Do you want to be a podcast guest but you don't know where to start looking or how to introduce yourself? There's a lot of noise out there and let's face it, add to it. So the question is, how do you get your message to connect with the right audience that will resonate? The answer, become a guest on a podcast.
As we explore the subject of how podcasts add value to your business from both the host and the guest perspective, Tom Schwab from Interview Valet offers behind-the-curtain insights to why podcasting is such an incredible opportunity and unlike any other forms of marketing in the digital space.
Connect with Tom:
Link interviewvalet.com/digitalapproach
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Tom Schwab (00:00):
How can I introduce myself to the host so that it's meaningful? How can I introduce myself to the audience so that I'm memorable. And I think you want to be very clear on who you are, what you believe, who you serve the best. And it's okay to have strong points of view. The idea not to go on a podcast and have everyone love you, because if it, if you try making sure everybody loves you, no one will remember you. Yeah. Now don't take it to an extreme and be offensive or objectionable. I don't like that. This is not the medium for that. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> but I think it's okay to be very clear. I always say, as you're talk, people should have two responses. They should turn you up or turn you off.
Ryan Fowler (00:50):
Welcome to the digital approach podcast. This show is brought to you by a Ryan media group, with the goal to help you an inspired business owner, remove the overwhelm from marketing in the online world, through success stories and practical strategies from entrepreneurs that have done it. There's plenty to come in this episode. So let's get into it. The rise of podcasting has given the opportunity for connection to listeners in a way that feels intimate, builds trust relationships, and pushes your to new levels. This is through the process of podcasting and more specifically podcast guesting. As we're going to be covering in today's episode in this noisy digital world, you can't break through the noise. You just add to it. Instead, you need to get in on the conversation where your ideal customers are already listening as a Navy veteran who ran nuclear power plants and an inbound marketing engineer. Tom Schwab has a refreshingly unique approach. He focuses on time proven strategy, then supercharges it with today's technology and podcast. Interview marketing, an author speaker and teacher Tom helps to get more traffic leads and raving customer fans by being interviewed on targeted podcasts. Tom, thank you so much for being on the show. It is an absolute pleasure to welcome you to the digital approach podcast.
Tom Schwab (02:14):
Ryan, thank you. I am thrilled to be here.
Ryan Fowler (02:17):
Well, let's jump straight into this and, and I want to get a little bit of your story, because in that intro it says that you were in the Navy. I really wanna find out how did that shift happen going from being in the Navy, what you did there to podcast guesting. Can you just share with us how that transition happened?
Tom Schwab (02:33):
Sure. It happened over a number of years, right? I graduated from the us Naval academy. I got in on a clerical error. Literally I have no depth perception, but they took a and four years to figure that out. So I ran nuclear power plants in the Navy and then went into the civilian world into business and then entrepreneurship. And I always say what I learned there in the Navy. I apply every day in business from the standpoint of you've gotta have something that's systematized, that's scalable, right? When people tell me, well, you don't understand my business, right? It's just too complicated. I can't teach anybody this. I couldn't have anybody else doing this. I always remind them that right now there are high school educated early 20 somethings that are running nuclear power plants safely. Right now they're very bright people. They're very well trained all the rest of that, but it's because there's a culture and a system that is taught and ingrained. And if they can do it for nuclear power, we can do it for our small business.
Ryan Fowler (03:36):
Absolutely. And, and your engineering experience would start to come into that and especially with what you do now, which we're gonna dive right into around podcast guesting and obviously a depth perception isn't overly needed in podcasting. So that's a good transition for you as well. I'm gonna jump straight into this because I'm really excited to share what you have to share and what you do with the audience, because I know that're so much great value in what this can create for the opportunity for people in the past couple of years, especially, but you've been doing this for much longer. Podcasting has grown a lot not just with hosting, but with the listenership and the platforms and how many different places people can start listening to podcasts. Now, what is it that when you took that it into this podcasting space, what is it you love so much about it and what is it that guests love so much about it as
Tom Schwab (04:27):
Well? To me, I got into it in 2014 and what struck me on it was that my background was inbound marketing and 20, 25 years ago, the, if you wanna call it at hack was to blog and not just blog on your own site, but guess blog on other people's site and, you know, tap into their audience. In 2014, I started to think, well, why couldn't you use podcast interviews that same way? And for me, interviews are, or podcasts are much, much easier, right? For writing a blog is like a homework assignment. I'm not a natural writer, but I love to talk. And so we live in such a great day and age today that you can create in the way that's easiest for you and repurpose it into other ways, right? Transcribe the blog, take the video, put that up, cut it up into little chunks and make social media posts out of it.
