How To Use Your Podcast To Drive Excitement For Your Launch

 

In this episode, Emily and I talked about...

Emily: So let's say you have a freebie, and you have a podcast that is really nicely tied into that particular freebie. So that would be a really good place to put something more static as a mid roll. Like if you want to take this one step further, go download this freebie, and then listen to the rest of the episode as we walk you through how to something like that. So you could have a couple of different ones for the different freebies that you have the different lead magnets that you have, and assign them to particular episodes as they are related to the content.

Sara: You're listening to the launch playbook podcast, the weekly podcast for service based business owners to discover the starts, stops and tools of transformation that go into launching their online offers. I'm your host, Sara Vartanian. And if you want to launch your ideas into the world faster with more success and less burnout. Well, friend, consider this show your secret playbook to get you there.

This week, I'm thrilled to welcome Emily milling, founder and CEO of the ultimate creative a podcast production agency. Emily is a multi passionate, creative entrepreneur. And she started the ultimate creative in 2018 to facilitate a big leap out of the corporate nine to five life with a goal to share more of her creative passions, music, filmmaking, comedy, audio with the world. She truly believes that when we share voices and tell her stories, we enable others to do the same. And that leads to a more compassionate, more empathetic world. And what better way to do that than with a podcast. So every week here on this podcast, we share strategies for launching that have worked and failed both the expected and unexpected.

So we can listen to the show and walk away with a strategy or two to try or avoid for your next launch. And that's why I'm so excited. Emily's here with us today. Through her agency, the ultimate creative Emily has worked with dozens and dozens of podcasters. And today she's going to share how we can use podcasting for our launch. And I'm also kind of doubly excited to welcome Emily because Emily is also my Podcast Producer. So this is like extra exciting to have you here.

So welcome, Emily!

Emily: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I learned so much from you like all day every day. So yay, this is great.

Sara: I feel like something really cool about what you do is that you get like all these strategies before anyone else does know what it's like kind of a secret. You get all these like you listen to all these podcasts before anyone else does.

Emily: That's true. That's true. But yeah, it's just part of my job. Now I just know everything.

Sara: Yeah. A lot of things. And there's a lot. Yeah. So will you go ahead and tell us about the ultimate creative?

Emily: Yeah, for sure. So it is a podcast production agency in Toronto. I'm super excited. It's through a few iterations of the business. We were talking about this just before we started recording. I started in 2018. And I was doing websites, I was trying to pay off debt for a horror film that I made that I sell financed. So I paid off some of it and then I realized, Oh, I can make a buttload of money doing this working for myself more than what I'm getting paid at my my nine to five jobs. So I left, built lots of websites brought on a partner the second year in the third year and said goodbye to that partner. And now I'm focused solely on podcasting. And it has been such a fun, wild ride of awesomeness. I launched also my course podcast rocket for the first time last year, I joined your group, the launch playbook club in order to get better at doing that. Because like honestly listening to your podcast and listening to your ads, they work. Okay, they work. And so that has been a huge part of my business growth over the last year. And then yeah, and then the other part of it is just producing podcasts. That's what we do.

Sara: Amazing. Okay, so there's a few things I want to unpack there. So first, let's just like, slide back to that horror movie thing. So you created a horror movie. I did not know that.

Emily: No. That's the second one. Yeah. So I met my partner Justin NYCLU, I don't know zillions of years ago, and he was just finishing his film Teddy bomb. his ex girlfriend was the starring role in it. And she hated the whole process. And they broke up. So I did the voice for her. I dubbed her voice afterwards, the voice of his ex girlfriend, and then he was also like, you know, this film really needs a score. Can you do that? And I'm like, I guess I'll try to figure it out. So there's a very clunky score for the film Teddy balm. And then a couple of years later, we're like, we're gonna do a new movie. It's called impossible whore. And it's about two women that are hunting like the source of creativity. It's very like creative, create creative words are hard for me creative, focused film, and it's super gross and super scary. So I did all of the visual of like the special effects on it, like the blood and gore and guts to my abilities. And then I did the music on it. And that's actually where I learned everything I know now about audio is because I taught myself sound does And audio editing on that film. And I don't know why I was just like, I feel like this is a thing I should do. And I fully like all of the sound effects like a ding dong will not be doing that again. It's so hard. It is so hard. But it was so fun to learn all of these different elements of audio through the production of this film. We did an Indiegogo, I think we made like 7000 bucks. So the rest of it was really truly just like, financed by my line of credit, which still needs some work, but that's okay. Because now creativity is out in the world. Yeah, did the score for that one to listen on Spotify? I get 70 cents a year from this. But yeah, that's it. That's that's the film.

Sara: So you like the horror genre then? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yes. Yes. And I'm gonna skip here to you also do some other. You do some comedy, though now too, as well, right?

Emily: Yep. And we do weekly sketches. They come out every Thursday. Sometimes I do music for them. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I just find it on the internet. And that works.

