114. Creating an Audio Lead Magnet? Here's How to Maximize Listener Consumption & Conversion!

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. Hello, hello, welcome to another episode of podcasting for educators. If you haven't heard of an audio lead magnet yet, let me be the first to welcome you to the party. Let's do a quick 32nd rundown of what an audio lead magnet is, in case you're not familiar. An audio lead magnet is essentially a private podcast that you create in exchange for someone's email address. In this case, it's a free resource that's used to build your email list. It could be an audio training and media, a mini audio course or my favorite a three to five episode series. This should funnel listeners into a paid offer of some sort, whether that's a TPT bundle, a membership, a course, a service, or something else. How'd I do? I think that that was less than 30 seconds. There are a lot of big pros of creating an audio lead magnet versus another kind of lead magnet. Number one being that it's just like a podcast. So people can consume this information on the go wherever they are. While they are multitasking. They also tend to have a much higher consumption and conversion rate than a traditional lead magnet, like a PDF and email series or a video series. How many times have you signed up for a lead magnet and you never even opened it in your inbox. According to Edison Research 77% of podcast listeners download the content and listen immediately. And this is so true, I have definitely seen this from creating my own audio lead magnet as well as creating them for my clients. You can actually see if your audio lead magnet is being consumed. I love using Hello audio for private podcasting or for audio lead magnet creation, whatever you want to call it for lots of different reasons. But one of those reasons is that you can actually see if people are listening. So you can go in if you have three episodes in your private podcast, you can see how many people have listened to each of those episodes. You can't do that with a PDF, you can see if they open the Delivery Email, and maybe if they click on the link to download the PDF or whatever, but you can't see if they're actually using it. Like each individual. You have their name, you have their email address, are they listening to each of these episodes, we want our audience to be consuming and using our resources, even if they are free. We don't want to be in that mindset of oh, well, you know, I got their email address. So I don't really care if they actually use it or not. No, we want them to see how valuable our resources and to actually put it to use. Back in episode 54, I did an episode that walks you through step by step by step of how to actually create an audio lead magnet and the tech behind it and all of that. So head there either before or after this one to learn about that process. And I also have a guide with all of these steps that you can download at www dot podcasting for educators.com/private pod plan. The link for that will also be in the description for this episode below. Today, I want to share a few tips for what you should consider when you're actually creating your lead magnet so that your people are actually consuming it and so that it does convert. First, let's think about our goals of creating an audio lead magnet in the first place. I think that there are three goals that we want to have in mind when we create this kind of lead magnet. Goal. Number one is we want our audience to convert into email subscribers, we want them to actually sign up for the lead magnet and give us their email address. Number two, we want listeners to actually listen to the private podcast we want them to consume the content. And number three, we want our listeners to convert to buyers to whatever it is that we are funneling them into. So let's real quick break down how we can accomplish each of those goals to make sure that we're getting those email addresses. Our people are consuming the content and they are converting to buyers. Starting with goal number one which is getting people to sign up and subscribing to our email list. This is all about copy and messaging. You need to come up with a compelling and clear title for your audio lead magnet. It really should push at whatever pain point your saw Serving in your lead magnet and make people super aware that they have that problem that needs to be solved. I would recommend that if you're struggling with this to head to chat GBT, and you can probably gather some super fun and engaging titles using that.

