How To Leverage Press Articles For Podcast Promotion With Sara Diehl

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Welcome to Feed. You'd Brand. I'm Tracy Hazard, going solo sort of today because I have a guest, I have a coaching crasher. This is someone who comes into our coaching call and gives us some pieces of wisdom in a very targeted area. And today's area that we're going to talk about is press articles, which are different than press releases. So we're going to define that a little bit. And I am so excited because I have international content expert and business owner Sarah Deal. She's worked with over a thousand startups and businesses throughout her career, including me. Her expertise in content marketing and entrepreneurship creates a trifecta for clients looking to gain exposure and establish their voice and brand. She's based in Columbus, Ohio. High Level Content Creation is a firm focused on all things content creating. She's mother lover of all things outdoors and spends her free time with her dogs, experimenting in the kitchen or lost in a good book. And she likes to read just as much as I do. So. Sarah, welcome. And I mean, we were just saying this before. You've been my ghostwriter for. It's funny, a lot of people won't admit they have a ghostwriter, but I love to because you're so good at it. But I think it's been almost six years that you've been my ghostwriter.

I would have to go back and look at maybe original articles, but it has been. We're going way back to entrepreneur days and yeah, it's been a long time.

Yeah. So when I first started, this is the funny part about it. When I first started writing for Inc. Magazine, which I got from my podcast, so an editor at Inc. Magazine heard me give a speech that I gave because of my podcast and then realized that I had this podcast and she thought it would be a great idea for me to have a column. And so she invited me to write this column. And so I was agonizing because when you agree to a column, you have to agree to a certain number of articles per month. And I was trying to start this business like it was in the early days of us starting this business. And so I was struggling to write it. And so I went to a couple of my writer friends, and they all said, well, I don't write all the articles myself. Like, why don't you have a ghostwriter? And I looked at them, was like, what? Why didn't somebody tell me, like, months ago, as I've been struggling to write these articles myself? And so I asked around, and someone was gracious enough to introduce me to Sarah Diehl. And one of the things that I love is that sometimes, because I did write a couple articles here and there and many in the very beginning of my Ink column, I can go back to them and I'll look at them sometimes, and I'll go, did I write that or did Sarah write that? And that's such a testament to your skill, Sarah.

Thank you. I love that. But, you know, the great thing about ghost writing, if you really zero in, is that you. You can really get to know someone's voice, and then it's your experience, it's your expertise. I'm just learning to mimic it and package it in a way that people really want to see.

And one of the things we're going to touch on is some of the AI tools and other things that people are out there using. But I still find that that piece of that deep understanding to what's valuable about my experience doesn't come across when I just go and say, here, I want to write an article about this. So you and I developed this model where I would give you the recording from my interview, or I'd give you the recording of my thoughts on it when I was recording a topic, and you would get my own stories. So it's not like you had to manufacture these stories out of the air. You have them from me. And that's the beautiful part about taking podcasts and turning them into articles.

It's really just the smartest thing and the next step and kind of why we're talking today, because if you've already put the work in with the episodes, and I can really even hear the fluctuations in. In your voice through an episode, that you're excited, that you're concerned that you're all in, I can pull some really great stuff out of that. So the podcast episodes are just. That's gold.

Well, let's talk about what's going on in the articles. I stopped writing my in column a few years ago because of a kind of a departure in the way that they were editing, and I really didn't love the integrity that they had over there. And I have yet to find a home where I feel comfortable writing. And so we've been exploring this model of my writing an article for many magazines, many different types of press, publicity publications out there. What's going on in that sort of magazine and newspaper and newsletter world?

