and convert these three segments of your audience,
I have a one hour strategy call that would be absolutely perfect
for you. The information for booking is linked in the episode
description, and as always, I can't wait to listen to your
podcast. Hey, thank you so much for joining me on this episode.
If you enjoyed the podcast and you'd like to hear more episodes
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