Cast A Wider Net: Multi-Channel Marketing With Christian Bacasa Of The Fly Fishing Insider Podcast

Wish you were one of those influencers with raving fans who binge on your every word, consume all your content, buy everything you have to sell, and demand even more. Then stay tuned while Authority magazine columnist and buzzfeed contributor Tracy Hazzard shares strategies, tips and tactics from top videocasters, podcasters, authors and social influencers on creating that bingeable factor. Now let's join Tracy as she explores how to rise above all the digital noise with the Binge Factor.

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Binge Factor. I'm Tracy Hazzard and I am talking to a Fly Fishing Insider. You can't get much more niche than that and I totally love it when someone's really focused in a market that doesn't get as much information via podcasting as they should. It's ideal, right? You could be listening in your ears while you're fly fishing, right? Because you definitely don't want any sound to scare the fish away. Christian Bagassa is just such a cool host. He's the host of Fly Fishing Insider Podcast, a podcast dedicated to teaching you how to catch any species, anywhere, anytime. In addition to fly fishing, Christian has spent over 20 years in sales and marketing within the outdoor and tech industry space. He's also persevered, stave for cancer diagnosis and with plenty of adventures, which brought him to podcasting, but brought him to fly fishing and climbing, skiing and biking. I love that he's taken his passion and his absolute personal need for health and wellness and growth into something that is basically his business right now. He is constantly expanding the podcast, thinking about new ways to market it because he's got this marketing passion and he's also thinking about tying that to sales. So we're going to talk a lot on the show about those kinds of things, about influence, about small and medium sized enterprises and what that looks like, and about expansion into blogs and articles and new things that he's trying. So let's listen to Christian Bacassa, host of the Fly Fishing Insider podcast.

Christian, I love Fly Fishing Insider podcast. I love the title when I type fly fishing in. There's a ton of shows that have pod faded. You have certainly stuck it out well over 300 episodes as we're recording this. Congratulations on such a great show.

Hey, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having me on the show.

So, Fly Fishing Podcast, what made you think that a podcast was worth talking about?

Yeah, it's actually a long, interesting story, but I'll keep it brief. So I was an athlete by nature. I had Accomplished athlete in climbing, ski mountaineering and single speed endurance racing. And actually got. Thirteen years ago, I got diagnosed with cancer and I lost the functionality of my left lung. So I couldn't do all these high end endurance activities. And some friends had always asked me to go fishing. And, you know, it was time now. It was like, yeah, I got some extra time, let's do it. So they took me out because I couldn't do those other activity. I needed to fill that void. So I got really into fly fishing. I started creating this new me, right? I was redeveloping myself in ways and reimagining myself and it was entertaining my time and it was great because it had physical aspects about it for recovery, but then it had all these mental aspects about it. And as I got into it, I realized this is an expensive sport, right? And so my buddies went from let's spend 500 to go up to Montana and go fly fishing to let's go to Belize and spend, you know, $10,000 on gear and a place to stay. And I was like, holy smokes, this is getting expensive. So I literally said, I think I'm going to start a business and try and write all this stuff off.

And that looks like really smart.

Right? Right. They looked at me and laughed And I came back the next year and I had hats and T shirts and I started selling marketing on Instagram. And this was like when Instagram was hockey sticking, et cetera. And it worked out pretty well, but I knew I didn't have a long tail. And in doing that, I started working with a fellow that ran the Fly Fishing Insider podcast. He had actually started, he was out of Canada and he was kind of burning out like a lot of podcasters do. He burn out and said, you know, to me one day, I don't know, my wife's kind of getting on me, I'm not making enough money with this and it's eating up all my time and yada, yada. Yeah, well, unfortunately, through my divorce, I'd gained a lot. Through my cancer, I had taken on a divorce and gained a lot of time. And I said, why don't I just buy you out? And so I did. I bought them fair price. And then I had an idea of how to monetize the business. Having a background in software sales and technology, et cetera, I really had a pension for saying, okay, if I want this thing to last, I need to monetize it. But it was also used to advertise my other media business I started on Instagram. So I use those kind of two channels. And then ultimately it did. It went through fruition and it's been going good ever since. Yeah, we're growing like weeds over here and really appreciate it, so.

