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Hi, everyone; this is Denise and today we are talking podcasting. Is it something that you and your company want to consider starting? I am going to give you some criteria on where this works well.
Some of the things you want to think about, and some of the many, many benefits of actually going online, speaking into a microphone like I’m doing today, and some of the benefits that that will give you.
[Excuse any weird typing errors. This is a direct transcription for your benefit.]
If you are new here, welcome a transcription of all our blogs on the Superfast Recruitment website.
If you go to superfastrecruitment.co.uk/blog, the podcasts are there, and they’re all transcribed.
Before I start, I want to say that if you haven’t downloaded our Video Masterclass series on getting consistent lead flow, I strongly suggest you do.
The training is a series of videos that you can go and watch. All you need to do is go to superfastrecruitment.co.uk/clf, which stands for consistent lead flow in case you forget it.
In this training, we share frameworks that we use with our clients and teach, and we give you an overview of where to start to build your brand, grab authority and begin a flow of leads.
Is Podcasting For You?
Let us talk about podcasting, and is this a strategy for you?
It is fascinating we’re talking about rivers and flow and being in flow. Often, we will say to people, “Look, there are many things you can do. You can write content, and you can record videos; you can get on a podcast.” Particularly, I like podcasting. I am very much in my flow.
If the thought of sitting in front of a microphone scares the living daylights out of you, you have to think, A, can I get over myself and B? Is this something I want to do?
Now, there are some reasons why you might want to consider pushing yourself out of your comfort zone because podcasting is where it is at.
Let me share a little bit about this because I was listening to something over the weekend whilst the storm was– The storm will be a theme to this podcast.
I was on YouTube watching some of Gary Vaynerchuk’s video content. The guy is a maniac when it comes to creating content; if you do not know him, well worth going and checking out some of his content.
He was, I will use the word immigrant; that’s what he calls himself. He moved over to the States when he was a nipper when he was a young boy, with his parents from eastern Europe and started various businesses. He is always worked in business, and he’s an entrepreneur, and his dad used to run a wine company. You might call it to bargain alcohol or something like that in the U.K. This is where you can go and purchase wine.
Gary started using paid advertising and video and became incredibly well-known approaching 20 years ago.
He’s written several books, well worth buying his books. He also has a media company called VaynerMedia, which is predicted to be the biggest media marketing company in the world within the next two or three years.
Gary does talk a lot of sense, and I love how he talks about marketing when he says marketing is oxygen to your business.
“If you want to move forward, then you need to be thinking about marketing. I don’t want to be looking at P&L; somebody else can do that, but what I want to focus on is marketing.”
In the video I watched about podcasting, he shared how it is good to turn the tables and be the producer rather than the consumer. Having a podcast could make an enormous difference to your market and your positioning.
Knowing that, here are a few questions to ask yourself to work out: Do I start a podcast? Is it going to be worth it?
Does Your Market Listen to Podcasts?
The first thing is, do your market listen to podcasts? Who is your audience? Now, many people listen to podcasts in the B2B environment.
I have podcasts that I listen to every single week. I have about half a dozen.
As I am recording this, I know today that Stacy’s podcast always lands on a Wednesday. Brook’s always lands on a Thursday. There is another particular podcast that I listen to with Frank Kerns that lands- Frank can land any day of the week!
I listen to various podcasts religiously because I always get a lot of insight. I might have them going in the kitchen if I am cooking. I ask Alexa to play them for me or if I am in the car driving around. I listen to them and get really good brain food and ideas.
Now, is your audience likely to be doing that? In your organisation, if you are serving the professional services sector, the tech sector, then it is highly likely that your clients and your candidates will listen to podcasts, and they can find you.
If you want to reach out to them, letting them know that you have a podcast will make a significant difference. It automatically elevates you as a person of authority because it is like having your radio show.
I sometimes have guests, not all the time. Still, it’s that positioning piece where you’re saying, “Well, look, I know this much about the market that I have a podcast, and I can sit, and I can talk to you about recruitment, I can talk to you about technology recruitment, I can talk to you about building your technology career, and what difference that will make for you.”
Just think about, is this likely to work in my environment?
Now, do not put yourself off because you think, “Oh, no, that won’t work,” because you do not want to do it. Get over yourself over that, but think about, “Could I get in front of people?”
We have been recording this podcast now for eight and a half years. When we first started podcasting, I used to do a podcast every three or four weeks and then realised that do you know what? I need to be a lot more consistent with this.
People like to listen, people tune in to radio shows, so maybe I should start doing this more regularly.
