Unlock The Secrets to Podcast Success with/J. Rosemarie Francis

In this episode, I share essential tips for unlocking podcast success. I emphasize the importance of defining success, niching down to target a specific audience, crafting engaging content through storytelling, ensuring good audio quality, maintaining consistency in publishing, and promoting the podcast effectively while avoiding burnout. 

I conclude with a bonus tip about the value of creating an email list for direct communication with your audience.

Takeaways

• Success in podcasting can be defined in various ways.
• Niching down helps target your ideal audience effectively.
• Crafting engaging content is crucial for listener retention.
• Mastering storytelling can enhance audience engagement.
• Audio quality matters, but don't strive for perfection.
• Consistency in publishing builds trust with your audience.
• Promote your podcast relentlessly to grow your reach.
• Avoid burnout by managing your promotion efforts wisely.
• Email lists are a valuable tool for direct audience communication.
• Consider mentorship for guidance in your podcasting journey.

00:00 Defining Podcast Success

03:02 Niche Down for Success

05:57 Crafting Engaging Content

08:53 Mastering Audio Quality

11:49 Consistency is Key

14:46 Promoting Your Podcast Effectively

Grab my free tool which helps you determine your Ideal Podcast Avatar: https://www.connectwithjrosemarie.com/50-questions-to-determine-your-ipa

Create a free podcast media kit: https://www.connectwithjrosemarie.com/podkit

Take the Selling Online Challenge: https://www.connectwithjrosemarie.com/selling-online-challenge

Transcript

J. Rosemarie Francis (00:00.111)
To some, a successful podcast means millions of downloads. To others, success may mean that they are making a lot of money with their podcast. And still too many, meeting the needs of their audience spells success for some podcast hosts. No matter the definition of success for your podcast, today's episode is sure to help you with pointers and tips on how to create a successful podcast.

J. Rosemarie Francis (00:39.102)
This week, I want to talk about unlocking podcast success. The following are the secrets to unlocking podcast success. Now, success can be defined in many ways. For a lot of people, it's millions and millions of downloads. For some, it's how do you help your audience? For others, it's how much money you make from your podcast.

So everyone has different criteria by which they measure success for their podcast. But these are basic tips, basic secrets, if you will, that will render your podcast a success. First and foremost, I'm J. Rose Marie Francis. I am the host of Tools of the Podcasts trade.

which is where I'm talking on tools of the podcast trade. But I also mentor and coach podcasting. I've been in this space since 2013, maybe even earlier, but that's as far as I go. And I have four podcasts. One of them is private. So it's more of a journal, this podcast, but I have...

Uh, solo mom's talk, which has been on the air for almost seven years, seven years and tools are the podcast trade. This one, which is coming up on, I believe three years. And then I just started solo mom's talk, the emptiness years, because podcasting is great that way for niching down and selecting defining your.

target audience, which is my first secret to podcasting success, is to define your niche and your target audience, your IPA, your ideal podcast avatar. Now, why do you need to niche down and why do you need to define who you're talking to? Isn't your podcast for everyone?

J. Rosemarie Francis (03:02.258)
No, it's not for everyone. Your podcast, to be successful, needs to define who it is for. Who is your message for? What's that main person your message is for? So let's say your podcast is on phishing. That's your niche, right? But you may want to go further. To further definition, you may want to say your

Your podcast is to teach fishing to retired women, right? That's niching down. Pat Flynn likes to say, the riches are in the niches. And you could follow that up with another quote, which I won't repeat right now. But niching down and targeting your audience.

is a surefire way to create a successful podcast. Another example is, let's say your podcast is about photography. Maybe you want to do photography, but don't make photography for everyone. You may decide to do photography for beginners, somebody who's never done photography before, maybe nature photography.

or photographs using your iPhone or smartphone. So these are ways you can do a targeting of your audience. Advertisers do it all the time. And that's how they make money because they do this targeting. And that in our space is called Nition, Nition Down. And in podcasting, your ideal podcast avatar.

And why do you need to do that? You need to do that because it helps you shape your message because regardless of what your topic is, maybe a lot of people can benefit. Maybe a lot of people could benefit from whatever your topic is. But if you really want to solve people's problems, the ideal way to be successful in podcasting is to select that one person.

