What Is The Most Exciting - Non iTunes - Option For Podcast Discovery? The Podcast Report Episode #6

What is the most exciting non itunes option for podcast discovery these days? It's the podcast report, episode number six at thepodcastreport.com six show hotline is 503-897-1290. It's the podcast report with Paul Colligan. And here's Paul. All right, the big idea for today's episode we've been chatting about, talking about, dreaming about, pontificating about the need for podcast discovery engines since day one. Not just search engines, but ways to find the podcast episodes. I mean, I create this show, the world needs to know about it. How is it going to happen? How are they going to discover me now? There's some exciting options, but honestly, none of them are going to deliver the audience. That's your job. The big thought for today and go ahead and tweet this if you'd like to. Podcast consumption options are more exciting than ever, but they have to know that my show exists before that matters. Podcast consumption options are more exciting than ever, but they have to know that my show exists before this matters. All right. Hey, this is Paul Colligan, the author of the business podcasting bible, the number one top selling podcast strategies. This is the podcast and report. I've been in the industry since the beginning. I love it. Have since day one. Two audiences for the show, the podcaster and those thinking about getting into podcasting. The podcast report is not a massive play, not looking for distribution across any of the major radio stations or anything, but it's a deep one. Those of us who believe in podcasts and those of us who want to play the podcasting game and want to play it well, you are my audience. Welcome. This is going to become a conversation. This is going to become as much about you as it is about me. I hope that you can be part of it. So the question why this topic? Okay, whenever I present on podcasting, I've got a slide deck. I've got presentations that I do. And I'll tell you, the one slide that gets them all, the one slide that gets them excited is what I call the card slide. And it's a list of all the car companies that are promising audio integration, Internet based audio integration into the cars. And yes, that's Internet radio, but that's podcasting as well. The amazing thing is between Apple's Play and Tunein's Play and Stitchers Play, it's pretty much every single American car. Next year is going to have an option for us getting podcasts. Now, if you've been in podcasting at all there's this idea of podcast discovery. People are going to find us. And there's this idea, there's this faulty logic jump that just because my car is going to have Tune FM in it, they're going to be able to find me. Now, I'll be honest with you, I was in a Tesla about a month and a half ago. A lot of fun there. Boy, that's a whole nother podcast. And it was easier to find my podcast on tunein than it was to find the radio inside of the Tesla. And so, yes, that opportunity is there. The implications are big. But we got to figure out what the options are, do they matter, and are they really going to give us any help in marketing our podcasts? Now, I've got some ideas here, but I would love this to be a conversation. Please follow up here on the blog via Twitter, whatever you want to do on social. The notes for today, thepodcastreport.com 6 if you want to make some comments there. So, podcast discovery, the idea of podcast discovery, it's really the television of old. You know, I mean, those of you who can remember clickers and you know, you'd turn on the TV to see what was on and you'd look at this show for a couple of minutes and you'd click and then you'd look at this show for a couple of minutes, then you'd click and this show for a little while, that type of thing, until you found something that you'd like. People, you know, ran into things, ran over things, they discovered things. And a lot of us keep thinking that this is what's going to happen to us in the podcasting space. And the model that probably is the best for us is, well, you look at Pandora, you tell Pandora, hey, I like this band and this style of music. And then Pandora plays your 80s obsession. But every once in a while, or Maybe it's my 80s obsession, every once in a while, Pandora will play a band with an 80s style sound and you might give them a thumbs up, you might give them a thumbs down and you, you get and find new bands and Pandora has launch bands, Pandora has sold music, done well, great organization and Stitcher. The best way to describe Stitcher, many of you are listening to this on Stitcher and by the way, if you are listening to this on Stitcher, please give us a thumbs up on Stitcher so we can make this happen. But the idea with Stitcher is, well, you like this kind of content. Give us a thumbs up to know if you want more or less type of thing. So you take a combination of something like Stitcher and everybody's going to go this route. You take a look at the penetration to all the cars. A couple episodes we chatted about T mobile and free data and what that means. But we have to combine that with the realities of the numbers. You know, when I sat in front of the TV and I'm flipping through 32 channels a little bit later, you know, we had the old Bruce Springsteen song, 57 channels and nothing's on. You know, now there are hundreds and hundreds of channels and there's the Internet and there's the web, you know, and podcasts are getting bigger and bigger and there's so many of them. This idea that we're going to stumble across the right podcast, the numbers there are pretty bad. Now we can grab a podcast wherever we want once we know about the podcast. The ability to consume the podcast is greater than it's ever been before. But the numbers, honestly, they just make discoverability a bad strategy. I'm hoping that you're going to create great content that the world is going to find just really is a bad strategy. You know, the most exciting option right now. And I put up a link to asking people what they were most excited by and I'll put a link to that in the show notes and you can see what people said. They were very well all over the place. You know, we had. Well, I love Google and I love Twitter. I'll tell you, nobody, I don't think anybody said stitcher. I can't remember correctly. But the fact of the matter is where they find us is diverse and out there, and it's weird. And as we look to the future, we gotta have a strategy that, yes, they can grab us wherever they want to us. Once they know about us, it's going