Hey, everyone. I'm Todd Cochran, CEO and founder
at Blueberry. And I'm Mackenzie Bennett, marketing specialist
here at Blueberry. Welcome to Podcast Insider.
So today, we're gonna talk about something that
a lot of podcasters probably overlook until they
feel stuck.
In other words, AKA, the show's not growing.
They want it to grow,
and that would be your marketing budget.
Yeah. Definitely.
So whether you've got just a few dollars
to spare or you're ready to invest more,
today, we're gonna talk you how to
set up a smart and realistic marketing budget
without wasting your money or sanity.
You're listening to Podcast Insider hosted by Mike
Dell, Todd Cochran, and Mackenzie Bennett from the
Blueberry team,
bringing you weekly insights, advice, and insider tips
and tricks to help you start, grow, and
thrive through podcasting,
all with the support of your team here
at Blueberry Podcasting.
Welcome. Let's dive in.
I played a lot of things over the
years and,
some stuff has worked, some stuff hasn't, some
stuff is you know, it all depends.
But the beauty about this is is
many of us are independent
content creators
and you don't need a big team or
really huge budget to market your show.
You just need the right plan.
So today, we're gonna divide into two paths.
One for podcasters
who are already publishing and another for those
of you who are still in the planning
or prelaunch
phase.
And,
I think this will be good for for
both groups.
I think let's start with the the folks
that are already
lit and live and have their show launched.
Yeah. We assume a lot of listeners are
already launched. So we're gonna start out with
that. And number one on the list is
start with a monthly budget that works for
you.
Realistically, what can you afford? You know, this
is this is not exactly something you want
to,
stretch on a regular basis.
So,
realistically, what can you commit to doing each
month? Because it's not necessarily something that you're
gonna do one or two months a year.
This is something that you need to be
doing
constantly.
So we suggest maybe
10 to $25
for social media posts
or doing, like, a promo swap,
you know, maybe 25 to a 100 for
boosted content,
doing ads with,
podcast directory apps such as Overcast or doing
something with email.
And the $100
plus
is getting into more like a VA, you
know, a virtual assistant,
some type of contract work that you're paying
someone to help with the shows, a social
media manager, something like that.
And in my case, always clear it with
the boss. And if you have a boss
in your life, you know what I'm talking
about,
you know, go over the budget on what
you want to spend,
because there was a few times I spent,
more money than I should, and I I
got in a little bit of trouble. So,
yeah. So, you know, just, you know, just
experiment
and and don't go crazy
as it you can really go crazy if
you want to. There's a, you know they
they always try to get more money out
of you in these systems when you're when
you're running ads and so forth. But, again,
I think it's important,
to remember that we've got all kinds of
tools for you to use that can will
help with some of this as well
within the platform. So if you're especially if
you're using Pie,
we've got some social media tools that help
you create some of the stuff that you
may want to,
promote. Of course, we got a lot of
great partners like Headliner and so forth as
well. But I think it's important
to set those goals for each quarter. You
know, your spending should support
really a measurable goal or
like they call in corporate world, a KPI.
And,
maybe it's growing a newsletter.
Maybe it's driving views to the website. Maybe
it's purely trying to get more downloads or,
increasing social reach. And all these are quite
measurable because before you start,
all you gotta do is you take the,
you know, put in a spreadsheet or in
a notebook. Just say, okay. I've got 500
in the newsletter. I'm getting about, you know,
600 downloads.
I've got so many people on x and
Facebook and wherever you may hang out with
your tribe.
And then you spend a little money. You
can watch that growth
over time and see how how it's how
it does. Now some of that will be
natural, so you wanna take into account
the previous natural growth that you've had and
see, you know, that's been in a 3%
or 5% or whatever that number is growth
month to month. And if you all of
a sudden you achieve 20%,
you know, you spent your money well.
I'm a really big fan of doing things
by quarter, of setting goals for the quarter
and not necessarily for the year. Set maybe,
like, one big goal for the year,
and you can have that with your marketing
efforts,
but set specific tactics and goals
within each quarter
to accomplish that goal that you're trying to
do throughout the, you know, for the year.
