Podcast Marketing Academy Lesson Outline
Modules
Click on any of the module headings below to jump to that module’s lessons breakdown.
0: Introduction
An introduction to Podcast Marketing Academy and thoughts on how to think about your podcast as you’re working through the content.
1: Foundation
What you need to have in place on the back end before seeking additional exposure for your show.
2: Structuring Your Content
How to construct your individual podcast episodes and show as a whole to help achieve your broader goals.
3: Creating Raving Fans
How to engage with your audience in a way that converts them into raving fans who will do your marketing for you.
4: How to Get Found
Strategies you can put to work for your show to get exposure to new audiences and convert them into listeners.
5: Tools & Resources
A collection of tools and resources to help streamline and your podcast creation and marketing process.
0: Introduction
1: Introduction to Podcast Marketing Academy
Before we begin we should probably get to know each other.
In this video I outline who I am, what we’re going to be covering, and my personal philosophy when it comes to marketing.
2: Your Podcast’s Purpose
Podcasting is a fantastic medium for building trust, educating, entertaining and inspiring.
It’s not a great medium for making money, however. At least not directly.
In this lesson, we’ll talk about how to think about the purpose of your podcast when it comes to your overall marketing and business, and how to ensure you’re making the best use of the medium.
1: Foundation
Introduction: Building Your Podcast’s Foundation
Before focusing on getting more exposure and visibility for your show, it’s essential to ensure you have all the pieces in place to capitalize on the increased exposure when you get it.
There’s nothing worse than getting a huge influx of new traffic but failing to capture any of that attention for more than a fleeting moment.
1: Why You Need to Understand Your Audience
Before you can effectively market your show, you need to understand who you’re targeting with your content.
In this lesson, we’ll talk through how you can become the best in the world to a certain, specific group of people and why you need to start by thinking small before you can grow big.
2: Getting to Know Your Listeners
Now that we’ve talked about why it’s essential to get clear on who you’re marketing your show to, it’s time to walk through the process of getting to intimately know who your listener avatar is.
Getting clear on this avatar not only helps you create targeted, relevant content for your audience and understand how and where to engage with them with your marketing, but it will also be invaluable in helping you line up cross-promotion campaigns and develop strategic relationships which we’ll be discussing later in the Academy.
3: Define Your Listener Journey
Now that you’re clear on who your ideal target listener is, it’s time to look at the journey they’re on and how you fit into it.
If you’re able to clearly articulate how you can help your listeners achieve what they want, you’ll have an easier time gaining new listeners, subscribers, fans, and maybe even customers and clients.
Keep in mind that even if you’re not producing an educational show, that doesn’t mean your listeners aren’t on a journey that you can fit into. Rather than achieving a specific end goal, your listeners may be in search of any combination of:
- Community
- Validation of their thoughts and beliefs
- A way to add more joy or laughter into their life
- Content by someone who looks and/or sounds like them
- Gaining a more nuanced worldview
- Reinforcing their existing worldview or filter bubble
- Finding a consistent source of comfort
- Expanding their general knowledge
- A way to get through the day or distract themselves
There is no right or wrong journey for your listeners. By understanding the journey they’re on with empathy, you can more successfully meet them where they’re at with content and messaging that speaks to them personally.
4: Create Content That Resonates
So many podcasters have difficulty planning out episode content that they know will land with their audience.
Taking what you now know about your listeners and how you can support them on the journey they’re on, you can quickly and easily come up with months worth of episode topics that you know in advance will resonate with your listeners.
5: Positioning
While it’s important to produce the show that you want to produce, it can be helpful to understand how similar shows in your niche present themselves in order to find gaps and sub-niches where your content can better stand out.
There are many ways in which you can choose to position yourself including content, format, tone, medium, and more. In this lesson we’ll look at how being intentional about the positioning of your show can help you build your audience.
6: Your Podcast Promise
When it comes to our marketing, it’s essential that our messaging, content and any offerings are in alignment.
Coming up with a core “promise” that our content makes to our audience gives us a benchmark against which we can assess our content to ensure that it’s consistently working towards the goals we’ve laid out for both ourselves and our listeners.
But that’s not all. Being able to convey clearly exactly who our show is for and what it’s about makes it easier for others to spread the word for us, and allow us to become better known within our niche.