Well, I'm a. So I had. The reason your guest appearance caught my eye and I said, oh, I absolutely have to interview him is because my dad went through this period of fly fishing experimentation. So he bought this house when I graduated high school. And they bought this house up in upstate New York and had this tiny little pond in the backyard. And he had a really high, intense job. And his idea was that he could stand at the top of the hill and fly fish down into this pond. Like, this is his big idea. And I was like, I don't even think they're fish in this pond. But the neighbors assured him that they stocked it. There were, like, four houses that, like, each shared the pond and they. And they paid fees to stock it. But I'm telling you, it was, like, tiny. It was really like a pond. A puddle. Yeah, it was. It was so crazy. He was determined to learn to fly fish from the top of the hill downwards into it. Because you couldn't, like, stand around the pond. It wasn't possible. You had to, like, be up a hill. And so this is where he got in his head that you would fly fish. And it was a disaster. There was too much equipment. Like, there were too many things. And my mother was furious with them. But he was just trying to, like, get some Zen time. And I was like, why would you choose this? This is crazy. So anyway, I had to hear what was this podcast really like? And what are the people who really are out there fly fishing and doing this in a real lake, in a real river, not a pond, doing. So that's what caught my eye. And I just love that you have covered so much territory with your podcast.

Yeah, we're worldwide when it comes to distribution. Followers all over the world. In fact, I just had an interview this morning with a fellow from Western Australia, Perth. So, yeah, we cover quite a bit. And what's interesting is we are a niche podcast, right? So we're focused on fly fishing. And you think, oh, fly fishing is really niche. But I'm unique in my podcast in that my goal is really to enable an angler to catch any species and anytime, anywhere. But if you look at most fly fishing podcasts, they're typically focused around trout, or they're focused around bass, or they're focused around salt water. And I really try to cover the gamut of It. And the reason I do that is something I learned as a child. I was a huge fan of Bruce Lee, you know, as a kid, running around, you know, I mean, that was my thing, scaring the crap out of my dad. But what I loved about Bruce Lee is he grew up through a style called Wing Chun. And Wing Chun is a very deep Chinese form of kung fu. And it's succinct, it has lots of rules. It's like fighting with blinders on, right? In many ways. And Bruce Lee said, enough with the blinders. And he got rid of them. And he said, I'm going to study all the styles, and when I'm done with that, I'm going to take the best that I like and know from each one. I'm going to create my own style. And that's Jute Kondo. And that's how he created his own style, and that's how he really created his own style as an entertainer as well and an educator as well, is that he was so revered as such a great fighter because he took from all the various styles and made his own. And. And now you're seeing that more and more. So, I mean, I use the example of the ultimate fighting game. When that first started, everybody went in and it was announced, this is their sect, this is what they do. And they would go in and you would see them fight those styles. And now the best fighters, they know all the styles or they know multiple styles, and they're really kind of honing in on the best of each one and making their best of it. So it's really interesting to do that.

Well, I think it's important when you're doing a niche podcast especially, but in kind of diving into any niche, that it's really hard to sustain your ability to keep it going, as your predecessor found out. Right. It's really hard to sustain that if you are not continually learning and curious. And that's not driving you. So I hear that in your show. I can. I think that's the major binge factors of your show is the fact that your curiosity to learn a new area of the world and what it's like there and to meet someone new and what their experiences and what drove them to fly fishing like that in and of itself, is what is driving me to listen to the next episode. The next episode. But it's got to be what's driving you, too.

Yeah, it is. In fly fishing, the Persona of the angler is often very similar in nature, meaning a lot of fly anglers are natural Problem solvers. It's probably like your father. He was probably a natural problem solver. That's why he was so good as an executive. But that also provided him solace as well. Right. It might sound like work to solve problems, but for some of us, that's solace. That is an opportunity for us to relax and really feel comfort in our own selves. And. And fly fishing is very much like that. And then fly fishing has its own other sex. And that is. My dad taught me, my uncle taught me, my buddy's dad taught me, my friends took me out. Like, they're all probably pretty common. The one I interviewed today, guy from Australia, very much like me. He's like, I don't know, I'm just naturally curious. When I get into something, I just want to, like, dive in, dive in, dive in. And that's how I am from all these sports. I didn't really know much about fly fishing, but got it. It was like, okay, this is me. This is what I want to learn. Every book I could read, every website I could go to, every podcast I could listen to, et cetera, et cetera. And you're just thriving on that information. And I think the glorious thing about it is the more you know, the more you realize you don't know. That's right.

So there's always something else out there.

That's right. There's always a continuation. It's a never ending fight. You've maybe seen some of the social things. And there's one social thing always reminds me is the guy kind of starts to make this piece and he says, you know, the one thing that's great about fishing is once you think you understand why they're eating, you realize you have no idea why they're eating because you can't replicate it. And it is like that. Like it wasn't. It's not called catching, it's called fishing. Right.

Yeah.

If it was easy and we really understood it, it'd be called catching. And there's very few that can do that. A real regular basis across all species, you know, anytime, anywhere. So that's where I'm trying to drive.

