110. 7 Assumptions to STOP Making as a Podcaster

Sara Whittaker 0:01

Your Podcast is a powerful tool that serves your audience and your business. But how do you manage it all bring in new listeners, and convert those listeners into customers. That's what this show is all about. Welcome to podcasting for educators. I'm Sara Whittaker, classroom teacher turn podcast manager. And I'm here to help you get the most out of your show, all while making an impact on other educators. All right, today I want to talk about assumptions. I think assumptions can really be dangerous in any field of work. And podcasting is definitely no exception. So in this episode, we're going to explore some common assumptions made by podcasters. And talk about why it's so crucial to let go of them. And before we get started, I just want to be clear, this is definitely not me stepping up on my soapbox and critiquing anything that you're doing, I have been very guilty of many of these assumptions at many different times, they are just things that I think we can become a little bit more aware of, and then avoid in order to make our podcast as effective as they can possibly be. We can all work on getting better together. So whether you're a seasoned podcaster, or you're just starting out, get ready to challenge some of the assumptions that you may be making with your show and ultimately improve your podcasting game. Okay, number one is I want, and I'm going to say us, because like I said, I've been guilty of these things, too. I want us to stop assuming that it's not someone's first time listening to your podcast. I think this is especially true for those of us who have had our podcast for some time. Now. I think we tend to assume that if someone is listening to our latest episode, then they've probably been a listener for a while. But in reality, you could be on your 500th episode and have someone tuning in for the very, very first time. And this could be someone who's not only new to your podcast, but new to you completely. And this is why I think it's really still important that we are constantly sharing who we are and what we do in some kind of way so that we can establish that trust and that authority from the beginning in case it is somebody's first time listening, which is why I also think it's super useful to have some kind, it doesn't have to be long. In fact, I definitely think it should be short. But I think it's still useful to have these short, formal intros to our shows, like I have in mind and like so many other podcasts have, because it really does that work for you. It's introducing who you are, why they should be listening, why you are the right person to be talking about this topic. And it gives people that information for you at the beginning of every single episode, in case it is somebody brand new, who's listening. I know sometimes I will do. Like if I'm looking for a new podcast on a certain topic, I'll do a search in my apple podcasts. And when a new podcast comes up, it's often from somebody I've never seen before, I don't know who they are. And I really appreciate when they either at the beginning of their episode just kind of like intertwined. In their episode, they tell me who they are, what their background is how they help people or in a formal intro that they have. But they give me that information. So I have some background on who this person is and why I should be listening to them. And I want you to do the same thing. On this same topic of not assuming that it's not somebody's first time listening to your podcast. I also want us to avoid making anyone feel like they are on the outside of an inside joke. Because if it's somebody's first time listening to your podcast, sometimes will say things like, I don't know if this is a terrible example. But for some reason it's popping in my head. Maybe you as the podcaster. You hate cats. And anytime you bring up cats or anytime a guest brings up cats, you say something like, well, we all know how I feel about cats. Well, your new listeners don't know how you feel about cats. So we don't want to assume that every single listener that's hearing every single episode knows what we're talking about. We want to give that background knowledge to people. And that might feel a little bit repetitive sometimes, but I think it's really, really important. Another kind of example of this is sometimes we say things like, Oh, well, you probably saw last week that I shared on Instagram, blah, blah, blah. We don't want to assume that people tuned in last week. We don't want to assume that people follow us on Instagram Instead, you could say something like all Lincoln Instagram posts in the show notes that shares X, Y, and Z. So really here, I just want us to basically approach every episode, as if we're talking to somebody who has never listened to our show before. And as I said before, that can be as simple as having a 15 second intro, or saying one line at the beginning of your show that that shares who you are and what your podcast does. Alright, this second assumption that I want us to stop making is to stop assuming that you know exactly who is actually listening to your podcast. Now, this is a big one, because I think that a lot of times, whoever our ideal listener, or our ideal customer is in our head, that's who we think, is 100% of the people that are listening. So if your podcast is for fourth grade teachers, first of all, kudos to you, because I love that you've niched down so much. But within that maybe you think that most or all of the people who are listening have been teaching for at least three years. But in reality, maybe the bulk of your listeners are actually brand new fourth grade teachers, or maybe 30% of your listenership is actually third through fifth grade teachers. And of course, knowing this information is so important because it can really drive the kind of content that we put on our podcasts. And the only way to really know who is listening, is to actively go out and seek this information from your people. Now, personally, I think the best way to find out this information is to do a formal survey at least once a year, better yet every six months. And if you are in my audio course, podcasts like you mean it, there's a very detailed lesson that shows you exactly how to formally survey your audience and how to really go through those results and have it help you drive your content for your podcast. Because if you don't really know who is listening, then you don't really know what they need. And then you're never going to be able to fully improve your show and really take it to that next level. Assumption number three is to stop assuming that even your most loyal listeners will remember to write a review for your podcast. If you've ever had somebody organically, just out of the blue write you a review on Apple podcasts for your show, then you know what an amazing feeling that is, it's so awesome to either get that email or to see it on your Apple podcasts that you have a new positive review. It's the best. Does that happen constantly for most people? No, it doesn't, you really have to constantly make an intentional effort to make that ask. And that could be on your podcast itself consistently.

