[00:00:00] Shannon Hernandez: Before we get started with today's podcast. I want to take this opportunity to ask you when the last time it was that you changed out the air filter in your home. And would you believe that most people don't change out their air filters monthly, or even know that they have to change them out monthly or until they realize that something is actually wrong with their HVAC system.
[00:00:16] That's why I want to introduce to you second nature, air filters. Now what's so special about them. Not only are the effect of capturing the dust, pollens, the molds the bacteria, but they also help reduce the energy usage of your HVC system up to 15% and avoid costly repairs whenever it matters the most, but let's be real.
[00:00:34] The real reason you're not changing your air filters. It's because you forget half the time. You're like how I used to be. That's why I went with second nature air filter's. Second nature has created a subscription plan to send your home's air filters each month, right to your door, which forces you to change out your old air filters before the new one arrives, keeping your air clean and your HVC system in working condition.
[00:00:56] I've certainly noticed that regular replacement of my home's air filters has reduced the amount of dust flying around in my place, but has also reduced how much I've been sneezing in my place before I was changing out my air filter every three months. And I was sneezing constantly. Now that I change out my filter monthly, I hardly ever sneeze.
[00:01:11] This is all. Thanks to second. Nature's a filter subscription plan and it's the one delivery that I actually look forward to every month. Get started with second nature air filters today with my referral [email protected] slash second.
[00:01:27] Mixed down media productions.
[00:01:40] Welcome back to another edition of The Podcast Therapist. I am your host, the Shan man radio broadcaster, podcaster, and a podcast producer. And today is the Thursday special edition of The Podcast Therapist. I have some intentions to finish off last week's consultation call, but I had with John Vernell.
[00:01:59] So we're going to try to get to that in today's episode, if we have time, if I feel like it makes sense. So I really want to share that with you guys, because I think it will really share some inspiration for. With your podcast. And a lot of you are stuck at a certain point in your podcast. You're stuck at a certain level and you just don't know where exactly to go.
[00:02:21] That's why I've created The Podcast Therapist is to hopefully give you that roadmap as to where you need to go next. Just know that every podcast is not the same. All right. Each podcast has its own way of doing things. However, one thing that I noticed that all podcasts are doing, at least the ones that I know that are successful and have turned a podcast, listening audience into something that is monetized either through sponsorships or through products and services.
[00:02:49] Are the ones that are using the strategies that I am talking about, not only in the previous episode, but in today's episode. So as I mentioned, we're going to continue our conversation on that idea of where I was talking about time spent listening, the valuable metric of time spent listening that we don't know how to measure, and we're trying to figure out how to measure it.
[00:03:13] So today I'm hoping that I can hopefully shift your thinking and shift how you see your podcasts list. Into something that is going to benefit you. The podcaster, I see this done with the most successful podcasts and the strategies that they have shared with me and the strategies that I have learned from marketing professionals that I learned from promotions professionals that I learned from people who are in sale, that I learned from the people who are in production and management.
[00:03:44] Those people have all given me this. I don't know if it's a blueprint of my own, but it shares with me, or it allows me to share with you the blueprint that I am using. So we're going to get into that here in a few seconds. So again, like I said, we're going to continue that conversation on marketing and promotion and a TSL.
[00:04:04] Now, as a recap, when I share a lot of this stuff out with you, number one, as I always tell you in all of my podcasts, I want you to listen and then listen to. Take notes. That's the one way that you can learn from these podcasts. That's one of the ways that I do a podcast listening, I'm an active podcast listener.
[00:04:24] I'll listen to the podcast. If it's something that's interesting to me, then I go back and I listen to it and I take notes. I've done this with many podcasts to that. That will help me develop a brand new skill. Number two, I don't want you to feel as though you are being overwhelmed with information. It is not my intention to make more work for you.
[00:04:45] However, what I am sharing with you is the work that has to be done. The work that I am sharing with you is everything that you have to do in order to move your podcast from level four, to level five or level five to level six. So all of the work that I am sharing with you or everything that I am sharing with you is the expected work that you're going to have to do.
[00:05:09] Okay. Now I know in the last episode, and I know that I can get like this in my podcast episodes is that I can get on a box and I can pontificate and sound very preachy. And that's just, a matter of me being very passionate about helping you the podcaster. So if I sound as though I'm coming off, like I'm pontificating or I'm preachy, or I don't know, maybe I sound annoying.
[00:05:34] I don't know. It's totally on you. Whether or not you want to continue to listen or you want to pop out, it's going to really be up to you for me. It doesn't matter because there's someone out there that I know who is going to listen to me and we'll take this information and run with it. Will that be you?
[00:05:53] Or will you be the person who is going to sit and say, oh, that's just too much work. I just can't do that. I understand that. That's why I want to walk you through these processes. All right. Now, When I talk about pushing to a website versus pushing to a podcast website, this is a question that has been getting asked to me quite a bit.
[00:06:13] It's been a question that I see a lot of podcasts just posting in forums on Facebook. They're wondering, Hey, can I just survive without a podcast or my own website that I'm hosting through, say a GoDaddy or Bluehost or something like that. And can I just use a podcast website? I will answer that in today's episode, but I'm going to say no.