Well, there are hundreds of millions of people that read online magazines, whether it's Ink or Entrepreneur or TechCrunch or even the really niche publications. But what happened was I think everything got really busy and everyone was kind of saying the same thing. I even read articles by, like, really big heavy hitters. I'm like, one, they didn't write that, and two, it's just regurgitated information. So I think a lot now what I'm seeing is a lot of the publications are tampering that back down. They're getting some stricter regulations. They're definitely looking for organic content. They're looking for original thoughts. And to me, that's a really good pivot because everything just went kind of to chaos for a little bit. And I think that's kind of when you stepped out. I said entrepreneur, but from the Ink column, because it just kind of didn't matter. Things were just getting thrown up. And I know you and I are on the same page. I don't want to just add to the noise. It's got to be valuable. It's got to be solid. So that's kind of what I'm seeing now. And the AI shift, I love playing around with AI tools. It's so much fun for me. I create a lot of content and a lot of people have said to me, I Bet you use ChatGPT a lot, or there's another one notion, like all these different platforms, and I'm like, no, not really. Just because it's not the same and people know it's not the same. So I'm not really even so fearful of that shift. It's fun. It's great to put in your toolkit. But at the end of the day, I think the Internet is just going to keep moving towards organic content. Even in marketing, that's the vibe that I'm getting.

I agree. I think they want thought leaders. And that was why I was originally, you know, asked to write my column. And then they didn't want that anymore. They wanted us to mention Elon Musk and what Steve Jobs would do, and he was already dead. Right. I was like, why should I have to put this in there? It has nothing to do with what some small startup needs to learn and do. Right? And we were really ruining that sort of direction to a very specific audience. So I think there's opportunity out there. And I'm hearing a lot from these publications that they're looking for guest writers, they're looking for articles to be submitted. And so that's the model that you and I have been talking about. How can we create something that really works with the podcaster's original voice and yet works in this model of being able to submit articles to publications that are going to serve the authority of your business? Well, so what have you sort of been exploring over there in this new part of your business?

Authority is a whole. A topic we could talk about forever. But you are like the queen of getting the most out of a piece of content that is just your shtick. Like you are so good at it. So I'm not surprised that when we started talking about this you were like, yes, this is going to be a good thing. I think the publications now are realizing that shift and they are looking for thought leaders. They are looking for people to come in and offer valuable content. Too many people got the easy road for a bit and we're just kind of pushing stuff out and it was getting published and yeah, so many are. And I think you and I did an email and an article series about how everyone isn't Elon Musk and they need actual business principles and steps to move forward so. And really grow their authority. Not by my 12 step program. And you end up at the same place you work as I give you a terrible explanation about how to build a funnel. You know, it's like all of that and I hope it's going away. I do see a lot less of it now. But yeah, so I'm actually really excited about that and I try to ask people like, how would your business be impacted if not a sales pitch where a sales ad was popping up everywhere but but like a positive impactful story or thought or strategy was coming from you. How would that change how people saw you in your industry? And if you're already doing that on your podcast, make the most of it. Turn it into something where you're in front of these 220 million readers and you're in showing up in different places and then obviously everything is keyword rich. Like that is just a rule. It has to be. But that's also like on the back end is contributing to your Google ranking and then you backlink that on your website and then that sounds like all these benefits piled into one. And a lot of it is for work that your podcasters are already doing. They're already putting out that good stuff.

There are any thought leaders and telling stories and giving strategies and lessons and tactics, and that's really where that is missing in so much of the content that's coming out there. It is a lot of regurgitation of the same five principles for SEO, the same five steps for creating a funnel, Right? And they're just doing it over and over again instead of saying, you know what? I think maybe, maybe throwing out your funnel altogether might be the answer today. Like, and here's why, right? It doesn't have to be contrary, but let's explore a thought like that. And so one of the things that we're going to do, actually, is one of the articles Sarah and I are going to work on. She doesn't know this yet. I'm just going to throw this out there, but it was from a conversation that I had. So there's a lot of companies out there who are getting investments and going and doing IPOs and other things like that, and they have a lot of bad and old outdated information out there. And so if you look them up, there was like some lawsuit that was from three years ago that hasn't been wiped away. It's still showing up on the first page of Google. And we have a strategy that we've worked with crisis publicists before on. And I thought, you know what? Now's the time to rediscuss that in a new way for these companies that really need to, like, push these things down and bring out the good information that's current that they're doing. And how do you bring that up to the forefront? And there's a whole strategy we have on that, like, what a great topic. And. And who wouldn't want to bring that up, right? There's tons of investment magazines that might want to bring that up. Or crisis publicists are, like, always reading all the information about what publicists should be doing, right? And maybe this is a new strategy they hadn't considered. So, like, these are some of those things where you think about that, think about that topic, and then because you're not writing a column like I was, you now can think about what the best publication for that message is that's going to resonate, that's going to lead someone to subscribe to your podcast, find your business, and hire you for whatever it is that you sell. But they're doing it through the content that's uniquely suited and relevant to them.