And I think there's a lot of similarities between that and podcasting in general. Right. Because the success is a little bit elusive in podcasting. And I'm sure you realize that as soon as you took over the show and realized that there is somewhat of difficulties. It doesn't follow all the same models that every marketing method has followed before.

Yeah, it's a little bit different. You really have to think of it for multi channels, but become diversified just like you would in your financial portfolio. Right. You really think of your business as more of a financial portfolio. Where do I have revenues coming in from different various locations? How am I growing? Is it an omnichannel approach? How can I leverage this? And then I think a lot of it is networking and building relationships. That comes a long ways in this business. I mean, because in most businesses it's like that. But in this business in particular, I think there's a level of intimacy in podcasting that is very different from others that I participated in. I mentioned before I sold software for a long time and I think you get on this business intimacy relationship there, but here it's not only a business intimacy, but it's also a very personal aspect. Because these activities, even if you're talking to a business owner of a fly fishing organization, it's so personal to them. It's such a personal experience. You really get to step into their life and stand in their shoes and you can often relate to it. And that's where I think the big differences come from.

Yeah, there's somewhat of a learning curve for many, many people who think, oh, it's just going to be like radio and they come out of this broadcasting background, but it's really a lot more like digital marketing. And so you already have that knowledge. What do you think you've applied most from your digital marketing background and from that sort of viewpoint of software that you've applied to podcasting that has been successful for you?

Yeah, there's a couple. One I think that's paramount is scalability. As you start to build your podcast and your different shows, you're always thinking of scalability. So how can I take this and scale it to the next level? And those next levels can be all kinds of things. Maybe how can I correlate it to a product or an offering that I'm going to have? How can I correlate it to another avenue of the podcast that I can drive towards? And more content? How can I take that one piece of content and turn it into 10 different pieces of content? How can I maintain that omnichannel approach? So I think that's one of them. I think the other one that is unique about this business and really took from the software was follow up and really being like a salesperson, per se. Right. And that's okay. I talked to this person. How do I follow up with them? How can I help them and how can they help me? And I talk to My podcasters all the time about, look, you're coming on the podcast. They have an audience, I have an audience. And I'm like, what can I do to help you? What can I do? Okay, you have sponsors. Well, let's plug your sponsors. I don't need to get paid by those guys up front because I know if I'm doing those things for that other person, I'm generating that network and generating that opportunity for them. They're going to drive me into opportunity. So I've fallen into other opportunities from podcasters or guests, et cetera, that have said, oh, you know what, Christian was great to work with. He really understands this. He has a platform, too, that he can. We can leverage, et cetera, et cetera. And we start to work together in more of a business monetary standpoint from that. That end. But it's just like any content creator, right? As a content creator, we often get really held up by the element of, well, if I give my best stuff away, nobody's want to buy my product, right? And it's really just the opposite. If you give your best stuff away, you draw in the audience to understand what your real value is. And then they start to go, okay, how do I get more of their product? Now I'm willing to pay for it because I have some trust in this person and understand that they really are the expert or have the expertise that I need. And that's what it comes down to. We're problem solvers. Every individual out there is a problem solver from a work standpoint. That's what we do, and that's what.

Listeners are looking for, right? They're looking for answers. That's what they're out there searching for, right?

You might be called an engineer, you might be called an executive, might be called a sales rep or service consultant, whatever it is, you are solving a problem. You're just solving a problem in your lane, right? But the most valuable ones can solve the problem in their lane, but they can direct you to who the problem solver is in those other lanes. And if you can accomplish that, that is a huge advantage. Huge advantage.

It really is. And, you know, we talked before we started recording here a little bit about some of the various ways that you repurpose your content. And one of them is that you actually write an article that goes on somebody else's site. So it goes on their site and directs back, obviously to the podcast. But it's really also very useful and kind of a summary recap and takeaways from their interview with you. And. Or a profile, I would assume, because sometimes their websites probably don't have as much to do with fly fishing, and it may be a new aspect of somebody. So that, I think, is a really interesting way. And it's. Most people don't do it. They're much more eager to keep those articles to themselves and keep them on their own website. What made you think that that was going to be such a good strategy.