[00:06:35] Don't use a podcast website because there are functionalities on a WordPress site on a Kajabi site, on a Squarespace site that do not exist on a podcast website that you're going to be getting say with your hosting provider. So I want to just remind you, this is why I push a regular website, developing and building into a regular website.
[00:06:59] It doesn't mean you have to get it all done right away. Doesn't mean that it has to be perfect right away. Working on my podcast, on my own website from three years ago, if you go to the Shan man.com, that it's all set up the way I want it, but whatever I look at it and someone says, oh my God, your site looks awesome.
[00:07:17] Number one, thank you. I think it needs more work though. You're talking about a guy who has been learning constantly, not only graphic design on top of all the audio skills that he knows, but learning SEO, learning, marketing, sales, all of these things. And I know I can make my website more effective and much better for those who I want to serve.
[00:07:41] All right now, to recap even more, we're going to be utilizing a website for advertising that is beyond the website. So I want you to start thinking about incorporating things that you can offer. I believe I mentioned this in, excuse me, the last. I talked about, you're going to have to think about things that you want to offer.
[00:08:06] This is where you're going to have to get creative. This is where you are going to have to put in the work. All right. So just make sure that there's going to be work done in addition to the podcast that you are going to be creating. Now, just know this one last point. All right. A lot of what you're going to be doing is going to be done alone.
[00:08:35] You're going to hear a lot of, I'm not going to say you're going to hear, but maybe you have heard a lot of these digital marketers say you need to hire a team. You need to hire these people. And I don't discount what they're saying. In fact, I do believe that you should hire a team to help you build out these things.
[00:08:50] Maybe you need someone to help you build out your actual website. You might need to do that. And that's going to require you to invest. You're going to have to invest money into doing that. But then from there who's going to manage the site. You're likely going to have to be the one that manages that site.
[00:09:09] So I'm telling you right now that if you don't have the money, that's fine. You're going to have to do a little extra work and work a little harder. That's the only way you're going to be able to get into a higher place than where you are right now. So you have to make that decision right now on how far you want to go.
[00:09:33] And don't think you have to do it right away. You can take baby steps. Baby steps makes this thing work. And as far as you are, as long as you are learning new skills, you're taking baby steps forward. Okay. So that's my real quick recap that I want to share with you, hopefully to motivate you. Getting into the right head space for today's podcast.
[00:10:03] So let's pick up where we left off last episode and talk about acquisition. We talked about acquisition and we talked about the sales funnel. And when I talk about the sales funnel and I talk about awareness consideration, and then acquisition, the idea behind your podcast is obviously to get more people to listen.
[00:10:27] So when we think of the sales funnel, you think of a sales funnel, just like any other funnel, like a physical funnel, like maybe you're funneling a, I don't know, some type of juice into a jar. And in order to put the juice into a specific jar, or I don't know, you're maybe trying to save something for later to eat.
[00:10:45] I don't know what it may be, but let's say you're funneling some type of broth into a jar. As you pour that, Into the funnel that goes into the jar. As you pour that broth into the funnel, you notice that there's a lot of broth at the very top of the funnel, right? So you can consider this like the amount of listeners that you have, the more listeners that you have at the top of the funnel works down the funnel.
[00:11:14] And you know how the funnel works. It's forms a little, V-shape not everyone at the top of the funnel is going to make it down to the bottom of the funnel or to the acquisition part. This is where it comes into the concept that I continue to bring up of. Who are you trying to serve? And why are you trying to serve them as a podcaster?
[00:11:41] You're not trying to serve everyone. You can, but you're not trying to serve everyone. Let's put it this way. Not everyone listens to true crime podcasts. Me I've listened to them, but I'm not a big fan of them. I'll listen to them, but I'm not a huge fan of them. So I might likely be on the top of the funnel and maybe in the consideration phase of the funnel in the middle of the funnel.
[00:12:09] But if someone asked me to take an action on that podcast on a true crime podcast to buy a shirt or to buy tickets to a show, I more than likely won't do that. And that's okay. I not their audience. So you have to think about this in the sense of your funnel, who are you trying to serve and why are you trying to serve them?
[00:12:33] As we look at that funnel and the more we get people at the top of the funnel and. People down that funnel, we get less of them, right? So at the consideration phase, we're getting less of them. By the time we get them to the acquisition phase, which is the very bottom, the little tip of the funnel.
[00:12:50] All right, as we pour that juice or that broth down the funnel, we get those who actually want to purchase or be a part of our universe. When I talk about acquisition doesn't necessarily mean that someone is having to buy something. It can, but it doesn't mean that someone's actually buying something, your funnel or your acquisition could be that someone gets on an email list that might be part of the sales funnel.
[00:13:27] They get onto an email list and now they are placed into a whole different. Now, maybe they're placed into a funnel where now you're trying to nurture them into buying something later. So your acquisition phase of your funnel doesn't mean someone has to get on an email list. Acquisition can actually mean someone purchases, something from you, maybe a t-shirt may be getting a bumper sticker.
[00:13:56] What do you think it could be joining a membership program, getting onto your Patrion? Now there's a little more work that goes into getting someone to, to buy into whatever you're doing. And we're going to talk about that here very shortly. I want to go over a couple of notes about the sales funnel though.
[00:14:18] And we're going to get a little deeper now into this con. Of marketing and promotion for your podcast. All right. When we think about the acquisition phase, and we think about the sales funnel itself, how do we get someone to really buy into what we're doing? This always points back to the number, one thing that we all appreciate, and that is value.
