How to Leverage Blogging Strategies for Your Podcast with Danielle Desir Corbett
Podcast Bestie, the Podcast
Episode 9 Show Notes
Guest: Danielle Desir Corbett, host and creator of The Thought Card podcast and blog, founder and host of the podcast and community Women of Color Podcasters, and the creative mind behind the Grants for Creators Substack
Host: Courtney Kocak, Podcast Bestie founder
Hey Besties! Today's guest is Danielle Desir Corbett, the multi-talented host of The Thought Card podcast and the creator of a blog by the same name. She is also the founder and host of the podcast and community Women of Color Podcasters and the creative mind behind the Grants for Creators Substack. In this episode, Danielle shares how she launched her podcast from her blog and some big lessons she learned along the way, including the importance of embracing failure. Don't let your podcasting fears keep you from success, Besties! Everyone makes mistakes on their path to greatness; give yourself the grace to do the same.
However, during our conversation, Danielle enlightens us about a crucial website mistake to avoid and provides valuable pointers on leveraging blogging and SEO tactics for your podcast. We also discuss easy workflows and incorporating AI tools into the process of writing effective show notes. In addition, Danielle offers tips for launching a new podcast and monetization strategies for small podcasts.
My favorite moment from the interview is how, early on, Danielle did a poll on social media asking her audience if they wanted a podcast from her — and surprisingly, most of them said no! But luckily, she didn't let that stop her. This serves as a powerful reminder that you shouldn't always feel obligated to heed your audience's opinions.
Connect with Danielle @thethoughtcard on Twitter.
Subscribe to Danielle’s newsletter, Grants for Creators.
If you’re a woman of color, connect with Danielle’s podcasting community @WOCPodcasters on Twitter.
Tune into Danielle’s podcasts, The Thought Card and Women of Color Podcasters.
Sign up for my upcoming workshop, How to Build a “Platform” for Writers Who Shudder at the Thought.
If you missed the last episode, check out How to Go Pro & Get Started as a Freelance Podcast Producer with Pod the North's Kattie Laur.
Thanks to Michael Castañeda for mixing and mastering this episode. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @plasticaudio.
And thank you to Matt Gilhooly for creating the social media assets for this episode. Follow him on Twitter @theliftshiftpod.
A big thanks to our BFFs for sponsoring this episode:
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TRANSCRIPT (This is a rough AI-generated transcript for immediate accessibility, please excuse any mistakes.)
[00:00:03] Speaker 1: Hey there. My name is Danielle Desir Corbett. I am a podcast marketing coach, a four times grant funded podcaster, blogger, author and hopefully your new favorite cheerleader on Twitter. [00:00:17][13.2]
[00:00:17] Speaker 2: Hey, podcast besties. Welcome back to the show dedicated to making your podcast the best it can be. I'm Courtney Kozak. Your belief in helping you grow and monetize your show. And our guest today is Dave yelled NASIR Corbett. You may know her from the Thought Card podcast. She founded Women of Color Podcasters, a community of over 300 members, which is now also a podcast. And Danielle created the grants for creators Substack. She has so much experience and so many great takeaways for indie podcasters in this episode today, especially how to use blogging and SEO tactics and everyone's favorite topic monetization for small podcasts. But first, let's get Danielle's podcasting origin story. [00:01:07][49.4]
[00:01:09] Speaker 1: I've been an avid podcast listener. I don't remember exactly when it started, but I remember 2016 listening to some travel podcasts, personal finance, podcasts, and I just know some big names that I've been following for four years. And I had my corporate job at the time, and I had also started a travel and personal finance blog. So that was like my side hustle, my craft passion. And I was a blogger, but there was something inside of me that's like, I want to try this podcasting thing. I don't think it's going to be that hard to write. Like, we all can laugh, right, and say, Aha! But there was something that I was just curious about the medium in terms of being a creator, and I sat on that idea for two years. I was afraid of technology. I was also afraid of solo hosting, and I decided to partner with a friend of mine to create another show just so I could have that companion. And I can like, figure things out. But we never got started. So years are passing. It's 2018. And then there was a big funding opportunity that came around specifically looking for a woman of color who had an inspiring podcast idea, which sparked me to apply. And hopefully I was like, I didn't get funded and like with all this money and I really honestly felt like this was the opportunity for me. I don't know if you've ever, like, applied for something and you're like, This is for me. Like, my name is on it. And I applied. And the day we were supposed to find out who the winners were, there were supposed to be ten winners. I was on Twitter, as I have always been, and I just saw hundreds, if not thousands of women of color talking about this opportunity. And I created a Twitter list to keep track of everyone, but it wasn't engaging. So I said, you know what? I'm going to create a Facebook group and invite everyone on Twitter to join us. And that's how it really all began. The origin story of both my podcast and also women of color podcasters. [00:03:24][135.6]
