Why Podcasts Might Be Your Best Marketing Bet in 2024 with Joe Fier

Hey. So I was just chatting with a bunch of people who have reached out to an email that I sent out about what their plans are in 2024 when it comes to marketing, and how they're thinking about boosting their brand, their business, their community, and they're honestly the authority in their industry. What do they have planned? And I was sharing some of the things I'm doing, and there's a tool, a common tool that kept coming up, and maybe it was influenced by what I like to talk about, but honestly, it sounds like, I mean, I had over 50 responses to this little quick email I blasted out just, just yesterday at the time of this recording. And there's a lot of similar things being said. And it got me to think, okay, there's a tool that everyone can harness in their marketing when it comes to.

2024, and I want to share it here.

And I don't think you're gonna be surprised, but the way that I break down what this is is a four step approach. It's like a four pillar approach. I'm gonna give you the 10,000 foot view on this podcast. And if I told you that this tool can help you increase your customer engagement dramatically compared to what you're doing right now, I can help you build a community of followers where they go to you. And also it positions you as an industry thought leader all at the same time. Does that sound pretty good? Like, I would imagine that you would want all that in 2024. Right? So this tool, maybe not surprising, but surprising to some, is podcasting. And in this episode, I want to break down how this medium has changed over the years and how it could be the most versatile thing that you do in your marketing. It could be the hub of everything you do. And in 2024, you have the ability to do it, because podcasting isn't what podcasting was. You know, seven years ago, when I started this podcast, Hustle and Flowchart, it wasn't the same even last year, even earlier this year because of the different tools and platforms that exist now. And in 2024, I believe it's going to be stronger than ever for a lot of reasons. So in this episode, I'm going to break down why and how you can leverage this as your marketing hub. So stick with me here. Let's break it down, and let's get into it.

Hey, I'm Joe Fear, and welcome to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. This is where we talk all about building businesses so they give you the freedom and fuel for Your life. I'm not here to help you build a billion dollar business, but I am here to help you create a business.

With systems that work for you so.

You can make more money than you need just by working part time. You know, I was a chronic hustle.

Mode kind of guy and I want.

To share my experiences and and mentors I've met along the way to help you reframe things to be the most effective as an entrepreneur. I wish I had this guidance and insight when I was younger. So that's what I'm doing here for you. Please share and enjoy.