[00:14:43] If you provide value, then someone is more than likely going to say, I like this. What else do they got? So provide value and someone will consider you. Now you can do this on a free basis. You and your podcast can provide value for free. You've heard of people say yeah, podcasters use podcasting as a marketing tool.
[00:15:14] Yeah, they're using using their podcast as a marketing tool to give away free information that nurtures the audience to move down the funnel. So as long as you, the podcast, or are providing great content that is free and a value, it attracts more listeners to the top of your funnel. It attracts more listeners and customers into your universe.
[00:15:45] What are some examples of this? I mentioned one last episode where I talked about the Costco example, where you could get a couple of almonds. Think about that. Costco is a retailer, they sell groceries and they sell everything at bulk. Have you ever been into a Costco on a Saturday morning?
[00:16:04] Maybe you haven't, but I'm going to guess there's a lot of you who have. A normal times. Have you been to a Costco on a Saturday morning? Think about many people show up to the Costco. And when are those people standing outside with the samples? Typically on a Saturday when there's a lot of traffic.
[00:16:33] So with that traffic, those people standing, what the samples are trying to get people to become aware of the product, such as the almonds taste, the almonds considering or taste the almonds, which has consideration and hopefully have something on display right next to them to say, here are the bag of almonds they're on sale today.
[00:16:57] That would be your acquisition. You can do this with tasty treats. Valuable info that solves a problem. Think about that. If you've ever downloaded something from someone who has helped you solve a problem, that problem could be how to get rid of your heartburn. There might be someone who is telling you, you maybe want to consider apple cider vinegar before you go to bed.
[00:17:23] Someone will say that gives me heartburn. And then there might be some reason why someone says, oh, you're no, you got to do it this way in order to remove your heartburn. How do I get that? It's a free download on my site. It's value.
[00:17:39] The value can come in forms of making processes more simple or easy, or just solving a problem, or maybe it's to help someone come. Anything that you have ever bought any product you've ever gotten, anything that you've ever purchased or that's something that was free or provided some type of remarkable benefit is all following this philosophy, the sales philosophy of the sales funnel awareness, consideration, and acquisition.
[00:18:16] So again, I'm going to ask you right now, ask yourself, who are you serving, ask yourself, who am I serving? Who am I truly serving? And what can I solve for them that is easy and free.
[00:18:34] That's going to be the easiest way that you can get someone to come in and be a part of your universe. Now I say this all the time, right? I know that there's that people say he says this all the time. I don't know. Where is the connection? How can I make the connection to know that I can see something more tangible?
[00:18:51] That will allow me to keep these people in on my universe and consider what I have to offer. As you have seen on my website, the Shan man.com, where you go to The Podcast Therapist.com, you have seen likely offerings up on my website. You've seen free downloads and free downloads for me are used as a means to build and grow an email list.
[00:19:21] I talk about the email list all the time, right? All the time. I talk about the email list and I'm asking you, politely, I could be a little more stern, but I'm asking you politely, I'm just asking you, you have to consider building an email address or I'm sorry, building an email. The reasons for this is because you can build a social media following.
[00:19:44] You can build a Twitter following, you can build a Facebook following. You can build a YouTube following. You can build a Pinterest following an Instagram following, but you don't own the data on those people who follow you. You can definitely benefit from having those audiences, but you don't own that data.
[00:20:02] It's better to own the data. So if you're going to do the work, you need to come at this all with a full circle, it's all gotta be within the full circle of itself. You have to be punching back each time in order to know that you're getting this audience to stick with you. Social media, like I said, is just one of the means.
[00:20:25] It's one of the transportation pieces to get the message out there. Email marketing is just another one of those means we all check email every day. If someone doesn't want to be a part of your email list, that's fine. That's completely fine. But those who want to hear from you, those who want to get information from you who want to get value in your email newsletters, they'll be a part of the email newsletter list.
[00:20:53] So as a reminder, you have to get creative on what you can provide for people. What can you provide for free? That's going to solve a problem. Typically, this is something where if someone comes into your universe via your podcast, and then they happen to hop onto your website, you're likely trying to help them with something that is at the beginning of the journey.
[00:21:20] I know that there is one of my YouTube viewers who has a podcast called my stuttering life. And it's a podcast specific for those people who have had stuttering problems, all of their life easily. I can come up with a quick PDF if I collaborate with this human, if I collaborated with this podcast and I said, Hey, this is the PDF that I think that you should come up with.
[00:21:49] What is it that you can do to solve this, solve a person's problem. If they have a problem with stuttering, what exercises can they do to become a more fluid speaker? What did you do? What was your process and how can you share that to serve and help others? That's what I would do if I had that podcast.
[00:22:17] So the next thing that you would need to do is you would need to come up and get creative. How are you helping someone get over the hump of the very first part of the.
[00:22:28] It doesn't necessarily have to be the first part of the journey. You're not necessarily helping someone. Maybe you don't have to help someone. Maybe all you're doing is you're offering something for free, a bribe in exchange for an email address to get them on your email list. These don't necessarily have to be PDFs because I know a lot of people have entertainment podcasts, but that just means that you, as the entertainer is going to have to figure out ways to invest in giving free things away, get creative.
