Buzzcast
Buzzcast is a roundtable discussion about podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout. We'll cover current events and news, podcast strategy, tools we are using, and dip into the Customer Support mailbag to test our podcasting knowledge. If you want to stay up-to-date on what's working in podcasting, Buzzcast is the show for you.
Buzzcast
25+ Creative Podcast Marketing Ideas That Will Grow Your Audience
We're sharing over 25 innovative and practical podcast marketing ideas designed to help established podcasters and beginners alike!
From guerrilla marketing tactics and in-person event strategies to creative online promotion tips, these ideas are perfect for podcasters on any budget. Learn how to tap into your niche, stand out from the crowd, and turn casual listeners into devoted fans.
2025 PodGoals Survey: Let us know how we can help you achieve your podcasting goals!
Join Buzzsprout at Podfest 2025: We're going to Podfest in January and want you to come with us!
Sound-Off Question: Go back and critically listen to an older episode of your podcast. What is one thing you think you should work on?
View the discussion thread on Twitter/X!
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Thanks for listening & keep podcasting!
I just had this happen with my cold plunge. I took it all apart, I cleaned the whole thing and then I forgot to unplug it and turn the timer off, so it had no water in it. And it kicked on the next morning and the pump ran for three hours to cool it off, but there was no water in it. So I thought I burnt up the motor, put it all back together, tried to get it running. It wouldn't run.
Jordan:No-transcript doing that? Oh my gosh.
Kevin:So what are you doing? I took the whole thing apart and I found the pump which had Chinese QR codes on it, and I found the Chinese website that had the pump. I had to order it straight from China. It was only like a $30 pump but it was like six weeks and I was like I think I can just going to pull this motor apart at this point, why not? So I took the whole motor apart and the impeller inside was still intact. It was just like seized up. The same way you change an impeller out on a water pump on a outboard engine. I just pulled it apart and I greased it up inside and the rubber was still pretty flexible.
Alban:I put it all back together, hooked it all back up, plugged in and it works. Look at you Dang good stuff.
Kevin:Yeah, there's something so much more enjoyable about doing that project on your own. Yeah, when you have nothing to lose, like it's, I'm going to throw it out or going to try to fix it, like, why not just take it all apart and just see how it works? Yeah, you get it back together. Maybe it works out like this time it did, and if not, I was like I got to throw it out. Anyway, I may as well give it a shot.
Alban:But you end up like loving the thing more after it broke and you fixed it. We're Thanksgiving. My whole family went up to this house in North Carolina. We got everybody, and at one point two thirds of the people go to see Wicked, and the group of people who are left behind also happen to be everybody who does projects. So my brother, my sister, my dad and I and dad's building this like big bench out of a tree that we took down in the front yard a couple of years ago, and so he's building that.
Alban:My sister's got a project. And then I'm like, oh, these screen doors are all torn. I bet we could fix this. And so I'm taking a far street door and everyone's collecting. And my brother doesn't have a project, so now he's in on the screen door project. My sister's like, ooh, this is starting to look like a better project. She's getting involved, we're taking off old pieces of wood and stuff off the doors. And then at the end of it I'm like I love this screen door. This thing looks awesome. Like no one's ever loved a screen door before, but now there's one that I truly love and I'm like look, how great it is. Like no bug get in here at all.
Jordan:Welcome back to Buzzcast podcast about all things podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout. So we're going to kick things off with a couple of Buzzsprout housekeeping items. The first one we have a survey and I think this might be the first survey we've ever done.
Alban:I think we did a survey a long time ago and Kevin was like surveys are terrible, don't do surveys. I think we did a survey a long time ago and Kevin was like surveys are terrible, don't do surveys.
Jordan:I love surveys, so I'm actually really excited about this. So this is share your pod goals and we have a short survey, like pretty much just one question, of what are your podcasting goals for 2025? But what's the reasoning for us doing this at this point?
Kevin:So it is true, I typically do not like surveys, the idea of collecting a bunch of answers like, how do you feel about this question, rated on a one to five or something like that. I typically don't love that type of stuff and I also don't really like the idea of asking specific questions about, like, what should we be building? Yeah, because I feel like the questions always sort of lean into the answer direct, the responses that you get. They're really hard to do well. There are companies, of course, like Nielsen and stuff, who have figured out how to do these really well, but we don't have that expertise. So I always feel like, how much value are we going to actually be able to get out of the survey and then be able to return to the people who took the time to fill out the survey? And I've never felt confident that we would be able to do that well.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:So that's the backstory of why I typically don't like surveys, but this was an idea. It came from Priscilla, who heads up our podcaster success team, and she said well, part of our job is to figure out how to make podcasters successful, and if we don't understand, like, what their goals are, then how do we help move them closer to achieving their goal? And I thought it's a really good question. And so we worked together to come up with the most basic survey of them all, which is there's no scales, there's no multiple choice, there's just what are you trying to do, like, do you have any podcasting goals that you're setting? And then we also thought a great time of year to launch. This would be right around the first of the year, when people are making resolutions. So why not make a podcast resolution and say here's what I want to try to achieve, or here's what I want to do with?
Jordan:my podcast.
Kevin:And let's put that out to our customers and let's see what they're trying to accomplish in 2025. And then we can go ahead and craft specific initiatives around helping people achieve their goals. And we've gotten a few responses already because our success team is putting links to it in the support responses as they come in, and we want anybody who listens to Buzzcast to go ahead and fill that out. It can be long, it can be short. However you want to fill it out, fill it out, but we'd love to know what your goals are for 2025 with your podcast so that we can, on Buzzcast, we can create content that helps you achieve your goals. So our customer success team can create initiatives to help you achieve your goals. So we can come up with new features for the product to help you achieve your goals.
Jordan:Awesome. So to share your pod goals, just go ahead and click the link in the show notes and fill out the form. It's very short. You only have to do one question. If you want make it quick, All right. And then the other thing that we need to talk about is we are taking podcasters to PodFest in Orlando in January.
Alban:Yeah, we've done this for years and it's always fun. If your goals for 2025 are to grow as a podcaster, to learn more and to connect with other podcasters, I often tell people like that's why I love going to conferences. If you want to meet other marketers, go to a marketer conference. If you want to meet other podcasters, go to a podcasting conference and you'll meet people who are doing the same things you're doing and build a little community around it. So, if you want to learn more about podcasting, you'd like to meet the BuzzFrog team, you'd like to meet other podcasters? We would love for you to join us at Podfest 2025. It's in January, it's a few days and it's in Orlando and we always really enjoy it and it's always a blast to see so many Buzzsprout customers come with us.
Kevin:As a Floridian I do not typically like Orlando. It's not my favorite place to visit. But I will say if you're going to go to Orlando, go in January.
Jordan:January, February, like there's the only two months that you should go there.
Kevin:The weather is typically beautiful and this conference is one of my favorites. If you've never been to a conference, it's the perfect one. To start with, it's not intimidating at all. A lot of people there are just beginning or amateur podcasters and love it, so there's a lot of I don't know like new podcaster energy in the area, as opposed to some of these other conferences that we go to, where there's it's a lot more professional, A lot of people talking about like the enterprise side of podcasting or the big podcast ad networks and all that kind of stuff.
Kevin:You get a little bit of that at PodFest, but the majority of the people that are there are new amateur podcasters and it's just a lot of fun. I love meeting people at this conference and so, like just to be clear, when we say we're bringing people to PodFest, that means we're buying your PodFest entry ticket so you arrange your own travel. You arrange your own hotel room or Airbnb or stay with a friend or whatever you want to do no-transcript, and that's just where you can tell us things like are you actually able to go?
Alban:all the information and as long as you qualify, we will send you a link on how to register your ticket and we will pick up the tab.
Jordan:I also noticed that this year the hotel is directly next to SeaWorld. I went to Universal Studios last year with some podcasters. Maybe I need to do a SeaWorld trip. I don't know.
Kevin:I have not been to SeaWorld since I was probably 10 years old.
Jordan:Yeah, me too.
Kevin:Maybe it's time to go back.
Alban:I don't know, Didn't SeaWorld get canceled? I think they've taken a pretty hard turn from all the animal stuff. I think since then SeaWorld's gone pretty hard on. Okay, we're not really SeaWorld, we're kind of like rollercoaster world now With sea theme, which I'm down for that too.
