116. Your First 3 Years of Podcasting: Expectations, Goals, and Action Steps

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.

Sara Whittaker 0:27

how. Now, at the beginning of: 2023

Sara Whittaker: 16:45

Maybe you are creating carousels from your podcast episodes. And you realize that when you do educational carousels, you're actually teaching something from your episode in the carousel, people are super engaged with that versus an audiogram that you put up maybe people aren't very engaged with. So think about what's working and do more of that. And that leads us into actually, what I have for your first goal for year two is to do more of what works. Because of all of that data that I have been talking about that you have gathered, and really also just observed from your first year of podcasting, do more of the things that are working, dive into those topics that people are super engaged with, do more of those social media posts are those emails that people are actually clicking on. But you have to look at your data to be able to do that. A second goal that you can have, is it to diversify your content structure. And what I mean by this is to explore different episode formats, specifically, interviews, or maybe some roundtable discussions. I see this a lot when I help people launch their podcast. And maybe when they first get started, they think that they want to have a mix of solo and guest episodes, they want to have like maybe one guest a month or every other week. But as time goes on during that first year, they're not actually having as many guests as they had hoped they would. And so if that's you, then maybe you can focus on okay, how can I really create a guest booking system? How can I make this a priority so that I can reach my goal of having more guests on my podcast. Now I wanted to give you a specific goal for your downloads. Again, this is going to vary from person to person, podcasts, podcasts. But I think a great goal is always to double your monthly downloads year to year. So if you launched in October, and you had 500 downloads, then by the next October, it would be great to have 1000 downloads per month after that first year. That is where I tend to see spikes in downloads happen. For example, I looked back at one of my clients, and she launched and the first month that she launched she had 800, just over 800 downloads for that first month of her podcast. That was in January, the next January. She had 5800 downloads that month, and the next January. So that's year three now she had 11,700 downloads for that month. So she went from 800 to 5800 to 11,700. And I still remember the conversation that we had after that very first month of her launching her podcasts and even in the few months to follow. And she was really kind of bummed that her numbers weren't matching her expectations because they were a lot lower than hers. Social media and her email list. And that all goes back to what I was saying at the beginning of the episode, you have to give this time you have to give it time to catch on, you have to give it time to be a resource that people know about and that they really love. So be patient, it's going to pay off. A fourth goal that you should have for the second year is you should have some kind of system in place to get an idea of what kind of impact your podcast is having on your business, whether that is tracking links, which is honestly not my favorite way to track ROI just because there's so much involved there, somebody could hear something on your podcast, but they don't use the link, they type it into their computer, or they heard about it on your podcast, and then they saw it on your Instagram stories. So they clicked your link from your Instagram story. So it looks like it came from Instagram. But really, they first heard it on your podcast. So I definitely don't think that link tracking is the end all be all by any means. It could be a discount code that you give for podcast listeners, like if you have a course or membership. It could be a customer intake survey. So when somebody joins your course have a survey for them to fill out asking Where did you hear about this? Or why did you decide to purchase this and have your podcast be one of the options and see how many people are selecting them? And then it could be as simple as putting a question on your Instagram Stories from time to time. Something like have you ever bought one of my resources because you heard me talk about it in a podcast episode yes or no super simple. It's something that you could do once a month if you wanted to. And then the fifth goal for year two is to really tap into collaborations. Okay, by now you have a solid foundation for your show, you've got this bank of episodes, you really know the direction that your show is going. So now it's really time to leverage that and to tap into these collaborations. So think about how you can collaborate with other podcasts through things like podcasts, ads, or podcast guesting or creating a little blurb that people put in their newsletter about your podcast, there's so many different ways that you can leverage collaboration. All right, moving on to year three of podcasting. At this stage, you are maturing and expanding, you're really beginning to reap the rewards of your podcast. Some things to expect during this third year, you are really in it, you are seeing the rewards of your podcast, you're finally having more people, whether that's in your Facebook group, or your course community or in TPT reviews or whatever, saying, I listened to your podcast or I love your podcast. At this point, if you haven't already outsourced anything for your podcast, I would recommend looking into outsourcing because by year three, if you are still going strong, then your expertise could probably be better used in more of the actual episode Creation versus the production of the show. During your three, you should have a clearer picture of how your podcast is helping your business. And your downloads have hopefully jumped from when you first started your show. Some goals for your third year of podcasting is number one, to deepen listener connection, start thinking of some ways that you could really focus on fostering a stronger sense of community among your listeners. That's one big thing that's missing from a lot of podcasts. And it's one thing that podcasters really wish they had more of is that kind of bridge between you and your listeners. This could be through a Facebook group for your podcast. And that could be either free or paid. I'm not telling you to pour a bunch of time into a free Facebook group. But it's definitely an option. inviting your listeners onto your show is another really great way to just deepen that connection and that engagement with your listeners, you should be doing an audience survey at least once a year and really utilizing that feedback to shape your content and the direction of where you want your podcast to go. When someone asks in a Facebook group, hey, does anybody know any good podcast for fill in the blank? Whatever your niche is, I want your name to be first on their list. Goal number two is to really be utilizing some of these higher level audience growth strategies, like collaboration like I mentioned in year two, but also putting some focus into SEO if you aren't already really thinking about having a strong keyword for each of your episodes for are the titles ever episodes and also for your shownotes Facebook ads, running Facebook ads to a specific podcast episode. And or leveraging Pinterest for your podcast I have talked to a lot of people who use Pinterest and they get a lot of traffic to their Show Notes Pages, and in turn their episodes from their pins. By year three,

