I wrote this answer to What is the best way to pitch podcast hosts on being a guest. This process works for being a guest or as a host, inviting people to be your guest.
As with any sales job:
- Find out what the podcast host’s topics, influences and areas of interest are
- Judge whether what you can offer aligns with 1
- Write a short, succinct proposal that ties up 1 & 2
Then keep good records of what you write, to whom and follow up within 1 week of the original message.
Always be polite, and thank them even if you get a rejection.
Following up the pitch
Now this is what too few other sales people do – add them to a mailing list and message them again within 3 months. Don’t write a pitch in this message. Just tell them what you have been working on and link to other podcasts you have guested with or articles you have published.
Then 6 months later, approach them with another pitch.
Rinse, repeat.
Pitching guests
Here is a sample pitch message I used. It starts by focusing on the guest and their need for book publicity, then it introduces the podcast and its track record and audience appeal, and lastly suggests a timeframe for the interview.
Dear Annie,
I saw your Facebook post about your book, Mind Games, being published next month and I wondered if you could come onto the Rowing Chat podcast to talk about it?
Rowing Chat is a monthly interview podcast focused on the sport of rowing – we have been publishing since 2013 and the network includes other podcast hosts talking about strength training, masters rowing and the US scene.
Do have a listen to some past episodes, and let me know if you have time during April 2019. My colleague, cc above, will do the scheduling.
Best wishes in rowing, Rebecca
Business positioning – do this
/0 Comments/in B2B, Branding, Case Studies, Copywriting, SEO /by Rebecca CaroeCan a prospect tell “at a glance” whether you are the right business for their needs? Web visits last ever-shorter durations and so your positioning [the message about what you do and for whom] is critical.
I was asked by a client to provide examples of marketing agencies who have good positioning on their websites.
Do you agree with my picks?
Good brand positioning copywriting
One way to find out if you don’t want to work with them, is to re-write their offer in the negative. So if I don’t want inbound and lead generation – don’t go here. If I’m not using Hubspot I probably won’t get well-served either.
If I’m not a digital marketer needing tools or training – go away.
Below that they have 3 audiences identified – Teams, Marketers and Agencies so they offer further refinement of tools and training offers.
So if I don’t want a live experience – go elsewhere. Using the bold words allows speed reading to focus in on key services and skills. The “Brand Love” message is lovely and slightly fluffy – who doesn’t want this for their brand?
And just for the contrast here’s one which is too broad in its positioning and non-specific in its offer https://www.interactivesponsor.com/
Which niche suits your brand?
Finding your audience and positioning your business to align is not something to do once and leave. The business world changes frequently and so fine-tuning your language, offering and audience is a useful exercise.
Remember – excluding prospects who don’t fit your ideal customer persona is important too.
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Who’s your LinkedIn Follower?
/0 Comments/in B2B, Lead Generation, Sales, Social Media /by Rebecca CaroeLinkedIn hides some of its best features – deliberately.
So here is my quick tip of the week to help you grow your connection base.
Do you know about your followers and following feed?
Thought not.
Log into your LinkedIn. Then paste this into your browser and take a look at this URL.
It lists everyone who is following you. The image below shows Philip Goffin – he’s following me. But I’m neither connected to him, nor following him.
Now for the inverse, Following. These are the people you are following.
What’s the use of following on LinkedIn?
Well, many times you want to see the News Feed updates from people, but you don’t actually know them and so connecting isn’t appropriate.
Or you just think you will see their updates for a while before approaching for a connection request.
Or you are hoping to quietly bring yourself to their attention without being too pushy – so follow them in the hope they notice you and send a connection request.
Go forth…. try it for yourself.
P.S. You can no longer export contact information from LinkedIn and so I’m advising clients to build contact lists outside of the platform for every new contact they make.
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How to find digital marketers
/0 Comments/in Marketing ideas, Pitching, Strategy /by Rebecca CaroeYou can look on freelancer websites and marketplaces. Some of these are specialist sites, e.g. Toptal is for UX/UI people.
After you have chosen the marketplace and the skillset you want; you will need to be expert in how to brief an agency, how to write an agency pitch and ways to select from a range of candidates for your work. That’s the subject of another question!
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How to market a podcast
/0 Comments/in Marketing, Podcast /by Rebecca CaroeI got asked to give a high-level answer to this question on Quora.
My response is quite generic – the process applies to any marketing project – the detail of the methodology in each step is where each will differ.
The questioner was asking about a “new music podcast”.
Who is your podcast audience?
In summary, you have a choice to either work it out for yourself as you go along or to buy advice from a marketing expert who understands podcasts is going to shortcut your learning; improve your outcomes and save you money in the long term.
If you scope the engagement well, you can collaborate with an advisor on the understanding that knowledge transfer is part of the project – you are being taught how to do the marketing yourself.
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Podcasts – the last internet landgrab?
/0 Comments/in Marketing /by Rebecca CaroePodcasts are growing so fast that the big-money VC community have started to throw funding towards podcasting platforms. Last year Spotify got in on the act with three podcast business acquisitions and now the mega-big guns of Luminary will launch with a premium paid offering of exclusive podcast content.
Internet land grabs for all
Since the utopian early days of 2006 when this blog started, the internet has been carved up into big business ownerships first around blogging, then around social media and podcasting is clearly the next target in the sights.