And you know what I think, too, and this is something that's probably great for your specific audience to hear. A lot of times podcasters drop gems of information and it's something they know so well they don't even think it's this big thing. And I've listened to shows before, even years, where I hear something and I've emailed you and said, this is a whole article by itself, like, what about this? Because this is your forte. So I love listening in to those episodes. And when I find something, I always get so excited because I'm like, there it is. That's a good thing.

And I think that that's the idea of. I used to call these spin articles. That's kind of the way I call them. We've called them press articles here because you're putting it into a press publication of some kind. But I call them spin articles because it's taking maybe some concept, some of that, and spinning it into the niche. So if I was discussing concepts about publicizing your podcast, those same things might be the same ideas you might want to do if you were an author publicizing your book. And we write for Breakthrough Author magazine, that is our Juliet Clark publication that Sarah and I are both involved in. And we do that a lot where we'll take the same concept and say, this really applies to authors too. Why don't we use the same advice, but we'll just slant it a little bit different for that audience to make it really relevant, to pull out just the. The gems that are author related. This is something you can do, and it helps to create those niches of audiences without you having to focus specifically on that in your episode when you're trying to serve your community. Right. Like, I need to speak to podcasters predominantly here, so I've gotta be careful that I'm not drafting into all the little niches, but I can do that with an article.

And, you know, there's a lot of overlap. There really is. So a lot of podcasters are authors, a lot of authors are entrepreneurs. There's a lot of overlap in these different industries. And every single business owner is a content creator, whether you're pushing that out or you're hiring that out and having someone come in and help, or you're doing it on your own. So that's always kind of fun. Don't be afraid to, like you said, slant your content a little bit and make it a little more interesting, a little different, because I would say most of the time there's overlap in all of those.

Well, let's talk a little bit about how this process works. And are you out There researching these publications because I'm not sure I know all the publications that publicists might be reading or authors might be reading. Like, how does this work? When you are looking at trying to do this sort of press article seeding out there of my podcast show and my thought leadership.

Sure. So right off the bat, you said to me, I'm definitely interested in going a tech direction. So I have myself and one other researcher just it's very much a customized process right now. And also because it's brand new and I want it to be perfect, I can't help that. But so it looks like this, there's an initial consultation where we talk about if there's a specific direction you want to go or what your goals are with that publication and that piece of content. We spend some time researching and pulling what we think is going to be absolutely the best direction, Shoot that back with some different options. Some people I've noticed already want to be definitely hands off. They're like, no, you decide and that's fine too. We absolutely are capable of that. And then you see a proof, you approve it and it gets pushed out to the publications that you agreed upon. There's a timeline, so we're splitting between. We're noticing about a two week response time. The larger publications actually are a little quicker, which has been surprising to me.

It doesn't surprise me because they're desperate for enough content to feed the machine. So that's really why it doesn't surprise me at all. They're like, we desperately need more to feed the machine.

I love that. Yes, that's absolutely right. I think that's exactly why. And so each time, and then the first publication picks it up, we let you know, obviously links to your content. And one really important thing that I want to share is that a lot of these publications now, they're like, hey, a month after we publish, you can do whatever you want with that. So you own that piece of content. Not only are you linking to where it gets published, but then you can repost it. It can become a blog post. You can, you can do whatever you want with it. You can pull blurbs out of it and turn them into social media posts and all of that. So I think that's a really big point that the other services I've seen that are kind of similar, they're not offering anything like that. So I'm very excited about that. I feel like you should own your content.