[00:23:02] What is it that your audience wants ask them? What would something, what would be something that they would want for free? That is of value? If you don't get an answer, start making it. If it doesn't work, start from the drawing board again, make another one. This doesn't have to be perfect right away. If you're creating a podcast, it's taking work every single day.
[00:23:27] You have to wake up knowing that you're going to make something that is going to impact someone's life. So if we go back to this idea of PDFs and helping someone at the beginning of the journey, giving them a roadmap to getting to some point solving the problem, right? You place these PDFs on your site as free downloads by utilizing email marketing system like MailChimp.
[00:23:55] Now, MailChimp is going to let me back up. I, cause I know there's confusion about what MailChimp may be. MailChimp is an email service provider. It is not g-mail. It is not Yahoo mail. It is not Hotmail or outlook. This is an email service provider that can send emails in bulk.
[00:24:21] And that is complying with federal and enter international law so that you can market appropriately to your audience. MailChimp is typically used in tandem with online opt-in forms. You can find opt-in forms to put on your website, typically through plugins, but the best ones are typically done through say like opt-in monster lead pages is another one, but I will tip you off on this right now.
[00:24:54] You're going to have to invest in these tools. If you want to make things happen. This is why I always push people to say, I don't know why you're using a WordPress site when you could use a good job. When they look at the price tag of Kajabi, they go, oh my God, this is just a lot of stuff that I'm going to have to, it's a large monthly fee.
[00:25:16] I get that. But it's the same exact amount that you're going to have to pay for. If you using a WordPress site to tie in third party applications, we can get into this at another time, but I want you to start making some intentional decisions. If you decide to use a WordPress site, just know you're going to have to invest in these tools.
[00:25:37] So you're going to want to place this PDF on your site as a free download to utilize it as a lead magnet, to get someone to opt in on your website. I promise I'm getting to the point. This all comes back to time, spent listening. Number three, in my points that I have here, this all talk, this all relates back to time spent.
[00:26:04] How do we know how long someone has listened to our podcast? We don't, unless we go into apple podcasts and we can see this percentage rate in which someone listened to the podcast. So how do we do this? What we do is we utilize these assets that we've created these free PDFs, these freebies, that we are giving away in some form or another, and we're promoting them on our podcast for someone to go to our website and actually go and check out our website.
[00:26:36] This is where it gets deeper. This is where it gets to the point where you go oh, now this is tangible. So you're utilizing these assets. You create as markers to know someone has listened. You've seen me do this on my YouTube channel. I've promoted how many times the essential equipment guide to starting a podcast at the beginning of the.
[00:27:00] And I've had little title cards that come up over sometimes on the video. I probably should putting more out there, but there's little title cards that come up and say Hey, starting a podcast, click here. I'm putting these things inside of my content so that people can go to my website. So I know that they've reached a certain point in the video or the podcast for them to take an action.
[00:27:24] And that's what you're trying to do. So again, we go back to this concept first and foremost, remind yourself of what your podcasts objective is. Then number two, share your PDF download or whatever it is that is free for people to grab on your podcast, your YouTube channel. You can even do this through your social media.
[00:27:47] We do this in radio itself when we are on the air and we have. Someone who was hanging out at a specific location, this is typically in normal times on Saturday morning, I might go into the radio station and I might do an air shift and there will be a liner. There's going to be a promotional liner that I'm going to have to read.
[00:28:06] And that promotional liner is going to say Hey, I want you to go check out Brett messily. He's hanging out over at this fitness center from 11 until one, you can sign up to win free, whatever it may be and a chance to meet so-and-so or chance to go to this concert. All you gotta do is flash your red card.
[00:28:22] He'll give you a free CD of some sort. And of course, while you're there, sign up, can you see where that funnel look? What that funnel looks like? I'm giving awareness to the listener. I'm pushing them to go to the location and then hopefully they can sign up. That is the acquisition. You're doing the exact same thing, but just know you're not going to get every.
[00:28:46] You're not getting everyone you're going to capture the ones that are interested. Not everyone who comes to the booth when I'm out on location, not everyone signs up for everything. They do see things that are free. They see different concerts. Maybe they see Ozzy Osbourne's coming to town. Then they see five finger death punch is coming to town.
[00:29:02] Volbeat is coming into town there. See a, I don't know what a name, a band. And there are people that have walked up to me and said, yeah, I'm not interested in any of those bands. That's completely fine. That's okay. Sometimes they just come because they want to see what I look like. Sometimes I'm not even joking about that.
[00:29:22] They just want to see what I look like. And those are going to be your people who are at the top of the funnel. So capture the ones that are going to be interested. It's not necessarily the amount of downloads that you're getting. You want to capture the ones that are truly interested,
[00:29:41] podcasting and promotion online is more about. Being narrow with the episode with Mac Watson, he talks about podcasting being narrow casting. You could talk about gardening for, forever, and you're just learning everything about gardening. It's all about narrow casting, right? When it goes to podcast, promotion and marketing online, we're talking about a narrow topic we're talking about promoting something narrowly.
[00:30:07] You're capturing those who are interested in this narrow topic. Think about it. You're listening to this podcast because you want to learn more about podcasting. Do I talk about anything else other than podcasting? Yes, but it all relates back to podcasting. So serve those. You want to help and tell people where to get your download.
