I imply, Ahrefs is a reasonably mature model within the search engine marketing business, and most of our channels are measured in tens of millions:
So after we reached that 10k milestone I felt each comfortable about it, and upset concerning the quantity being so low. It was kinda just like the “third Place Celebration Meme” scenario (which I believed can be very becoming to re-create for the event):
My predominant takeaway: getting a podcast off the bottom could be very, very onerous.
It doesn’t compound in the way in which search engine marketing does and the format of “Zoom interviews” doesn’t carry out very nicely on YouTube.
So for those who have been considering of launching a podcast, I may give you 10 compelling the explanation why you shouldn’t do it:
I’ve seen that too many individuals deal with podcasts as “straightforward content material”—get on a name, file, publish. Accomplished!
Properly… for us at Ahrefs, the precise interview is possibly 40% of work.
Inviting visitors, scheduling time with them, doing first rate analysis, creating an enticing introduction, designing a thumbnail for YouTube, transcribing, including timecodes, writing titles and descriptions, importing to a bunch of podcasting platforms, reducing out snippets for promotion, writing copy for these snippets…
Working a podcast is A LOT of labor (if you wish to create a high quality present, after all).
I can’t think about doing Ahrefs Podcast alone. It’s a group effort from fairly a couple of folks:
- Michelle (our neighborhood supervisor) is doing many of the heavy lifting when it comes to researching visitors, modifying the recording, and managing the entire course of end-to-end.
- George and Nikita are those producing these cool intros.
- Sergey is designing thumbnails for YouTube.
- Helen helps with uploads.
Sure, you’ll be able to lower corners right here and there. However you danger compromising the standard. And a low-quality present will make all of your promotional efforts lots much less efficient.
Earlier than beginning Ahrefs Podcast I did in all probability over 100 interviews on different folks’s podcasts. And I can let you know that being a bunch is a lot tougher than being a visitor. The strain to make the interview attention-grabbing is completely on you, not the visitor.
The visitor is usually in a “reactive” mode—they only have to reply no matter is thrown at you. However the interviewer is the one finally accountable for the success of an interview. You need to keep sharp all through, ask attention-grabbing questions, and know the place to dig deeper (and when to alter topic).
Too many podcast hosts like to chop corners right here and simply default to asking each visitor the identical set of generic questions, with out attempting dig a bit of deeper into the solutions they get.
I like how Ryan Vacation described it:
“They’ll ask you a query, you’ll give a solution after which you’ll be able to virtually hear their eyes scan the paper they’ve in entrance of them as they transfer on the subsequent query on the record.
It’s disrespectful to the visitor, however that’s not my actual drawback with it. My drawback is that it makes for actually boring audio. Who desires to hearken to somebody actually telephone one thing in? Why do you have to hearken to a dialog that the host isn’t even listening to?”
You may disagree with me on this one, as a result of there are positively some good quick podcasts out there.
However after I tried interviewing my visitors for one hour, I spotted that it was not sufficient to squeeze some actually good info out of them. Particularly when your visitor could be very talkative they usually prefer to digress—that may simply throw your total interview plan off the rails.
However getting folks to decide to talking with you for 2 hours is an enormous ask. Many excessive profile folks received’t chunk except your podcast is very well identified.
And when you do get somebody to spend two hours with you, staying sharp and alert for this lengthy with no break could be fairly difficult at instances.
Some folks assume that touchdown an enormous title is all they should get their podcast off the bottom, and that can routinely assure views. No, it received’t.
In case you search round on YouTube, you’ll discover many podcasters who interviewed all the massive names within the digital advertising and marketing house. And but the views on these episodes are principally in double digits.
However my largest gripe is individuals who demand that their visitors assist them promote the interview. As soon as the episode is printed, they observe up with a visitor, asking them to “please share it along with your viewers.”
Sorry, however no.
I did 5 podcast interviews this month, they usually have been all practically the identical. And if I have been to share every one in all them on my social channels, I’d solely irritate my viewers. And in addition to, most social networks don’t actually prefer it if you publish hyperlinks, so the engagement and attain on these sorts of posts is tremendous low.