[00:03:25] Speaker 2: And so did you get this Spotify thing or no, it just served as this catalyst. [00:03:29][3.7]
[00:03:30] Speaker 1: It served as a catalyst. I did not get it. In fact, this opportunity, they said that they were so delayed because there were 18,000 applications, which is like, wow, she's I'm still trying to find the first original 18,000. It's I don't know where they are, but that was pretty exciting. And I had created like a meet up and at the meetup folks were like, Danielle, you started this community, but where's your show? I was like, Good question. Where is my show? Right here I am spearheading your show and I didn't have it. So that really energized me to get started. And instead of like doing a cohosted show and all these other ideas I had, I said, You know what? Let's just launch the Thought Card podcast, a supplement to my blog. And that was the easiest path to no resistance. And yeah, I guess the rest is history. [00:04:25][54.9]
[00:04:25] Speaker 2: I love that. So how did you leverage, you know, I'm sure over the years since you've started, you've learned a lot about how to launch. That has helped you on this latest show. But going into it, when you launched the Thought Card podcast, how did you leverage your existing blog? [00:04:42][17.0]
[00:04:44] Speaker 1: It's so funny. Like I actually use a lot of social media at the time to launch and leverage my presence there. I would say, and I remember asking folks, I'm like, You have a cool feature on Instagram stories, like, would you listen to a podcast if I launched it? And they were like, No. Like like a solid 70% was like a no, but I was like, I'm still going to do a thing anyway, so. So it's funny because, like, I did so many things wrong, like I created a subdomain. So for a time being it was like podcast dot thought cars.com. And I literally like siloed off my podcast from my main brand, which I do not recommend, but I did all of the good things like show notes and SEO a little bit, all of those like couple of those things I learned. But I think my biggest mistake was siloing off my brand and what I've been doing over the last year is putting the brand together. Everything is now under threat. Cars.com I've also created workflows where I actually write out the blog post version first and then I dictate it out on the podcast. That's like, again, the path of least resistance. It works better for me, and I'm actually now being able to leverage the blogging skills and the blogging income with the podcasting skills and the podcasting income. So I've learned a lot. I made a ton of mistakes along the way. But you live and you learn also. [00:06:14][89.6]
[00:06:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. Okay. There's a lot of stuff we're going to drill into here, but one of the things I saw you tweet about recently is using these AI tools, which are all the rage. And since you do so much pre-written work and your blog is such a big part of it, how have you been using these tools and what have you learned about making your process easier? And any tips for besties? [00:06:40][25.7]
[00:06:41] Speaker 1: Yes, so I am 100% all in to AI for show notes copywriting. I wasn't this way like three months ago. It's because I actually talked to a founder of an AI tool who explained to me what AI is and how to leverage it. So originally I felt like this is magic and like it's going to do all the things for me. But the way these copywriting show notes tools work is that it takes your audio file and it's scrubbing for content through the audio file and it puts it together for you and a nice first draft. So if you have that mindset of this is a first draft, then you can come in with your editing hat and kind of fine comb through to really make sure it captures everything that you want to say. Now for the newly launched Women of Color podcast, there's podcasts. I know it's like super meta, like we just said, right? It's just that's a little bit different because I know the story I'm telling and I know why I have the guests on the show. I even have an outline of questions, but I don't have the written content in that blog post format. So that's where I use the I copywriting tools a lot because they can really structure the content, whether it's how to or just providing more structure. But on my thought card side, since I already write the full blog post, I don't necessarily use the AI tools as much, maybe for just taking the transcripts and putting them in there. So I think it depends on on your output, like what are you putting in and what are you putting out and is it going to save you time? I'm still a slow copywriter, so it will still take me like an hour and a half to really go through whatever the AI spits out to me. But having a first draft to look at feels like I'm ahead of the curve, then starting from scratch. [00:08:33][112.0]
