Strategic Podcast Listing

You.

Okay, everyone, so we're going to talk strategic podcast listing. I call it a listing because, you know, itunes has a listing for you. It's a listing page. It's where you can be found. So I just want to talk about that. But it's also a listing because the data that's in it also gets you served up on Google and, and get you in places. So that listing needs to have searchable, valuable answers that are very relevant, right? Relevant to an audience that you want coming to you. It has to have influence plus authority. So Seth Godin said, marketing is a contest for people's attention. And I don't like that model. I don't like the idea that this is a contest. I like that it is a method, a method of being seen, heard and found. Because then it doesn't sound like I have to beat out somebody else. It sounds like I have a system, I have a method. I can make this happen. And we know you can, because we've done it again and again. We have over 220 podcasters on our network and we've helped them launch. So we know that this works. It works at being seen, heard and found, and it works in this noisy digital world, because remember, who's controlling that digital authority, right? It's the bots, right? It's the search engine optimization bots. That's what's controlling how you're found. Now, if you think, well, that doesn't apply because podcasting is not Google, well, that's where you're wrong. Because any listing, any search directory, when I type into itunes, I'm searching, right? And so when I'm searching for something, there's an algorithm involved in what gets served up to me. So there is a bot there, too. So anytime there's an artificial intelligence, a search engine, there is a bot somewhere, an algorithm somewhere that has a formula for how to be served up. So that's what we want to do, is make sure that you can be found. Here's a good example. There are 20,000 LA wedding planners. There might be 20,000 or more life coaches, right? So in your niche, there's going to be a lot. So why don't you Google your niche and see for yourself what's coming up here, how many thousand, and try to do it in your area just because if you do it globally, you'll be devastated because there'll be too many results. There's 33 million Google results when you type in LA wedding planners, that's how many results there are, not just the number of wedding planners, but the number of results for posts, right? So all of that is there and that is a huge amount. How do you compete in that world? And so strategically structuring a show that works within this is the model by which we're going to go right now. So in this case, we called it the Wedding Confessional. So it was like, rather than compete and push out, like, here's what we know about LA's weddings and end up with all the do it yourself brides, it was attracting the do it yourself brides to the show. The ones who are on the fence about hiring a wedding planner and then dishing about what went wrong at an event. And the idea was that if these things went wrong, maybe you could avoid them. And so the other thing about this model of it is that being a good wedding planner requires that you have relationships. You have relationships with DJs and florists and people like that. And so you want to make sure that you're touching base with them, you're getting to know them, maybe you're providing them a little bit of publicity and through this podcast. So by just having a guesting strategy and having them dish and tell stories about events that they've done, she was able to create an environment which she was relationship building and providing service to her audience and drawing people into her no nonsense personality so that she could be found, she could rise above for just the right millennial audience she was focusing on. So how can you be relevant? Interestingly enough, one in five Google searches is brand new.

Google's never seen it before. 20% of what's typed into Google every single day is brand new. People haven't seen it.

Sometimes it's typos. I'll admit that it's absolutely that, sometimes it's new terms that have been coined. But the interesting part is that Google can't afford to serve up nothing. They can't afford to serve up a null result. So they have to serve up something and they have to find who they think has the highest authority to serve that up. Because where search happens and when search happens matters to Google. And so they want to make sure that they're providing an answer that they believe is the most relevant. So when you're pushing out digital content every single day on back pain or on chiropractic like Dr. Kevin Peka, and something new happens, or somebody types something new in there, he's likely to be the one served up if it's relevant within his content, because Google trusts him. So that's something we want to tap into the opportunity to be seen in this 20%. So digital authority matters here. And if we're creating new relevant content every single week, we're creating something that is at the forefront of people's minds. We're likely to be ahead of Google on this. We actually already know what's going to happen. So this is why our authority site for our authority blogs and all of that in Google for the 3D printing business came through so quickly. Because a lot of what was happening in 3D printing is new. But because we were producing shows every single day, we were way on the cutting edge of that. So Google was rewarding us with the answers, so rewarding us with the search results. And so people would click through and come to us and find out did we actually have the answer that they were looking for. And likely we did. So what's one of the best ways that you can really develop a strategic podcast listing? Right? Where can you get this idea of getting this perfect listing and getting it just right for yourself? The first thing you need to do is listen. You need to listen to your competitors, you need to listen to other podcasts, watch videos, do all of those things. So I want you to go to itunes, I want you to go to itunes and I want you to search. They want you to use terms your target audience, your ideal audience, your ideal clients, whoever it is that you're out there and you want to reach so badly that you