How to Start a Podcast for Your Business

According to Ofcom, roughly 7.1 million people in the UK now listen to podcasts each week. That’s one in eight people!

If you want more stats, here they are: this figure shows an increase in podcast subscribers and listeners of 24% over 2019.

So now you’re definitely thinking about starting a podcast, aren’t you? It’s even made me think about it! Podcasts are growing in popularity year on year, and they’re only set to continue to be popular among a huge range of demographics. Read on for my tips on how to join in with this lucrative trend and start your own podcast for your business.

Find Your Niche

Whatever your business specialises in, there’s a niche you can exploit. Dig deep into the nuts and bolts of what you do as an organisation. What is it that sets you apart from your competitors? What do your customers find interesting? What are you experts in?

Finding your niche can be as simple as looking at the industry your work within, or as complex as looking at customer data and finding out what links them in new and innovative ways.

Here’s an interesting graph I found that shows what types of topics podcast listeners are mostly interested in. It’s important to remember, however, that while some subjects seem to be less popular, they may have an
extremely devoted fanbase.

Source: Populus Research, March 2019 (Chart taken from the official Ofcom website.)

Choose A Great Name

Your podcast needs a name that your listeners will notice, remember and look out for. Don’t get trapped into thinking your podcast needs to be the same as your company’s name. Unless you’re a household name, it won’t make any difference to how new customers and leads chose your podcast over others in the
subject you’re interested in.

Pick something memorable and easy to say — 22% of podcast listeners use their smart speakers to listen to them, so make it easier for them to find your podcast by voice search.

Outline Your Style, Content and Format

Don’t wing it. While many podcasts seem to have a loose, relaxed feel, the truth is that each episode will have a plan and even a script to make sure it stays on track.

Think about the information you want to sound in your podcast and how you want to put it across. Here are some ideas to help you think about it:

●     Informative

●     Conversational

●     Witty

●     Interview

●     Round-Table

●     Storytelling.

Once you’ve worked out how you’d like your podcast to sound, you can start using your thoughts on your niche to create engaging content for your episodes. Also, don’t forget your podcast is essentially another route for marketing, so be sure to include several ads or plugs within each episode for relevant offers, products or services.

Sort Out Your Equipment

Podcast listeners are surprisingly discerning. Gone are the days when a tinny phone recording full of background noise and choppy editing would suffice.

There are plenty of videos on YouTube that go into details about the best types of podcasting microphones and editing software. I still think it’s perfectly acceptable to use your phone to record as long the sound quality is clear, and there are free sound editing app options out there if you’re looking for a quick trial to see how a podcast would work for you.

If you’re planning to keep making professional podcasts, however, my advice would be to invest in the right tools for the job. Your listeners will appreciate it.

Promote

All that’s left to do now is to promote your podcast! Use your social media channels to get the word out, send a mailout to your customers, add it to your email signature and speak about it to everyone you meet. Word of mouth is so important!

Encourage your listeners to review your podcast so you can take their feedback on board and encourage more subscribers to join your growing group of fans. If you like, you can pay for advertising on your chosen podcast hosting site to bring you up the rankings. It all depends on how important subscriber
numbers are to you.

Are you thinking of starting a podcast? Need some help with scripts, interview questions or marketing content? Get in touch and let’s chat about how I can help you!

Until next time…

“Sue, You’re Shouting At Tea” — How Yorkshire Tea Dealt With An Extreme Twitterstorm - and How You Can Too

As you might know, I’m a tea drinker. There’s nothing better than a proper Yorkshire brew. In fact the only thing I like more than a decent cup of tea in the morning is a decent cup of tea in the afternoon, along with a slice of cake.

As far as I know, tea is a wonderful, warm beverage devoid of moral standpoints or political leanings. So colour me a biscuity-shade of surprised when I opened Twitter this week to find hundreds of thousands of
angry tweets about and directed to the Yorkshire Tea account.

It’s all based on a photograph somebody else had taken of their product in the hands of a politician. As a brand that stands firmly to their “we don’t discuss politics, we are tea” code of conduct, it’s been hard
for them to combat claims that they support the individual who took the photo, or the party they represent.

Some Twitter users have reached out to tell Yorkshire Tea that they are handling this situation incorrectly, and that they are disappointed with their support/denial of support of the individual and/or their party.

As you can see, it’s all gotten very confusing and ridiculous very quickly, and as a social media community manager, I can only imagine how stressful it has been to take care of Yorkshire Tea’s accounts this week. Although this response really made me chuckle:

Over the years there have been a number of social media storms that have caught brands out. The truth is, no matter what your content is, you can never tell what’s going to cause the next big controversy. Sometimes it can be as out of your control as a current event giving your planned hashtag a different meaning, and sometimes — as in Yorkshire Tea’s case — it might not even be something you did at all.

In light of this, here are my top tips on keeping things calm when your notifications are blowing up

Take Some Time Before Responding

Fires thrive when there’s oxygen around. Think of your crisis as a fire, and your attention is the oxygen. Every new Tweet or response you create will feed that fire, and thanks to the rapid speed at which information travels on the internet, soon it will become out of your control.