to be really easy to get us, but the numbers are going to prevent us from stumbling across us. And we've got to have a strategy. I mean, in short, numbers make discoverability a bad strategy. Numbers make discoverability a bad strategy. So the podcast consumption options are far more exciting than ever. But they have to know that my show exists before any of that matters. So what do you do? All right, A keep track of the options. Know what's out there, know which cars you're going to be available in, which platforms you're going to be available in. As video becomes more and more prevalent, consider the video options just because of the availability there. And then again on the numbers game, you know, a video podcast is going to do considerably better. Than an audio podcast. Keep track of the options, know where you can be consumed by. Goodness sakes, don't refer to it. Well, you know my feelings on podcast, and if you don't, my feelings are this. Those who know what a podcast is don't care that you have a podcast. And those who don't know what a podcast is might be confused by the term. So therefore podcasting just does more damage than good. Nothing wrong with the term. Nothing bad about the term. It just gets in the way for, you know, potentially expanding out your audience. And so what do you do? Keep track of the options, but focus on the audience. And here's the thing. The more defined your audience is, the easier they are going to be to find. I'm going to say that again. The more defined your audience is, the easier they are going to be to find. Once you know who your audience is, you know where they hang out, you know what other podcasts they listen to, you know how to get the word out. And if you really have a good market message media strategy to your podcasting, it's not going to be that hard to find your podcasters. And that effort that you once spent, you know, making sure that your bit rates were perfect and that kind of stuff, spend that time working with those people. But Paul, I want to just create content and I want the people to flood to me. You know, I'm not a marketer. I'm not these things. No, you're not. If you're a content producer, you're not a marketer. That's just part of the game. That's just part of what the world is. I recommend a book called the E Myth Revisited. And I'll put a link to that in the show notes, making sure that that's in my. Yes, it's in the show notes. The Myth Revisited, written, you know, dec, decades before podcasting. But what's interesting is it's a look at businesses, It's a look at what happens. And what happens is the pie maker who makes incredible pies at the restaurant, who really, the only thing that it has going for it is the pies. She quits, she leaves. She opens up a pie store thinking, hey, everybody came for my pies. The only reason was my pies. But she doesn't know how to run a restaurant. She's a pie maker. You know, she doesn't know how to run human resources and hire and fire people. She's a pie maker. You know, the business goes under, the quality never changed. But unfortunately, you need everybody. You need the Dreamer, you need the doer and you need the administrator. You need those three things. The E Myth Revisited will help you walk through that. I mean, in short, the answer, the most exciting podcast discovery option is you. The better you understand your audience, the better you understand what it is that you have in front of you, the easier you're going to be able to find them. So, okay, Paul, how are you getting the podcast report notice? What are you doing? Well, here's the deal. A. I know my audience. Podcasters who want to take things to the next level. You know, I'm not looking for people who want to debate what the best microphone is till the cows come home. I'm looking for people who want to reach their audience, see the best revenue, make the best penetration, make the biggest impact, all these things. So I've got that audience. The cool thing is by getting that audience, I know where they hang out, I know where they are, and I'm making interviews and connections with people with my audience. The next two episodes are going to be interviews with makers in this space and key people in this space. I'm going to fold them back into what I'm doing here at the podcast report. It makes sense, it's strategic, and that's what I'm doing now. The cool thing is I know that the podcast report can be listened to everywhere. If you look inside of my marketing and look at what I'm doing, I'm actually promoting this more on Stitcher than I am at itunes. I've got my new and notable and I've done some of the things inside of itunes, but really I'm playing with Stitcher. I just want to begin to understand their algorithm and playing in other places. But that's what I'm doing now. That's what I'm doing. Plenty of room for debate. I'd love your thoughts and ideas. The podcast report six is this episode. Twitter. We're@podcastrpt.com and of course@facebook.com thepodcastreport so if you wanna get a mind map and transcript of this episode, go ahead and send the hashtag ep6ep6 as in episode 6 to 503-897-1290. Feel free to leave a voicemail message there if you'd like. If you're international and you can't text me the hashtag, just leave the voicemail and somebody will make sure that we get you the right transcript. We're still figuring out the flow for this. The technology is interesting, the list is starting to build, and that is A lot of fun. So thank you for joining us there. Oh, a little bit of viewer voicemail and some logistics. Hey, we have Dave Jackson again. Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting. Took a bit of. Yeah, Dave had the following to say about my questions about really, do we really need a website? So take it away, Dave.

Hey, Paul, it's Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting. Wanted to comment on the. Do you need a website? I got two examples of say, yeah, you do. And that is mp3.com and MySpace.com mp3.com was sued and sold and sued and sold to where it's nothing. And MySpace, well, Justin Timberlake might be bringing sexy back, but he's not bringing back MySpace very well. So if you are using those as your website, you're kind of dead in the water. So just for the control issue and the fact that it only cost you eight bucks a month, I say, hey, definitely have a website. And especially if you're going to be selling anything, it's nice to direct people back to your website where they can use your affiliate links, they can buy your products on your website and sign up for your newsletter.

