How to Generate & Nurture Leads With Your Podcast
Traci DeForge: [00:00:00] When we build shows for clients, we, I fall back to the original radio clock, if you will. So we literally will, like, and I use the language the structured unstructured podcast, and what we mean by that at Produce Your Podcast is that we will align a format for the host that how they’re gonna open the show, how they’re…
Maybe they’re gonna highlight industry insights, if they’re gonna do Q&A interviews, i- integrating a special segment that has an opportunity for sponsorship and really showcase their expertise, how they utilize a music bed, professional open and close. So just that piece alone has been a really nice transitional piece of education and motivation for us to build shows that sound and feel, and the listeners enjoy because it’s edutainment.
It’s not a infomercial, and I think that’s just really important to start with a quality product. Especially if you’re a business owner, [00:01:00] you need your podcast to be as professional as your website, as your social media. It needs to be an, an audio brand extension of who you are and your own voice.
Voice Over: This is the Growth Accelerator Podcast.
Now your host, Tracy Deforge.
Traci DeForge: Hey there. Today I wanna answer a question that I get asked so frequently, and that is how do you generate leads with your podcast? Great question A lot of clients come to us with already existing podcasts, and when that happens, we will typically do a very thorough podcast audit.
We will look at how the podcast is discovered, how the podcast is formatted, production items. But one of the things that we focus on the most for business owners who want to leverage their podcast for growth is how are they using their podcast to generate and nurture leads? What we often find is that the podcast is in its one content [00:02:00] creation area of the marketing strategy, and all of the other areas, let’s say email newsletter marketing or webinars or even live events, if you’re doing live events, aren’t connecting back to the podcast.
And that’s where the strategy breaks down. If you reverse your thinking and you think about your podcast being the initial piece of content that you create and how can you use that to repurpose it, to extend the conversation, to integrate into all of your other marketing areas, that’s where you’re gonna see the most success and be able to generate and nurture your leads.
So let’s break that down. So we had a client who was very successfully releasing episodes consistently. The audience was responding well to the podcast. In parallel track with that, they were also running a very successful webinar strategy. But what they weren’t seeing is that the leads from the podcast and from the webinar, [00:03:00] neither one of those were converting in the ways that they really thought should be at the level based on the amount of people attending or the amount of people listening.
And what we noticed was that a couple of things were happening. The audience of the webinar started dropping off because after they had repeated webinars, they were reaching the same audience over and over again. And we looked at the podcast and realized that they weren’t even talking about the fact that these webinars were happening in their podcast.
So the first thing that we did was make sure the messaging in the podcast were taking, um, elements from the webinars, maybe nuggets from the content, letting people know that their webinars were happening, how to learn more about the webinars from going to their website. So we were introducing these educational deep dive opportunities to an audience that weren’t already familiar with the webinars.
And then we were also looking at the content as it was b- being [00:04:00] delivered within the webinar and realizing that they had a huge opportunity to grow the audience for their podcast by just introducing the podcast to the webinar attendees. So in that way, we encouraged them to utilize the podcast in their call to action as they were wrapping up the webinar Maybe the lead wasn’t ready to convert right away to a sales transaction, but because of the webinar experience, they wanted to know more about the host of the webinar.
They wanted to know more about the business model, and the best way to do that was for them to be introduced to the podcast and continue to build the trust and the relationship with that lead that they generated with the webinar, nurture that through the podcast content, and then having that call to action in the podcast be to go back again to the website and really s- holistically fill out that circle of lead, conversation, [00:05:00] webinar, education, podcast, lead.
It all worked really well when they coexisted together If you want to really dig into this a little bit more and talk about, okay, having that lead and then going into the funnel, the top of the funnel, the middle of the funnel, what to do with those leads, how to access some of those leads and really grow those leads into sales, check out this interview that I did with the…
I was actually on the Rocket Fuel Metaverse Summit, and I’d really went into a lot more details in here where you can understand the whole pro- funnel process of optimizing your leads.
Voice Over: Let’s talk about how to get that podcast as an active lead generation machine
Traci DeForge: for your business. So your top of the funnel, pretty obvious, that’s where you’re going to be promoting the podcast in social media posts, in messages, videos, um, repurposing into shorts, into reels, [00:06:00] um, using the content to, uh, create blogs, um, utilizing it as website for o- on your website, using it for opt-ins.
So that’s that top of the funnel. That’s where you can go out pretty wide. And then as you start to narrow and in that middle of the funnel, that’s when you’re got– you’ve captivated the interest, people wanting to do business with you. Now what? Well, that’s where you can really benefit from utilizing the podcast in pre-consultation communication, for example.
So if you know one of your consults that you’re going to be getting on a call with, and one of the things that they’re the most interested in is scaling their business, and that’s your area of expertise, then in between the time that they schedule the consult and you have the consult, pop them a, um, a link to an episode where you’re showcasing your skill set on scaling your business.
