Profitable Podcasting

by Stephen Woessner

  FIGURE 9-8

  Your Dream 50 prospects should go through a formal registration process to get “booked” for an appearance as a guest on your show.

  Below is a list of fields we typically ask guests to complete. These fields are guidelines. Please feel free to modify them based on the data points you would like to collect from each of your Dream 50 prospects.

  We recommend that you do keep the fields marked as **Mandatory**. These fields will be helpful to you during the interview and to your team as they produce the Show Notes for each episode.

  • Your name **Mandatory**

  • Your email **Mandatory**

  • Your mobile phone **Mandatory**

  • Your title

  • Your company

  • Your website URL

  • Your Twitter handle (This helps us promote your episode to our social media community)

  • Your Skype handle (This helps us connect on Skype for the interview) **Mandatory**

  • Your public/business/personal Facebook page link (This lets us add a link to your Facebook page when we promote your episode on Facebook for increased downloads)

  • Your mailing address

  • Would you like something promoted in the Show Notes (e.g., product launch, book release, upcoming speech, etc.)? **Mandatory**

  • Your bio/story (This is used for the website and during the podcast intro) **Mandatory**

  • Your headshot (This is for the website) **Mandatory**

  Providing your Dream 50 list with a properly organized and structured reservation system also creates an excellent first impression with the business leaders who also represent your prospective clients. If your Guest Advocacy System is top notch, you will leave an excellent impression. If it’s lackluster, what does that tell your Dream 50 about what it may be like to work with you and your team?

  Finishing your ScheduleOnce setup requires you to select which fields are mandatory during the registration process. Figure 9-9 illustrates how we have our Onward Nation account configured as well as how we configure the ScheduleOnce accounts for the majority of our clients. Following the same process will save you some valuable setup time.

  FIGURE 9-9

  Below are the final details for completing the setup for your ScheduleOnce account.

  In addition, here is a rundown of what you will be doing at this step in the recipe:

  1. You or your team will be setting up a piece of software called ScheduleOnce. If you already have this software, you can use your existing account.

  2. What is the email you want your team to have people reach out to if they have questions during or after the registration?

  3. What is one other email address (aside from what you listed above) that you would like alerted if someone registers, cancels, or reschedules?

  4. What is the phone number you want registrants to be able to reach you at?

  5. Your team will need a headshot of you to use in the scheduling software and on the website.

  Your headshot will be used in several places:

  #1: Within your scheduling software

  #2: On your “About” page on the website

  #3: If you do any solocasts (episodes without a guest)

  Your headshot should be current and something you are comfortable with. It can show your personality as well!

  The size just has to be smaller than 3MB.

  The picture can be either square or portrait but not landscape.

  6. Who on your team is going to be involved in your scheduling software and managing your calendar?

  Recipe 2 is also where you need to decide if you will use the SMS text option available in ScheduleOnce to send the reminders outlined earlier in Touch 5, 6, and 7 of Recipe 1. In addition, you will need to complete and pull in final versions of your Question Flow and Sound Brilliant Guide and link them to your guest confirmation emails.

  The final ingredient for finishing your ScheduleOnce setup is managing your availability to conduct interviews. You will include your general registration link to your interview calendar (managed via ScheduleOnce) within your invitation to your prospective guests. They will click on the link and attempt to find a day/time on your interview schedule that is convenient for them. But you will want to preset your inventory so you specify how many interviews you are open to recording each week—and on what days and during which time slots. For example, some of our clients open up four to five interview slots on the first Tuesday of the month, record all four interviews on that one day, and then they are done with recording for the entire month. For Onward Nation, I record interviews only on Tuesdays, and because we air a daily show, there are times where I may have eight interviews scheduled on a Tuesday. But in one day, I have recorded nearly two weeks of airing inventory.

  Managing your availability within ScheduleOnce is easy. But to ensure that the scheduling, rescheduling, canceling, etc., process is as efficient as possible, you and your team need to integrate ScheduleOnce with your Google calendar so that reservations are automatically added and removed from your calendar by guests without any intervention on your part, assuming you have managed your inventory properly.

  You can manage your availability within ScheduleOnce using the following steps:

  1.Log into your ScheduleOnce account.

  2.Once logged in, click on the “Configuration” link in the upper left navigation menu.

  3.You will then be presented with a long vertical list of options in the center of your screen. Click on the option entitled “Availability.”

  4.This will take you to the week-by-week calendar. When you drag your mouse over a time slot, ScheduleOnce will highlight the time slot in green. You can highlight time slots in thirty-minute increments. You can highlight as many time slots as you like. And then in the lower left of the calendar screen you will see a forward and backward arrow. You can move one week forward or one week backward by clicking the respective arrows.

