Dec 21, 2020
How do the podcasting pros get the most mileage out of their podcast guest appearances?
This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Command Your Brand CEO Jeremy Slate shares his strategies for podcast public relations.
Jeremy is a podcasting pro who hosts the Create Your Own Life podcast and is an active podcast guest.
In this episode, he talks about the specific tactics he uses to market his own podcast guest appearances and help his clients get the most mileage out of theirs.
Check out the full episode, or read the transcript below, for details.
Resources from this episode:
- Visit the CommandYourBrand website
- Visit commandyourbrand.com/7reasons to get Jeremy's white paper on how to get booked on more podcasts
Transcript
Kathleen (00:00): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth. And this week, my guest is Jeremy Slate. Jeremy is the founder of Create Your Own Life podcast and the co-founder of Command Your Brand Media. Welcome Jeremy.
Jeremy (00:26): Hey, thank you so much for having me, Kathleen. And I'm stoked to get a chance to hang out with you today.
Kathleen (00:30): You know, I always love talking about podcasting. It's very meta because of course we're on a podcast about a podcast.
Jeremy (00:38): Exactly.
Kathleen (00:39): And I've had a lot of guests who've talked about podcasts, but you're, I think you and I settled on a really interesting sort of spin on that topic, which we haven't talked about yet on the inbound success podcast, which is podcast PR. So I'm really excited to chat with you about that. But before we get into that, you have a very interesting background with podcasting specifically, and I think that's, that's a big part of your journey. So for those who are listening and may not be familiar with your story, could you talk a little bit about your background and how you came to be doing what you're doing now?
Jeremy (01:15): It's like kind of like a Beatles song. It's like a long and winding road because like, it's weird. Like I went to school to be a college professor. That's like what I wanted to do. So I have a undergrad degree in world religion and Torah. And then I studied literature at New College Oxford and then got my masters in early Roman empire propaganda, not a very applicable skill and like the world of like getting a job other than like working at a library.
Kathleen (01:35): I want to go back to school and study what you studied though. It all sounds so interesting.
Jeremy (01:40): I was, I'm like the world's biggest nerd too. And I'm like, I'm a former competitive powerlifter too. So I was always the guy in the front of class, like sitting there, like answering all the questions, you know, like sitting there big and muscly, but answering all the questions. So you know, that's kinda like where life started out for me. And then when I was 24 I was two years into teaching high school and my mom ended up having a really bad stroke and it made me look at a lot of things in my life really, really differently. So I was like, okay, well, I'm going to try and do something differently. And my wife was presented a network marketing opportunity. I didn't know what that was. So I thought I was gonna be like a millionaire in like three days. It didn't work like that.
Kathleen (02:13): Don't, we all, like we hear about those.
Jeremy (02:16): It didn't work. I did spend two years of my life, like full-time, you know, trying to make it go right. And then from there I went to selling life insurance. I was really good at it. I hated telling people they were going to die. So I just kinda couldn't do that every day and went from there to private labeling and selling products on Amazon. And I left the, get my product for $1 promo code in my listing. And I lost all 200 of my products and made no money. So I very quickly put myself in a very rough situation. I'm like, Oh man, I can't do this anymore. So I actually ended up working for a friend's web design firm. I had taught myself how to, how to code reading blogs and watching YouTube videos. So I was writing HTML and CSS and all that kind of stuff. And I've been a podcast listener since 2006 when they were still like a lot of audio books and then one podcast I listen to this, to this day called the no agenda show. They like make fun of the news for three hours twice a week. It's great.
Kathleen (03:04): It's so easy to do now.
Jeremy (03:06): It's especially easy now. So like that was kind of where I was at and I was like, all right, well, what am I going to do for myself? So I started creating your own life in 2015 and we had 10,000 listens in our first 30 days. Which is, you know, not normal. It took off very quickly. I got to talk to lots and lots of amazing people that I admired and very quickly people started saying like, Hey, can you do this for me? I'm like, okay. So we started a company called Slate Media Productions, where we did like a done for you podcast model. And I found it a lot more, went into it than I expected, and a lot more work was involved in it. And I'd never hired anybody, anybody before or anything like that. So my wife was my co-founder in that company.
Jeremy (03:43): And part of what we did is we got clients on podcasts before they launched their own. And our clients were like, Hey, I love having my own podcast. But to me it makes a lot more sense to, to go on shows. So we dropped everything else we were doing. And we just really focused on, you know, being the PR firm for the podcast space. And we've grown substantially since 2016, we were started to now we're up to 14 people on our team. And you know, we've booked thousands of podcasts for lots of incredible clients.
