By Brooke Monaghan

When I first started my podcast back in 2019, I didn’t plan on it becoming a marketing channel. I had recently quit my job to start my own operations consulting business and was listening to entrepreneurial podcasts trying to learn more. Most of them, though, felt like the curated version of a business owner’s story years later, and I was craving someone to share their experience while they were in the thick of it. I decided I could be that person, and I dove in.

Those early episodes were the messiest, most disorganized version of a podcast you could imagine. In the first one—literally titled “Winging It”—I discussed how I had no idea what I was doing but was going to do it anyway. I shared it on my personal Facebook page and with my 200 business Instagram followers. While I wasn’t tracking analytics then, I’d be shocked if even five people listened.

But I kept at it, and I slowly started to build a small audience. Eventually, people who had been listening to the podcast and hearing my journey started reaching out asking if I’d coach them through the transition to meaningful, full-time self employment. This wasn’t something I offered at the time, but when the pandemic hit and most of my consulting work dried up, I decided to give it a try.

Since then, I’ve grown my coaching business to a sustainable $85,000 of annual income, with about 90 percent of my clients listening to the podcast first to determine that I’m a good fit for them. And this is all with a baby audience of about 1,000 downloads a month. Energetically podcasting is fun for me, and it’s made sales relatively easy and sustainable: People who find my work have a place where they can dive into what I offer, and then they reach out ready to work with me rather than having to go through a whole sales process.

I’ve gone through a lot of experimentation and evolution in my podcast over the years and have landed on a streamlined approach that creates steady business growth. For any other business owner thinking about using podcasting as a marketing tactic, here is the process that has worked for me.

I plan content with my sales goals in mind

I don’t want to be a professional podcaster. And, frankly, monetizing my podcast is not a reality for me right now—if I tried to make money on ads based on my current audience size, I’d make about $5 an episode.

So, to ensure my podcast supports my real business and generates new clients, I do the bulk of my content planning with sales goals in mind. Once a quarter, I look at the programs I’m launching or services I want to promote in the coming months. Then, I think about the people who would be perfect for those offerings: Not customer avatars, but actual people in my audience who I’ve worked with in the past or have DMed with and think would …read more

Source:: Buffer Blog

Author: Aaron