[00:30:29] Now this right here if I could illustrate it in front of your eyes, this would be me writing onto a dry erase board, right? I would write this, tell people where to get your download, and then I would underline this next part, push them to your website. And this would be all in red. Now this is where we go into the advanced play for you and your podcast.
[00:30:57] Why have it, why have I been pushing the idea of getting you to push your listeners directly to a website that you have developed on your own built on your own and not some website that is created through your podcasting host provider? I don't care if you're using a WordPress site. I don't care if you're using a Squarespace site.
[00:31:17] I would even venture a Wix site, but I'm Wix just has, I'm just not too big of a fan of Wix, but we could say Wix, if we want to Kajabi website whatever, it may be, the ones that are more reliable that are available for you to create and expand a business for your podcast. Those are the websites that I want you to do.
[00:31:37] How can we push our listeners off of the podcast and onto our website? And why are we doing this? This is all because of what we would call a remarketing or retargeting pixel or a Facebook pixel. You've heard of the Facebook pixel, likely if you have not heard of the Facebook pixel, this is what it is.
[00:31:57] Basically in a nutshell, on the front-facing side, this is just on the front facing side. I'm not even talking about the backside. All right. I'm not even talking about the side that you're interested in. Have you ever done a search online for something that you were looking for? Maybe you're looking for a brand new couch, or maybe you were looking for a new ring light for your podcast.
[00:32:18] I don't know what it may be. You've ever done that. And then you come across a website and you click on that website in the search results. And you click on it and then all of a sudden you go, oh yeah, that's cool. I'm looking at this ring light, it costs 150 bucks. What else did they got on there?
[00:32:36] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. At that point, that retailer has considered you at the awareness point. When you jump off their website, then you maybe go do a little more scrolling. Maybe you're popping back onto Facebook and you get an ad served directly to you from the website that you were just on. That's called retargeting retarget marketing.
[00:33:04] That is what Amazon does. You get that from Amazon. If you ever gone on to Amazon, then you go back into Facebook, you start getting ads from things you want looked at on Amazon. And then these advertisers really, they get they drill down on what your preferences are. Facebook has so much data on us.
[00:33:20] Like it's almost impossible to say I don't want Facebook to have my data because they have data on. But this is where it's going to benefit you the podcaster. So this is called retargeting and Facebook in Google. It's called remarketing. So you, as a podcaster are pushing people from your podcast on your website so that you can get them to go onto your website to pixel them.
[00:33:46] So what is a pixel? All right. A pixel is a piece of code that you would put onto your website that is going to now track that visitor everywhere around the web for a certain amount of time. It could be 30 days. It could be 90 days. It could be 120 days. It could be. I think they're in Google. It's 540 days.
[00:34:09] You could track someone, but you want to be able to do this in order to get them on your site because. You have caught them first by pushing them on your website into a, into an awareness phase. And you want to get them into a consideration phase of either getting on an email list or maybe purchasing something from you.
[00:34:31] That's what you are trying to do. So you're going to get this code. I think these days, it's not even a code, you're just using a Facebook ID number. I know that how I use it on my website on Kajabi, you just get the Facebook ID number and you plug it into the settings of the into the website itself.
[00:34:52] And it sets it all up for you. I would recommend that you go into Google and you do a search on how to put a Facebook pixel on your website, and I want you to install it. And I want you to start pushing people to your website. The pixel has so many deep versatile uses that you can use it for that. This one action is going to change the game for you later on down the line, when you decide that you want to pay for marketing for your podcast.
[00:35:26] That's a question that I see all the time. Should I be using Facebook ads to promote my podcast? And when I see people comment on these groups and they say, oh no, I wouldn't use Facebook because it doesn't have a good return. I would disagree because if you're just going after a cold audience, an audience that has never even seen or heard of you before, you're just dumping money into a fire.
[00:35:57] But if you have someone who is pixeled that went to your website, viewed some of your content. You can now run ads back to them. It's another marketing channel just as email marketing is another channel just as social media is another channel. Just as word of mouth is another channel. Google, how to put a Facebook pixel on your website and start driving people to your website today.
[00:36:34] If you don't have a website, start building one right now, make it work for you. You don't have to work for it, make this stuff work for you. Now I'm going to answer a question that I know you're asking yourself, or maybe some are asking, you're asking themselves right now. The question might be well, Shannon.
[00:36:53] What if I don't ever want to run ads? I'm going to say doesn't matter. It does not matter. Collect the audience pixel. Pixel them on Facebook. And you can, when you pixel them on, let me back up when you pixel them and they go to your website, you can now add advertise to them via Facebook and Instagram.
[00:37:18] And this is valuable data that you can use for your benefit. I get targeted almost every day from brands whose website or Instagram or Facebook account that I have either liked or interacted with in some form or another. I don't know if you knew this is I, this is something that I just learned the other day.
[00:37:38] If you're on Instagram and you're creating content and or a creator is creating content and they allow you to bookmark and save a piece of content that you find in Instagram. I just learned today. I'm not sorry, not today, but I just learned the other day that you can now. Advertise to those people who have bookmarks content.
[00:38:04] So can you see the full picture of why we went down this statistics road? And I said to you what's the most important statistic that you need to be looking at? Is it downloads? Is it time spent listing really what the most important statistic is going to be the conversion? How are you converting someone from a listener to a paying listener or from a listener to a subscribing listener?
