Ginni Saraswati: Using Podcasts to Build a Brand

Disclaimer: Transcripts were generated automatically and may contain inaccuracies and errors.

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Ginni is an award winning journalist and brains behind a podcast production company. She is known to stand many, a personality with their quick round of introductions and on air antics. She’s left Paula Abdul and a laughing fit and has interviewed them all from Katie Lang, Jennifer Bill’s, Ruby Rose, and the list goes on. 

Ginni. Thanks so much for jumping on Damon. Thank you for having me on the podcast. I’m super excited to be here. I gotta be honest that I like how you clarify before we hit record, I asked, in fact, I’m pronouncing your name. Correct. And you said, yeah, it’s like gin, like the drink. There we go. Okay. So you got, um, you know, it’s interesting the background that you have.  

Why, why don’t, why don’t I give, we have a lot of things that we can talk. Um, I want to talk about you having a podcast production company, but then, um, you also, as I just mentioned are journalists and I mean, there’s a lot of things we can talk about. So how would you describe yourself and, and who is Ginni that you yourself know?  

I would say Damon, that I am a chief chat officer. That’s essentially what I am. I love talking to people. I love listening to people. I love having conversations. I think primarily the core of what I do is just talking. Um, it’s funny. I’ve been tracking time, uh, of how I have been tracking how I spend my time and, um, the amount of time that I spend each and every day in each and every week as a result.  

Talking to people is that that’s what takes up most of my time. So I think if I am to describe myself as anything we know amongst the many hats that I wear of, you know, running a podcast production company, hosting a podcast and, and, you know, doing some journalism work, I would say I am a chief chat officer.  

I just chat all day to people. You always been that way. Or was there a point in time where you said maybe I should see if I can do something with this, this chat skillset. You know, to be honest, Damon, when I was growing up, I was a pretty shy kid. I didn’t actually say much. And I, and I tell that to people nowadays, and they’re pretty shocked when they hear that I was one quiet.  

And secondly, that I didn’t talk much because it’s so, you know, it’s such a dichotomy to who I am now. Um, back then, when I grew up in Australia, there weren’t very many people who look like me in the area that I was living in. Um, Called North gate, which is an inner city suburb in Melbourne. So, um, I was very shy.  

Well, everyone at home looks like me, but everyone that I see at school doesn’t really look like me. There. Aren’t very many people that I can relate to or reflect back to me. So I was very quiet and, you know, I was going through, you know, what I was trying to identify and find my own. I didn’t see, I guess, in an EU country that we migrated the two from Europe.  

So, um, I was very shy and subdued, but I think. What I enjoyed after I got into radio was I loved hearing, um, from people that aren’t like exactly what your podcast is called. Damon. I love learning from others because I think the best way to learn. And I think there’s such invaluable wisdom and invaluable things that we can learn from each other.  

If we’re willing to listen. So, yeah, that’s when I kind of figured, Ooh, I’d like to do this full time and it’s manifested into what I do now, now that you had experienced in radio, um, what, what did you do in that world? So in radio, I hosted a variety of shows when I started out in radio, I did what you call the graveyard shift.  

So that’s a shift at nighttime 11:00 PM to 1:00 AM, which is very difficult to get people on that podcast when you’re doing a shift that late. And obviously it’s not. Prime time. So, uh, I started with that, then I moved to a bit more of daytime programming. So I hosted a morning, um, program and I always, it AF hosted an afternoon program.  

And then from there I landed in breakfast radio, which is the equivalent of what a morning show is here. So like a, the time slot, the wake up time, time slot. So I was doing that on and off for a year. I was hosting a show with two other people, sometimes one other person. And it was just a truly rewarding experience because the amount of people that you get to talk to in that time slot, you know, the experiences and opportunities that I had was I think I learned some of my most, um, valuable skills there, which the most valuable skill I learned from my experience was listening, uh, which is ironic.  

Cause I don’t think quite. Okay. That’s true. Everybody has heard that, you know, the, you learn more when you, when you listen more than you speak, but it’s just one of those things it’s, it’s like wired in you to just always want to give your opinion. And so it seems like we ended up talking a lot more than taking that opportunity to listen.  

Absolutely additional layer of what you said, Damon of, you know, how we’re always trying to wait for opportunity to talk. I think the Dalai Lama had a quote saying that we’re all people just waiting for our opportunity to talk. We’re not really listening. And I think just from what you said, that the additional layer of how we hear things, we don’t necessarily hear things away that people intend to when they say it.  