Kathleen (04:09): So side note, before we keep going for those listening, if there's a dull roar in the background, it's because there's a crazy storm going. So if you're wondering what that sound is now you know.
Jeremy (04:20): I thought maybe we were filming for a Carpenters song.
Kathleen (04:22): Yeah.
Jeremy (04:23): Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.
Kathleen (04:25): It is definitely a rainy day on a Monday. So I think it's really, it's really fascinating to hear your story because it kind of parallels the crazy trajectory that podcasts in general have had, you know, they've been around for a very, very long time. Like I want to say since the nineties, technically I think at one point, but they've really, really taken off in the last five years or so. And hearing you tell your story about, you know, people wanting to create their own, but then realizing that guesting on podcasts is a huge opportunity and the whole PR opportunity around that tracks very much with what I've seen as a marketer, who I am a marketer who both hosts my own podcast. And for during, in my day job, I actually have as part of my budget guesting for my CEO. So he goes on podcasts all the time.
Kathleen (05:21): I'm going to start doing it soon. So I'm totally 100% bought in, but I want to, you know, it's one thing to, to be a guest or to host a podcast is entirely another. Then what you do with that media asset, because it's a little bit of that whole tree fell in the forest scenario where I think there's a lot of people who spend money on podcasting hosting or guesting, and then it doesn't produce results for them because they don't then know what to do with it. So that's what I want to talk to you about today. Okay.
Jeremy (05:51): Just add to that too, because I think like not, not knowing what to do with is one thing, but I think also they go into it with, I guess not the right expectations, not the right understanding as well. So I think that's also really, really important going into it is having the right expectations and understanding too
Kathleen (06:04): Well. Let's actually talk about that for a second because I've had this debate on this podcast before, and I'm really curious about your take on it. I've had people say podcasting is not something you should do for lead generation. And then I've had people say, absolutely podcasting is something you should do for lead generation. So like when you talk with people about podcasting hosting or guesting, what is your advice in that regard? Like what is a good use of podcasting as part of the marketing mix?
Jeremy (06:34): I want to say that part of that too, like part of the, the expectations as well as also knowing like what audience you're helping and how you're helping them, because every person out there wants to go on Tim Ferris and Lewis Howes and Joe Rogan. And the thing you have to look at, like, is that going to help my brand and help what I'm doing or is that a vanity thing? And a lot of people want these vanity metrics and they want stuff like that. So I just wanted to kind of like add that because it's really important too. But in terms of like expectations, like I primarily called appearing on podcasts, a PR action or a public relations action. Now, the thing that's beautiful about it is you've married PR and direct response marketing because there is a lot you can do with that.
Jeremy (07:08): So in the way of, you know, you're getting seen, you're getting known, you're creating trust, which is really important, but whereas on a traditional radio show or TV or something like that, you can't really retarget listeners. You can do that with a podcast. And that's, what's really interesting because you can actually, you know, set up the right Facebook ads to retarget people. You can set up the right landing pages to go back and retarget people, there's email capture software that you can use. So there's a lot you can do with it. But I don't want to say it's primary, primarily a lead gen action. It's a creating trust, creating a piece you can use, but then also making sure that you're retargeting, continuing the relationship with the people you're speaking to. So that's, that's really the thing I always tell people.
Kathleen (07:46): Yeah. And I think there's, I mean, there's a huge brand awareness play in general. That's that's, to me, one of the greatest values of it, like one of the reasons we're using it at my company that I work at now is we have a new product we're introducing and it's, it's targeted at an audience we've never sold to before. Right. And so, you know, we're using it to kind of warm the audience up and make them just even aware of our brand name. You know, we're still in private beta, but I think the more they hear our name, the more there's like, Oh yeah, yeah. I heard about that. Then when we're ready to start selling, it's going to be a much easier. So I think there's that aspect of it as well. So, so let's talk about this, I guess, guesting in particular you go on a podcast, you you're a guest, you get interviewed, the interview gets published. Then what, like talk me through how you talk with your clients about
Jeremy (08:39): Yes. Well, I'll tell them first and foremost, before they go on an interview, like the thing you have to have down is your differentiator, like what makes you different and interesting and special and unique because a lot of people will and like we've had clients go on the same podcast. One client has an incredible experience, gets lots of leads and exposure from it. We've had another one and say, you know, that wasn't a great show for me. So I will say first and foremost, how you show up is super vital to how the experience is going to be in the results you actually create from that. So you need to be different and you need to also show up to serve. So that's vital as well. I find so many times like I've had guests on where I haven't published the show because they'll direct me to a YouTube video or a page or a course or a product rather than actually like being the expert and explaining for that period of time.
