112. 3 Types of Podcasting That Will Drive Traffic to Your TPT Store, Email List, Course, or Membership

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 Whitaker, 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 0:28

The formal definition of a podcast is a digital audio file made available on the internet for downloading to a computer or mobile device, new installments of which can be received by subscribers automatically. Now, when you consider what a podcast is, and how you could use podcasting for your business, your mind probably goes to the most common option which is hosting a weekly podcast. However, based on the definition of what a podcast is, there's actually multiple ways that you can leverage podcasting with or without hosting your own weekly podcast. Today, I'm going to run through three ways that you can use podcasting to boost your business and drive more traffic to your TPT. Store, email list course membership or services. This episode is going to be for you whether you already have a podcast of your own, or if you've never dabbled in podcasting before. Personally, I have used all three of these types of podcasting in my business, and have seen awesome results from each one. So I want you to consider what would be the best type or the next best type for you, depending on the time that you have to put into it and the goals of your business. Let's start with the type of podcasting that we all usually think of when we think of podcasting and that is hosting your own public podcast. This is a really great way to showcase your expertise and connect with your audience. On a more personal level, you can share valuable tips, insights, and even interview other experts in your field. Now most commonly, episodes are released on a weekly basis, but not always, you can do multiple times per week, every other week, or once per month, or even seasonally you can have maybe seasons that have 10 episodes in them each that you release three or four times a year. It doesn't have to be something that you're consistently doing all year long. Now, a public podcast is free content that you are creating for your audience. And this is gonna be a really great option for you. If you are really looking for a way to have long form weekly content in your business, and you want something that you're going to be able to keep up with week to week. It's great for authority building. It's a way of having consistent lead generation if you are releasing those weekly episodes. And you are centering your episodes around things that you offer in your business, whether that's free lead magnets, or paid GBT resources or courses or memberships. Whatever it is, if you are centering your episodes around these things, and you're talking about them, then it is going to be a way that you are consistently bringing leads into your business. Hosting a public podcast also gives you content to repurpose on social media, in your emails on Pinterest and any other places that you might hang out again, as long form weekly content that you can then repurpose into all of these other areas of your business. And out of all three of these types of podcasting that I'm talking about today. Hosting a consistent weekly, or bi weekly public podcast is definitely going to be the method that's going to build that know like and trust factor with your audience the fastest and the most consistently. Because if you are continuing to put out that content, people are continuing to tune in and listen to you and hear your advice and hear your expertise week to week. They are going to build that trust with you faster than a lot of other methods whether we're talking about podcasting or something different. The second type of podcasting that you can use to drive more traffic to your TPT store and other offers is podcast guesting if you have not jumped on board with the power of collaborating with other people in the online space. Do not sleep on this strategy. It is such a good one. When you can appear as guests on other podcasts within your niche. You are able to really expand your reach and attract new followers to your TPT business to your Instagram to your email list wherever it is that you want. drive people. Plus it's an awesome opportunity to network and learn from like minded entrepreneurs, you can meet some really cool people when you put a focus on being a guest on other podcast. If you've considered hosting your own show before podcast guesting is just a really awesome way to kind of get your feet wet with podcasting. See how you like it, see how you feel when you're behind the mic. And when you hear your episode go live. It's just kind of a good trial run to see if it's something that you might want to incorporate into your business in a bigger way. Because you don't have to have your own podcast to guest on other shows. I think that sometimes that's a misconception that people have. However, if you are already a podcaster podcast guesting is going to be one of the best ways to grow your existing podcast audience. So podcast guessing is great for you. If you are wanting to really put a focus on building your brand awareness and your discoverability online. It's a great way to grow your email list. If you go into your interviews with a specific lead magnet in mind that you have that you can share about in that interview. Great way to grow your email list. Similarly to this idea of it being great for your discoverability if the podcast that you are guesting on, does show notes for their show, which is kind of a summary of the episode on their website, then they will probably include a backlink that will lead back to your website or to your podcast or whatever links that you want them to share within their show notes, which is great for discoverability. Great for SEO, and just overall great for your business. Podcast guessing is also a really fun strategy to use. If you're leading up to some sort of live launch, people will do what is called a podcast Tour, where they will guest on a bunch of different podcasts in a short period of time to really give themselves a big boost of brand awareness and get a bunch of new people into their world onto their email list. new followers on Instagram and places like that, so that by the time that they open the doors to whatever it is that they're launching, they'll have a whole new audience in front of them. The third type of podcasting that you might want to consider utilizing is private podcasting. Now, if you aren't familiar with what a private podcast is, it is essentially a podcast that is not searchable within listening apps like Apple podcasts and Spotify, the content is gated in some way. So your listeners have to give you something in exchange for access to that content, whether that's their email address, if it's a free private podcast or money if it's a paid private podcast, I am personally absolutely obsessed with private podcasting sky's the limit on how many ways you can use this in your business. I'm going to run through a few fun ideas of how you might be able to use private podcasting. Number one is you could create a weekly paid podcast. Yes, most podcasts are free, but they don't have to be, you can create a podcast that you release weekly episodes for that you don't want to put out there for free, you want people to pay either an ongoing fee for it, or you want them to pay a flat fee. And they will get access for either life or for a year or however you want to kind of work that. It could also be a paid series. For example, a couple of months ago, I bought a