Podcasting Experiments

Sarah St. John is an entrepreneur, podcaster, author, animal lover, and world traveler. Her goal is to show people how to launch and manage an online business on a budget. https://www.thesarahstjohn.com/about/

Employee to Entrepreneur to Podcaster

Sarah started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2008. She decided that she wanted to work for herself and realized that she liked taking photos of architectural landscapes and animals. She didn't like taking photos of people. But that's where the money was, so was doing portraits and weddings. Over time, she decided to do something online. She tried different things like drop shipping, affiliate, marketing, and all these different things. But it was in the process of trying these different things, she discovered many free or affordable tools and resources that can help you run a business on a budget. 

Sarah got the idea to write a book called FrugalPreneur, where she would talk about the different types of online businesses and how you can run them affordably. She decided to start a short-term podcast to coincide with the book. 

Sarah realized she was getting more traction leverage from the podcast than the book. So she kept doing podcasts and like just basically fell in love with the medium and the connections I was making. 

As she kept podcasting, other people told her that she is pretty good at it. She figured why not get paid to do it for other people? That was the moment Sarah decided to launch a podcast production agency.

Using Giveaways Strategically 

Every month Sarah does a new giveaway on her podcast. Most often, the prize is a book that her audience would enjoy. She uses the same url each month, thesarahstjohn.com/giveaway and uses a free tool called King Sumo for the giveaway.

Sarah shares that it is important to giveaway something that's relevant to your audience. For example, if you were to give away an iPhone, well, everyone is going to want that. But as soon as the giveaway is over, like probably 99% of the people who signed up for the prize are going to drop off. So it really helps to giveaway something that your audience would actually like.  

What Podcast Production Looks Like

A lot of people might want to start a podcast, or they're thinking about starting a podcast. But many people may find it overwhelming due to technology and the post-production. So when Sarah is working with clients, the client records their podcast episode and then sends it to her. Sarah then does the editing, producing and the mixing. 

She then uses a service called Chartable To track podcast statistics. This service gives more information than most other podcast services and then each month she sends a report to each client. 

Why Podcasting Is Important For Business

Podcasting is great because it's a way to get your content out there. And Google transcribes podcasts now. So even if you're searching for something in Google, it's a possibility that a podcast might show up. Of course, every podcast directory is a search engine too. In addition, podcasting has a shareability or viral aspect to it, because people will actually share podcast episodes. 

When you interview guests or being a guest on someone else’s podcast,  you're getting access to that person's audience and you can cross promote. You're reaching people you wouldn't otherwise. Sarah also says that she thinks podcasting is only going to continue to grow and get bigger. In the same way every business needs a...

Joschka Strakerjahn is the founder of the Launch Your Challenge Podcast and has built a successful business using launches. In this episode, he shares how you too can create a challenge. 

COVID-19 changed everything for Joschka. Over the course of a few days, every one of his clients was gone. He went from running a successful business to having no business at all. 

A year or so before Joschka lost his work, he discovered challenges. He saw an ad for  a challenge. Joscka signed up, and soon was fascinated with how fast he turned from a complete stranger into a fan. And then he realized the potential of a challenge for businesses to grow and scale. 

In March of 2020, Joschka decided to do a challenge of his own, using paid ads. In just three weeks, he had 4,500 people sign up. That response completely blew him away, and it sold him on doing challenges as a way to create a business. 

When Joschka started doing his challenge, he did not have a real online presence. He just has a very simple website, but he didn’t use it very much. He got all of his clients through personal connections. But for his challenge, he got all 4,500 people for his challenge through paid ads on Facebook and Instagram. So don’t overlook the power of paid advertising. 

When creating a challenge, the first decision is whether it will be a free challenge or a paid challenge. When you run a free challenge, you can run it with a Facebook group. If it is a paid challenge, you need to create a sales funnel of sorts with a landing page. But it can be very simple. 

Joschka says that one of his first mistakes was that he actually had nothing to offer the participants of the first challenge. To avoid this mistake, it is important to go to the offer first, then work backwards from there. If you already have an existing business, you want to base the challenge around a specific need your business already serves. This approach will help you create the right call to action. 

Another common challenge is in how to structure the lessons you give to challenge attendees. Joschka shares that he learned you want to structure the lessons in a simple way that serves the needs of the attendees. In most cases, you don’t want to have lessons any longer than 20 minutes.

When challenges are executed properly, you can actually create an entire business based on challenges. You can promote the challenge for three weeks and then on the fourth week do some lessons and at the end of the week, you get more customers. Joschka shared with this flexibility and the use of ads, you can even run multiple challenges at once. 

Joscka also expands more on all of these concepts and more in this podcast. I highly recommend you listen to the full episode for more details. In addition, you can connect with him on his website or you can join his Facebook Group.

Today’s episode of the Podcast Experiment features David Hanscom. David has an entertainment company that provides DJs, photo booths and more for weddings and corporate events. David has also been featured on television, radio programs, industry magazines, as well as selecting the headlining talent at events such as Super Bowl XXXIX. 

David started podcasting and creation online content because it was a natural extension of what he likes to do. He likes to talk, and he also loves to hear people's stories. He also loves to hear about the successes people have and how they accomplish those things. 

While we all face  different struggles and challenges in life, when we engage in conversation, we learn more about each other. We can see that the challenges a DJ has are not very different from the challenges of a restaurant who suddenly has to cut their capacity of guests by half or down to 25%.  

One of the things that David always wanted to do was to find a way to give back to the industry. He says a lot of amazing people mentored him and guided him especially in the early years. Even now, he still looks to these people for help and guidance.