For you this year? I was really new to blogging, and I saw blogging as an opportunity to really grow the show and add other different monetization aspects, et cetera, and reach a different audience. Because podcasting people like to listen. They're held captive. They listen in the car, et cetera. But what you don't see from podcasters, it's very difficult as a listener to listen to a show and actually take an action to a purchase. I have to either write it down or have a mental note, et cetera, to go back and visit that, right? So we know from all the data that podcasters have a higher propensity to actually buy products or podcast listeners. However, we also know that the barriers to entry in buying are a little higher. So how do I make some of those transitions? How do I bring some of those listeners into the writing and vice versa? How do I bring some of those readers into the listening? And that's where I started to draw the consumption from a blog. All right, now that I have a blog in place, you start to learn all the, well, how do I get distribution? How do I really share this? Where do I go? How do I draw new contacts? And so what I started to say was, look, I have this wonderful piece of information in a podcast. It's an interview. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to create a summary of the interview. What's the summary going to do? The summary is going to recap the show. It's going to provide enough to make you interested. And then I'm going to have an embed player in there. Now, they can listen to the show. If they're a reader, I might get them listening to the show and subscribing and following. If they're a listener, I might mention the blog on the podcast and have them go and, you know, read the blogs, et cetera. So that's one element. Now I take that summary and then I review my notes from the cell and I say, look, here are two really important topics on the show. I might write about those two different topics, and I'll Write a full article in depth on that, that I'm really trying to provide advanced knowledge on that. So it provides additional information and value to the customer. I write those. And then a lot of times what I'll do is I'll say, hey, look, I know this person. They were on my podcast. They have a following and their following is obviously dedicated to them. So if I add an article to their website and provide them with an article and have them backlink to me, those people might say, ha, I follow this person. They see value in Christian and his podcast. Perhaps I should start listening to that. They start to listen to that and then I go through my recapture process there. And that's really kind of how it works. It's a big networking tool. That's it.

I love that you're tapped into the blogging tool. I happened to be a blogger first, so when I started my first podcast, which was very niche and 3D printing, we were blogging into podcasting. So it was a little bit different. So we figured out early on that the blogging had actually way more power than the podcast did in terms of driving future traffic. So that's really great. I'm really glad you've added that aspect to it. But I think it's really an interesting idea though to. I call them seed articles. That's what I call the ones when you take, as you know, when you write an article from your podcast, it's not the same as a summary. And so you write an article and it has a point to it that is going to help that other site or drive the readers from that other place or the influence that's coming from over there. But you're seeding for new listeners, right? You're seeding to grow new listeners. That's why I call it that. And so its point is to be a just publicity for the podcast. That's its point. Its point is to say, oh, I want somebody to know there's this podcast that's out there. That's it. You're not selling them anything. You're not trying to give them, you're not trying to make sales points in your article. It's none of that. It's just simply there's a podcast out there and here's some great information that you probably never heard before.

Yeah, and one way I like to think about articles is every time I create an article, I'm creating a business. It's going somewhere, it's going to live and be its own single one page website business. And so what do I want to accomplish with that. And usually one, maybe two things I'm gaming to accomplish with it. That's it. Any more than that, it's overuse or it's too much for the consumer. So I wanted to take one action and that's what it really comes down to. And then some of the other ways I share things, excuse me, that are way easier to do. I for example, work with a friend of mine, Trent. Trent owns another blog called Fly Life Media. It's a fly fishing.

Ah, so you've got two of you. I love it.

A blog and stuff. And so now what we do is we say, hey, you know what, I wrote an article on, let's say how to choose fly lines. He writes an article on how to choose fly lines. And at the end of my article, instead of referring to just something within my website, I'll refer to him and I'll say, hey, Trent over at Fly Life Media has additional information. In fact, he pulled together six great YouTube videos on how to choose a fly line. You should go check that out. Yes, I'm driving those people from my site. But guess what I did. I provided them with a ton of information and guess what? I probably got them to subscribe to his page. And because again, same like I said, I valued it. They're going, Christian values it. I should probably value it, right? So they start to follow him. Well, what happens then in some of his articles? At the end of his articles he's going to say, well yeah, Christian over at the Fly Fishing Insider did this. You should go check that out. And so there's this reciprocating approach, right to us where we keep trading our subscribers and growing together. And if you start to look at business as less competitive oriented and more cooperative oriented, there's typically so much business out there, there's enough for everybody.

Oh, and it's so true. And there's a higher power to that. We're seeing that a lot more on YouTube right now. We're seeing that sort of, if you're crossing between channels and we've actually been testing out for about four months now some cross channel model for seeing how it can work. And it works just as well in YouTube because Google owns YouTube and it's used to this kind of collaboration and encourages this kind of collaboration in blogging. So I think that there's synergy going on everywhere on that. So I'm so glad you tapped into that and have discovered that. What are some of the other ways that you said you've got like 10 different ways that you repurpose. What are some other things that you do when you basically repurpose an episode?