Breaking it down like that, I think, is
a really good idea for a lot of
people that feel overwhelmed,
especially because this is your hobby. And, you
know, you have everyone has so much going
on in their life nowadays.
Your job, maybe your second job,
your kids, your your dog, everything. So,
that natural growth is
is kinda like a bonus. You know, that's
just
the continuous this is gonna happen because I
am doing the right things over and over
and over again. The way that
we help is, you know, I think there's
there's a lot of stats that you can
take a look at this along with something
like Google Analytics
and, you know, the Mailchimp.
What are you, like, what are your open
rates? All that type of stuff. That's something
that, like, you try to increase these
each quarter. It's slow but steady is typically
good for the long haul. You know, I've
always been a bit of a cheap Charlie
in some regards.
Mailchimp,
if you you can use it up to
a thousand
folks on a list and then then you
have to start paying once it gets above
a thousand. But I think a lot of
people will be under a thousand. So,
if they don't have a mailing list, they
can do that. I've used a variety of
services over the years
to try to not spend money. So I'm
always looking at free offerings as well.
And I think the free marketing first should
be, you know, to make sure that you're
ready for paid marketing.
One thing it's really been effective that a
lot of people don't do is swap promos
with other podcasters. In other words, if you
had a podcast you love
and you mentioned them on your show
as as a podcast you may want to
check out, let them know that you promoed
them.
And often or not, some the the reciprocating
podcast will often mention you as well.
You can also do official swap promos. Say,
hey.
I'll promote your show if you promote mine.
So again, it depends on the relationship you
have
with that podcast. Of course, you wanna share
your show in in the relevant communities,
so make sure you know where your tribe
is hanging out.
Make sure you know like my tech show,
a lot of the folks are on x.
But on this show, I think the majority
of the people are either on LinkedIn or
on,
on Facebook. So it really depends,
you find figure out where your audience is
and, of course, share there. Doesn't hurt to
share in those other
platforms to gain audience members as well.
But
one thing that is often overlooked
is if you've got this content already created,
you've got hours and hours and hours and
hours of past content that you can grab
clips from
as teasers. Now I know I know it
takes a lot of work to do that,
but there's tools out there to be able
to grab that,
grab those clips
and teasers to be able to to share.
And, of course,
when you're publishing on your own website or
with Blueberry, you get custom episode URLs
and your podcast website to make sharing your
content super easy and and super trackable. You
can see where that traffic's come from.
You know, you're you were talking about, the
listeners here are most likely, from what we
can tell, on LinkedIn and Facebook.
And that goes into our next topic, which
is stick with just one or two platforms
generally for the main social media that you'll
do.
It's very easy to spread yourself thin very
quickly,
with both your time and your money
of, you know, where your audience might be.
So this does kinda come into sometimes, like,
if you have a social media manager or,
like, a VA or something like that, they
can they have more time to dedicate to
going all across the board,
or starting that way and figuring out where
people are and, you know, kinda dump in
one or two down the line and stick
to some of the others that that are
working for you.
And if you're if you're not used to
these tools,
again, with the small budget start, there's not
a lot of risk and experimentation.
And one thing you do is track your
ROI with with simple tools. Don't get too
fancy.
Create a spreadsheet, you know, put in the
cost goals outcome,
and then you're gonna kinda know what that
value for that amount of money that you
spent was worth.
Sometimes it's kinda hard,
you know. It it's if you boost something
on Facebook,
and and you spend $50 and they say,
oh, you're gonna reach 4,000 people, but it
doesn't mean that 4,000 people are gonna like
the post.
So you should do a compare and contrast,
you know, see what kind of likes and
comments you get on stuff that you haven't
boosted compared to those that you have.