[00:08:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's something about not looking at a blank page because, I mean, I'm sure I'm going to get even better, but so far I'm like, it's a C student, you know, it's like not it's not amazing. So you do have to do a lot of rewriting, but it does get you started faster, I found as well. So another thing that you mentioned is, you know, you had these your podcast and your blog and they were siloed and then you migrated and so like, what was that process like? And from what I understand, it really helped your web traffic. [00:09:08][34.1]
[00:09:09] Speaker 1: It really did, because I recently qualified for ads and I'm loving the zeros that I see, and the website ads are just like, wonderful. So I was axing a lot of like techie people, like how do I migrate it? And I was at a conference and a friend of mine just said, Hey, just export your WordPress files. And I was like, What? How to do it? And it's literally if you go to your WordPress dashboard in the settings, there is an export and you can export your photo, so you can export blog posts, you can export pages. And I was just able to export all of them and import them on to my domain of choice and it literally just pops up with everything, like literally all the headers, footers, images, everything. So I think that has been so helpful. I thought that I had to do like this crazy. Hire someone to do it. It's literally a couple of button pushers, and it's been very impactful for like bringing everything together. All the keywords I was ranking for in my subdomain are now under my main domain and it's just like juicing it up ten times now that we're all together. [00:10:18][69.1]
[00:10:21] Speaker 2: Hey, besties. I partnered with Bo Pod as my season one sponsor for podcast Bestie, and it has exceeded my wildest expectations. It has helped me reach so many new listeners. We are now almost up to 30 k downloads. That is triple my season one goal and it's helped me monetize the show. Last month I had my best month for advertising on podcast Bestie and Pod definitely helped me get there. So Mopar is an effective, targeted way to promote your show. It's already trusted by industry giants like Condé Nast, Iheartmedia and the HubSpot Podcast Network, and that's because it works. But my God, is it just for the big guys, though? God boost is perfect for any podcasters like us. It's actually been my favorite paid advertising experiment to date. I've used it on all my shows and you can try it for just $100. Plus, if you're a bestie, you get 10% off with the link in the episode description. So try it out and let me know what you think. Another thing I saw you tweet was my podcast. Coaching clients aren't relying on social media to grow their audiences or authority. Here's what they're doing instead. Number one Auditing Podcast Episode Titles. Number two, focusing on SEO for show notes. And number three, leveraging speaking opportunities for visibility. So I want to talk a little bit more about each of these things. So first of all, the auditing podcast episode titles. What kind of advice do you have for someone getting started on that and how can you make those improvements? [00:11:57][95.8]
[00:11:57] Speaker 1: So your episode titles are your first impression. It could literally encourage someone to click and listen or turn them away, and the listener is asking themselves, What's in it for me? Especially if they see it's like an hour or 2 hours you really like they're paying you in attention. So we really want to write clear and compelling episode titles that catch your attention and really make it clear what's in it for them. So those are the two questions I would ask anyone is like, Hey, is this clear? And by looking at the title alone, do I know what I'm going to get out of this episode? And that really takes thoughtfulness and some SEO research, too. So that's where the SEO comes into play. I always recommend having key words in there because a lot of people are actually using they're actually typing different questions or search terms within the podcast players. And the podcast players have an algorithm to serve up content. It's still kind of opaque what that algorithm looks like, but we know that people are using. Also, if you're just curious, like typing things like anything, I usually type in things like budget travel similar