0:00
What if I showed you a process to consistently get high value content that showcases you and your business? Get it created for you with almost no work on your part? And then have it featured on your behalf on media platforms, where people actually come expressly to find content and solutions, just like yours. And you get all that for free? That’s what strategic podcast guesting will do for you. And that’s what the Podcast Guesting for Business Growth podcast is all about. I’m your host, September Smith.

0:33
In this episode of the podcast, I want to talk about why podcast guesting, using that and leveraging that, is a smart business strategy. So none of us when we well, most of us depending on what your business is. But most of us when we started, our business did not set out to become a media star. However, if you think about it, over the last 5, 7, 8 years, our businesses have become much more of media entities just by dint of the tools that have been afforded us by social media.

1:05
Even if initially you were a bit hesitant to get involved with social media, it’s almost like everybody else is doing it. Why are you? And if you’re not on social media, well, then it almost got to the point where people would think if they went looking for you and didn’t find a profile for you on the big social media platforms, are they really even a thing, which isn’t itself kind of incredible. But it did for most of us, all of us into creating a social media presence for ourselves and for our businesses, and leveraging that in our business marketing. We’re not doing it because that’s what we want to do necessarily. It’s because if people don’t know about your business, where are you getting the new business and where you getting your your income. So it’s a form of marketing. We all know that social media marketing, it’s a thing.

1:53
Anytime that you’re going to be apportioning any kind of time, money, or energy into something other than just the operation of your business, you have to be cognizant of the fact that these things are all finite resources. Siphoning off any of them from the operation of your business, for the purposes of marketing, and for the growth of your company, is something that needs to be done. But you need to budget those things wisely. You’re robbing them from the operation of your business. So make it pay.

2:24
So when you decide that you’re going to be doing any of these activities, your goal is probably something along the lines of I need to tap into new audiences, I need to find new demographics to get me and my business in front of, I need to build awareness and get known you can be the greatest, whatever it is that you do, you can be the most provision the most expert. But if nobody knows about you, you’re not going to have any business.

2:50
Maybe you need to establish that expertise, have something out there that when people come and find you, it establishes your expertise and your credibility and relevance to them. And maybe you need to differentiate yourself from your competition.

3:02
To do all or any of those things you need to be finding, if you haven’t already, platforms and vehicles to be getting your message out. And today, we’ve been mostly using traditional marketing vehicles. And for the last half decade or more, we’ve been using social media, you also need to be making new connections relevant to your goals relevant to your business to your audience, new connections and broaden your network to position yourself for more promotional opportunities as they arise. And also do more then, therefore to more wisely disseminate your message.

3:38
What we now know, if you didn’t know before, from our experience with half a decade or more of social media marketing is you also need to create compelling, high quality content, showcasing you and or your business. And when you’re doing all this, you need to optimize that time and the effort required. Hitting all those criteria is a pretty tall order. And something like that requires a pointed strategy.

4:05
So as I was talking about social media, these are kind of the tools of the last decade. I’m not counting them out. I quite often say that social media isn’t working for us like it used to. And people say, well, so you’re saying just throw it out and don’t use social media at all? No, that would be like saying, when social media became a thing, we should stop doing things like using word processing software, or spreadsheets because they were tools of the previous decade. No, we’re building on it. And as things become widespread, and they become an effective part of our operation, we have to keep up with the times and we have to keep growing. So no, we can’t be throwing out social media, it still has to be part of our marketing plan. And platforms like Facebook and Instagram. While they are demonstrably much less effective than they were even just a few years ago. are still they might not be your platforms. But these platforms are still a necessity for

4:59
For us, on those platforms, the problem that we’re facing, unlike in years past, the number of people that are known as organic marketers, people who are trying to promote their business, their, their product or their service at no cost, they’re on they’re on say Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or Tik Tok are one of those platforms, they’re selling something, they’re not paying for ads. So they’re doing organic marketing. Those people are bound on those platforms. The algorithm for those platforms is increasingly a pay to play model. So it is throttling and filtering how many people were actually seeing the content that you’re creating. The ads that we’re being pushed into investing in are actually yielding a diminishing ROI. The return on investment is year over year, just getting less and less. And at the same time, social media users like you and I, the people that aren’t selling the people that are scrolling and just wanting to be on those social media platforms for the entertainment value of it. We’ve all become very proficiently ad avoidant, we don’t want to be sold to.

5:09
When we saw ads, five years ago, they might have caught our eyes. Today, we’re like, keep scrolling. When you consider that these are the challenges that we as marketers face, somebody who wants to market your business and get your message out there and get known – all those things we listed up at the top of the episode. This presents us with an enormous challenge and tools of the next decade, we need to start diversifying our marketing platforms, new platforms and promotional opportunities that you might want to look at. Well,

6:35
in March of 2021, Forbes magazine, the business magazine identified podcasts as, quote one of the best marketing channels for 2021 and onward. At the same time, Apple, Google, Spotify, and other Internet giants. They realize that even earlier and they have been making huge investments and inroads into the podcast platform landscape to tap into and nail down that potential. According to Hootsuite 2021 q3 global media report, there are now about 1 billion global podcast listeners consuming each roughly an hour of podcast content a day. And while you might say well, a lot of people spend an hour on Facebook, when somebody is on a podcast platform consuming podcast, it’s a different thing. This is long form content. With deep engagement, the average length of listening to an episode of a podcast is 39 minutes, and 80% of listeners listen to entire episodes. This is a kind of engagement that is 10, 20 times longer and deeper with your content than anything you could possibly put on social media. Again, not to say that those things on social media don’t play a role. But this is deep engagement and can play a very powerful role in your marketing content.

