Creating a Successful Podcast to Promote Your Membership Site
Boost your membership site with a powerful podcast strategy. Learn proven tips to attract loyal subscribers and grow recurring revenue fast.
I’ve written a more detailed post with all the links connected to using podcasting to promote your membership website.
Unlock the potential of your membership site by harnessing the power of podcasting! In this podcast, we’ll guide you through the essentials of creating a podcast strategy to effectively promote your offerings and engage your audience. From identifying your niche to structuring episodes, we cover all the steps necessary for success. Don’t miss out — click play and transform your membership marketing today.
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The Show’s Main Transcript
[00:00:16.560] – Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back folks to the Membership Machine Show. This is episode 164. In this episo,de we’re going to be discussing creating a successful podcast strategy to promote your membership website. Really important, Podcasting is a great way to build your credibility. There’s SEO benefits, but also going on other people’s podcasts is really important. In the first half we’re going to be discussing some of the key things you need to know about podcasting and then in the second half, what you need to know if you’re going on other people’s podcasts. I’ve got my great co host and friend Kurt with me. Kurt, would you like to introduce yourself to the audience?
Sure thing, Jonathan. Kurt Von Ahnen own a company called Manana no Mas and we work directly with the great teams over at Lufter, LMS and WP Tonic. [00:01:14.450] – Jonathan Denwood
Right. So like I say, we’re going to be looking at all things podcasting. But before we go into the meat and potato potatoes, I have a message from one of our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments. [00:01:28.210] – Kurt von Ahnen
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We’re coming back folks. Also want to point out we’ve got some great special offers from the sponsors. Plus a created list of the best WordPress technology, plugins, services, whatever you might need, plus a load of other things to get all these free goodies. All you have to do is go over to wp-tonic.com/deals wp-tonic.com deals. So let’s go straight into it. So Kirk, so if you want to launch your own podcast. What? I’ve got this list. When I sent it to you, what did you originally think? [00:02:42.510] – Kurt von Ahnen
Oh well, yeah, there’s a list, sure. Like there’s a lot of considerations when you are thinking about doing a podcast, but I think the number one thing to actually consider is just getting started. You can always update and upgrade Equipment and things on a list as you go. But the number one thing is absolutely just getting started. Because a lot of people have. I don’t know if I want to call it a fear of success, but they do have a procrastination button when it comes to the podcasting topic. So get started is one of the number one things. And then the list that you sent made total sense, right? Like what platform are you going to use, what equipment do you want? Do you want a different camera? Do you want a different microphone? All of that comes into play. But you got to get started. You got to get your face out there and you got to get your voice cranking something. [00:03:39.270] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, it’s called pod fighting. Most, most new podcast folks don’t go beyond 10 episodes. I would strongly advise that you keep it as simple as possible. You don’t need to buy a lot of equipment nowadays to get pretty good quality. You can spend a lot of money if you want, but that’s to get that last 10, 15 or the last 10% of quality. But keep it simple. So let’s go straight in it. So what kind of equipment do you need if you want to do your own podcast? When you need a mic, I would strongly advise you to use a USB mic. I use one. I think Kirk uses one. You can buy one that goes into a sound deck. I wouldn’t recommend. That is you will get the highest quality from a sound deck, but you might have a sound deck. Actually not sure if that’s usb. Pardon? [00:04:51.060] – Kurt von Ahnen
Mine’s a usb. [00:04:52.340] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, it’s just simple. How much do you need to spend? I think anything from 70 to $200 will get you a really great USB mic. I’m using a Rodo Rodeo Rode, actually rode. I think it’s Australian company Auto Tech do some really cost effective mics, USB mics. I use one of theirs for years and you get, you get really good quality so you don’t have to spend a lot. Next thing, is it just going to be audio or are you gonna also put it up on YouTube, which is video. It’s the same there. Keep it simple. The simplest way you can use your iPhone, there’s software that allow you that, that will allow your iPhone to be used as a camera. Or you could use a webcam. Logitech, have some. I’m using one here actually. That gives me 4,4K video. It does the job. And I’ve got another camera which is even higher quality. But I tend to use that for my other type of video work. I do a web A really good Logitech webcam. Probably a couple hundred dollars to get a 4K one or the software for your iPhone. You’ve got it. [00:06:26.930] – Jonathan Denwood