And it’s another layer entirely. And then the other layer of listening is hearing what people aren’t saying to you, from what they’re saying. So that’s a completely different level of listening. And I think, uh, what I find fascinating about this audio spaces, we’re going to have to really start listening to each other because we’re communicating now in a way that we didn’t 10, 20 years ago, a lot of this communication is via text and via visual cues, as opposed to sitting down and having that.  

FaceTime with people. So you’re getting communication in a way that you weren’t 10, 20 years ago. So we’ve got to really reprogram the way we listen and communicate to each other. So I’m very, that’s why I like to listening is a muscle that I’m constantly flexing day to day. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know if you know this, but I worked, I worked seven years in radio and I too started in the overnight shift  

There you go see, we can, you can relate exactly to what I know. I know. Wants to talk to you at that time. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. You ha you start on air in, in the least vulnerable slot where you could. Screw up the least. I remember the first show I did on air from 11:00 AM to 1:00 AM sorry, 11:00 PM to one.  

Am I scripted my entire two hours? And listening back to that, I mean, I I’m like, Oh, you know, you sounded quite contrived. Like I sounded like I was reading something, but now I could not peach the scripting, anything. Yeah, that’s funny. No, yeah. Okay. I don’t want to go too deep and radio, but this is funny.  

Yeah. Because you would prerecord your, your, um, you know, your little slots where you had voiceover in between songs or whatever you’re talking about. And yeah, there was, I would probably do that at least half of my. My talking opportunities because I didn’t want to screw it up. That’s funny. Alright. So you go from radio, you go into journalism, you have a podcast.  

So did your, you’re an award winning writer. So I’d like to ask you like a two part question. So the first part is, um, you know, tell us about that journalism experience, but I want to transition that into, get into what you’re an expert at now, which is the podcast world. So the second part is, is, is your journalist, um, your experience in journalism, did that contribute to you getting into the podcast space?  

I think I’d be lying. If I said there was no correlation between the two, because journalism nowadays, even though the title still exists, like, you know, people write for certain publications or certain media outlets, even though the title or the job title journalism exists. I think it’s a lot more evolved than.  

It used to be 10, 20 years ago, because now I think there’s an element of gen journalism in content creation, whether it be like you saw Damon I’m. Sure. And I can tell by your prepared questions that you did your own research on me before, you know, hitting record on this podcast. That’s, that’s a part of generalism.  

You’ve got to do your research and you’ve got to know who you’re speaking to. And you got to have an idea of the kind of story you want to tell in relation to the audience who listens, hears, or watches your pieces of content. So I think definitely varies. I think I was very much edited advantage wanting to be a journalist or, you know, working on that and studying that at college, because I think that’s definitely helped me, you know, mechanically to think of how I’m going to construct a story.  

I also worked in theater, so, you know, the dramatic side of maintenance to come out sometimes as well. And, um, I’m trying to tame that drama side of me, but I think. It definitely ease the correlation between the two, like, even things like preparing questions for a guest or preparing questions for a client or how things work together and piece together and how we achieve the final storytelling piece.  

Like, I think I’m very, very grateful to have gone through that and also to be alive in a time that value we’ll use generalism and creativity in a way that, that, that no other era has before. So I’m hope that answers your question. I hope I listened to your question and answered it properly. No, yeah, that’s good.  

Okay. So then let’s talk about your area of expertise, which is podcasting. So you have a podcast, but I think probably where we want to focus more is that you help others with their podcast too. Is that right? That is correct. Yes. I run a full time podcast production company called Ginni media, highly narcissistic name, but, uh, when we try to attain what we can, I find when you put your name on something, you tend to be a little bit more, uh, not passionate about it, but you tend to be a little bit more careful with what you do.  

And it kind of holds me accountable cause my name is on it. So yes, that is what I do. Sorry, what was that? What’s funny that you say that about narcissism is when I, so I started, uh, an SEO company 13 years ago and is now branded as SEO national, but the legal entity is dab empire, my initials. And it’s, it’s the same.  

So when I was, you know, early Tony is when I started the company, it was the same thing. God, have your name on it. Got it. Got to gotta be proud. And then. A couple of years into it. I said, Nope, Nope. I don’t know if I want to do that anymore.  

That is hilarious. It’s interesting too, because a, you know, that narcissism thing, it tends to either work for you or not in this context. Yeah. So, so yeah. Okay. So you’ve got Ginni media. Yeah. Yeah. So I’ve got uni media. That’s that’s my full time. That’s what I do for a full time. And I actually call myself the chief.  

Chat officer of Jane Guinea media, because essentially that is what I do. But, um, I help clients. Primarily our clients are entrepreneurs, unfortunately, 500 companies who come to us with a certain intention or vision for creating a piece of content that’s relevant to their brand or business that they want to put out.  