7:56
In addition, on the whole topic of podcast as a platform since 2020, and you know the COVID pandemic lockdown all that thing that we’re all more than familiar with A listers, politicians, entrepreneurs, as I’ve said have all increasingly embraced the podcast platform as an important part of their media mix, mostly as guests, but also as hosts of their own show. And the power of the platform for getting found. And getting your message out should be clear.

8:23
And while a lot of people might say, I’m already juggling far to many platforms, again, back to the whole social media thing. One aspect to the podcast phenomenon of podcast that escaped many people is that podcast content is not social media. Unlike those two way media platforms where people come not just to consume, they also come to post into comment and create their own conversations.

8:46
Podcasts are one way broadcast medium. You can think of it a bit like Netflix for audio, curated, indexed content that people come solely to discover and to consume. And to date so far, is unthrottled by any pay to play algorithms. When people come with the keywords in the interest that you’re taught either podcast episodes that you created yourself as a host or that you co created as a guest on a host show. The people that are interested in those topics are very likely to find your episode. Also, there’s when you think about podcasts.

9:22
There’s also a difference in the distribution model. On a well set up podcast, your episode is simultaneously on all and any audio platforms from Apple, Spotify, Google podcasts, etc. to Audible, Amazon Music, Alexa, this would be like having your video simultaneously, with one click, not only just on YouTube, it’s on Twitch, it’s on Vimeo. It’s on every other video platform out there. There is no equivalent. Your podcast episode will be on at least 12 of the biggest platforms on the planet for audio consumption. And one of the last things that makes it even

10:00
Better for you, as a business for getting found is that as of summer 2021, Google has been moving towards making podcast content searchable, so that the content you have on that, unlike the stuff that you’ve put on social media, that content can be found through a Google search. And with the exception of today, with the exception of LinkedIn articles, no other social media content can achieve that.

10:00
So all up, if I haven’t convinced you already, having your business and your brand content on podcast makes you extremely findable. And once found, offers up what is ideally high quality content showcasing you, and your product or service. Kind of looping back to that thing about what Forbes said in March of 2021, about it being one of the best marketing channels for 2021 and onward. What that resulted in was about a month of business gurus screaming from the rooftops that everybody needed to start a podcast. Well, that also simultaneously, really spurred in me kind of a contrarian dance on the whole thing. And it’s like, Absolutely not.

11:05
Everybody shouldn’t start a podcast and not everybody needs to hashtag work smarter, not harder. As a podcaster. Myself, of course with this, the podcast guessing for business growth podcast, but also an interview podcast that I have, which is the she’s all that video podcast showcasing women entrepreneurs and social impact leaders. I am a proponent to the power of podcast, I really believe in it. That’s why I’m suggesting that you leverage it as well.

11:32
But for most businesses, starting their own podcast is not their best option. Having your own podcast, planning it, launching it, the ongoing work of building the audience, consistent episode production, and marketing every episode and just keeping it going week after week is an enormous amount of work, easily absorbing 10 to 20 or more hours per week, for a weekly episode. Looking at 10 to 20 hours, we’re looking at 500 to 1000 hours that you’re taking away from your waking time per year. Most businesses do not have that kind of bandwidth. But fortunately, you don’t need it. There are very specific audiences that really should have their own podcast. And for most of us, you can still harness the marketing potential podcast without all that work. You can leverage the existing audience network and the production of other people’s podcasts by doing guest interviews, and co-creating some amazing content for yourself that will live on highly popular audio channels for years to come for free, and at a tiny fraction of the time commitment required for having your own podcast.

11:16
So is it that easy? Once you know what you’re doing? Yes, it is that easy. However, like any other promotional public speaking, that you do on behalf of your enterprise, and make no mistake, it is a form of public speaking comparable to such things as radio going on radio for an interview or a TV interview, or speaking from the stage. Like all of those things, successful podcast, casting requires planning, strategy, and preparation. You would not agree to go to a conference and get on the stage and improvise. Just get up there and wing it. I don’t think unless you’re an extremely, extremely talented person or very accomplished speaker that he would not go so well for you.

13:23
However, a lot of people do think that that might be a good approach to podcast. Now. The whole thing of the planning the strategy and the preparation, that’s even more true for podcast appearances. Because unlike that stage appearance that you made that maybe didn’t go so well, for good or for bad. That podcast content that you create will be out there on every audio platform and readily found for years to come. Either representing you super super well because it was an awesome episode, or quite the opposite, confusing people as to what it is you do, and or worst case scenario making you look like a fool. Getting on the right podcast for you with the right host and knowing exactly what you need to say to articulate your brand story via the conversation format or the interview format of a podcast with all its unpredictable questions and it’s sudden topic shifts, and then knowing how to co promote and leverage each episode that you started for maximum impact for you and your business. None of that happens by accident.

14:25
There is a strategic process to making podcast guesting work for your business. Done Right. What you get for your efforts is authoritative, high quality interview content positioning you as the go to expert all produced for you package and promoted on your behalf cause free to target audiences that you could never access yourself. And that content can be repurposed into myriad marketing content pieces from blog articles, audio grams to a ton of content and fodder for posts on social media for years to come.

15:00
to ebooks, you should even be adding that to your speaker reel and or to your one sheet that you use for getting on stages or being speakers at events. And it can all be stepping stones for even bigger media opportunities for you, and all of this for a couple hours of your time per episode. And that’s why I say that podcasting is a smart business strategy.

15:25
Thanks for being here. I hope you got some value from this episode. I very passionately believe that podcast guest appearances. done right is one of the biggest opportunities available to us right now. To build our brand. Pledge our flag and start building a media presence that establishes our authority and expertise. If this is something that you would like to have working for your business in 2022 Make sure you subscribe and follow and join us for our free virtual events that we do every second month to help you figure out how you can be using other people’s podcasts to explode your presence and credibility and reach the audiences that need to be hearing you