Again, some of it can be a little
bit tricky to even determine,
okay, was this worth it? Mhmm. But,
again,
right in the dashboard of Blueberry is one
thing that you can look at and see
what content is gaining traction in. That could
be maybe an indication as something that you'd
want to promote,
something in an episode that did a little
better than another.
And, you know, it it give you that
little bit of a little bit of an
edge. But, again, lots of places to spend
money. Just be careful where you do and
and, again, stay within budget and don't go
crazy like I did and just automatically say,
oh, yeah. I'll spend $300. And, you know,
next thing you know, yeah, I spent $300,
and it's like, what's this on the credit
card bill? Yep. Yep. Don't take yourself into
a hole. Or if you do, make it
only that one time.
Yeah.
One of those ways is just track the
ROI that you're looking for with like like
Todd said, you know, these simple tools,
that can be as simple as a
Google spreadsheet or Excel
spreadsheet.
You know, it doesn't have to be that
complicated. And one of the ways that you
can also keep track of this is we
have an event tracker
in our,
stat system so that you can, you know,
add dates
that you wanna keep track of this specific
episode in in between these days and, you
know, these days of the month because you
are doing some type of ad campaign. You're
like, oh, okay. This is great. I can
keep track of what happened
during this period of time when I was
promoting this. It's just great to keep an
eye on. Don't stress yourself out over it,
though.
Just take the information in and go from
there.
And for those of you that haven't launched
your podcast yet,
I think it's if you're really serious about
launching
and you've recorded maybe a couple of episodes,
two or three, don't record 10 or 20.
And just, you know, two or three is
good. Yeah.
You know, create a prelaunch budget
and
determine,
what your budget is gonna be on a
monthly basis going forward.
And some of that budget can initially be
used to make sure you got good graphics.
Mhmm.
Maybe a teaser trailer,
signing up for a basic email platform like
like Mailchimp again,
and, of course, building a landing page for
your for your show. So,
definitely
think about some of those,
you know, initial launch expenses on in getting
a good there's nothing better than having good
show art. We know that the AI has
gotten
pretty good now in creating some art.
But always think about creatively what will make
you stand out
from the rest,
and also your teaser trailers as well.
And I just wanna do preface.
When you are starting your podcast, you're probably
gonna the most money you're probably gonna put
into it overall is at the beginning,
unless you, you know, totally overhaul at some
point and, like, do a bunch of upgrades
or changes or something. But,
the the sticker shock you might get when
you're like, oh, okay. Well, what if I
wanna pay someone to build me this graphic
or, you know, help me with this web
design, that type of stuff?
That that sticker shock will not
will surprise you potentially, but also it's not
gonna happen every month. That's yes. So so
definitely keep that in mind.
And on that same note, define a simple
goal before you do launch. Like, you're you're
putting money into this. You're putting your time
and
and, effort into it.
And on top of your money, you wanna
have
a goal before the launch of, like, what
do I what do I wanna do? Do
I wanna build an email list? Do I
wanna get feedback from the trailer of, you
know, what are do people like this? That
type of thing.
Trying to build an anti any type of
social following. What do you wanna do? And,
of course, you wanna work on your social
following. If you're like I was and I
came into podcasting when there was no social
media,
you know, there there was really zero. You
you started completely from zero. But if you've
got a good social following already,
that's gonna help. But you don't wanna start
building a social following. And, you you know,
when someone launches a new show,
you know, obviously, it's mom, dad, and the
family is gonna potentially tune in maybe and
then friends.
But you'll definitely want to
to work on,
having the ability for people to sign up
for the email list,
collect that feedback,
and, of course, get those early social followers
excited about what the goal of your show
is and what you're going to,
what you're gonna be producing.
And you can join online communities and follow,
hashtags of content that's gonna be associated with
your
show and and start to interact with potential
listeners. Now I would
caution you in basic saying, oh, I wanna
start a podcast.
And, you know, you maybe solicit ideas. Say,
hey. I'm thinking about starting a podcast,
and this is what I'm gonna be talking
about. Is this something that would be interesting?