Sara: I love it. Okay, so let's go back into you know, what you're doing now with the podcast with people. So you have a course, podcast rocket. Now we're gonna get into, and you're also doing production for people. So let's dive right in there. So how can people use their podcast to support their launch?

Emily: So this is a really fun question. I feel like you also kind of covered it. Remember when you did that episode on Amy Porterfield the debrief?

Sara: Right, right for the DCA Academy launch? Yeah.

Emily: So and that was really interesting, because when I was doing the second launch of podcast rocket, I was really listening intently to what she was doing with her podcast. And you could tell and and you said this in your episode, too, like the podcast shifted, I think even two months before her DCA launch was happening. So she had previous students coming in to do case studies testimonials effectively on the show. And then it was every every single topic was centered around what someone who's never created a course or someone who needs her course to create courses would be focused on that really started sparking some ideas for me as well, like how do I tailor everything to the specific needs of the people that I really want to have in my course in my particular launch. And I found that that works superduper Well, the other thing that is really neat about this too, is that you can create audio grams that are effectively testimonials for your course or for your offer whatever they are. So you can use those to repurpose for social media, you can put them like as testimonials on your sales page. I did that on my sales page for podcast rocket, so people can listen through. And they can read the text in the audiogram as well to see like, or hear firsthand experience of an in their own words of what they experienced with the course, which I thought was really neat, too. But I think like, really, when we're looking at it, it's just about I don't know, I feel like I'm about to regurgitate a lot of things that you have taught me with your podcast, and with all of your amazing resources. But I think it's just about like finding other ways to make a connection with the people that you really want to bring into your course into your lunch, whether that's through the topics that you're discussing, or whether that's through the guests that you have on in a way that supports like or gets rid of the the reservations, the hesitations the objections. Yeah, I got the word eventually. I think that can be a really great way to support your launch.

Sara: I love that. Yeah, with remember with the DCA Academy, DCA Academy DCA launch for me, in Porterfield, I was an affiliate. And so definitely, we were getting stuff in July, and it wasn't watching till September. So like there was a huge launch runway, it was pretty cool to see that in effect at all the planning that would go into that. So something we just did for, like I'm in the midst right now of launching the launch of a book club. And something that we did was I wanted to bring in some testimonies from people in to my launch lives like the last episode, people were sharing their experiences.

Emily: Yeah, we did a clip show of that. I'm thinking, as you mentioned earlier, I listened to a heck of a lot of podcasts. And I'm like, going through the files and each one, which was actually weak. Oh, my goodness, it was only like a week ago that I listened to that too. Yeah, so like a clip show of putting together a whole bunch of different experiences. And that was just such a smart idea. Because you had like a varying range of people who've been in it for a while people who were a little new to it, and the different types of things that everyone had to work through. And because you have such a such a great community and the resources that go along with it, like all of the learning materials and the templates, you had people speaking to all of the different elements, which I really loved as well. So you get a very clear picture of what it is that you'll be walking yourself into. I mean, you could even put that on your sales page as well. Like listen to this episode to help you figure out if this is right for you. It could possibly be in place of a discovery call. If like me, you don't want to do discovery calls sometimes.

Sara: It was it was very natural, how it worked out what they were talking about in those clips. But I loved because when I reached out to with the idea of doing it, I was like, do I have to like get people on interviews? It felt very complicated that but you help my brain feel better? Because you said no, you can just get them to record it, it's super easy to get them to, like, record their voice and send you a note or even Yeah, dm you a recording on Instagram, you can just record it. So that was so easy to do. And it was just, I could just reach out and ask.

Emily: I think you had a couple of podcasters in there. So maybe they use their microphones.

Sara: Maybe they did.

Emily: I hope they did podcast or friends. I hope you did.

Sara: But yeah, definitely. Now that I have those, I've been thinking, How else can I extend the use of them? Like, like you said, on the sales page, or like put, you know, put it over their picture and make an Instagram post or something? I think there's lots of ways once you have that audio? Yeah, make it keep working for you. Exactly. No, there's something else we did for my launch dynamic content. And it's kind of new ish, right? Yeah, I don't know, if it's new ish, or just new for me. So you want to tell us about that.

Emily: It is new ish. So so we use buzzsprout for all of our podcast hosting, which is what you're using as well. And buzzsprout has this option to do dynamic content, which means that you can put five minutes of content at the beginning or the end of all of the episodes in your podcast catalog, you can actually pick and choose which ones you want it to go in front of as well, I believe, I don't know if they figured out all of the little pieces because it's still kind of new. Let's say you're launching between April 1 and April 15. And you want to have a specific promo directing people to a place for that duration of time, you no longer have to worry about whether people are going back in time in your episodes and listening to old promos. And like Do they even apply anymore? Everybody's getting the same promo. They're getting the same information for every episode that they're listening to, which is awesome, because as we all know, as marketers, like repetition is key in order to get people to make purchases. Like how I heard the mid roll promos and your podcast over and over. And finally I was like, Okay, I mean, I mean, I got I'm alright. Okay, I mean, so. So yeah, so that's a really effective way to do it, too. I often get the question like, should I put it at the end? Or should I put it at the beginning. And I always recommend if this is like a big thing that you want everybody to know about? Always put it at the beginning. Don't be shy about it. It's okay to sell stuff. That's what your podcast is there for. In most cases, it is a revenue generator, even if you are a content creator, and you're like, I'm not sure if this is what I want. Like it's okay to make money. I just wanted to throw that out there.