to Google and Pinterest. Apple Podcasts has this like dropdown where it actually fills it in, where it's like a predictive programing kind of thing because a lot of people have type that into search. So before you write those episode titles, type your main topic into Apple podcast. Look at those predictions, See if there's anything that catches your eye and then use that as like fuel. So the strategy is really just again, being clear, coupling that with compelling myths and keyword research. Show notes are a 100% a long term marketing strategy that I'm 100% on board for because of Google traffic. Being able to get discovered in these search queries is so important and it offers new potential listeners access to you. As podcast, we have a discoverability problem. We're so scattered. But with Google Search, we're able to have a bigger reach and become more discoverable, kind of less fragmented, I would say. And I actually have like a structure of what the show notes look like. Things to keep in mind is making sure that it's dynamic. You can add videos on there. So if you have a guest, go look at their YouTube channel, add their videos, because guess what? YouTube is a product of Google, so they're going to bump you up a little bit higher if you have your videos in your show notes. So like little things like this. These are like blogging tactics that people use. But I feel like in this day and age, we really have to be multifaceted as audio creators. US leveraging these blogging skills and this SEO knowledge will really help us stand out and get discovered and found. And then the last strategy, I know a lot of people say podcast guest appearances, but what do you do if you've been paving at that like pavement for four years, like I have? So I've been a guest on nearly 200 shows. A lot of it has been strategic and I don't see the difference anymore. So what I do see a difference in is actually speaking on stages. And every stage I speak at, especially if I'm traveling to go to an event, I have a little document in my phone that says X, y, Z conference are a Y, and I'm keeping track. What opportunities came as a result of me speaking on stage? So I would say speaking on stage can be a next level strategy for those who just feel like I've tapped out. I've done all of this, all the collaborations in the world. I still say, Yes, of course I do say yes. But I also know that it's probably not going to make a big difference in my chart, like my growth trajectory at this point. [00:16:04][246.8]
[00:16:05] Speaker 2: So how do you pursue those speaking opportunities? I mean, I went to podcast movement and moderated a panel going on a year ago in August, and it was great. I met so many people and I hadn't really done much of that. So how would I pursue more? [00:16:23][17.7]
[00:16:24] Speaker 1: Yes. So I would say be part of all of the newsletters or podcasting newsletters like pod noodles, like your podcast Black Pod News as well there. They really keep you in the know, especially when speaking opportunities come up. Also, if you just search for like podcasts, conferences or podcast summits or conventions, like there are plenty of blog posts, I will give you a rundown of what's happening for the year and join their newsletters and keep an eye out for when speaker submissions are open. There are also other resources like I find you close. They send you 4 to 5 speaking engagements every week that you can pre-qualify for. So I think that's really good. If you're like, I don't have that much time. I just want to kind of read through a newsletter real quick that will share with me opportunities. So that's really great. I also feel like if you have a more timing capacity and you really want to build your thought leadership in a specific area, go to podcasting communities and other types of memberships and ask the founder creator if they would be interested in having you want to speak to their community. So someone like me who has a committee, I'm always looking for speakers and I have to do a lot of like the outreach. But it is nice when someone reaches out to me and they're like, Hey, would you be interested? And I could just say, Yes, absolutely, 100%. I also think that deepening your network, right? So just letting people in your community, like even just using Twitter like, Hey, all, I'm open to speaking opportunities. You'll be surprised by who for the who retweets it for you and the connections that are made. So just being open to opportunities I think is really helpful when it comes to speaking on stage. [00:18:10][106.0]
[00:18:11] Speaker 2: And then one more thing on the episode titles, I've seen a lot of them get really long and that's kind of my strategy lately is just like I'm trying to get as much of the things that people might search for in there. How do you feel about that? [00:18:26][14.6]