Jordan:Sea theme rollercoasters. Sea theme rollercoasters. Alban, I think that you delivered our most successful sound off question in the history of Buzzcast. So last episode you asked people to send in what their podcast is, what it's about, and then we would provide a unique marketing idea for their podcast. And, holy cow, we have had so many responses come in for this. So we are dedicating the entire episode to these marketing ideas and I am very excited about this one.
Alban:I loved it. I mean, we probably had three, four coming in a day since we published this episode. So all during Thanksgiving, long car rides I'm seeing them pop in. I'm trying to think about a lot of research into people's shows. Yeah, I have a big gripe though.
Jordan:Yes.
Alban:I have a lot of things to be thankful for Thanksgiving, but I have a gripe.
Jordan:I think you've earned it.
Alban:So many of the people who wrote in are not on Buzzsprout. They host their shows with other podcast hosts. What yeah, some of our most loyal listeners. I'm not going to name names, but but we know who you are.
Alban:I was pretty deep into some of these and I'm like, oh wow, what an interesting show. This is so cool. Okay, that's the target audience. So who am I going to market to? And I'm coming up with this idea. And then I'd see, like one of our competitors players on their website and I'm like, oh no, oh no. All of these at least that I did Jordan did a handful too are all focused on in-person events. That was what we talked about last time.
Alban:Gorilla marketing Gorilla marketing Boots on the ground, Getting your first hundred Stuff that doesn't scale but it works well when you're small Stuff that wouldn't work well if you were huge.
Jordan:Exactly.
Kevin:Okay.
Alban:Well, one person who does host with us the first one, one of our favorite Buzzcast listeners, Barnabas, the Kids Code Podcast. The Kids Code Podcast is an educational podcast for kids and it explores different types of codes, so like Morse code or ciphers or things like that. So I'm thinking we've got to target kids who are curious, they like puzzles and they like problem solving. So here's my unique idea let's create cipher cards. You know those cards where you rotate the center and it's like the alphabet and it rotates to the other letters, so you write a cipher, so like the a turns into an l and the b turns into m right, this is like reminds me of the movie the Christmas Story.
Kevin:I was thinking of the Ovaltine, yeah he solves the puzzle where, whatever she says, remember to drink your Ovaltine. He gets really mad about that.
Alban:So let's make cipher cards with a secret message and very based on the complexity, but based on the age of the kids. One side has the cipher and the other has something like. But based on the age of the kids one side has the cipher and the other has something like did you crack the code? Listen to the kids code podcast for more fun, to our code, to his buzzsprout website. Hand these out at, like, a STEM fair or at libraries or afterschool programs. If you make them good enough, then there's going to be people who are going to say we want to give these out to the kids at the afterschool program, cause then they like settle down and then all these kids are going to go home and be like, oh, check out this cool code I solved and, boom, now they've got this thing on the back. I've got to go check out the kids code podcast, because that's what this show's about.
Kevin:That's a good one. That is good. Let me wildcard on top of that yes, so like, what is the cipher going to be? I'm thinking like kids love like riddles and jokes and stuff like that, so maybe you could the setup could be the question for the joke and then you solve the cipher to get the answer, and so the prize they get is they get a funny joke that they can tell other people or something at the end.
Jordan:That's great.
Alban:That'd be pretty good, especially if it's a joke that they can kind of start figuring out, then that might give them a little bit of like a head start on figuring out the cipher.
Alban:Yeah, all right, what's next? Number two, gavin wrote in from the Military Veterans Podcast. Gavin's a British Army veteran. He served for 16 years.
Alban:This podcast is primarily about veteran stories and it seemed a lot about like transitioning back to civilian life. So target audience are going to be military vets, but also their families and civilians who want to learn about military veterans. In the US we have things like veterans of foreign war posts, american Legion posts, and I would partner with groups like that. If you're still based in the UK then you probably have UK versions of this, but VFW, dav chapters and go and do live events and talk to some of the vets who hang out there and interview them about their story. What was it like for them to transition back to civilian life? What skills did they build during their time when they're deployed that they ended up using later?
Alban:And then let's create business cards for that episode and then leave them in that chapter, because if you told me here's a cool story, I'd go. Yeah, maybe I'll listen to it. But my friend's great grandfather growing up was a World War II vet and if I had been able to listen to his story, of course I would have. And so people who are hanging out will be like oh, I know Rob, but I don't know his whole story as a vet. Well, now they can see. Oh, there's a, like I could scan this code and listen to it.
Kevin:I like it. I'm a big fan of the VFWs in general, most of the ones around this area and when I was growing up would do like a. Saturday morning breakfast yes, and it was. Yeah, it was super cheap. I used to love going in there and just getting a wonderful homemade breakfast for like 250. And then you sit down and just talk to vets and they've got the best stories in the world. I love it.
Alban:All right, can I give you an alternative for this one that almost made it out for number one.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:All right. One of the things that's really big near where I live is rucking, because Go Ruck was founded like three minutes from my house. You pick these big military rucksacks, you fill it up with a bunch of weight and people hike with it.
Jordan:Oh yeah.
Alban:And it's very popular, but it's also very popular among vets. Every rucksack has just Velcro on it, so let's make Velcro patches and you can put on different patches for whatever military unit you were a part of, but let's make one that's a QR code and all it says is listen to my story.
Jordan:I love that.
Alban:And imagine when people go on big rucks. They're probably hiking next to the same person and they're also a captive audience listening to podcasts.
Jordan:Yep.
Alban:And if they see it and it's like, oh, the guy in front of me for 20 minutes it says listen to my story scan. Now I'm listening to it. I feel like that one is not going to be made mass appeal, but that could really work and could help you get you know those first hundred listeners. That's really good I work and could help you get you know those first hundred listeners.
Kevin:That's really good. I don't know that I've ever seen a patch that is a QR code. That might be a challenge to figure out. Can you like embroider a patch high enough definition that it works as a QR code?
Jordan:I mean you could probably do one of those like cricket machines where you have like the vinyl that you iron on.
Kevin:Yeah, the vinyl would work, and I have seen patches that are I can't remember what they're called, but they're almost like rubber instead of embroidery. I bet you could do it that way. Yeah, it's a cool idea All right.
Jordan:So our next one is from Alessandra from the Dom Sub Living podcast, and she said that her podcast explores how new and experienced dominance and submissives can navigate and thrive in BDSM relationships.
Alban:All right, this one was tough. This is the one where I went oh great, I'm in for it this week. This came in like eight minutes after we released the episode.
Jordan:Yeah, she was quick.
Alban:Here's my idea. Looking at her podcast, it seemed like there was a lot about trust, communication being authentic and not feeling like feelings of shame about what you're into. Okay, so made me think. Create a deck of cards that have questions that are like what excites you about this? How does some specific desire make you feel?
Alban:And it starts off just for you and your partner or your spouse just to talk through different ideas what things are you interested in, what things are you not interested in? And each of those questions you're going to get this one, a lot has a QR code on the back and says do you want to learn more? Because she has a lot of topics that are like here's a area of BDSM and she talks about it. So have them talk about it with their own partner and then, if they want to get more in depth, they can learn about your episode. Hand them out at local meetups, conferences, workshops. I don't know this community so I apologize that I don't have better answers for where people in the community hang out, but that would be my guess.
Jordan:I've actually seen similar conversation starter cards in bars or clubs or something like that, when you're just hanging out and they'll be in the middle of the table. So I actually think that's a really good idea.
Alban:That's actually genius, because that's the probably the one place that I would end up doing it. I'd be hanging out with like a group of guy friends and then I'd be like, let me ask you guys some questions I found on this table.
Jordan:Right, exactly.
Kevin:Yeah, I wonder if you have enough episodes, if you could actually like tie the card and the question to a specific episode.
Jordan:Yes, oh, and the QR code goes to that episode to go more in depth.
Kevin:That's so cool, yeah, so it's like have you ever been interested in this or have you ever thought about doing something like this? And then you ask the question. Everyone gives their answer and it's like, if you want to hear more about this topic, here's a specific episode. Exactly, QR code goes straight to that episode. I love it. That's a genius idea.
Alban:So you'll see this theme come up again business cards and get people talking about something and with a QR code to that episode. I feel like going to the episode felt really good in the real world, where people probably aren't like I want to commit to a hundred episode podcast, but can you commit to one episode about one particular thing?