And what are the type of topics? That's
the kind of
engagement that you'll want,
and do those necessarily outside of the podcasting
groups.
Do those in the threads where the within
the content,
type that you're going to cover,
on Reddit and Facebook and so forth.
The podcast groups in,
on Facebook contain,
a lot of noise,
and you're gonna get a lot of advice
that
maybe is good and bad. So, you know,
basically, just go out and and make up
your own opinion.
And the formula to create a show is
not that complicated, but you definitely wanna engage
with your
your community where that's gonna be and wherever
they may be on LinkedIn, TikTok, etcetera,
for sure.
Yeah. Absolutely.
And
similar to, you know, where your future audience
is,
If you are getting if you are building
that audience,
build an email list. It is, I think,
sometimes underrated,
in the age of social media,
but
people, you know, switch back and forth all
the time, but
getting into their email,
makes it seem more,
I don't I
guess,
you know, loyal to that show
and really interested in what it's yeah. It
builds a lot of loyalty, I think.
So
if when you're doing that website, when you're
about to get ready to launch,
absolutely add an embed of a sign up
form right there on your website to you
know, so so that they can get more
information whether that is just something you wanna
talk about or a link to the episode.
It is whatever you wanna do with it.
And and you don't need a a a
full blown episode to launch your show. You
just start with a trailer
and you can test and promote. Use and
make the trailer short, less than five minutes.
And, you know, and actually, maybe even that's
long. Mhmm. And what you wanna do though
is be very specific in the trailer. This
is what the show is gonna be. This
is the goal and here's the type of
content that I'm gonna be talking about
and
have that
semi well refined
and
you'll start getting some feedback
on that
And,
and let people know what do you think?
How did my voice sound? How did the
audio sound? Did Mhmm. Did I come across
as warm? You know, you're gonna get all
kinds of
feedback. But I think the key here is
is really to get your feet wet and
at the same time start building and making
the community know that their input
is very important. I think that's the main
thing is a lot of time podcasters forget
to ask their audience
for feedback
and,
always engage the audience no matter if it's
a new trailer or your any episode you're
creating say, hey. What did you think today?
You know, send your feedback because
sometimes it gets very quiet out there and,
you can get lonely creating your podcast because
people aren't so inclined
always to,
drop you an email. But,
ask for that input and those that truly
like the show will will do that.
Yeah. Absolutely. I kinda think of your trailer
preview episode as your elevator pitch,
you know, of
why should I listen to your show. You've
got me on this elevator for twenty seconds,
on my phone before I scroll away,
and it's it's gotta have that hook. So
definitely
something to think about when you are releasing
that.
I think we've covered everything here that we're
just gonna talk about. This is a light
overview. It's nothing technical about how to do
it. There's plenty of YouTube tutorials out there
on how to do advertising on any of
these platforms.
So use those tutorials.
Yeah. And so use those tutorials and take
a look if you're using Blueberry on all
of the ways that we make this available
too.
You know, there's a lot available in the
podcaster dashboard,
and
there's a lot in the sidebar that might
be helpful that you just are unaware of
right now. And, of course, remember, your marketing
budget doesn't need to be big. It just
needs to be aligned with your goals and
and really,
your stage in your podcasting journey.
Right. So focus on consist consistency,
lean on the free tools available to you,
and always measure your progress no matter how
small.
And most importantly, don't forget, Blueberry includes
a ton of features that help podcasters get
discovered,
track growth, and promote their show so you
can spend less and do more. And matter
of fact, make sure you check out our,
introductory series to podcast stats. It's on YouTube.
It gives you,
really a a quick deep dive and a
a three part series
on on the entire platform so you get
to know how to use all of that
as a new or existing podcaster.
Be sure to follow or subscribe to Podcast
Insider for more strategy, support, and tools to
help your show thrive.
Thanks for joining us. Come back next week.
And in the meantime,
head to podcastinsider.com
for more information.
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check out the latest suite of services and
learn how Blueberry
can help you leverage your podcast. Visit blueberry.com.
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