Sara: I love that you said that. Because like we talked about in the club sometimes with my clients like it's okay to sell. Yes, that's, that's what we're doing. We have a business.

Emily: Right? Exactly, exactly. It doesn't mean that we don't have friendships and relationships out of it. But we can we can absolutely make money at the same time. Like the cool thing is that there's there's so many people in this Sheila Cummins calls it a microcosm of women entrepreneurs, we just kind of infuse money back into each other over and over again, which I love. I love that so much. It's really cool.

Sara: Yeah, same. I love that too. That's one of the things that is really amazing. And I feel like, I know you're singing listen to people's podcasts and you end up like, I know, you end up joining the club because of it. And I think you've probably worked with some other people too. I think I've been the same thing that people who have been like I've been my clients or I work with, I'm like, Oh, yeah, I want to buy that or even with us, right. I think I joined your podcast rocket and then heard you for production. And then you ended up joining my club. And it all just Yep. So I'm working comes full circle. So you, you mentioned with dynamic content that we can put at the beginning or the end of our podcast using it for our promo. Does that mean like do you think we should do that? Instead of having those static like mid roll ones? I think it's okay to also have those. What do you think?

Emily: so Okay, so let's say you have like an evergreen, something that you're promoting, or maybe it's a freebie, and you have a podcast that is really nicely tied into that particular freebie. So I have an episode that I did with my copywriter valeska on show notes, writing show notes, like why they're important how you should write them. And then we have a freebie that leads into that. And it's just a template and a guide how to use that. So that would be a really good place to put something more static as a mid roll. Like if you want to take this one step further. Go download this freebie and then listen to the rest of the episode as we walk you through how to write your actual show notes, something like that. So you could have a couple of different ones for the different freebies that you have the different lead magnets that you have, and assign them to particular episodes as they are related to the content. But I think if you are doing a specific timeframe thing, that's where dynamic content really fits in well, you know, with our with our shorter cart opens, but if it's if it's more of an evergreen thing, if it's related to the content, give this static stuff and try

Sara: right and so if you know you know you're in lunch mode Let's say do you think during that time when you know, you'll be using the dynamic content, that you should not have something in the middle of those episodes as well just so it stays focused on, let's say, the big promo you're doing I'm thinking it's kind of like where you have a CTA and an email or something where we only try to have like one ask, do you think it's similar to a podcast.

Emily: And that's kind of tricky, too, right? Because like when you're in a launch, if dynamic content is applying to all of the episodes, then like it's applying to all of them. And it's not as easy to go back and take out that static promo, that mid roll thing. So I would say, maybe the episodes that you have scheduled to come out during your launch period, maybe you don't put anything in there. Maybe it's only focused on the launch itself, sort of like how we talked about with how Amy Porterfield had her case studies in and the specific topics related to that, or maybe the lead magnet gets people on the waitlist, if there's something in there, but otherwise, I think it's probably okay, because again, like we're going for the repetition thing. And if people are going back into the back catalogue of your episodes, they may be skipping through it a little bit, as well. If it's there, if they're listening to it over and over, and they're like, okay, I've heard this, I know what this is. So then hearing another thing might be okay,

Sara: yeah. And actually, as you brought up the I know, we're coming back to DC a lot, because there's lots of lessons to learn. Of course, Amy, who is like really great at launching obviously has obviously big team behind her there. But I'm actually thinking I feel like during some of those episodes, she might say something in the middle of them. That's like, This episode is brought to you by you know, digital course Academy, my something something core so that that can kind of stay in there all the time. I mean, it's still but it doesn't maybe wouldn't wouldn't probably, like affect the dynamic content, which might be I'm going to guess like going to her webinar?

Emily: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's so many different ways to do it. And like with anything marketing, digital marketing related, like it all has to be an experiment every single Absolutely, yeah. Like, what's gonna hit what's not is the way that I'm phrasing this particular offer going to be good or bad or whatever. You know what I mean? Should I put music on my promo or not? What's going to be most effective?

Sara: I think most of the time with that we can just use the information we have in hand, right? And make a good guess. And go for it.

Emily: Yes. Exactly.

Sara: What sounds like okay, it may be kind of fun to us, if possible. Yes. And try it out and see what happens.

Emily: Yeah, yeah. Like the promo that we did for your your Slumber Party, which I guess if you're listening to this episode, possibly is still running. No, it's not.
I don't know.