low ticket private podcast series, I want to say it was like seven episodes. And it was on a very specific topic. And it was only I believe it was only $7. So it was kind of like a no brainer low ticket offer for people. And from the user experience. It was great because I got access to that content right away. It was seven bucks, no big deal on my end. But if you market that and you sell enough of those that can add up very quickly. You can have a private podcast for your online course if you have a course you can put all of your lessons and modules into your private podcast feed. That's what I do for the prep school. All of the lessons are also on the private podcast feed so that my students can listen on the go. They can either only listen to the private podcast or they can kind of listen before to kind of front load that information and then they can watch certain modules on the computer or Are all modules on the computer, or vice versa, maybe they've gone through the course they need a little refresher, they're driving, they don't have much time. So they can kind of skim through and re listen to any of the lessons that they want. It's just a really cool way to add a really helpful feature for your customers. Similarly, you can have a private podcast for your membership. And there's lots of different ways that you can do this. And maybe you do trainings inside of your membership, you could put those trainings on a private podcast for people so that that content is more accessible. And people can kind of listen on their own time, regardless of where they are or what they're doing. I also I have a client who recently started a membership. And she, she does not have a public podcast. But she created a private podcast as an additional feature in her membership. And she she hasn't even committed to releasing a certain amount of episodes on a certain schedule, she just tells her students, from time to time, you'll get these bonus episodes that are exclusive to people who are in the membership. So I think her goal right now is to just like do one episode every quarter, and maybe she'll increase that in the future. But again, it's just another kind of bonus feature that you could add to your membership. Another way to use private podcasting is to create an audio course, this could be like a full blown course, or it could be a mini course, I did this with my audio course podcast like you mean it, it was so fun to put together. I personally think that an audio course is a little bit easier to put together because you're not creating slides and things like that for every single lesson. And in turn, it's also easier to update the content, and it's easier for your customers to consume. You can use private podcasting to create an audio lead magnet, this is probably my favorite way to use private podcasts. Now, when I say audio lead magnet, I am thinking of a resource that you're creating, that's going to be free for your audience. And in order to get it they have to give you their email address. And then they'll get access to this private podcast. I have done this for myself, I have done this for clients. And I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that audio lead magnets convert so much better than other types of lead magnets like PDFs, people actually open them, they actually listen to them. You can use this type of lead magnet as a lead up to a launch, I have a client who created one that she opened up about three months before she opened doors to her membership, which she only opens a couple of times a year, it worked really, really well to build some buzz, bring in new people before her doors open. It can also be something that you have on evergreen that's always available to people. Or you could treat it as a pop up podcast, and only have it available during certain times throughout the year. And so typically, with these audio lead magnets, you can do a series of like three to five episodes that you are creating that centered around a certain topic, just like you would create a PDF lead magnet that might be a guide of some sort or a video series or something like that. It's the same idea. It's just going to be an audio form. And then another way that you can use private podcasting is to create a private podcast feed in addition to your regular free public podcast. So if you already host a podcast that you release episodes for every week, or every other week or whatever, you could then have a second private feed that has exclusive content like bonus episodes, q&a episodes, coaching sessions behind the scenes type of content, so many different things that you can do with that. And it can show up in the same feed as your regular feed, but it's only available to people who have subscribed and are paying that monthly fee to get access. I talked a lot about this in Episode 99, which I'll link in the show notes for you if you want to learn a little bit more about how you can utilize that. My favorite resource for private podcasting is Hello audio. I will leave a link for that in the show notes. It is the best for private podcasting. You can have multiple private podcast you can turn the feeds on and off you can have them expire as a whole or you can expire them per listener after a certain amount of time after so, you know if somebody subscribes you could set it so that their feed expires after five days or after 30 days or however you want to set it up. I hope that this episode gave you some ideas on how podcasting can help drive traffic to your TPT store or your other offerings. Maybe you already have a weekly podcast you're really loving it and you are ready to go all in and utilize podcasting and some other Ways guessing or creating a private podcast might be for you. Or maybe you have been considering the idea of podcasting. And after hearing this, you realize, yeah, I would be really great at hosting a weekly podcast. And I would really love to be able to have that consistent long form content, it would be great for my business. Or maybe you're thinking, Well, I've been kind of on the edge of starting a podcast, but I'm worried about how much time I have to put into it. Well, now you know that there are other ways that you can use podcasting. Besides hosting a weekly show. If you want to be sure which type of podcasting is best for you. I have an online quiz. It's totally free. You can take it to figure out which type of podcasting is the best for you, depending on how much time you have what your business goals are, it will literally take you less than a minute to go through. It's only five questions, and then you'll get your results emailed to you right away. And it will also give you specific advice depending on what your results are on how you can get started on that type of podcasting. Remember that podcasting is really a unique platform that helps you engage with your audience, establish yourself as an authority in your field. So do not be afraid to step into the world of podcasts and really scale your TPT business. If you've been thinking about it, why wait any longer, the sooner that you jump in and start podcasting of some kind, the sooner that you'll be able to reap the benefits. All of the links I mentioned in today's episode, including that quiz I mentioned will be in the episode description within your listening app or you can find them in the show notes at podcasting for educators.com/episode 112. I'll see you here next week.

Sara Whittaker: 16:55

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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