Ep 50: How to Use Data to Grow Your Podcast – Podcast Marketing Series Pt 3

[00:00:00] Marketing Your Podcast: Deep Dive into Greenhouse Jersey’s Business Conference

[00:00:00] Verity Sangan: Hello there and welcome back to part three of our Marketing Podcast series here with the Lazy Girls Guides podcasting.
[00:00:08] Verity Sangan: I’m Verity.
[00:00:09] Verity Sangan: I host the Lazy Girls Guides podcasting.
[00:00:11] Verity Sangan: And I talk all things podcasting.
[00:00:13] Verity Sangan: If you are new here, it is great to have you here joining us for this episode.
[00:00:18] Verity Sangan: And if you are returning, then it’s great to see you as well.
[00:00:23] Verity Sangan: This, as I mentioned, is part of our series of marketing Podcasts or Marketing Your podcast.
[00:00:29] Verity Sangan: If you have not watched the first two episodes of this miniseries, then I’d really encourage you to listen to those or go back and watch them if you are on YouTube.
[00:00:38] Verity Sangan: 14 October 2023.
[00:00:40] Verity Sangan: I attended Greenhouse Jersey, which is a marketing and Sales for Entrepreneurs business conference.
[00:00:46] Verity Sangan: I went along not with the viewpoint of wanting to sell and learn how to market and sell services and products, but from the point of view of how can we better market podcast episodes and podcasts as a whole.
[00:01:02] Verity Sangan: So I listened to some absolutely incredible speakers and in the first two episodes of this series, I have reflected on what I learned from listening to talks from Dan Nolton and also from Joe Glover.
[00:01:16] Verity Sangan: Some real, real or just nuggets of information there.
[00:01:19] Verity Sangan: So if you have not watched those episodes, as I said, do go back, watch or listen to them.
[00:01:24] Verity Sangan: And on that note, if you are listening on the podcast audio, or if you are watching on YouTube whatever channel you’re listening on, just make sure that you do hit subscribe so that you are notified as soon as any more episodes for this miniseries come out, or as the Lazy Girls Guide to podcasting episodes come out as a whole.

[00:01:45] Key Takeaways from May James’ Talk

[00:01:45] Verity Sangan: So, jumping into it, the next talk which I attended was by the lovely May James.
[00:01:51] Verity Sangan: If you do not follow May James on Instagram, I highly, highly recommend doing so.
[00:01:56] Verity Sangan: I will have her link for her Instagram handle down in the description box and also the show notes.
[00:02:02] Verity Sangan: She’s also got her own podcast, which is called Honest Business, which is just so amazing.
[00:02:07] Verity Sangan: You come out of it just feeling every single episode like you should have been paying to listen to her talk.
[00:02:13] Verity Sangan: She’s just, oh, she’s so inspiring, she’s so lovely.
[00:02:16] Verity Sangan: I had the privilege of meeting her in real life as well at the conference and she is just such a down to earth normal person, but with an unnatural amount of business knowledge in her head.
[00:02:28] Verity Sangan: It’s absolutely crazy.
[00:02:30] Verity Sangan: So anyway, I went along to her talk and this talk in particular was how to stop the Ick and make more sales in 2024, which probably doesn’t sound like it’s too relational to podcasting, but it really, really was.
[00:02:46] Verity Sangan: Because whilst she was talking about making sales in terms of services or products, mainly services, but also products, I think that there’s a lot that you could take from her talk when it comes to selling.
[00:02:59] Verity Sangan: And when I say selling, I don’t mean selling your podcast, as in like, to make money.
[00:03:02] Verity Sangan: I mean marketing it in terms of getting people to listen to your podcast.
[00:03:07] Verity Sangan: But I think that there was a lot that she said that can easily be translated into marketing your podcast and essentially selling your podcast to get somebody to listen to it, to bring in new listeners and can also be applied from a YouTube point of view.
[00:03:20] Verity Sangan: Here were my key takeaways from May’s Talk in relation to podcasting.
[00:03:26] Verity Sangan: First of all, talking confidently every day about what it is that you do.
[00:03:33] Verity Sangan: So are you actually talking about your podcast?
[00:03:36] Verity Sangan: Do you actually tell people about your podcast?
[00:03:38] Verity Sangan: Or do you only post like once a week when a new episode comes out?
[00:03:42] Verity Sangan: Or do you wait for podcasting to come up in conversation before you kind of mumble something about the fact that you have a podcast, but then you hope that nobody else picks up on that facts?
[00:03:52] Verity Sangan: I’m not saying you have to dive into every conversation, be like, hey, I’m Verity, I’ve got a podcast.
[00:03:56] Verity Sangan: Give me your phone, I’ll find it for you and subscribe you right now.
[00:03:58] Verity Sangan: Not saying you have to do that, but just talking confidently about what it is that you do.
[00:04:03] Verity Sangan: It doesn’t matter that your podcast is or isn’t your full time job, or if it’s just a hobby, whatever it is, talk confidently about the fact that you do podcasting and that you should be proud that you’ve got a podcast.
[00:04:14] Verity Sangan: So many people, when I talk to them, they’re like, oh my God, that’s amazing, I wish I could do that.
[00:04:19] Verity Sangan: And I’m like you can.
[00:04:20] Verity Sangan: You can podcast for free, essentially.
[00:04:23] Verity Sangan: But yeah.
[00:04:24] Verity Sangan: So just talk confidently every day about what it is that you do.
[00:04:27] Verity Sangan: The next one is have conversations, which does link very much into talking confidently, but having those conversations.
[00:04:34] Verity Sangan: So showing, not telling people.
[00:04:37] Verity Sangan: And my takeaway from this particular comment was not just going on social media and telling people how amazing your podcast is, but showing them.
[00:04:46] Verity Sangan: So have those little clips.
[00:04:48] Verity Sangan: They don’t have to be of your face if you don’t want it to be.
[00:04:52] Verity Sangan: It could be that you’ve got audiograms, just like a 32nd clip of why somebody should come and listen to the rest of your episode.
[00:05:01] Verity Sangan: So it’s really showing and not telling, not just saying, I’ve got a new episode out, it’s amazing.
[00:05:05] Verity Sangan: Click on this link.
[00:05:06] Verity Sangan: But instead actually saying, here’s a ten second snippet.
[00:05:11] Verity Sangan: Now you’re interested, I’ve hooked you in.
[00:05:13] Verity Sangan: You want to come and listen to the rest of the episode?