Jordan:And.
Alban:I think that's going to be really powerful. So I end up using that rubric over and over in these ideas.
Jordan:Cool, all right. So the next one we have is from Rebecca from the Maker's Playbook, and she said my show is about what it's really like to make a living from the things we make like artists, craftspeople, et cetera.
Alban:All right. So the target audience are primarily ceramicists, people who are throwing pottery and are trying to make money from it. So I thought, well, this is a captive audience, people who might sit down in front of a pottery wheel and they're spinning it and they're doing something with clay. So is there a tool or like a towel that we can brand and give out to pottery shops or classes to entice people when they start? Oh.
Alban:So I'm thinking like, maybe make a nice towel that's got something about your podcast and send it out to pottery classes. They always need towels and now they've got it and people can go oh, this is about how to make a business. A way you could validate that is reach out to shop owners, people who are teaching these classes, have them on the podcast and see if they'd be interested in sharing their story with people who are taking their classes, or if they put it on while the class is going. And if you think there's a way, if there's interest there, then that towel idea might be something you could try and then you can just send it out to tons of different pottery places and hopefully people are like oh, this sounds like an interesting podcast, I'd love to learn about it, especially if pottery becomes my passion.
Jordan:Yeah, All right, and we also got a submission from Marty in Nepal. His podcast is about migration of workers and students from and to Nepal yeah, so this is called Nepal Now On the Move.
Alban:Marty talks about these migration patterns from Nepal. It sounds like a lot of people migrate from Nepal and then eventually come back home. The stories are so interesting. I listened to a few episodes while I was working on this. So these are Nepalese expats, ngo people who are working in NGOs, journalists, people who their family member maybe has migrated and they're hoping that they'll come back soon. That's the target audience. So luggage tags. I want to create luggage tags that feature the podcast logo, qr code and a tagline like are you traveling, take these stories with you? Or every migration has a story or something about the podcast podcast logo and give it to the guests who are on the podcast. Why? Because they're traveling a lot. Now they have these on their bags. They might see it on someone else's bag. They're all going to be flying out of, like the one major airport in Nepal. They're all seeing people who are also doing the same thing. That's your target audience, and so high quality luggage tags. Give them out while you're traveling and get people to put them on their bags.
Kevin:Yeah, I kind of like this idea, like if you, if it gets broad enough, like every once in a while I'll be out in the wild and I'll spot somebody wearing a Buzzsprout T-shirt yes, doesn't happen very often, but when it does, I connect with that person. I ask them like where did you get this T-shirt? Are you a podcaster? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love the idea of people waiting at the luggage return when you get off a bus, or if you're at an airport or something and you're seeing suitcases go by and you spot one of these tags and you're like I have to see who grabs that bag, because I know what that tag means.
Alban:Right, yeah, I mean, I've been on a plane before and I saw the podcast the person next to me was listening to, and it's a podcast that I listened to and I'm like, oh, we've got a chat. Yeah, and if I saw someone had a luggage tag that I knew was associated with a podcast I enjoy. I would talk to them. So, even if you're not broadening the appeal of the show, which very good show. If I had anything to do in Nepal, this would be a new podcast for me.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:The artwork looks great. It's gonna show up well on those luggage tags and you're gonna build community around your podcast.
Kevin:Yeah, and maybe you could let fans of the show order them Yep, because you can't have everyone on your podcast, but maybe they cost you $5 or something to produce each one. So you just say, hey, if you make a $5 donation, I'll send you a luggage tag so you can start connecting with other people in the wild who will listen to the show as well. Love it.
Jordan:So here's a familiar one, Kevin Lowe, with grit, grace and inspiration. His podcast's mission to inspire and motivate you, help you overcome life's challenges and empower you to realize your own potential for greatness.
Alban:All right, kevin's should be pitching himself to speak at as many in-person events as he can.
Jordan:Thousand percent.
Alban:Kevin's personal story is very inspirational. So, for anyone who doesn't know, he lost his sight at 17, has now lived for over 20 years without sight and has made it his life's mission with this podcast to inspire people to have grit and persist and give back to the world. And as much as the podcast is inspirational, kevin is the inspiration and so I think, go do as many in-person events as you can, kevin, and tell people. If you want to like engage more, listen to my podcast and tell the story of your show. I mean, I think that Kevin's going to have a pretty easy time pitching himself to do live events and when he does, I think people are going to listen.
Jordan:All right, next one We've got David's podcast Late Bloomer Actor, a podcast about the acting lessons learned as a late bloomer actor.
Alban:So the target audience here are people who want to be an actor after 30. So I thought these are people who are probably going to classes, film festivals, community theaters later in life. They're not doing it through school. So I had a partner with an adult acting company Academy and they'll be eager to tell their students about your podcast. Why? Because your podcast is telling them you can actually do this. If you work with this Academy, you could actually get a career in acting. And that's what his podcast is. His podcast is the inspiration for their business. So make mailers, make some sort of flyer and send them to all of these adult acting academies and say look, I love what you're doing. You're helping people get better so that they can start acting later in life. I do a podcast about why what you're doing is valuable. Why don't you hand these out to your clients? And I think that is just a complete win-win, because David is providing the inspiration for their business.
Kevin:What do you think about like vetting a few of these and starting off with a page of recommended acting schools or courses or something like that, putting it up on his website and then, when he sends them out to these other ones that aren't listed on the site, he could say listen, let's do an exchange. I want to list the best acting resources for people who want to get into acting later in life. You're one of them. I'm not going to charge you to put you on my website. I want you to promote my podcast. Let's do a swap here.
Alban:I think that's a great idea, especially if you're in a niche community, you know. Just ranking who you think is doing the best work and something that's adjacent to you is really valuable. We did this at one point where we were like, hey, here's the people we think are doing the best podcast artwork, and we just made a list based on our opinion, and for years people reached out and said, hey, I'd like to get on the list, and it was lots of nice ways for us to talk to people, learn about other businesses, vet them, and some we do add because they do really good work, and some we don't because we don't think they're great.
Jordan:But you get to then meet a lot of people, so go ahead and write those lists and put them out in the world All right Next up we have D with Sparkling Life Coach Podcast, which is a holistic health and wellness nutrition and healing support of essential oils and natural alternatives to replace synthetic remedies synthetic remedies.
Alban:Well, long time listeners in the show will know that Dee made all of us wellness little gift baskets at Podcast Movement and gave them to us, which was very effective at getting all of us interested in her podcast. But I went even more off the wall for this idea A lot of the stuff she talks about are herbs like lavender and basil and peppermint.
Alban:All right, she talks about our herbs, like lavender and basil and peppermint. All right, let's create custom seed packets with an herb Cute, include a QR code of the podcast, put the podcast name on the seed packet and distribute them at health food stores, farmers markets, conferences. And here's why it works. Seed packets are going to cost you almost nothing. They're going to be cheap. You can make them on your own. It's unlikely. People are going to cost you almost nothing. They're going to be cheap. You can make them on your own. It's unlikely. People are going to throw them away, especially at these areas when you give them out. And now that they have them, they're going to plant the plant and they'll remember you every time they see the lavender growing and they smell it and you're building that association and they've got that little seed packet in their pocket for as long as it is before they plant it.
Jordan:I love that.
Kevin:All right. D. If you do this, please, please, include, like idiot proof instructions, because I've never been able to grow anything in my life. Anytime I try to plant something, or even buy something that's fully planted and grown, it just withers and dies quickly upon my presence entering the space. So I need instructions on how to keep it alive, how to make it thrive, but I would give it a shot. I like the idea of being able to grow something. I just haven't been able to do it successfully.
Jordan:All right, so our next one is Kitty Wink Crew Podcast. We are moms and storytellers with original stories that are silly, loving and sneakily educational.
Alban:All right, kitty Wink Crew, amazing quality podcast, but the artwork is next level. It's so cute, the mascot is this octopus and I went with the artistic qualities around the show sticker book. Kids love stickers, so let's get the mascot. Let's use the podcast artwork, podcast name any other characters you have. Include the tagline. It doesn't have to be on the sticker, it could be on the rest of the sticker sheet.
Jordan:Oh yeah.
