No. 096 What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

Jonny Nastor: YouTube Live, yeah, anything that goes beyond your audio on-demand content. Not everyone listens to podcasts, damn them, but they don’t. So we have to create ways to repurpose our content in multiple formats, across multiple platforms and places where people can find us and our content. This is time to now grow your audience.

Not just necessarily your ‘podcast audience,’ but your audience in general. This is why we run shows. You have a platform of 50 episodes. That puts you above and beyond so many other people creating video, blogging, and books. You have a pile of content behind you that now can be repurposed in an endless number of ways and spread out to move your audience, find your audience, and grow your audience beyond the ears.

Jerod Morris: And it’s not just beyond the ears. It’s beyond whatever the primary way that people have been consuming certain content is. So let me give you an example. The Assembly Call, obviously, we do a postgame show for IU basketball games. People watch the video. They listen to the podcast. Well, this off season I started writing some blog posts. And I would just put a blog post together. They’d be about a 1,000 words. I called them Three Point Shots, just kind of a clever little tie in to basketball, and then I’d have three points.

So one day I had just a little bit of extra time on my hands, and I was like, “You know what? Why don’t I … let me just hop on, do a Google Hangout, I’ll hop on, and I’ll read the blog post, and then just kind of give a little bit of commentary about it, and post it as a podcast. Let’s just see how this goes.”

And so I did that, and I cannot tell you how many people have Tweeted me and emailed me to let me know, “Thank you so much for doing the audio portion of the blog. I don’t have time to read blogs. That’s not really how I consume my IU content. But being able to get this via audio and listen to it on my drive in a shorter format,” they were like 15, 20 minutes, “this is awesome. Are you going to be doing more of these?”

And I was like, “Wow.” It was just totally on a whim that I did it, and I’d known this. People have been talking about doing this for a while, but it was like actually doing it and seeing it hit the audience and just the positive feedback loop, it was incredible. And so in that case, it was beyond the eyes because people wanted that content with their ears.

But there are probably just as many people who can’t listen to all of our episodes because they don’t have time carved out in their day to listen to podcasts, but now they’re interacting more with the site because they read the blog post, because that’s more how they consume their content, and subscribe on a reader and all of that stuff.

So it’s not just beyond the ears. Just go beyond, and give people, as Jonny said, multiple ways to interact with even the same content. It’s amazing how you open yourself up to entirely new audiences. And it’s a way to work smarter, not harder, because you can really invest time in a piece of content, an idea, and be able to put that out in many different ways. And the results can be really remarkable.

So definitely pay attention to this one, and if you’ve already been producing a lot of content, which if you’re at 50 episodes you probably are, this is one of the techniques, of all the ones that we talk about, that can really give you, perhaps, the most instantaneous impact and immediate feedback. And that is always encouraging and motivating, no matter how many episodes in you are.

Jonny Nastor: So 15 or 20 minutes to read a blog post? I’m guessing you were ad-libbing and adding commentary?

Jerod Morris: Yeah, I would read, and then I would do an aside if something came up. Maybe a little note that, as I was writing it, it didn’t make it into the blog post. I didn’t want it to just sound like me reading. I wanted it to sound like, “Okay, here’s a paragraph … ,” kind of reading it casually, but then also breaking off for a little bit of additional insight or a little additional talking about it. That just fit naturally for me, but I think even if I just read the blog post straight, people still would have liked it because they wouldn’t have been able to get the content otherwise.

Step 2: Go Deep

Jerod Morris: Okay, so the next one then, in audience, is go deep. So when we’re talking about going deep, this is finding additional ways to really connect with your audience. One great, really one essential way that you need to do this, is making sure that all the calls to action get your listeners onto an email list.

Now, what you do on that email list is going to depend. You might have a regular newsletter. You might have a free email course. You might only give transcripts or advanced show notes to people who are on the email list or who are a member. So many different things that you can do, but after 50 episodes, if you’re not doing it already, this is the time to connect. This is the time to get serious about going from just being the voice inside their head in their headphones, to also a voice that connects with them in their inbox.

And yes, we’re talking email over social media. Social media is a great way to converse and to connect in its own way, but email is much more intimate. And eventually, if you’re going to grow this podcast into something greater, you want to have that email connection. It is such an amazing way to both connect and to convert.

So again, maybe you’ve been doing this. Maybe you did this from the start, and if so, kudos to you. But now it’s definitely the time to step back and say, “Okay, where are my calls to action going? What is my purpose for this? What is my intention?” And if you don’t have a call to action that is geared toward getting people onto an email list, you need to have a really, really good reason why that is.

