How to Promote Your Business Within Your Podcast

0:01
You’ve created a podcast for your business. That’s great. You’re one step further in accomplishing your podcasting goals that you’ve set for yourself. But you don’t want your podcast to be one giant infomercial, right? So how do you naturally promote yourself without sounding too salesy or annoying? Today we’re talking about strategies for promoting your business within our podcast. Take it away radio man. Podcast Your Business.

0:36
Welcome to Podcast Your Business. I’m Sunny Gault. I’m a podcast coach. I also mentor other podcasters and I have been in this podcasting space for more than 17 years. I am the founder and CEO of Independent Podcast Network, you can check us out at https://independentpodcast.network. And today I am here to help you create amazing podcasts specifically for your business. And we do this by mastering the five P’s of podcasting. I have some podcast courses that I have made available for free for you guys. And it talks about the five P’s of podcasting. So there’s five separate courses, we talk about prep, plan, produce, promote, and profit. Prep is all about should you even be starting a podcast right? What are some of the things you should consider? The planning part of it is the look and feel for your show. Producing is actually creating the content promoting is telling people about it and getting people to subscribe, and listen or watch your podcast and then profit talks about how do you actually make money podcasting? So Mr. radio man, what are we talking about today? Produce.

1:52
So you may have thought that today’s topic falls under promote, because promote is in the title of the episode. However, when we talk about promotion we are talking about Okay, your episode is done. Now, how do you get the word out about your episode and your podcast in general. So that’s not really what we’re talking about. Today, we are talking about how to promote your business within a podcast episode. So this topic falls under produce, because it has more to do with creating content for your show. And in this case, how to get people to understand your business and hopefully become a client if that is one of your goals. So we’re going to talk about opportunities for promoting your business through content, the content, your actual episode and the things you’re talking about. We’ll talk about how to use commercial spots, or promo spots if you will to promote your business. We’ll talk about dynamic ad insertion. Now you guys know I’m a big fan of dynamic ad insertion. We’ve done entire episodes of this, but we’re going to talk about it in the context of how it can maximize the promotion that you’re going to do for your business. And we’ll also talk about some ideas to make your business promotion convert for you. So these are some of my tips and tricks that I’ve learned over the years that really get people to connect with you and want to take action. So we’ll get started and talk about all these lovely items right after this quick break.

3:21
All right, you’ve created a podcast that is focused on your business, which is awesome, you’re definitely listening to the right podcast to learn more about how to do that. So now let’s talk about how you encourage your audience to take some sort of action. So in the marketing world, we call this a CTA, it is a call to action because it is great for people just to listen to your content or watch your content if you’ve got a video podcast as well. But we want them to do something with this and hopefully want to work with you if that is one of your goals for your podcast. Now before we dive into all the great information we’re gonna talk about today, please make sure you go back and listen to last week’s episode, which is all about creating great artwork for your podcast, because that’s really where this starts. If you have bad artwork, people are never gonna get to the point where they’re actually listening to your show and therefore finding out about your business. So please listen to that episode. If you haven’t already. We’re not going to talk about artwork in today’s episode, but that is crucial. More people are going to see your podcast in the form of your podcast artwork, you know your logo, you know the image that pops up when you’re scrolling through podcasts, then actually listen to it. So make sure you follow all of that information in that episode. Before taking into consideration the stuff we talked about today.

4:42
Let’s talk about promoting your business through the content because I think this is probably the best way to do promotion of your podcast because it’s the most natural and organic way to do it. And I’m a firm believer that podcast should be as natural as possible. So my first piece of advice is never assume people have listened to a previous episode. I can’t tell you how many podcasts I listened to where there’s apparently this whole backstory that I missed on, I missed out on because I didn’t listen to like all their previous episodes, and you feel like an outsider. So never assume that people know your business, what you do and how to find you. In fact, I recommend you do this within the first 60 seconds of your podcast. And yes, that also includes whatever intro you have for your show, because they say you have 60 seconds in order for someone to determine if they want to continue listening to your podcast or not. I actually think it’s a lot less than that. Like if they don’t like what they’re hearing in the first 10 seconds, I think you’re a goner. But if you’ve made it to 60 seconds, then they might be willing to take a step further, go to your website, and learn a little bit more about who you are and what you do. Even if they don’t subscribe to your episode, you can still get clients that don’t have time to listen to an episode or a full episode. But they got far enough in the show to get your contact information. And now they’re reaching out to you and you can help them in other ways. If you recall, at the beginning of this episode, I said who I was the name of my business, the website and what I do for people. And then I moved on, right, I was on to the next thing. So make sure you do that you want to get to the heart of whatever your episode is about as quickly as possible, because that was probably in the title for your podcast episode. And it’s how people are finding you for the first time. So get to that content as quickly as possible.