In this lesson, we’ll go over how exactly to construct your own podcast promise.
7: Mapping Out Your Funnel
Your funnel is a system for visualizing and creating relevant content to meet your audience where they’re at and ultimately build the trust necessary to move them towards engaging with you further.
Ideally, as they engage with you further, and hopefully even buy from you (if you offer products or services), your listeners are moved closer to their own goals.
In this lesson, we’ll discuss what to think about when mapping out and constructing your funnel, whether you have one in place already, or are just starting out.
8: Designing Your Website Homepage
Your website is the home of your brand online. As such, it’s important to be intentional about the message it conveys and the actions it encourages.
In this lesson, we’ll cover how to set your website up to achieve the goals of your show and brand.
9: Designing Your Podcast Page
Your podcast page will be one of the primary landing pages for your listeners or potential listeners.
In this lesson, we’ll talk about what goes into designing an effective podcast page in order to get people listening and ultimately subscribing to your show.
10: Designing Your Show Notes
Your show notes collectively will likely be seen more than any other type of page on your site. This means that it’s essential to have a strategy in place when creating and styling them.
In this lesson, we’ll discuss which elements make for effective show notes/individual episode pages and how you can implement them for your show.
11: Website Dos & Don’ts
In this lesson, we’ll talk over some general guidelines and best practices when it comes to setting up and designing your website to ensure you have an online home that looks good and achieves the results your after, even if you’re not a web designer.
12: Podcast Listener Acquisition Process
There are only so many “entrances” a potential listener can take when discovering your podcast and deciding whether or not to give it a listen.
In this less, we’ll discuss how to ensure that your show is making the best possible first impression to potential listeners at every stage of the podcast listener acquisition process.
2: Structuring Your Content
Introduction: Building Great Content
Great marketing is built on great content. Even if you’re able to get you show in front of thousands of people, without a show that grabs and holds their attention, they’re not going to become lasting members of your audience.
In this module, we’re going to discuss how to construct episodes that captivate and engage your audience and keep them coming back for more.
1: Types of Epsisodes and Their Purposes
nterview-style podcast episodes are by far the most common type of show, and there are a lot of benefits to producing an interview-style show.
But interview episodes are far from your only option and alternative formats each have their own benefits in your content ecosystem.
In this lesson, we’re going to explore 5 episode formats to consider adding to your podcast arsenal and the role of each of them in serving your audience.
2: Formatting Tips, Tricks & Strategy
In this lesson, we’ll discuss further some of the tips, tricks, and strategy around using the various episode formats in order to get the best results.
3: Three Things Great Episodes Accomplish
No matter what format episode you’re creating, there are 3 primary goals that each and every podcast episode should achieve.
In this lesson, we’re digging into what these goals are and how you can use them to create episodes that resonate with your audience.
We’ll also discuss 3 additional frames to view your episodes through in order to motivate your audience to action.
4: Running Podcast Campaigns
If you look at all of the content you’re currently creating, including your podcast, social media, email newsletter, etc, is it all working together cohesively?
We want to ensure that all of our content is working together to move our audience towards the next action we want them to take. One way to do this is by running regular “campaigns” which include our podcast content.
In this lesson, we’ll talk about how to start putting campaigns to work for your show, whether you have a product or service offering or not.
5: Using Open Loops to Hook Your Listeners
How do we pique our potential listener’s curiosity enough to get them to press play on our episodes? How do we hook them enough in the intro to keep them listening thorugh the end? How do we entice them to opt into our newsletters, click back to our websites, and take the actions we want them to take?
One of the most powerful ways to achieve any of these goals, is by using open loops in our content.
6: Getting Smart About Episode Structure
If you’re like many podcasters, you might have based your show’s structure on that of other shows you were a listener of yourself. But were those shows being constructed thoughtfully themselves?
In this lesson, we’re going to talk about the different elements of your individual episodes, how to think about them, and what you might want to consider including in each.
7: Episode Segmentation
One of the best ways to hold our listener’s attention, and make it easier to create easily repurposable, shareable content is to use distinct segments within each of our episodes.
In this lesson, we’re going to talk through how to think about creating unique, engaging segments for your episodes, and give you some ideas on what might work for your show.