[00:38:31] This is what I think really changes the game for podcasters. If you don't want to run ads right now, that is fine. Collect the audience, push them to your site, collect the audience. This is why you probably should build a Facebook following in some sense, this is why you should build an Instagram following.
[00:38:52] This is why you should build a YouTube. YouTube uses a whole different system, but the concept is the same likely some of you who are watching my YouTube videos have likely gotten an ad for me at some point in time, because I have run ads on YouTube and there are different strategies at play there.
[00:39:15] So I hope this helps you the podcaster understand why I look at statistics differently that when most other podcasters are trying to look at,
[00:39:31] we can take any piece of content. We can take any piece of genre, any type of genre, and push someone from that genres podcast onto a website, have it pixeled and start collecting an audience. Even if you're not getting the. You're still pushing them into an awareness phase. You want to push someone into an awareness phase regardless.
[00:39:57] Okay. So if you have questions, I highly recommend you head on over to The Podcast Therapist and go down, scroll down and look at the look at the the button that says leave voicemail. You can leave a voicemail or leave me an email. I will try to get back to you, but my plan is to share more advanced strategies on my YouTube about this particular topic, because some of it can not be explained in podcast format.
[00:40:20] It has to be shown in video format. Now, if you go and you find it online, that's fine. That's fine with me, but I'm going to be sharing with you on my YouTube channel. The strategies about what I use and how I acquire an audience and what audience I'm looking for. One note that I want to make here for you is that it doesn't mean that you have to have thousands and thousands of thousands of listeners.
[00:40:43] It means you have to have the right listeners, thousands of lifts. Our listeners can give you a great vanity metric. My friend Mia, Voss, and we might have her on the podcast in a in a future episode, but my friend Mia, Voss, and I would talk about this. And she says we call it their vanity metrics.
[00:40:58] We know they're called vanity metrics, but we call it size queening. And when someone is oh, I've got 50,000 downloads, but they don't show anything for it. Then it's what good is the 50,000 downloads? How have you figured out a way to turn that into money? And just as it's just the hard truth you're going to have to put in the work, that's all you got to do is put it in the work.
[00:41:26] So before we go into the next section, I think I do want to answer the question, or actually I want to go to that consultation call with John Ferno. And we'll follow up with that before we get into. I want to read this for you from an account that I follow on Instagram and it's called good fucking design advice.
[00:41:51] I highly recommend that you go follow it. Just the handle is G F D a.ceo, and it's just very hard in your face truths that you need to accept if you want to take the next step. And today's really resonated with me. And it typically, they give you a title and then a description of why they've written that title and today's title was practice makes fucking perfect.
[00:42:21] This is what it says. Perfection is impossible, but don't let that stop you from trying the point isn't to get so good that you stop making mistakes is to get so lost in. That you stop thinking about them. Your talents are in you just waiting for you to let go and get out of the. That's what takes practice.
[00:42:46] That's purpose. That's worthy of a lifetime of devotion. Perfection is a good goal, precisely because it can never be reached. We're going to do some unnecessary explanations with John Verno, that consultation call coming up next. You're listening to The Podcast Therapist.
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[00:43:58] necessary explanations. So we're going to finish up today's podcast and unnecessary explanations with that consultation call that I mentioned with John Burno. If you miss that consultation call at the beginning consultation call, it is in last Thursday's episode. So it is two episodes ago as of this recording.
[00:44:18] And you can go listen to that phone call that I had with John, that consultation call this particular part of the consultation call really wraps the, I guess today's episode up into a nice little bow. I don't know if it's, if it does that at all, but it just reiterates a lot of what I continue to tell you as a podcaster, the downloads are great.
[00:44:37] I understand that you want to look at the downloads that are great, we have to really re shift our thinking into what it is that we're trying to do. We're trying to turn listeners into customers ultimately at the end of the day, We don't. We're not doing the podcast. Like I continue to say, we're not doing the podcast for our health.
[00:44:53] We're not paying for that hosting for our health. We didn't pay for the equipment for our health. We did it because we want, we had a purpose and we need to really redefine that purpose. So as I had this consultation call with John, and it was. Pretty much the same conversation that I had with you and today's episode, but we are really trying to get John to move forward into a step of where he could make his website more presentable.
[00:45:15] John started to see the light and he started to see the clouds open up in the sky and see the value behind the website. Again, I hope that today's episode helped John see the light even more. And I hope the clouds have completely cleared so that he can see the reasons why I'm pushing someone to a website there's multifunction behind these concepts of why you're a podcast, or you're starting with this pillar content and you're working them down the funnel to get to your website so that you can continue to market to them.
[00:45:45] But for John, we're just trying to get him to collect email addresses and you can see where he feels as though it's coming together. And since that call, he has updated his website, he has made it look more presentable and he has started incorporating email marketing. So here's that call? We'll finish it off and we'll be ready.
[00:46:03] And
[00:46:03] Jon Verno: Shannon, you're a right from the beginning of this conversation. You're like no, that's the light. And you're right. The last thing you got to, I should be worrying about as an EPK because the EPK is on the website and you want the, you want, so really what I get out of this is that website is your bread and butter.
[00:46:24] That's your baby, right? Better be given the most attention. And with this is great. A nice template. Are there any other templates or just a search it out? Just cause Shannon to tell you the truth. Sometimes when you Google for something, you get bombarded and you don't know what's true and what's not true.