Maybe there is one, but you at least need to really think about it and be intentional about that choice. I think Jonny and I both agree, having that call to action being getting someone on an email list is the smartest and certainly the most proven way to go.

The Importance of Understanding Your Audience Lifespan

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, I’m going to toot our own horn and say we did a really good episode. It was quite a while ago now, maybe almost a year ago, about audience lifespans, I believe. And this really hits this. So it’s going deep, like with email, but it’s also the knowledge and the understanding that no matter how much you love a show, how much your audience loves your show, every audience member has a lifespan to them, meaning that they’re not going to stick around forever.

Not because you did anything wrong, but just because we move on to other things. They might come back. They might come back in a month. They might come back in six months. They might come back in a year. But it’s just the way it works. Think of any of your favorite shows, and then think of the ones that, “Oh wow, I haven’t listened to that show in like six or seven months.” It’s just the way it works.

So the email allows you to kind of make that connection. It speeds up the process of the relationship building, and then obviously, with the newsletters, the courses, and stuff, it can allow you to monetize. It can allow you to take that relationship and that lifespan and make the most of it if you can.

I can’t remember exactly what that episode is called. But again, I’ll link to that as well in the show notes, so you can listen to it. I still remember that one being remarkably fun to do and an interesting sort of concept we went over. That, to me, it’s not just build your email list because that’s completely useless unless you have the deeper understanding to it.

Step 3: Teach What You Know

Jonny Nastor: So the last one of the audience is to teach what you know. You are absolutely considered an expert in your field at this point. You have 50 episodes or more under your belt. You absolutely are. You are ready to run webinars, workshops, mini courses, full courses, to speak, to do whatever it is you want to do. But you need to start teaching everything that you know. You really, truly do.

There’s nobody that’s going to come up and tell you that you are now an expert, but you have 50 episodes. You’re not beginning anymore. You are a veteran in this. And that much content behind you, on your specific topic, absolutely makes you ready to teach everything that you know.

You can start small, but you do absolutely have to start. You can’t put this off until episode 100. This is one of the things that needs to happen now. Again, it’s an evolution, so start in the smallest ways you want to. Run a free webinar or a free workshop to the 53 people on your email list if that’s what you want to do. That’s totally cool, but you have to start doing it at this point.

It is one of the essential things that is going to change the way people see you and the way you see your show and sort of take you to that next level that you want to be.

#3: Distribution

Jerod Morris: So we’re talking about the evolution of the showrunner, and we’ve talked about the show, doubling down or doubling back, stepping up, and monetizing. We’ve talked about the audience, going beyond the ears, going deep, and teaching what you know. And now we’ll talk about the third element, which is distribution.

Obviously, you’ve reached a point after 50 episodes where a certain number of people are listening to your show, a certain number of people are subscribed to your show. And one of the great areas of growth, and certainly one of the great goals that most people have after 50 episodes, is, “Okay, I’ve got to spread the word. I want to grow. I want to get more listeners. I want to bring more people into my sphere.” So let’s talk about three ways that you can do that.

Step 1: Going Wide

Jerod Morris: The first is going wide. And I love this one, Jonny. With this one, you want to get onto every other show in your market. You want to do interview swaps, have guest hosts, make friends with other podcasters. And if you can guest blog on other sites, this can have a dramatic effect on your distribution as well. But what you want to do here is identify other places where the kinds of people that you hope to bring into your audience are congregating.

And after 50 episodes, whatever your topic is, by this time you should probably have some big, core ideas. Some cornerstone ideas that you know, that you understand, that at the drop of a hat, or the close of an elevator door, you could explain to someone standing next to you — about what your show is, what you represent, what you’ve learned, what the key things are that you want people to take away.

And now, you want to get those ideas in front of more people and hopefully impress them and intrigue them, maybe even inspire them, to come over to your show and take a longer look. And this is where working smarter, not harder, is important. Instead of just banging away at your own show — obviously you have to keep producing content and keep up your schedule — but don’t just keep doing that and expect people to come to you. Go out and target where those people are.

And a lot of times, those are people listening to other shows, reading other blogs. Identify that. Do what you can to provide value to that showrunner and to that audience, having the faith that you will eventually be paid back with people coming to your show, giving it a longer look, and maybe even subscribing.

But casting a much wider net now than what you have been doing before, and doing it with confidence, because you’re better at explaining your ideas now. You have it narrowed down more — what you are, what you stand for, what those core principles are. Now it’s time to go wide, and that’s a huge step in the distribution of your show.

Step 2: Directory Diving

Jonny Nastor: The second one of the distribution part of your show is the directory diving. And this is sort of the spark that then, when I was reading this book over lunch, kind of ignited the whole thing, ignited this episode — which was, the idea of we’ve spent a lot of time talking to you about starting a podcast, running the first 10 episodes, 20 episodes, all the way up to the first 50.