[00:05:16] Importance of Data in Podcasting Strategy

[00:05:16] Verity Sangan: The next thing that she was talking about was tracking activity for data.
[00:05:20] Verity Sangan: As podcasters, I don’t think that a lot of us do this enough.
[00:05:24] Verity Sangan: I am obsessed with my analytics.
[00:05:26] Verity Sangan: It’s a little bit sad sometimes, but tracking activity for data so then you can actually start seeing, well, is there a certain type of episode that is working really well?
[00:05:36] Verity Sangan: Is there a certain type of episode that actually people are just hating and they’re quitting listening to it after like five minutes?
[00:05:43] Verity Sangan: Is there a certain section of my podcast episode that people tend to actually stop listening by that timing.
[00:05:50] Verity Sangan: But having a look at the activity of your podcast data can be so amazing and really interesting to just getting an idea as to who’s listening and why they’re listening and when they’re listening and how they’re listening.
[00:06:04] Verity Sangan: So tracking activity for data is really, really key because, and this comes onto the fourth point, you are going to use that data to inform your strategy.
[00:06:14] Verity Sangan: And one thing that May was talking about is that so often when she talks to businesses, strategies don’t align from one project to the next or from one department to the next.
[00:06:23] Verity Sangan: Now, when I say department, I realize that a lot of us with podcasts, only one of us, maybe two if we do it with somebody else, maybe we’ve got a VA if we’re lucky.
[00:06:32] Verity Sangan: But it’s about having a strategy which is informed by data versus just I’m going to do this, this and this, just because of the hell of it and because so and so on Instagram told me to.
[00:06:41] Verity Sangan: So really using the data to inform the strategy of your podcast.
[00:06:45] Verity Sangan: So I think those four things were really key.
[00:06:49] Verity Sangan: And the actionable tips that I took away from this then was tell someone about your podcast every day.
[00:06:55] Verity Sangan: This is a new thing that I am trying, even if it’s just putting a tweet out because I’m very active on Twitter.
[00:07:01] Verity Sangan: Even if it’s just putting a tweet out and saying they call them posts now, don’t they?
[00:07:05] Verity Sangan: But either way, even if I’m just putting the tweet out to say I’ve got a podcast, I don’t know who’s not in my audience who’s going to see that and is going to be interested.
[00:07:12] Verity Sangan: So I’m telling someone about my podcast every day and I challenge you to do the same.
[00:07:17] Verity Sangan: The next thing is remembering that not everyone is an ideal listener for your podcast.
[00:07:23] Verity Sangan: And that’s okay.
[00:07:24] Verity Sangan: Not everyone will be the ideal listener for your podcast.
[00:07:28] Verity Sangan: If we look at some of the biggest TV shows in history, not everybody was a big fan of those TV shows.
[00:07:37] Verity Sangan: They were still able to go on and be ridiculously successful.
[00:07:42] Verity Sangan: Same with films, same with artists, same with music artists.
[00:07:47] Verity Sangan: Your content is not going to be for everybody and that’s fine.
[00:07:52] Verity Sangan: You do not need to break yourself trying to make everybody a fan of your podcast.
[00:07:58] Verity Sangan: As I said, not everyone is your ideal listener and that’s fine.
[00:08:02] Verity Sangan: Third point is to believe in your podcast.
[00:08:04] Verity Sangan: These aren’t very tangible.
[00:08:05] Verity Sangan: I just realized knowing that not everyone is an ideal listener and believing in your podcast, as I said, they’re not very tangible.
