Being a business owner is hard, and knowing that you actually have to market your business to keep it running might leave you feeling frustrated and overwhelmed. You’re not alone! And if you chose podcasting as your primary content marketing platform, there are a lot of logistics to juggle.
Many podcasters lack consistency because they don’t want to (or don’t have time to) do the work to publish regularly. It feels hard, and they would rather spend time working with those clients.
I don’t blame you! But there are ways to make podcasting a little bit easier. And on this episode, I’m sharing some of my top tips for simplifying the podcast hosting process so you can go back to serving your listeners and your clients with ease.
Mentioned In This Episode
- Podcasting 101 Q&A Calls – join the waiting list
- Episode 31: The 4 Most Important Parts of Your Content Strategy
- Episode 48: 3 Actions You Need for a Successful Content Strategy
- Episode 78: Plan Out Your Content for 2021…Sort Of
- Episode 177: Leveraging Other People’s Audiences & Putting it All Together
- Episode 181: How to Be a Better Podcast Host
Transcript:
Welcome to episode 185 of the Content Experiment Podcast, a podcast for podcasters that supports the idea that content and marketing are ever-moving targets in any business, and it’s okay if you don’t feel like you’re doing it all right, all of the time. You have permission to experiment with little tweaks and changes in your podcast and other content to find what works for you, what increases value for your audience, and what grows your business. And most importantly, what feels good for you.
Running a business is hard, and I’ve been right there on the struggle bus with you. More times than I’d like to admit. Your podcast is a great way to nurture your audience and grow your authority. But it’s a lot of work too.
So if you’re ready to make your podcast, your primary content marketing tool, feel easier and more streamlined, keep listening. My guests and I will give you actionable tips and tricks that are easy to implement so you can get back to serving your clients and making those sales all while helping you to grow your audience, authority, and business.
And you can do this all while you do business in a way that works for you.
I can help by supporting you through building a content and marketing strategy, taking care of the podcast management for you, or giving you the tools and resources to take this on yourself.
I started this podcast in September 2019 and I honestly didn’t really know what I was doing at the time. It took some time to find my footing and if you’ve been following along for a while you know that we’ve gone through some transitions. I’ve played with release days, how many episodes come out each week, what we talk about here, and more. Of course, we also changed up the branding in early 2021 when I changed the name of my business too.
It’s been a process, and I’d be lying if I said I’ve enjoyed it all. There’s always something that we don’t love about the work we’re doing.
And if we keep doing what we don’t love, it’s going to feel really hard. I’ve talked to so many podcasters about how much they struggle with their show. And everyone has a different thing that feels tough.
A common thread that I hear from podcasters about what they love is the connections and interviews. We live behind our computer screens, so getting to talk to people and have conversations is so much fun. I love that part of podcasting too. (Though if you listened to episode 183 two weeks ago, you know how important it is to do solo episodes too!)
So what is it that feels so hard? And how can you change that?
That’s what we’re talking about on today’s episode!
But first, I want to tell you about two things:
I have a podcast hosting guide that you can download for free that offers you 10 things you can do to be a better podcast host. They’re all easy and actionable and good reminders of how to make your podcast the best it can be. You can grab that at thecontentexperiment.com/guide.
And second, starting in late July 2022, you’ll get 10 back to back solo episodes from me. As of right now, I’m calling this series Podcasting 101. If you’re new to podcasting, wanting to start a podcast, or are looking for ways to uplevel or simplify your podcast production, you’re going to want to listen in.
As part of this series, I’m hosting weekly Q&A calls to answer any questions you have about the process. You can join me by signing up for the waiting list at thecontentexperiment.com/101 (for podcasting 101). Calls will be in the morning, Pacific time, and of course there will be a recording for anyone who can’t make it. There will be a small fee to join these Q&A calls and I’ll have more information about that in early July. But it’s free to get on the list!
Okay, now on to the meat of the episode. Why does podcasting feel SO HARD…RIGHT NOW? And what can you do to fix that? (Aside from pushing the breaks on the podcast because we don’t want you to do that!)
Why your podcast feels so hard
You’re trying to do it all yourself…while also doing all the other things in your business…like working with clients and selling your stuff
Your podcast is a marketing tool, and it’s a long game
You’re likely not going to make money directly from it
Instead, reframe the mindset around your podcast:
It’s a visibility tool
It’s how you get your message out YOUR way
It’s how you network with others (via your guest interviews and the conversations you have with listeners)
It’s how you remain visible to your audience
It’s NOT necessarily a business growth tool because as we talked about in episode 177 (and several others), it’s really hard to get found organically via your podcast unless you have a massive following already
How to get out of doing it all yourself?
Know what you want to outsource and find support in that. Some things you can outsource include:
Guest research and outreach – Can you hire someone to help you find guests and reach out to them? Maybe this is something a VA on your team already and support you with. Maybe you can enlist a teenage kiddo to do some behind the scenes research for you. And don’t forget to do guest follow-up once the episode is ready. It’s easy to have someone on your team email your guests to give them social media graphics and links so they can share too! This is an incredibly important step. I talk about it more on episode 181.