6:35
Now let’s talk about the main content, your main topics for your podcast, you want to talk about things that you are well versed in that basically show off your skill set. And if that’s not the case, then do some research and get knowledgeable before you do the episode. Because the other thought process is to talk about topics that people want more information on which you can totally do episodes on just make sure you’re knowledgeable before you hit that record button. I want you to focus on over giving to your audience in every episode, don’t withhold stuff, because you’re trying to upsell them, get them to buy something else. Trust me, people forget a lot of what they hear this is something that I’ve learned, even in doing this show, right? All of this stuff that I talked about are available in things that in the past people could purchase, but I also give it away for free. And people will still buy the other stuff, trust me. I know it sounds weird, but it totally works. So over give to your audience, you want to give them so much good content, and I’m not talking about selling stuff to them, or when I’m just talking about great content for your podcast over give in that area, they will totally appreciate it. And they might even be a little bit shocked, but you want them you want them to know that you’re on their side. A lot of what I do when I am, you know, talking about a topic, and I do it all the time in this podcast is I use examples. So I will naturally talk about clients, I’m only I won’t give specific information, right. But I’ll say, oh, there was a podcast that I worked with. And this is what they did. And this was you know how we solve this problem. So you are kind of auditioning, if you will, for people as you’re just naturally recording your episode. So if there are, you know, stories of clients that you worked with situations that your clients were in, in the past, that is a natural way to promote yourself as hey, you could be my client too. So consider those types of stories, of course, leave the actual information regarding the client, as anonymous, right. So don’t give away personal information, but talk about what you’re knowledgeable about, right and how you helped whatever your client was dealing with. You can also talk about your personal experiences. And I also do that on the show quite a bit. I will tell you guys about my successes, and I will tell you about my failures. That’s another thing. Don’t be scared to share your mistakes. Because you’re human. We don’t want to just hear how amazing people are. That just drives me crazy, right? Because it’s like, oh, well they did this and they did that. And it’s like, no, like, the main reason I want to help podcasters is because I understand the struggle. I’ve been there and I have really screwed some stuff up in the past and spent a lot of money when I do need to spend money. That is what drives me to do. What I am doing and doing this podcast today is because I have asked myself the same questions how do I naturally promote myself without sounding like an infomercial? Like these are natural things that I went through and you probably have the same thing, right? So share your experiences, share your mistakes, share some of your wins because we want to celebrate those with you to just keep it in check.

9:57
Okay, another thing I love to do and you guys know that Have you listened to this show, but give away freebies if you can. So I have a lot of handouts that I give away, they’re free on my website, I promote them on the show, it just takes it one step further for people. Now, this is a little bit of a pet peeve for me that I’m going to share with you take this or leave it, this is probably really bad marketing advice and really good human advice. Okay. When it comes to giving free handouts, free downloadables, whatever, I don’t recommend that you require them to give their email address. every marketer out there is going, Oh, what’d she just say? How are we going to build our email lists, but you’re requiring them to do something. And I still, I think it’s a little invasive. Okay. You may disagree with me on that. But you will find that any handouts on my website, you do not have to give your email address. So that’s just my little two cents. Again, probably really bad marketing advice, really good human advice, okay. Because people don’t want to have to give something don’t, don’t expect something in return, do something freely. And I promise you, good things will happen. If you have the intent to truly help people, it will come back to you, I promise.

11:11
Now, let’s switch gears and talk about commercial spots. Or in this sense, it’s kind of like a promo spot, but you’re going to use it where a commercial would go. This is where you can get more specific with things you want to promote. Remember, earlier in the episode, I said in the general content, keep it short and simple. Now, in these spots, you have more time, it’s a separate section of your show. And you can elaborate on things a little bit more, I do recommend that you concentrate on one specific thing to promote, and then go into a little bit of detail about that. So here are some ideas, perhaps you have an online course, maybe you have a new book that’s coming out, congratulations, that’s awesome. I have had clients that have gone on book tours, and they want to promote those different things. So that’s awesome. Maybe you have a new tic tock handle, or I know no one likes Tik Tok right now, Instagram, Facebook, I don’t know, whatever new social media streaming platform is out there that you want to promote. Maybe you have a new webinar coming up.