[00:08:12] Verity Sangan: But the mind shift sets are sometimes more important than putting in place things that are overly tangible.
[00:08:19] Verity Sangan: But believing in your podcast, just because only five people listen to it per week doesn’t mean that you should be giving up.
[00:08:28] Verity Sangan: Because actually, if I had five people in my front room listening to me every week, my front room would be pretty full.
[00:08:32] Verity Sangan: It’s really easy to get caught up in metrics and then actually step back from it and think, why does that metric even matter?
[00:08:39] Verity Sangan: Is it because I read in the news that Joe Rogan hit this number of downloads?
[00:08:43] Verity Sangan: Well, why are you comparing yourself to Joe Rogan?
[00:08:45] Verity Sangan: I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be, but what I’m saying is, why are you comparing yourself to the biggest podcaster in the world if you do not have the same setup and you don’t have the same listenership and all the rest of it, it’s just yeah, believe in your podcast.
[00:09:00] Verity Sangan: Also, it’s worth remembering that the vast majority people who you are comparing yourself to in the podcasting world have been going years, most likely years longer than yourself.
[00:09:11] Verity Sangan: So I think that’s really powerful.
[00:09:13] Verity Sangan: And sometimes what I’ve actually done is gone back to Apple podcasts, and I’ve selected a couple of really successful podcasts and I’ve scrolled through and I’ve been like, oh my God, actually, this podcast has been going for years.
[00:09:23] Verity Sangan: It only maybe became popular about a year ago, but there’s like four years worth of content before that.
[00:09:28] Verity Sangan: It’s remembering that podcast really is a long game.
[00:09:31] Verity Sangan: So, yeah, believe in your podcast, basically, and get clear on the value of your podcast.
[00:09:39] Verity Sangan: I spoke about this was it last episode or two episodes ago, but somewhere in this series about marketing your podcast.
[00:09:44] Verity Sangan: I’ve already talked about the value of your podcast, but the fact that it came up more than once during the conference tells me that it is just so important.
[00:09:54] Verity Sangan: Now, obviously, the individual speakers were talking about value in terms of your business, your products, your services, but I think that we can also talk about value in terms of your podcast.
[00:10:05] Verity Sangan: So first of all, what’s the value in terms of?
[00:10:08] Verity Sangan: Is somebody coming to you to be educated, to be entertained, et cetera?
[00:10:12] Verity Sangan: But also, what values does your podcast hold in terms of its content and the content that you’re putting out there and the way that you approach the content that you’re talking about as well?
[00:10:23] Verity Sangan: I think that’s really, really worth a conversation.

[00:10:25] Takeaways from Greenhouse Jersey 2023 by May James

[00:10:25] Verity Sangan: So those were my takeaways from listening to the wonderful May James at Greenhouse Jersey 2023.
[00:10:33] Verity Sangan: If you found this episode useful and you know somebody else in podcasting who you think would also find these tips useful, I would love it if you could share this episode with them.
[00:10:43] Verity Sangan: Share it to your socials as well, in case there’s anybody in your followership who into podcasting as well.
[00:10:51] Verity Sangan: And you also think that they would find these tips useful.
[00:10:54] Verity Sangan: Otherwise, I will see you.
[00:10:56] Verity Sangan: Next Episode.