What I now do is record a podcast every week. I am just recording this on a Wednesday, and this podcast will land next Wednesday at 7 am GMT.
Every Wednesday, if you haven’t subscribed to the Recruitment Marketing and Sales podcast, you’ve just come across this randomly, then subscribe on iTunes or Google Podcasts or Spotify.
We have been recording this podcast for many years. We were one of the first in the industry to start a podcast.
Come and disagree with me, any other recruiting marketers out there, but nobody is as consistent as I am with the podcast, because come rain or shine, I think there has been a couple of weeks where I have missed a podcast in the last six years.
Because of that, it’s established Superfast Recruitment as a brand in recruitment marketing.
It is a great positioning tool for us. The things that I do on it, I had shot myself in the thought, I will be really honest because it is mainly me. Every week I share a marketing idea and concept, I share data that you can listen to, and then you can go away and implement.
Many people interview others, which is great. You will be listening to this podcast, and you must tune in next week because, for International Women’s Day, our podcast will come a little bit early. It is coming a day earlier, and we are interviewing a client of ours, an amazing female M.D. who has been with her organisation for many years and has gone from strength to strength.
The lady in question is Lynn Sedgwick; Sharon is interviewing Lynn.
Why Podcasts Work
Let us talk about why podcasts work? Well, podcasts work because they are very human; let me explain.
If you are a regular listener, you will know various things about my past life, pharmaceutical life, Flo, the Superfast Staffy that unfortunately passed away last year.
You will know about moving from one part of the Lake District to Carlisle. You will learn about my sister’s birthday, all of these different things. You get an intimate connection, and you get a window into my life, and people quite like that.
You also get to understand the level of experience, where I have worked, whether I could add value to you and your organisation. All of this happens through my storytelling, through the content that I share, because there is something about the human species; we crave connection.
You only need to look at social media. The registrations shot through the roof during the pandemic. People were craving connection; they were stuck in their houses apart from their permitted exercise.
Even on LinkedIn, the activity on the site increased by something like 2,500% within 24 hours. I know Facebook’s going through a little bit of a strange time at the moment, but you know that listeners at Facebook, followers and people who had accounts went crazy too.
People crave connection, and podcasting is a fantastic way to do this. The amazing thing about podcasts is they are incredibly accessible to your audience.
What do I mean by that?
Many people of various ages walk around with their phones, not exactly glued to their ears, but they spend most of the time looking at their phones.
However, if you have your trustee earbuds, you can plug in your podcast or put it into the car and listen on the go.
It is quite easy to listen to a podcast while driving around or walking around getting your shopping; Not as easy to watch a video.
With a podcast, you can listen anywhere. You can be doing your shopping, you can be going on a walk, you can be going to the gym, you can be with the dog, you can be doing anything, be sitting in the lounge with your significant other who is watching something on T.V. whilst you are listening to a podcast.
There are so many things you can do with it. I am not sure why this happens, but there is this intimate connection when you listen to somebody.
I do not know whether it is the sound of the voice, the tonality, the impact it makes, but you form a real connection.
It is quite interesting for me, having recorded this podcast for years. I commonly get emails from people that say, “I love your podcast, I like your podcast,” or “Some of the things you were saying resonated with me. I’ve taken action on some of the things that you’ve done, or I was feeling really low; I listened to your podcast, and it made me laugh, and I was more upbeat afterwards.”
There are all of these things, and it is interesting; as a podcaster, you can be quite honest and open and talk to people. It is slightly different when you have a camera in front of you.
There are so many things that a podcast can give you.
When we first meet clients, I sometimes know they will say not the same because obviously, we have had COVID, but they will meet. They will go, “Oh, I feel like I know you already,” or someone will say, “Oh, I remember when you shared that story about the painting, or I remember when you shared that story about Wigan Athletic.”
All of these are those unconscious connections where people are validating whether you and your organisation are somebody they should work with, and this all comes through a podcast.
Podcast Leverage
Now, let us talk about technology and recording and what you can do with them in a second.
First of all, let me say that podcasts are great for leverage.
What do I mean by leverage? Use your podcast in multiple ways to communicate your value to the market.
What we do is I record the podcast, and then this podcast is transcribed. From that transcription, we create social snippets; we make social media, it appears on our website.
Our partners we work with all get a link to our podcast and get a link to the transcription. We use it every week; we email our podcast with our email list.
People like to be updated because we are coaches and trainers for recruitment staffing companies that want to know more about marketing.
We know that we are not going to work with everybody, and some people may choose to go down the D.I.Y. route, want to do things themselves, want to learn, and do not want to spend; that is fine.
