💰Case study: What's your collateral?🥬
🤸♀️Podcast marketing: let's have some fun.🌈
Bonjour.
We’ve talked about finding shows to work with, how to work with them, how to pitch them, and how to pitch newsletters specifically. This week I want to talk about another way to think about partnering with other shows: it’s negotiating. And if you want to be a good negotiator, you have to have something great to barter with.
Your bomb-ass podcast is something to barter with, sure. (That is what a promo-swap is. I’ll read a promo for your show on mine if you read a promo for my show on yours.)
But what about something extra to barter? It might be worth it to consider creating content simply as a way to feature other podcasters, and offer it to people who you’d like to work with. Here’s an example:
I am working with the podcast How to Do the Pot, a short, beautifully produced and informative show that speaks to women who are either cannabis curious or novices. In addition to her weekly highly-produced episode, Ellen, the host, offers a weekly series called “The 1st Time I Bought Legal Weed,” where she plays short (~5 minute) voice memos of people talking about the first time they bought legal weed. She did this to provide her listeners with great content, and because there were so many people she wanted to talk to but couldn’t squeeze in for a full interview.
But when I came on board to help Ellen market the show, this series offered an additional benefit for me: I had collateral to work with. I could now go out to podcasters and say, “would you like to have Ellen on your show? We could feature you on ours.” I see more than twice the number of responses if I’m able to offer something great in return.
Ellen is doing a lot of smart things with her show, including a series called Podcast Club, where she recommends a show she loves. These are promo swaps on speed—they’re shows Ellen really cares about, and the reads she does are truly personal. And because she’s branded them as Podcast Club, they don’t feel marketey or gross.
These are not decisions Ellen made because she wanted to grow the show. They are decisions she made to make a great show. They just happen to aid in marketing. Which is a new way to think about making a podcast.
So think about what fun, out-of-the-box things you could do. What’s your version of “The 1st Time I Bought Legal Weed?” Could Ellen start a “Podcast Club” movement? This makes you stand out, easy to work with others, a great member of the podcasting community, and it provides you with great content that takes 1/10th the time to edit.
In review:
Think about what you have that might be valuable to other podcasters. A large social media following? A newsletter? A special series on your show?
What could you launch within your show that could bring in other podcasters and listeners?
Write a press release for your new feature and email it to people you’d like to work with and podcast journalists. (Like me.)
Set up an email template so that you can automatically mention your cool new feature, and how you’d like to include the person you’re emailing with.
Check out How to Do the Pot to see the smart things Ellen is doing. (And learn which edibles you should buy.)
Let me know how it’s going! I’d love to feature your story in a future episode.
(And please subscribe to Podcast the Newsletter if you don’t already.)
lp
Pitch of the Week
This week, I received a pitch for Podcast the Newsletter from Rachel of SBS, who was writing about a podcast called The Ugly Duckling of Italian Cuisine.
Note:
She introduces herself. I don’t feel like I’ve been included in a blast, I feel like I have been connected with someone worth having a relationship with.
I know she reads the newsletter and likes it.
Intriguing concept. (You cannot see here, but this email included real photos!)
Two of the episodes were live so I could listen immediately.
She knows how I usually like to link, and includes those links.
She does not know how I like to listen, so she provided links to Apple and Spotify. (Note: I prefer Pocket Casts!)
I love the PS! I’m a sucker for compliments!
I not only wrote about The Ugly Duckling, I passed it along to my mom, who has an Italian movie club and newsletter. She shared it with her audience, too.
Send me your own thoughts about podcast marketing. What works for you? Have you received or written a great pitch letter? I want to see it! lauren@tinkmedia.co.
LET’S SWAP
Fill out the form if you want to talk with me about a promo, newsletter, or social media swap.
Here are just a few other shows seeking to swap. Fill out the form to be considered—I’m getting a good library of shows who want to work together, and the more of you who sign up, the better the matches will be.
✨ How AI Happens: A podcast featuring experts and practitioners explaining their work at the cutting edge of Artificial Intelligence. Tune in to hear AI Researchers, Data Scientists, ML Engineers, and the leaders of today’s most exciting AI companies explain the newest and most challenging facets of their field. Powered by Sama.
✨ White Picket Fence: Interrogates the structures of inequity affecting women since America’s founding. Host Julie Kohler unpacks how white womanhood and the conception of the nuclear family were constructed and how they affect our culture, politics, and policies—in ways that hurt all of us. This season examines the current childcare crisis and will explore how the cultural idealization of the "traditional" two-parent nuclear family harms American politics, communities, and economy and prevents the kind of public investment in the caregiving and caregivers that is essential for a functioning economy.
✨ Hip-Hop Can Save America! Explores the innovative and authentic use of Hip-Hop music and culture in areas including education, health & wellness, science & technology, politics and social justice, entrepreneurship, the fine arts, and more, to uplift lives, livelihoods, communities and society as a whole.
✨ Big Fat Positive: A smart and funny podcast about two best friends who found out they were pregnant at the same time. The show follows the moms-to-be on their journey through pregnancy and into new motherhood, week by week. With weekly check-ins, special guests and segments such as "OMG I’m Freaking Out," hosts Shanna Micko & Laura Birek recount the often hilarious and always honest highs and lows of being a pregnant woman and new mom.