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This episode and I'm going to try to make it brief because I want you to get into this. So what this is going to be is like a 10,000 foot view of how I see podcasting and there's a workflow. I made this visual that's pretty cool. And ironically, I'm just doing this in audio right now as I record this. And it's funny because I love to use video now for podcasting and I'm just doing this audio right now, honestly, because I'm doing it quickly. I just had just days ago, the birth of our second daughter and honestly running on fumes over here and hands are very full. But I wanted to get this episode out because of the timely emails I've been sending. Like I, I just sent it to my email list the other day and like I mentioned, had over 50 responses and a lot of similar things that people were talking about when I asked them, hey, you know, in 2024, what do you have planned? What do you want to do to grow your business, grow your brand, grow your community, engage more, become more of an authority in your space? And you know, there was a, the talk of podcasting has been a lot here. You know, that's, I love to talk about why podcasting is something I choose to do consistently because you know, as for my marketing tool. So obviously a lot of folks have that on the mind and I just, you know, some of these responses, I'll just tell you right now is people want to leverage media and marketing to grow membership sites. You know, there's, there's some low ticket membership sites, there's people that want to do some high ticket offers on the back of their, their content. And podcasting came up in people that want to start a podcast but you know, have over complicated in their brains. And that's okay, that's totally common. There's people that, there's a lot of people that had a dormant podcast, one that they started years ago, but just let it kind of die in the vine or at least sit there. It's never really dead. So that's a hint to you. If you've started podcasting in the past, it's never too late to revitalize that. And there's a whole plan to that as well that I've coached a lot of people on and I do consistently now too. Podcasting has been on the list of a lot of people to start, but again, over complicated is a big thing. A lot of folks want to generate a community and generate sales from their own community. And then the other end, some other folks were, and this is a common one, they want to leverage other people's audiences to grow their business and not necessarily have to grow the audience as like a grassroots thing, but more, hey, I want to leverage other people's audiences and kind of piggyback off of things. There, there's, there's a whole bunch of these responses and I'm just kind of cycling through them as I'm talking to you right now. But at the end of the day, people want to grow audiences or community mainly through leveraging other people, which is great because that's how I suggest. And then there's the monetization side. There's so many ways to monetize this media. And like I was saying in, in the intro, podcasting has changed. And I want to now break down really why that is and, and, and give you this overview of, of the four pronged approach that I think about when I, when I think of podcasting. Because now podcasting isn't just audio. Like it always has kind of been in people's minds. The lines have blurred. And, you know, there's a lot of YouTubers out there that people are like, oh, I follow that podcast and they think of a YouTuber and you know, maybe it is a podcast, maybe it's not. Who, who knows? But the point is, you know, if you're leveraging these platforms like YouTube or all the audio platforms, or even written platforms that can all be derived from a single session while podcasting, and it can, and I'll explain what that means. But if you do it correctly, using this four prong workflow, or, you know, kind of this. Yeah, it's a workflow. That's really what this is. Then you're capturing that, that content, that, that attention, that media, all at the same time. So now you can use a smart plan, a system, or a workflow like this one. I'll, I'll break down right now for you. And you're honestly capturing, you're, you're doing all the marketing efforts right there. It's like the 80, 20, maybe even the 9010 of your marketing, you can capture using this workflow. So before I get into it, I'm just going to say if you want to go do a deeper dive, where I really dive into some tools and some, you know, templates and things on how to implement this stuff, then I want you to email me at joeustleandflowchart.com Again, that's joe@hustleandflowchart.com all right, let's get into this workflow. Okay, so here's the thing. Podcasting, you can use this as the hub of your marketing if you have the right strategy. And strategy is one thing, but also there's a workflow. So I feel like everything breaks down if you don't have a good workflow. And this goes for any part of your business. If you don't have a great workflow, systems and processes, then strategies are great, tactics are great, tools are great. But if you don't have that workflow and processes Those are like the glue of all the stuff. And then of course, you want to put it in the right sequence of things. So that's what I'm gonna give you here. And there's basically four prongs to this. And I don't have a sexy name for this. This is just how I