Audio editing – When we do our own audio editing, we can fall into the perfectionist trap where we feel the need to edit out every single um and ah. This takes SO much time. Shoot, I edit my own solo episodes and if I tried to edit out every imperfection I’d never publish an episode. In real life, we say like, um, ah, and we have awkward pauses in our speech. Unless it’s glaringly annoying to others, don’t worry about it so much. Stop trying to edit all your own episodes, especially the guest episodes, and rely on a pro to do it for you. You’ll end up with a better end product for listeners because a professional editor can clean up your files in a way that you probably can’t do yourself. (I have a great editor, Daniel Romeros, who will actually make an appearance on an upcoming episode.)
Social media and email promotion – You love recording the episodes and can get the episodes loaded to your host but rely on the podcast apps to do all the promotion for you. Yes, if people are subscribed to or following your podcast, your new episodes will show up in their podcast app. But what about people who don’t listen to podcasts daily? Or the people who are subscribed to a lot of podcasts? They may miss your episodes. It’s important to let your followers know it’s ready. If creating social media posts and emails about your episodes is a struggle, hiring someone to do that for you will free up your time to work with clients and do the work you love to do.
Show notes – Most business owners I know (not all of them, but a LOT of them) struggle with creating written content. They hate to write, or they just don’t have time to do it. Or maybe they fall in to perfectionism again and want their show notes to be perfect, all the time. First, perfection doesn’t exist. Done is always better than perfect. Second, if your show notes take you longer to create than it doest to actually record your episode, I want you to really think about the return on your time investment. And how much money (or time with loved ones) you’re losing because you’re staring at your computer screen, trying to write your show notes. This, in my opinion, is one of the easiest things to outsource because whoever writes your show notes simply runs off the audio you provide. There’s no need for an extra meeting or more time investment from you.
I probably don’t need to tell you that at The Content Experiment, we can help you with almost all of these outsourcing needs. And the things we don’t do, like audio editing, we have multiple people we can refer you to–and when we support clients with their show notes, social media promotion, and email marketing, we work directly with their editors too, so the client doesn’t have to be the go-between.
Okay, you’re on board with outsourcing or maybe you are already outsourcing. Why else does podcasting feel so hard? Most of it revolves around the time it takes to produce.
You don’t have a plan
Not having a plan for your podcast can make it really difficult to sit down and record the episodes
Do you know why you’re producing your podcast?
Do you know what you want your audience to get out of each episode?
Do you have a way to leverage your podcast as an avenue to grow your email list?
I talk about content strategy in episode 78, 48, 31 and several other episodes and I’ll be talking about it more in some upcoming episodes that are part of that 10-episode series. Be sure to listen in.
I know that creating a plan for your podcast is tough if you have guests on the show because you have to schedule around them and sometimes they don’t show up or have to reschedule. That wreaks havoc on your plan.
But knowing the why behind your podcast, and what you want audience members to get out of each interview and solo episode, and having something to send listeners to for more value…those are all incredibly important pieces of your plan. The promotion and emails and other parts? Those are important too, but start with a plan for each episode
You’re trying for perfection
You’ve heard the saying, “done is better than perfect.”
Well, I’m kind of a perfectionist and I still believe done is better than perfect.
What’s funny is that I can feel like an episode is really cringeworthy, like the interview didn’t go well or that I sounded preachy or that the information I shared wasn’t anything new…and I do often feel like that…but the feedback I get from listeners tells a different story
We’re our own worst critics. We notice things that others don’t. And I feel like it’s unfortunately human nature that we focus on the negative in what we do.
But what people are listening for in your episodes is the value, not the perfect audio, not the killer interview question, not to make sure there are no ums and ahs in your recording. They’re listening for the value. And unless there’s something really wrong with your audio – like you forgot to plug in your microphone or there are notifications going off in the background or every other word is an um, no one will notice the imperfect thing you’re hyper focused on.
So please stop trying for perfection!
You’re not batching
Batching allows you to knock out a few pieces of content at a time. My free batching guide walks you through one way to do it, but I realize there’s another way to batch that I’m going to explain here for you.
First, in the batching guide, which you can get at thecontentexperiement.com/batchit (all one word), walks you through developing your plan, outlining multiple pieces of content at once, writing/creating/recording it, then editing all the pieces at once, and loading and scheduling everything at once. The idea here is that you work on one stage at a time for multiple pieces of content. I find this puts you in the zone for that type of content creation, making it easier to create it.
Another way to batch is to batch by pillar content piece. So for this episode I’m recording right now, just before recording I outlined and scripted it, and immediately after I’m done recording I’m going to add the intro and outro music, write the social media posts and the email that goes with it…and then send it to my assistant to do the rest. One place where I really fall short, especially for interview episodes, is not creating the intro and outro audio or the show notes and social media immediately after recording. As a result, I waste time having to re-listen to the episodes before I finish up the episode. It would be much more efficient to batch the entire episode and do it all at once.
If you’re a podcaster, you know how much time goes into publishing a regular weekly show. If you found value in what you heard today, I’d be so grateful if you’d hop over to your favorite podcast app and give the podcast a quick rating and review. And, of course, you can also share it on social media. Take a screenshot of the episode on your phone and share it over on Instagram stories. Tag me at thecontentexperiment and I’ll give you a shout out. The more you share, the more we can get the podcast into the hands of more podcasters, just like you.