Yeah, I think from a repurposing standpoint, I do a couple things, utilize my transcripts for summaries, things like that. I create another thing which is I think what I would describe as different products for my different consumers. So not all consumers are the same. And what I used to do is only produce an hour, hour and 15 minute show. I then found from my consumers that they really prefer more around 45 minutes to an hour. So I reduced my show. But then I found where are they listening? Well, they're primary listening in the car. And there's two ways that I listen in the car. There's I'm getting in the car, I'm doing my hour drive to work or whatever it is in the morning and I'm going to listen to a full show and I might put it on, you know, 1.5 times speed or something like that, blast through it and I love it. But then there's the I'm just running down the street to the grocery store, but I want to listen to a quick episode. So I started integrated smaller episodes and there were two things that I did on that. One was I shortened the episodes only two to six minutes long, probably max 10 minutes. And it's a tip, very succinct. So what I want from my standpoint is what I call snackable content for the listener. They can just quickly grab it and get a lot of information out of it very rapidly and it's really succinct. Okay. The other thing I always want is can they take the tip and replicate it at home. So I do this in two manners. One, I have my tip episodes, two to six minutes. And then on my main episodes I introduce at the start of the show, at the end of the show, we're going to have a tip. So they want to listen through the entirety of the show and get to the tip at the end of the show. And that tip is always unique because it's provided by the person that I'm interviewing. The next aspect that I really looked at was, okay, I'm a podcaster, I'm getting worn out. It's very time consuming producing a podcast. How can I reduce that? Well, the first thing that I thought was I'm not going to do an interview, I'm going to do it on my own. So when I do an interview, I have to email the find the person, I have to email them, I have to email back and forth I have to then re explain how that they create their schedule, even though I sent them a cheat sheet with FAQs, et cetera, et cetera. Then they get scheduled. Then I have to respond to them, yes, you did schedule, and you scheduled three weeks out. So they come back and they say, hey, when did I schedule? I got to remind them their date. I have all my reminders go out. Then they know show me, and then I reschedule them. Right. And it takes a lot.

I want to say to all of you that this happens more in your particular niche and those kinds of niches where the people are not used to the guests that you have are not used to getting asked on podcasts regularly. So it's a little bit harder to like, corral them.

It is. And I've gone through and like I said, I created a FAQ that is absolutely fantastic, answers your major questions, it has a scheduling link in it, and all of that stuff is automated, so I get far, far less of that kind of combat. But you do always have things that come up and people cancel and et cetera, et cetera. So I said, instead, let's do a tip episode. And what I can do is I can write down 52 tips. That's one tip every week for the entire year. And in two days, I can record all 52 tips. Because I'm sitting in front of the computer, I have my tip topic. Maybe I take a note or two and then I sit down. I go, okay, let's record one. Record, record, record. I get four or five done. Sometimes I. A lot of times what I do is I record one or two. I go change my shirt, maybe change my hat, and record another so it doesn't look like I'm recording them all at once.

Yeah, record them out of order so you can mix up your clothes in there. That's what I always used to do.

Too, but it works really well because I can jack generate all this content. Etc. Now, again, it's a two to six minute episode, but I can still create an article from that. I can still create players from that. The other types of articles that I create are what I call supplementary articles. And that is okay. Now I have a topic that I like. So I wrote an article, I wrote a summary on the show. I picked two topics out of it, I wrote two articles on them. I now take one of those articles and then I go out to the web and I say, who else has resources on this? I highlight their resources embedded into my website, YouTube plays, et cetera, et cetera keep them on the website and they watch there. And then I revert them back to other articles and start that cycle over again. So how do I keep them internally? How do I recycle them? And then if I push them out, how do I put them out to organizations that are going to then try to send them back to me as well? That's it.

Well, and I think it's underestimated how important it is when you get to where your level is, where you've got 300 shows or more, you get to this level where you do need to push people through your entire catalog. And so you've got to kind of create that relationship going on between the articles. So if you really enjoyed this interview, you're going to love this one or you're going to want this tip and that tip. And it's something I learned really early on from working on writing a column for Inc. Magazine. We used to have to link to three other articles. And the first paragraph and a half, like, that was like the rules.

It was like so many rules.

You had to have three links to an article, and it had to be within the Inc.com system, so it had to be some. And so when you were first starting out, you didn't have enough of your own articles to do that with, so you had to cross. So you had to go find out, and you go read someone else's articles to learn about them. And so you had to collaborate or it wouldn't work. And then as you got up to hundreds, you could keep it all within your own stuff.