Jeremy (09:19): So it's really, really, really important to do that. And then also like in terms of that also how you talk on that, it's really important to we, we look at every interview is having essentially three parts to it. That being story, message, and call to action into your personal story creates trust. It shows people, you can actually make the transformation, whether it's for yourself or a client you've worked with, or you know, the, the, then the message is what you're actually going to teach people to do, you know, how you're going to actually teach them step-by-step to do something. So that's really, really important as well. And then the call to action, which kind of brings us back to kind of where you'd started. The question is, what do you want people to do at the end? And we find that usually it's going to be something that helps people apply what you just taught, because there's two parts of the learning, right?
Jeremy (09:59): There's the actual theory of it. And the actual application of it. When you have those two, somebody can learn something. And that doesn't mean they're going to go out and they're going to like, you know, start a marketing firm, or they're going to like, you know, start this crazy program, but it creates this idea in their mind that they won with you. So, like for example, one of the things that we give away is we give away a white paper that teaches people, the things they need to know about basic PR actions. So they can actually get results in their business from that. So it needs to be something that aligns with what you taught and aligned to their mission, aligns your company. Now, once you give that away the landing page, you're going to send people to I, we recommend really do it this specific way.
Jeremy (10:32): So, you know, like for us, it's like commandyourbrand.com/. I find it to be pretty easy. And the one thing I've heard from somebody else that we've had book launch clients do because it gets good results is to buy like a like a URL that you can swap things in and out of. You know what I mean? Like a www go to meet.com or something like that. Like you buy like a, a vanity URL, and then when you're releasing new products, you can actually swap it out. So that's a really good thought process too. I like having it on your own site and in that way, just because I find that it's easier. So then when you have that landing page, you want to have a Facebook pixel on that landing page. And then what you're actually going to do is set up 30, 60, and 90 day audiences.
Jeremy (11:10): And then you can retarget those audiences at a dollar a day budget, because then if you're going on lots and lots and lots of podcasts, you know, you're spending 30 bucks a month for one podcast, and then you're spending 30 on another, another, another. So you actually have these podcasts working for you and retargeting a lot of the people that you've been on, a lot of shows that you've been on. And then in terms of what happens once somebody gets that opt in, we actually have somebody to go through a seven day email sequence, you know, the first day being like, Hey, here's the freebie. I promised you, thank you so much for grabbing that. Then you want to go to your hero's journey. Like, you know, why is this important then the the third day email, what we actually tell people to do is tell stories around what your biggest objections are.
Jeremy (11:49): You know, like, Oh, this doesn't work or, you know, marketing is hard or whatever it is. And in that seven days, you're actually educating somebody that if they weren't ready to buy, when they heard you on the show, cause your freebie, they're going to come back around and want to have a conversation with you. And then after day seven, we said, okay, it's fine. And now have this person in like a broadcast sequence. Follow-Up. So that's kind of what you're going to do from there. The other thing we do on that landing page, which is something we've been doing since January of this year, and it's been really, really good it's called get emails.com and get emails.com has a massive database of like, people have already opted in for stuff. So this is totally like, you know, white hat, like not a problem.
Jeremy (12:25): And it's because we all know people sell our information online. So when you go, when, when somebody that is in that email system goes to your landing page, they recognize it and they then opt the person into your email list. So then we actually have a seven day sequence set up for that too, because if somebody opts in, they want to know how they got there. Cause how many things do you opt in for? And you forget that you did it at a site. So it really brings somebody through that journey as well. So that's kind of like what we're doing when somebody goes to a landing page because I call it the leaky bucket. Right. you want to keep looking at where are the holes in this bucket and where else can I patch them? So I'm not missing anybody that does go there and maybe didn't jump in right away or may want to work with me in the future or may need an area to continue this relationship.
Kathleen (13:09): All right. I have a lot of questions.
Jeremy (13:13): I tend to talk a lot. I'm from Jersey guy.
Kathleen (13:15): I love it. You're out. You're here to talk. That's why I invited you in. First question. I want to go back to, you said there's three parts to going on a podcast. It's your story. What you're going to teach and then your offer. Yeah. So the, the teach part is the one that I'm interested in talking about for a minute, because I totally agree with you. And when I look for guests for my podcast, it's all about like, what can they teach my audience? And, and I talk specifically in, you know, in, in all of the information about the podcast, about how this is not a podcast, necessarily focused on getting you in and inspiring you. I love for you to be inspired. It's more about making things actionable.