Sara: No, won't be. But there'll be another one. Hopefully, if it goes, Well, let's experiment. Let's see. Yeah, the sales party. So how long in advance ahead of a launch? Do you think you should plan out this content? And I guess that can apply to anything really, in your podcast? But specifically, it's talking about launches? Like, how far out do you think?

Emily: so I feel like, I feel like people are gonna make fun of me for this. But I have my podcast planned out for like till the end of the year, right now, I mean, I would say like the earlier the better, like as early as possible, so that you are aligning the rest of your content with what it is you're offering, I'm very much of the mind that like you shouldn't have five bajillion CTAs happening all the time. So if I'm in a lunch, I don't necessarily want to be actively promoting my production services, or my freebies, or whatever. So a really important element of this. And you know, this is well I do this with all my clients is like, we batch our episodes, so that there's plenty of time to have a proactive approach, like a strategic approach to the content, you're putting out everything in my episodes, like everything in my podcast relates to the content that I'm putting out on social media, the emails, any other any other piece to that. So like, I'll do a carousel post that's related to the podcast episode of the week. And of my podcast topic is around like proper mic technique for new podcasters that my carousel post is also demonstrating that so everything is really neatly strategically put together in a way that leads my audience if they're following along along or if they're jumping in on any point to where I'd love them to end up, which is in my course podcast rocket, or whatever their offer I'm looking at. My main thing that I do is I just have a production calendar. It is like a list of all of the months of the year, and then all the big major activities that are happening. I like to plan launches super far in advance. I know that's not for everybody, but I'm like I like having that long runway because then I know I'm not going to miss anything. And I've been doing I've been launching podcast rocket in various ways over the last month or two, just because I'm trying to figure out what things people are going to resonate with. And the more I do them like last minute up flying off the seat of my pants or whatever, by the seat of my pants are off the seat of my pants. I don't know.

Sara: it would go either way.

Emily: So when my pants are off and I'm flying, I guess wearing a skirt now. I finally they really don't work well because I'm not strict. Planting things, I'm not giving myself enough time to have conversations with people. I'm just like content content content. And I don't know what I'm doing. So having that super long runway, I would say at least two months out of understanding what it is that you want to be putting into the world with your show is essential. But again, I'm not everybody, I just really need to have a clear picture in order to feel like safe and secure about it, you know?

Sara: Yeah, I think I mean, you know, this, but like, when I started this, I did a little bit of diving into doing the podcast, like, I just had wanted one for a long time and saw your course podcast rocket and was like, Okay, let's do it. But definitely, it's been a learning curve for me with that, where I like, hadn't really fully thought out the planning of it. So it was a bit more stressful in the beginning. And especially like, this has been a year where like, the kids have been home and trying to find a quiet space in the house during the day, especially in the winter, when I was like, I can't really kick them out to go play outside or something, when super cold days, I don't know, they don't like it for some reason. Or their fingers on the door. But anyways, like, I think that has been something that I have learned going through that to treat it like I treat like the newsletter or my social content or the other planning. And so now I was finding with this launch, and even just like planning out the rest of the year, actually like, including the podcast in there. And the truth is, once I have my podcast, I usually have my newsletter, and I have my social posts. Now, of course, like I'm a writer, so I usually write out a lot of the episode because it just is way my brain works. I'd like to do that. And then I can almost use that for my newsletter, I can grab bits of that for almost every poster and the week. Yeah, so I think having this plan in place, lets me figure out who I actually want to invite on. Because I want to invite so many people, but if I'm more purposeful with it, then I'll have them come on at a time that aligns with whatever, maybe I'm promoting. So we're having some really cool guest experts who have joined as bonuses for the launch club. And in the next iteration of the launch, which will be in the fall, I'm gonna have them on ahead of the launch time as well. So we can talk about what they do and like get really excited. One is about legal. And then this is a lot of legal stuff for your course that a lot of us probably don't know or avoid. And then there's also someone to talk about how to be visible in a sustainable way so that it doesn't like burn you out. Maybe if you would prefer to hide some time.

Emily: Yeah, that sounds like something I need. I need that to introvert. batching batching makes everything easier. Do your stuff once a month, and then just schedule it the end

Sara: then take a break.

Emily: Yeah, yeah.

