The 7 Essential Podcast Strategies For 2017 - The Podcast Industry Report With Paul Colligan Episode #111

7 Essential Podcast Strategies for Next year it's the Podcast industry report episode 111 show notes, links, conversation and more at the podcastreport.com 111 I normally start out each episode with a big idea. This episode has seven big ideas representing the seven points of the seven essential podcast strategies. So you'll have to wait a little bit to get them. They will be spattered throughout this show. The setup. What a year. Chatted about that last week. Next year is going to be bigger. We're passing the stage of everyone's podcasting. You need to be smart now. You need to be strategic. And I've got in this episode for you the seven things that you need to do. If you head out of the podcastreport.com 111 you can grab a very beautiful PDF of the points of today's episode. I would take that, I'd print that out, put it on the wall. Looks great in color. If you only have black and white that's fine. But print it out and put it on the wall. And if you didn't catch Last week's episode 110 Some of the competitive advantages of podcasting that maybe you missed that don't require you get a gazillion downloads or a contract with advertising and that type of thing. Go ahead and grab that. That is the podcastreport.com110 that PDF is ready as well. Really quick. If this is your first episode, I believe this is going to have a number of people listening to it for the first time. My name is Paul Culligan. I'm a big fan of the podcasting industry. This show is about that passion. I've got more than a decade of podcasting and podcast production under my belt. Author of a few number one books on Amazon about the topics of podcasting and new media. I'm not just a fan though. This is my day job. I run a boutique podcasting consultancy for some amazing clients. You've heard many of them, but this is the show where I show you, the podcaster, how to reach more with your message, how to profit more from your content. Let's do it, shall we? So I have seven points. The seven essential podcast strategies for 2017. Now will these be good in 2018, 2019? Sure. But these are in response to what's happening in the industry which want to look at where you want to go. So let's hit these one by one again. You head out to podcastreport.com 111 you can grab a PDF of this. It is meant it is designed. There are no ads on it, there's no nothing. Just put it up on your wall and, and focus to that and play with that this year. And by the way, a little sneak peek to what's coming at the end of this. I've got a contest where one of you will get a consulting session with me, where we will go over your seven essential podcast strategies and we'll all learn from it. So how about that? Not just strategy, but a chance to win a strategy session. Number one, you need a monetization strategy. You need a monetization strategy. You need to know how the show is going to make money, even if the show doesn't make you money. If you're in this for the business. And again, the whole purpose of the show, to reach more with your message and to profit more from your content. If you don't have a monetization strategy, if you don't know how your podcast is going to make you money, you will drop it before it ever has the chance to do so. So many people get into podcasting because it's popular, because it's cool. Many of you right now are listening to this because you're getting into it because it's popular, because it's cool. But the fact of the matter is this, if you don't know what the end game is, if you don't know how this is going to benefit you or your company, you got to figure it out. So step number one, what is your monetization strategy? Now, past episodes I've chatted about monetization strategies. Look up the 4M episode, look up a number of other options. But before you record another thing, know how your show is going to make you money. And I will give you a clue for 99% of you, 99% of you, you listening to me right now? The chances are good that your show is not going to make you money by getting advertisers. So how is it going to generate revenue for you? Number one, you need a monetization plan strategy. Number two, distribution. The podcasting world is bigger than itunes. Is your distribution strategy the same? I now have more non Apple devices in my house than I have Apple devices in my house. And I've got a lot of Apple devices in my house. My home is just got a lot of devices this Christmas. Amazon's going crazy with the whole Alexa line and the Kindle line and all these different products that are out there. They're doing a really good job. We have a lot of smart TVs, we have a lot of smart devices. We've got streaming things. We've got all these things. By the way, I just triggered my little device, so she'll probably chat. It's like, okay, she didn't go there good. We've got a lot of devices that are hooked up. Our cars are hooked up, our phones are hooked up. Not everybody has an iPhone. And we have distribution platforms outside of itunes. Now, iTunes is still 80%, and iTunes is still where you want to focus. But the fact of the matter is the podcasting world is bigger than itunes. Is your distribution strategy the same? How does someone who listens to podcasts but doesn't do it through an iOS device, how are they going to hear you? What is your plan for it? Now, obviously, there's some simple ones, get on Stitch or get on tunein. But what's the larger play here? What are you thinking about? Where are you