Kathleen (13:59): Like I want people to leave and feel like, okay, I have things I can immediately do to make my marketing better. So it is all about teaching at least this podcast. And there are other podcasts that are different. Like maybe Tim Ferriss is a good one. You talked about. So when it comes to teaching, though, what I've found is that there are definitely some people who are very good subject matter experts who want to go on podcasts, but then they feel like, well, I can't give up the secret sauce because it's the secret sauce, right? Like, so I can't, I can't teach them my proprietary method. That gets great results because that's how I'm going to get them to convert, like so that they fill out the form to get that. But then, and so I've definitely found myself with some guests where I'm like, all right, we're not getting there's no, there, there, like you're doing the inspiration, but you're not doing the actionable. And so how do you counsel your clients about like, what's the balance to, on that?
Jeremy (14:52): I call those barrier people. They're just the same people that want to know. Like, so how many dollars do you have in your bank account before you fill out this application? Cause I want to see if we're a fit. No, my job is to convince you, you need what I have, whether you have the money or not. So I think you, you don't want to be the barrier guy. Right? And, and we had a client who's actually our very first client back in 2016. And he literally would get on, he was in the real estate space and he would tell people everything they needed to know and they got on and like, Oh my God, this guy's brilliant. And I can't do all that. I need to work with him. He made half a million dollars off podcasts off the 16 shows we put them on.
Jeremy (15:25): As I said, he's brilliant. He did a lot of remarketing too. We can't take credit for all of that. But when you show up to really, really teach people and really show them that you can help them, they just need to know you're the expert, like 99% of people like aren't going to do it are going to try it themselves and be like, dang, this is too hard. I need to come back to you. Like we had somebody that had heard me on a podcast, had a conversation with my sales team about a month ago, said, okay, we're going to have my team try and do this. They came back two weeks ago and said, it's hard. We need to work with you. And, and that's what you really need to look at is if you're the expert in, you're confident in what you're doing.
Jeremy (15:59): Like, you know what I mean? Like you don't have people sign an NDA before you a sales call. It's the same type of thing. People want to know that, you know what you're talking about and that you can get them results. But if you don't show up to teach everything, why are they going to listen to you? Right? Like there needs to be a reason why they're going to listen to that podcast. Like some of my favorite podcasts that I've listened to on the business side are like things where people get really granular with stuff. Because then I'm like, okay, well I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. I can't do this part. That's why I need this person. And I think that's where, where you really create trust. And you really create this ability for somebody to want to work with you.
Kathleen (16:31): Amen. And, and I think the thing that I've noticed is that the DIYers are going to be DIYers. They don't have money. Anyway, the secrets are not like, they are just, they are DIYers by nature. And they're, you know, if, if you don't tell them how to do it, they're going to find somebody else who will and do it themselves. Like it's not taking business away from you.
Jeremy (16:54): Like we've had people buy like one of our courses teach somebody how to do what we do for yourself. We've had people buy those courses with larger companies just to see how it works when they hire us to know what they're getting. Like, you know what I mean? Like if you're really willing to show up and educate, then people are gonna wanna work with you.
Kathleen (17:07): Yeah, absolutely. So, so assuming somebody has something worthwhile that they can teach about the offer and what is a good offer for podcasts?
Jeremy (17:19): I find that eBooks just kind of stink because everybody and their brother has an ebook and somebody doesn't want it.
Kathleen (17:24): Everybody thinks that eBooks are going to suck whether they do or not.
Jeremy (17:29): They just, I'm just not excited. Oh my gosh, another ebook. I find that really good and to the point white papers are good. Like if you let somebody know like, Hey, this is one or two pages is everything you need to know. And it's really good. Like our white paper the seven reasons you're not getting books in your favorite podcast does really well. Because the name is also important too. Like that's also good. I find worksheets are good. I find quizzes are good. Like things that somebody can use as a tool and get some sort of an instant win. You know what I mean? Like I just find eBooks, just take too much concentration. You know what I mean? Everybody's got one and they're 50 to a hundred pages and people don't want another thing to read. You know what I mean?
Kathleen (18:02): And it's amazing how 99% of the time, it's 50 to 100 pages of really general, non-actionable stuff, which is why people think that your ebooks are going to suck.
Jeremy (18:15): I'm going to give you twenty-Five pages of fluff. And at the end, this is how you buy something. Right.
Kathleen (18:18): TLDR, I could have told you the whole story in a paragraph. So the, okay, so, so assuming you have a good offer, then the other thing I want to ask you, and this is also back to like when you're on the podcast, what's the natural way to make that offer, because I think you don't want to come across as being spammy or too salesy.