Sara: Okay. So now thinking about this are launching, how can we use our podcast to drive traffic? So I know obviously, it's like, the content. And he we talked about dynamic content and having promotions in there. But like, how else can we get our podcast to do some of that heavy lifting and bringing people to

Emily: Yeah, so I think we talked a little bit about the objections earlier when I scrambled trying to figure out what the word was I was looking for. So we were talking about the objections. So I think using the actual content within the episode to bridge that gap for people, if I want to get people signing up for podcast rocket, maybe the the batching. And the scheduling is something that I want to cover because that is an objection for people. They're like, how much time is this actually going to take? How do I know if I'm going to be like spending hours and hours on this. So I can put together an episode that talks about like, this is how I do it. This is how my clients have been successful, and my students have been successful. So these are some of the ways that you can implement if you're interested in seeing how this works, you should come to the webinar sales webinar. If you're interested, you should just sign up for the waitlist or just go get paid for it now go get paid for it now. Friday morning word Oh my gosh. But yeah, I think it like if you're using your content to get people to the next step. Like I love thinking about things in a story. Where are people in the story of their lives? And what are the things that I can do to help them get to the next level of the story of their lives? We in sketch comedy, we use what's called heightening. I mean like this is normal in all storytelling, but we start with like a platform and a premise. And we're like the who, what, where so my listener is this person who is an entrepreneur, and they're creative, and they would like to start a podcast, but they aren't really sure. And then there's a tilt. There's a weird thing that happens that day. Okay, so they listened to my podcast episode about the five things you should know before you start a podcast. And then the heightening is number three, and four, make them feel like Oh, these are the things that I feel like I really want to do or now I understand that that has changed my whole perspective of what this possibly could be, I can see what's possible. And I know that's something that you talk about a lot show people what's possible with the content and then the next part of the the heightening of the stories that go to my sales page, and the next part is that they go to my website, you know, and so on and so forth. So I think it is a part of the The entire process of sending people through to actually acquiring your products and services. And it's also a really good way to build a no trust like factor so that by the time they get to the point where they're hitting Checkout, and they're ready to pay, they're totally confident in it, because they've had the time to build the relationship with you by listening to your podcast and listening to your expertise there like 1,000,000,000%, in no questions asked.

Sara: I love that. That's how we want people to feel when they come in, right? We feel like yes, this is a great decision. I feel like we could have a whole conversation. So maybe we'll have to have another episode down the road around how comedy can help us with launching and telling our stories. Oh, yeah. I really liked that about that. You talked about like that heightened peace. I know, like when I think about the way I've been approaching some of the content on the podcast, it's like, I'll look at my sales page, I talk what I think I talk a lot than the club to like, I usually say like, create your sales page first. Because in each of those sections on your sales page, like you have the top part where where it's like, What's going on with you right now, like the current state of things, and then that can be a whole episode around like things that people are happening, right, and the next one, then we have, like, you know, again, that shifting belief or like showing what's possible, like maybe like, why this is happening, what you need to know about it. And then like what's possible for you down the road. So you bring in like that social proof, or you tell about like, you show examples and case studies. And I always I approach any of the launch like any of my launch content, just going through each section of a sales page and thinking about that, which is what I like to start with that

Emily: so smart. That's why I give you all my money, because you're just so smart. Everyone should give you all their money.

Sara: I won't protest. I think they should give you all their money for podcast.

Emily: Great, we'll just take all your money, everyone thing.

Sara: But we really want to help you. Actually, if you know, like and trust us, you want to start podcasting or launching either one of us. I like this off the rails, and I think it's fine. Great. Okay, so you know, you said about covering objections and things like that? What are some of the great ways to promote our podcast? So you talked a little bit about audio grams and carousels? Are there any other you know, ways that you see it really work well?

Emily: yeah. So the first, like, the primary thing I recommend to promote your podcast is to make sure that when you have a guest on, they are armed to the teeth with all of the marketing collateral they could possibly ever want. So it's like dead simple for them to share, because a lot of guests will come on podcasts, and then just be like, hey, thanks, bye. And they're just kind of expecting you to promote them, they're not really willing to do the same. So what I like to do in a very, like kind way, cuz I like to consider myself not a jerk face, but in a kind way, in a not jerky way. I like to just give everyone like here, all of the things, you can use this for your social posts, you can use this for your email. And so it's not necessarily like asking because I know sometimes, this is something that a lot of my clients have kind of come up against, they're like, well, should I ask them to promote it, and I'm like, well, you can give them the stuff and say this is for you to share. The other thing that you can do with guests, too, is kind of in your onboarding form. I know a lot of clients that I work with have an onboarding form you too, I filled it out was great, you can let people know I am going to be sharing some assets with you to share out to your channels. And you can you can put a little caveat like a little checkbox, like yes, I will, I will happily share or I need to see it first for approval or something like that if it's a bigger brand or anything. But I think that goes a really, really long way in the actual sharing out of the podcast itself. Because otherwise, even with all of these different algorithms, and all of the things like social media can only do so much and you have a certain number of people on your email list. But your guests will obviously have more now if you're doing like a solo show, and it's just you. The top things I would recommend would be for sure have an audio Graham. I love doing carousel posts that like cover the top three highlights of what you learned in an episode. I think you do stuff like that, too. I also would do like a quote graphic. Maybe if that's something that you like having on your your Instagram feed, you can do that. But those Yeah, those are a couple of different things. Obviously send an email to everybody. If you have segmented your email list. This is something that works really well for me, if I have episodes that are targeted to new podcasters I only send new episodes that are about that to the new podcasters. If it's for everybody, yes, no to everyone if it's for people who have a podcast and don't need that beginner stuff anymore than people who have a podcast, get those emails and the new ones don't so they're not like super overwhelmed. And that's a really nice way to kind of tailor it to and give everybody in your audience personalized, customized, unique experience with what you're sharing. So those are all the things other options run out on your balcony and tell everyone a new episode is out there. Could be a thing.