David says that sometimes when you do a podcast, it feels like being on a one-way street. Occasionally, you'll get comments on your podcast or somebody might reach out to you, but the communication is not instant. That’s one of the clear benefits of doing a live show. You can have direct interaction without delay. And that is quite powerful. Another one of the really cool benefits is having a different guest every week. That created a drive in me to keep going out and finding new, interesting people to bring on board. 

And number two, I think it's helped me to, understand the importance of kind of this symbiotic relationship where one person is not doing all the talking all the time and make it more of a communication and less of a presentation, if 

Historically, we have seen big companies that have gone out of business because they did not pivot. For example, Blockbuster went out because they did not change their business model when Netflix came along. A modern business needs to be able to pivot and adapt to the wants and needs of the customers. 

David has stayed relevant within his industry because of pivoting. Through content creation, David has been able to educate people and to engage in healthy conversations on a regular basis. Podcasting and live streaming has given him the opportunity to start laying the foundation and planting the seeds for the future. This concept is the same as if you were making investments. It's not always a direct line from making a podcast to money in your pocket. Rather, it's more of cultivating those relationships and being able to make those connections. 

There is even more information included in this insightful episode. I highly recommend you listen to it. You can connect with David at his website or on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.  Thanks so much for listening to the Podcast Experiment and for being a part of this community. Special thanks to Richard for being a guest.

Mark Herschberg is the author of The Career Toolkit, Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You. From tracking criminals and terrorists on the dark web to creating marketplaces and new authentication systems, Mark has spent his career launching and developing new ventures at startups and Fortune 500s and in academia. In this episode Mark shares his approach for podcasting and how he used podcasts as a way to build an audience for his upcoming book. 

The Importance of Podcasts

When Mark started writing his book he first reached out to his friend, Dorie Clark. Dorie has written a number of bestselling business books. She said, podcasts, podcasts, podcasts.

If you think about when some big celebrity comes out and they've got a new movie, what do they do? They go on the late night talk show circuits. Podcasts are the standard for authors. Mark approached it very systematically and created a list of over 500 podcasts from the topics in his book.

In the career toolkit, he covers 10 different skills. There's a chapter on networking, a chapter on negotiations, a chapter on leadership. So he had 10 different topics to choose from and then he just looked for top podcasts on each specific topic. And from there he looked on websites.

Marketing on Podcasts

Mark says that he thinks no podcast opportunity is bad. Think of it as follows. If you're doing traditional marketing, you’re likely using Facebook or Google. then you're paying a CPC cost per click. Only a few people might click out of a thousand. But when you're doing a podcast, even if that podcast only has 10 people listening to an episode, you have 10 people who are actively engaged with your content.

That audience is actively listening to you. They hear about your book, your service, or your product. And it's going to register far more than just some ad that popped up in the corner of their screen. So even when there seems to be a tiny number of listeners for the investment of time, you're going to get just much more attention and much more engagement.

Networking Through Podcasting

Mark says that most people think about networking in a very transactional way. They think I need a job, so I have to go network. However, networking is relationship building. And so when you go out and network, don't think of it as I have to go network today to get a job. Build relationships with people so that down the road, when you need a job or something else, then you can reach out to your network.

You're going to want to build that relationship over time. The way you think about doing that is by asking a few questions. What do we have in common? What might be of interest to this person as well as myself? Once you figure that out, you want to do some exploration to understand what is important to this other person. Then you can talk about topics of interest or find activities or common interests for both of you. 

There is even more information included in this insightful episode. I highly recommend listening to the entire episode. If you would like to learn more about Mark, you can visit his website here.

If you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone you think would also benefit.

Claire Winter has been a journalist and content creator for over 20 years. She is also passionate about helping business owners get rid of their writing blocks. Claire is also host of the Cracking Content podcast. In this episode, we will talk about launching podcasts, repurposing content, sharing your podcast, and the benefits of podcasting. 

In this interview, Claire shares that she had an engaged audience when she launched her podcast. She says that a lot of people got on board and helped share the show. Many people reviewed the podcast too. She actually held a competition, and her show charted in the UK marketing charts underneath Amy Porterfield. She took a screenshot and then shared it with her launch team to let them know what they achieved together.

In most cases, there are a lot of people that start a podcast, but don't have an audience. And so they don't see the big results early on. And they get discouraged. So having an engaged audience really helps. 

When many people promote their content, they say “Hey, subscribe to my podcast,” or “Hey, listen to my podcast.” But you’ve got to have some content available for people that might not be into podcasts. They might want to watch a video, read a blog, or look at your social posts. So it is important to get very clear about knowing your audience and how you connect with them. There are also many different hashtags you can use to build up your audience. Be sure to use those as well so you can reach as many people as possible. 

Claire says that you can take one piece of what I would call a core piece of content and repurpose it into other things. For example, you can take a video, send it to rev.com, turn it into a blog and so on. Taking the blogs that are successful on my website and making them into podcast episodes. Sometimes Claire will do it the other way round for clients. A client they might create a great podcast, and then she will turn it into written content. 

One of the benefits of podcasting is that it is another way for Claire to grow her audience. She says that it is another space for people to find her. In addition, having your own podcast also elevates you as an expert. You can put it in your bio that you have a show about a certain topic. And the more you do it, the more you establish yourself as an expert in that field. 

Claire made the decision to do mostly solo episodes because she wants them to have her teaching. And she wants to showcase her skills. However, she is also doing a monthly interview once a month. She talks to men and women that have created amazing businesses through content marketing. For example, the last interview she shared was with a woman who has spoken at two TEDx talks. She's an expert in inclusivity. During this podcast episode, she talked about creating inclusive content, and she also shared about how she gave two TEDx talks.

There is even more information included in this insightful episode. I highly recommend you listen to the entire episode. If you would like to learn more about Claire Winter, you can visit her website and she also has a free Facebook group called Cracking Content. You can also find her on all social platforms at Claire Winter UK.