going? You need a distribution strategy. The next thing you need, and this is bigger than distribution, you need a multicasting strategy. Just because they don't listen to podcasts doesn't mean that they shouldn't get your content. Now, this is huge. Good chunk of the country loves podcasts. A good chunk of the country is sucking up podcasts as fast as they can. I mean, they're inventing the most popular podcast products. Clients are ones that will play it at speeds, you know, one and a half times, two times, so you can consume podcasts faster. There's an audience out there that loves podcasts, but there's also an audience that doesn't know yet, doesn't realize they can consume them yet, doesn't have the opportunity yet, doesn't have the knowledge yet. And sure, maybe part of it is teach them, maybe part of it is show them how to consume a podcast. But part of it might be how else can they consume your podcast content between here and there? Now, this show, obviously you're a podcaster, so you know podcasting, you know the power of podcasting. But I have a play button at my site and I email people on a regular basis. My weekly Tuesday update list, and we'll talk about emails in a second. My weekly Tuesday update list. I send most every week them to the website to click play because a lot of them aren't podcasters yet. Now, it could be transcripts for them to read. It could be a CD of the month club. It could be visit the website. It could be a preloaded media player. It could be anything. But if your content's good enough to podcast, and it is by the way it's good enough to get to people who don't necessarily know what a podcast is. So what is your multicasting strategy? This next one's going to be a bit of a. Some of you will argue with me on this one, but the next one's list building, quite simply your podcast, no exceptions, is better with a mailing list. Now, I noted at the beginning of this that if you want the PDF graphic of all this, you got to go out to the podcastreport.com 111sign up. That's how I'm building my list. The list that I just chatted about in the last point. How are you building your list? What platform are you building your list on? I'll give you one clue. Moving platforms is really difficult. So don't get a platform because it's free today. Get a platform that is going to take you to where you want to go when you are there. And I'll tell you, those who plan in advance to do incredibly well will do incredibly well much, much, much sooner. So list building your podcast, no exception, is better with a mailing list. Doesn't matter what your profit strategy is, doesn't matter who your audience is, doesn't matter anything. Get a mailing list for your show, the next one. Audience. Building your audience is bigger than your download numbers. What's your plan to fix that? Now I'm not talking. Well, I guess these numbers would work for anyone. Those of you who still are in the belief that my audience is the world. Well, listen to past episodes about defining your audience. But the fact of the matter is, whoever your audience is, your download numbers show that you don't have the entire audience. Now, I have a very specific group of podcasters, those looking to reach more with their message, those looking to profit more with their content. And then I pretty much immediately pooh pooh at the beginning of this. The standard models. So those who think that they're going to podcast their passion and their profits will follow. They've stopped listening to me a long time ago. But podcasters who are serious podcasters, who are real podcasters, who are in this for the long run, you, there are definitely more of you than there are downloads to the show. So how are we going to build the show? Now, you'll notice at the end of this episode, I'm actually doing, for the first time in the history of this show, a little contest that I think will definitely boost audience listenership. But I want you how are you going to build your show? How are you going to Build the audience for your show. Number six, the editorial calendar. When you know what's coming next, your show is better. You need a calendar. You've seen season three. I've been playing more to the industry, I've been talking more about the industry. And we're going to reboot and come January, we're going to take a look at season four and look at different things. But if you know where you're going, your show is better. If you tell your audience where you are going, your audience will expectantly look to you to take them there. Anybody who gets up on a morning of the week and says, oh, I got to get a show out, what am I going to talk about? Those are not the shows that last. The shows that have an editorial calendar, the shows that know what's coming next are the better shows. And you can do exactly that. And then the last one is, what's your partnership strategy? What other podcasters can help you reach your goals? Okay, this is really important. What other podcasters can help you reach your goals? Yes, your audience is bigger than your downloads. Yes, you need to make your podcast available for those who don't listen to podcasts. But part of the process of getting the new audience is somehow teaming strategically with other podcasters who already have your audience, who already have people who listen to podcasts in a way that doesn't compete with each other, but in a way that complements each other. And you can do that, and you need a strategy for that. So again, the seven essential strategies. You got a monetization strategy, a