[00:18:27] Speaker 1: I feel like as long as you're saying what you have to say, then I feel like it's fair. But be mindful that there are character limits until things start to cut off. So as people are reading the title, they're going to have to click to read the whole title. So just be mindful of that. But I'm more in the strategy of like, okay, does this title say everything I want them to hear so that they can click? Yes, because there are two determining factors for someone, I would say three for them to actually go ahead and listen to the podcast. Number one is they look at the title, they may just go ahead and listen right after that, but they actually may go to the description, which is why your description should be more than one sentence. So go to the description and they kind of read a description to be like, okay, what's what does this really mean for me? And lastly, I would say is that affinity for you and your podcast. There are just some superfans that will like just listen to everything. Like I've been doing a lot of mommy content now that I'm a new mom and I'm like, These episodes get the same. Listen, then the non mommy content. I know you're all in now, Mommy's, but it's I think it's because of that that affinity and they're curious as to like what's going on in my world or in, you know, in just general. So I think those are the three things that really move the needle. And I feel like as you understand listener behavior, you can now use that to equip yourself with your strategies for marketing your show. [00:19:53][86.8]
[00:19:57] Speaker 2: Hey, besties. You heard us talking about air tools earlier in this episode. And I want to tell you about a new air tool that I have been loving. It is called Vizard, and they are the presenting sponsor for this episode. So with Wizard, you can grow your audience with shareable podcast highlights for social media and reach listeners wherever they are, a.k.a. on Twitter, watching reels, watching Tik Tok YouTube shorts on Instagram scrolls Girl scroll with Wizard, you can effortlessly create video clips in just a few clicks. They make this easy so you can start posting daily. You could try Vizard for free. There is a link in the show notes and I actually made assets for this episode with Wizard so you can see it in action. So go to my Twitter or Instagram. I have Courtney Kozak and you can see the clips that I made using Wizard. So again, check out the link in the episode description and you can make some assets of your own on Wizard for free. So you recently launched Women of Color, Podcasters with all of your knowledge that you learned on your other show. So what was your marketing plan going into the podcast? And we're always thinking about monetization. So did you have any monetization thoughts going into it as well? [00:21:21][84.2]
[00:21:21] Speaker 1: Absolutely. I was like, editor costs. My editor is not cheap, but they're amazing, so I'm going to fork it all over. So it's funny enough, I actually have a blog post where I documented my strategy, like my launch strategy. So in 60 days I was able to get 1100 downloads for this newly launched podcast with three episodes. And I feel really happy about that. And I think what's important is that could I have done more? Absolutely. But I didn't have to. So that to me is like the power moment is like I have these long term marketing strategies in place where I don't necessarily have to do all of this things. I could just do a handful of things that I know truly work and I advise my clients to do so. Making sure that there was a page on my website dedicated to just solely the podcast. So any new podcast episodes would just kind of feed into that. So just having a home on my major website, creating those search friendly show notes for each of those episodes again was really helpful. Also, I do send out a weekly newsletter to our existing subscribers who have been with us for years, but I stagger that newsletter where it's not the week it goes out. It's typically the week after, even two weeks after, because honestly, at that time a lot of people have forgotten about that episode or it's kind of like not on their radar, but here we are again. It's like a new in the new life. So staggering out. That newsletter has been really, really helpful. And what I've realized also is when I'm sharing out I do use social media. I will say I'm not a big social person, but I have been using social. But when I do share on social, I'm usually sharing my universal pod link so that people their call to action is to follow the podcast. That's the most important thing that you want right now, as in when you newly launch is a follow. So I would say 75% of my time I'm actually sharing the general pod link, universal link to no specific episode. And then the remainder time I share the actual show notes that I spent so much time creating. That's probably 2000 words. I do that because again, I'm really wanting to kind of not only get the listeners in, but the followers right now. The other podcast I have, which is very seasoned, been out for almost five years, I'm