Ah, you're speaking my language. Right. And you know that from having listened to me over the years, right. You should own your own authority, you should own your own content. Right? But the other part of it that I think people don't really understand is that by having these cross links, and that's really what it is. Because when you get an authorship, a byline in Inc. Magazine, in TechCrunch, in any of those other publications out there, no matter how big or how small, because even small ones in the right niche can really help you. But when you get a crosslink where they're linking your byline, they usually have a link that links to your main website or to your about page or to your podcast, which they, many of them do. They, they give you one link through and that's in that little brief bio. Make sure you mention your podcast name in the bio, like, don't mess that up. And then you know, when that's linking through to your website, that's cross linking to you. Now if you do the same thing and link back to them now, you the full cross back to them and you link directly into that page where your article is featured. That gives you a tremendous amount of digital authority and perception of authority. Right? So if I come to someone and I see a poll like banner of logos of all the publications you've been in, but none of them are clickable, I go, somebody put out a press release and it made it into Entrepreneur, it made it into Forbes, like there's nothing real there. Like you don't believe it anymore. I do that too, right. It seems suspect. Or if I click on the logo and it goes to ink.com instead of like the article page within it or my column within it, if it doesn't do that, you're not doing that deep level connection job that is actually going to be creating a lot more authority for your site. And so that's really what this is doing for you. It's giving you credibility, authority and true technical digital authority that is required by SEO standards. That's all happening in this process.

And you think about these publications, they've got good SEO, they've got good Google rankings. So if someone goes and Google searches your name, what do you think is going to come up? And I think that's important too because again, it's that perception that you're building.

Yeah. And I always used to set it and so that one month after the article published, I would publish it on my website and then I would have a link back to the exact page. And so I would put that technically in the press section of my site so that people could See that? But it was also in the regular main blog areas. So if someone were searching for the topic, they might find the podcast and that article, and so they would get both at the same time. It was really, really powerful to be able to have both available. Because sometimes people want to read a shorter blog than your podcast episode. Right. They want to read the summary version, and that's the summary version. So it's really nice to have those things go side by side.

I will tell you too. And I remember back because I spent so much time on your website, how clean it was and how simple it was to see what was available or what my options were with each either article or with each podcast episode. And I think that kind of just is also super important. So if you're doing this in any way, you know, make sure that you're making it as easy as you can for anybody that's coming to your website to see, see what they came there to see and to access it. I cannot stress that enough.

I so agree. Yeah, if you're an article reader, you want to read more articles and vice versa. So if you're a podcast listener, you want to listen to more podcasts. Right. So you want to make that very easy for them to search and sort for. And I knew because I had written a column that I knew I had readers in addition to listeners. And so that was one of the ways. And it's also one of the ways we always say, of course, you may have viewers too, so you want to make your YouTube really accessible and easy too. Great point, Sarah. Now what do you think makes it easier to pitch a article to some of these larger publications? What are they looking for in specific?

Okay, so that's actually a great question. I think the most important thing, the most important feedback that I'm hearing, a lot of it is very personal. They'll email you directly and say, hey, this is not with the guidelines, or this is perfect with the guidelines, but we were hoping for this. So they actually do give feedback from time to time, but the most important thing is just actually original content. It's their job to find what's new, because everything is new every day. Especially in technology. We are pivoting constantly. Like everything is just this exponential. So they need to be on trend with that or even ahead of it. They need to be just constantly in that forward thinking space. And that's what they want. That's what's going to get published every time.

Yeah. And podcasters out there, I want you to really think this through. There is A lot of stuff in our catalogs. Right. In our back catalogs, as we call it, that become popular episodes over time that are still getting a lot of listens to that says that you're onto something, that it's relevant today because someone's scanning through, they find your podcast, they scan through these episodes, and they pick these because the topics are resonant to something they want today. When you see that those are ones to turn into articles, those are ones to reposition into the right area for maybe update them and make them more relevant for today. So that is a great strategy as well. Like I was just saying, this crisis publicity thing that we've talked about this before, it's probably like in our first 100 episodes. I think Nazanin found it and dropped it into our chat and our zoom call here. And so it's old to us, but it's new to these startups that are struggling with this, these companies that are about to ipo. It's new to them. And so making sure you're not thinking just, it has to be something that I'm talking about today. But it's taking something you've talked about consistently and saying, how do I make it relevant for today?