[00:46:46] And. And I'm not, killing you with compliments, but I watched a lot of different ones and you got to the point and you're sincere and you do care, but you say it straight up. You're like, all right, you got to put the work in, put the,
[00:47:03] Shannon Hernandez: but this
[00:47:04] Jon Verno: is the way, not the only way, but a way.
[00:47:08] Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. And I do have, my business is the official show sponsor. So I've invested. I have a road castor pro that I use. I have a couple of computers. I have an I work with the guys at Sweetwater. I work with a local recording studio here. He's my audio consult.
[00:47:27] I got so many ambers and the fire, I gotta have a guy that's teaching me Reaper. I'm finally getting away from audacity. It's just that, it's just, I learned this and I
[00:47:38] Shannon Hernandez: build on it. Yeah. Again, none of this comes immediately in none of it does it like, if I had to tell you how many times I wanted it to be done immediately, I, I would probably be a trillionaire at this point, but it just didn't happen.
[00:47:52] It didn't happen. And it all happened based on trying to find the right ways in order to do it. Now, a lot of what I am sharing with you is very DIY. It is for podcasters who are looking for D I Y style of doing it because not everyone has the income to create a PR, a website, a podcast program. An email marketing list, a social media following, not everyone does that.
[00:48:17] I've been doing this since, I've been doing this since Facebook was really becoming a thing. And so as I started building it out I started thinking about it. I thought I did all this kind of in chunks of my life. Now do, does someone have to do this in chunks of their life?
[00:48:31] Not necessarily they can pay for it. They can. It's just going to cost a lot of money. If someone asks me, Hey, Shannon, can you build me a website? And I go what kind of website do you want? And they said I want the $500 website. I'm like that's going to cost. That's going to be a very basic website.
[00:48:46] It's not going to do you very well. Very good. Then someone comes to me and says, I want a local website for my business. That deals in. I don't know. Let's just say like wedding day. Offerings and I say, okay what do you want? Do you want a point of, you want a point of sale, a button on there?
[00:49:00] Do you want me to integrate all that? Do you want me to integrate graphic designs, all these things. And they say, yeah, I go, okay, that might be anywhere between two to $3,000, because we're having to integrate more. So when it comes down to doing it all yourself, you just do it, you learn it over time and it's just anything else, exercise.
[00:49:15] It's like an eating program. It's like learning how to build an engine on a car. You're learning as you go. But if you invest in the education of it, then that can move you a lot faster ahead. Instead of searching for the answers on the internet, you can. Yeah.
[00:49:30] Jon Verno: Yeah. And I've gotten better.
[00:49:32] Just, just, you just get better. You just get better. I cringe now when I go back and listen to some of the episodes before I'm like, ah, what? It's just like a bank. Fans think, oh, your first album was the best, but the bands like, oh man, I came and listened to that anymore. It's the same thing where I am creating here.
[00:49:49] One question on go, daddy, can I get by at this point with uh, with GoDaddy or is that something in the future I'm going to have to,
[00:49:57] Shannon Hernandez: you're going to have to expand it out. Th GoDaddy's a great starter. It's a good starter for a lot of people, but it's just not going to do the things that you want it to do.
[00:50:05] Say for instance, and I don't want to use my website as an example, because you could always say my website, the perfect one, but let's go to that balanced bites website and you can see every, she has everything on there. She built that out all over time. She now has obviously someone who is helping her out, but this is a WordPress website.
[00:50:22] And it has a specific theme that goes with it. All right. And when it comes down to the website and the theme, then you got to find the themes. You've got to find the developer unless you are willing to take on that challenge. No, I am not. This
[00:50:37] Jon Verno: time of the year, I'm quiet now through early March.
[00:50:40] Yeah. That's why, I'm not working I'm first time in 25 years because of COVID w our nighttime week on operation shut down. Cause there's no bars up here in New York. Everything's shut down at 10 o'clock. So I have nothing but time on my hands, but I can't, I don't want to say I can't, at this point, I'm not prepared to do a website.
[00:51:01] How long do you think I have with this GoDaddy?
[00:51:04] Shannon Hernandez: And I know, as far as like, how much juice you're going to be able to squeeze it. Yeah. I would say, it's going to only get you to up to a certain point because it could
[00:51:15] Jon Verno: look bad. Does it look
[00:51:16] Shannon Hernandez: bad? Shannon? Is it? I wouldn't say it looks bad.
[00:51:19] I would just say it looks it needs lots of improvement, improvement. And so I would be pushing it over into a WordPress website because you have more flexibility with a WordPress website. Is WordPress do it yourself? Oh yeah. Total do it yourself. But then there's people out there that will help you do it.
[00:51:37] I would S I would recommend that you go look for someone if. And if you have this ability and if possible, I would go look for someone who teaches a training course on WordPress, how to get how to create a WordPress website. But let me also tip you off on this next thing, John, is that when you are creating a WordPress website, you're learning all these different functionalities of how a website works.
[00:52:03] But that does not include the graphic design. And that's that whole other element to that? I know.
[00:52:13] Jon Verno: Oh man. I know. I, that's why I outsource my company website to CGI communications. They have it all. They have the copywriters, the graphic, the everything.
[00:52:24] Shannon Hernandez: All right. Shannon. Does this help you out, man?
