Learn how to podcast and blog to to establish thought leadership, extend your brand and engage your target market

In Promoting Your Podcast, I talk about a very useful tool from FeedBurner called the Headline Animator. This is a widget that you can use to promote your podcast (for example in your forum or email signature). It automatically scrolls through the titles of the last five posts on your feed.

Well, this tool just got more useful not too mention more aesthetically pleasing. Now you can: (more…)

In my book, Promoting Your Podcast, I emphasize the importance of publishing your podcast to a blog. There are numerous reasons to do so. One key reason is to attract search engine traffic. Search engines such as Google like blogs. They know that the information is frequently updated.

Keep the search engines in mind as you produce your podcast, post your show notes and optimize your site (all discussed in my book). I point out in my chapter on search engine optimization that it takes time, patience and diligence to see the promotional/traffic effects.  You have to constantly try, track and tweak things (which is why I included a also included chapter on statistics & tracking).

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Michael Geoghegan recently posed the following important question on his blog:

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During my presentation at the Podcast and Portable Media Expo, I talked about the importance the text content on your site for getting exposure in the search engines. One strategy I suggested was getting transcriptions of your podcasts and posting them on your site/blog. Here are examples of some podcasts using transcripts:

Security Now

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Today my new book, Promoting Your Podcast (Larstan Publishing, 2006) is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other bookstores across America. The book contains tons of my best podcast marketing tips to help you build an audience of raving fans.

For a limited time, I’m extending a special offer to those who buy the book early. If you are one of the first 200 people to purchase Promoting Your Podcast and email me proof of purchase, I will give you the following 5 bonuses as a gift:

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Effective marketing is about getting the right message to the right market (potential listeners). When identifying your market, it’s important to remember that often less is more. Narrowing your target market to smaller, more carefully selected niche usually produces better results.

You will have the best success in marketing your podcast if you carefully choose your target listeners. The more you know about your niche, the better you will be at creating the right message and knowing how to get that message to them.

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We’ve discussed how it is just as important to keep your current listeners as it is to find news ones. One thing that will keep your audience listening is their attachment to you as a person. Don’t be afraid to infuse your own personality into your podcast. Make yourself a trusted source of entertainment/information that your listeners want to come back to again and again. Use your personality to bring people back.

NOTE: Decide in advance how much personal info you want to share and be careful about giving out things like your address, your phone number, etc.

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OK. I admit. I’m stretching for an entry for the letter X. Have you seen how few ‘X’ words there are in the dictionary? Despite my weak attempt to be clever, this tip is valuable all the same.

Let’s say you have a podcast on knitting. You could make up some flyers about your podcast and visit yarn stores. Ask if they would let you place some flyers by the cash register. If you need, you can offer to mention the store in your podcast in exchange for leaving flyers. Hang a flyer in the window as well. You could even arrange for them to place your flyer in their shopping bags.

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There are a number of ways to attract new listeners by writing short articles that relate to the topic of your podcast. These articles should deliver valuable information, but they only need to be 500-1000 words long. Here are two ways to use this kind of supplementary text content to attract new listeners:

1. Post it on your own site to attract search engine traffic

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Can you write a describe your typical listener? Can you answer the following questions about him?

• What are his interests?
• How old is he?
• What kinds of sites does he visit online?
• What kind of magazines does he read?
• Why does he listen to your podcast?
• What kinds of things does he buy?
• What keeps him coming back for more?

It’s important to have a well-defined target audience in order to create the best podcast you can and market it effectively. Spend some time brainstorming and researching about your typical listeners so you can make the best decisions about how and where to market to them.

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