Sara: that could be especially you know, during lockdown. We're still in lockdown trauma, right? So people are looking for something to do. Hey, listen to this. That's pretty good. How do reviews works, you get our podcast noticed.

Emily: this is a bit of a contentious piece right now I gotta tell you because Apple podcasts is changing a lot. I don't know why they're not really telling anyone necessarily what's happening. It used to be that to get into new and noteworthy, if you had more reviews, and more like the the written reviews and star ratings, it would boost you up the rankings of new and noteworthy. But what we're seeing now and especially because of the lovely Pam doe life we're living in, everybody and their mother started a podcast. So I think what Apple started doing was just curating that entire feed. So you'll see a lot of celebrities, a lot of big, like production companies, or like the CBC or NPR, those bigger shows, they're the ones that are getting top billed in new and noteworthy or other podcast networks, they're getting top billed. Now, I would recommend using them because it's great for user generated content. So you can, you can share a screenshot of that in your social media, in your emails, you can also read shout out on the episode itself, people love hearing their own words, read back to them, you can also get people this is something that not every podcaster does. And it's kind of tricky to do at first because not everyone is like brave enough to but get people to send you a voice note so that you can actually add their voice into your episodes. So it's like you have actual other people as part of the content. And then you can kind of respond to that. So actually really great way to incorporate that into and I know this is like away from the reviews. But a really great way to incorporate that for a launch would be like if you have an FAQ, and you're putting that out on your Instagram stories. For example, have people send you a voice note with their main questions or their main objections so that you can answer it in an episode. And maybe you do like a bunch of little mini episodes, the week that you're launching, and you answer all of those questions.

Sara: That's cool. I love that.

Emily: Oh, maybe you shouldn't do that.

Sara: Think about that. Now, you took that away for September like Well, yeah, to plan for the fall. That's cool, I think. Yeah, I think as you're saying this, my mind's going so fast, because I'm thinking of course, like, it's social proof. It's like showing people that other people like this, of course, yeah. Like, Share and talk about this and just, but like things are coming up for me as we're as we're talking is like realizing like more and more than like just treating podcasting like you would anything else that you do like with the launch, like same things apply in the marketing, just doing it here. It's just a different way through. Oh, yeah, exactly. That's neat. Okay, so let's flip this just for a minute and talk about launching your podcast. If you're starting a new one, what are a couple cool ways to launch it.

Emily: So I love planning a big oil campaign. Usually what I do is like I'll write out at least a week or two weeks in advance posts that are getting people interested. So behind the scenes are always really, really great. I've had a lot of people ask me like, should I start promoting it before it's out? Absolutely, yes. 100,000,000,000%. If you don't have an RSS feed or the your podcast feed to get people listening right away, send them to an email list. If you don't have an email list, go talk to Sarah so that you know how to build an email list, because that is really helpful. And it has changed my entire email list. Shameless plug for Sarah. Anyway.

Sara: So we just talked about having you like, I think with your beautiful like little singsong II things you broke out to I feel like you'd make some really great podcast commercial.

Emily: Oh, my gosh,

Sara: all your clients.

Emily: Oh, that is like one of my favorite things to do. I was doing a lot of fake ads for another improv podcast we were doing I would love to do that. Actually, I'm starting to get into writing music again, for podcasts. Yeah,
I should do that.

Sara: So cool.

Emily: Yeah, maybe I'll offer that as a service. But no. Okay, so watching your podcast. So you have a couple of weeks out, because what you need to do in advance of Episode One launching and because Apple podcast is a bit of a nightmare right now, and nobody knows if their shows are actually going to get in or not. Because they messed up all of their technology. It'll get it'll be approved. Eventually, it's just their technology is messed up right now, you should definitely have a trailer. So I like to do just like a quick short blurb. And then like three clips from the first episodes, giving people an idea of what it's going to be like, what it's going to sound like. And you use that in order to get approval in all of the different platforms so that by the time you release Episode One, you already know that your show has been approved, and you can send people to those platforms, otherwise, they're gonna be like, Well, where do I listen, I don't have anywhere to go. And that's the worst thing. It's like, it's like setting up a course to sell and you're selling it and you don't have a checkout page. That's basically what's happening. So making sure that that is all set up. The other thing that you can do is Christie Schell ski who I know you know, you sent her to me, right? Yeah, so She's super cool. So what she did was create a launch club, a podcast launch club. And she gave everybody a sneak peek access to the first couple of episodes so that they would go in and write some reviews and just generate a lot more interest for that. That's another thing, just always leaning on your community to help support whatever launches you may have, and sending people DMS and say like, Hey, I know this episode would be great for you comes out on this date. Would you give it a listen and then follow up with them? Did you listen? Did you like it? Great. If they didn't like it, blocked for life? Maybe not that harsh.