In the form of a podcast. So we help produce that podcast. We edit it for them. We write this Sharen arts and we also create artwork to promote that podcast as well. So we like to be, yeah, one stop shop podcast, production agency, and yeah. You know, there’s so many things, so many exciting things happening in audio at the moment.  

So again, I feel very blessed to be alive at this time where. The things that I’ve naturally an accidentally learnt and being confronted with in my life has given me value to make and stumble into a career around it. Yeah. So now when you build out these assets for your clients, do you help them prepare to do a singular podcast or do you help them produce an ongoing platform and show.  

We do some of our clients, some of our fortune 500 have like a limited series podcasts that they put out. They’ll put out like five episodes over X amount of months. So we do, we do single episodes and we, we, majority of our clients do ongoing production because, um, they, they realize the value of the audio space in particular podcasting at the moment and how it’s such a great time to strike if that makes sense, uh, when it comes to podcasting.  

So we do. Consultation for singular episodes, but majority of our clientele, 90% of my clientele are ongoing production clients. So I’ve, I’ve been really curious myself personally, about those limited quantity podcasts where they’re, they’re almost like a mini series, like you said, maybe five podcasts, 10 podcasts, but they have a, they have a specified quantity.  

And I’ve been curious about the logistics behind those, um, once. Once those are out. How, how long do they last? So they’re still, obviously out there and available, but do they have a pretty consistent reoccurring listener base or do they kind of spike and then, and then there’s just kind of random listen, quantities over time.  

You know, that’s a great question, Damon, because, you know, nowadays I get a lot of the, when people are coming to me two, three years ago and saying, Ginni, on a set of podcasts, can you help me be intentional? The goal or the vision of starting a podcast has drastically changed. I’ve noticed, you know, two, three years ago, maybe even four years ago when people started a podcast.  

Essentially, um, well, in my experience, it essentially replaced that radio show format where, you know, when you have a guest come in and you talk to them, and then you just repurpose that radio piece into a podcast, then it became, you know, a weekly show type thing where, you know, you could create content weekly or regularly and put it out into the world wide web or into people’s ears easily nowadays with the volume of podcasts out there.  

And the fact that they are now such an increasingly popular. Way to consume media or communication. The intention has changed people like, Oh, I’m just going to do one podcast a month because the purpose for that, my podcast is to create relationships. Yeah. I guess, or to build credibility around my business.  

So the, the why for the podcasting has changed. I’ve noticed, sorry. This also affects the frequency of podcasts. So people who want to build relationships and build credibility for the brand and business. They may not necessarily need to do a weekly show to do that. Um, obviously the more content that you put out, you know, it’s going to be an advantage.  

I don’t see that ever being a disadvantage, but some people don’t want to invest that time and resources to do that because it doesn’t really align with their vision. Now. Do you have a question about, are there downloads blacks? Um, and is, are there changes to how much that piece of content is consumed?  

There’s kind of two answers to that one. If you’re talking about something that is non time sensitive. So if you’re talking to a celebrity, so say for instance, I interview Sandra Bullock on my podcast, right. And I only put out one podcast a month. That time the podcast comes out. Yes, they will be. Why cause the subscribers will get a ping saying you podcast with Sandra we’ll look at today and then over time, yes, it will diminish.  

But as soon as Sandra Bullock does another movie or another thing, or she’s topical in media, there’ll be another spike there. So that’s how invaluable that content is like it’s timeless and how it can be consumed. But also when you. Set the intention around it quite strategically. It’s not going to always be like a, it’s not going to climb to 90 downloads within a year consistently because there’s not enough content to maintain the algorithm of getting those listeners to that podcast  

But if you interview someone or you have a piece of content, that’s timeless, when there is a topic around that, you’ll notice a few things spikes, and this is what I’ve had in my experience. I hope that answers your question, David. Yeah, no, that’s a great answer. And there’s a couple of things that you brought up that I want to touch on.  

So you had mentioned when you work with people and depending on how they want to be build their brand awareness. I think that term building brand awareness is really important for our listeners, because I think there’s a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners that understand what a podcast is. But they have not, it has not even crossed their mind that they should consider doing a podcast theirselves  

So could you help our listeners that might be in that situation, understand the value? Like why do you do a podcast? Absolutely. So the theme of the podcast and why it’s so advantageous competitors to doing a blog or a blog is if you think of human beings, if you’re a human being who is blessed to have all your senses, so you have sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, you have all those senses the way that you’re going to consume.  