Before you react with an apology or a defence, take some time to think about why your customers or followers are unhappy. Talk to your teammates and put together a considered response that follows your corporate
guidelines. Then, once you’ve sent it, mute responses for a little while, so that the only response available is your official line.
Be Honest and Accountable

If you’ve made a mistake, hold your hands up. If you’re sorry, apologise. If you’ve done something silly, admit it. Nobody is perfect, not even a social media manager. If you’ve made a mistake, don’t try to muddle through it with a brave face. You’ll only damage your own reputation and that of the brand you’re representing.

Double check your plans to rectify the situation with your brand manager or team leader, and compose a post that shows your humility and/or the reality of the situation. After all: you are just a brand on social media, being made visible by a human being. There are limits to what you can do. Sometimes people need to be reminded of that.

Take Care Of Yourself

Being the subject of thousands of replies-worth of abuse online, even with the protective mask of a brand, takes a lot out of a person. It can be extremely upsetting, and in my experience even just a couple of
disgruntled individuals who got the wrong end of the stick can rattle your confidence for a little while.

Take some time out. Get a brew (or a hot chocolate if you’re the Yorkshire Tea manager — sorry, that’s not funny!) and a fairy cake. Go for a walk. Speak to your managers about how it’s affected you and what you think you need to do next to boost your confidence again.

And always remember — this isn’t about you. You are doing your best.

Make a Crisis Plan

The best way to nip any social media crises in the bud is to have a watertight crisis plan ready to be put into action at the earliest signs of trouble.

Work with the whole team to devise strategies That’ll help diffuse any difficult situations, and put together some posts ready to amend and use should the need arise.

Make sure you build in some community manager internet safety information and self-care techniques within the plan too. Everyone who has to deal with abuse online needs to know that there are structures in place
to keep them safe.

I hope this has helped to show you how important planning
for the unpredictable bad side of social media is. If you have any more tips, please do share them in the comments! And remember:

Until next time…

How to Optimise Your Content for Voice Search

If you’re having trouble adapting to the voice-search revolution, or you’re looking to overhaul your web content in 2020, give me a shout! I’d love to help you ensure your website is more welcoming and effective for
your customers.

Write your content with effort and realistic tone and your search rates will improve; you can’t fool the system anymore. The only way to reach the top of the page now is to have great content (including product descriptions and blog posts) that sounds like a human wrote it.

What you need is intuitive, effective, engaging, natural-sounding copy. I think of it like this: the Google engine isn’t a robot anymore, so we don’t need to talk to it like one either. It’s more like Artificial Intelligence than ever before, learning from natural speech and taking notice of content that seems to actually take customer needs and wants to heart.

As Google evolves to deflect even more abuses of its ranking system and more and more people use voice search to get to the content they want, it’s become less important to write with technical keyword research at
the heart of your content.

It sounds odd for me to be asking you to worry less about keywords, but that’s exactly what I’m doing.

Write Naturally, Worry Less About Keywords

To help your products reach your customers this way, you need to incorporate more natural-sounding long-tail keywords within your metadata and copy.

In this example, you might have the words ‘[XYZ product] is the most eco-friendly kitchen spray available in the UK’ within the product’s description, which the voice search technology will easily be able to pick up.

It’s the second one. It will always be the second one.

b)   
“Alexa, what’s the most eco-friendly kitchen spray?”

a)   
“Alexa, best eco detergent spray UK”

What is a customer more likely to say to their Alexa speaker?

Long-tail search terms are longer, more specific forms of keywords you may have already been using. When SEO keywords are used effectively, long-tail search terms naturally follow within the content.
However, with voice search, it’s rare that a user will start with the SEO-friendly terms.

Think Carefully about Long-Tail Search Terms

With the popularity of voice search soaring, it’s perhaps time to step back slightly from short-form SEO keyword-driven content and to look at the bigger picture. Here are my tips on how to optimise your web
content for voice search.

When you first wrote your web content, it’s probably fair to assume that one of the main priorities at hand was the inclusion of SEO keywords.

SEO has been one of the most important aspects of copywriting for the past decade or more, and has dictated what the vast majority of us write about, promote and even sell on our websites.

How to Optimise Your Content for Voice Search

It’s estimated that 50% of all searches made in 2020 will be via voice. On top of that, 30% of all web browsing will be done without a screen.

Many of these searches result in purchases. That’s mind-blowing, isn’t it? But what does it mean for your website?

Voice-activated search and speakers are fast-becoming the UK’s favourite way of finding information out and searching for audio and visual content. Bear that in mind when you’re writing your next blog post.

Until next time…

Planning your 2020 marketing calendar

Where has the year gone?! With 2020 just weeks away, that means 12 fresh months of brand new content to create! Does that fill you with joy or fear?