see podcasting and how it can integrate in your marketing. And if you do it right and if you follow this, then you're probably going to do pretty well. And you know, people that are thinking of podcasting, they're not thinking of it like a marketing machine. That's what this is for you in 2024. This can be your marketing machine. Just keep that in your mind. Okay, first one is guest selection. All right, Number one, guest selection. Number two, content production. Number three, content distribution. And then the fourth is marketing. All right, so that's again, number one, guest selection. Number two, content production. Number three, content distribution. And number four is marketing. Okay, so if you miss any one of those, you're not going to leverage podcasting to its maximum potential. When you're thinking of the. The marketing hub of your business to amplify your brand, to amplify your community, your leads and your sales to grow your business, this is what it takes. First of all, guest selection, that's the biggie right there. And why guest selection? Well, it's because kind of like what people were when. When they're replying to my emails from the other day is leveraging other people's audiences. You know, I talked about this. There's a previous episode that you can bookmark if you haven't listened to it already. It's all about the Dream 100 process. Highly recommend checking that out, because when you select the right guest now, you're. You're essentially selecting which audience you want to speak in front of. And this goes if you are a guest on someone else's podcast, which is great because this whole. It's. You can have a podcast of your own, which I highly recommend because you control everything a little bit more. You can also use this four pillar process. If you are just a guest on other people's shows as well, it's just gonna be tweaked a little differently. You'll have a little less control. But at the end of the day, if you start with the right guest now you're pinpointing this ideal person that has this target audience that you want to get in front of. So just keep that in your mind. That is, I can't stress that enough. Is the guest really Makes everything or the guesting like where you want to guest. So essentially, like, think of the audience you want to get in front of. There's a person out there who already has that audience. That's pretty much it right there. If you can nail that, then you know that you're 80% of the way, like I said, or 90% of the way there because you're leveraging other people to grow your brand, your audience, your authority, your, your business in general. And isn't it easier to do that when you're speaking with the right people? You know, the people that really want to understand what you have and really connect with you? And even if your show is doing solo episodes like this one is right here, there's a power of guesting and, or power of guests as well. So really identify who those people are. There's a lot of criteria to do that, and that's something I can break down further. But again, guesting is, or guest selection, that is, is really the, the key thing. And there's a whole bunch of strategies on how to then once you identify, let's say a handful of guests that you can start with. And these don't have to be massive brands. I mean, everyone has followers and start small if you want to just gain that momentum or, or not go big too. And, and if you don't have a show yet, you could still leverage this. You'd be surprised. Don't feel like people aren't going to want to guest on a podcast that's brand new, because they will. The fact that you are creating a virtual stage, which is how I see podcasting, that's, that's attractive to someone else. And our nice egos, we all have them, let's be honest, we love to get featured places. And if you receive an invitation somewhere, you're probably going to look at it and be like, oh, I would, you know, someone's inviting you to guest on their podcast or wherever, you know, do a, do a workshop together or go do a feature, you know, some kind of, some, something together, collaborative, you're probably going to look at it and consider it. Especially if you're starting off, you're, or you know, you're, you're kind of not as busy or big time, you know, in, in whatever part of your industry, you're probably going to consider it. So just imagine, you know, just don't, don't count yourself out is all I'm saying. And a lot of people do this from the very beginning is they don't think that they have A show that's reputable enough or, or enough along to invite people to their show. But that's, that's baloney. Get that out of your head. Okay? And once you get past that, then you'll realize, oh, the guests are actually like the, the, the most leveraged thing to get your show and your brand and everything off the ground. And then it creates this, this kind of network effect or this referral strategy, which I can dive deeper. And that's what I train a lot of people on through, you know, the, the trainings that I've been doing. And I have an upcoming podcast accelerator that's actually starting later this month and going into the next 90 days. So if you have, if you want any information on that to really streamline this whole process and really go deep, also email me as well, Joe, at hustleandflowchart.com But I digress. I continue. Now that's the guest selection. That's pillar number one.