If you’ve got one of the Apple iPhones you probably can utilize that with your computer. What’s your thoughts about that? [00:06:40.930] – Kurt von Ahnen
I like to keep things simple. Like you had said, I have a widescreen Logitech webcam that I use and I use the USB mic as we’ve already said. My mic was like I think $85 and I think my webcam was like 59 bucks. It wasn’t a lot of money. I have seen a lot of people using like a repurposed DSLR camera connected to the computer. Right. Because it’s going to have a higher lens quality. I’ve seen people do that. I’ve seen, I did before I had Android and iPhones that I had used the cameras for, for, for doing like multi camera setups. And this is where I just want to be really honest and transparent with people. If we go in the Wayback Machine six years ago, Jonathan I thought hey, you know what would be cool? I’ll do like four cameras and then I’ll switch cameras like while I’m talking and have different views and all these things. Folks, that is a technical distraction that you do not need to have now that it’s, you know, six years later. I’m literally making most of my content in Streamyard or Riverside or Zoom or something like that. [00:07:51.730] – Kurt von Ahnen
It captures the video and I have a decent webcam and microphone and that’s it. [00:07:57.410] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic. Like I say next a recording platform. You don’t, you don’t really need this but I think it’s useful. There’s Mac and PC software that you can. I didn’t mention the, the free software that I forgot is ob. Is it obc, obd, obs, obs. That’s the free for Mac and PC. But I find it a bit complicated. But that’s totally free solution there. I’ve got some here that are the main players at the present moment I use Streamyard. It got extremely popular. I probably am. I’ve got to change by at least the second week of April they had, they did warn me that they wanted to charge me a couple thousand dollars for my upgrade because it got bought from a new company and I said I’m not paying that. So they then offered a subscription for 12 months for 500. But I probably want to go month to month with one of the other platforms because Streamyard got bought out over a year ago. It’s probably 18 months time is really flying and the new owners have added the enormous amount of additional functionality. But that means it’s all for also, which mostly at the present moment I’m not using. [00:09:43.230] – Jonathan Denwood
And it’s also got very. It’s got very more complicated. So another player is Riverside. I am really looking at that because they do a month to month plan for about $29 and you do get a good discount if you go yearly. Another one is Eve. I’ve Muck. I’ve Mux. I’ve. Is it Eve Mux? How would you. [00:10:16.210] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think it’s EV Mux. [00:10:17.730] – Jonathan Denwood
EV Max. I’m also looking at that one because it seems in some ways to be what Streamyard used to be. It doesn’t come with every. With the complexity or the scope, but it seems to be a more easier interface. And the last one is Restream, which has been around quite a while and I’m looking at that one. What. But I do think having a platform to record your audio or record your audio and video is really useful. What do you reckon? [00:11:02.440] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I do agree I’ve done a lot of my podcast content from Zoom. A lot of it from Zoom. [00:11:10.760] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. [00:11:11.880] – Kurt von Ahnen
You know, because Zoom, I can, I can record locally, I can record to the cloud. So I’ve got a copy of my product and then I can edit it. I can do stuff with, with it. The reason that Streamyard, Riverside, Restream, to an extent, EV Mucks I’m not horribly familiar with, they have other tools that come with it. And if you are a creator and or you know, you’re hoping to be a creator, you’re going to want to look at some of those tools. For instance, Riverside. I use Riverside a lot with another show that I do. And as soon as we’re done with the show, like it automatically creates shorts, it streams to extra channels, it does all kinds of cool things. That’s something that you might be very well attracted to. Streamyard, right? It’s in the name, right? So it streams to other channels. It doesn’t just record the content, it streams to other channels and depending on the level that you buy in at, you can stream up to like 8 channels. Restream is why that is so famous. Restream, I think you can stream, depending on your package, something like up to 30 channels. [00:12:20.420] – Kurt von Ahnen