I love a new year refresh. I love the idea that I have 365 days of possibilities ahead of me. But then again, I’m an optimist! It also definitely helps that I plan my content way ahead of time. Creating a marketing and content calendar means having ideas and templates for content no matter how busy I am, or how quiet things are on that particular day or week. It’s a lifesaver, honestly.

If you’re in need of some content calendar inspiration for 2020, look no further. Here are my top tips to help you get your year into shape.

Run an audit on all your 2019 (and 2018) content

You may have noticed from previous blog posts, but I love a good old fashioned audit. It helps me take stock of what I’ve created, and often, it reminds me about posts I forgot I wrote.

As well as making a list of the topics you’ve already covered, make sure you take note of all the metrics alongside them too. Which topics raised the most discussion? Which posts were shared around the most? Which flopped? For every post that soared, I try to think of at least two twists on the same topic so I can renew the content I know people want, keeping it fresh with the minimum of effort.

Find the right content calendar template for you

Not all content calendars are useful. Your business and your individual workflow needs different things, and so if a calendar seems to details for you, or too sparse, that’s fine! Just find one that works for you and change it as you see fit.

Here are some great templates I’ve found to get you started, but feel free to draw one out on paper if that’s how you work. No judgement!

●      Quuu’s free content calendar — includes space for overviews, campaign themes, planning, daily content scehdule and an inventory. For the control freaks out there.

●      Janet Murray’s 2020 Media Diary — a real life paper diary for anyone out there who prefers writing ideas down in pen. Like me.

●      Get Clearvoice’s Excel based calendar by signing up to their newsletter.

●      Smartsheet has 9 different content marketing calendar templates to download and use in Excel for free.

Set out your goals

Before you start filling in your shiny new content calendar, make sure your goals for the year are set. Get your marketing team together and ask them to present what they think has been successful over 2019, and what they want to improve on in the coming year.

Talk to your sales managers, and ask them about their projected goals for 2020.

Talk to your line manager, and find out their expectations. (Important — you want to manage their expectations as well as inform your own team about the goals being expected of them!)

Your content, social media ads, posts and emails directly affect sales. Make sure you’re not just sending great content out into the wide world without tethering it to tangible targets. Your content has value — make it work for your business.

Need some support with planning your 2020 content calendar? Is it looking like you might need an extra pair of hands to create the amazing content you’re hoping to put out over the next year? Get in touch and let’s talk about how I can help 2020 be your best year ever.

How To Gain More Customer Reviews

One of the most important marketing tools in the age of social media is the positive independent customer review. A five star review can mean the difference between a lead and a sale. A one star review can mean losing an all-important reservation.

Some customers love leaving positive reviews without being asked, but they’re in the minority. On the whole, it’s more likely that a customer will leave a review if they’re dissatisfied with the service they received or the products they’ve bought. The reasons for this include:

●      They want to air their grievances

●      They aren’t receiving adequate responses from customer service and desire urgent attention

●      They feel they should warn future customers about their experience.

There’s an old saying in the retail industry that I think applies here — one bad review is louder than five great ones. Whether it’s fair or not, people are far more likely to expect high quality service and would never think twice about praising a business for performing to the standard they expect. However, you’d better believe they’ll tell everyone who’ll listen if they were upset by something a business did.

But enough with the psychology of sales. What you want is more great reviews. So how do you encourage your satisfied customers to leave you a courtesy message? Here are some ideas…

Create a Reviews “Safe Space”

Customers tend to feel much more comfortable with writing reviews if they feel they’re writing them outside of your business’ metaphorical walls. That’s why people are far more likely to leave a detailed review somewhere like TripAdvisor than they are on your own website.

Direct your customers to an external reviews site like Yelp, or to somewhere they can leave a public review like Facebook or Google and remind them that there’s no obligation but that you’d really love their feedback.

Nudge and Remind in a Friendly Way

Gaining your customers’ contact details at the point of sale is incredibly valuable because it means you can keep in touch.

Of course if you like you can ask them how their week’s going, but honestly it would be much more useful for your business (and less creepy) if you asked them nicely how they rated your services and the product they purchased. You’ll be surprised how obliging they can be.

Reward Your Reviewers

Everyone likes a freebie. While you might not feel a review is worth giving a discount for, think about it this way: according to HubSpot, 85% of consumers trust online reviews are much as personal recommendations.

Your rewards don’t have to be huge. How about trying:

●      A free soft drink

●      A side order on any meal over £10 in value

●      10% off their next order

●      Free delivery code for their next order

●      A surprise gift for them and a friend they nominate.

Publicise the Positive Reviews You Receive

On the Internet, everybody wants clout. By sharing your positive reviews online you’re doing two things:

1. Showing your followers how great a real customer thinks you are

2. Proving that you publicise customer feedback to your audience.

If your customers are regular social media users, and they’re fans of your products or business, they’ll want to be showcased as a fan. Sharing their reviews is a great (and free!) way of giving something back to them!

Have you had some great experiences with customer reviews? I’d love to hear about them! Send me a message or comment below to tell me all about it.