Jeremy (18:39): It's story selling. You know what I mean? Like it's like, Hey, you know, this took me two years to figure out and I don't want anybody to have to go through what I had to figure out in order to do it and make the same mistakes I made because I made some really bad ones. So I actually want to cut that learning curve for you. So if you want to grab that totally free, no obligation. You can go to xyz dot com. Like you want to tie it back to a story, even if it's a quick one. Because you know, once again, stories create human connection and that's what really connect people to what you're talking about. So stories are really important. Like I I'm sure you've had guests before they give you like 27 different places. They can find you online. And like, that's really hard because a lot of times people, you have to think of their modality, right? They're in a car they're at the gym. They're hopefully listening to you at their desk, but still working. So you want to think they're always doing something else. You want to make it easy, send them one place and tie it to story. Don't send them 50 places.
Kathleen (19:27): Yeah. And I like the idea of having kind of a call it like a single offer that can be reused for many things. And I've noticed that with some of my better guests that are really well organized, they have a landing page, as you said, it's either on their site at a simple, like my url.com/you know, offer or whatever
Jeremy (19:49): We use ClickFunnels, but we just set up sub-domain, which is really nice, because then it's still your URL, it's training dot command your brand.
Kathleen (19:56): But I also love like getting a vanity URL. And it's funny when you were talking about doing that, the first person that came to mind was somebody I've interviewed before on the podcast. Christopher Penn. He has the best vanity URL ever when he speaks at conferences and I'm probably going to get it wrong, but you'll get the gist of it. When he speaks at conferences, he has the URL, where can I get the slides dot com. Isn't that genius? I was like, man, I can't believe you have that. And so like, that's his landing for every talk, it's just go to where can I get the slides dot com and you'll find the slides.
Jeremy (20:30): I can't take credit for that idea either. I got that from George Bryant, who has mindofgeorge.com which is smart because then every time he has a new offer, they just change the vanity URL that, you know, where it directs. And it's just because you're basically changing your offer on every podcast you've ever been on. Like how great of an idea is that.
Kathleen (20:45): Yeah. It's so smart. So you direct people to these URLs. Now talk me through, I want to get a little bit more granular on the re-targeting because are you suggesting that you have like one URL and you're going on, let's call it a podcast a week. And then every one of those podcasts, you're sending people to the same URL and then you're, and they're enrolling in the same retargeting campaign or are these separate URLs with separate retargeting campaigns?
Jeremy (21:09): So it depends cause most podcasts I'm going to go on are going to be about the guesting side and about like the marketing and PR side of things. So like typically I'm going to have the same offer for that. If I'm going on like more like stuff geared to my podcasts, I'm going to direct people to another landing page that I have built towards podcast content. So it's, we really have two offers pretty much for that. You know, the other, one's like a quick course in like starting a podcast, cause it's like a little bit more aligned with that other audience. So I just really have to two offers and then on that we're we're running retargeting campaigns.
Kathleen (21:42): Okay. And then go, let's go back to what you were saying about having different audiences. That's important. So break that down a little bit more for me.
Jeremy (21:50): So if people want to hear more about this, the person I got it from is Dennis Yu from Blitzmetrics. So Dennis is brilliant. He has a lot more training on that, but the basics of it is in your Facebook ads manager, you can set up audiences, right? So you set up the pixel first and I'm sure your audience is aware of like what a Facebook pixel is, right? The piece of code you place on a site and it captures identities. So what you can actually do then is when you go into the pixel settings in Facebook ads, you can actually create audiences, meaning like audience one is everybody that has seen your website in the last 30 days. Audience two is everybody that has seen your website in the last 60 days. And audience three is everybody has seen your website in the last 90 days.
Kathleen (22:31): Is it everybody who's seen your website in the last 60 days minus the ones on list one?
Jeremy (22:35): No, it's usually just, it just spreads them out. It adds them all together. So 90 days would be all would be the other two. I tend to use the 90 day one more because it's got a larger audience size because it's got the other two combined. But that's what you're going to want to do. And then you set up like ads at a dollar a day to retarget those people because it's not gonna be a huge audience. So a dollar is going to get you a ton of reach and you're doing it for every podcast you've been on. So that's a lot of ads running every single month, but it's not a huge like out-of-pocket thing. And then what you're going to actually learn based on podcasts you've been on is actually which ones are more of your audience because you're going to see who's taking action. You're going to see what really happens with that podcast. So you're gonna get to know your audience even better too. So you can create a lot of ton of insights on the backend of Facebook ads.
Kathleen (23:17): So this may be a dumb question. But, okay. So let's just take your example. So sort of half the podcasts you're going on, it's about guesting, which is what we're talking about.
Jeremy (23:26): I'd say 70%.
Kathleen (23:28): So look, I mean, my listeners are smart. They know that you're going to have an offer for them. They're going to go to your site. Correct. We're going to get re-targeted. So, but the way it sounds from what you're describing is let's say you do another podcast next week on guesting as well. Those same people are going to that same site getting put into that same campaign. So you don't have, you don't have like different ads per podcast ads per campaign.