Alban:So we're making a sticker sheet with all the info about the podcast, including those cool characters, and then give these out to listeners, give them away at library story hours, at book festivals, to kids. Kids love putting stickers on things and they put them on, and that's your guerrilla marketing.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:I love this, so I want this book to be like a teaser. Every page of the book is a teaser for one of your podcast episodes. So you get to read the intro and maybe who the characters are in the story, and then you can say like, and if you want to find out what happens to Jack the rabbit or something like, click here, and then you turn the page and there's another intro with another character or whatever. However, your podcast works, but it's like you set up the story and if you want to hear the whole story, you know, scan this QR code. That'd be fun.
Jordan:You know, piggybacking on that, my library, and I'm sure a lot of other libraries, keep a stock of coloring sheets that they print out at the library. So if you make digital coloring sheets with your podcast information on it, send it to the library. I bet you could probably get them to print out some coloring pages.
Alban:And I got to say kids are not the only people who love stickers. There is like a percentage, like 10% of adults that love stickers. I'm one of them, and every time we go to a conference we take stickers because we have nice buzz breath stickers and people love them and they always get picked up and I'm always surprised by how many people are like I love stickers and so I think this is an underrated marketing channel for lots of content creators create stickers.
Jordan:Let's hear a marketing idea for an LA Kings and Anaheim Ducks podcast called Royally Quacked.
Alban:Okay, so this is a father-son duo. The dad Gary, he's a Kings fan, His son, Cody is a Ducks fan. They're rivals. They're both in Southern California. So let's go to a rivalry game between the Kings and the Ducks, and I want you to have your podcast equipment with you, something like a Zoom or something that you can do Like H5N.
Jordan:Yeah, yeah.
Alban:Do a interview on the street and just go up to people and maybe even have a sign that says how do you feel about your family member who's a fan of the other team? You know, the dad's got one, like what would you say to your son if they were a Kings fan of the other team? The dad's got one like what would you say to your son if they were a Kings fan? Or what would you say to your son if he was a Ducks fan the opposite of you. And get people just to go out and spout off. People love to do this.
Alban:My daughter is a Florida Gators fan for some reason and I'm a Georgia Bulldog, and so we love teasing each other about it. People love sharing their family rivalry, sports rivalries, so get them to talk about it and then say great, this is going to be in an episode of our podcast. Here's a card. Go, listen to the next one. You'll be on it and just go and get a handful of people spouting off. It'll be funny, it'll be enjoyable, you'll have a great time doing it and they'll share it and you'll get a bunch of listeners.
Jordan:Awesome, all right. And our next one Creativity Found Interview podcast, where I chat with people who have found or refound their creativity in adulthood.
Alban:All right, some of these I'm now looking at, I'm like man this I don't know where I was going to this one I enjoy. I want you to record a few episodes with Etsy sellers who sell crafting kits. So imagine the ones that are like make an octopus with this, like crochet kit, and those things exist all over Etsy. So get some of those Etsy sellers, do interviews with them, then create cards about their story and give them back to them and say, hey, will you include this with your kits? Because people are going to buy them, because they want to find their creativity again, they want to do this cute little crochet thing. They see it, and now there's a card included that says, hey, hear my story and then they'll listen to the podcast. They're your target market and you have built in distribution.
Jordan:That's so smart to work with Etsy sellers. I love it.
Kevin:I didn't even know those kits existed. That's fantastic.
Jordan:All right. So this is a podcast about history and traveling to historical locations, called Talk With History.
Alban:All right, Create postcards with historical maps on one side. Postcards are cheap. Historical maps are cheap. They're free because they're no longer. There's no copyright information.
Jordan:Public domain yeah.
Alban:Public domain, hand them out at historical sites or reenactments or historical events the map already is interesting to those people and then on the back put a stamp on this postcard and say, hey, write a little note to your friend and send it to them. So you hand these out at Gettysburg, they write their little note. At the bottom it says learn more about the Battle of Gettysburg and they can go to the episode you have on that. It's about visiting sites. You're meeting people where they are. They'll learn about the podcast. They'll send it to their friends. It's going around in the mail and people are going to hold on to it because it's memorable and it's always going to have something about this podcast and eventually people are going to go. I got to check out what this is.
Alban:And it's going to cost you like 70 cents between creating the postcard and putting the stamp on there, and once you have the stamp on there, they're going to send it.
Jordan:I love that. It's so funny that Scott wrote in asking for unique marketing ideas, because he's the one. I remember this so vividly because it's genius. He's the one that came up with that like podcast tour guide called Walk With History. Do you remember him? Writing about that. Yeah, so this would be perfect for that. I mean, if he's doing those like tours and he can like leave those postcards around, that's perfect.
Kevin:Yeah, I know, I know this is supposed to be more boots on the ground type marketing ideas, but this type of podcast also makes me think that this is like the perfect setup for social media stuff Instagram reels, youtube shorts, tiktok videos. I love when I'm endlessly scrolling through those things and then you get hit with like a fact that you had no idea but it's actually true and historical and very interesting, and that always leads me into wanting to know more about that thing.
Kevin:And I'm sure, almost every topic you cover probably has dozens of those things. Oh yeah, and so it makes me think. But some of those online short form media sites might be a really good setup for your podcast. Yeah, totally agree.
Jordan:All right. And then the ladies from Sass and Sips podcast wrote in and said that their show is about two longtime friends breaking down TV shows from the perspective of one who has seen and one who is watching for the first time who has seen and one who is watching for the first time.
Alban:So this one was harder, because people who are doing long watches of TV shows are not likely going to be doing that out in public with other people. It's mostly private. So here is my off the wall idea Create drink recipes, because this is a sass and sips. Make drink recipes that are related to the seasons of your podcast. So I looked, you have a season about lost, so make something like the smoke monster martini. Ooh, yeah, make this little recipe card. Pick a type of vodka that is specific, you know for this martini. Make it branded you know it's gotta be absolute vodka for some reason. And now put a little like string on it and go to your local liquor store and say, hey, can we put these on? App, these are drink cards for absolute vodka, can we put it on there? And you go and you put them on all of the absolute vodka bottles and then when people get it, it's on there and it says like, oh, it's, you know, the absolute vodka. Smoke monster martini.
Jordan:And they go great and on the back.
Alban:It's got have a drink and listen to the podcast.
Kevin:There's so many problems with this idea. Alban, there's no liquor store that's going to let you do that. I don't know Absolute would have a problem with a liquor store letting people put stuff on their bottles in the store.
Jordan:Okay, let's say that you won't go to a local distillery, though.
Kevin:Yeah, they could do it because they make the stuff yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, okay, and they would probably love that. A local distillery would love that, because they want someone to see a card with a recipe that's like oh, that actually sounds really good. I'm going to buy that bottle so I can make that.
Alban:So I can make that. So there you go. Jordan fixed your idea Alban Local distilleries. So when I wrote this one, I went it's unlikely you're going to get a yes at ABC Liquor. And then I went Kevin is going to tell me that, and so maybe I'll say it in a way that implies just go do it and don't ask for permission. But Jordan's way is better Go to like in Jacksonville we have like Manifest Brewing that does local liquors, and so you could go there and they'll be like oh, that's awesome, this is actually for our vodka, of course, right.
Jordan:Next one, Biohacker Babes.
Alban:It's two sisters who discuss the latest science and tools in the world of biohacking, longevity and health optimization. All right, every time I've been in a sauna like at least half of the times I've been in a sauna and there's other people in there the other guys were like hey, do you know about the benefits of sauna? And they all say things that are not true. They're just totally wrong.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:So here's my idea Do an episode about sauna? Um, they have lots of episodes about specific health benefits, but I'm trying to think of places where people are sitting down about specific health benefits. But I'm trying to think of places where people are sitting down arguing Learn the scientific benefits of sauna with a QR code and maybe even put the like specific sauna protocols that have been tested and have benefits on that card. Go to your gyms that have saunas, that infrared saunas, places like that, and say can we put these in the sauna and then put them in there to tack them up to the wall. People are, they're captive audience. They're just sitting there sweating, they're reading anything they can see and they're like oh, this biohacker babes podcast actually talks about the real benefits of sauna. I've got to learn more about it.
Kevin:I like it. I think they can apply similar techniques to almost any topic they're covering. Right right, you just started with sauna, but, like I talked about in the last episode, like I got mouth tape going. Now, like I'm sure there's somebody on, what are those sites that you order from? Like um, amazon, no, no, no, like, not amazon, you goofballs. The uh, the site where you have to buy a thousand of something in order to get it shipped, alibaba, like, yeah, alibaba. Like can you go to alibaba and get like branded mouth tape or something like that and have them put it in like little three packs? So like, try mouth tape and you put your podcast name on there, learn more about the benefits or what people are saying about it, and then you're handing out mouth tape at events or around town or whatever.