And it does Shorts creation and some other things like that. But it is one of the pricier of the choices that have been mentioned if budget is an issue. Like I said, I’ve used Zoom for A long time I’ve used Zoom, I’ve used Streamyard. But one that’s on the fringe that some people probably don’t consider in this way would be Rumble. The, the website Rumble allows you to stream, so you could stream to X, YouTube and Facebook and, and it also creates a recording for you and that’s free. It doesn’t cost. Pardon me, it doesn’t cost you anything to do. [00:13:02.390] – Jonathan Denwood
It. Does it enable you to have guests and send out invite to. [00:13:09.380] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. So you can, you can have guests, you can share the link and have a guest join, but it doesn’t do like, if you’re thinking like webinars, like Streamyard does, where you share the watch link with people, it doesn’t do that. [00:13:21.220] – Jonathan Denwood
No, but I mean for guests. Can you have multiple guests? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I might look at. [00:13:28.420] – Kurt von Ahnen
To be fair and I, and I think if we don’t mention it, we’re not doing the viewer a service. If you’re not familiar with Rumble, it does appeal to a certain crowd and that crowd might not be on message with your content. So like any other platform, you might want to examine kind of the other content surrounding it before you commit to using it. [00:13:49.480] – Jonathan Denwood
Right. Ratio editing. Well, I use a, I have an editor because you can really spend a lot of time on editing and, and too much time. But like the ones I listed here, you got Decrypt, which is very popular. I think his lower plan is just under $30 audacity, which is totally free. That’s. And that works on the Mac and PC. And then you’ve got Riverside again because they provide an editing tool. So Riverside does provide quite a lot in their platform. [00:14:37.990] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. Personally, I find the Riverside editing to be a little more cumbersome than it’s advertised to be because I’ve played with it a little bit. Descript, I think is amazing. So I’m cheap. I do my edits myself for my private podcast and I have a two edit process for me. I do the first edit in the script and that doesn’t take long at all. I really just, I lay over studio sound on top of the track so that the voices come out much more robust. And then I move it over to Adobe Premiere Pro to add my bumper, my trailer and my flying thirds for like names and websites. That’s it. [00:15:20.540] – Jonathan Denwood
All right, and how long does that [00:15:22.380] – Kurt von Ahnen
roughly take you to say, a 45 minute podcast? For me to edit, review and put in the flying thirds and publish realistically is 45 minutes to an hour. [00:15:36.550] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. Yep, that’s about right. I would say. And you can. You can go bar me on it folks. One of my. When I. My first co host was a. Was an amateur but he was totally fixated by sound and he would use Adobe’s I’ve got the name of the product. It’s the one audition and he was spending like two hours on a edit and he had top the range mics. Yeah. You would spend a lot of time on it. And I. I just don’t think it’s worthwhile unless you’re in the top echelon. But I leave it to audio editor who isn’t that expensive. Touchwood. You won’t put his prices up but he’s been with me for years and he’s been very reliable. Touchwood. And it doesn’t cost. Doesn’t have to cost an enormous amount to get editor. A lot of them offshore. But I think he does me a deal because he’s been doing it so long for me. You need to publish your podcasts using a open source. I forgot what to call it. Open source RSS and it’s. It enables you to publish. Publish all over the Internet and if it’s in this format or it. [00:17:16.150] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, yeah. You can publish it to most platforms but there’s some free platforms. They tend. You can publish for free using Spotify. I wouldn’t recommend that you do that. That because. There are SS feed isn’t totally compliant to the open source. It should be. I use something called Kastos. Their renew came up a couple of days ago. It’s $199. It’s not ridiculous but all these add up. But it’s one. But they have got the leading WordPress podcast plugin as well and they’ve been a pretty good company and they’ve been pretty rock solid. And I think for the price for. It just gets published and it’s been rock solid. I thought for 199 it wasn’t worth looking around. Another one that’s been around a long while is Pod Bean. There’s about over half a dozen to a dozen of these platforms. I never use podbean but they’ve got a good reputation and. And Lips. Lips Ipsy. They’ve been around donkey’s years that I was originally with them and it got a little bit out of date. But they’ve. But they’re. They were the first podcast publishing platform out there and they’ve been going for years. For 20 years now I think. [00:19:12.530] – Jonathan Denwood