Sara: By like, the image of the DM, because I've sometimes I've gotten DMS about my episodes. And at first I was just like, oh, thank you so much. But now I've been learning to say like, That's amazing. Thank you so much. And if you don't mind you could you like, share the episode or? Yeah, leave a comment. Yeah, exactly. Like one step further, because they reached out and asked, you know, you know, appreciating it totally, but also asking that, yeah, because we're allowed to ask those things and people we should know, it's cool. Yeah. They might do it.

Emily: And they should, because you have a great podcast. I know that for a fact. Listen, every episode is fantastic.

Sara: Alright, so you have a program pockets rocket that you've launched a few times where you just tell us a little bit about him?

Emily: Yeah, for sure. So it is a complete podcast, launch roadmap, and it's gonna get you from concept or even just like the inkling of a concept to launched. And you can do this in as little as five weeks is going to take you through understanding what the purpose of the podcast is the mission and the vision, who the audience is, who you're talking to, how to tailor it specifically for them, how to choose your gear setup, how to record and edit your episodes. And then finally, the launch process that we talked about in way more detail. It gives you absolutely everything you need. And then of course, like following on that there's lots of different things you can do for marketing and promotions afterwards. The course is really built around the idea that like the goal is to launch the podcast, a lot of the things we talked about today, just in a lot more detail with tons of templates, because we love templates, man, what's up James easier? Yeah, yeah. Heck, yeah. That was a good suggestion you made I think, actually because you were you were the one of the first people through and you were like, I want more templates. I'm like, Okay, I'll make them all. For you, sir.

Sara: Just know what even last night I downloaded your show notes templates. Curious. I was like, Oh, I want to know how I'm doing. There's a Why isn't there in booth? Oh, yeah.

Emily: Yeah, yeah. I love that template. It's so good. I gotta use it more to notice now. Well, but yeah, and that's we were talking about to like, I still do all of my own podcast stuff. Because I'm like, I got to understand what the objections are and hesitations and the pain points so that I can better serve my clients. And frankly, I just want to hire my team to do my show now. Fair, that's just where I'm at. But yeah, so that's podcast rocket. It's available on demand right now. Which is really awesome.

Sara: Amazing.

Emily: Yeah!

Sara: I loved podcast rocket. I mean, so many things like, definitely just like choosing a mic felt very overwhelming. Of course, when I joined podcast rocket, I think I was in the first one range, you know, when the pandemic had first hit. So getting a mic. Like, because that was the thing that actually slowed me down, because I really could not find a mic anywhere.

Emily: I wonder how many of those mics that people bought are actually being used? Or how many are just stuffed into drawers right now?

Sara: Really. I really had wanted, like, completely, I really wanted like a white one. I just know I wanted a certain aesthetic, but I have a silver wine I gave up. I wasn't gonna put my podcast off more time. So it was a little hard for me. Okay, we're good. But yeah, I really loved how you went through like the different gear and made it easy to choose because it felt so overwhelming. And then also you had something in there around, like generating was like 52 content ideas. And I was like, What am I gonna talk about?

Emily: Exactly. I know. And that's like, That's such a big thing. It's like, like, a lot of the objections I hear are like, Do people really want to hear from me do? Are they gonna want to know what I have to say? But really, I think part of that comes down to like, what am I going to talk about? And how am I going to sound like an expert at it. And so an exercise that I do, and we do this in comedy, this is really where this came from. A lot of this stuff comes from comedy. When you have no idea what kind of sketch you're gonna write, you start by writing a bunch of lists of things using prompts. So like a list of careers, a list of relationships, a list of just random problems, you might have like my toilets plugged or something silly like that. How do you combine all of these things to make a funny sketch? So it's the same idea. It's just setting yourself a timer for 15 minutes, I give you a whole bunch of prompts. You write as much as you can, as fast as you can. There's no self editing. And out of that, you may not use every single idea, but you will definitely come out of it with at least 10 different things. Right. So whatever that percentage is 20% I think I just mast in my head. That was pretty great. All right. I have achieved this Friday.

Sara: It was really helpful and I also Really appreciate it. As part of that I remember you mentioned like looking back at what you also already have created, like what already exists, like, yeah, in terms of presentations you've done or things that you have. And that has saved me quite a few times during this pandemic time where I felt like, okay, I could squeeze in two or three episodes, like in quiet, but I need to like one more. So I could go back to something I already that already existed. And I have the whole list I created Originally, I keep in a Trello board, or as was where I map out the whole podcast, my podcast in there. And all the notes from that are in there from our, you know, from podcast rocket work, and also like linking to a podcast record, of course, do you think that people should could still take the course podcast rocket, even if they don't want to do their own production at the end isn't?