Create opportunities within the [00:07:00] podcast itself where you’re showcasing your clients and you’re having testimonials actually integrated as part of your podcast content, then have that clipped into a short clip and then have that sent out. We had this experience, and I, I love real-time examples. Um, again, I’ve been busy today.
So another consult that I had today prior to this presentation. Um, we had had one call with them. They’re very interested in our growth accelerator program to grow their show and the opportunity to grow their business with their podcast. This was the second follow-up call that we had with them. In between the first call and the second call, we sent them clips of testimonials of content that, um, was extracted out of our show, and we sent it within the email follow-up.
They were short, 40 seconds, 35, 40, 46 seconds. And on the call today, she specifically cited how she was grateful that we had sent her those short clips [00:08:00] because it really helped her make the decision to then want to work with us. So this isn’t just me making recommendations, these are the recommend- these are the strategies that we use to grow our business at Produce Your Podcast, and we know that it works.
Also, pre-virtual event promotions. You guys have had a lot of really great, um, promotions happening for the event that you’re showing up for today. If you’re hosting your own event, utilize your own content. Get yourself pumped up in some videos and, and talk about your events and your podcast, and then tos- take those clips and repurpose them.
So the point is, is that you can not just stay with the top of the funnel for lead generation, you can really optimize the, a percentage of people that convert into calls and then closes with that mid-funnel And then actually once they are in your system, making sure you’re integrating it into customer welcoming, onboarding customer questions like I’m doing today, the questions that you’re hearing today, the s- uh, [00:09:00] scenarios and the solutions you’re hearing today are, are what we use every day in our practical day-to-day operations, and using them as additional resources, as client communication tools in between sessions or in between mastermind groups.
So there’s just so many opportunities to really align your podcast
Voice Over: content with your customer journey.
Traci DeForge: Now, let’s say you’re launching a show for the first time. You really want to make sure your foundational pillars are in place. Matthew Passy invited me as a guest on his podcast, Podcasting Tech, and he asked me this exact same question.
Let’s dig into it.
Mathew Passy: When you are working with businesses and they’re developing a podcast, what do you find are the strategies that help them reach more listeners with their podcast, and then from there turn that into useful conversions for their business?
Traci DeForge: Yeah, so there’s kind of a t- the … For me, there’s a two-pronged answer for that, and it’s a carryover from your first question.
So [00:10:00] when we build shows for clients, we … I fall back to the original radio clock, if you will. So we literally will, uh, and I use the language the structured unstructured podcast. And what we mean by that at Produce Your Podcast is that we will align a format for the host that how they’re gonna open the show, how they’re…
maybe they’re gonna highlight industry insights, if they’re gonna do Q&A interviews, i- integrating a special segment that has an opportunity for sponsorship and really showcase their expertise, how they utilize a music bed, professional open and close. So just that piece alone has been a really nice transitional piece of education and motivation for us to build shows that sound and feel and the listeners enjoy because it’s edutainment.
It’s not a infomercial, and I think that’s just really important to start with a quality product, especially if you’re a business owner. [00:11:00] You need your podcast to be as professional as your website, as your social media. It needs to be an, an audio brand extension of who you are and your own voice. And then the audience growth piece becomes a little more simple, not too much more, but a little bit more simple because everything is, has that continuity when people experience your brand on the different platforms.
They listen to your podcast, they watch it on YouTube, they go to your website. Everything has a nice continuous flow, so that builds the trustworthiness and the credibility factor. And then when you get into really specific growth tactics, I mean, we could talk all day about that, but there’s, you know, consistency compounds over time.
You’ve got to commit to a schedule that is gonna be attainable for you, that you can not only just survive to maintain, but also thrive in, and because that consistency is so incredibly important for audience growth. And then looking at your marketing strategy and what are you doing organically, what are you doing to integrate your podcast in [00:12:00] all the other areas that you’re marketing, and then are you setting aside a specific budget to market your podcast maybe inside other podcasts that have similar audiences?
So it’s not a simple one size fits all, but there’s certain pillars of this strategy that I just outlined that if all of those come together, then you’re going to have organic and accelerated growth. I love having these conversations with you about how to accelerate your growth in your business and your podcast.
If you wanna connect with me, head on over to produceyourpodcast.com, and you’ll find a ton of resources just like the Growth Accelerator podcast.
Voice Over: Congratulations. You’re on your way to turning your business or company’s podcast into a thriving lead generation and marketing force. Connect with us and schedule a meeting with our team at produceyourpodcast.com.
Launch or grow your podcast and start generating more visibility, leads, and sales for your [00:13:00] business today.
Traci DeForge: Let’s get started