And we emphasize how important it is to focus on one or two channels, so one or two directories — so iTunes and, say, Stitcher, now Google Play. One or two of those, and focus hard on those because they’re big, massive pools of shows, and they need your laser focus on those and pushing as many people, subscribers, and listeners to those specific places as possible so that you can move up the ranks and get seen by more people.

This is distribution, how it works, and it’s not only going to make you lose focus by trying to get into 25 directories in the first couple weeks of your show, but really, more than that, it affects the fact that you cannot drive enough people and get enough people subscribing in just that one place. iTunes, still to this day, is like 80 to 85 percent of all podcast downloads that I get come through iTunes. It’s absolutely how it works. There are hundreds of directories around now, and 85 percent. If you’re ever looking for that 20 percent of effort that will get you that 80 percent of results, that whole 80-20, iTunes is absolutely it.

But now, since you’re hitting episode 50 and you’re moving forward, now’s the time to allow an hour a week, say, half an hour a week, whatever you have extra, to find and submit your show to, say, two, three, four, or five new directories every week. And do that for the next two months or three months.

Some of these directories might only get you a 1,000 listens over the next year or two, but that’s a 1,000 people out there listening. Literally, a directory is where you submit your feed URL, and it has to get approved or whatever it takes. Then it gets submitted, and it’s there. Now every time you post a new episode, it goes out to more and more people.

Yes, there’s less and less and less and less people at some of these directories, but it’s the concerted effort of your part to get them into everywhere now that people want to consume your show via audio, that you are going to be there. Again, the first 50 episodes, you need to focus. You need to focus on iTunes, and then pick your other one that you want, whether that’s Stitcher, Google Play, whatever that happens to be. But now it’s time to really make time every single week. Make a goal that you’re going to submit to two, or three, or four, or five new directories.

We did an episode where I think we listed 10 or 15 different podcast directories you could start with, and I’ll link, again, to that in the show notes for you, so you can track it down. But you Google ‘podcast directories,’ and I’m sure there’s hundreds of them at this point. So start with the bigger ones, obviously, because you’re going to get more return. But really, really make an effort to every single week hit your goal of submitting two new directories, and keep going until you absolutely run out of them.

Jerod Morris: I can’t emphasize this enough. So, Jonny, last week I counted, and we have done now 306 episodes of The Assembly Call, between postgame shows and just other off-season episodes, that kind of thing. Just this past week, I added the The Assembly Call to SoundCloud. About a month and a half ago I added The Assembly Call to iHeartRadio. Maybe about three months before that, we got on Spreaker. Six months or so before that we got on TuneIn Radio. I say this to underscore the point, Jonny, that you make about, in the beginning, really, really focus.

If you look at The Assembly Call right now, it looks like it’s everywhere, and so if you’re newer, even if you’re at 50 episodes, you might say, “Okay, well, shoot, I need to be everywhere, too.” Well, just understand how that evolves, and understand that the focus, especially early, was all iTunes. And then we got on Stitcher after that. I believe after that we made the switch to recording our show on YouTube so that we could also be in YouTube.

So it was kind of step by step, and finding, when there was a little bit of time here and there, to really investigate it, and get into this, that, and the other directory, and then adding it to the autoresponder when people subscribe, to let them know, “Hey, here are all the different ways that you can subscribe to our show and that you can connect with us,” to give people more options.

So I do think this absolutely needs to be in your long-term plan. It’s something that you want to do systematically, but again, make sure that you are focusing, especially early, because you can’t do them all well in the beginning. You eventually want to have them all, but don’t overwhelm yourself. Don’t actually detract from your ability to focus and get subscribers in one place because you’re trying to do everything.

And I speak from experience because I’m still episode 300 and some, and I probably could have done a little bit faster. But it just goes to show you, you can effectively grow an audience. You don’t have to be in all of these places, but you want to have a plan to get there eventually.

Step 3: Pay to Play

Jerod Morris: All right, and now, the third section in distribution, which is pay to play. So you have your calls to action that are pushing listeners to your email list, and you have a plan for turning those subscribers into fans. When that is in place, you can now use paid ads to drive new listeners directly to your episodes. Yes, paying for advertising, whether it be on Facebook or Twitter, to send people to episodes, obviously in hopes that they listen and in hopes that they subscribe. That’s why you want to have your calls to action in place and a plan to turn those subscribers into fans.

