Viral Podcasting

Amy Domestico is the Customer Success Manager for Voxnest. She's been in podcasting for more than a decade and takes the industry very seriously. There's probably no better source for the latest scuttlebutt than  her. Amy believes that the opportunities for making podcasting a career and a high income earner have never been greater. Since Spreaker and Blogtalkradio were combined into Voxnest, there's greater opportunities for monetization than ever. While you might not be able to retire off your earnings there, they provide an opportunity for immediate income, which is rather unique in this field. And now, there's the ability to post to many more platforms in just easy to access place. Voxnest/Spreaker are making big waves in podcasting. You need to check them out.  

Marla Isackson became somewhat of a reluctant podcaster. At the urging of her team, she hesistantly begans podcasting. That was nearly 40 episodes ago and she's going strong. In the process she uncovered an opportunity to create a network for female and minority podcasters. She's got nearly 150 shows on her site now and expects to be at 250 by year's end. She's going to monetize the site by attracting advertisers with excellent show analytics and metrics. The space is booming now and when Marla finally releases the site to the public, she's expecting big results. Today it's iTunes, tomorrow the world! 

Doing a great interview is an acquired skill and art. Unfortunately there really aren’t any great books on the topic either. Maybe it’s time to write one. There’s a lot more to it than just asked no a bunch of questions. Canned interviews sound canned and will not generate interest. You’ve got to find the angle. You need to find a side of your subject that isn’t well known or common knowledge. Are with a different perspective you can make a difference. Just put your mind to it and think differently. When it comes to interviewing it’s all about practice and point of view. You need to stand out. And remember that the most difficult subjects provide you with an incredible challenge to grow and improve your skills 

This is our 45th episode. We're very big on paying it forward. That's why I'm making this personal offer to you now. Write to me at kl@kerrylutz.com and I will listen to your podcast and evaluate all of your branding and marketing and furnish you with a SWAT (strengths, weaknesses and threats) report to help you grown at no cost to you. What are you doing right and what are you doing wrong? You probably don't know and no one is out there telling you. Usually you only need to make minor corrections on the course you're following, but that's enough to show huge results. And that's what we're after. Again, just email me at kl@kerrylutz.com for your complimentary podcast evaluation. Happy podcasting! Viral Podcasting

From a young age Karen Kataline wanted to be a performer. Later she went on to earn her masters in social work from Columbia. This prepared her well for her later role as podcaster. Karen says you've got to learn how to make connections quickly when you're a social worker and the same holds true for podcasting. She fills in for local radio hosts in her area and started her podcast a year ago. She continues to build audience and is looking to monetize and expand. There's a lot of options, but she will probably start another show dealing with women's issues and business matters. Right now it's all politics, all the time, but she's learning the benefit of being flexible as any accomplished podcast must. For more info go over to ViralPodcasting.com.   

When it comes to success in podcasting, consistency is the key. Whether it's releasing shows at regular intervals and times or consistent quality, when you deliver your audience comes to trust you and you insure that they download all your episodes as they become avaialble. They understand that you are reliable partner who can be counted upon. When you fail at consistency as I have at numerous times, your credibility will take a hit. You also need to be consistent in self-improvement and improving your show. Until we're all perfect at everything we do, there's always room for improvement. Whether it's cutting down on verbal stumbles, annunciating words more clearly, doing a better job with show notes, you can take small steps towards improvment that lead to big gains in audience and income. It's all up to you. Just promise to make one improvement per week and watch your listernship take off. 

Liz Soria hosts a podcast called Tax Advisor & Biz Coach Success. She's been doing it for nearly two years and has over 2000 listeners. She's anxious to monetize the show and she need only look at her audience as potential clients for her services. While there are many other ways to monetize, converting listeners into paying customers is perhaps one of the easiest and most tried and true methods for podcasting success. After all, if someone is listening to a niche podcast, they probably have an interest in that product or service. So why not start monetizing your podcast by offering your own services. Figure out what your annual revenue per client works out to. Multiply that by 10, 20, 50 or 100. You could be looking at some serious sales increases for an incredibly low financial outlay. Perhaps the greatest takeaway from Liz's interview is that you need to make a commitment to yourself and your audience to keep on improving your show's quality and your level of expertise. 

Jason Hartman has been podcasting since 2005. During that time he's attracted thousands of clients and 10's of millions in revenues. Being first or among the first always helps, but so does being an investment visionary. Jason has shown over and over again that income property, particularly single family homes for rental, have the best long term returns of any asset class. Even during the 2008-09 financial crisis, most of Jason's clients who listened to him came out better than when they started. As far as podcasting is concerned, Jason concentrates far more on content than on the technicals. At any given time he's got his stalwart Creating Wealth show as well as 7-8 others in production. He interviews world leading authorities on a variety of financial and non-financial topics and his show is often found at the top of iTunes charts and others. While it's definitely more difficult to start a successful podcast in 2018, Jason believes that it can still be done, if you know what you're doing and what your audience wants. Jason plans to keep on podcasting for as long as he possibly can, and that probably means decades. We can only imagine what his numbers will look like in 30 years.  FSN Link

Naresh Vissa wrote a best selling book about podcasting Podcastnomics several years ago. It's become must reading in the Podcast Industry. He shows how people in many fields have created podcasts that have greatly increased their businesses, sometimes making them millions. Naresh helps podcasters create and produce successful podcasts. He handles all the grunt work, from guest acquisition to production, and from promotion to PR. It's all about connecting with an audience and becoming a vital part of their lives. The formula is very simple but the execution is where the winners are seperated from the losers. But the best part is that even if you're not succeeding now, Naresh can help you change all that.  Go over to ViralPodcasting.com and find out more. 

