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This post is part of the series, which is based upon the book 'Top 21 Marketing channels for membership sites published by The Subscription Coach Amanda Northcutt.
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Make your own show
The process of starting your own podcast is a significant undertaking and your capacity to go through with it week after week should be carefully considered prior to committing. A lot of owners of membership sites have a hard time deciding whether to launch a podcast or not because just like your SEO plan It's a marathon not the equivalent of a sprint.
The podcast market is saturated currently, however if you go narrow and deep within your niche then you'll likely build a significant number of followers who are qualified potential customers for your membership website as time passes. The creation of your own show is one of the best ways to open doors to influencers and to become one yourself!
You must make a 12-18 month commitment, releasing 1-2 podcasts per week to give this marketing channel the chance to be successful. It's almost the polar opposite of running a fast Facebook campaign that's easily measured in a relatively short time. As with other kind of content I would recommend recording in batch four to ten in one go, so you're not burdened with a weekly schedule or multiple times each week to make episodes.
Podcasting is one of the most personal ways to connect to your customers on any kind of scale Sometimes, more than the written word. Be attentive to your viewers. Be empathetic and show that you are able to understand the pain of your audience and can help them: Your membership!
The topics you cover on your podcast must attract people with the ability to grow into power users on your membership website. Everyone else is irrelevant. Like other efforts to market using a large net will attract unqualified prospects that will clutter your email list, or worse, churn out very early. It is also important to stay in a narrow, deep niche is vital to the success of your campaign.
Don't fool yourself into thinking that the amount of episodes downloads is the most important measure you should be tracking, either. The questions you should be asking yourself when determining the success of your podcast include: Are my listeners taking notice of my CTA and getting into my sales funnel? New members are citing my podcast as a reason they signed up or how they learned about my brand? Are the credibility I'm building by the podcast helping build connections and trust with influential people in my space? Do I use my podcast to connect with other people by having pertinent guests on my podcast?
Make sure to promote your podcast to your list of email subscribers, current members, via social media channels, as well as influencers. Podcasts should be a thoughtful part of your strategy for content marketing but because it's an enormous undertaking, it's worthy of an entire category among my top 21 lists.
Hosting your own podcast can be a powerful tool in your marketing mix. But don't start unless you're able to keep it going. The next best way to host your podcast is to maintain an ongoing presence in other podcasts.
Be a podcast guest
The principles that govern guest blogging can be applied to this situation quite easily. People who are made the decision to run podcasts themselves are confronted with the exact same task like bloggers. Reaching out to the right hosts using the proper approach will likely result in the granting of a number of guest spots that are great and ease the content production burden of the host.
And, if you do have your own podcast by being a guest host to other podcasts can enhance the outcomes you achieve by utilizing your own. After all, people who listen to podcasts listen to...podcasts.
However, regardless of whether you host your own show or you don't, make sure to include an CTA in the event of the opportunity of hosting a guest. CTAs might be for downloading your lead magnet, offer a discount on your membership, a short review, or something else pertinent to your site. If you run your own podcast, certainly encourage listeners to your podcast(s) in which you're as a guest to join yours too.
Make a list of podcasts where you could offer value and information to your listeners. It is likely that these are industry influencers' podcasts whose audience probably resembles the target market. Podcasts hosted by guest hosts can be part of your organic influencer marketing plan.
Don't make the mistake that you should reach out to the hosts with 100,000 subscribers first. Beginning small, you can gain experience and build a podcast resume of sorts, then begin to climb the ladder of influencers.
An email sent to an host should contain a couple of praise for them, your qualifications for you (in a non-braggadocious way) and an example of any other podcasts you've been on and/or links to your blog post or YouTube channel. Maybe even some topics you'd be great to speak about in the interview.
Don't give up in the event of rejection. If you get shut down by an influential person in your field the first, second, or third timearound, refer to this section on organic influencers in order to establish social capital with them before attempting it another time.