Today we talk about how adding a podcast to your blog can help you gain a larger audience. We talk with Kate Erickson of Kate's Take Podcast and the Entrepreneur on Fire podcast
Because of My Podcast – My Audience Gave Me a Laptop [1:35]
Ken Blanchard produces the Black Man with a Gun podcast among other podcasts that you can find at Blanchard Media. Recently he announced that he was having technical issues with his equipment, and that production of new episodes might come to a temporary halt. Instead of letting this happen, an audience member sent him a new Mac Book. I've said before that you can build a relationship with your audience, and that influence can be leveraged in many ways.
Best VoiceMail For Podcasters [8:36]
MagicJack Plus + Free 6 Months Subscription to Magic Jack Service
$37 (a year of service is $35)
Google Voice – It's Free. The Sound is OK. Just realize if Google ever decides to charge or cancel this service you will have a back catalog of shows with this number. (deliver mp3 file)
Kall8 – This is the service I have used since 2005. An 800 number is $5 a month and approximately 7 cents a minute. My apologies to my friends across the pond. There isn't much international information on their site. I've never had a bill of more than $10. The bad news is the sound quality of these calls is not great.
Kall8 captures at 8 bit, while Google Voice and Magic Jack capture at 16 bit (which is why Kall8 sounds so much worse).
With Google Voice being free, they seem like the obvious choice. I'm not sure I'm willing to trust Google with a voice mail that I give out for episode upon episode and then yank the tool away from me.
Magic Jack for me will be the recommended (more affordable) option. The ONE downside is people have to wait 5 seconds to go to voicemail (which is a bit long).
Another tool (that's not phone-based) to get audio on your website is via Speakpipe.
Reality in Podcast Advertising
In a recent article in Podertainment magazine (a really great issue) Rob Walch VP of Podcasters relations a Libsyn.com states in an article titled “A Rope in the Garage” that about 8% of all the episodes released that reach the 5,000 download threshold.” What's so special about 5,000 downloads? This is the minimum number that many advertisers need to look at your show. Even if you reach that number you're still not talking about quitting your day job. Rob states, “Realistically less than 5% of podcasters even make enough from their podcast to even cover their costs. An less than 1% can call podcasting their main career or in the case above – an alternative better than the rope in the garage. ”
I bring this up today because we have Kate Erickson of Entrepreneur on Fire on the show. John Lee Dumas has created an empire. An empire I stand and applaud. John has proven (over and over) that you CAN make money using your podcast. Notice I didn't say from your podcast (although John does that as well). Most of John's money comes from additional products he sells. Most podcasters who make money podcasting (myself included) use the free podcast to promote other non-free services.
Paul Colligan in his recent episode states Podcast Monetization breaks down to: Market + Message + Money + Media = The Only Formula For Podcast Monetization
Behind the Scenes of Kate's Take – a behind-the-scenes look at Entrepreneur on Fire and the Fire Path.
Kate Erickson is one of the guiding forces of the wildly successful Entrepreneur on Fire podcast. This has launched other spin of shows like Quotes on Fire, Webinar on Fire, and today we talk to Kate about why she launched Kate's Take along with “the Fire Path” which are the first 17 episodes of her show and are assembled into an ebook (no email required) at www.eofire.com/tfpbook
You will hear how Kate has boosted her confidence by doing more and more episodes. She started by re-recording her first shows (so remember you don't HAVE to publish the episodes you record).
She has put great content intermixed with stories and her audience is loving it.
She has the discipline to focus on certain tasks that help propel her podcast and website further toward her goals.
Kate states that they don't make subscribing to their podcast a primary call to action. She advises the call to action be to go to the website where they can then subscribe to your podcast and/or your email list.
Kate has taken her blog posts and turned them into an audioblog/podcast. So if you are a blogger you will hear how she is getting more feedback and reaching a large audience as a podcast. Another thing to consider is if you are a blogger that for every one podcast there are roughly 1950 blogs so having a podcast makes it easier to be found. (source Rob Walch)
Are Story Telling Podcasts the Next Podcasting Wave? [47:00]
With the success of shows like Radio Lab, Startup, and Serial, more people are discovering podcasts. These stories pull us in and keep us captivated. Well, the people behind the startup have launched another new show call Reply All. I was stoked as (so far) every “Story” podcast was a giant home run in my book. Reply All has left me in a “meh” state of mind. With this in mind, you still need to prove value to your audience. If your information is not how-to, it needs to entertain them or make them think.
I jokingly made a podcast called “Dinner” where for 5:48 you hear me try to decide what I want for dinner, and then go to Target to buy it.
The fun part is this 5:48 clip took an HOUR to produce (finding music, sound effects, etc, editing the audio). It sounds great when you have a great story (and you should start there), but it takes a lot of time to add that icing on top of the cake.
This was a brilliant episode. Not only was the interview with Kate Erickson great content, but the sound was wonderful – I was listening on my iPad Mini in a car, no headphones, without going through the car’s sound system* and could hear every word perfectly. That’s a rarity with my iPad.
But the “Dinner” episode had me. The sound quality and the special sound effects were perfect; this was NPR quality. You’ve driven home your point – if the content isn’t there, all the production tricks won’t produce something worth listening to.
Then again, I did want to know what you and your family had for dinner the next day. Maybe that’s the power of story – but it has to make the point to the audience.
The Get-In-Done-Guy podcasts use recurring characters to tell the story – to make the point. I think Stever Robbins is a master of storytelling.
* Always check to see if you have the right cables before you leave home.