Jeremy (23:54): Yeah. Per campaign. So it's not crazy. So like, but I do have two different types of retargeting. We run at them one being like, Hey, you missed the offer. Here it is. You forgot to download it. You forgot to read it, whatever it is or another one being here's our webinar. And I have a really good webinar that like, cause I hate webinars that you get on and be like, Oh my God, I just wasted an hour of my life. I, Oh my gosh. Like I feel like I've created processes because of things I hate. So like we actually have a training that walks people through a lot of the basics of getting us off on podcasts. So then that retargeting webinars actually been really good for us. And at the end of that, we sell a call. But then they also go into another email sequence on that. So like we're really making sure we can find every single hole in the bucket. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Kathleen (24:37): So what, what types of, so you have the two, you have the, you got the offer or you didn't get the offer, correct?Like, what are those next step campaigns look like? What are you trying to encourage them to do?
Jeremy (24:48): So if they miss the offer we just have a short one, which is like more education based on like things they may have missed in the first one. Cause remember we have that original seven day sequence they get when they opt in, I find that if they didn't grab the offer, they didn't read the six emails after that. So we tend to reuse the emails that we see have the highest open rate by a lot of our other readers in that sequence. So we know that at least they're good enough. Like one of my favorite is radio versus podcasting. Because people, until they actually understood how radio stats work, they try to hold podcasting to that same thing. And they're like, Oh my God, that's what I find radio stats. So like we use our most successful ones from that campaign and this like smaller mini campaign.
Jeremy (25:25): It's like three days after that for the webinar, that's more really about like, why haven't they booked a call yet? So like, Hey, you know, we would love to spend some time with you. Like, Hey, this is a client success story. This is one of our clients and, you know, the actual income they created from it and it's towards booking a call. Or since they're now in that retargeting, if they didn't even watch the webinar, they get sent the webinar again. So it's, we have a lot of email sequences as you can see.
Kathleen (25:50): So, and, and they get an email every day for seven days
Jeremy (25:54): For seven days for the, for the opt-in one and for the webinar one, but we only do three days for if they've already opted in for, for the for the, like the freebie, because they've already gotten seven days. I don't want to hammer them a full seven days again.
Kathleen (26:08): Okay. And I'm assuming you have rules set up in the background around taking people out of all these sequences and campaigns, if they finally convert.
Jeremy (26:15): Yeah. We use Active Campaign for that. Because I found that's really, really, really good in terms of like like the different tags. You can add the different actions you can add. It's like, at least from all the ones I've used as the one that seems to give me like the most things I can change.
Kathleen (26:28): Got it. And what kinds of conversion rates do you see and do both with your own marketing and with your clients' marketing?
Jeremy (26:36): With clients it's hard because not every person at the same, like I said, we had one client that had like huge numbers. We've had other ones that had those. So it's just really hard to give a, it's not something we're usually watching for clients. So I can say on our, on our side you know, we're having a really good rate of people coming and hearing us on a podcast and coming to work with us. Now those numbers, aren't huge in comparison. Like I'd say it's probably like 10%. So in the grand scheme of things, it's not huge, but if you're on a lot of podcasts, you're continually growing that number, growing that number, growing that number. And we had a lot of people that have said, Hey, I've heard you on a podcast. I learned a lot about it. And I was like, Hey, I need you guys to help me with this.
Kathleen (27:13): No, I think that's actually really good because in my experience, you know, even if you hire a podcast booking agent, it's not that expensive. Correct. So if you're, you know, if you're getting that number of clients, the ROI is pretty huge. I mean, it takes like one client. I don't know. It depends on what your average order value is, but yeah, I would say for us, it, it, one client every few months would pay for the podcast guesting service.
Jeremy (27:36): And that's the thing I have to think about too, is like, what's the value of a client for you versus what you're doing there as well. I think that's really important. That's why we've really, for, for us, like I said, we've really focused on just teaching our clients how to do the backend stuff, not really doing that for them, because that just became a huddle, a whole nother rigmarole. And we're not, we're not a marketing agency, we're a PR agency, but we do take responsibility to make sure they know what they're doing, you know, after the fact.
Kathleen (27:57): So beyond retargeting the listeners of the podcast and, you know, enrolling them in follow up email sequences. Is there any other podcast promotion or outreach that you're doing once the episode airs?