Alban:All right, so the first 14 were mine. Now this next group is Jordan's Ghost of Radio. These are horror and supernatural stories, so kind of golden area of radio with ghost stories. How are we going to market this, jordan?
Jordan:So I think you should host live haunted listening parties in historical or eerie venues such as like old theaters or libraries or local haunted houses, and with the group of people you play, horror radio episodes in near darkness, with candlelight you know optional and you can do live commentary as like the host of the podcast, and you can also work with local historical societies to incorporate stories from the venue itself. And I think that you could promote these events through posters in like local cafes, libraries or community boards and partner with local businesses on this. I think that this is a really fun idea that people would be so down for.
Alban:I feel like you would go to this.
Jordan:I would 1000% go to this.
Alban:Jordan is confident that her own house is haunted, mainly because she gets audio artifacts in her recordings and she's like it must be a ghost.
Jordan:Yeah, come do a haunted listing party at my house.
Alban:The next one was from Wisconsin. Our podcast is where we drink cocktails and give honest reviews on the latest romance novels that we read. What is a good marketing idea for them? Jordan?
Jordan:Okay, this is another one that I was very excited about and would probably go to, so Fae Romance has been just exploding recently.
Alban:What is Fae Romance?
Jordan:Fae Romance, so it's romance novels, but it's set with like dark fairies. It's sort of like a fantasy romance thing that's going on. But anyway, it's exploded recently and so what people are doing is they are hosting these fey balls and galas in cities and so people are like dressing up and they have like the wings and the crowns and all that stuff and they go and they, you know, go to a ball and it's just this like huge thing that's taking off recently. So I think that you could take advantage of this and you can organize like a pre-party or even a cocktail mixing class with cocktails inspired by Fae romance novels, like a court of thorns and roses I'm thinking like night court nectar, you know things like that.
Jordan:There's tons of these recipes like on Pinterest. You can go look it up, and these can be online workshops as well. But you could also create romance-inspired drink recipes with your podcast information on them and tuck them into popular romance novels at libraries and local bookstores, so you know that you're reaching your target audience, because they're going to be the ones reading those books. And then they go oh, what's this? And slap a QR code on it. They'll listen to the episode.
Alban:Some oh, what's this? And slap a QR code on it, they'll listen to the episode. Some of these ideas, jordan, have been very good ideas that may be harder than making the podcast to begin with. What I feel, like throwing a.
Jordan:I just get so excited You're going to throw a gala A gala.
Alban:I really love the idea of making bookmarks and then, when you've read a romance novel, especially one that you've done an episode about, slip that into the book and pray that the library doesn't take it out. And then somebody gets it and they're like, oh, this is cool.
Kevin:Yeah, we're going to have lots of ideas for this one, because the cocktail part of this made me think that if I went into a speakeasy or a bar or something and there were coasters on the table that each one featured a different book with a QR code to like get our book review or something and maybe a free cocktail recipe or whatever. But coasters are really cheap to produce. We produce them for Buzzsprout. We've got Buzzsprout coasters all over our office and I know you can get them at Sticker Mule or most sticker shops will print coasters.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:And if you're really tricky, you put the logo of the bar on the coaster with a QR code under it. Really tricky you put the logo of the bar on the coaster with a QR code under it. So then when people are cleaning up the bar at the end of the night, they're like, well, these must be our coasters because they have our logo on them, so they keep them forever.
Alban:Okay, I mean, I love that when it's Kevin's idea, they get way more unethical, but when it's our idea, the slightly on the edge. Kevin's like whoa, whoa, whoa. Ethics first. He's like you can't do that it's got the bar's logo and it says listen to an episode for a free drink with a QR code. You throw that out there and people are like sweet, they're going to listen to the episode. They're like, hey, listen to it, Can I get the free drink?
Kevin:And they're like what the hell are you talking about about? So you crossed the line.
Jordan:Yeah, I love it. You took that way too far.
Alban:It's going to work. It's unethical, but it'll work.
Jordan:Oh man.
Alban:Number 17, budget your business. So this is about helping small business owners financially plan for every aspect of their business. They have a small following. After six months, they're ready to kick it off marketing wise. What's going to happen for them, jordan?
Jordan:Yeah, so another thing that's been increasingly more and more popular over the last few years is co-working spaces, especially with people remotely working or starting up their own e-commerce businesses, and so I think that what you could do is you could collaborate with a co-working space to host workshops that focus on topics like how to budget for your first year or financial projections one-on-one, and then you can give out checklists or workbooks with your podcast info and just make sure that you like link to the episodes whenever you want to have workshop attendees deep dive a little bit further into a topic that you covered.
Alban:Very nice. I like the idea of working with coworking spaces, too, because a lot of people will start topic that you covered Very nice. I like the idea of working with co-working spaces, too, because a lot of people will start there when they're a new business. Yeah, all right. Number 18, your checkup. This is a podcast about patient education. It's a health podcast, bringing conversations from doctors' offices to you.
Jordan:This is one of the easier ones for me to come up with an idea. I think that it's such a good idea to collaborate with like local clinics and urgent care facilities to have your materials in there. You know, you can create an episode that's like five things to ask for, you know, at your next checkup and then obviously put a QR code to the corresponding episode in that. But I think that you could easily leave some materials in a waiting room in an urgent care facility or a hospital or something like that. I think that would be something you could do.
Alban:Awesome. Make sure you do really good medical advice and you actually get the permission for this one. This is one where ethics is going to push you over the edge.
Jordan:And this is one where you could actually work with the doctors and the physicians that are in these facilities. You know, maybe interview them, talk to them and then you can link to that episode. So I mean, there's ways to work in there.
Kevin:You know, can I piggyback on this a little bit.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:I wonder if there's opportunities to interview like specialists or something like that, and then get them to promote their episode for you when patients schedule with them for the first time. So let's just say I have to see an optometrist or something. So I call to make the appointment and they say, okay, here's your appointment, here's when you need to come in and here's all this stuff. If you have any questions about what to expect for your first appointment, we're going to, you know, send you an email with all this stuff and in the email there's a link to listen to this episode that our optometrists on staff have done with you about what goes into preparing for your first optometry visit. Just that's one example, but I'm sure there's tons of specialties.
Jordan:I love that.
Kevin:You know the first time you're going to go see a chiropractor, or your first time you're going to go see this doctor or that doctor or whatever.
Alban:If you do specific episodes with these types of doctors, then figuring out, is there a way that I can get them to promote the episode for me? I love that. All right, Number 19,.
Jordan:Discount Storytime a podcast that tells screwball fiction, short stories for grownups. So this one was a little bit different from the other storytelling podcasts that we had because it's for adults, it's not for kids. So we can't do like sticker books or things like that. I guess maybe we could, because we've established that adults love stickers. But I've got a little bit of a twofer on this one because we do want to have like a physical world idea.
Jordan:But I have another marketing idea that I myself did. So the first one, physical world open mic nights, are really popular with, like storytellers and standup comedians and you could attend some open mic nights and make some connections with other people that are in like the humorous storytelling space. And then you could work with a local bar or a coffee shop to do sort of like a pop-up storytelling night of your own and invite those other local storytellers, and then you could also have materials at the event like coasters of your podcast with the QR code. And then you could also have materials at the event like coasters of your podcast with the QR code. And then you could also do a live recording of the event and publish it as like a special bonus episode on your podcast.
Alban:Jordan loves the events.
Jordan:I love the events I love the people.
Alban:You love scheduling the events.
Jordan:Events are much more simple. I'm just like you could totally do this.
Alban:Well, I think we're talking about ideas that we would want to do, and I don't enjoy planning events, and so I got very shy. Anytime, that was the idea that I started going towards. This is really good.
Kevin:I like this idea for this podcast is that it feels like you have some audience right. Obviously, you want to grow, but I don't know if you have 20 people listening to every episode or you have 200. I don't know. But you have some amount of people who like listening to these stories, and I imagine that people who listen to these type of stories might have ideas for their own stories themselves. And so, maybe, encouraging your listeners to share your short story with me If you share a short story with the show, you can either read it I'll say you know I'll read it at the end of an episode or you set up like a Google voice number or speak pipe or something, and you say you've record your show, you know two minutes or less, and I'll play it at the end of random episodes.
