Podcast Workflows - Tips for podcasters to grow their podcast without wasting time.

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Real quick before we get started. I wanna tell you about a free PDF I'm offering that will help you Make Money Podcasting. It is the perfect supplement for this podcast. If you go to [makemoneypod.com/smash] S-M-A-S-H right now, you can opt-in to the mailing list. And in return, you will get this free smash framework and template to help you Make Money Podcasting. It will go through my full smash framework. That's sponsorship, membership, affiliate links, selling, and helping. It'll give you monetization ideas to help you determine which one works best for you and give you some templates for sponsor and membership Outreach.

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Welcome to Make Money Podcasting. The podcast that teaches you that monetizing your show is no longer just about getting sponsors. On this show, you'll learn tried and true methods to increase your revenue and turn your podcast from a money pit into a money maker.

Hi! I'm your host, Joe Casabona. And I've been able to make six figures with my podcast. I'll share everything I know with you here on Make Money Podcasting presented by Nexcess and Podcast Liftoff.

Imagine a friend is giving you directions to their house (I guess it's 2005 in this example) and they say, “Go to this private road or whatever you would do to get to my house.” Those are some pretty terrible directions.

How do we get to the private road? What if I'm already on the private road? What if the private road isn't open to 70% of road traffic? That's kind of what it's like when your podcast's call to action is to follow us on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Now, in Episode 002 of this show, I talked to you about having one clear call to action for your podcast. And then as I do now, I recommend your call to action should be to join the mailing list. This will allow you to capture your audience to directly communicate with them. From there, you can further promote sponsors, sell products, or provide more benefits for your membership. Along with providing real value, of course.

But you still need a good place for that mailing list sign-up form to live. There's no way to add a form in Apple Podcast, Spotify, or any other podcast app. And you can't get the information of people who are individually subscribing to those apps. No. you need a good landing page.

Now, I often get asked how I grew my podcast. And that’s what I did early on to help people find the show and listen to it. Without a doubt, my website was instrumental. I have a dedicated page for every episode. This episode can be found over at [makemoneypod.com/003], where I have show notes, email signups, subscription buttons, and more. But for How I BuiltIit, as well as this show, I also have transcripts, podcast and sponsor information, and a contact form. It's a central hub for anything my listeners want to do and the canonical place for each podcast episode. See, online and in other areas, I suspect you might hear about the canonical URL or the canonical source. This is the one true source. The place that no matter where else your podcast ends up, that you consider being the primary home for the content. And even if you don't have a full website, it's easier than ever to stand up a landing page for free or cheap. We'll talk about that later in the episode.

But your landing page shouldn't just be a stand-in for your podcast feed where you only list the latest episodes for people to go listen to. It should reinforce your call to action.

So if you're saying join my mailing list, then the landing page should have a way to join your mailing list. But it should also get people to learn a bit more about you and the show. And then it should convince them to “Sign up with me now. Join the mailing list.” It's also a great place for subscribing buttons and other information. And that's what we're gonna talk about today. Here's everything that your podcast landing page should have right after a word from our sponsor.

Sponsor: This and every episode of Make Money Podcasting is brought to you by Store Builder from Nexcess.

As a podcaster, you might be wondering what's the best way for me to implement some of the things that we talk about on this show. How can I easily make money with my own website? And when it comes to setting up an e-commerce site, you kind of have the choice between an easy but limited platform or a limitless platform that you need to manage yourself, taking precious time away from your podcast.

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Store builder was created and is supported by the e-Commerce experts at Nexcess. I host all of my important sites, including the membership for my own podcast and this podcast at Nexcess. Get the speed, security, and support you need when you need it. Whether you're selling podcast merch, offering a supplementary course, or you have a membership or subscription.

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Thanks so much to Store Builder and Nexcess for sponsoring this and every episode of Make Money Podcasting.

So let's get into the list of everything your podcast landing page should have. And we're going to start with your show's artwork, title, and description.

When someone goes to this page, you need to let people know what your show is about. Maybe they were just sent the link or maybe they stumbled upon it. Maybe they even Googled your show's title and that's what came up. This will help them get a better understanding of your show’s mission. You have a mission for your show, right? We talked about that in Episode 001. And then they should understand whether or not they should subscribe based on that mission. And speaking of it, next up is subscribe buttons.

The overwhelming majority of podcast listeners, listen in an app. So allow them to subscribe where they want to listen. At the very least you should have Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google podcasts, Amazon Music, and Pod Chaser. I also recommend Pocket Cast and Overcast. But those two apps command much smaller of market share than the ones I just mentioned.

You wanna present these buttons to make it easy for people to sign up for your show? I also include some copy for people who might not be familiar with what apps exist, or if they're relatively new to podcasting. Maybe they were just listening on the website and they want to have a more convenient way to subscribe and follow your show. But this can get pretty out of hand. There are a lot of podcast apps.

The ones I just mentioned are a tiny fraction of what exists so I tend to have all the major services. Plus, an RSS feed link for those who know what to do with it. If people are using a niche app, they're probably going to search for the name of your podcast in that app. And this is what I do with overcast. Overcast is not usually mentioned in, or listed in the links. And so that's what I end up doing.

One more thing about the subscribe buttons is you should have these on your page twice. Once towards the top, and again, towards the bottom. You want people to subscribe to your show in one way, shape, or form. And as a bonus, you can add the mailing list signup form to this collection of buttons. I list mine above the subscribe buttons to let people know this is the action I actually want you to take. And they are a package deal on my site where there are two subscribe sections, and then a dedicated page for people to subscribe.