Sara Whittaker 5:18

But the big thing here is that your title should make it very obvious of what problem your lead magnet is going to solve. This title is going to be on the cover art for your private podcast, it's going to be on your promo graphics. So you really want it to catch people's attention, you're going to do the same thing for your actual episode titles. So if you're creating a audio lead magnet that has you know, three to five episodes, and it's like a little mini series, you're going to want to have those really clear but compelling titles for each of those episodes. And then you're also going to want to create a landing page, where people are actually going to opt in, they're going to put their name, they're going to put their email address. This is where you're going to be sending them when you're talking about it on social media or on your podcast or in your weekly newsletter. So when they land on this page, it should have an eye catching image ad should have a super catchy headline, so that it really confirms for them Yes, I definitely want to sign up for this. So we've got people to hand over their email address, we're growing our email list, they're being sent what they need in order to access this audio lead magnet. So now our next goal is to get them to actually listen to the content. So one of my best pieces of advice is, if you're doing a series, like we talked about, keep it at that three to five episodes, I see that when people create a private podcast, and they do a lot longer than that, in a series, people start to really drop off three to five episodes is a sweet spot. And then going a little deeper into that, I would also recommend keeping each of those episodes 15 minutes or less, I'd say 10 to 15 minutes is a sweet spot there. For episode length. Remember, we want people to be consuming this content, we want them to be getting through every single episode and listening to every single episode in the series. If you make it too long, people are going to tune out, or what often ends up happening too is when people make their episodes super long, that's when you start giving away way too much. And that's when you run into that problem of people feeling like well, I don't really think I need to purchase what it is that they're selling, because I got everything I need right here in this private podcast series. So again, this is always such a fine balance as a content creator, how to make it valuable, but not give everything away. And one of the easiest ways to help you accomplish this is to keep it short, have one goal in mind for each episode. Stick with that. Keep it simple, keep it short. So don't make your content fluffy, keep it really tight, hook your listener and right away by letting them know what you're going to cover in the episode. And then end it with a teaser of what they'll learn in the next episode, so that you're really encouraging them to continue through the entire series. Lastly, I really recommend not having a super long intro for your private podcast. Oftentimes, people won't even have an intro at all for their private podcast series. A good alternative would be you could have some music that kind of fades in and fades out at the beginning. As you're introducing the episode, you could do a one liner about who you are, who you help, what this private podcast is going to be for. You can totally accomplish that in 10 seconds or less. But I really wouldn't create a one minute long intro for each of these episodes. We want people hooked right away, and we want them listening. And then goal number three remember is once they've signed up, they've access the audio lead magnet they are consuming every episode in your series. Now we want to make sure that they're actually converting into what it is that you are selling. Of course, not everybody is going to buy what you're selling. But if you are being thoughtful and intentional in the way that you're creating your episodes, you will see conversions. How do we do this? Step number one is talk about the thing that you want them to buy. seems obvious, but oftentimes, we don't do this enough. I really think that you should in a series like this of three to five episodes. Talk about it in every single episode. Don't make it a super salesy episode but you can easily mention your resource or your service, your membership your course, in every episode in a way that doesn't turn people off. You really want to do this in every episode because you don't know if somebody is going to make it To the last episode, if you wait to talk about your membership, in Episode Five, there's a really good chance that people might not make it to Episode Five. That's just the reality, especially if you're waiting until the last minute of the last episode, people may be tuned out by then talk about it in every episode. The other really big thing here is make your episode topics align with the pain point of your listener. In your episode, you want to move them from being aware of their problem to being solution aware, which shows them this is how you need to solve the problem, you're kind of sharing what the possible solution is. And then you're moving them to being product aware. And this is when they become aware that you have the solution created for them via your membership, your course your TPT bundle, whatever it is, an example would be, let's use the example of the science of reading. So your episodes might include why the way that kids have been taught to read for the past several years is not working. So you're really tuning into that problem awareness, then you're going to introduce the solution. The solution is understanding the science of reading and implementing the science of reading in your classroom, then you're going to move them to being product aware the product is your membership, where you are going to provide monthly trainings and resources for them so that they can easily learn about the science of reading and utilize it in their classroom. Okay, so you're really kind of taking people on this journey throughout this mini series of why it's a problem, how they can solve it, and what they can use to solve it. Of course, you're going to want to make sure that it's very clear where people can sign up for this thing that you're selling. So make a pretty link for it or whatever you use to create clean links. Say that in your episode, also let them know that there's a link for this resource in the description for each episode. And then lastly, this is a piece that people really miss. And it's so so important. And that is to have an email series that goes with your audio lead magnet. Ideally, it would be a welcome email that welcomes them to your audio lead magnet, it tells them how to access it and what they're going to learn in this series. And then I would have at least one email for every single episode that goes out. That kind of drips out for people. That is just another touch point for them, summarizes the episode maybe include a few takeaways and make sure that you're including that call to action as well. Okay, and then one more big thing to consider when you're thinking about these goals of converting people into email subscribers, consuming your private podcast series and converting them into buyers. Is this idea of should this audio lead magnet be evergreen? Like should it always be available for people to sign up for? Or should you do more of a pop up podcast style where you only have it available for a certain amount of time? Really, I think that this is something that you're just going to have to experiment with and see what works. If you're going to experiment with this, I would probably recommend keeping it open for one or two weeks for people letting them know the deadline of hey, this is when this is going to go away. And then you also have the decision of okay. So if I'm keeping this open for two weeks, at the end of that two weeks, for people who have signed up, will they still have access to this content? Or will that go away even for people who have signed up because you can decide how you want to work that and Hello, audio gives you all of those options. So you could kind of have have a deadline on it at first and then you could bring it back and then you could try evergreen. So it really is going to take some experimentation, everybody's audiences different. But try it out, see what works for you. And keep track of those numbers and see, see what's working and what's not working, because you're going to want to keep track of if you're playing around with that evergreen versus the pop up style, you want to see how that is affecting the number of signups that you're getting as well as the number of sales that you're getting. And of course, another thing to consider there is and the decision might get made for you in this case is what is it that your selling is that thing only available for a certain amount of time? Well, then you're probably going to want to have your audio lead magnet only available for a certain amount of time. If it's going to be evergreen. Like if your membership is always open then your audio lead magnet could always be open. So if you are ready to create your audio lead magnet, I have two great resources for you. If you want to go the DIY route, I recommend that you download my free guide that will help walk you through what you need to create your private The podcast audio lead magnet. Your second option if you want it done for you, I have a brand new VIP day where I will help you plan out your entire lead magnet series. I will create everything for you edit your episodes, add your music, set up your private podcast and hello audio and set up all of your tech like hooking it up to your email provider. I'll write that welcome email for you all the bells and whistles so that really you just have to record. Both of those options. The VIP day as well as the free guide are in the description for this episode, so you can kind of choose your own adventure. But if you're planning to create an audio lead magnet, I would love to hear about it. Send me a message on Instagram at podcasting for educators. And let me know your plans.

Sara Whittaker: 15:45

I'll catch 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.

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