Luminary is funded to the tune of $100m and will launch this week as (yet) another podcasting app. Its point of difference is the paid-for exclusive podcasting content which it has negotiated with big-name media stars like Russell Brand and Trevor Noah.
The backlash from the little folks (like myself) who have built the podcasting part of the internet was predictable. A big network offering an advertising-free podcast service using media stars is hard to compete against. Particularly as the ground for competition is not only the content, but also the advertising funded model.
Independents withhold their shows
And so the war starts. Big-name networks and podcasting apps like Anchor and Parcast (owned by Spotify) are withholding their content from Luminary’s app. Read the reports from Podcast Business Journal and The Verge.
My view?
I believe firmly in the RSS feed as the tool which enables, enhances and mediates between the podcast creator and her audience. As a distributed form of content, podcasters are uniquely reliant on RSS and apps chosen by listeners as their preferred download, stream and listen medium. We are pretty powerless to influence how aggregators like iTunes, Spotify, Google Play and others handle our feeds. They set the rules.
Watch this space.
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Pitching podcasts
/0 Comments/in Podcast /by Rebecca CaroeI wrote this answer to What is the best way to pitch podcast hosts on being a guest. This process works for being a guest or as a host, inviting people to be your guest.
As with any sales job:
Then keep good records of what you write, to whom and follow up within 1 week of the original message.
Always be polite, and thank them even if you get a rejection.
Following up the pitch
Now this is what too few other sales people do – add them to a mailing list and message them again within 3 months. Don’t write a pitch in this message. Just tell them what you have been working on and link to other podcasts you have guested with or articles you have published.
Then 6 months later, approach them with another pitch.
Rinse, repeat.
Pitching guests
Here is a sample pitch message I used. It starts by focusing on the guest and their need for book publicity, then it introduces the podcast and its track record and audience appeal, and lastly suggests a timeframe for the interview.
Dear Annie,
I saw your Facebook post about your book, Mind Games, being published next month and I wondered if you could come onto the Rowing Chat podcast to talk about it?
Rowing Chat is a monthly interview podcast focused on the sport of rowing – we have been publishing since 2013 and the network includes other podcast hosts talking about strength training, masters rowing and the US scene.
Do have a listen to some past episodes, and let me know if you have time during April 2019. My colleague, cc above, will do the scheduling.
Best wishes in rowing, Rebecca
No related posts.
LinkedIn changes you need
/0 Comments/in Marketing, Social Media /by Rebecca CaroeSometimes I just discover things by trying something new. Did you know that you can find people on LinkedIn using their partial email address?
I had met a lady whose surname I didn’t know – but I had her email on the meeting calendar invite – amandam@thisbiz.com [that’s not a real address]. And so I started typing it into the LinkedIn search bar and before I wrote the dot extension, pressed enter and her name and details came up. Handy.
When LinkedIn is not linked
I was researching Chris Reed whose speaking agency represents business women speakers. And couldn’t find him on my LI contacts – and so found the company instead, thinking that maybe I’d mis-spelled his name.
There he is, listed on the company site – but the links don’t work. Thinking this was a dastardly strategy he was employing to connect to people and then dis-connect, when he hits limits to connections. And so I wrote to ask him.
You can have 30,000 connections on LinkedIn – so no chance I’m hitting the throttle back stage of connecting yet. And the ‘mystery’ is solved, although not resolved.
Sales Navigator plus plus
And if you aren’t yet using Sales Navigator for your new business development social selling on LinkedIn – do some research as it can be very useful.
But do also look at complementary services such as
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B2B Podcasting rises
/0 Comments/in B2B, Podcast /by Rebecca CaroeThe rise of podcasting as a medium to reach and influence audiences, grow brand awareness and promote your business continues.
I’m delighted to announce that Terry Baucher, a self-confessed “Tax Nerd” has launched his podcast – The Week In Tax with the help of Creative Agency Secrets.
Terry has long been a broadcaster called on by news media to be an expert commentator on tax matters – working with radio and TV stations in New Zealand. This heavily influenced our recommendation that he move on from a written weekly summary of tax news which had been drawn from his twitter feed, to an audio podcast.
Podcast set-up
We chose both an audio and a video medium for this podcast. [Note, this is not suitable for everyone] and SoundCloud is the distribution medium for the RSS.
The client blog hosts embedded audio files (easy for people to listen to who aren’t comfortable using RSS or Podcast apps) and remains the central source of all content. We also chose to add in a transcript for those who prefer reading to listening.
Could you be podcasting?
The medium is growing fast and many people now prefer to customise their listening and viewing to fit times of day they choose. Growing your brand reach through podcasting can be very effective.
Just ask Terry Baucher!
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Christchurch and Creative Commons
/0 Comments/in Case Studies, Digital media /by Rebecca CaroeI care deeply about the Creative Commons movement – this blog has been licensed for share-alike attribution since it started in 2006.
The Christchurch massacre on Friday has highlighted one of the challenges of modern media. How to stop bad stuff being shared; and the converse, how to preserve good stuff for future use.
The New Zealand ISPs are working hard to take down far right websites and the much-shared live stream video the gunman made.
In contrast, Mike Dickison is working to preserve the positive images from the event for posterity. Read his 7 part twitter thread explaining why this matters.
Can you contribute?
Images are requested.
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