Sara Whittaker 8:04

It could be through email, it could be you having a conversation through DMS on Instagram, maybe somebody messages you and said, Oh, I really enjoyed your latest episode. That's the perfect opportunity to have a conversation with that person. And to make that ask of hey, if you're enjoying the show, it would really mean so much to me. If you could write a review, and then give them that link, drop that link. So all they have to do is click and do it right then and there. Because even people who don't miss an episode of our podcasts, most of them probably have not written a review. And they just need to be reminded and to be asked. And most importantly, they need to understand why it's so important. When I'm talking to you all you know why it's so important because you're podcasters. But for probably the majority of your audiences, they don't really understand the importance of having a review written for your show. So let them know that by writing a review, for your podcast, they are helping you reach more people and helping people make that decision to push play on your episodes and to subscribe to your podcast, which in turn allows you to support more people. And another really kind of subcategory of this assumption is we don't want to assume that people know how to write a review. Again, we're podcasters you probably listen to lots of podcasts. You probably know how to write a review, maybe not and that's okay. But there's a lot of people out there who are very new to podcasting and they have no idea how to write a review. What I love to do to help remedy this is I like to just take out my phone and create a quick screen recording on my iPhone and show people how to pull up my podcast on Apple podcasts, how to scroll down to the section where they can write a review I I type in a little sample, show them how to hit Submit so that they can actually get that visual of what it looks like and how quick it is to write that review as well. When we do podcast launches for our clients, we always create a video like this for them, so that they can have that in their back pocket. And it can be something that they just can pull out and put on their Instagram Stories from time to time to remind people and give that call to action. Assumption number four is to stop assuming that your listeners know what you're selling. If you are working on driving or listeners to a specific thing, whether that's a single TPT product or a bundle or a course or a membership or your services, whatever it is, my kind of thinking here is, you really have to be intentional about doing this. And you have to be consistent about doing this mentioning something dropping the name of something, just one time in one episode is not gonna pay off in terms of seeing results. People need to hear things over and over and over again, the more you can talk about what you're selling, what you're trying to drive people to the better. People need these reminders. And it's not even about trying to convert the listener right then in there in that moment, so much as that is building awareness around the thing that you're selling, because maybe they're not ready to buy it right now. But maybe two months down the road they are, and they've heard you talk about it over and over and over again. So you're the person that they're going to think of when they need that thing. And the same exact principles apply. For lead magnets, maybe you're using your podcast to grow your email list. And it's the same exact thing. We want to consistently be talking about these things so that people are very, very aware of what we're trying to drive them to how we're trying to support them in other ways beyond our podcasts. Assumption number five is to stop assuming that your listeners will take notes. How many times have we heard podcasters say this? I know for me, I can think of at least one instance that I did say this on an episode and I wish I could take it back. But you live and you learn, we need to remember that people are multitasking when they are listening to our podcasts. In fact, when I did my latest podcast or pulse check, this is something that I do from time to time, where I'll ask you a question either via email or on Instagram. And I'll share the results on my episodes. And my latest one was, what are you typically doing when you are listening to a podcast? And almost 100% of you said that you are doing something else. You're driving in the car, you're exercising, you are doing laundry and things around the house. Those are the biggest answers. I also had some