So when you’re starting out, and your call to action is to give you a rating and review — because you’re really focused on iTunes, driving iTunes, and pushing your show up there — it’s too costly to pay for ads. There’s not really, in a lot of ways, a direct or an indirect return on what you’re paying for. But at 50 episodes, that’s changed. You’ve spent that time in iTunes. You’ve really focused there.

Now that you have a more mature site and a more mature funnel, now you can pay for those ads to get people to listen to the shows. And you can draw a more direct line between, “Okay, this money that I spend on this ad was successful because it helped lead to this many subscribers.” And if you have a good plan for those subscribers, that can eventually lead to your profit, whether that’s direct, indirect, or intrinsic profit, whatever you’re focusing on at this time.

But you’re at the point now where you can start considering pay to play. And unfortunately, with the way social media has gone, a lot of times to get the reach, to get the attention that maybe you could have gotten without paying three or four years ago, much, much harder to do now. So if you’re going to be realistic about social media, figuring out when that time is that you’re going to have to start paying to play is a smart thing to do and a mature thing to do as a showrunner.

But now is the point in time where you can start thinking about it. Just make sure that you have a plan for what those people are going to do when they listen, and what you’re going to do with them when they subscribe, so that you actually get a return on this investment that you’re making in the paid ads.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, and this is not just the last point on our list. This is, and should be, your last step of the evolution. So with the show, in the evolution, you double down or you doubled back. Then you’ve stepped up your game, in whatever way you see necessary. And you began to monetize, whether that’s through sponsors or affiliates, but you began to monetize. This monetization is going to be one of the things that is going to directly allow you to pay to play at that last step.

Then, as you move beyond the ears and find ways to repurpose your content, you’re going just to keep building more audience. That audience, again, can be further monetized, with getting people onto email and then learning to teach people what you know, with workshops, webinars, mini courses, paid or free. All of that is working to build your audience to add back to monetization, which, again, in turn, allows you and gives you more revenue to pay to play and continue to get that funnel going or that process going, I should say.

Then when you go into distribution, you’re going wide, and you’re reaching out to everyone in your market. You’re kind of becoming more known as an authority and also as somebody that can be worked with and can be helped to grow their show further. Then you make a plan to dive deep into directories, and focus every single week. Set yourself a goal — whether it’s one, or two, or five directories a week — submit those every single week, and hit that goal. All of these things lead up to your show being better. It changes what you’ve done up till now, but it is what’s going to get you to where you want to be at episode 100.

And then it ties into paying to play, which is because everything else is set up before this, the eight points before this and the eight steps, those are the ones that are going to allow you and give you the revenue to create that remarkable show and to further build that audience even further.

Jerod Morris: Absolutely. So two calls to action here at the end of this episode. You choose which one fits best for you. The first is, if you are the person that we have been talking to at this episode, if you are past 50 episodes, then we’d like for you to let us know which of the nine elements that we just talked about here in the evolution of the showrunner are you going to do next — which is the right one for you right now?

Are you right there at that point of doubling down and doubling back? Or have you kind of gotten past that a little bit, and you’re ready to go deep, or you’re ready to take that step of directory diving? Tweet us, @JerodMorris, @JonNastor. Let us know because we’re really curious. We want to know. Let us know what that next step is.

Now, maybe you’re not at this point yet. Maybe you’re still in the beginning phase. Maybe you’re still in the exploratory phase, and you’re still thinking about whether you even want to launch a podcast.

Well, we have something for you, too. It’s called What Could Happen If You Launch a Podcast in the Next 30 Days? And if you go to Showrunner.FM/Report, you will find our report, The Beginner’s Guide to Launching a Remarkable Podcast, which will help you both make that decision and then take the next steps once you have made that decision, if it is in the affirmative, that yes, you’re going to be a showrunner.

And of course, that’s the one that we suggest, and hopefully are inspiring you to make. But this report is a simple, no-frills, nine-step plan to get your podcast off the ground and to get it rolling. And it is geared toward beginners, but it’s not just for beginners because everything in there is good review. Because as you move forward as a podcaster, as a showrunner, it can be easy to start focusing on D, E, and F steps, and forgetting about the ABCs. But you’ve got to make sure that your show is built on a foundation of the ABCs, and that’s what we go through in this report.

So go to Showrunner.FM/Report. All you have to do is submit your email address. You’ll also get a very helpful autoresponder series that will go through some additional thought processes that you need as a showrunner. So go to Showrunner.FM/Report. Submit your email address. Get that report. Or if you’re already past that 50-episode mark, send us a Tweet. Let us know which step is next for you.

Jonny Nastor: That was fun.

Jerod Morris: That was fun. Guess we’ll talk to him next week.

Jonny Nastor: I think we will.

Jerod Morris: I think we will. Talk to you then, everybody.