want to be an influencer over, you want to start typing that into Google, what words would they use? And start typing that in and seeing what serves up. You might get episode ideas, you might get podcasts, the actual whole shows. You want to check out both. You want to see what's going on. Then you also want to go to YouTube. And the reason you want to go to YouTube is because Google owns YouTube. So you want to go to YouTube and make sure that you're finding out what's going on on video. Because not everyone is a podcast listener. Some of us prefer video, some of us prefer to read. So that's why we're checking all of those methods. So we also want to check Amazon because if you prefer to read and you're looking for more long tail information than just a quick blog, the next place that you will go is you will go to Amazon and you'll go look for Kindle books and so want to be in all of those places to go ahead and look at those and find out what information is out there, find out what's going on and remember that books are easier. So if you've got books in your niche and it's a lot, and you feel like, wow, that's overwhelming. There's a lot of how to podcast books. Remember that A lot of those are outdated. A lot of them are old. A lot of them got pushed out really at the beginning. And so much from podcasting has changed now. And so when you're producing so like one on the top podcast, learn how to stop babbling and start podcasting like a Pro. That's from December 2, 2015. How relevant is that today? And you know, so. And even 2017, I mean, things we do in 2019, the algorithm on itunes has changed. Itunes split its app. Like, there's so much that's different now. These books are likely old, and so people have to start questioning, and that's when they'll start googling things. So that's, you know, the next area that you might want to look. So you want to check through all those things. You want to start to listen to, read to view, and start just checking them out. You don't need to read the whole book. You can just read the table of contents and start just finding out what's out there in your niche. Where can you be? And I want you to start writing a list down for yourself, writing the titles, writing some notes about them, what they're covering. Just start making some notes about them, making sure you bookmark everything. I like to screenshot, too. Sometimes that's where these came from. So you want to do both things, and that's going to help you build the right name and subtitle. I say name and subtitle because most people don't ever talk about it. They talk about naming your show. But there's this amazing subtitle category which if you've done right, if you're not cramming keywords in it, which can get you delisted, but if you're doing it right, you can use the subtitle to expand the algorithm results that show you up. So let's talk about picking that perfect name, because this is where a lot of people get hung up. They've been in permanent potential. They've been thinking about starting a podcast, but they just can't figure out the name. And this is a lot of why people default to naming the show after themselves, because they can't think of anything. Or they name it after their program or their website name, which can be a serious mistake. Because at the end of the day, it's not about you. Remember that it's about the audience. And if I don't know you, why am I going to pick the Tracy show, right? Why would somebody pick that when they don't know me at all? They are interested in what their problems are, what their issues are. They're rooted in their pain or they're looking for inspiration and aspiration. So they're in those places of which they want something. That's why they're there searching for podcasts. That's why they're there searching on Google, it's why they're searching in Amazon, it's why they're searching in all those places. They're looking to solve their problem or inspire themselves to do more or be more. So it's all about them at that point and not about. You want to make sure that we keep that outward focus. Because if I'm going to give something a shot, I want to make sure I'm just not being sold to that. I'm just not being preached to. I want to make sure that I'm going to get something in it for me and then I'll go give it a chance. Now, when you're really popular and you've got a million downloads and all of those things, you obviously have an audience who's saying, that guy is who I want. So let's go name it after you then. That's a perfectly fine place to be if you already have this giant community. But it better be big because we're finding still there's a significant difference even with the bigger entrepreneurs who are coming out there. We had two podcasts kind of in a similar entrepreneurial personal development world launched almost at the same time. And one of them had a bigger audience, named the show after himself and the other one didn't. And they launched at the exact same time. And they both were kind of competing in the top new and noteworthy over the course of the month. And one was getting a lot more downloads at first and getting a lot more of his audience to come to him. But over time, the other one has overtaken it after that initial launch push was over. Because what's happening is that that other show is not about this guy. So once you run into get that exposed out to your entire audience, then you've run the course. Now not enough people are choosing it every single day on itunes. So we want you to be in that place where you can be chosen. So make this not about you. The other thing is I want a name that's action oriented or is witty, whimsical or controversial. Right. And I'd say action. It just needs to be activated. You might need an ING or an LY or something like that where you're really giving it some. Either a community feel like this is a place or that this is a thing that I can accomplish something by doing this. So we want it to really be something where people feel that they're going to make progress by being. By listening to you, or they're going to find comfort. They're going to find a community. So all of those things are goals with our names. And that sounds like a lot. It sounds like a lot of burden, a lot of effort, a lot of thought