Number three is that mailing list. So this is necessary if you use the mailing list call to action. You need this form. This is the absolute best way to capture your audience because it gives you a direct line with them. Plus, some people do want the episodes delivered to their inboxes. This is super easy to do with Convertkit where you can sign up and connect a feed, and then Convertkit will automatically email new entries in that feed out upon publication.

Now, saying sign up for my mailing list generally doesn't work. Unless you provide strong benefits in a way to entice people to sign up. And I think the best way to entice people to sign up is with a lead magnet related to the episode. You may have noticed at the beginning of this episode, I offered my smash framework PDF to help you make money. This is a lead magnet directly related to the podcast.

Someone super effective at this is Amy Porterfield. She's a prolific podcaster and marketer, and she always has a well-related lead magnet directly on the show notes page. So, this is also something that you should consider. Though you likely will not get it on the first attempt, you should try a few.

I experiment with a bunch of different opt-ins and I'm currently experimenting with two different opt-ins on this website for the show. One opt-in is on the landing page, and there's a different opt-in on the episode page. On other sites, I haven't opt-in dynamically displayed based on the content. So if I'm talking about how to make money, that shows one opt-in. And if I'm talking about podcast gear, that shows a different opt-in.

Once you have those things out of the way, you have the name of your show and the description, you have the subscribe buttons and the mailing list, and you wanna have a way for people to listen to episodes. So you also wanna have this playlist here, especially if somebody wants to share your show with a friend. You likely are going to ask them to share this landing page. And so you want people to be able to listen right away. And this is where I think a complete website has a leg up on just a landing page. Because a single episode can't get its own URL if you have just the landing page. If you have a full dedicated site, you can. But you should, at the very least have a playlist for people who wanna listen to the show.

And this will highly depend on your podcast app or podcast service. I use Castos and they offer great playlist embedding. I'm sure a lot of audio hosts do. In a pinch, you can always embed the trailer or your favorite episode so people can get at least a taste of the show before subscribing.

It's also worth noting here that Castos recently rolled out podcast themes. So you can get a full, nice-looking website using just Castos without having to go through the rigamarole of signing up for hosting and installing WordPress, or however, it is you wanna set up your website.

And I will link to them on the show notes page over at [makemoneypod.com/003]. Quick affiliate disclosure. The show notes this week will include affiliate links. I get a small kickback if you sign up for the services. But it does not affect the amount of money that you pay for such services.

After a playlist of episodes, you should have your headshot and bio. Podcasts are a great way to establish trust with an audience. And you should absolutely reinforce that trust on your landing page with your headshot and bio. Let people see the person behind the mic. It makes you more real. It allows people to picture you and then they'll grow to trust you even more.

And if you need some ideas on what to include, you can talk about your credentials. I talk about how I've made six figures with my podcast and how I've been podcasting for a decade. You can talk about why you started the podcast, and what you hope your audience gets from the show, and include some personal aspects, too. Hobbies, or other projects, if you're a family person, and things like that. Whatever you're comfortable sharing that allows people to connect With you.

And then finally, you should let people know how they can get in touch with you to send kind words, feedback, or submit questions. This could be from your Twitter handle or my favorite, which is Zipmessage. Again, do whatever works best for you.

Contact info will make you a lot more accessible to listeners as well as increase engagement for the show. People love hearing their names. And so a nice catch to get people to write in is to read listener mailer feedback, right on the show.

And so those are the six aspects I think you should have. The six features you should have for a landing page.
Your show's artwork, title, and description
The subscribe buttons, which I think you should have in more than one place.
The mailing list, and sign-up form.
A playlist of episodes.
Your headshot and bio.
Your contact information.

And so now we know what you need. Let's talk about how you can do it. So here are some helpful tools for building landing pages.

Naturally, I like WordPress. But that's overkill, especially for a single page. Now, if you do want a full website and you'd like help with this, get in touch, you can do so with the contact information over on [makemoneypod.com]. Or you can check out this show's presenting sponsor Nexcess and their Store Builder product because they make it very easy to set up a WordPress website, specifically one geared towards making money.

If you do just want a landing page, I think Carrd C-A-R-R-D, which I've showcased on the Podcast Liftoff YouTube channel, I'll link that in the show notes as well is the perfect solution. It's free to start, super affordable, and there are lots of options for templates and features. They even have direct integration with the most popular email service providers, and Stripe to accept payments.

Check out the video in the show notes over at [makemoneypod.com/003] to see how it works and how I recreated my landing page using it.

If you want something more purpose-built, check out the pod page, which I haven't done a video yet, but it's on my list. it has feed imports, revenue support, and some other nice features specifically for podcasting and podcasters.

So now, the only thing you need to do is build your landing page armed with this information. You should have a good idea of at least what to include on your landing page.

And if you have any questions or need help, there are lots of resources over on the show notes and show notes page over at [makemoneypod.com/003]. I am introducing several services to help with this including a podcast landing page audit. But that's it for this episode.

Thanks so much for listening to Make Money Podcasting presented by Nexcess and Podcast Liftoff. For all of the show notes and to subscribe, you can head over to [makemoneypod.com/003].

Thanks again to our presenting sponsor, Nexcess.

Until next time. I'm Joe Casabona, and I can't wait to see what you make.