Kevin:The nice thing about that is that you're going to spread your show to your circle of influence. That's not too hard to do. You're going to tell your friends and your family, but if you can get your 20 listeners to do this too, and they each get a little episode where they're featured at the end, then they're going to send it, share it with their circle, and so each of those 20 have a 20. And before you know it, you'll have your a hundred listeners.
Jordan:Kevin, that is actually exactly what my second suggestion is, and it's based on something that I did, I know, with my own storytelling podcast.
Kevin:I'm sorry, I stole your thunder.
Jordan:No, you're totally fine. This is great because you're backing up my reasoning here. So I used to do poetry readings for Poetry Month and for the poetry readings I would ask listeners to submit their poetry and then I'd do like an episode of poetry that was listener submitted. It was by far my most shared episodes I would do each year, and so I think that you could call for like humorous story submissions to be read on it.
Jordan:You could do like a Mad Libs style and ask like listeners to like prompt, you like characters or you know places, things like that, and then use that to construct a story for, like, the next episode. But yeah, you could absolutely do that and integrate your listeners and then they'll be all excited that you know they're in your show and then they share it with their friends and family.
Kevin:Right, yeah, you have much more mature thoughts around this idea. But that's, I think, with this, with a creative story podcast like this, that's the idea of getting the audience engaged to the point where they want to share it because they've got some piece of it. Yeah, that's what I love.
Jordan:All right, Alban, I'm going to volley it back to you.
Alban:There Are no Gays in Montana is a lifestyle podcast hosted by a married couple, isaac and Tyler, and they share their experiences as gay men growing up in Montana. All right, so a few of the episodes I talk about was the unique culture of growing up in Montana, but there's a lot about like, yeah, it's just it's a really spread out place, it's really rural, so your chances of meeting other people who are gay is harder. There's not as many places to go and there's not as many events. And on dating apps they talked about, like they always do, 50 miles plus because they're willing to meet anybody, because they're trying to find the few people living nearby. So here's my idea Design a fun illustrated gay map of Montana highlighting bars, meetups, venues, places for them to go because they're talking about how hard it is to meet people and all the venues discussed on the podcast. Then include, obviously, podcast logo QR code blah, blah, blah. Hand these out at Montana pride celebrations or local LGBTQ plus events.
Jordan:I love that. That is such a fun idea.
Alban:And they've already figured all this out, like that's what the podcast is about. Where are these places? We've talked about these locations. Let's make a map.
Kevin:Yeah, it seems like any of the locations that would be on the map would be a place to distribute the map, because just cause you know one of the locations doesn't mean you know all the rest of them.
Alban:Right, and if it's all of Montana, it might be like you know if you're the ice cream shop they talk about in one city, it's not like you're going to feel competitive against a bar that's 60 miles away. You'd be like sure, put that here. I love that you're highlighting us on the map.
Jordan:Oh, that's so good. All right, so our next one, mick, and the Fat man Talking Music. So this podcast is about music, artists, albums and events, mainly from the 70s and 80s.
Alban:And they said they've done four seasons and they've done some of our suggestions. So they put some of our suggestions into play. They made flyers and cards and they put them in local coffee shops and music shops.
Jordan:Oh nice.
Alban:And everyone who listens to the show says it's good, and they just wanted somebody to affirm that that was a good idea for them. I love that they're doing that. That is very cool. So here is my unique idea for you. Okay, 70s and 80s music very specific audience. So what about classic?
Kevin:rock. You call 70s and 80s classic. What would you?
Alban:call that era.
Jordan:They're calling 90s music classic now.
Alban:Is that where we are?
Jordan:Yes, it's sad, have we?
Alban:crossed. I listen to 90s music and I'm like, oh, this is like not that old. And then I'm like that's 30 years old.
Kevin:I just don't know if it officially made the jump yet.
Alban:Like if we say 80s rock 80s rock is still a thing and I feel like classic rock is a thing, but I don't think it's 80s, I think they're the same. I know, I'm sorry, 80s rock was so distinctive. 80s rock is distinctive, it is a special 70s like 50s, 60s, 70s.
Kevin:I'd call all that classic rock.
Jordan:But yeah, I think you too, and like counting crows and stuff like that. I think they've also like crossed the threshold. Classic rock, which is really sad. It's like 90s, I know. I feel like.
Alban:Mick and the Fat man. They know they know they're talking music. They know what to call this. I might call this classic rock. Sounds like I might be wrong about that Classic rock and 80s rock, so that if you were born in the 70s you don't feel old.
Kevin:I would say Rock.
Alban:Trivia Night. We're doing a trivia night.
Jordan:Oh, an event from Alban.
Alban:Question one is what is this night called? Run classic rock trivia night with a local bar or restaurant that serves your target audience. Validate this idea before you run the event by creating a few classic rock trivia questions on flyers and hand them out at other trivia nights, and then people can scan the QR code to go listen about your show, because they're talking about old music, they know all these cool little facts about bands, they know who left what band to go start another one, all the wild stories. This just leans so far into trivia and the super fans who know the trivia are the same super fans who want to listen to Mick and the fat man talking music.
Jordan:That's awesome. Yeah, okay, Alban, the Wellness Lab Digest, which is wellness with. What is wrong with me?
Kevin:Such a tongue twister.
Jordan:I know Wellness Wisdom Simplified and they say join us for your almost daily dose of distilled insights from the top wellness experts. Each episode is designed to empower you with practical tips so you can stay informed and inspire without the time commitment.
Alban:All right, wellness Lab. When I looked at it, they have not been podcasting for a whole year. I may be wrong about that, but that was my memory. January is your Super Bowl, everybody in January. That's when everyone starts doing wellness things.
Kevin:January is also the Super Bowl's Super Bowl. Yeah, in January, that's when everyone starts doing wellness things. January is also the Super Bowl Super.
Alban:Bowl yeah, the actual Super Bowl sometimes in January or February, but the Wellness Super Bowl is in January too. So this is where you have your huge opportunity in January to grow your podcast about wellness. And the big thing is, everyone gets a new year's resolution and they start habits and they want to form habits and they want to keep them. So do an episode on habit formation. Then make a habit formation card about like the five things like make it obvious, make the habit small, have a plan for when you're going to do the habit, blah, blah, blah all the normal habit things. Make that card QR code to the episode about habits.
Alban:Maybe you talk about James Clear's book or something and you hand these out at gyms, coffee shops, places where people at races, where people are getting into doing new habits. And even if they know about habits, they'll be like oh, it's good to have this little checklist of the five things to do to make me stick to a habit. And now they on the back have your QR code to your podcast. But January is, I would bet, half of the growth you'll get. All year happens in this first few months of the year.
Jordan:Oh, that's such a good idea. Solid yeah.
Kevin:I'll piggyback on stuff you can hand out at any gym or judo studios, karate studios, any sort of yoga places. I bet they would all take if you dropped off a basket of like. I use rugby balls, but anybody who's into working out or fitness would use like a massage ball or a foam ball or anything just to work out sore muscles. And I need tons of them. I need one in my car, I need one in my office, I need one in my home gym, and anytime I want to go to find one I can't find it, so I'm always looking for new ones. So if you just I'm sure these things are cheap, right Can't you get like foam balls or rugby balls printed with your name, your podcast on them or something, and drop a dozen off at the local gym?
Alban:I think that's really good, because so many people do the stress balls and I'm like no, you don't need a stress ball, that has never relieved any stress. That's just annoyed me. I throw them directly into the trash.
Kevin:Yeah, I need like a rugby ball.
Alban:But a rugby ball which you're actually going to use to massage out a knot in your back or something. That's a great idea, kevin. I love that.
Jordan:All right. Next we have your most interesting story. My podcast intends to tell anyone's most interesting true story in a compelling and entertaining way, and they basically want to give anyone an NPR quality piece of content that covers one of their life's best stories.