J. Rosemarie Francis (05:27.854)
or that one problem to target and you create the best content you can for that niche, for that person, that avatar. If you want to know how to define your avatar, if you haven't done that yet, even if you've started a podcast, decide, you know, my podcast is for everyone. I have a link below where you, there are 50 questions.

that will help you define who your ideal podcast avatar is. So grab that. The second secret to ensure podcast success is to craft engaging content. One, master storytelling. So if you've defined your niche and ideal podcast avatar,

It's way easier to create engaging content for that avatar and for that niche, right? But you want to go a step further and start to tell story. Whatever it is you're sharing, learn how to tell what you're talking about, to share it in a story fashion, in a way that that resonate.

with your audience. Put yourself in your message. I mean, you don't have to tell your whole business, but there is a way you could share who you are as a person and create that engagement on your podcast by storytelling, by telling stories that because listeners, your listeners will engage with those stories.

And if you share your personal experiences and invite guests, well, if you have a guest on your podcast, ask them to share who they are. I do that when I have a guest on my podcast. I always ask, tell us who you are. We know the bio. We could look you up on Facebook, but who do you say you are? You know, that kind of thing.

J. Rosemarie Francis (07:55.136)
And by usually on the spot, they'll come up with something that they wouldn't normally say or they wouldn't have included in their bio. So that is a way to allow your listeners into your world and into your guest's world. So create engaging content and learn to master storytelling. Two secrets.

Secret number three is to master audio quality. Now, I am on the fence on this one, although you want people to enjoy, to have a pleasurable experience when they listen to your podcast. So as best as you can, make the audio inviting, right? Don't turn people off with bad audio.

Saying that though, I will ask you not to get hung up on perfection when it comes to audio. I'm going to tell you about a billionaire named Russell Brunson. He's the co-founder of ClickFunnels. Ever heard of ClickFunnels? When Russell started podcasting a few thousand episodes ago, he was doing it in his car. I think he was driving a Tesla and you could hear the engine and he was recording on his phone.

And you could hear the wind, you could hear the river, the ocean or whatever. And he'll tell you, I know it's noisy, but he's giving us all the goods and you're listening to the goods. You don't even hear all the noise in the background because he's giving you the goods. So in saying that, you should be careful about the audio. I want to caution you not to get so hung up on perfection that your audience miss out.

on the real goods, right? I've made that mistake a lot of times, but I've also been in a situation where I was recording at home and the smoke alarm went out, the battery died. And you know, when the battery dies, it beeps, it makes this beeps, right? And for the longest while, that beep was in my recordings and

J. Rosemarie Francis (10:21.172)
I didn't even realize it and the people who were listening didn't even notice it. But one day I was going back through my old recordings and I could hear this beep and I'm wondering what is this beep? And it was the smoke alarm. So I'm saying all that to say this, take care to give your audience, your listeners, the best of you, the best audio you can come up with, but don't get hung up on

perfection because the perfection is the enemy of done, right? So keep your listeners engaged and invest in a good quality microphone and most software, most editing software will eliminate background noise. Sometimes I will be recording

and maybe I'm pet sitting and the dog bark or I'm near the airport, the airline, the plane goes overhead and I'm recording. And if that gets caught in, I use a tool called Allphonic, Allphonic.com. It's an online tool. And if you go on Allphonic, they will give you two hours recording.

per month free, two hours per month recording free. so you can, there's a way for you to customize how you want your audio to be and it will remove background noise and enhance the quality of your voice. You don't even, you know, no one can tell that there was a plane in the background or a dog barking. So when it comes to audio,

There are lots of ways to fix that. So don't let that stop you from producing your podcast. I actually met a guy who had a really good podcast and for eight years he didn't publish because the audio didn't sound right. So don't do that. All right. My third, my fourth secret, I'm sorry, fourth secret to podcasting success is be consistent with publishing.