  5.Be sure to click the orange “Save” button before leaving ScheduleOnce, otherwise all of the inventory changes you made will be lost.

  Now that you’re finished with your inventory availability, when prospective guests visit your scheduling link, they will see a screen similar to what is shown in Figure 9-10.

  FIGURE 9-10

  Recipe 3: Website Groundwork

  Stage 2 concludes with you and your team thinking through several groundwork discussion points regarding what will eventually become the website for your podcast. Your podcast website will essentially be the digital headquarters for your show. It will house all of your episodes, any content marketing assets leveraged from your audio (Chapter 4), and your contact information.

  You and your team should consider creating your podcast website using WordPress because of the podcast-friendly plug-ins you will be able to access. For example, the Smart Podcast Player is the leading player in the industry, user-friendly, and professional. At present, the player works only in WordPress.

  WEBSITE GROUNDWORK CHECKLIST

  As you complete your groundwork, I recommend that you take some time to consider the following:

  Decide on a website URL (you may have already completed this during Stage 1).

  Decide who you will use as a hosting company—it could be your existing hosting company

  Purchase the domain name.

  Decide who on your team will serve as the point person for maintenance regarding the website and the hosting account, that is, WordPress updates, security, plug-in updates, etc.

  Time to move onward to Stage 3!

  CHAPTER 10

  STAGE 3:

  AUDIO INTROS, OUTROS, AND DESIGN

  Welcome to Stage 3 of production for your profitable podcast. Your overarching goal for completing this stage is to make sure you are prepared to conduct great interviews and capture listeners with a polished podcast feel. Stage 3 is where the auditory and visual elements of your podcast will come to life. You and your team will be able to follow our rec
ipes for how to write your intro and outro scripts along with completing the final prep work so you are ready to begin recording interviews with your guests. We have included our Interview Prep Guide to share insights and processes we have collected after having conducted, or produced, nearly 1,000 episodes across the Onward Nation Network over the past twenty-four months.

  We also included our design guidelines and specifications you will need to create the visual representation for your podcast on your website and in iTunes, social media, or any other public touch point.

  Lastly, this chapter also includes a framework for helping you select your podcast’s format while giving you several things to consider as you think about which iTunes categories will be the most relevant for your show.

  As in the previous chapters, I encourage you to visit PredictiveROI.com/resources/Stage-3 for a variety of downloadable resources, guides, and templates.

  Figure 10-1 illustrates the highlights of the production process in this stage.

  FIGURE 10-1

  The Stage 3 Project Sheet (Figure 10-2) template is available for your free download at PredictiveROI.com/resources/Stage-3. As with the Stages 1 and 2 Project Sheets, it’s a Google Sheet template so you can copy it into your Google Docs account and then share the file with all of the members of your team who are involved in the production of your podcast.

  FIGURE 10-2

  You and your team will likely need a week or two to complete Stage 3.

  Recipe 1: Show Artwork and Digital Design Assets

  You will need to create several digital assets that play various roles in the distribution of your show. The Digital Design Asset Guide in this chapter (Figures 10-3 and 10-4) includes all of the design specifications you and your team will need to consider when designing each asset.

  FIGURE 10-3

  FIGURE 10-4

  First, you’ll need to design a logo for your podcast. The logo will be used on your website as well as on any other collateral materials you decide to produce to promote your show.

  Second, create your show artwork. This will be your podcast’s logo in iTunes, on your podcast player, and on your listeners’ devices. Three key elements of your show artwork are your show name, tagline, and host name.

  Third, depending on your podcast’s website design, you will likely need to create some sort of banner that contains your show’s tagline. Also consider including the iTunes and Stitcher logos as visual credibility indicators within the banner.

  Fourth, consider creating a series of website sidebar graphics to promote your archives, special downloads to build your email list, rate and review requests, etc. Again, OnwardNation.com will provide you with visual examples to follow.

  You and your team will be ready to move on to producing your podcast’s website once you have all of the visual assets complete.

  Recipe 2: Audio Assets to Create and Review

  I recommend that you have a professional intro and outro produced for your podcast if you want your show to be a legitimate source of leads and revenue for your business. Value and brevity are the keys to creating a quality intro and outro. Your audience may feel as they were thrown into the episode if your intro is too short. Or, they may begin to get impatient if your intro runs for sixty seconds without providing any substance. It has been our experience that intros and outros of twenty to thirty seconds tend to be ideal.

  The following questions will help you think through the basics—and a few specifics—for your intro and outro scripts.

  The Basics

  1.What is the name of your show?

  2.What is the format of your show (e.g., interview vs. solo or co-hosted)?

  3.What is the general category of your show (e.g., business, comedy, news, religion)?

  4.Who is your target audience (e.g., your listener “avatar”)?