Alban:All right, rob, this one was tough because your target audience is anyone who loves stories, which is pretty broad, and I was trying to tighten it up and it seemed like I wasn't able to. But I read about your show and I was looking at episodes. There are some cool stories in here, like somebody who grew up in their family ran a firework store and there's ghost stories and it's people just telling their true stories, but they seem to be like normal people. So let's create business cards with the lead for some of these stories. You know, like here's what it was like growing up in a firework store and you've got that on the card and take them to open mic story night. I looked locally. We have tons of them around us in Jacksonville. I'm sure you have some around you and so go and hand them out to people. You'll find good people to be on the podcast, but you'll also will find the audience for the podcast and that's where you could hand out those cards.
Jordan:That's great.
Kevin:It is great, your most interesting story. I love the name of this podcast because it is true that everyone has an interesting story. Oftentimes I feel like you know people don't believe that about themselves and in the way to kind of overcome that that you have an interesting story is to listen to other people's interesting stories. I just love this very cool podcast. I'm gonna check it out.
Alban:Another one came in Jordan. You took this one. It's called Super Sex all about sex and relationships from a queer and straight perspective.
Jordan:Yeah. So this one I came up with what I think is kind of like a fun idea. So it's kind of reminiscent of what was the radio show, like the Love Line or oh, adam Carolla and Dr Drew, that was Love Lines. Yeah.
Kevin:I have no idea. This is an old radio show. It was MTV and it was also on the radio, and then I think like Sirius XM took it over. Okay.
Jordan:Yeah, but people would like call in and, you know, get advice, and so this is like similar to that. So you could set up what I would call like maybe a hotline, or like super sex hotline, where people can anonymously submit questions or share funny, awkward or insightful relationship stories via voicemail, and then you can use these stories as part of your podcast episodes and the graphics on this podcast are actually really stunning and so they could create really cool flyers or like cards to promote the hotline and put it in places like clubs or like burlesque venues or other like LGBTQ plus places and obviously on social media too. But I think that that would be really cool.
Kevin:This idea feels ripe for, like just going into a bar and taping up a flyer in the bathroom.
Jordan:Yes, thousand percent.
Kevin:It's not going to be there for long, but it might have some effect while it's there, just carve it into the bathroom stall. No, don't carve it. Make it easy to remove and use, like the blue painter's tape, so you don't do any damage. You don't want to get in trouble.
Alban:It's funny. I love, jordan, the idea of people calling in with either and like leaving the voicemail of their question or their story because there's probably a lot of questions that there are people are like this is too awkward. I don't know what. I don't know how to ask anybody in my real life about this. I'll just ask this anonymous podcast.
Kevin:Yeah, sort of like the play on the Dear Abby column right, but in podcast form.
Jordan:Yeah, exactly, all right, we made it. We're at the final one.
Alban:The final one. So this one. It didn't give me much, but I did some digging.
Jordan:Okay.
Alban:This is all I got. It was a Texas area code and it said podcast topic child care director support. And I did a bunch of research and I'm pretty sure this podcast came from child care conversations with Kate and Carrie. They have 62 years of expertise and experience in the childcare business and so here's my idea You're trying to reach childcare center people who are running them, so let's do appreciation postcards and let's create these mailers with a QR code leading to the podcast with a handwritten message about how important the work they're doing is, and maybe it could be something about thank you for how much you're doing for kids and here's how we can help you make your business more profitable. Or here's how we structure the pickup time so that it's a little bit more efficient. Whatever things you're talking about in the episodes, but send those out to childcare center places. Both of you have worked, they said, with like 7,000 or something, so they have lots of experience and they probably have lots of people they could reach out to. So let's reach out to them with handwritten cards.
Kevin:The idea of think local comes to mind here, where I imagine there are other small business owners around town that would want to appreciate these childcare workers in the same way that you guys do. And so if you go to a local bakery and you say, hey, would you donate a couple of dozen cookies and I'm going to deliver them to childcare workers around town and just thank them for the work that they're doing and I'm going to give them a little note. A little note it's going to talk about your podcast, but it's also going to mention where the cookies came from. If you like them, you might want to go get more, or a local flower shop or whatever, a local candle shop or something. You're just going to give them a little gift from a local shop and you're going to have a note that mentions your podcast, and so you could probably get some of these things donated to be able to do it.
Jordan:You know, when I worked at a daycare, briefly, I noticed that they used a lot of like checklists and worksheets that they just like downloaded online or also like training materials for their staff members. So you could create some really quick checklists for childcare, like closing up or something like that, or you know materials that they could use to train their staff on certain things and, you know, have your podcast information on that as well.
Alban:I love that idea.
Alban:Put a Google Drive together with tons of checklists and then they can all grab them. I saw somebody recently did this where they developed a video game and then they put together all of the documents they use to raise money to fund the video game and they put it in a Google Drive. And then they went and they found a Reddit forum. Then it was like, hey, we just raised $2 million whatever for a video game that we're creating. Here are all the documents you need to raise money. You can steal them from us, and it got hundreds of thousands of views on Reddit within something like 50 articles written about them.
Alban:Wow so there really is something to putting the effort in to creating a nice Google Drive full of all the documents and then sharing it. People are like, wow, this is all the work done for me.
Jordan:Absolutely.
Alban:I also noticed May 10th is National Provider Appreciation Day. So, like child care provider, that would be a day that you could try to drop off cookies and do stuff to appreciate anybody who's doing childcare and you could appreciate them and you could also tell them about your podcast, right.
Jordan:Awesome. Well, I actually really loved doing this. I think that there's so many, however many, ideas to market your podcast articles out there, but they're not really written for anyone specific, so it was really fun having these like real world podcasts that you know had their niches and had their like individual challenges for us to go through and kind of brainstorm some ideas with them. I think that this has been very fun.
Alban:Yeah, a few things that kind of came to me as I went through this process. One is if you know who your audience is, it's much easier to meet them, and if you don't know who your audience is, it's going to be very difficult to find them. So figure out, like, who is the perfect person to listen to this podcast and what are the things that that person does and how can I be a part of their life in a way that is helpful to them? And how can I be a part of their life in a way that is helpful to them If you're just accosting people on the street with, like a CD saying like, hey, listen to my new album. No one wants to listen to it because they're like, oh gosh, they want something from me.
Alban:But if you go to an event that is already something you're excited about you're going skateboarding and they're like, hey, here's a podcast about skateboard culture in our city Then you're like, cool, that sounds awesome, I'm into skateboarding. As you can see, I'm on the half pipe. So find your audience in real life and if they're already excited about the topic, then they're much more likely to listen than if you have to find them in a random place where everybody else is fighting for their attention. I'd like to hear if anyone actually uses these. If anyone does these, you know D if you make the lavender seed seed packets or something, let us know.
Jordan:So let's move it to sound off. So first off, we have a message from Longmont, colorado. I've never started a podcast, but I would like to. I ran a Christian organization that focuses on corporate prayer, business innovation and generosity networking. I'm wondering how to craft a podcast that would include all three of these, or should I have three separate podcasts?
Alban:I'm not a hundred percent sure because I don't know exactly who the audience is for each of these. You know I'm not sure. Is corporate prayer? Are you trying to get people who are in the corporate world or corporate leaders? I would say, tell me who is the target audience for each of these topics. If it's the same audience, like the Venn diagram is just a circle it's the same circle on top of itself, then one podcast. If it's three separate ones that maybe overlap a little bit, then I would say split them up. But the way that I would figure that out is who is the target audience? And if it's the same people, keep it together. But remember, you can always change this down the line. We're going to iterate over time.
Jordan:Yeah, I would honestly run the podcast the way that you run your organization, like as an extension of that. So I mean, if you have an organization that covers all these topics and you don't have it separated out into different like businesses or organizations, I'd probably do the same for the podcast, right?
Kevin:Yeah, there has to be some sort of unique characteristics that overlap between these three things. If you ran a Christian organization that focused on these three things, so, how did you find people that were a good fit for the organization?
Kevin:Those are the same people that would be a good fit for the podcast, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that being a really tight group. You know, starting with a tight group lets you really focus your marketing efforts. To be able to find them really well, as opposed to the broader ones, can sometimes be more hard, even though, ultimately, there's more people out there. It ultimately there's more people out there. It's hard to know where to start.
Alban:It's kind of like you know the shotgun approach as opposed to you know rifle precision. Sometimes it's easier to start. If you can be more precise, chris, from potastic audio reach out fantastic episode. We need to critically listen back to our own episodes so we can improve. Sometimes, as creators, we listen much differently than we do as regular listener. I know I do Create the show that you would be a fan of. If you won't listen, how would you expect anyone else to listen? Keep up the amazing work. Love you guys. Thank you, chris. I appreciate that message.
