How to Leverage Podcasts for Lead Generation

Podcasting is an incredible tool for generating leads and getting coaching clients. Whether you have your own podcast, are planning to start one, or just want to be a guest on other people's podcasts, there are three main things to make sure you do to best leverage podcast episodes for lead generation.

In this episode, I talk about the three main tactics for effectively using podcasts to generate leads, including your call to action, the topics you talk about, and the people you interview (or who interview you).

Hello, and welcome to the Client Attractor Show, where we talk about concrete tactics and strategies that you can use to attract your dream clients. I'm your host, Jacob Ratliff, client attraction coach and author of the new book Client Attractor. If you've not gotten your copy yet, you can pick that up today at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or clientattractorbook.com. 

In today's episode, we are going to be talking about how to leverage your podcast for lead generation. This actually applies, believe it or not, to your own podcast, so if you have your own podcast, this is going to be great. It also applies if you don't have your own podcast and are trying to get interviewed on other people's podcasts because both are a great strategy. In an ideal world, yeah, you probably should be doing both of these things, but if you can only do one, this is going to be a great episode for learning how you can make the most of your podcast episodes, whether they're your own episodes, or they are an interview. 

With that, let's go ahead and get started with the first thing that I recommend, which is to make sure that you have a call to action in the episode, at least once. Now, if it's your own podcast, I definitely recommend, going forward, two of the same call to action. I'm mentioning it at the beginning and at the end of the episode, and essentially, a call to action is “Hey, I want you to do this thing.” 

For instance, in this episode, towards the beginning of it, I said, “Hey, if you haven't gotten a copy of my new book, here's where to go get it. Go do that,” but it doesn't have to be a book. For example, it doesn't have to be a purchase. It can be “Hey, download this free resource, this lead magnet, by going to this website,” or it can be “Book a call.” It can be any number of things, but the idea is to make sure that you have a call to action. 

Now, usually, if you are being interviewed on someone else's podcast, they will give you an opportunity to say something about how people can find you or something like that, how people can connect with you, and that is the perfect, perfect opportunity to share a call to action. Of course, just being polite to your interviewer, it's usually a good idea to clear that ahead of time so that you don't mention it and they maybe didn't want you to. It's important to clear it up ahead of time. But the idea remains, which is using a call to action at some point in the episode to get people to take a next step. 

This is a key part of the lead generation process. Otherwise, what you don't want to have happen is for people to listen to the episode and then do nothing. They think, Oh, wow. Jacob sounds great and smart. I'd like to work with him. But sometimes it takes that prompting of a request for them to actually take that action. 

The second thing that I recommend is making sure that the topics, so whatever you're talking about on a podcast, again, whether it's your own show or someone else's show, are aligned with your offer, making sure those topics are aligned with what you do and how you help clients. 

For example, if you are a professional cheesecake chef, your specialty is you make cheesecakes, well, it probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense for you to go on a podcast to talk about how to take care of your cat, right? Those are two completely different things. But if you're a cheesecake chef, it might make sense, in fact, for you to go on other baking shows that aren't necessarily about cheesecake, perhaps around other types of pie or cake. That makes sense, but it doesn't make sense for you to go and talk about something that is entirely unrelated to what you do. 

To give another example that might be a little bit less abstract, as a client attraction coach, I work with coaches and consultants to help them attract their dream clients. So, while it would make sense for me to go on a lot of different business podcasts, I don't necessarily want to talk about, say, how to build an online store in Shopify because if that's not my specialty—e-commerce is not my specialty—I don't want to talk about things that are not my specialty. 

In the same vein, on my own podcast, I probably don't want to talk about how to build an e-commerce store in Shopify either because that topic doesn't align with what I do. This is really important because the whole goal of talking about something on a podcast is for listeners to say, “Wow, that's exactly what I needed to hear. I would love to connect with this person, to learn more from them, or to maybe even potentially work with them.” What you don't want to have happen is for them to hear me talking about creating a Shopify store and think, Wow, I'm going to reach out to Jacob to talk about a Shopify store, to see if he can help me with that. I'm obviously going to have to turn them away, because that's not my specialty. 

Also, it means that all the people out there who are my ideal clients and who are listening do need what I have to offer. They're not hearing what I have to offer because they're sitting there thinking, Oh, Jacob? Yeah, he's a Shopify expert. He's not what I need. You’re not just turning people away; you're not getting the people who should be contacting and reaching out to you in the first place. 

The last thing that I recommend thinking about and doing, if you're trying to leverage podcasting for lead generation, is to be really particular and careful about who you are having conversations with on podcasts. First, if you are talking about your own podcast, so you are bringing guests on in order to interview them on your show, in that case, it's really, really important to make sure that the people you're interviewing, the people you're inviting, have some sort of audience of their own. 

The reason this is important is because they bring their audience with them. If they say, “Hey, look at this show that I was interviewed on,” people in their audience are going to listen to that. Whereas, if they don't have an audience, you're not actually able to get in front of many new people that you wouldn't otherwise. That’s part of why the podcast guest strategy is so effective; you effectively leverage other people's audiences; you take advantage of that so that you can get in front of more new people. 

On the flip side, we have the reverse, which is when you are being interviewed on other podcasts. If you're seeking out podcasts that you want to be interviewed on, it's important to consider the host of that show's own audience. Is their podcast getting a lot of downloads every day? What's the size of their audience? Does their audience live on Facebook, on Instagram, an email list? What is the general size of their audience, and where is it located?

When you're trying to figure out which podcasts to reach out to first to see if they need guests for their show, you want to be prioritizing those podcasts that already have a following. It's for the same exact reason, which is that you want to be able to leverage their audience and get in front of their audience. It's really the same exact strategy or approach either way; when you are having conversations with other people on podcasts, you want to make sure that you're having strategic conversations with the right people who have their own audiences as well. 

In conclusion, if you are whether you're already using podcasting to generate leads, or you are considering incorporating that into your strategy, there are really three main things you always want to make sure you're doing, and these apply whether it's your own podcast or you are being interviewed on someone else's podcast. 

The first is to always make sure you have a call to action. The second is to make sure that the topics you're talking about, what you're actually speaking about, are aligned with you and your offer; it's aligned with what you do. The third is to make sure that when you're having interview conversations on podcasts, whether you are the interviewer or the interviewee, make sure that you're being strategic about who those people are so that you can get in front of their audience and leverage their audience for lead generation.

Thank you so much for joining me today on the Client Attractor Show. I'm your host, Jacob Ratliff, and I'll see you tomorrow for our next episode. Take care.