Big announcement here. The Hustle and Flowchart podcast is now the newest podcast on the HubSpot Podcast Network. They're the audio destination for business professionals. It's exactly why I joined the network, to expand what we've been doing here. Making business the fuel for your life, not the stressor or the burnout. We want to build fun and make business a big part of who we are and our expression out to others. So you're going to expect a lot more, more curated guests that sync up with this mission. Also, more topics and episodes from me.

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Pillar number two is content production. Content production is key. Obviously you gotta produce content, but at the same time, make sure you're recording content in the right way to capture all of the formats so you can then use that content in all of your marketing. Now it's pretty obvious that you want to do the work once and not have to do it again, ideally. And there's systems and processes to do that and there's tools that you want to use as well to do all that correctly. And capturing audio, video these days is crucial. Again, audio and video allows you to then repurpose assets all over the place on any format, in any platform that you can think of. And to. There's a, there's some tools that I'll just. People love tools. And I would say, you know, if you're capturing the audio, high quality audio and high quality video, you're setting yourself up for success. And the tools that I would recommend to use these days is squadcast paired up with descript. Now squadcast, it's kind of like, or there's an alternative is Riverside fm. I've used them both. I've used Riverside for a lot of years. SquadCast is what I'm using now and I'll tell you why in a moment. But basically what each of these tools do and they, they have some, you know, some differences as well. But the point is these tools will allow you to record with a guest, virtually guest somewhere else in their own office or house. They can. It'll. It'll actually pull the audio and video high quality from their end and also it's going to pull it high quality from your end. So the point is if you're using Zoom, it's not going to give you that quality. It's going to degrade your audio and your video. So if you're using Squadcast or Riverside now, you can get that full on HD 4K, even if you have the cameras, it just brings in the best quality and there's not going to be any lag. It's going to sound great. Studio quality, that's what you want. And squadcaster Riverside allows you to do that. So that's where I would start is use one of those tools now when it comes to recording solo episodes like what I'm doing right now, I'm using a tool called descript. So descript is awesome because, well, for one, it also pairs up with squadcast. So descript just purchased squadcast not that long ago. And so that allows a workflow to happen. I'm big on workflows, so my tool stack right now, if you were to just follow this, is using SquadCast and Descript. So SquadCast you record with guests on there on SquadCast and with Descript, Descript is it does a whole bunch of stuff and you can check it out yourself. But the point is now squadcast, whatever you capture over there with a guest, you can pipe over to descript, kind of like Google Drive, it has like its own filing system and all that stuff so you don't have to download things and then re upload them and send them to your team or you know, all this organization. If you recorded in squadcast it will send it to descript within its own file management system. So you can edit inside of descript you or you can do your whole post production process either yourself or your team. I'm not going to dive into all that stuff. But this is obviously part of the content production, the pillar number two. Now the other thing with descript is that you can record solo episodes directly into descript and its tool and it's super simple to use. I'll do an episode later on on the tool, tool stacks and all these cool things that you can use. But just know that Squadcast + descript is your content production workflow. Boom. All right, moving on to number three. Pillar number three is content distribution. You gotta have a plan on how to distribute your content. And the key thing here is that you want to distribute to basically all the platforms you can. Why wouldn't you? I mean you want to start with the ones that you know your target audience is on, you know, and choose these. These are probably some of the main ones. And obviously there's audio platforms and there's video platforms, there's written platforms and when I say platform, these are places, these are websites that you can now get attention. And if you are producing content like we did in number two, you know, pillar number two, if we're producing or creating that is the audio in the video content. Well now you know you can distribute things like audio, video, written clips, all these different things for social media audio distribution platforms. That's where like all the podcasts live and all the different apps, you can now distribute video in places like YouTube and all the social media networks. Even on Spotify they're allowing video. Just know that if you now have all this content that you're sitting on that you did in pillar number two in this workflow plan. Now if you have a content distribution plan, you're able to get attention in all these places in the right way. Now the fourth and final pillar of this whole workflow is, and this is the one that most people miss because they Assume that if you're producing great content or if, or even before that, if you have a guest that comes onto your podcast, that they're going to do all the work for you to get this out there and that you just assume that they're going to share it. Well, don't assume that because they're probably not. Unless you really allow them or help them out. A lot of people assume that it's just going to get picked up and listened or watched. That's also not the case. You got to do the work yourself. So that's where pillar number four comes in. And that's your marketing pillar. That's the part where you're actually, oh, okay, I gotta do some marketing behind all this content now. And this is where people honestly just, they just drop the ball because for whatever reason, maybe they're busy or they don't have a marketing plan or they overcomplicate it. And it doesn't have to be. That's the thing. This whole thing could be very simple. And the idea is it's a workflow. So that means that it could be more or less a template that you can follow for years to come and modify bits as things evolve over the years. Of course, that's what I've done. There's like layers of marketing. And the layers, basically, I'll list them out right here in, in this order is how I would suggest to do your marketing is there's referral marketing, which is getting other people to essentially refer people for you if you set them up for success. Other people, like your guests or like your listeners, people on your, in your audience already, you can generate referral traffic that then grows your content overall, that ultimately grows your brand, it grows your community and your sales. Now you have your. Organic is the