And that's really, to my point of a lot of times we don't even realize what we know and how valuable it is because we live in that space every day. And that's a great point. I asked every client that I've worked with on these publication articles so far, what is your most downloaded episode? What is the one? And a lot of times they're a little surprised, too.

Well, and we have to be careful because in our download numbers, Tom and I both know here with our potatoes.

Experience.

Experience. That's usually the first five episodes are the most downloaded overall. And that's just because somebody finds your show and is testing it out. So unless they exceed all the others at an extreme rate. Right. Then you probably want to pick something that's farther into your catalog. Unless they just were so fundamental and foundational, then you should definitely include them.

That's a really good point. Yeah.

Yeah. I always like to say, what was the most popular episode in the last 50? Because that would be within the last year. And that might be a better way to ask for it for somebody who's got a big catalog.

I might have to pivot that. I like that. That's a good transition.

Yeah. And the other thing that we find is that if you've got a good guest who's doing a really good job of sharing it and you feature them in an article. Now you've given them a little bit more than they would have gotten otherwise. And that's the strategy you and I were using with Authority magazine. I would do the interview and we would write their advice in a more generalized way, but we'd say, hey, this came from this interview. If you'd like to hear more, here it is. And Authority magazine allowed us to put the YouTube video of the interview. They didn't allow us to put the podcast in, but they allowed us to put the YouTube video of it. And so you get the full length interview, and that was driving viewers and subscribers to the YouTube channel. So anytime you can find a publication that does that and you can work that in a quote from someone, now you're giving them an additional benefit from being on your show and you're giving the ability for them to then promote your article for you, which is always helpful too. Right?

Yeah, I was going to say. Yeah. If you feature them again and you already know they're good at sharing, they're definitely gonna, gonna do a little cross promotion. And it's so much more beneficial than just you constantly sharing your own stuff. Like we've seen that over and over again.

Absolutely.

What would you like everyone to know about the world of publishing articles? Of what? What? Is there any piece of advice for how we could approach this in a, in a more effective way to get more publicity and power out of that one?

Don't be overly salesy. Like, that's just number one rule right off the bat. So whatever you're thinking about presenting, it's okay to speak to your expertise, but it's not okay to drown them in sales talk. And they won't get published anyway. They'll get kicked back immediately. The other thing is, take a look at the publication that you're thinking about. If you've got something in mind and you think you want to kind of push it out, definitely one look at their guidelines first. But go to their homepage and just see what's getting published, see what styles of writing they're picking up. A lot of publications are different in the sense that they want 600 words and they want it to be short, shorthand, sweet, to the point. And then there are publications that want 1200 and they really want you to lay it out and build this whole story of what you're trying to say. So look at the publication, you know, do a little research first. So you set yourself up for success.

Yeah, definitely. Well, all of you know that in the blog post for this episode, you'll be able to find connection to Sarah and her program. We don't usually do a lot of sailing on this show, but I think this is such a valuable non podcasting like it's what you do after to make get more from your podcast that you might want to just reach out with Sarah because I don't have to know if the publication is going to take 1200 words or not. I can just say sarah, pitch to this publication and she'll figure that out for me. It's the fabulous part of having a partner in that model. So Sarah, thank you so much for being with us Today here on FeatureBrand and I am so glad we've had this ongoing partnership over the years. It has been so wonderful to work with you and I really hope others reach out and take a note about the power that this has created in my platform and model that with you as well.

Yeah, well thank you Tracy, as always. It's so much fun. Everything we work on together.

Wonderful. So we're going to knock off the live stream, but we'll be back next week with another episode. Talk to you soon.

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