J. Rosemarie Francis (12:47.286)
No, I'm not going to lie. This is one of my biggest struggles, getting it out on time, getting it out on the same day every week. People look for that. I was listening to an interview once. I don't remember who it was, but he said, imagine that you are watching a series on TV, know, television show, whatever, and you watch it every week and you're following along and you get

to one week and each week it's a cliffhanger, right? So you have to wait till next week. I mean, I'm going to show my age here, but if you ever used to watch Dallas or Falcon Crest or those shows, they used to have very bad cliff, very good cliffhangers. I shouldn't say bad, good cliffhangers. So you could not wait for the, for next week when a new episode, when a new episode comes on because you wanted to see what happened.

with JR or, you know, Bobby or whatever. And so when next week come, imagine you are, you know, you got your popcorn, you make sure the kids are down for the count and you sit down all comfy and ready to watch your show. What to see what's happening and nothing. All right, so repeat after last week.

Now, I'm not going to lie, that is some devastating thing to someone who's looking forward to that show, to that episode. And this person, this gentleman who was on this interview where I heard this analogy from, says that that's how your listeners feel when you don't publish or you don't publish consistently.

So that's one of the biggest ways to ensure podcasting success. And so this is one of my secrets is that you publish consistently, whether it's weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. You if you stick to a consistent schedule, you know, it builds trust and it keeps those listeners coming back.

J. Rosemarie Francis (15:15.882)
So that's a lesson learned and my fifth and final secret to podcasting success is to promote relentlessly, but I would add avoid getting burnout. One of the biggest thing with always posting and posting all over the internet is that it can burn you out. Not just from the constant posting.

but from the mental bombardment because while you're on their posting your stuff, you're reading other people's stuff. And it can cause all kinds of mental issues, know, imposter syndrome, and then you start to compare and all that stuff. So if you can't afford to hire someone to post for you, then do the posting as often as you can, schedule it, do it.

consistently, but protect your mental health. If you do video for your podcast, Opus Clip is a very good program that will take your videos and it will split them up into two, three minute clips. And it will also automatically, well not auto, you have to tell it where to go, but it will

publish it on all your social platform that you're building to Opus, right? The Opus clip. And that has been my saving grace because it's very hard to keep up with all the publishing when you're doing everything on your own. But I've decided that I would just use it. I put all of my videos up there. It's split it up into something like 20 clips and you'll have clips forever.

you know, that you could just keep publishing two, three, four a day. And it writes the caption, put the hashtags. mean, of course you have to edit it yourself. Now it has AI where it could do a voiceover and B-roll. So it's a really good program. I love it. And like I said, it works because it helps you avoid that burnout that you can get when you're trying to do everything yourself.

J. Rosemarie Francis (17:38.114)
So don't just publish, promote, share your episodes on social media, collaborate with other podcasters, you know, go in Facebook groups and, you know, put your two cents in, sometimes that helps too, and engage with your audience to extend your reach. And finally, I would like to say, don't just talk about it. If you can and are able to write about it.

Start a sub stack where you write about the topics that you talk about on your podcast. And with sub stack is a newsletter, it's a free newsletter and you could start gathering emails because emails are valuable real estate that you can own. So you can communicate with your audience, not just communicate with them about your topic.

But if you have anything to sell, service, coaching, ebook, anything you have to sell, you can offer them to your email list. Because most times you post on social media, somebody else decides who sees it. When you have an email list, you speak directly to those who are on that list. So that's my bonus tip for...

for you today for unlocking the secrets to podcast success. Thank you for listening and watching. This is Tools of the Podcast Trade. I have a workshop coming up on starting a podcast. Start your podcast now. I have a free guide that I've been handing out for the last couple of months.

This link is below. But following that, also am, if you need more help, more immediate, broader help, I have a workshop coming up. It's a video series where you can learn more. I will expand on the topics I talk about in the guide. Where you could learn about in depth about not just these things I just talked about, but also

J. Rosemarie Francis (20:03.454)
you know, the microphone and the things that matters in podcasting that we talk about all the time. How to get an Apple, how to get your podcast distributed, creating an email list, just monetization, local sponsors, stuff like that that I'll talk about if you're interested. The link's below. So click on that and...

Don't part fade, get a mentor and let me know how I can help you. Book a call, a free call and just say hi. All right. Ask you a question, ask me anything I'll answer and happy podcast.