8: Crafting Impactful Episodes with the SLI Framework
Stories might just be the single best way to share our knowledge while building a strong, personal connection with your listeners.
The problem is that many podcast hosts struggle to use storytelling effectively, especially when it comes to solo episodes where they’re carrying the load when it comes to creating the content.
In this lesson, I’ll share how to use what I call the SLI framework to easily create compelling content that connects with and educates your listeners, while establishing your expertise and authority.
3: Creating Raving Fans
Introduction: Turning Listeners into Raving Fans
You want more listeners for our show. But listeners alone don’t always do you much good. Rather, you want listeners who will engage with you, take action, buy your offerings, and maybe even spread the word about you and your show to other potential listeners.
While it’s easy to think that if you simply create great content, word will spread, that’s rarely the case.
In this module we’re going to walk through how to go beyond your content itself to help turn more listeners into raving fans, who will then, in turn, bring in new listeners.
1: Identity
So often podcasters and content creators feel like they’ll alienate their audience by talking about anything outside of their primary subject matter.
The fact of the matter is that raving fan bases are not built around facts or information, but about a shared identity, worldview, and mission.
In this lesson we’re going to dive into how to establish and strengthen a shared sense of identity with your audience, and why this might be one of the most important things you can work toward with your content.
2: Organization
Content alone is no longer enough to succeed.
There is more high-quality content and information available freely than ever before in history and that content bubble is only expanding.
If you’re looking to build an audience, you need to go beyond the content and information you offer and organize people into a meaningful community around the content.
In this lesson we’ll cover how to think about community, and how often, the crucial skill in building a thriving community is simply taking the lead and organizing people who were already looking for a way to connect.
3: Involvement
We can create a fan base through organizing an audience with a shared identity into a meaningful community around our content, but to help create truly raving fans we need to go further.
One of the best ways to create raving fans is by giving them a sense of personal ownership of the show and the community.
In this lesson we’ll cover how getting our community involved in the creation of the show can give them that sense of ownership, increase their loyalty, and build a connection that goes beyond creator and consumer.
4: Empowering Advocates
There’s a difference between loyal listeners and listeners who will actively spread the word about your show to anyone who will listen.
These types of listeners are your advocates who, when encouraged and activated will do your marketing for you.
In this lesson we’ll cover how to encourage and activate loyal listeners to become advocates for you, your podcast, and your brand.
5: Commitment, Consistency + Posture
When it comes down to it, building an audience is all about your ability as a community organizer, content creator, and leader to connect with both your individual listeners and the community at large.
As the hub at the center, it’s essential that you approach building an audience and engaging with them with the right posture.
In this lesson I’ll share some thoughts on the attitude, mindset and posture you’ll need to adopt to grow your audience.
4: How to Get Found
1. Podcast Marketing Essential Concepts
Welcome to Module 4, where we’re going to be diving deep into the various systems and strategies you can use to help you consistently get in front of new listeners and pull them back to your show.
In this lesson we’ll be covering a few essential concepts to keep in mind as you’re working through this module and applying the lessons to your show.
2. How People Discover Podcasts
Before we start covering the systems and strategies you can put to work for your show to get in front of new potential listeners, we need to know how people actually discover podcasts so we can meet them where they’re at.
In this lesson we’ll cover the most common methods people discover new podcasts and how to think about building out systems and strategies around them.
3. Getting Found Via Search
So often when we hear the term Search Engine Optimization (SEO) we immediately think of search as it relates to Google and the web. Podcasters often forget that podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify are search engines as well.
In this lesson, we’ll cover how to set up our shows and episodes to ensure they have the best chance of ranking highly in podcast platforms (and online) when a potential listener searches for shows on our topic.
4. Leveraging Your Guests
One of the most frustrating aspects of podcasting for many hosts is getting guests to share and promote their episodes, especially when the guest has a large following.
While you’ll likely never be able to get every guest to promote their episodes, there are some things you can do to remove the roadblocks that prevent guests from sharing, and increasing the odds of promoting your show.
In this lesson we’ll identify what those roadblocks are, and how you can minimize their effect.