Emily: Yeah, totally. Yeah. And I even included a section on how to hire either like a podcast editor or a producer, what the different things entail, what are some different pieces that you might want other people to manage for you like, for example, my team doesn't handle the pitching and the guest management. But there are other podcast managers who do that. However, podcast managers may not do the editing. So there are editors that can do that. So there's lots of different ways to work with an agency or an editor or manager to achieve the type of podcast workflow that you want to have for our agency at the ultimate creative. We work, like I said, on on batches, like every month, we do four episodes at a time and and we produce them all in one go. We set it and forget it. But some people don't love that workflow. And that's totally cool. I just like I built it, to be honest around my ADHD brain where I'm like, must be prepared at all times for all the things because otherwise, it all goes into chaos land. So I know a lot of my clients really appreciate that super prepared level of production. And then I know there are lots of other people who would much prefer to do it like as weakly one off, like, just as the inspiration comes. That's how their creativity flows. So there's tons of different ways to work with people like that. And then so if we cover this in podcast, rocker too, but like, it's still good to understand what the different pieces are, that an editor or a production team might need, so that you can create really amazing sounding audio files, like there are a lot of pieces when it comes to setting up your space understanding where like your mic placement, all of that sort of stuff that are super duper important for any podcaster. Anyone who has a microphone, who is recording should know. And then how is it brought into an app to be processed and edited? So understanding what that is, is really, really key as well. But hey, you know what, if you want to hire somebody, I say go for it. I want to do that, too.

Sara: So let's, let's talk about hiring the ultimate creative. How can we work with you on podcast production? Tell us a little bit about that.

Emily: For sure. Thank you for asking. Yeah, so we can work with you. It's we're looking at more of like a holistic content plan right now. So sort of what I described earlier with a whole bunch of social media posts, you get for posts, and you get an email, and you get your show notes, and a blog post. And of course, the edited episode, and we do four at a time and we work with we're onboarding lots of clients. Right now, we just opened up a whole bunch of new spots. And so every month, you also have the opportunity to chat with me 30 minutes at a time. And we do a strategy call to make sure that we're working towards actually hitting the goals you want your podcast to achieve for you and on all of your content. And then once all of that's done, you you've sent us your recordings, we produce all of it for you, we schedule it for you. So you don't have to think about anything else. It's just kind of done. And you get to just reap the amazing rewards and benefits of having your voice out there. And so you can check all of that out the packages are all listed at the ultimate creative comm slash podcasting.

Sara: Amazing! All those links, of course, will be in the show notes. And you know, we talked about a few times, but I'm only in her team produce this podcast. And it's been my gosh, I think it's like our here a year anniversary, at least when I took out cuts rock it was last June, as we're recording this now. And I have I have loved the experience. I really liked the batching actually. And although sometimes I do record like sometimes once a week, sometimes I do it all in a couple days, depending on what's going on. I love that because then when you send it back to me, I can like work on getting those pieces out on my own just but I actually have like a batch week to work on it. Yeah, whenever I get it from you back. That's the week that we do. I like all the show notes, the graphics and all the things that that we're doing on our end here. It's just nice. No, like, that's just part of the month now. Yeah, and I really appreciate that.

Emily: Yeah, you know, autopilot, but it's all it's autopilot that lets you be creative. Yeah, you know.

Sara: Yeah. Plus, I also really appreciate about you is that, again, like if I have an idea, like I wanted to have people, you know, we talked about having the clips from people from the club, like I just reached out and I asked you and you're like yeah, this is how we can make it work. And I feel like you We have a really simple solution to like what feels really big and exploding in my head. And I'm like, this is too much. Like, nobody can do this like this. I'm like, Okay, cool. Or like, or like even just coming back to the dynamic content and like talking to me about how we could use that. It's so neat. Well, I appreciate that.

Emily: Thank you. It's so fun to work with you on this stuff. Because you you are really creative with your podcast, and you're coming up with lots of different ideas. And it's fun. Like, I just love sharing different ideas, too. So it's always nice when you're like, yeah, we should try that. I'm like sweet, another creativity when this is great. It's super fun to work with you on that.

Sara: Amazing. So definitely go check out Emily and the ultimate creative again, all the links for pockets, rocket, her production, and all the other things will be in the show notes. Thank you so much, Emily, for joining me today. And thanks for tuning in to the launch playbook podcast until next week. I'm Sarah and I will see you then.

Emily: Thanks.

Sara: Thanks for tuning in to the launch playbook podcast. If you want to get weekly launch secrets in your ears. I hope you'll hit subscribe on iTunes so you'll never miss an episode. Because who knows? It could reveal just a thing you've been looking forward to make your next launch a success. And be sure to leave a five star review in iTunes telling me how this episode inspired your launch plans. Until next time, keep putting your big ideas out to the world. I am rooting for you!