distribution strategy, a multicasting strategy, a list building strategy, an audience building strategy, an editorial calendar strategy, and a partnership strategy. That's what you need. Now what do you do with this? First of all, the podcastreport.com 111 get the PDF, print it off. Number two, you need one sentence for each. One well crafted sentence for each. If I ask you, hey, Frank, what is your monetization strategy? I want you to be able to answer in one question. If I ask you, Linda, what is your distribution strategy? Linda needs to be able to tell me in one sentence. If I go to Francine and I say, francine, what is your audience building strategy? Francine needs to tell me in one sentence. So what I want you to do is I want you to take this PDF, I want you to print it off, I want you to put it on the wall, and then I want you to write down physically one sentence for each. Now here's what we're going to do. That's Fun. Some of you are listening to this show in the future and that's fine. And I love the time shifting aspect of podcasting. Always have. If you head out to podcastreport.com 111 you'll see some comments from the audience. Because what I want to do is I'm going to have a little contest and between now and December 13, 2016, anybody who lists their ideas lists their seven sentences. And I just want seven sentences. I don't want paragraphs, I don't want ideas, I want seven well defined sentences. If you list those in the comments area, the podcastreport.com 111seven sentences for your seven strategies. For each of these seven areas, what I will do is I will pick one of you and we will do a Skype call and we'll spend up to an hour going over the seven strategies. What's good, what's bad, what works, what doesn't work. And that will be with my compliments and I will give you a recording of the Skype session that you can use. And what's even more fun is we will use that entire session as an episode of the podcast report and that episode will hopefully get you a new audience, hopefully get you a larger audience. And it should be a lot of fun. So I will pick, honestly, I will pick from the people who post to the podcastreport.com 111 I will pick the strategy that I think almost everyone can learn from. If you're obscure and you've got seven strategies that everyone can learn from, I'm going to grab you. If you're well known. Yes, anybody out there, the big names in podcasting, you are welcome to submit this as well. I think this would be of benefit to all of us. I think we could all learn from each other. Other seven sentences. I will pick the one that I think we can all learn the best from. And I'll tell you, if you build one that we can all learn the best from, it will be one of the better seven sentences out there. So we'll spend up to an hour on Skype making it work, figuring it out. We'll record it, we'll post that in a future episode, we'll give you the promotion, the props that that deserves and we should have a lot of fun there. If you listen to this after December 13, 2016, if you head out to thepodcastreport.com 111, you'll see these seven sentences. I don't know how many are going to do this. I don't know what attention will get, but it should be fun. That's a way to build the audience, way to build a little bit of interaction, way to build some content, way to build some confidence. And if the idea of and by the way, if you head out to my site, an hour Skype session with me is 500 bucks. So you know this is 500 bucks that you're essentially getting. So let's do this. Let's learn from this. Worst thing, worst case is you spend some time writing out your seven sentences in 2017 is awesome. Best case is you write it out. I choose you. We have the hour session and then we take that hour session and we send it out to the world promoting both you and maybe even some commentary there as well. So let's do that again. Thepodcastreport.com 111 just make a comment with your seven sentences. Also at the podcast report, I've got a link to last Week's episode, the 7 Hidden Competitive Advantages of Podcasting. And if you didn't listen to that, you might want to do that because there's some solid content there that might affect your podcast strategies as well. I've got links to the podcast books social media marketing world next year, which is going to be fabulous. Links to the apps on there as well. If you've not yet subscribed the podcast report, maybe you heard about this because of the contest. ThePodcastReport.com iTunes will get you to get this iTunes you can subscribe there the PodcastReport.com Stitcher or the PodcastReport.com TuneIn however it is that you listen to podcasts, I want you to be able to subscribe to the show because it is the automatic coming of the show that does things best for you. Social Obviously, if you got your seven comments, I want you to put them@the podcastreport.com 111 if you want to comment about it, you want to chat about it, you can head out to thepodcastreport.com Twitter or the podcastreport Facebook and that will get you the social places as well. I appreciate you. I know you've come with me this far. 111 episodes. I'm pretty, pretty proud of us and what we've accomplished. Thank you for coming. I cannot wait to read your seven sentences. I think it's going to be a game changer for all of us. So between now and next week, go ahead and post your seven sentences. The podcastreport.com 111 and one of you will get the Skype search session. The recording and the promotion. Between now and next week. We'll chat. Talk to you soon. Bye.