12:16
Now, when we’re talking about things that have specific dates that really aren’t going to make sense for someone that is listening past that date. This is where it’s really important to consider dynamic ad insertion. I’ve talked about this on previous episodes, but I’m going to give you guys just a quick review today. So when you’re inserting ads, or promos into your show, you’ve got a couple of options, you can just record it into your show, just like I’m recording right now. So just say it and just records into your show. Or you can record something later and have it dynamically inserted into your podcast. Now you do have to have a podcast host provider that allows for this. But the nice thing with that is you can put an ad in and you can take it out whenever you want. So in this case, if you have an ad or a promo that you want to run, first of all, within, you know, 30 seconds, you create it, you upload it to your podcast host provider, it can go out to all of your episodes instantaneously, pretty much. That’s incredible. So if you have something you need to get out to everyone ASAP, just think about that. It’s not just promoting it in your next episode, it’s going out in every single episode you’ve ever released to your audience, that is incredibly powerful. And you have the ability to do that with dynamic ads. You can also remove these ads whenever you want, which is what I was just talking about. So let’s say you have a webinar coming up, and you want to give a 50% discount, but only for the next week. And then it’s full price. With dynamic ads, you can do that. So you would create a promo that just you know promotes that specific promo code. And then on another date, you would switch up the promo code, or you know, maybe there’s no promo code at that point. And it’s just the regular price. But these are the things you have the ability to do with dynamic ads. You can insert these ads as pre-rolls. So pre-rolls play before your show actually starts or mid-rolls. So that is a commercial spot that happens after you kind of get into whatever your main topic is. If you’re doing a pre-roll, keep it short and sweet. 10 seconds, 15 seconds, max. That’s the end of your promo, right because you want people to actually listen to your show, and not just be stuck on a commercial and decide to listen to something else. For midroll spot you can go between 30 seconds, 60 seconds, maybe but I would cut it off at that point no more than 60 seconds.

14:47
Now let’s talk about some ideas for making these promotions really work for you. First, less is more. Okay? You don’t have to tell people 5000 times to do so. Something I would rather you have a shorter ad short and sweet get to whatever it is that, you know really needs to be said the who, what, when, where, why, right. Because if you’re doing your podcast correctly, if you have a podcast for your business, your whole podcast and naturally promote you, right? It’s your expertise, you’re giving advice, you’re giving input and information. So you don’t want to overdo it. So keep all of your promos as simple as possible. If you don’t have to say something, don’t say it, because they’re listening. Maybe they’re watching you too. But unless you write something in your description, which that’s another really good idea, any kind of promos you give them or anything like that, make sure it’s also in the description for your podcast episode, any links you want to include. But still people are either listening to your episode, watching your episode, and not usually jotting stuff down. So be as concise as you possibly can. Next, keep it consistent. So don’t just do this in one episode, and be done with it. Remember what I said earlier, don’t assume people have listened to your previous episodes before, they probably haven’t. So you need repetition, keep it consistent. And then I kind of touched on this earlier. But stay humble, eat a piece of humble pie. People don’t talk about how great you are. Don’t talk about how many awards you’ve won. If you really feel like you have to include some of that information. Then one idea is to ask for sound bites or testimonials from your clients. That would be a cool way to kind of incorporate that into your promo. So maybe you have one of your clients give a short testimony on how you help them. That’s very personal. So that’s just one idea of how you can get that kind of information in there without you giving it yourself. Talk about your passion. Talk about the things that you love. It will naturally come through in your infliction, and the things that you’re saying. And they’re going to want to work with you because they realize that you’re passionate about what you’re talking about. And again, don’t expect anything in return, give, give, give and help them as much as you possibly can.

17:13
All right, I hope you guys really enjoyed today’s show. I hope you got some great tips on ways that you can naturally work in the promotion of your business throughout your podcast. I do have a free handout, I’m gonna follow my own advice and give you guys a free handout. It is called “5 Ways Podcasts Can Grow Your Business”. So this might be a refresher for some of you whether you’ve already created a podcast or you’re just thinking about doing a podcast. This will give you some ideas on how podcasts can naturally help enhance your business. And that is my free gift to you. As I mentioned before, you don’t even have to leave your email address. I will include the link in the description for this episode. And we’ve made a bunch of changes to our website. Please check us out Independent Podcast Network, a lot of free resources. We’ve got blog posts, podcast episodes, videos, handouts, we’ve got courses on there. So whatever stage of podcasting,you’re at, whether you’re brand new, or you’ve been doing this a long time, just search in the search bar, and I promise you’re gonna find a ton of amazing content. Until next week, remember….podcasts are awesome!