people say that they would listen while they're working. So maybe they're sitting at a desk but they're still multitasking. Sidenote, I did have somebody say that they usually listen on the go. But sometimes if the podcast has a transcript, they will read the transcript, which I think is really important for us to think about, because that test show that people do use transcripts. But anyway, what I'm trying to say here is that people are not, in most circumstances, going to actually take out a pen and paper. I think we've all heard, you know, somebody will be in the middle of their episode. And they'll say, okay, stop, stop what you're doing, come back to me, get out your pen, get out your paper, no, people are not actually going to do that. Because they are doing other things. We don't want anybody taking notes while they are driving. And this is why I think it's so important to have a few things in addition to your podcasts or that go along with your podcast. And those two big things would be shownotes for your episodes, and a weekly newsletter, because those are places that you can put those calls to action. Or you can put those important resources that you're mentioning, or those steps that you're listing out for people, they can go and read that when they're ready on their own time because they're not doing it in the moment when they are listening to your show. On this same point. We also want to stop assuming that our listeners aren't going to stop what they're doing and go straight to any link that you mentioned in your episode, even if they are interested, whether that is a free download or to join your membership or to buy that TPT product because they're doing other things because they're in the car because they're somewhere where they are using their hands on other things. Now, of course sometimes they will okay, maybe there scrolling their phone at the park, and they're gonna click on that link, like, you should absolutely include your links in the show description for your episodes for that reason. But oftentimes people will then later go to that link that you mentioned, which, again, is why we should be writing a weekly newsletter, we should be aligning those call to actions from our episodes into our emails. And we should also be using some kind of pretty link, so that if you're constantly let's go back to that point about consistently talking about your offers, and if I am constantly saying that link, and constantly talking about that thing, for example, www dot podcasting, educators.com/prep school, I'm talking about my prep school course, I'm constantly saying that link, when somebody's ready to join, they're going to know where to go, because I've talked about it a lot, I have a pretty clean link, that's easy to remember. And it's also in my show notes. Okay, so stop assuming that people are going to actually take notes, give them these resources, somewhere that is written down, not just verbally. Assumption number six, stop assuming that everyone is listening to your entire episode. If I asked you to think about when you share something like a TPT product, or that the doors are open to your course, where do you usually mention that is it at the end of an episode? I think for a lot of people it is, well, we have to remember that not everybody's listening to the very end of our episodes, especially if your episodes are long, because we're multitasking, we're in the car, we're going to stop that episode. When there's maybe five more minutes left, because we're at our destination, will we go back and finish those last few minutes, maybe, maybe not. So when you've got something important to share, whether that is a call to go buy something or download something, or just some other kind of announcement, don't always save those things to the very end of your episodes, because a majority of people are not going to hear them. So the solution there can be to scatter it throughout your episodes, you can use dynamic ads, or you can just bake it in to your episode at the beginning, sprinkle it into the middle. But don't just rely on the end of your episode to give all of your calls to action. A great way to kind of get a gauge of how many people are listening to all or most of your episodes would be to check your consumption rate, you can do this inside of apple of your apple podcast Connect account. Now this is only going to show you the consumption rate of people who listen on Apple podcasts. But we know that a huge majority of our listeners are on Apple podcasts. So it's a very good data point to check out. Again, if