Our podcast is the free content that we give out to people. The people that have contacted us and said, “Wow, I’ve made money off the back of your podcast, even though I haven’t joined your program,” which is disappointing they have not joined the program, but good on them, they have acted.
That is a great feeling for me to be able to do that for people, to reach out, share some content, and so people can get some of the results that they want, and you can do that too.
Podcast Creation and Technology
Now, creating a podcast is straightforward.
Yes, there are podcast producers; we create podcasts for some of our clients.
It is easy. Go and Google online how to start a podcast. What technical things do I need to do to create a podcast? I am sure you will find a free course or something that will help.
This year, we are adding many additional training products inside Superfast Circle. We are working on a specific training product for our members who want to recruit, train, manage and motivate a new recruitment marketer. This product is going inside Superfast Circle.
If any of you are considering recruiting a marketer, not sure how to go about it, how you can manage them, how you can performance manage them, how to set them objectives, onboarding? We are doing the whole lot, written by myself and a marketer that we work with. That’s all going to happen in March this year; if you want to know more, book a call with one of us here.
We are creating several additional products that we will add into the suite so that our Circle members get everything, and one of them will be podcasting.
Geeky Bits!
Fundamentally what you do is you record a sound file, and that sound file then gets converted into a link that is added into iTunes and Spotify, and it comes out as a feed, and then that feed appears on your website.
I know that sounds very technical, but when you follow the program, I always say that you can create a podcast if you can upload a blog post.
Our podcast is recorded on a piece of free software. I am a bit of an old-school P.C. girl. I know that really, I am meant as a creative, I am told to work on a Mac, but I do not; I like P.C.s.
I use a piece of free software called Audacity. With Audacity, you plug in your microphone, and then you talk away. I am chatting away now, and the lines are going up and down, so I can see that. I might edit any gaps out, and if I think I have made a fluff, I will stop and rerecord that part.
I use a particularly good microphone. There are lots of good microphones that you can find online.
I use a RØDE Podcaster mic which you can purchase on Amazon. You want to be thinking about spending over £50 on a decent microphone because it is all about sound quality.
The other clever idea to create is that you need an intro and need a bit of music. You notice that we have music in our podcast. We have an introduction. That is extremely easy to facilitate.
There are lots of places online where you can go and buy music.
Make sure that you buy it, and you can use it because lots of places are very swift and nifty at noticing if you have whipped some music that you should not be using. Please do not go and download the latest Ed Sheeran track and think that that is fabulous for your podcast!
I use a company called Soundrangers. They make great music; they have got everything listed into different genres. You can go and purchase some music and use it.
Remember to think about your brand. The music that you hear at the start of our podcast is quite upbeat because this is a positive podcast, and we are talking about upbeat things; we are talking about marketing. You can go there and purchase music; you want to be spending £30, £40 ton a snippet of music.
We have a voiceover artist on our particular podcast. You do not need a voiceover artist; you can do it yourself, though if you do, go along to Fiverr. I find it the best outsourcing website for tech-related tasks like this.
One of our recruitment clients recruits in the SaaS space. They have career conversations with candidates on their podcast, which go down incredibly well.
They get jobs from their podcast because theirs is all around the careers these people could have in this particular environment. They have a big listenership. As we do, you would be surprised how many people will subscribe to your podcast because one of the wonderful things about iTunes is you need to subscribe, and automatically it downloads.
I forgot my phone by the side. If I look at my phone, I know that one of the podcasts I listen to is from a lady called Stacy. I know that Stacy is from the States, but it will have been downloaded by now because it tends to be live at nine o’clock in the morning her time. All of these different things that you can do with the podcast. As I mentioned earlier, many people who start working with us have all started or found us through iTunes or at least listened to our podcast.
Using Podcasts As Added Value For Your Clients
I’ve talked about podcasting here as being useful.
We do something else that you could always consider doing, as well as we have a private podcast. There are many parts to our Superfast Circle membership in our training platform. We are the one-stop shop for marketing because we provide marketing collateral for our clients and provide training, which you can access on your P.C., iPad, whatever.
You can also access it through a private podcast feed.
Everything we do gets uploaded and appears in our Superfast Circle member’s podcast feed. There are so many different things that you can do with your content when you have a podcast.
I hope you have enjoyed a slightly longer podcast and post today.
How We Can Help
We have many clients who are on for their best quarter because they implement what we teach and utilise the content and campaigns we give them.
Book your call and demonstration here if you want a quick chat to see how Superfast Circle can work for you too.
Thanks
Denise
P.S. If you want to join Superfast Circle and would like to find out more, speak to us here.