Or receive communication is in three ways. You’re going to read it. You’re going to watch it, or you’re going to listen to it obviously translates into blogs, videos, podcasts, radio, TV, whole list books. There’s a whole list of, um, Products out there that out of how you can consume things, the thing with audio and that the way with consuming things through hearing is it’s the only communication medium that allows you to manipulate it in how you manage your time.  

So you can’t watch a video while you’re driving. Some people do that. And I highly do not advise that you do that. Some people do do that. I look at their phone, they watch a YouTube video, but when you’re listening to something and this is the behavior of radio listeners and why radio is so popular during the commute times, because you’re allowed to get that piece of communication while you’re on your way to somewhere else or doing something else or only communication medium that allows you to multitask.  

And allows that piece of content to easily fit into your schedule. The other two are a little bit more, um, tricky in that way. Cause you have to read a blog and give it your full and undivided attention. You have to watch a TV show and give it your full and undivided attention. You can’t really consume a TV show on the go cause there’s visuals there that you have to watch and pick up.  

So why it’s such a great opportunity for podcasting is it’s like creating your own portable radio show about. Any topic that you like? Um, you know, listen, as I grew up in radio as well, when I was posting it, you know, there’s certain themes or topics that radio shows are asked to talk about for ratings and advertising requests kind of thing, but your podcasts, you can literally make a podcast about your business, what you do, why you do it best, and then you can become a pioneer in your particular industry.  

Cause you’ve got that piece of content out there and your customers or potential customers. Can hear about you in a way, um, that easily fits into their schedule. So that’s why it’s such a great opportunity nowadays with audio and podcasts in particular. Now, one other thing that you had said was you had mentioned that a podcast is isn’t going to get to 90 downloads per year.  

And I think the quantity of lessons is always something really fascinating to me. Um, because unlike other types of media. Um, you know, with websites, you have Google analytics and you can see the traffic quantities and from where, and, and, and then there’s some ways to estimate traffic of let’s say your competitors or another website, but podcasts that data as far as I know, is only available to the podcast owners  

And so there’s like this gray area where people have a hard time defining of defining. What success means in a podcast, how many downloads is a lot? How many is a little? Do you have any, we were experienced kind of averages that you could speak to and say, a decent podcast is kind of this many listens and then a successful one is more than that.  

Um, it’s hard to tell average nowadays, cause now there’s more podcasts than there ever were before. Or, and there’s, you know, different numbers of people being recruited to listen to podcasts. However, I will say this, I know quantity, like, you know, not everyone’s going to get 90 million downloads like Gary B or your Lewis house or your top.  

Your Oprah podcast, that’s they come with kind of celebratory statuses and they come with huge followings that enabled them to hold that quantity of downloads. When it comes to measuring your metrics, when you’re looking at your downloads, I always advise my clients. You may be on the lower scale by the lower scale, meaning you might, you know, you might see 5,000 downloads a month.  

I think that’s it. Decent amount of downloads if you’re doing a podcast and yeah, suddenly you’re getting 5,000 downloads a month that you averaging 1250. Roughly. Yeah, 12, 1250 downloads a week for one episode out. So that’s pretty valuable when you think of it that way. However, what I advise my clients to when they’re looking at numbers is don’t think about the quantity of numbers, but think about the context of what these numbers mean.  

So there are certain, depending on who is hosting the podcast or whatever media distribution service, you may use, like a SoundCloud or a paper or a Libsyn, whichever one, that you may use, that data that is, you know, Calculated, they will be able to tell you some information on your listeners. Some media hosel out, like, you know, what city people are listening from, what country they allow you to know what time people are tuning in.  

Um, where are you getting your traffic from? Did you put out a promotion or did a guest share your podcast? Is that why you have a sudden spike? So think about. Like the context of the data and what’s working for you and what isn’t, why is this particular episode, the lowest amount of numbers? What did I do wrong?  

Look at your consumption. Right? I know I choose the back dashboard of iTunes allows you to get a consumption. Right. Which means, yeah. It’ll give you a number or a percentage of how long people are listening to the podcast for, so if I’m listening, you’re going to want to have a podcast and you find that you have a 50% consumption, right?  

What that means is people that are only listening for half an hour, and then they, yeah. Now, if you see that pattern over time with your partner, I guess if you’re putting out a certain piece of content and you get a lower consumption, right. It probably is telling you that your podcast data it’s telling you that your podcast is too long. 

 Make it shorter and these things you can tweak over time. And what you end up doing is you end up tailoring your shirt by getting an idea of what your audience behavior is. Does that make sense? Yeah, total sense. Yeah. Now. We talked about w explain the value to entrepreneurs or business owners that might understand what the point of them considering their own podcast is.  