15 years. 20 years. So they’re pretty good platforms. What do you think? [00:19:21.500] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think this Goes back to the very beginning of the show where maybe we should have been, like, figure out your use case for your podcast. Like, what is the main purpose of your use cat of your podcast? Is it for branding? Is it for marketing? Is it for reach? Is it for authority in your space? Like, there’s all these things because Jonathan’s use of his podcast or the shows that Jonathan manages and the use of my podcast, my Nana Nomas show, the uses are different, right? And so I fall into the category where I’m not paying 200 bucks a year for distribution because I’m making content that I know I’m going to reproduce on my website and distribute through my newsletter and do that kind of stuff with it. And so I chose the free route. I was with a thing that was called Anchor FM when I first started podcasting, and Anchor FM was sold to Spotify. And just by the nature of already being an anchor, I stuck with Spotify. Now, I did try. I tried to move around to a couple of things. Itunes, Apple has a way for you to host and go direct with them. [00:20:29.270] – Kurt von Ahnen
So I looked at doing that. I looked at Kastos, and I was really attracted to Kastos because it had a connection to a WordPress plugin that would automate taking the episodes and making posts out of them in your website. So I looked at doing that. And ironically, at the very same time as Anchor and Spotify were combining, they came out with a plan that created WordPress websites based on your podcast show. All by the like. It was like an automated process. I think that kind of blew up, by the way. I don’t. I don’t know if that still works or not. It was not a very good performing system at all. So I. Long story short, I’ve been with Spotify ever since. I’ve tried some others, but to me, Spotify is home. And that’s where I’ve been now for, I don’t know, seven, seven or eight years. [00:21:21.960] – Jonathan Denwood
And it works. Why. Why did. Why was you looking at other platforms? [00:21:27.560] – Kurt von Ahnen
Because people say to. Right? Like, you can’t. You can’t help but sample some things, right? [00:21:33.480] – Jonathan Denwood
So. [00:21:34.520] – Kurt von Ahnen
And Matt Medeiros, friend of the show Matt Medeiros was using Castos, and I believe had worked for Castos at the time. And I was. And Lifter, lms had done some stuff with Castos. And I thought, well, if everybody’s jumping on this Casto wagon, I better check it out. And for me, it just, it, you know, it wasn’t hitting the pain point for me, right? Like every business has a pain point it’s trying to solve. And for me, the Castos equation was solving a pain point I didn’t yet have. And I’ve been happy with Spotify’s performance and distribution. So I’ve just stayed, I’ve just stayed there now, gosh, I feel like I’m taking too much time now. Jonathan the other side of the coin is I don’t just store my stuff in Spotify. Everything is backed up on an external hard drive. My content is duplicated in YouTube because I take all of my video podcasts and I load them to YouTube and I also load them to Spotify and, and I also back them up as separate posts within my business website. And so this content gets used in multiple ways. Right? I multi purpose all of my content so that when I record a podcast, it’s used not just in one space, it’s used in 15, 20 spaces. [00:22:49.790] – Kurt von Ahnen
Right. [00:22:50.150] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic. I think it’s a good place for us to go for our half time break. When we come back we’ll be talking about you going on other podcasts to promote yourself as the expert, to build back links, legitimate backlinks to your website. It’s got a load of benefits. We’ll be, I’ll be discussing what you need to know about that. We will be back in a few moments. [00:23:15.580] – Speaker 1
Folks, this podcast episode is brought to you by Lifter LMS, the leading learning management system solution for WordPress. If you or your client are creating any kind of online course, training based membership website or any type of eLearning project, Lifter LMS is the most secure, stable, well supported solution on the market. Go to lifterlms.com and save 20% at checkout with coupon code podcast20. That’s podcast2zero. Enjoy the rest of your show. [00:23:54.490] – Jonathan Denwood