All right, first of all, Dave is a smart guy and you should listen to what he says. However, the question I was trying to raise last week was not a question of strategy, but a question of necessity. You know, there's this idea that you have to have a website, and I'm sorry, you don't. You need to train. You need to treat your strategies differently than your necessities. If you don't do that, you're going to have yourself be in a pretty bad place. What must you have? And then what is most strategic for you to have? Now, the examples Dave gave of mp3.com and MySpace.com true, both of those are, for all sakes and purposes, dead. But the fact of the matter is, all the entities that I followed on mp3.com, the bands I followed, yeah, I'm still following them. Where? At Amazon, at itunes, at Google Music. None of the bands, I'm at their own website. I am, you know, buying them at itunes. I am following them on Facebook. I am buying tickets to their shows at Eventbrite. Sorry about that noise there. So the MP3 idea, yeah, it died. And the bands did okay. The MySpace idea, you know, yes, that died, but they did okay. Now, Dave said a couple things. He said, well, you know, you gotta have a website for them to join your list. Well, I have an option for you guys to join my list without ever Visiting my website. By the way, it's working the whole hashtag thing. And again, I'll give it to you. Send EP6 to 503-897-1290. I'm beginning to build my list and I'm not sending people to my website. And as I spoke spoke to earlier, you know a lot of options for them to consume my podcast and less and less of them have a website option built into them. You know, when they're in the car, they don't have. Well, at least they shouldn't be viewing my website. They might have access, but that's a whole other story. The ability to text in a request a lot easier. So I'm building my list without a site. And then in terms of selling more stuff, which is viable, definitely we want to sell stuff. Good job, Dave. But a couple thoughts for you. A the more clicks, the less likely they are to buy. I mean that's a proven e commerce reality. The more time, the more clicks between me and the sale, the less chance that you are going to buy. That's the tenants of direct marketing. That's the tenants of everything we're doing. And you know, if you send somebody to your site to send them somewhere else to buy, you're going to lose people along the way. And here's the thing. Yes, you can use your website to sell your stuff or you can sell your stuff everywhere. My stuff is being sold at hundreds of different online book sites. Every single digital book platform has my books. Every single online printed book platform has my books. You know, I'm available everywhere, wherever you like to shop the best I've probably there and you got a chance of picking up myself and I'll tell you, I mean I'd much rather pick up somebody's stuff at Amazon or at itunes or Barnes and Noble or at Apple or one of these places than I would be to pick them up at their own website. So yeah, you got to be careful. Now again, I'm not saying that a website is bad. I'm just saying it's not necessarily a necessity and you want to plan your strategies accordingly. But thank you, Dave, A smart guy. I understand where you're coming from. I think we're going to revisit this. I think we're just going to look at this a little bit differently. Use a couple of different words because words are important. Hey, you've been listening to the podcast report@the podcastreport.com this is/six as an episode six. You can find us at itunes, Stitcher, pocket casts tunein we're not at SoundCloud yet because, well, gosh darn it. Yeah, I haven't quite figured out what they are and what role they play and I'd love some thoughts there. We did just join Overcast. That's the new podcast client by Marco. We'll be taking a look at that one in future episodes. That one is fascinating. However, you pick me up through any of these networks or any others, please do subscribe. When you subscribe, you get updated. When we release the episodes, as soon as new stuff comes, you get the update and that's powerful. You don't have to find me. You don't have to dig me up. I will just come to you. Of course, listening is your job or your decision. We try to make each episode descriptive so you can know what it is that we're chatting about. Go from there. But I would love a subscribe next episode. I've got a couple of interviews lined up. I don't want to spoil them here, but. Oh, you know, next week we're going to be chatting with Gary Leland about the big podcast movement event in Dallas coming up next month and we're going to take a look at the bigger picture there. I don't know if I'll sell any more tickets to it or anything like that, but what's going on here with podcast movement is really, really interesting. I want to chat about that. The second guest. All right, we're not going to spoil that one. So the blog is up. Comment away. Thepodcastreport.com 6 for this episode. I've got some links in there in the show notes. There's an article in Mashable about connected cars. That's really interesting place to the connectivity thing. We're chatting about a couple of the online conversations I will have links to. One of the things that came up in the online conversation was podcastplaces.com a directory of directories, if you will. I will have a link to that as well as a link to the E Myth revisited. If you have not examined. If you're serious about the business business of podcasting and you haven't read Gerber's work, I'm going to have a link to that as well. Would love a retune. I would love a review at itunes if you got one in you. The podcastreport.com iTunes will take you right there. My email is the podcastreportoutlook.com I would love your comments on this one. This one's an important topic, one that we have to take deep. Thank you so much. This is Paul Culligan. This is the podcast report, episode six. Talk to you next week. Bye.