So let’s say that they buy it and they’re interested and they want it. They understand the value and they want to start a podcast. What’s it like to work with you? And where do you start? Absolutely. So if people are interested in starting a podcast, I have some free resources on my site, Ginni media.com forward slash resources.  

I’ve got free courses on how to set a podcast free eBooks. Um, if you want to kind of get to know the process, you can literally consume those eBooks or, you know, Go through the course that takes less than 20 minutes to do that. And you can walk away having everything that you need to know to start a podcast.  

However, if you want something a little bit more tailored, some people like the whole handheld experience where they, you know, they want to talk to me and they want to talk through their grievances or any kind of concerns they have. Um, Yeah. The process that we have is like, we set up like a pre, we set up a pre-call and I go through what their vision is, what they’re looking to achieve.  

If they already have like an existing mailing list or something like that. And from there, we kind of plan, plan out what would work for them. Cause some people, and I’ve had this before. Some people have come to me and they really don’t need to hire me on my team. They already have a team so we can train the team and then off they go because it suits that team better.  

If that makes sense. If they have an internal podcasting team that an outsource one, and some people will say to me, aren’t you shooting yourself? Them like, well, the way I do businesses, I like to be, be honest and upfront as possible. I’m not, I think about longterm economics and what I can gain short term.  

So it’s more value for the client that I train their team. I’m happy to do that as well. And then their team is empowered enough to deliver a week on weekends. Um, but sorry to answer your question, Damon. So I sit down with them, have a pre call. We go through there. Concerns, any questions that they have. I get an idea of how busy this person is, so I can make recommendations on a programming schedule from there.  

And the next step I take Demis is I have a strategy call with them where we really strategize and tailor the vision of the podcast and how are we going to execute it? Um, so that’s from that, I onboard my team and then we start the recording process and we record the podcast. The only thing that we. Um, pretty much need from the client is a files, the audio file.  

So we’ll set up like a Dropbox or a Google drive. And then from there, yeah, we take care of everything else. We’ll, we’ll just make it super easy for you to the point where you just have to record the audio and we’ll take care of everything else. So one question that I often get asked is, you know, how do you monetize a podcast?  

Um, so in my experience, we’ve already talked about brand awareness and that seems to be one of the main reasons people start over. Podcasts is to bring awareness to whatever they want to bring awareness to or, or their brand, and then make them like more of an authority and attract business that way. So beyond brand away, um, I’m familiar with two ways of monetizing podcasts.  

Um, and maybe you can tell me if there’s more or if these are accurate. So, so two other ways, in addition to brand awareness would be sponsors. And guest fees is those three brand awareness sponsors and guests fees. The primary methods to monetizing a podcast. Primary methods. Yes, it’s, it’s it’s sponsors and guests phase.  

And that it has kind of what that actually has been modeled off is the radio model. Cause when you’re, when you’re on radio, the way that radio monetizes is generally through responses in the form of advertising, um, to ads in the show or live reads where the host reads out an ad or something like that.  

And also guests fee. Sometimes they charge PR companies to have, uh, people. You know, have real estate on their radio show essentially. So that, that really does follow the radio model in that sense. And I think as podcasting still, even though there are 700,000 podcasts out there it’s still pretty young in the monetization cycle.  

When you think about it, I don’t think we’ve really figured out a regulation or like a advisory media board to kind of regulate how advertising is done. Um, and also because there’s so many platforms out there it’s not like YouTube where you can, you know, Get X amount of cents per clicks or that kind of thing that they have going on for ‘em.  

So I think we’re still, we’re still trying to figure it out, but it was monetization Damon. So yes, advertising sponsors. Yeah. Or like guest fees is a popular way. The other way I, I think about, um, podcasts is I think about it in the money that you can make indirectly from it. So you may be putting out a piece of content weekly, right?  

Can one build your subscriber list? You can recruit. You know, people for coaching, you can recruit a group for a mastermind, which you can monetize from there. You can recruit people for coaching clients, um, as coaching coaching clients. So you can monetize there as well. A podcast is also a great way and I’m working on a blog at the moment called cast is your press pass.  

So you can actually apply to events it’s um, in your area or, you know, in particular, what is. Is relevant to your podcasts, any events out there that are relevant to your podcasts and be like, Hey, I’ve got a podcast I’d love to interview your top 10 speakers or whatnot. And what you do is you start to recruit a following from those speakers to your podcast.  

Cause they obviously will have. Quite decent amount of followings and network and fan bases. And then what that also can do is that can be a vehicle for you to get speaking gigs. So there’s ways that you can make money directly in the podcast and ways that you can indirectly make money as well from using that as a lead magnet for other opportunities.  