Sara Whittaker: 17:59

you are in podcasts like you mean it, I have a whole section in there that really breaks down how to look at this data, how to know what's kind of average, good, what kind of consumption rate to aim for all of that. So check that out if you are in podcasts like you mean it. But for everybody, you can log into your apple podcasts Connect account and you can look at your consumption rate. And it is just a very telling interesting data point. Assumption number seven is to stop assuming that simply having a podcast is going to be enough. And what I mean by that is that simply putting out episodes even if you are consistent with your episodes, just that alone is not going to grow your audience. We need to be doing other things. We need to be promoting our podcasts, we need to meet marketing our podcast, we need to be looking at our data, we need to be talking to our audience. I have a whole organic growth series that I did on the podcast a few months ago. So I'll link that in the show notes for you to check out I have a playlist for that. So it has all the episodes in one nice little neat list. And I would definitely go check that out. If you are not really doing much to grow your podcast, you're really kind of at that stage where you're releasing episodes. And that's kind of where it ends, which is okay, it's totally fine to be at that stage. We all have to start somewhere. But if you are really wanting to grow your audience, there are some other things that you can be doing. And then kind of a bonus assumption for you is to stop assuming that just because your podcast isn't where you hoped it would be by now means that you're never going to get there. Like I just mentioned a minute ago. There are lots of things that we can actively do to get out there and intentionally grow our podcast audience In turn just your audience as a whole. And this is no small feat like podcasting is it can be hard and it can be hard to really see that big growth and it happens over time, I can't emphasize that enough. If you are listening and you are only a few months into your show, just know that that's really not a lot of time, you are doing a great job right now of building a strong foundation and really planting all of those seeds that are going to serve you long term, stick with it. If your numbers aren't where you had hoped they would be. I really encourage you to keep doing what you're doing. And give it some time time is really the ticket to reaching these podcast goals that you might have. Okay, so to recap those assumptions number one, stop assuming that it is not someone's first time listening to your podcast. Number two, stop assuming that you know exactly who is listening. Number three, stop assuming that your listeners will remember to write a review. Number four, stop assuming that your audience knows what you're selling. Number five, stop assuming that your listeners will take notes. Number six, stop assuming that everyone is listening to your entire episode. And number seven, stop assuming that simply having a podcast is enough. And then that bonus assumption was to stop assuming that just because your podcast isn't where you hoped it would be means that you'll never get there. Remember that challenging your assumptions and being open to feedback is so key for growth and success. I really hope that this episode has inspired you to reevaluate your own assumptions and take your podcasting journey to new heights. So this is me taking my own advice by communicating with you and encouraging you to do one of two things today. Number one is to write a review for this show. Whether you've been a listener since the very beginning, or this is your first episode or one of your first episodes that you've heard. One of the biggest ways that you can support this show without dropping a dime is to write a review on Apple podcasts. Just like on Amazon, people love to read reviews, so they can see if this is the show that is right for them. And that will be worthy of their limited time. I'm on a mission to help as many educators as I can start and grow their podcasts so that they in turn can support their audience. And writing a review can help me accomplish that goal. So if you choose to do that today, thank you so so much. Number two is to join us inside of podcasts like you mean it. It's an audio course created for people who are already current podcasters, you do need some data to be able to dive into in order to really get the most out of this course. So if you're brand new, you might not be ready for this course yet. But this was such a fun course to put together and it's been really awesome seeing podcasters go through it and taking action and getting results. Dr. Chris Reeve is one of the students of podcasts like you mean it, She's the host of the autism classroom resources podcast. And she says, this is one of the most effective courses I have ever taken. Your ability to break things down into simple short lessons is wonderful. And the use of the Facebook group really builds discussion, this course was clearly designed to take action. So if you are ready to kind of take your podcast to that next level, really understand your data, understand how to align your podcast content to your business goals. I would love for you to join us inside. You can check that out at podcasting for educators.com/podcast like you mean it. And of course you can also find that link in the description for this episode within your listening app as well as inside of the shownotes on my website. I hope you all have a great week and I will see you here next time. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. To keep this conversation going connect with me on Instagram at podcasting for educators. I'm always looking for an excuse to talk about podcasting. If you're looking for support and launching, managing or growing your podcast, check out my online course the podcasting for educators prep school at podcasting for educators.com/prep school. I'll see you here next time.

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