Bill Powers started his Mining Stock Education Podcast 2 years ago. He read Viral Podcasting and has implemented many of the strategies. He's now profitable and is still building the company. He's been getting great guests and widespread distribution and the clients are starting to jump on board. He's joined a growing group of people that actually earn a respectable income from their work. He shares with us his journey and his vision for the future. It's all up from here. 

According to Rob Walch of leading podcast server site Libsyn, 62% of the traffic on their site emanates from iTunes. That's still a very commanding share, but if 100 million people listen to podcasts regularly, that means that 38 million get their podcasts from non-iTunes aggregators. That's a lot of listeners and it opens up tremendous opportunities for aggressive, clever podcasters. Mike Gazzola gets more than 2000 downloads per day from Tunein Radio. He gets similar results from other podcasts. Isn't it better to be a large fish in a small pond, than a small fish in the Pacific Ocean? These smaller sites all have their featured and top picks. If you make it there, your traffic could escalate way beyond your most modest expectations. Try examing these other aggregators and see what happens to the popularity of your show. You might be very surprised. 

Colin Gray was a college professor in the UK when he got bitten by the Podcast bug. It wasn't long before he was giving up his day job and pursuing podcasting as a full time profession. Now he runs multiple podcasts and teaches everyday folks how to start and maintain successful shows. Much like your humble host, Colin has learned all the ins and outs as well as advanced interviewing techniques. He agrees that it is among the hardest things a newbie host must learn. Now he's trying to give aspiring hosts an even easier solution with his new site www.Alito.com. It's a website that takes your raw audio file and turns it into a high quality ready to distribute episode. What could be easier than that?  Colin is very optimistic about the future of podcasting and believes that we've only just scratched the surface. 

The biggest problem I've had doing my podcasting career is the quality of my Skype connection. For such a well established service, it has a number of deficiences. Dropped calls, fadeouts, clicks, latency issues, etc. And yet it appears to be the cleanest shirt in the laundry. Other services promise the moon and the stars, but can't deliver. Worst part is that they rely upon you sending a connection link to get your interviewee on the call. This is often problematical. As a host, you want to be in control of the call. You don't want to be sitting around waiting for your guest to remeber to connect. With Skype, unlike all the other services, either party to a call can initiate contact.  For seven years I've looked for a solution. Finally, my good friend Joe Messina has found one. Used properly, it will reduce your Skype issues by a large percentage. It's called QOS - Quality of Service. Found on your router settings, it enables you to allocate bandwith to different apps, programs and devices, either dynamically or in a fixed priority listing. It works amazingly well. If you're using a cable company combo modem/router you probably don't have access to DOS. However, you can simply configure your modem to shut down the built-in router and then connect an after market router. I'm using a Netgear AC1900 Nighthawk. It's way faster than my cable co's router and has QOS. Thus far I'm using the dynamic QOS setting and it's working like a charm. You might also want to consider it, especially  if you're having too many Skype issues.   

Jay Soderberg has been a podcaster since 2005. He was a producer at ESPN and his boss ordered him to become the resident podcasting maven. Not having a choice in the matter, Jay took to the challenge with the passion and intensity he's know for. Now he works for Voxnest, a company which recently acquired Blogtalkradio and Spreaker. He's now working with 10's of thousands of podcasters around the world. The company will be releasing an ad insertion tool that will work with other podcast server sites and allow individuals to monetize their shows. Jay has followed the careers of many well know podcasters and believes that passion is the driver. Knowing your audience and how to communicate with them will go a long ways towards success, but you've got to learn the craft and live it. Podcasting keeps getting more popular and as smartphone automobile integration continues to advance, so will growth. There's a lot more growth coming down the pike. 

When it comes to podcasting, everyone knows John Lee Dumas. He's a modern day legend. From starting a podcast with modest goals, he's built an empire. After serving as an officer on the battlefields of Iraq, he went through a number of profitable careers, but always lacked a sense of fulfillment. But he kept at it and eventually gravitated to podcasting. We first connected during a Cliff Ravenscraft mastermind group, when he was just getting started. Fast forward 6 years later, John is living the dream and has taught thousands of others how to master the art of podcasting. As John puts it, "You start out with very few people actually listening to your show. You keep at it and then all of a sudden 2 years, you're an overnight sensation." But remember, just because you know how to talk doesn't mean you can be a podcaster. There's a lot more to success than being able to string a catchy sentence together. You need that something extra and John has obviously found it.