Yeah. You know, one podcast, I’m sure you’re familiar with, um, EO fire entrepreneurs on fire. Are you familiar with that? One love JLD yes. Very familiar with that one. So fascinating. Um, so, you know, he monetizes his. He’s he’s interesting because he’s very transparent about it and he puts his earnings disclosures on his website.  

And I think when I checked the other day, he’s at like $200,000, um, uh, off this podcast. Yeah, what’s crazy is yeah. Um, I didn’t realize it till a couple months back when I went and looked and I started increasing, um, you know, me being a guest on other podcasts. And so I said, well, let me go check out yo fire and see if there’s any opportunities there.  

And at the time. He had a $3,500 guest fee. And I said, Hmm, I’ll think about it maybe later. And then I added a little task reminder, popped up a couple of months later in between those couple of months, he increased his fee. It’s like $6,500. That is crazy. But it goes to show, you know, he’s built a massively successful podcast has a huge following.  

And so you can charge whatever you want. And I think me bringing this up, just highlights an opportunity of, of. You know what you can actually do with the podcast, but that’s just crazy. Yeah, exactly. JLL. The is a great example of someone who’s had such success from his podcast. He’s also built courses, masterminds webinars for his podcast too.  

And I think what he does he’s, and I’m not a hundred percent certain on this, but I mean, this is just an example of how you can monetize because he’s got such a deep, like such following such a big entrepreneurial audience as well. I know businesses sponsor webinars. Um, just so they can be on in front of his audience.  

So that’s another way of monetizing as well. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s, that’s, that’s a good segue into the next topic is, you know, JLD and EO fire has, is massively successful podcasts. So. How do you get there? How do you grow an audience? What do you focus on to increase the awareness of a podcast? Sorry, say that again, David, how do you grow a podcast?  

You know, what are the steps you go through to increase the listenership and grow an audience? Um, that’s a great question. The question I get quite a lot. Um, David, so how to grow a podcast is you’ve got the think about the way to grow a podcast is get your ideal listener to you, and then scale that to as many ideal listeners as you can.  

So you’ve got to really feel back to Anne JLD is a great example of this in one of his free courses where he talks about your podcast avatar. So he talks about. You know, what is your podcast? Ideal podcast, isn’t it? Yeah. They look like, what do they care about? How do they start their day? What do they need?  

What do they value? So that is a great place to start. That’s one way of starting another way of doing it is, you know, think about, yeah, the kind of content you want to put out and you have some idea. Listen, it could be, but you know, you know, they’ll find this kind of stuff, content valuable. So if you start working back from yeah  

Your listener, what they care about, what they need and certain things like that, what is going to happen is you’re going to end up creating content to tailor to that on a person. And then you just got to find out where that person lives. Do they leave on LinkedIn, generally entrepreneurs on fire men and they’d be, yeah.  

And LinkedIn quite a bit because that’s where a lot of business, um, Business content is at at the moment. So probably a good idea would be to weave your podcast to repurpose content. So what I mean by re-purpose is you make that single time investment in creating that podcast. And then you kind of, and this is what we do at genie media  

We go into that podcast content or pick out yeah. Key quotes from that podcast and we’ll repurpose them yeah. To Instagram content or LinkedIn content or content for Twitter. And this way you can actually get to your audience who live on these different platforms. So we repurpose content is a great way to grow your audience because literally you’re putting your content.  

On platforms far and wide, and that’s a great way to get traffic to your podcast. So that’s one way. The other way that I mentioned is, you know, really hone in on what you’re listening, your ideal listener cares about what they want, we want and need. And another way is two. And this is a hack Pat plan had as well on iTunes or.  

It’s called Apple podcast. Now you can actually click on the desktop version and it’ll tell you where it will tell you. Obviously, when you click on your podcast page, it’ll show you cast page and episode, but I’ll also show you what your listeners also listened to and what they also subscribe to. So people who are listening and subscribing to your podcast, there’ll be other podcasts underneath there where, who people are listening to and subscribing to hit up those podcasts.  

And have them on your show and vice versa. Cause what you’re doing is you’re getting an idea of your audience. They like the content that’s on other podcasts. So they’re going there also. So there’s probably a high likelihood that other people who like your content and don’t know about you live there as well.  

So go there and like have that cross promotional thing going on. Is it. An easier way to grow your podcast. If you go to where podcast listeners are at, which they’re on other podcasts, that’s where they live too. So that’s kind of three hacks I could give you to start off with, um, which would probably, um, which will help you kick things.  