We’re coming back. Folks, also want to point out we’ve got a fabulous newsletter that I publish every Tuesday. Normally covers one of the topics. I have all the links as well to the episode that I’m talking about and I also find some of the best news stories, techniques, news stories that I find interesting which I create and I put in the newsletter. So it’s a really great quick read and you can get this by going over to WP Hyphen, wp-tonic.com Newsletter, wp-tonic.Com Newsletter and WP Tonic sponsors the show as well. So on we go. So basically we’ve gone through some of the mechanics, me and Kirk about how to get a podcast going and there’s a load of free stuff. And I think we pointed out that you can get started with a couple hundred dollars worth of equipment and you can get pretty good results. But the main thing to doing it is to build audience. You’re not, you’re not unless you’re in the top 3 to 4%, 5% of podcasting, you’re not going to make any real money out of podcasting. You’re using it to build your brand, to build your credibility, to meet people in your industry, invite them as guests. [00:25:32.510] – Jonathan Denwood
There’s different formats of podcasting just to build your credibility and your visibility. That’s what you’re looking for to do. I, I the show, my WP Tonic show doesn’t get a tremendous enormous amount of downloads, but for a niche show it does quite well. And I do get some reasonable sponsorship that is really appreciated and does help with the editing costs and some of the other costs. So. But I couldn’t live off it in any shape or form, but is very much appreciated. And I think you, if you’ve got a good minority show that says getting a couple thousand downloads a month, I think you, you can get sponsorship will help with the cost, maybe hiring an editor. But it’s about promoting you, your credibility and it’s one of, one of the few and Google loves it. And when, if you get backlinks, they’re natural backlinks to your website, to your content. It’s got a lot of benefits, folks. And it’s one of the, and if you use one of the platforms, you can stream out the lives to social media, you can cut it up for shorts. There’s a lot of stuff you can do with it. [00:27:09.150] – Jonathan Denwood
But going on other podcasts is really beneficial as well. You will get backlinks, they will have show notes you’re getting in front of new, new audiences. It’s got a lot of benefits. So what do you need to know about getting on? Well, there’s free. There’s free. My apologies because it’s, it is time consuming because you’re going to have to do the outreach. So you either do the outreach yourself and I’ve got some tools here that I’ve used myself. I was going on, on the podcast, but and then I stopped. I have to see things, how things go because I would like to really concentrate on that as well, or you can hire a virtual assistant to help you do the outreach or you can hire a podcast booking agency. They’re the three things. So, Kirk, what’s your thoughts about going on other people’s podcasts? [00:28:20.900] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, this is a real grab bag of activity here, Jonathan, that we’re going to talk about because you gotta. So you started your podcast and you’re trying to, like, focus on your brand, your representation, right? It’s your marketing thing. In my world, my podcast is my opportunity to spotlight other people of talent. So my show isn’t about how wonderful Kurt is. My show’s about how wonderful the people I know are, right? So I’m trying to show that I have this ability to surround myself with really smart people. Now when I go on someone else’s podcast, I am looking for a host that will excel at spotlighting me, right? Just like I do to my guests on my show. I want to be on. On a show that that’s has a spotlight for me. And that’s why I go on other shows. I go on other shows because I don’t typically get to talk about my projects, my initiatives, the things that I do with many on and omas with the Power Sport Academy. I don’t usually get to discuss a lot of that on my own show because I’m busy talking about someone else’s projects and what they’re doing, right? [00:29:29.190] – Kurt von Ahnen
Because the spotlight’s on them. So I’m very careful about what shows I agree to do because I want to make sure that the show is running and operates in a way that shines me in a positive light. That doesn’t mean I’m stuck up and I hate other people. What it means is that I’m careful who I create my marketing content with. Because if you get on someone’s show and let’s just face facts, right? Maybe someone’s always wanted to have a show, but they’re not good at communicating or they’re not good at asking questions. They’re not good at keeping the flow. They don’t have any user base. If they don’t have any user base and you’re new to podcasting, well, that’s the perfect show for you to get on, right? Because you’re going to break the ice and you’re going to start to. To build your. Your talent in this space. There’s a thing that I call verbal muscle memory. And when you do enough shows, you begin to create this verbal muscle memory for yourself. So you don’t want your first show first, any of your first five shows that you guessed on to be like Joe Rogan, right? [00:30:31.740] – Kurt von Ahnen
