After 15+ years of online marketing, I’ve found there’s one major constant here on the South Coast: A majority of small business owners are slow to adapt to “the web”.
A trend mostly attributed to the steep learning curve of software and social interaction on major platforms, but easily solved none the less. I’ve found the two most important pieces are:
- Having a solid content marketing strategy.
- Leveraging these new opportunities before your competition does.
Creating content is “free” and easily done across many platforms, so long as you have a clear call to action attached to a home base. Next up, you need to get out there and get noticed before your competition does.
Which brings us to podcasting for small business on the South Coast. Maybe a majority of you shudder in the thought about starting your own podcast. Maybe we can help debunk that today.
The funny thing about podcasting is that it’s been around for over a decade, and only recently has it become more broadly adopted by households and professionals. Without a doubt, it is the way to connect and grow a highly engaged audience.
If you’re looking to start a podcast for your small business, especially on the South Coast, this article will help you get started and moving your brand in the right direction.
Why the South Coast needs your podcast
While we’re all looking for that hot new trend to jump on for our marketing efforts, make no mistake, I don’t treat podcasting as a “throw-away” attempt to reach new customers.
I’m extremely passionate about creating a thoughtful dialogue with a dash of entertainment for my listeners. Learn and laugh, I hope.
The essence of a strong podcast is storytelling. Connecting the dots of an individual’s or brand’s identity while providing unique conversations with their most engaged audience members. Podcasting is much more about your audience than it is about your desires to reach them. In other words, once you begin to cultivate a following you want to ensure that the content is resonating with them. You won’t find results by podcasting for the sake of podcasting.
Why create a podcast here on the South Coast?
The South Coast has a relatively small footprint of awareness compared to Boston, or even our closest neighbor, Providence. The more podcasting — or content — that is generated by you, me, and organizations in our area, the better we can collectively amplify the unique opportunities around us.
A rising tide lifts all boats.
We don’t need more negative political news, hype headline articles, and shock Facebook posts that only detract from the positive momentum that is happening all around us.
From New Bedford to Fall River, and within the surrounding towns, we need more podcasts from owners like you.
Give the South Coast a voice — your voice.
8 Topics you can use for starting a podcast on the South Coast?
“I have nothing to talk about, no one wants to hear me on a podcast.”
– Probably you
That’s the line I normally get when I’m talking to a business owner about launching her own podcast or video series.
To me, that’s not an excuse to hold you back! There’s plenty to talk about and your audience wants to hear it from you!
- Your Story — This is the easiest way to get started with podcasting. Start with telling your story, which often helps you create great cornerstone content for your marketing efforts. If you’re selling a physical product, showing how this is made, why you decided to sell this product, or even why you went into business in the first place is a solid foundation to kick off your new podcast.
- Finding others to interview — Much like I do here on this podcast, I find other entrepreneurs on the South Coast and ask them to open up about their lessons building a business providing unique threads of advice that are unique to our area.
- Live shows — This is the opportunity within the opportunity. If you have a passion to report on fast-changing topics or newly released ideas, turn to livestreaming on Facebook or YouTube as a means to export an audio version after. Livestreaming a podcast is another great way to engage an audience live versus passive listening of audio.
- Art & Culture — There’s so much of it here on the South Coast, and more to be uncovered every day. Highlighting the artisans and historic milestones can lead to the perfect audio mini-series to produce.
- Highlighting change — I don’t know about you, but everywhere I turn in this area, there are new buildings or roads being paved for new businesses. A podcast that helps me understand these large landscape changes would be top on my list.
- Education — I recently met with the creators of the Angry Educators podcast, another local podcast, covering — you guessed it — education. Even with their show already on iTunes, there’s plenty of opportunities left to cover education for all ages. I’m sure you could quickly grow an audience around this topic.
- Politics — Yeah, I know, who wants to hear more politics in their earbuds? After a big exhale to clear my mind, I still think there’s plenty of room left for someone to help educate and hold conversations with the people responsible for our local politics. Not just elected officials, but the department heads or employees in our city & town halls.
- Your business — Talking about your business is an easy out to start a podcast, but there is some great content to be uncovered. For instance, I’d love to know how past guest Lara Harrington finds new workouts to implement in her business. There’s nothing wrong with aligning your podcasting efforts with your business, it’s the easiest way to show you can earn some return on this investment.
The best locations on the South Coast to record your podcast
It’s easy to pick a location for your podcast: The place with the least amount of background noise and echo. Simple right? But what do you do when “doing it from home” isn’t all that inspiring or your kids are freaking out in the background?
The Co-Creative in New Bedford
Dena at the co-creative knows that podcasting is gaining a lot of traction in our area, so much so, she had a podcasting booth installed in the office! I’m honored to have recorded the inaugural podcast with Beth Perdue on South Coast Emerging Leaders and plan to record a lot more.
Groundwork! Co-working space in New Bedford
The location that put coworking on the map for the South Coast offers a variety of locations to record your next episode. From the sound dampening “phone booths” to smaller meeting rooms, you can schedule your time to record as a member.
Check out my post on remote & coworking places on the South Coast or if you know of other locations to record podcasts, please let me know!
3 Final tips for starting a podcast right here on the South Coast
Podcasting is a powerful tool to meet new people, broadcast your message, and connect with an audience that your website or even your traditional marketing can’t offer. I want every business or brand on the South Coast to at least try their hand at creating this kind of content and invest in producing strong content for the future. I hope this post has given you a little knowledge and motivation to get your new podcast up and running today. Now, here’s 3 tips every podcaster should listen to:
- Start a series; take time to re-energize — I’ve written 3,000+ words so far and if you can’t tell, there’s a lot that goes into podcasting. It doesn’t have to be overwhelming if you don’t let it get out of hand. Start small or start with a mini-series, give yourself a short runway to produce content and promote it to measure success.
- 90% Promotion 10% Content — In the early days, you want to spend more time promoting than you do create the content. When I launched this podcast, I did a short first season introducing you to some of the South Coast female founders that I found interesting and within my network. After recording a bunch of episodes, I had plenty of runway to promote, talk about podcasting at events like Content Camp, and build up the Facebook page audience. I found my early success with my newsletter subscriptions, and have received some solid feedback so far.
- Reach out if you need help — You don’t have to go it alone! Ask your marketing team or current marketing consultant about starting a podcast. Use this blog post as an outline for talking points and build a plan from there. You can always reach out to me with your questions.
That’s a wrap! I hope you’ll launch your next podcast right here on the South Coast and if you do, let me know about it in the comments below. Please consider subscribing to the show and sharing this post on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn!