Alban:I recently ran across this quote from an artist, tom Sachs, and he said the reward for good work is more work, and what he means, what the phrase means is you do good work. You get to do more of that type of work, and it's humorous if you're doing something you really dislike, because then you're like oh, if I shovel the snow really well, then people are going to ask me to shovel more snow, and so it's a good reminder. Like, don't do the work you hate. If it's paying the bills, then there's a reason for it, but if you're doing a podcast that you are not loving, the reward for doing good work on your podcast is going to be more work for your podcast. You'll get to do more of it, and so make the show you want to make, make the show you're excited about, because you would really hate for it to be successful, and the only reward is you have to do more of this thing that you never really liked to begin with.
Jordan:Guys, I have something to tell you.
Kevin:We got a fan mail in from Sanford, florida, right down the road from us here in Jacksonville, and said commenting on stats going down for people, I do a movie podcast and in November it was actually my biggest month ever. Well, congratulations. I don't know, I wonder how seasonal that is. I know there's some big movies that have dropped right now, yes, and so maybe around the holidays people watch a lot of movies and I think that is there's some truth to that, so that's great, congratulations for you.
Kevin:Also, later on in the message said something about an older episode is doing really great overseas right now, and I think that's just a good reminder is that sometimes you drop an episode and it doesn't go gangbusters right off the bat, but it sits around for a little while and then all of a sudden it picks up steam for some reason and that's fantastic, especially if you cover, like, a movie that all of a sudden gets popular overseas, which I'm assuming happened in this case. Or maybe you cover a topic that all of a sudden pops up in the news and people start searching for it. So yeah, like, don't give up on your old episodes. They could take off at at any given time.
Alban:Yeah, I've seen so many podcasts over the holidays of re-releasing episodes, like we talked about doing where we were driving, we're listening to the journal, and they had an old episode that was just a repeat of the cranberry industry and they're talking about oh, there's cranberries at Thanksgiving, everyone eats them. So here's this episode again, and it was so interesting and we all had just eaten cranberries at Thanksgiving and so it was a perfect re-release. So when you see things come up that are related to the work that you're doing, definitely re-release episodes or bring them back and do an improved version of it. Don't be shy of that, because when things are in the news, that's the time to jump on it.
Jordan:Yeah, actually, with the release of Wicked, my Wizard of Oz episode that I did like in 2022, actually got a pretty good bump in downloads this year. Oh yeah, I bet that's cool yeah.
Alban:Somebody from Washington reached out first time listening to your show. Wow Exclamation point. So packed with good stuff. Thank you, Thank you. This is the nicest thing about fan mail is that in between all of these messages say, hey, how do I market your show when I was going? Oh boy, I've got some work on my plate. We got this nice one from Washington, so we appreciate you.
Jordan:And as an added bonus, I got to pin another super nice fan mail message to our website.
Jordan:Oh yeah, thank you so thank you, perfect. So our sound off question for our next episode. Go back and listen to one of your older episodes of your podcast, or even a recent episode, and let us know one thing that you think you should improve upon in your podcasting. So to have your responses featured on our next episode, go ahead and tap the link in the show notes to send it in. And, as always, thanks for listening and keep podcasting.
Alban:Kevin and I were in the office last week and I told him whatever you tell me, 100%, I'm committed to what you say to do.
Jordan:Okay.
Alban:And the question was my brother wants me to run a 50K with him next week, which now will be, if you're listening to this, when this episode drops, it'll be tomorrow.
Jordan:Saturday oh my gosh.
Alban:It's in North Georgia. It's 27 degrees. I am not made for the cold. It's in the woods. It's 31 miles. It starts before the sun comes up. Oh my gosh and Kevin, knowing me, what did you say?
Kevin:I said I don't need to tell you what to do because you can't do it. I said I don't need to tell you what to do because you can't do it. You just can't do it, and so it doesn't matter if I say you should do it or you shouldn't do it. You can't.
Jordan:Oh boy.
Kevin:So it's like I mean, you may as well ask me like should.
Alban:I just go outside and fly around the neighborhood with, by flapping my arms, Same thing. So if, uh, Kevin, I've now known each other 10 years and I've worked for Kevin for almost 10 years and a couple of weeks it will be 10 years, Kevin knows, the best way to motivate me is to tell me, no, you cannot do that, that's not possible. Not like rule breaker, but just like, nah, that challenge is too much for you. Then I'm like oh, you think it is. No, I'm going to prove you wrong.
Jordan:I'll show you.
Alban:So I uh, since then, have been like well got to get some long runs in. Uh, all of the longest runs I've ever done in my life have been in the last three weeks. So I've I've topped out at 21 miles, I've done a 21 mile run, I've done a couple of races, I've done a bunch of training runs, I've done a couple of races, I've done a bunch of training runs, and on Friday I'm flying up there and I'm going to run this thing starting at 6 30 AM on Saturday.
Kevin:Now, what do you consider completing?
Alban:Look, it's 20. It's a. The cutoff, I think, is 11 hours. Right, I think doable is somewhere in the realm of seven to eight.
Jordan:Alban, I literally thought this was one of those races that took place over the entire weekend. No this is a race, that's one day.
Alban:Yeah, I think there's 5,000 feet of elevation. So I did the math on that and I was like, oh, that's like an hour of me on the Stairmaster. So my brother's like we could do this in six hours and I'm like a good marathon time is four hours. Then you have to run another five miles, Then you have to do an hour on the Stairmaster All of that.
Kevin:Are you guys planning on staying together? That is up for debate, all right.
Alban:So my prediction is you, we won't, because I think he's going to be. I think we'll stick together, probably for like the first 10 miles or something, and then I think he's going to cruise ahead.
Kevin:Yeah, I think he's going to complete it.
Jordan:If you were to complete this race in 11 hours, that would be 2.8 miles.
Kevin:Yeah, you could walk it. Yeah, but that's, that's not what I said, like when you said can I run this race? My definition of running is like only one foot is touching the ground at any given moment. As soon as two feet touched the ground, now you've walked part of it and you haven't completed the race.
Alban:Oh my gosh, I don't think that's doable. There's going to be ice on the course Right and you have to climb down a Canyon, so at some point I'm going to touch with two feet and probably hands.
Kevin:Well, I mean, if you're, if you're like bouldering, I guess two feet can be on the ground. But the rest of the race is like, if you're doing a like a mud run, there's obstacles where you stop, you traverse the obstacle and then you keep running. But all the all the parts that you can run, you need to be running.
Alban:Yeah, the goals for me are don't tear my ACL, no permanent injury, no long-term injury, finish the race and stretch goal would be something like Kevin say don't walk a bunch of it, but I'm going to walk some of it for sure. There's no way I can run 31 miles through the woods.
Jordan:You know what, Alban? I was thinking that this was insanity and there's no way you could do it. I was a little bit team Kevin on this and now that I'm hearing about it and I'm like actually thinking about it, I think you could do this.
Kevin:Well, he could. He could do this modified version that, uh, 80% of the world could do, which is just walk the most of it through the Hills, and it's just kind of a mental game and you're kind of fighting off foot blisters and other like non-real injury things. They're just discomforts. But I was saying I was the question that I was asked is can I run a 31 mile race through the woods with elevation? And the answer to that is no, he cannot.
Alban:I just love how the goalposts have moved as soon as I committed. Kevin moved the goalpost and now I'm nervous that I'm going to. I know this is going to happen. Now I will be running, I'll be eight miles in is when you have to go down into the canyon and I'm going to want to walk the stairs and Kevin will be in my mind going yeah, I knew you couldn't do this.
Kevin:Yeah, and I want to see your heart rate monitor. I want to see the chart afterward so I can identify the parts of which you walked.
Alban:When I ran 21 miles, I sent Kevin the race and he goes why are all these heart rate dips in there? And I'm like, well, that's when I got home and ate drank like two Gatorades and ate some food and grab some food on the way out and he's like, oh, so you didn't run the whole time. Yeah, it didn't count. Oh my gosh. So the goal is finish. The longest run I've ever run was when Kevin and I did the river run, which is 15K, so this is a 35 more.
Kevin:When the gun goes off at the start till the time you cross the finish line if your heart rate goes below 130, you lose, I will lose.