You want to get on nice small shows. Small audiences build your verbal muscle memory, gain some confidence in your space, you know, feel that you have that you Know that that authority. Right. And then get on better and better shows. That to me is a very natural way to go. But I’m, like I said, I’m also fairly picky about who I’m going to share the screen with. And I want to make sure that they do a good job of representing me and my message. [00:31:00.740] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I think they’re great points. Now I’ve got something to add to that, but I’m going to add it after we’re gone. Well, I must add it now. When I was going on other people’s podcasts, I was using. I was doing it DIY myself. So I did use these platforms and these platforms, they have lists of podcasts that are accepting guests. The, the, the three that I would recommend is Podcast Guest, Matchmaker FM and Pod Match. They seem to be the free. There are some others. Some of them, you do have to pay a subscription yearly or you can pay month to month. I would suggest that you only go month, month. And I did like Matchmaker fm. But the quality of the pod, you’re you. If you’re not seen as a big brand, a big influencer, you’re not going to get on large podcasts initially. You’re gonna have to work your way up. The problem is some of the smaller ones, it’s not, it’s not that they’re small, is that they’re. They’re not great on their communication. I think, I think our. When. When I approach somebody that wants to come on, I want to come on the show, if they accept, I send them a link where they can book. [00:32:47.070] – Jonathan Denwood
We do it always at the same time on a Thursday, and they can book a day in the month, that particular day, which is Thursdays that can particular. You know, if there’s a spot open that. A particular Thursday that works for them, they can book it. And I send, I send them a confirmation email and a week before they’re supposed to come on the show, I email them again. I are we still on? And then if they respond yes, I send them a list of questions that we’re probably going to ask them. So there’s a system, basically? Well, I noticed when I was going on other people’s podcasts, a lot of them didn’t have a system, not a very good system. There was a lot of back and forth and. But these platforms, um, you don’t need these platforms. You can just go look at, get a list of 10, 20 podcasts and go to their websites and see if they’ve got a form to fill in or Got email address. Because normally everybody’s looking for a guest and you can just do your outreach, but you. It’s best to have a PDF which outlines what, why you’re a good guest and what you want to talk about, or have a email template. [00:34:16.570] – Jonathan Denwood
It doesn’t want to be War and Peace, but he wants bullet points about the key subject points that you, that you what the value you’re going to offer to that particular person’s audience. Does that make sense, Kurt? [00:34:31.050] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. Process is huge. It’s one of the things that helps me make the decision on whether I want to guest on someone’s show or not. Everyone has a different process. Jonathan, I know that you’re big on pre formatted questions, like kind of having an agenda to talk about. Some people find that really helpful. I use a, I use web forms. So I’ll send out a web form link to a guest and I’ll say, fill out this web form so it’ll help me with my show notes. And that’s going to be like their company name, their company URL, their, you know, short bio section, things like that. I prefer an organic conversation rather than pre formatted questions for my show. But everyone’s got their own flavor and I think it’s important to look at people’s processes before you just say, yeah, I’ll jump on, I’ll jump on camera with you today at noon. Like you want to have more of, more of a plan than that. [00:35:27.710] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. Now the second way of doing it is hiring a VA to do outreach for you. It’s much more expensive. You can get offshore bas. I’m not sure I would use AI to go out and do the outreach for you. They’re gonna cost, you know, they’re gonna cost you from a 250 to $500 maybe. I don’t know. It depends on how much. Because a lot of them, if you don’t hire, if they’re not making a certain amount of money each month, they tend to get a bit flaky. You, you can go on Fiverr Pro. I would use Fiverr Pro. I think you could find some people to do this probably a little bit cheaper, and they wouldn’t be flaky either. You’re just gonna have to go on there or upwards works. And there’s normally a lot of Filipinos that like doing this. It’s just that it’s finding somebody that, that you can afford that won’t be flaky [00:36:42.030] – Kurt von Ahnen
for me. I do old school networking. Jonathan, once you start running your podcast for any length of time you’re going to start to get approached by other agents, right. So people are going to say, oh, hey, I have a couple of recommendations for you for your show. And if you like those recommendations and you use them, what I find is it’s really easy then to communicate with those people. You’ve done them a favor, maybe they’ll do you a favor. They’re going to introduce you to people that would be good to be in circles with to share a show. When I’m on LinkedIn and I’m networking on LinkedIn, typically I’ll say, oh, you look like you’d be a really good person to be on my show. Do you have a show? And then I’ll say we should do a podcast exchange. Right. And so then that’s kind of that tit for tat kind of thing where they’re going to be on my show and I’ll be on their show. There’s all kinds of ways to get yourself out there without having to go down these, these routes. Now, I will say on your list is podcast guests.com. i get an email from a guy named Brian that runs that two, three times a week. [00:37:52.590] – Kurt von Ahnen
And that is a well curated list of possible guests. And I think that would be a really good opportunity if you were going to pay to promote yourself, that would be a good one to register with. [00:38:02.830] – Jonathan Denwood
Is that, Is that pod Podcast guests. [00:38:05.870] – Kurt von Ahnen
Podcast guests dot com. Yeah, that’s. That seems to be a really well curated list. Yeah. [00:38:10.690] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, that’s what. That’s one of the resources for doing yourself. Yeah. Now the final and most expensive is hiring a podcast booking agency to do this. And the free is that I’ve observed there’s a lot of them out there. A lot of them are either they’re a va or, or they’re something larger. But these three are well known. It’s. It’s podcasting bookers Kitcaster and Interview. Velvet Wellet. Sorry, Ballet. They’ve been around a lot. A long time. I will. I found and it’s not. I’m not making any, any insert any. Looking for the right word. I’m. I’m not putting down booking agencies. I just found if you exit, they write to you. We got this guest. They will give you a bio, give you a link to the person’s LinkedIn profile website and then you say, yeah. And then they normally will CC the guest in. I just found there’s a lot more back and forth. Right. And there’s just seems to be a higher. I don’t think Interview valet there. But they’re very expensive. But they tend to do a lot more hand holding. The others, they seem to be a lot more back and forth. [00:39:53.520] – Jonathan Denwood
There seems to be a lot more last minute count. This is when they’re coming on my show. They seem to be a lot more cancelation or they don’t turn up at all. And I now say I’ll probably lower the figure because I was asking them to sponsor one show, one of the shows, but I probably now will just say, you know, we do offer you, we do offer half, expect you to sponsor half the show for $150. So they got some skin in the, in it or $100, you know, to come on the show. If you’re looking to go on other people’s shows and you’re using these podcast networks, there is a lot of the bigger podcasts and they do charge and a lot of them, it’s like $500, it’s like a thousand dollars to go on their show. They actually make real income from sponsorship and from people coming on their show. It’s a real business. In some ways. I think I should get more serious about it and be one of them. Actually. Something to consider because I do like talking to people. These podcasting agencies, they’re, they’re anything from 500 to a thousand a month or more. [00:41:31.280] – Jonathan Denwood