Jeremy (28:13): So we're creating snippets and stuff too. So we use Headliner. Its a really good one. The thing that we've been doing a lot more now is actually, since I'm doing a lot of my podcasts on zoom and on video, we're actually using those to make like viral style videos. So those have been doing pretty well. And LinkedIn's kind of been our big place to do that. So we do a lot of long form content on LinkedIn, meaning that you get like 1300 characters. So your first line has to be something that's like decently shocking or attention grabbing, because if you've seen a LinkedIn post, it's like, you got three lines and this is see more. Yeah. So you want to grab somebody's attention in that first one to two lines, and then you're actually telling a narrative story about the podcast or about what you taught on that to kind of bring them back in.
Jeremy (28:53): And then we always have people with the link in the first comment, because any posts, whether it's on Facebook or whether it's on LinkedIn. Twitter, not so much because there's not really another place you can put a link. But on Facebook and LinkedIn, they actually down rank a post. So if you put a link in the actual post, so you put in the comments, you need to know it's in the comments. So we're doing a lot of like content marketing around that stuff too. Video is not doing as well as it was on LinkedIn. So we're actually focusing mainly on long-form posts right now, but we're doing a lot of viral style videos as well. And we're keeping them under 60 seconds too, which is really important.
Kathleen (29:24): Yeah, it's interesting because I've really seen that evolve with LinkedIn about a year and a half ago, video was doing extremely
Jeremy (29:32): Well. It's crazy. The view numbers were nuts. I could like reshare a goal cast video and get a hundred thousand views on it.
Kathleen (29:37): Yeah. I was, I was doing like three videos a week for myself on LinkedIn back that point. And I've completely stopped now. That's a long form content. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So are you posting that content as yourself individually? Or are you doing any of it out of a company account?
Jeremy (29:55): So I'm usually doing it on my own account. I find, you know, company accounts just don't do as well on any platform. I know LinkedIn, they're doing a little bit better because you'll just, you just get followers. So we do have somebody on our team that'll post some of that content to the, to that page because it just kind of grows on its own Facebook, unless you're giving them money. Like I just had an, I find Facebook unless you're running an ad to just be kind of worthless anymore. Linkedin for us is where we spent most of our time and it's not personal accounts.
Kathleen (30:19): Yeah. I found the same thing with Facebook. Like as far as organic posts, like I just post there to keep the lights on so that if anybody happens to look, they're like, Oh, they're still there.
Jeremy (30:30): The reach is pathetic because even like paid reach, if you like, re-targeted the fans of your own page, you're only gonna get one to 3% anyway. So what does it matter?
Kathleen (30:36): Yeah, it's terrible. Interesting. And, and, you know, in terms of visits from the types of podcasts that you're going on, like, what numbers do you see of people coming back to your site and converting?
Jeremy (30:51): So we do run some Google ads, but our biggest traffic source is really podcasts. So like in terms of that, we're seeing, you know, anywhere from 250 to 500 people hitting our site a day. Now as I say, we're running Google ads too. We don't run a huge budget. I spend like maybe 500 to a thousand dollars a month in Google ads. So you can kind of figure there that the, the other percentage of it are coming from podcasts, but I've been going on three to five podcasts a week for, Oh gosh, how many years now? Like five years. So like, wow, that's a, that's a, a lot of people that continue to come back to evergreen content. You know what I mean? Like,
Kathleen (31:27): Can you, like, at some point you run out of podcasts to do.
Jeremy (31:30): So there's 1.7 million podcasts out there right now. And you know, kind of new ones are starting all the time and, you know, some fade away as well. So it's like, yeah, there's always kind of new places to talk as long as you're kind of willing to show up and help, you know?
Kathleen (31:44): Yeah, that's great. I love that strategy. And if, if somebody is listening and they're like, okay, you got me, I'm interested in doing podcasting. Like what's the best way for them to get started with podcast guesting?
Jeremy (31:57): So I would honestly, I always recommend this recommendation people, I would say, start with going on shows before you start your own, because you at least learn both sides of the mic and you get a little more comfortable with it. But in terms of like starting guesting, start with smaller shows, that's meaning less than 20 episodes, you know, less than 20 reviews because they are a lot newer. You're kind of both getting your feet wet at the same time and it's going to be a more attainable show to get on, you know what I mean? And, and so that's kind of the, it's the same strategy I talk about with getting PR, like start local and then kind of move up bigger as you get up there. So like, I would start with smaller shows and then as you're going up, you can start looking at shows that have over 50 reviews, over a hundred reviews, over 200 reviews, but you really want to build a portfolio of stuff first.