not as concerned with follows, I'm more concerned with the page views and the listeners. So that's a big distinction I think, between launch and seasoned. And then another strategy that I think that could be really helpful for folks is drafting copies of newsletters for your guests. So a lot of times people are going to just kind of, Hey, can you share this episode? I'm like, Yeah, I would love to, but you just made it so hard for me. I don't have any copy. You gave me some graphics with no context, so knowing all I know now, what I do is I actually say thank you, of course. And then I draft them a newsletter blurb that they can send to their people, including in this episode we cover four or five bullet points, my pod link, also the show notes and a few other different podcast players make it so easy for them to say yes. Also, when I am sharing on social media, especially on Instagram, I use that collab. Feature so that they can actually accept it and they can now cross-promote with their audiences. So just making it easy for your guests to just have to do literally nothing like copy and pasting has been really helpful. And of the three guests we did this strategy for, one of them has shared it and we did see a spike in downloads after that share. So I went from potentially zero shares to one person actually taking the action and sharing. The last thing someone might say is like, Well, why is newsletter like, why are you even doing all of this? Right? It's because newsletters still have a high attention rate and the people in their newsletter has this affinity for them. They're like really excited about them and they're opening and they're paying attention. So you tackling a newsletter subscriber is way more impactful and they're probably will take you up on the offer than someone who's scrolling on social, who is not really intentional with the scroll anyway. So I think that it is helpful to tackle newsletter subscribers and that cross-pollination is able to happen. So I'll make sure to have that blog post for you so that people can read it on. But those are some of the things that I've learned and I'm really, again, I'm really happy with where we're at for a couple of episodes. Pretty happy with that. [00:26:17][295.9]
[00:26:18] Speaker 2: Totally. So like when you put together the email for them, is that something that I can help with or. [00:26:25][7.4]
[00:26:26] Speaker 1: Yes, there are like newsletter, there's like so many newsletter templates. LinkedIn templates. Yeah, you can definitely just kind of a lot of the features have like a little section where you can just grab social posts, grab LinkedIn post, grab newsletter posts. Yes. [00:26:41][14.8]
[00:26:42] Speaker 2: Who do you like? Who are you using right now? That's good. [00:26:44][2.6]
[00:26:45] Speaker 1: So I'm kind of using all all of them. I know of of like, let me test it. So I'm using Kap show caption was my first. Like I was so impressed with their version one. Their version, too. I'm not as it's just I feel like something's broken a little bit in there. But version one was like, amazing. I also tried swell, so I've tried swell as well. And then recently I am trying pod flow. So pod flow is another one. So right now I'm I have no loyalty. Hehe. I'm like, I'm kind of like airline miles. Like I'm just really looking for the tool that I feel is visually pleasing and also is just great quality that I really can help me to cut down on that draft time. But for a long time I was really into cap show and then I also think that doing those free like the free trials just gives you a sense, right? If you've never use AI before, you could really get to see, okay, how does this work and is this a worthy investment of my time? Right? I also do feel like I kind of feel a little bad because I feel like it's maybe has potentially can wipe out like show notes writers eventually it could be that good. Eventually. [00:28:05][80.7]
[00:28:06] Speaker 2: Yeah. But then maybe they have more time to do other things. And I do think there is something to like the human touch and like that final editor being a human being that is out in the world and hey, if it makes us more productive, I'm trying to embrace the positives here. [00:28:22][15.8]
[00:28:23] Speaker 1: Yes. No, it's true. It's true. Like, it's funny because like, I get hit up sometimes by like transcripts writers. I'm like, No, boo, I don't need you anymore. Sorry. You know, like, because, you know, it's it's good enough, right? But I do think, like you said, like that less personal touch. Edit does make a difference. Another thing I think that's concerning with the AI and I think we're still trying to figure this out is like how Google and other search engines like will embrace AI. So that's something to be mindful of. So just keep an eye out as things continue to develop. [00:28:57][34.2]