That’s interesting. I, I wasn’t, uh, so I’m actually looking at the bottom of, on Apple pie, PEs on learning from others, and I’d seen that, but I didn’t really pay attention to it. So Gary V’s in my mind saw, I need to go hit up. Gary V you do need to get up. Got be, but also look up Gary V I think get Gary Reese category on iTunes is business, or, um, so here.  

Bullying the business category as well, who are ranking quite decently like on a Gary B’s top 10 in his category, top 20, at least. But there are, I think iTunes does it by top 200. So he not people who are in like the 200, one 99, one 98, those people up. I’m sure. You’ll, you’ll get some traction from there too.  

Damon. Yeah. Yeah, no, that’s great. Great advice. So when I think it’s really important to repurpose the content, like you said, make little quotables for Instagram and social media. Um, so. When, when you work with a client, how do you base your fees? Um, do, do you do do some kind of stay? I just want like this one thing or, um, and then you have other clients that say, I want all the things, like, how do you decide what makes sense?  

And if you’re okay talking about it, like where, where are the price ranges start? Sure. So it, depending on what you’re doing organization is, if you’re a fortune 500, there’s a lot more, I, I want to say hello, more demands of time. There there’s a lot more deadlines, a lot more, um, tied to deadlines and turnarounds to get through and yeah, a lot more hands on work.  

Involved with a fortune five hundreds, but for an entrepreneurial client that we have, uh, what we do is we have kind of two price points. You can do a per episode price point, which is generally a little bit more expensive. That’s the, uh, eight, eight, two $1,200 range. Um, yeah, that is a per episode, um, fee in terms of we do everything, particularly in tailored.  

To you. So for example, we’ll do your audio editing. We’ll do consulting. We’ll do questions for you. We’ll do, um, the show notes. Boy, we’ll do artwork for you. We’ll post on their channel. Well, they’re literally everything for you. So it’s a very tailored way to do it. But then also we have the ongoing production, which is kind of like a yearly retainer that we’re on, which goes from six to $800.  

That includes. Four episodes, mind you. Um, so that includes depending on what you want, that generally is a price range to start off with. And we kind of, we do everything for you from audio editing, show notes. To distribution and artwork and everything like that. A lot of our clients like the ongoing model, because they save, it’s like a subscription model.  

It’s like having a gym membership, but you you’re getting podcasts reduction instead of the whites and the treadmills and that kind of thing. It’s a little bit, it’s a little bit cheaper because you commit to a longer period of time, but the value and the cost write down per episode is significantly less.  

And also. You know, if you ha, if you are committed to a year, the best thing about that too, is that, you know, you will build a decent amount of audience behavior around that longer period of time. So that’s also where it works for the client as well. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So out of all of the experiences you had in the podcast world, whether it’s your own podcast or helping somebody with their podcast, is there a kind of a proud moment that really stands out where something really amazing or unique happened?  

Sorry. Sorry, say that again. Damon, out of all of your podcasts experience, whether it’s your podcast or one of your client’s podcast, is there a moment that really stands out that you’re proud about that something amazing or unique happened? Yeah, I would say for me, like the metric that I use to measure, um, the success of a podcast is, you know, from a podcast producer standpoint, it’s obviously if a podcast gets into the top 10 or the top 50 of the category, it’s happened a few times with a few of my clients and that’s obviously something to celebrate.  

Um, the other metric that I I look for with client is just how the belief. Of what they can do changes. I know that sounds extremely cheesy, but the amount of clients that I start with almost 90% of them stop a podcast and they have what they call is imposter syndrome. I think who am I to do this? How can I maintain the attention of an audience who am I to connect with this particular guest? 

And when I see that change over time, the confidence starting to come through how they connect with people change. Because really, as I mentioned at the start of. This interview too. It involves a lot of listening and, and as a result, a lot of connecting and connection with people. But when I see that changing clients, it’s, that is the metric that I find the most rewarding.  

It’s just how they relate to people, how they connect to people and what they believe wasn’t possible is just now so easy for them. That’s, that’s a breakthrough story for me. I think that’s so important in, and we’ve talked about it in other episodes, but it’s interesting that. That relate-ability and vulnerability overlaps some of the podcasts world.  

And what I often talk about with other guests is that in business, you have to be relatable. People, people want to buy from somebody that they trust or have some sort of understanding of or feel like they know. And what’s funny is that a lot of times people are. Are like, I don’t want to talk about this thing or I’m not special, or like you said, imposter syndrome.  

And then the opposite is true. Those little things that you think make you weird or that make you not unique, um, are the things that other people relate to. And so that makes a lot of sense that would overlap into the podcast world and attract listeners and grow a following because they can relate to what you’re talking about.  