Jeremy (32:37): And at the same time, like, feel like you're really getting good with telling your story and teaching as well. Because if you get on a big show, but you blow it, like, it doesn't really matter. Like I went on EO fire four years ago now at this point, I honestly think like had I went on that and we had some good results. Like we had a couple of hundred people opt into our list from that. But like had I went on that podcast now I would have gotten better results than I didn't, you know, the end of 2016, because I'm a lot more versed and a lot more, you know, able to converse on that. So the thing I always tell people as well, like, even if it's somebody on your staff having practice interviewing you, like, even if it's just on zoom or whatever it is, because you want to get comfortable with that too way back and forth, and that's going to really help you be able to show up and be able to really help.
Kathleen (33:19): Yeah. And you can get to the point where you can do it in your sleep. And that's how it feels to me. I'm like episode 171 and somebody the other day asked me what I do to prep. And I was like, maybe this is terrible, but I do nothing. Like I just make sure I know. I make sure I know what we're talking about and I know your name and I know your title, and then I have pronounced your name. And then beyond that, it's like, all right, let's go and see where the conversation takes us.
Jeremy (33:40): The type of show you run. That really makes sense because it's very much geared around teaching. Cause like then when I do like with my own show, like I do have to prep a lot for that. Cause I'm talking about life stories. So like if I don't know stuff, it's kind of weird, but like when you're in a teaching show, like you are that you can totally do that. It's amazing. Yeah.
Kathleen (33:55): Yeah. And it's subject matter I know pretty well because I used to host another podcast for a company I worked for that was in cybersecurity, which is a topic I don't know as well as marketing. And that, that one I had to do a little bit more homework, not to sound like an idiot. Well this has been so fun. And before we wrap up, I want to ask you the two questions I always ask all of my guests. The first one is, this podcast of course is all about inbound marketing. Is there a particular company or individual that you can point to that you think is really kind of setting the standard for what it means to be a great inbound marketer?
Jeremy (34:26): Ooh, well I mentioned him earlier, so I would say George Bryant he's helped to create several unicorn businesses. So he's, he's a big fish when it comes to that. And he's actually doing a lot of stuff around email marketing now. So I would check out George Bryant.
Kathleen (34:39): And second question. All the marketers I talk to say that one of their biggest pain points is keeping up with everything that's changing in the world of digital marketing. They, you know, I often hear it described as drinking from a fire hose. So how do you drink a drink from the fire hose? How do you keep yourself educated and up-to-date.
Jeremy (34:58): There's an old, weird album movie from the early nineties called UHF where he starts an underground TV station. And one of the things they do they do in every show is drink from the fire hose. Every time somebody says that I think of you get to drink from the fire hose. But one of the things that I do, there's a few people I'm reading. One is Neil Patel because everything he puts out is just great. Which is pretty awesome. Copyblogger's another one I'm looking at as well, because this is when, whenever you can learn to write while it's good. And I'd say those are the two biggest ones I'm looking at. Like other stuff, it just kind of I'll pick and choose like I'm on Twitter a lot. So like I tend to see things that catch my eye. I'll go that way. But you know, it's either Neil Patel or Copyblogger.
Kathleen (35:34): Awesome. Well, those are two good ones for, to check out. Last question for you is if somebody is listening and they're interested in learning more about you or about your podcast or your business, what's the best way for them to connect with you online?
Jeremy (35:48): Absolutely. I feel lame doing this now, since we already talked about it, but like, people don't want to make this thing. If people don't want to make the same mistakes I had because you know what, let me tell you, like I was on a bunch of podcasts. In the beginning I'm like, why is nothing happening? We talked about EO fire before. Like I didn't, I got some action, but I didn't get up to the type of business I want to get up because I wasn't ready. So people don't want to make those same mistakes. I put put together an awesome white paper. It's two pages long. It's called the seven reasons. You're not getting booked on your favorite podcast. And it's going to teach you everything, you know, about the real basics of PR and how that marries with direct response marketing. So you can get that over at command, your brand.com/seven reasons and the word seven or the number seven work for that.
Kathleen (36:22): Nice. All right, there you go. He's drinking his own champagne. I don't like the phrase eating your own dog food.
Jeremy (36:30): So a dog would be jealous anyway. Yeah. You got to walk the walk.
Kathleen (36:32): I love it. So for the white paper, I will also put that link in the show notes. So if you're listening and you are in your car and you forget that link, just head to the show notes for this episode and that will be there and you can connect with Jeremy. And if you're listening and you enjoyed this episode or you liked what you heard, please consider taking a minute and heading to Apple podcasts and leaving the podcast a review. That is how we get found by other listeners. And if you know someone else who's doing kick ass inbound marketing work, tweet me at @workmommywork because I would love to make them my next guest. That's it for this week. Thank you so much, Jeremy. This was a lot of fun.
Jeremy (37:10): Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.