[00:28:58] Speaker 2: So another thing I wanted to ask you about is that monetization piece, because you are a pro at monetization for smaller podcast too, which is kind of its own thing. So any tips for the best is about what's different about trying to monetize a small show and how they can optimize. [00:29:18][20.3]
[00:29:20] Speaker 1: Yeah. So I would say that I think it's important to have a multi-faceted approach to your monetization, meaning thinking about multiple income streams and if you are going the sponsorships route to think of bundling things together because we don't have the benefit of like 10,000 downloads per episode. But if you bundle three episodes together, you may reach 10,000, right? So like cool little things like that is like really important for small podcasters. We have to be scrappy, we have to be creative. The bigger shows can get there with one swoop, I'll get there with four scoops, but I'm going to get there. Right. So that's one thing when it comes to mind. Discussion. One of my favorites for smaller shows is affiliate marketing, where you're able to mention a product or service. And if someone clicks, if someone potentially even views sometimes or makes a purchase, you make a commission and make a cut. So that's nice. I'm not saying that it's going to be like a sustainable, but over time, if every episode, you know, you have affiliate marketing built in and you have a catalog like me of 130, you're making money now at that point. So I think that it's the intentionality of that is really, really important. And how I think about that with my clients is like, how am I making money with this episode? Was it sponsored? Was it through affiliate marketing? Am I promoting my books, my services in this episode? How can I make money? But does it feel gross and unethical? But it is a thought process that I encourage my clients and me to have every episode. That's really important. Something else to think about is your guests, right? Your guests. They may be renowned authors. They may be creators, membership owners, like they have their own products and services. They're going to come on your platform. And if you're inviting them and they are mentioning their products and service acts to be an affiliate, low hanging fruit. Right. So actually be an affiliate for all of your guests, whatever they have and make sure any resources that they mention in the episode goes on the show Notes Resources section. So those are my two. I'm very heavy on sponsorships, but I'm also really heavy on affiliate marketing behind the scenes. I also feel like affiliate marketing is a great way to showcase to brands what you could do, right, Like because of your, you know, they campaign success as an affiliate, you could be like, well, you really should be paying me this flat fee so I could promote you even more. So it could definitely lead to other opportunities. I know a lot of people do other things like buy me a coffee, which I do. I have it on my site like, but I'm not necessarily talking about it every episode. It's an option. Also, besides donations, people do like courses and and workshops. And I think it's it's important to have an open mind because I've tried those things multiple times on my platform and it never worked. I would create the sales page and kind of pre-sell it and wait for people to come in because I knew they wanted to talk about travel hacking and it always fell flat. So failing really helped me to nail my monetization strategy because I knew that this isn't an audience where I'm going to sell directly to. I'm going to create amazing content and get it paid for on the backend. So it's really my job to really go out there and fetch those sponsorships that are really going to help move the needle and keep this show running versus selling to my audience. But that took a lot of trial and error and really trying to figure out like what's going to work. I honestly feel like if workshops and my classes worked, I probably wouldn't have relied on sponsorships so much. But because it didn't, I had to be creative and I had to lean on my strengths and develop skills like pitching and negotiating and executing campaigns. So all of these things have been a lot of learning, but I feel really good about the show I create and the brands that I sign on to work with me as well. [00:33:46][265.5]
[00:33:47] Speaker 2: So when you approach brands and you talk about bundling, are you giving them a blog post and a podcast? Like what kind of things are you bundling together? [00:33:57][10.3]