  5.What is the tone and vibe of your show (e.g., educational and reserved vs. rockin’ and irreverent)?

  6.How long have you been in this field? What is your background in this subject area?

  7.What made you decide to go down the path of education/podcasting?

  About Your Introduction

  1.Do you have examples of other podcast introductions that you like? Dislike?

  2.Do you have any specific taglines or dialogue you want to use in your intro (e.g., “join the tribe”)?

  3.How do you want to be introduced as the host (e.g., “The Decorating Diva” or “Today’s High-Tech Handyman,” etc.)?

  About Your Outro

  1.Do you have examples of other podcast outros you like or dislike?

  2.Do you have a specific call-to-action you want to include (e.g., subscribe on iTunes, sign up for our email list, Twitter/Facebook, etc.)?

  About Your Music

  1.Can you find some examples of music you like in an intro or outro?

  2.Can you give a feel for the type of music you would like to have (rock, classical, etc.)?

  Sometimes having a tangible, visual example can be the best way for a recipe to be the most useful. Two intros and outros from different podcasts targeting completely different avatars are presented to give you a balance of perspectives to consider.

  Intro and Outro Script Examples

  Onward Nation

  Intro: Get ready to find your recipe for success from America’s top business owners here at Onward Nation, with your host, Stephen Woessner.

  Outro: This episode is complete, so head over to OnwardNation.com for Show Notes and more food to fuel your ambition. Continue to find your recipe for success here at Onward Nation.

  Build a Better Agency

  Intro: If you’re going to take the risk of running an agency, shouldn’t you get the benefits, too? Welcome to Build a Better Agency, where we show you how to build an agency that can scale and grow with better clients, invested employees, and, best of all, more money to the bottom line. Bringing his twenty-five+ years of expertise as both an agency owner and agency consultant to you, please welcome your host, Drew McLellan.

  Outro: That’s all for this episode of Build a Better Agency. Be sure to visit AgencyManagementInstitute.com to learn more about our workshops and other ways we serve small to midsized agencies. While you’re there, sign up for our e-newsletter, grab our free e-book, and check out the blog. Growing a bigger, better agency that makes more money, attracts bigger clients, and doesn’t consume your life is possible, here on Build a Better Agency.

  Episode Flow

  Now that you have your intro and outro completed, you’re ready to move on to making decisions regarding the overall structure and flow of your episodes. For example, will you want to include a midroll? Will you want to announce your episode number to signify the beginning of each episode? Will you be recording solocasts or always episodes where you are interviewing a guest?

  There are no right or wrong answers to those questions. Simply considering them will allow you to create the right experience for your listeners.

  Caution: I strongly recommend that your initial ten episodes do not include any of the bells and whistles we are about to cover. For your initial ten, concentrate on the intro, editing and producing a high-quality interview and inserting it after the intro, and then inserting your outro at the close of the interview. This will help keep the editing as straightforward as possible while you learn the system. The simplicity will also help you focus on the episode flow. Then, after doing several recordings, you can decide what you want to add. Experiment with extra elements after Episode 10. Building a profitable podcast is a complex project. The initial simplicity will help you launch quickly and smoothly.

  Here are some possible segments to consider. Think of these as little audio modules. Each module should have an audio pause before and after it begins for editing. For example, the host announces the episode number. Then pauses. Then introduces the guest. Then pauses. Then records the first half of the show. Then pauses. Then records the second half of the show. Then pauses.

  Pausing is critical throug
h the recording of an interview. You can always edit out a pause. However, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to add a pause into the middle of a conversation without it sounding awkward.

  Definitions

  Episode number: This is not a requirement. Announce the episode number as part of the recording only if you know the number and it has been added to your airing schedule.

  Intro: This is prerecorded and edited. All you need to do is give a pause in the audio so you or your team can later edit it into your episodes.

  Sound effect: With an audio pause in the right place, you can opt to edit in a sound effect. While this isn’t common, it’s certainly possible.

  Sub-Intro: This is recorded in your own voice. While the intro will stay the same for a long time, the sub-intro is something that could be changed every ten episodes, especially if you are promoting a webinar or free download. A good sub-intro would be something like “Remember! If you go to [my podcast’s website] before July 31st, you can download a free guide that will help you to X-Y-Z!” This is a limited-time call-to-action (CTA). This CTA can be for something you want to offer to grow your list, or a CTA for a sponsor. You decide. Again, this is optional.

  First half of show: This is where you dive into your episode and then choose a place about halfway through to add a pause. You can introduce this pause. (“And now a word from our sponsors! *Pause*” for example.) Or, simply add a silent pause. Remember, you can always remove dead air, but you can’t add it to conversation without it sounding awkward.