In case your solely promotion technique for the podcast is “my visitors will assist put it on the market”—I’ve unhealthy information for you. They received’t.
Take any “massive” visitor that’s in your thoughts and go seek for their current podcast interviews. They in all probability did a couple of dozen of them simply this 12 months. So why would anybody be excited about YOUR interview with that individual?
There are solely two causes:
- You’re an attention-grabbing individual your self, so of us would hearken to you even when it was a solo podcast.
- You’re superb at selling (extra on that later).
my very own habits, 80% of podcast interviews I hearken to are by hosts I already know and respect: Nathan Barry, Eric Siu, Dave Gerhardt, Kipp Bodnar & Kieran Flanagan, and so on. Solely 20% are by hosts I haven’t heard of earlier than, however they promoted the episode nicely sufficient to get on my radar.
Podcasting is a fairly ineffective technique to develop your personal viewers and recognition. However, quite the opposite, it’s a fairly good technique to leverage no matter current viewers and recognition you have already got.
I think about your finish purpose is rising your corporation. Which means you’ll want to develop your gross sales. Which implies you need to pursue essentially the most high-converting advertising and marketing ways out there.
Properly… a podcast is just not one in all them.
Throughout my two-hour-long conversations with my visitors, there’s truly little or no alternative to squeeze in some type of Ahrefs gross sales pitch. I attempt to point out related use instances the place it suits the dialog, however there have been fairly a couple of episodes the place our product didn’t get any shoutout at all.
A podcast is a good instrument for branding and constructing belief along with your audience. However I’m not anticipating any gross sales to return from the episodes that we’ve printed so far.
In case you want gross sales, you’d be higher off sponsoring some related podcasts in your area of interest (however even then, we tried it and didn’t see many gross sales from it). It’s an effective way to boost consciousness, however not make any fast gross sales.
Every episode needs to be centered in your visitor and THEIR enterprise. I imply… you didn’t invite some high-profile individual on a name to simply speak about your self for a pair hours, proper?
And in addition to, if you would like the episode to land, you need to concentrate on making your visitor look good. Your listeners are right here to study out of your visitor, and you need to ensure that they’ll study a lot.
In my very own interviews, I attempt to dig actually deep into my visitors’ companies and careers. I’m genuinely excited about what they do, why they do it, and the way they do it. Your complete dialog is all about them.
Because of this, my visitors have loads of room to advertise themselves and their enterprise with out feeling salesy. That’s one of many predominant the explanation why they comply with be interviewed within the first place: they need to faucet into my viewers and promote their factor.
So in case your purpose is to advertise your personal factor—you’ll want to be a podcast visitor, not a podcast host.
Examine podcasts to search engine marketing. An article you printed 10 years in the past can nonetheless deliver you guests (and gross sales) at this time. However as quickly as you cease publishing new episodes of your podcast… everybody will neglect about it.
We simply crossed a measly 10,000 downloads. It took us 3 months, 10 episodes, and a TON of promotion to get there. And Ahrefs already has a reasonably large viewers. If I have been ranging from a clean slate, I’d have barely reached 1,000 downloads by now.
Why is it so onerous to advertise? Properly, we mainly mentioned many of the causes above:
- search engine marketing doesn’t work for podcasts.
- “Zoom interviews” don’t fly on YouTube.
- Your visitors are hardly ever eager that will help you put it on the market.
- Podcasting platforms don’t have a superb “discovery engine”.
In different phrases, with out an current viewers to faucet into, it’ll take you numerous longer than three months to achieve 10k downloads.
So there’s that.
“However Tim… if podcasting is so troublesome, why are you doing it?”
Properly… I didn’t say that podcasting was utterly ineffective and completely not value it. I merely shared 10 the explanation why it is best to assume twice earlier than stepping into it.
There’s clearly the opposite facet of the coin. I’ll share my 10 the explanation why YOU SHOULD begin a podcast as soon as we attain the 50k milestone. Keep tuned! 😉