That's a fantastic point. And you think about things like Google. Let's think about the Google algorithm, right? They follow that mentality, right? So the Google algorithm says, look, we don't want any photos above the fold of the page. So what that means is you want your articles to start with a paragraph, and it has to be a couple sentences before you have your first image. The algorithm looks for that. Now, what's really interesting is you look in that first paragraph and what does Google say they want? They want relevant synopsis of your article in that first paragraph so that when the reader reads it, they say, this is what the article is about. This is the value I'm going to gain for. And here is some of the information. And then it drops into the article in more detail. If you can meet those two things. Most of your SEO with Google is actually pretty much done right there.

Yeah, I would say the only other caveat to that is a header image doesn't count. As an image of a whole. Right. Like that. Just so I don't want anyone to get confused with that. But if you're using the header image system in your blog template, you won't go wrong. That's okay. That's allowed. Think of it like that's supposed to encourage people to click on the title. So that's why that header image is there. But you're absolutely right. Like, we have done 50,000 blogs for our clients over the years, and this is exactly the formula. There's a great title. That title is really important. There's a summary. And that's not a telling you everything that's said in the article in the rest of the podcast. It's giving you enough. It's a briefing, giving you enough to say, why should I read it? Why should I listen? Then we always put the player. Because we want you to listen. Right. Or the video, if that's what you have next. Then we go into the rest of it. And the only other thing that we do is you want to make sure you have your H1 H2 tags. And then so that you only have one H1 tag, which is your title. And then everything else, you have separations like chapters, people that Google looks for that. If you do those things, anything else you do in there that's maybe not perfect. Don't worry about it. It's not going to change the results for you.

It's minuscule in nature.

Yeah.

It's the 80, 20.

They're minor. Yeah. They have 1 2% change in the number of organic keywords you're going to get. And that's not enough to worry about in an early stage. It's too much work. Right.

I like to think of it as. I used to work with a director of CIA at a software company, and he always used to talk about his briefings for the President. And that's. That's kind of how I think of my articles. And I go, look, if I was a director of a CIA or FBI and I walked into the Oval Office, I. I had to provide a briefing. And that briefing better be so succinct and so brief and so accurate and.

Valuable to the impactful. Because you want them to take an action. Right, Right.

That they're going to take an action. And what's that action going to be? That's off my list. I don't need to deal with that today. Move on or. That's important. I want to read that. If you can accomplish that, you can get away with quite a bit in your Blog writing now, before I move on. And I forget you had mentioned I have a ton of podcasts or I have a ton of articles, etc. And then you talked before about repurposing. That's a huge element. You should be looking back in your catalog of items in repurposing those. Okay, I'm going to take my catalog, I might add a little tidbit, and I'm going to repurpose that as a new article. Back in 2001, I wrote this article. It was really about this, FYI. I want you to read through this because there are a number of changes that have occurred. You create a new article that has changes that occurred, things that have stayed and why they have stayed, new advice or information that you've added from your own repertoire, from guests, etc. And go from there. But that's a really simple way to repurpose information and go. And sometimes that can be as easy as, like, social sharing, where you say, hey, look, if you haven't heard this article or this podcast from 2001, it's a great show, go listen to it. And in fact, I just posted a picture from a podcast and somebody commented, hey, I can't find this show. Where is it? And it was like, oh, it's right here. And it's like, yeah, great, I just had another listen with that show. And you don't know how many came out of that. So it works really well.

It's, I think, shocking to a lot of podcasters when they really look at their numbers, and most don't analyze or look at their numbers. But when you do to see that about on average, 60% of your listens are going to be in your, what we call the back catalog. So not the most current month's episodes, anything from a prior month, you're gonna. 60% of your listens are someone who's gone back, found your current episode, and then went back and listened to some of the others. So that's high and it's great mining to update them. And so I'm, I'm hearing that you might be analyzing some of the data and some of the background information. What do you look at?

Yeah, so I do, I look at and analyze my information as it goes to my listings and things. I think it's really important now because of the iPhone iOS updates where Apple said, look, if you're subscribed to a podcast, you know, it used to be that they would, it would save down the podcast to your. Or the episodes that you missed.

It would download them to your device.

And then you would come back and you'd say, do you want to listen and. Or do you want to keep these? And you'd say, yeah, or keep following. Yeah. And it would. It would catalog all those. Well, now it stops doing that at a certain point, and then it leaves a blank, and you say, yeah, it just picks up where it is that day, not where it left off. So a big part to podcasting is, you know, maintaining those listens. So we all saw probably a good 40% drop in subscription or not subscription, but listens from that. So your ability to go back into your catalog and reshare that, reintroduces that. And what we want to do is go back to that same scenario I spoke about before is where can I approach them from these different positions? And if I can approach them from those different positions, and then I get those listens, et cetera, because it's that omnichannel approach again. When it comes to analytics, usually what I do is I look at, okay, individual shows. Most of my listens are within the first few days, and then the first month, and then after that first month, it tails off, and you're like, almost a flat line at that point. And so where do I have the most chance to optimize? And it's really those two different categories. So I focus on two categories. How do I get the most out of my listings right out of the gate? So how do I market and advertise that ahead of the launch and during the launch in that prime period, and the next is okay, now, after a certain period of time, how do I create another. That's like a mini relaunch. Right. And try to get that hockey stick again. And you can do that endlessly. It doesn't have to happen once and you're done. It could be endless opportunity to do that. So I really try to put things onto a schedule like, okay, monthly. What am I trying to relaunch? Relaunch, relaunch, relaunch.