Sara Whittaker: 25:23

I want you to really be leveraging your past episodes, there are so many things that you can do with past episodes by now you have over 100 episodes. Don't forget about those, those are like a goldmine for you. And you can use them in so many different ways. You can use them to create kind of like spin off episodes from you can create playlists, you can have them in emails on the back end of things you can do, maybe like a once a week Instagram post that is directing people to a past episode, there's so many things that you can do to bring in new listeners and drive people back to these past episodes. Because if you think you've got 100 200 episodes, and you get a new listener, a lot of people will scroll back and look at past episodes. But at that point, they're probably not scrolling all the way through, and they're gonna miss some really amazing content that you've created. So use that. Refer back to that all the time, every time that you outline a new episode, think okay, what past episode could I refer to, in this episode to direct people back there to further help them with this topic. Goal number four for year three is to really get strategic with your content creation, I want you to be planning your episodes right alongside your business goals, you should have really clear offers, and people should know about them. At this point, if you are kind of slacking on the whole selling thing, in year one and year two, it's time to amp it up in year three. I'm not saying to be salesy, but I am saying to bring more awareness to the things that you have for people. And then goal number five, is to do a podcast audit. By now you probably have a really strong foundation for your show, you've got all of these episodes, you've got all of these things in place. Now it's time to really sit down and do a formal audit, whether that's a do it yourself audit, or have somebody else come in and do the audit for you. I do one on one podcast audits on a very limited basis. But in podcasts like you mean it, I have a whole lesson that has a step by step audit that you can go through to really have that perspective of okay, this is exactly what I need to look for. This is exactly what I might need to tweak a little bit in order to really be getting the most out of my podcast. So as you can see what the breakdown of year one, year two and year three of your podcast, as your podcast is maturing your business is maturing right along next to it. So as we wrap up this episode, I really want you to consider where you are in this timeline, which year of podcasting Are you in? What are some of the things that you can focus on improving? What are some of the things that you can celebrate? This kind of reflection is so so important, we get really caught up in where we are in this exact moment. But I am a big fan of constantly thinking about where we started and where we are going. Where you start day one of your podcast definitely is not where you're going to end up. If you stick with it, you will see the rewards. And you will unlock all the benefits of podcasting for your business, there's going to be a moment where you will say, Wow, I have really made a lot of progress. And that might be progress with your listenership or your content or something else. If you are on your two or three of your podcasts, and you aren't already a part of my audio course podcasts like you mean it, I really encourage you to at least go check out and see what's included. I'll put a link for that in the description and in the show notes. It's really going to help you level up your podcast game and really see how you can better leverage this platform. There's a step by step audit metrics, bundle content, calendar and so much more. I'd love for you to take one of these actions today. Either one go and check out podcasts like immediate or go write a review for this show on Apple podcasts. I will see you here next week. 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

Share Episode

Shownotes

Transcripts

Follow

Links

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube