You know I always say that email opt-ins are way more important than downloads in the podcast world, but what should you be doing once you get an email address? The answer to that question is a real problem for most podcasters.
Hey Everyone! This is Christy Haussler, CEO and owner of Team Podcast and I’m your host here at Podcast Monetization Secrets. I just want to welcome you to the podcast and let you know I’m glad you found your way here because this is exactly where you need to be to get access to all of the BEST ways YOU can monetize your podcast.
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Lately, as I’ve been pivoting Team Podcast more towards helping podcasters monetize through evergreen sales funnels, I’m coming across a glaring problem.
To be honest, I know exactly why it’s a problem, because I have also been plagued by this problem.
The problem is not knowing what to do with your email list once you begin building one.
Now, for the die-hard marketers, this is really an unbelievable problem, but to the average business owner, and the average podcaster, it’s a huge gaping hole in our strategy.
So first of all, let me tell you the things I think are the root causes of this problem.
#1 – First of all, it feels like it’s a place where you should be creating more content. In other words, we aren’t emailing our lists because we either don’t have the time to create more content to send out. I mean, you’re probably already behind on creating content for your podcast and adding something else is just not possible.
#2 – Many of us have a technology barrier to making this happen. So, either you’ve got your systems duct taped together trying to function as a cohesive machine and it just doesn’t work. You don’t know what to switch to that will solve this problem without creating a new learning curve for you.
#3 – Another reason we aren’t engaging with our email list is because we have a resource issue. Whether that resource is that we don’t have a team member to take over the tasks of email marketing for you, or maybe because you have not made the financial investment in the systems to help automate this process and make it easier.
Investing in keeping your email list engaged and ready to hear from you is one of the best investments you will make.
If you are subscribed to an email list, where the list owner is active and sending out interesting content and compelling offers regularly, I can guarantee you they have help in making this happen.
This is a problem that we all need to get a handle on asap because the more you grow your list, the bigger the problem becomes.
I’ve got several new clients that we are doing podcast production for and building marketing funnels for. In consulting with them to assess where they currently were in their marketing journey, they universally knew that their level of engagement with their lists was lacking.
They had no process in place to regularly email their list interesting content. And you know what? It didn’t matter the size of their list – some had lists of tens of thousands of people that had basically heard nothing from them since they signed up. Others had lists of thousands that were basically dormant.
If we want to be successful in marketing, we have to solve this problem. It will be worth it to throw whatever time or money you have at this problem to work it out now, before you focus on growing your email list any further.
So, in these next few episodes, I am going to work along with you to solve this problem. I’m going to solve the problem for myself and I will show you how you can solve it too!
So, just to make sure we start at square one, let me be very clear about it – you need to have multiple ways to capture email addresses of your ideal clients.
Do you realize that right now, all across the world, there are events – now mainly virtual events that are being planned and produced for the sole purpose of data acquisition? So, what I am saying to you is that companies are spending months of time and thousands of dollars to put on an event so that they can get email addresses from the attendees.
If you and I spent months of our lives and tens of thousands of dollars to put on these events just for the sake of growing our email lists, don’t you think we would also make sure we had an airtight plan for what happens once they get on the list?
We absolutely would. So this week, my plea to you is to figure out how you can get more people opting in to your email list. Create a juicer, sexier giveaway to get them there. What’s the biggest thing you can give away for free to get folks on your email list?
You want to have multiple ways people can get on your list. The more places you have to send this traffic to capture an email address, the more you can see which channels are the most effective.
So, this week’s framework for growing your email list is:
- Create at least 3 viable ways people can get on your email list. For me, I have a free lead magnet that I run ads for opt-ins, I have people going on my list that schedule a free consultation with me about their podcast production and I set up my private FB group to capture as many emails as possible from the people who want to join.
- Create multiple lead magnets to see which offers convert better. I have a client that created a free lead magnet and got a few sign ups from his podcast, but it wasn’t until he created a free mini-webinar for his niche and began running ads to the webinar that his email list exploded. Obviously, his niche has spoken and the more educational content he can provide, the bigger his email list will grow.
- Begin thinking outside the box about ways to make some of your normally free content a way to capture even more emails.
- Could you record a podcast episode with a big person in your niche and only offer it as a download when people opt in with an email address?
- Could you give access to something you are already doing behind the scenes to those who give you their email?
- Are there resource lists or how-to videos that you have for the tools of the trade for you niche that you could begin leveraging to grow your email list?
Next week, we will begin laying down a tried and true framework for establishing regular contact with your email list.
In the meantime, I’m happy to announce the first ever Podcast Monetization Summit will be held Oct. 15-17 – it’s an all virtual event, completely focused on monetization that will allow you to hear exactly how other successful podcasters are making a living from their podcast. It will be 3 days packed with monetization plans and ideas that you can implement for your own podcast. Most podcasting events focus on all aspects of podcasting, but this is one entire even focused specifically on the monetization aspect.
Let’s face it, if we as podcasters don’t get better at monetizing our shows, if we don’t turn monetization from an art into a science, then podcasting will be reduced to the status of the next get-rich-quick-scheme. So, that’s why we are creating this event, and I can’t wait to see how many podcasts we can get monetized after the summit.
Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we begin to announce speakers because it’s going to be amazing!
So, until then, if you want to connect with me, you can join our private Facebook Group called Podcast Monetization Secrets over on Facebook, and if you need help with the production or monetization of your podcast, go to Teampodcast.com and schedule some time to chat with me.