That's wonderful that you're really looking at all of that. And I love that you're also applying that to your blog side as well, because that has tremendous power. We talked a little bit before we started recording here about the fact that you've been starting to do dynamic ads, some other things. What are some of the more successful ways you found to monetize the show and the ancillary businesses you have around the show or those products that you have around the show?

Right, right. And, you know, for me, as a podcaster, A lot of time. For a long time, I was working a regular job and then I had a podcast on the side. And I started out by selling individual advertisements. So I would go to somebody who was interested in advertising on channel and I would sell them a package. And the package I had built in more of a la carte scenario where it was, you can advertise on the podcast. Oh, we can do an email listing for you, and we can do social. You know, it's really those three elements, or you could just do one of them and I would sell them individually. Then the other thing I started to focus on was reminding them that podcasting is very difficult to track attribution to sale. So we're not really trying to drive sale through the podcast for you. What we're really trying to drive is brand recognition and understanding so that we can help you build your user base and help you build your brand recognition. And it's a longer play. So if you think you're going to advertise on a podcast one or two times and that's it, you know what? Go. Go hang up your coat somewhere else, because this is not the place for you. It really isn't. And you're wasting your money and I don't want to take your money. Okay. The difficulty that I found in my niche is I'm working with a lot of anglers or small businesses that are in angling, and they started in angling and went to business and weren't really business people, or they're business people, but they're retail business people and they maybe don't understand digital marketing and things like that. So trying to explain to someone attribution is like trying to teach them a different language. It's so foreign. It's uncomprehensible in 10 discussions, let alone a hundred. Right. So it gets really difficult. And what I started to find was customers that were. They just weren't as happy as I wanted them to be because it was like, yeah, I'm not sure if I want to go again. And I'm like, yeah, it's probably working these. And how is this.

It's so long tail for the mediac they need in their businesses. It's hard.

It's very difficult. So I moved away from selling ads because of that. And what I did was two things. I instead said, you know what? I'm gonna start doing dynamic syndicate ads, and dynamic syndicate ads I can have inserted in the business. I don't have to do all that legwork. I don't always have to Be selling. Right. And I can throw them into the business. I can insert them in different places, are a lot easier to manage. Yeah. Make a little bit less money on that, et cetera, A lot less money on that. But then if I create these other channels like blogs, etc, I can monetize those even easier. So I can put ads on my blogs. I can have all kinds of different things, click through buying scenarios, et cetera, et cetera.

And see, this is where you're headed to that Omni Channel focus that you're looking at. Like, it's like, where are all these pieces? And then when all the monetizations add up, we're getting to the critical mass we need.

Yeah. And so a lot of that is like what you would call affiliate sales as well. So I do affiliate sales, things like that. But really what I try to do as a podcaster is I try to be a trusted advisor. Right. What is this value that I'm bringing? And how can I have my customers, my listeners, trust me? And the way that I have them trust is I'm really honest, I'm very open. I don't bs And I just provide good value. And that good value is information or information seekers. Remember I said we're problem solvers. They all have problems. What am I helping them solve? And so when I look at every podcast in its creation, I do three things. I say, look, we're going to validate the person we're talking to. We're going to talk about a specific area of interest that they're an expert in or they have a true interest in, because they're going to come off much better. And then third is I'm going to provide a value add tip at the end. So they're getting really two different value adds out of that. One is this area of interest that we're drawing interest in, so it's entertaining them. And then the next is I'm walking away with a succinct message that what I tell my speakers is I want a tip that they can replicate at home, something they can repeat. Okay. So let's give them that tip. And that's it.

That's wonderful. Well, I am so glad, Christian, that you have taken over and transformed fly fishing Insider podcast. It's fantastic. It solves its own problems in the niche because I'm sure there's a. You know, as I can see from having searched on, that, there's a lot of people who give up quickly. So there's a glut of a lack of Information. Right. There's just a big gap that you have filled beautifully. But what's next for you?