that has to go into it, and it is. So what I really want you to do is make sure to brainstorm and brainstorm with your community, because you already do have some. So brainstorm with them. Share them out with your Facebook groups, not your friends and family. Be really clear on that. I want this to be people who have actually bought from you or people who actually follow you because you're an expert in what you do. Make sure you're not doing this with your mom. They love you, and they want everything to be the Tracy Show. Right? They want it to be all about you, and they want you to be a celebrity. The other thing is that do not totally rely on advice from branding experts, from PR agents, or any of those things. They're going to tell you to name the show after you. And I'm telling you right now, the numbers don't support that, and they are not experts in podcasting. So it just. The numbers behind the launches do not support naming it after you. Now, on the other side of that, when you're asking your audience, they're going to tell you what they want. They're going to tell you what they feel. So there's another thing that I'm going to talk about in a little bit. It's when we work on the description, it might also yield the name for us. So that's another place I usually like to move into writing the description portion of it because sometimes the name can come out of that. But right now, I want to touch on just a couple other things that go into this listing that is so critical to making sure that it matches what you want. So knowing your audience is a critical piece to this. Knowing who you want to attract, knowing where they're going to listen. Are they going to put it on in the car while they're driving kids to carpooling to soccer? Are they going to be listening at the gym? Are they listening in private, at their desks, because they want to quit their job so desperately. Like, where is it that they're listening? Because this is where the rating matters. If I'm going to listen to it in my car with my two young girls with who are 10 and 5, I better have a not explicit show. I better have a show that's not gonna have swear words in it. And this rating matters because you are broadcasting. So we have to comply with the FCC rules. So marking your show explicit or not explicit is extremely important here. And it's something required by itunes and all of the directories, Spotify, Iheart, all of them, they have to comply with this. And so making sure they're smart. It's not that an explicit rating excludes you. It's like, oh, you're in our movie and you're not going to make enough money because you're in our movie. It's not like that at all. If your audience is adult, is truly adult, the subject matter is truly adult, just mark it explicit and know that those types of people that you're attracting are not likely to be listening with their kids around anyway. So that's okay. But just be clear about this. It's extremely important that you're clear about this. So the rating is essential. Make sure you've thought that through. And you know, you can't always count your guests to not swear. It happens. Just know that if you've marked your show clean, you must delete out or beep out any swears that happen on the other side. So it's your responsibility to do that. If you sneak it in, you can get yourself shut down. So be very careful about that. Make sure that you're marking that. Copyright and tags. You know, copyright and tags are a huge issue because we forget to mark them, but they actually tags are a search capability. Copyright helps us identify our businesses ourselves, our full names. It's a second place for us to have a name in there, so why skip it? And also we want to make sure that nobody steals our content. So we want to make sure to mark it and keep our copyrights up to date. The tags are something that's unique to itunes, right? It's very unique to itunes. There are also tags that are used sometimes on YouTube as well. So we mark these tags and we put these tags in because it's a way to search. It's a categorical way that podcasts are served up. So you need to make sure that you've got them right. What I like to do is go check out my competitors and see what tags they're using. Because you can usually see in there where they are and you're just like, let's just use those. Because I want to show up in the same place that they are. So that's actually a little easier to accomplish. But that thing name, subtitle, rating, copyright and tag helps to round out your entire listing. And just a word about subtitles, because I want to really be clear about that. We don't usually put our subtitles on our cover art. Our subtitles are the COVID art name or the show name is first there's a dash or there's a colon and then there's the subtitle. And we do that for a reason, is that the subtitle might be more descriptive about what you're getting. So the new trust economy, I don't have it after it because it's not what we were about. But if I wanted to, I could put exploring blockchain and cryptocurrency for today's businesses. I could use something like that. Now, I've worked in blockchain and cryptocurrency, which are also keywords, and I could be shown up for that. So that's where we want to get into. Having a good subtitle helps us round out some of the words where the title might be witty and it doesn't quite say the keyword that we want to focus in. And that's always an issue. Another word about names that I want to say is that make sure that your name is easily spelled. And we're going to talk about this in Coverheart. It needs to be short and sweet. But conscious, that's the worst one. People can't spell that. Transformation's really long. We hear a lot of those. So thinking about those names, how can I use words to create that? Conscious, maybe woke, maybe with transformation, maybe it's transformed. Now I'm using the active version of that word. Right. So thinking about how you might do that, just start to brainstorm the words around that to make sure that you're getting one that is easy to spell. Because unlike Google, which serves it up and said, did you mean to spell conscious this way? Itunes does not so critically important to make sure that you're spelling it correctly and that it's easy to spell.