5a. Four Social Media Mistakes Podcasters Make
Social media is the most common method most podcasters initially turn to in order to grow their shows. But most of the time they make the same series of common mistakes that ultimately hinder their ability to build a following on the social platforms they’re active on, and convert their followers into podcast listeners.
In this lesson, we’re going to cover these common mistakes so you can correct them and start using social media more effectively.
5b. Social Media Acquisition Map
Before you start creating and repurposing social media content to promote your show, it’s important to understand the process of acquiring social media followers and how they move through your content ecosystem.
In this lesson we’ll break down the different phases your social followers travel through as they get to know, like and trust you to give you a better understanding of what type of content you should be creating to speak to followers in each phase.
5c. The 6 Types of Content To Create
Now that you understand how people move from awareness to conversion as they engage with your content ecosystem, we’re going to look deeper into the various forms of specific content that you should be creating and/or repurposing from your podcast.
In this lesson, we’ll cover six types of content and explaining exactly how they fit into the big picture.
5d. Your Weekly Content Plan
Ok, you know what type of content to create and understand how it relates to your social followers, but let’s make it super straightforward shall we?
In this video, I’ll be walking you through a 7-day social schedule template for what type of content to post on your primary social account(s) and when you should post it.
5e. How to Streamline Your Content Repurposing System
Now that you have a clear idea of the content you want to be creating, let’s take a look at how you can make it easier to pull that content directly from your podcast episodes with as little work as possible.
6a. Podcast Guesting: Targeting the Right Shows
When done well, guesting on other podcasts is one of the fastest ways to grow your audience. If it’s not done well, however, you can end up wasting a lot of time and effort for minimal results.
In this lesson we’ll discuss how to target the shows that will actually get you results, how to build out your back end so that you can take advantage of your new exposure, and some things you need to be clear on before you start reaching out to other podcast hosts.
6b. Podcast Guesting: Research
Once you’re clear on the audience and niches you’re going to be targeting with your podcast guesting campaign, it’s time to narrow in your focus and start researching specific shows that would be an ideal fit for your goals.
In this lesson, you’ll discover how to quickly and easily discover dozens of shows for you to guest on, and how to get the contact information of the hosts even when it’s not publicly available, to give you the best shot at avoiding unnecessary gatekeepers and spam filters.
6c. Podcast Guesting: Rocking Your Pitch
Now that you have your target shows lined up, it’s time to make your pitch. A compelling pitch email is essential to help you get the attention of the hosts you’re pitching and give yourself the best chance of landing a guest spot.
In this lesson we’ll discuss the key elements to include in your pitch.
6d. Podcast Guesting: Capturing New Listeners
So you’ve lined up a guesting spot on another podcast, but your work’s not done yet. Delivering an engaging and valuable interview to the audience is essential to convincing them to follow you back to one or more of your owned channels.
In this lesson, we’ll break down what you need to have in place to deliver a standout interview that will have listeners flocking back to your podcast, social channels, and email list.
7. Pitching Media Outlets
PR is a scary concept for many people. It feels like a tool for big companies, celebrities, and world-renowned experts, and it can be daunting to know where to start.
Luckily for you, now that you understand how to pitch other podcast host, you can put those same skills to work to land media features and appearances.
In this lesson, we’ll talk through how to apply those skills to developing media pitches, how to find the producers or editors to make your pitch to, and why you’re likely more qualified for media features than you might think.
5: Tools & Resources
1: Guest Onboarding: Tools & Resources
Ensuring your guests are prepared for the interview can go a long way to both ensuring that they have a positive experience on the show as well as helping you get a better interview out of them.
In this lesson, I’ll walk through my podcast guest onboarding system including the tools and automations I use to make it almost entirely hands-off from my end.
2: Audio Recording & Production Tools & Resources
I use a combination of Quicktime Player and Zoom to record my interviews.
BUT, I only use Zoom if I know the guest is going to record their audio locally on their end.
If the guest is not recording their audio locally I would opt for Squadcast (affiliate link) or Riverside.fm (which allows video recording).
3: Additional Online Tools & Resources
In this lesson, I’ll list some of the tools I find useful in both producing my podcast as well as running my business.
4: Recommended Podcasts, Blogs, Books, Etc
In this lesson, I’ll share some resources if you’re looking to continue to study marketing and building an audience further.