[00:52:28] Did I give you some better answers or worse answers? I want to make sure that you're clear and if I didn't answer anything, I want to make sure that I can answer it for you. This is what
[00:52:37] Jon Verno: I get out of it. Everything has to go to the website. The website has to be given attention. It has to be beefed up.
[00:52:43] It has to be modernized as much as I can see, and it's go, daddy, the blog page, you've given me examples and that I understand that better now, what would it has to be and how it works. And I understand that, and I understand that we need a better website for many reasons, one to look better and you have to dress to impress.
[00:53:09] If you want you want to book a better guest, you have to have something there. And you're telling me these publicists, they do their research, a a snippy little EPK. Isn't going to do it. They want to go to the website. So the website carries that much clout Shannon. That's what
[00:53:26] Shannon Hernandez: you're telling me.
[00:53:28] It does. When an artist sends me, when an artist sends me their song via email and I click on their link and I see that it's just something that goes to a SoundCloud. I'm like, I'm out, I'm out. I don't like, I want to learn about you. Like I'm out. I don't want to hear your song. I want to learn about you.
[00:53:42] Maybe what I learned about you will help me understand why you've written that song.
[00:53:47] Jon Verno: So the website is speaks volumes of what you're doing, what kind of commitment you have to, what you're doing and what you have to offer their client. So if you don't, if you don't have either the, no with all or the motivation to at least have your website look like a top shelf website, then what other part of your presentation is lacking?
[00:54:11] Shannon Hernandez: Right now the website, but then I would, that's why I said, and that's why I released that episode. The website and the email marketing is the key, because that allows you to, that opens up the opportunities for audio programming choices that you're going to put inside the audio program, go to the website, learn this, go to the website, to learn that, get on the email, us to do this, check out the link that goes to this.
[00:54:34] This website opens up those opportunities.
[00:54:46] I hope this consultation call encourages you and helps you feel a little bit more like you're not alone. Then you feel you are because there are guys out there just like John, and just like you who are going through the exact same thing. And you're not sure exactly where to go. You don't have the roadmap, but you're figuring it out.
[00:55:04] You're looking for the right answers and the roadmap to making your podcast a success. So I will tell you this right now, and I think you can gather it at this point. Is that your podcast? One piece of the puzzle, the larger piece is going to be that backend stuff that you're doing for your website.
[00:55:21] I'm going to continue to talk about this stuff and I'm going to continue to Ram it down your throat because it is that important. It is equally as important as we do in radio, because we're always driving someone to a website to jump in. And of course we're pixeling them, but we are trying to get them to take an action on the website.
[00:55:40] So I hope this consultation call really helped you out. I want to leave you with one more thing. And it was a quote that I saw on Instagram from the motivation mafia, Instagram account, and the quote is. Miracle start to happen. When you give as much energy to your dreams, as you do your fears. So you might be afraid to spend the money on a website, you might be afraid to spend the money on brand new equipment.
[00:56:04] You might be afraid to spend money on the courses that will teach you to become a better podcast editor and be more speedy. It maybe it's a course on how to build a website, but you don't advance. If you aren't giving your fears more energy than you do your dreams. So give your dreams the equal, if not more energy.
[00:56:24] And you'll start to see your fears dissipate, forget about what your family says. Forget about what your friend says about the podcast. You are now developing a roadmap to making this thing work for yourself, whether you want it to be a side hustle and you're making a few extra hundred bucks every month.
[00:56:43] So that you can go, I don't know, maybe to dinner or maybe to invest more in your podcast. That's enough. That's a success. If you ask me it's more than what someone else is not doing, that's what I have to remind myself. Every time someone says, oh, Shannon, you work too much, or you do too much with your podcasting stuff.
[00:57:00] But now here we are 10,000 subscribers in on my YouTube channel. I have plenty more work to do, but it took me awhile to get to that 10,000 subscriber list. And then the subscribers to me, those aren't the most important metric. The metrics that's more important for me on the backend is that retargeting or that remarketing so that I can know what I will be marketing to people, especially you later down the line.
[00:57:25] So you can forget about what the negative energy that is being fed to you from family and friends. Forget about. Miracle start to happen. When you give as much energy to your dreams, as you do your fears. If you want to ask me a question or maybe just comment on the podcast itself, reach out to [email protected], scroll down, look at that voicemail button or maybe email button and you can shoot me a message.
[00:57:48] I promise I will get to some of those emails and voicemails in the next episode. So we can follow up with you guys. I have not forgotten about you. I've got a whole bunch of them that I want to read out. And while I don't know about a whole bunch of them, but I've got quite a few that I want to read out and address to you the audience so that you can hopefully get a better understanding and be pointed in the right direction with your podcast because your struggles are likely someone else's struggles.
[00:58:13] And if you can tell me what you're struggling. We're helping each other out. So thank you so much for listening to The Podcast Therapist this week. I really appreciate it. And one last thing, if you are listening on apple podcasts, head on over to the apple podcast app and leave a rating and a review of this podcast, I would love it.
[00:58:30] If you shared your thoughts on what has helped you, what hasn't helped you, it doesn't matter what that rating may be. It only helps me become a better podcast or for you, and for those who will be coming in and learning how to make this thing work for themselves, have a great weekend. Everyone we'll see you next time.