second step of your marketing, you know, and that's stuff like SEO. That's. Those are things like, you know, getting on platforms and actually showing up in places when people search for you and seek you out because you're following their guidelines, their rules, you're showing up with their algorithms. And that's not the fastest way, you know, referral marketing. I do it in this order because referral, the first part of marketing, is typically the fastest and it's honestly, I think, the best because you're getting the warmest people, the people that are very, very similar to you. And you can incentivize that to happen. The organic stuff is great. That's the more long term. It takes a little longer to kick off. But if you're playing by the rules and doing that consistently. Organic marketing. Organic traffic can also be some of the most valuable and very warm, you know, close to, let's say, buyer or at least lead traffic stuff. People that are going to align with what you're doing because they're seeking you out. And then the third is paid marketing. And this I reserve for the last bit because a lot of people, if you start with the paid, then you can do this. And you know, if you're great at paid traffic, then maybe this is your. The place you start. That's totally cool. Maybe it's your comfort zone. But honestly, most people won't. Most people shouldn't. Because the paid stuff, you know, obviously it takes investment. You probably want to prove things before you start throwing money at it. You probably want data and to know, hey, what's working and what's not working before I start putting a lot of money into boosting my content on, let's say YouTube or Facebook or Instagram or wherever. There's so many ways to leverage paid traffic. Obviously that is a great way to amplify it for the long term. I would reserve it for later in your marketing. Again, the marketing prong here, I guess the pillar of this whole workflow, the sequence I would go, is referral, and that's things like getting guests to start shouting you out. And there's a whole strategy on how to help them and really optimize that. Referral marketing is also showing up in platforms and getting earned media. So they're pushing traffic your way into your content, into your likeness to your brand. Now, referral's great. Organic's even better, or, you know, better in some ways because it's evergreen. And now that's like, for years to come. You can, you can start optimizing where you show up in things like Google or the search results under different platforms. And then again, the paid marketing is the piece that you can really use to amplify things once you have some momentum through the other bits of your marketing. So that's the plan right there. That's the whole podcasting workflow. This overview, this 10,000 foot view. I'll go through the four pillars again. That's guest selection. Starting there. Get the right people there as the foundation of what you're doing so you can leverage other people's audiences and their likeness and their authority so you can lift yourself up as well. Number two is content production. Make sure you're capturing the audio, video and all this in high quality so you can use it and produce great content to Then go to number three, which is content distribution. Put them on all the channels, make sure that you have the ability to distribute in all the places to show up. And then of course, don't just rely on all of that to do the work for you. You want to do the fourth piece, which is marketing. And breaking that down into the types of marketing that will then help you grow again. Your brand, your community and your business overall with the referral, organic paid strategies. If any of this sounds like it would help you boost your business in 2024, then I want to make this video for you. I want to break it down and selfishly I want to make it because there's a lot to it. It's probably going to be a pretty in depth video. I want to make this if there's enough people asking for it and that means I want to hear from you right now. So pause this and email me, Joe hustleandflowchart.com and just say, I want the video Again, joe@hustleandflowchart.com say I want the video. I will make that video because I want to make it for you and I want to make it in depth enough where you're getting your questions answered. And maybe read along with this in that email you send me. Ask me any question or maybe a specific thing that you would like me to dive deeper on within this whole workflow here that can help me even create the training more specifically for you. That's what I got for you right now. I'm really excited to help guide you into using podcasting as your main marketing hub. This way to generate more business and awareness for what you're doing out there using podcasting because podcasting ain't what it used to be. And in 2024 I genuinely think people are going to be looking to podcasters or content, at least that is derived from podcasts, to get their information, to get the training. And you know, honestly, probably trust more than anything. Less and less people are looking to the bigger media these days and they're looking at more of these relatable figures like you and I for their information. And obviously it's the know like and trust factor. So we get to select who we follow and who we get our information from. And why not you? Why not be the source for people in 2024, I want you to be that person. I want to help you champion. Be the champion for other people. I have some cool stuff coming up in 2024. Again, there is a podcast accelerator and you can check it out and Ideally, jump in quickly because there are limited spots and this is kind of a hybrid. But basically go to hustleinflowchart.com accelerator. You can get the gist of it there. If you have any questions, please reach out. There's a in person component over at podfest. We're doing a mastermind as well. So if you happen to be in Florida, if you're gonna go to PodFest, or if you wanna make the trek out there, I would love to have you there in person. There's only gonna be about 20 people in that room, so check out hustleandflowchart.com accelerator. There is also an online component. If you can't make the in person, then I want to help guide you. It's basically a 90 day sprint and very actionable sprint on how to leverage podcasting and implement this for your 2024 marketing and beyond to grow your business business. So that's what I got. I'm done. I'm out. Thanks for listening. All right, all right.

That's what I got for you today. And remember, it's not all about living away work. It's all about working to live if.

You need to do the work.

But you know, work can be fun and it should be fueling for your life. So if you enjoyed what you just heard, if you got some nuggets of wisdom that you want to share or you're just noodling on right now, please go tell others. The way that people find this show and how you can help others get their aha moments is through word of mouth. So if it is, is telling your friend, telling your family, send an email to your list, writing a review or whatever it might be. Everything helps. So thank you so much for listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast and I will see you next time.