[00:33:58] Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think it's really important to know what their campaign objectives are. Then you once, you know, okay, they want to get this done. Okay, what do I have in my media outlet that I can actually pull from? Right. So that's part one. But yeah, it could look like things like tweets. I have like ten K followers. So it's like it could be like a tweet thread. It could include. You know, traditional like pre-rolls and minerals. It always includes like if it's a dedicated episode, it's always going to include the show notes, which for me is like a blog post. So it could include newsletters like I literally exercise, I think people can do is like, look at every where you post and create content and add those to your offerings. Because if you create pins on Pinterest, that's something that you can put in your packages. So even the things that you don't think are super valuable, but these are things that are going to help the brand get visibility. So yeah, that's how I would bundle things together. [00:34:53][54.5]
[00:34:53] Speaker 2: Nice. Okay, so I have my recurring question that I've been asking everyone for that season one is Audit Me. So I have three podcasts. I have private parts unknown. It's about love and sexuality around the world. I have the bleeders about book writing and publishing. You're on podcast, Bestie, just looking in, and I know we've done newsletter, collab, so whatever you know about my little operation, if you have any tips, I would love to hear them. [00:35:23][30.0]
[00:35:25] Speaker 1: So I would love to see the newsletter and the podcast in other places that I know podcasters hang out. So collaborating more with like other podcasting communities and other podcasting newsletters. We didn't talk about it in this episode, but like I do run my own paid newsletter and that strategy is 100% cross promoting with other newsletters so similar to podcasts like Podcast begets podcast listeners, right? So newsletter subscribers is newsletter subscribers. So I would just say like, make a list, like hit me up. Like, hey, listen, like let's, you know, let's do a, it's could be literally a mention where it's like, Hey, here's why I love this newsletter. Boom. I think that would be great for continuous growth and more people would know about you and subscribe. [00:36:15][50.3]
[00:36:16] Speaker 2: I love that. Thank you. Is there anything else that you would like to share with the Besties before we wrap? We've covered so much ground. [00:36:23][7.0]
[00:36:24] Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, this is so much fun. I I'm like the gift that keeps giving because I could just keep going on and hide. Right. But I think I think overall, the way I approach content creation and monetization is with creativity and an open mind and failing and sucking like failing sucks and it's so hard to fail. And it's worse when you see yourself failing. Like it's just like, you know, it's a failure. However, all of those have been lessons and. Whether you decide to relaunch, pick yourself back up and relaunch or do something new. You can take all of those lessons and make it into success. So sometimes on my own personal show, I felt like a failure. But all of those failures has helped me with the second show and has helped me with all the clients that I serve. So don't get defeated. Don't get deflated. Be open and be creative. Right. Like if you see a goal that feels attainable, some acting like I'm never going to get there or say that be like, how can I? And then go after it. [00:37:34][70.7]
[00:37:35] Speaker 2: Yes, that's a good message to end on. Thank you so much. [00:37:38][2.7]
[00:37:39] Speaker 1: Thank you, Courtney. Oh, my gosh. It's so great to connect with you. [00:37:42][2.4]
[00:37:43] Speaker 2: Oh, that was so informative. I feel like this episode was a bundle of five different TEDTalks. Thank you so much, Daniel, for giving us countless tips and tricks. I have got some work to do. And thank you for tuning in to podcast Bestie Bestie. Make sure you check out the last episode with Canada's Katy Luther all about how to go freelance. And she also has a ton of great tips for indie podcasters. And guess what? I want to collaborate with you, bestie. So if you leave me a five star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts and email it to me, I will give you a free shout out on the show. Podcast Bestie currently has 34 ratings on Apple Podcasts. I am desperately trying to get to 35, so if you haven't already rated the show, just head over to Apple Podcasts. Give me a five star rating and review and I am going to give you a free shout out right here next episode. Plus, there's another easy way to get featured on this show. You can buy a sponsorship at podcast BestBuy.com slash advertise. I have super affordable packages starting at just $30. And for more of my audio creations, check out my other podcasts. I have private parts unknown, which is about love and sexuality around the world and the bleeders of our book writing and publishing. And you can follow the between episodes at Courtney Co SAC that is K, OCR, K on Instagram and Twitter. And I set out lots of newsletter exclusives for my Besties podcast. Bestie actually started as a newsletter, so make sure you are signed up to podcast Bestie on Substack that is podcast bestie dot substack ecom slash welcome or there's a link in the episode description. Until next time Happy podcasting by bestie. [00:37:43]