Well, I'm an entrepreneur at heart. I found out a few years ago that my youngest daughter has slight dyslexia. And when they started describing the things she was going through, I started looking around like, oh, I think that's me. So I have some of that too, which is actually a sign of entrepreneur. It's creativity, and it keeps your brain moving and being active, and I just love that. And so I've done a few things. I've started another podcast. It's a business podcast called Transformation. It's called Transcontinental Minds. And then I work with a few businesses that I do consulting for. One is called Rebrand Guru. So anybody that needs anything related to their digital presence, websites, SEOs, iPhone, apps, connecting all of those different pillars to CRMs and ERPs, et cetera, et cetera.

Lots of problem solving there.

Yeah, we do all of that advisement, and it's very affordable. And that was what I ran into as a podcast, was I didn't have a lot of expense. So we're really good with working with podcasts and small businesses and large businesses to say, hey, look, this is our minimal budget that we need to do in. What are we doing with that budget? That buzzing isn't to spend the budget. The budget is to utilize the budget to monetize my business. If you are not monetizing your business and driving revenue, you are not coming back to me with another payment. So if I don't look at it that way, I'm not successful. So our goal is really to help you monetize your business. So that's one. And then I also started an agency for affiliate sales. Sales. So if you're a business and you want to start performing affiliate sales, we can actually, as an agency, advise you on that. We have partnerships with different affiliate agencies. So which agency might be best for you, given your product fit your Persona of your customer, et cetera. But then we can help manage that as well, which means we can help you align with the correct affiliates to push your product to get you off the ground in that heavy lift so that down the line, you can start to manage that on your own. And we do it through all kinds of ways, whether it's upfront payments and revenue shares, et cetera. So, yeah, feel free to contact me.

We will have all that information in the blog post for this episode. And episodes are no longer@the Bingefactor.com although you can Link through to them. But they are@podcasters united.org because we donated our podcast to a nonprofit that is focused on growing podcasters and telling great stories like Christians, where we've got 300 plus episodes. How do we all achieve that? That is our ultimate goal here at Podcasters United, is to unite to find success as podcasters. So, Christian, thank you so much for bringing Fly Fishing Insider podcast into our ecosystem of podcasts. And thank you for sharing all of your wonderful insights into how to make it successful.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I really had a great time and appreciate it so much. You guys enjoy yourselves, keep going healthy on your podcast and grow your shows. Don't hesitate to reach out. Always glad to help them on LinkedIn. Christian Bacassa B A C A SA.

I had such fun talking to Christian. I mean, I have these memories of my dad, fly fishing and other things like that going on when we were kids. So, I mean, I understand. I'm going to call it the sport, right? And the Zen of it, right? And I think that his podcast really brings a lot of that in. But there are such diversity in the fly fishing community, right? There's gonna be readers and video watchers and listeners. And that is why having a multicast strategy is so critically important. And I really love that he's thinking about that. He's thinking about how can I expand into blogging? What are some practices? How is this gonna work for us? And thinking about his podcast as an omnichannel and not as. As just a podcast, that is really a strategy for success. I also think that for him to look at this as experimentation, right? As you're going to try some things, and sometimes they're going to work for you, and sometimes they're not going to work for you, and sometimes they're going to really lie. They're really going to take off. I think that's a really good mindset to go into your podcast. The idea that you can rebrand, right? You can change things, you can adjust them, you can add a blog, you can add a video. You can add whatever you need. As you're going through this, because you've got problems to solve in your business. You might need some more sales, you might need marketing leads, you might need things that your podcast needs to do for you today that you didn't need when you started it. When Christian started his podcast, he needed fly fishing. It was an essential part of his health and wellness journey. And when he then shifted into, I love this, this is really great for me. This is fun. This is exciting. I want to do more with this. That's when he shifted into being more business, more marketing, more other things. And now he can add those layers on to his podcast. So I hope you're going to go listen. How fun is it that I love my day job here, right? I get to go try all different kinds of podcasts. This is a really cool one. It's so different if you've never been fly fishing before. This is really fun. Take a listen to about why people adopt this sport. It's a really cool model and Christian's a great interviewer in that process and has great discussions about how everything works. So go listen to what his model is and check out Fly Fishing Insider podcast. And stay tuned for another Binge Factor episode for another niche that we're going to bring to you next week. Thanks everyone for listening. I'm Tracy Hazzard here on the Binge Factor.

You've been listening to the Binge Factor Podcast. For more information on podcasting and videocasting success tips and tactics, please go to thebingefactor.com and be sure to listen to our other show for podcasters called Feed you'd brand. If you'd like to be interviewed on this show as well as featured in Tracy's column, please go to thebingefactor.com guest and apply.