And so it’s important to just share those things and listen, and to open up those discussions. Absolutely. Absolutely. A hundred percent now, probably probably one of the last things I want to ask you about in the podcast world before we get to wrap it up is, um, there’s on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is my social platform of choice.  

Um, and then I’m sure, just like on other social platforms, I get a ton of spammy messages. That’s Hey, I see you’re a podcast host. Um, Let me, you know, pay me and I will artificially inflate your reviews and your list count. Do you have, um, anything you can say about that, about how that’s potentially damaging?  

Yeah, it’s actually, that was a service that certain freelancer sites offered, um, where they would you’d pay them like $50. Then they’d like, cause how I tuned now I use iTunes as the example because I choose slash Apple podcast. I know I still say iTunes, even though technically it doesn’t exist anymore, but that’s kind of what Apple haven’t really clarified what they’re calling the desktop version of podcasts anyway.  

So what cause because Apple podcasts are called podcasts because of the iPod. Right? Um, and so the, what you call the incumbent audience or the majority of podcast listeners. Uh, listening on Apple podcast. So that’s roughly about 60 to 70% of podcast listeners are listening on Apple podcast. So that’s chunk of bed, chunk of the audience share when you think about it.  

So why the iTunes slash Apple podcast rankings matters so much because a lot of the listeners have it. So yeah. What these services are essentially doing is they’re sending people, email accounts, or click farms, whatever you want to, whatever they use to subscribe to your podcast in a 24 hour period.  

Cause that’s how Apple tracks your ranking. So if you send, if you have like a heap of people going to your podcast in a 24 hour period and hitting subscribe, that’s how you boost up your rankings. A lot of people like, Oh, it’s download basis. And I think sometimes. That’s where the confusion is an Apple.  

I don’t know if they’ve actually clarified this, but in my experience, it’s the amount of subscribers you get in a 24 hour period that boosts your rankings on the charts. So what these services do is they send yeah. And, um, it’s fake email accounts and fake reviews and that kind of thing. They send a whole heap of fake reviews or fake emails to your podcast.  

They subscribe it. So you boost up the rankings. I believe these. So the services have been banned from these freelance sites. I don’t think you can actually hire them anymore. Cause it’s like, like a black, black hat trick, essentially, essentially. So yeah, I mean, I would, I think eventually what’s going to happen is I don’t think Apple has completely banned this black hat trick, but I think eventually that is going to happen because obviously the value Apple gets from your podcast is the amount of subscribers they get to their products or their mailing lists.  

Sorry. If they’re fake emails, I’m sure there’s going to be a filter or something put in over time. That’s going to not allow this. Yeah, and I can kind of speak to this and relate this to social media or, you know, the, the internet marketing world, what happens is a good example would be as Facebook’s popularity grew, then the same service existed, where you could buy followers and fans.  

And what happens is it ends up the valuing your, your Facebook page. And so in this case, your podcast, and the reason why is because eventually they track engagement. So if you have a thousand subscribers, but only. Two of them. Listen regularly. Then that’s going to tell Apple, you know, Apple podcasts that the other 998 are inactive.  

And so you have a low engagement rate. And so the quality of your podcast is not that great. So I imagine that that same type of algorithm is. Going to be incorporated over time. Absolutely. Yeah. I think definitely it will be incorporated over time. And the fact, as I said before, because I think Apple is just figuring out, like we’re still not regulated yet on all the podcasting apps, but I think in time, we’re going to have to figure out how this is all going to roll and roll it out as an industry standard.  

Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Well, Ginni, you’ve been a pleasure to talk to you. I wanna give you the opportunity to put on any contact information on your website. If you want to make any offers, let’s do it. Fantastic. Thanks so much Damon for having me on your show. I’ve I’ve really enjoyed. Um, you know, I love the title learning from others.  

Cause I think that’s, that’s one of the best ways to learn, but you guys, if you need any questions or have any questions on podcasting, I do offer a free monthly podcast class on the last Tuesday of every month at 12:00 PM Eastern. But if you head over to Ginnimedia.com, you’ll see the access to all the free resources we have on podcasting and also the podcast class.  

There you go, Ginnimedia. That’s G I N I a Ginni, last question I like to ask our guests is how do you want to be remembered? Well, I want to be remembered as the girl who has the infectious laugh. Um, and it’s interesting because like, I think that that’s how I want to be remembered. Someone who listens, someone who provides value and someone who makes you smile and laugh.  

So I think there needs to be more of that in the world. Yeah, that’s a great trait. Yeah. Make people smell. There you go. Ginnimedia.com. Thanks so much, Ginni. Thank you so much, Damon.