They normally have different packages depending on how many podcasts you want to get on each month. I think realistically, unless you’re doing, unless you’re blocked off a week and you’re just going on podcasts for the week, you’re, you’re just doing it for the week and you’re booking 20 shows that week and you’re just spending the whole week down on podcasts. I think going on more than four, one a week, doing more than one a week, it will soon get taught. Tiring quick. You can do like two to three, but I think that gets tiring. I think 1. Being a guest. [00:42:19.700] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yes. [00:42:21.140] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. So let’s finish off. Kirk, what do you think of what I’ve outlined? Do you think the audience has got value from this? [00:42:30.020] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, the value is there because you’re given resources, right? And if anything, you’re putting people at ease because a lot of people have built this into something that it just plain isn’t. Right? You’re, you, you have concepts and ideas, you’re sharing and that’s it. My, my thing is get started earlier than later. The sooner you get started, the better it’s going to go. And you don’t have to Have a big investment to get started. Just get started. And then, you know, at the end of this discussion, we talked about paying for exposure, paying to get on the show, paying to. And I just want to caution people, build that verbal muscle memory first. Become somewhat of a seasoned guest or podcaster before you start paying for it. Because remember you’re. This is to create marketing material to drive traffic to something and if you’re not good at it yet, you’re just wasting your money. So you do want to build some skills before you start laying out cash. [00:43:29.940] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I want to make it really clear, folks. I don’t ask when I’m doing the outreach. When I. Somebody’s come on my radar through Twitter, through LinkedIn, recommended to me I’m doing something of it. I’m doing some research and they’ve come on my radar and I think they would be a good guess for the. For the podcast might try and get some guests on the membership machine show. I don’t charge for that because I’m doing the outreach to them. That’s totally free. I’m talking about if VA’s or it’s a D. I don’t charge when I was on the platforms, I didn’t charge when people were coming to me either. But if they’re coming through a VA or through a podcast booking agency, like I say, I just found that there was a much higher degree of cancelation at the last minute. There was a lot. There was the occasional person that never turned up that takes. That’s painful. You know, obviously somebody. Somebody in the close family can die. Things happen. But when somebody just cancels right the last moment and they don’t even offer why they’re canceling that, you find that a little bit annoying, don’t you? [00:44:57.830] – Jonathan Denwood
But I’ve just end. Why should you consider this? You’ve got a membership site and I was listening to Kirk this afternoon because this podcast is really about. If you’re really serious about about building a membership, building something that will last. And Kurt really I was part of a group that Kirk jointly runs for Lifter lms and he put it so well about teaching and teaching somebody a skill something it they’re. There’s a bit more than just making videos. You know, teaching some something really properly is a bit more of a commitment. It’s not. Doesn’t have to be enormous because there’s a kind of culture that. That you can just do some videos, you bun them on some platform and you can get five. You get people signing up. There’s a bit more to it folks. So that’s what this podcast is about. Those that are looking a bit more connected. But podcasting, either you’re doing it yourself or going on other people’s podcasts, it’s just a great way to promote your membership business, to promote yourself. You don’t have to talk about membership. You just if they like what you’re saying, they’re getting value from it. [00:46:36.780] – Jonathan Denwood
They like you, they will go to your YouTube channel, they will go to your website and and if your course is targeted to the right niche, you’re going to get sign ups. It’s really that easy. Really? I think that’s it. Kirk, what’s the best way for people to find out more about you, what you’re up to? [00:47:00.430] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I’m generally on LinkedIn just about every day, so Kurt von Onen on LinkedIn. I’m the only Kurt Von Onen there. And if it’s for business, Manana Nomas Thanks. [00:47:11.630] – Jonathan Denwood
There’s tons of resources that will help you build your membership community website on the WP Tonic website. I can’t stress how much resources there there is on there. A fabulous blog section that covers really easy to find a load of information on there. There’s a load of videos, there’s all sorts of resources on the WP Tonic website. And if you’re feeling really generous, why don’t you leave us if you’re listening on your mobile device, on itunes or Spotify, why don’t you leave us a review? It really does help the show. If you could do that both, both me and Kirk would be be very appreciative. We’ll be back next week with more information to help you build the membership website that you’re looking for for yourself and your family. We will be l back soon folks. Bye. [00:48:06.770] – Jonathan Denwood
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