Tom Schwab (05:25):
So I think it's a wonderful thing where you can figure out how you communicate best and then repurpose it. And so that you can give it to people in the way they listen best. And I really think even that name podcasting ask somebody that's some of my two youngest daughters are a under 25 and I remember years ago asking them what's the pod mean in podcast, they rolled their eyes and looked at me and said, I don't know, dad, what's the pod mean? And they've never known a world with an iPod, right? So they know it listening to iPods on their phone or on the car, or you look at it. A YouTube is one of the biggest search platforms now for podcasts. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, you know, the data says 70% of podcasts include video, Sirius XM. They bought podcast networks in order to have Ted. So it's this question of, is it a podcast anymore? And I, I don't know. I don't care. As long as people get to hear me, as long as I get to communicate with people. That's what I love about podcasting.
Ryan Fowler (06:28):
That that's a great thing. And I'm gonna draw a comparison to blogging and podcasting in, in just a minute, but what actually defines a podcast because I know for me, my definition of it is it as an audio platform, as an auditory connection with a listener, but what's your definition of what a podcast should be.
Tom Schwab (06:46):
That's changed over time. And I guess the, the technical one has something to do with an RSS feed. That's pushed out there. I think it can be repurposed into so many different ways. I think one of the key factors that I would define it this year, especially is that it doesn't rely on anybody else's platform. Right? I've got friends creators that I know that all of a sudden were on a platform and for no good reason, they just got de platformed. Yeah. And it give it a couple of weeks and they appealed. Then they got back on there. That's a scary thing as a creator. If, if all of a sudden at anybody's whim, you can be taken off there or just a mistake. So I think one of the beautiful things about podcasts is that it is creator controlled. It is able to sort of take out the platform and, and I think that's gonna be very important going forward.
Ryan Fowler (07:41):
Yeah. That example there really defines what a great thing about a blog is as well on a website. And one thing that we get told as business owners is we have to have a website because it's the space we own on the internet. It's like the virtual shop front that we have. So a podcast is a platform that we own as well. And I, I love that comparison to who see the value in where podcasting really is. Now I'd like to draw this comparison to blogging that you brought up before, because blogging and podcasting have pretty similar timeframes. They were only born a few years apart, but one really took off. And the other one didn't to start with for a while. So what is it about blogging that originally kicked it off and then how's that transition to podcasting being made. Now
Tom Schwab (08:26):
That that's a great point because the first podcast was 2004 and blogs weren't too much before that, but blogs were easy to do and easy to consume, right. Even when they were ugly and WordPress and all the other ones out there, they were really easy to create and they were easy to consume. Podcasts were not, I don't know if you ever remember back in like 2004, I can't even remember trying to listen to one in 2007, 2008. Well, you've gotta get the iPod. Then you've got to put the plug in and then grab the file, drop it here. It was not easy. And so with that, if it wasn't easy to consume, people wouldn't do it. So it really wasn't until the smartphone came up and it was to download the iTunes store the iTunes podcast that just made it easy to pull it right there.
Tom Schwab (09:21):
And then when they started to have different players on it, that's allowed people to consume it in different ways. It's interesting. It's not even, you know, when I listen to a podcast, I don't prefer the iTunes player so I can play it in different that give me different features that I like. So I think as it's gotten easier to consume podcasts have started to increase and year over year, they continue to increase. There's been talk for the last probably three years, have we hit peak podcasts and we have not, the listenership continues to go up right now that the latest to from Edison research said that 51% of the us population listens to podcasts. And I don't know where that upper living is. There's, it'll never be a hundred percent, but I don't think TV, radio or newspapers ever hit a hundred percent right. In the us 10% of the population and is hearing and impaired, right? They're not gonna listen to your podcast no matter how great it is, but that's exactly you think about it. There's podcasts. Now that they're starting to add the, the text in there or they'll, they're scrolling underneath it. So it it's great. Even if you listening quote, unquote to a podcast, you don't have your headphones and you can't listen in routed area. You could still read it as it goes through.
Ryan Fowler (10:39):
That's exactly right. And just the opportunity to connect with people in so many different ways from creating one more long form piece of content, because usually podcasts range from the 30 to, to 40 minutes on average sometimes around the 20, but that's still 20 minutes of content that you've got to be able to create for people. So in the growth of blogging, it's obviously taken off and taken to a horizon. And because it is much easier to start with where has that evolved into now, like in comparison to where both podcasting and blogging started, what does that look like now in where we are in 22, 22? And, and maybe even where you started in 2014,
Tom Schwab (11:21):
I, I think they're starting to merge together. Right? Cause I don't hear as many people starting a new blog as a starting a new podcast, but yet I know of blogs that have been turned into podcasts where they take their best blogs. They have a actor read them and they become a podcast. And I know a lot of podcasts that get transcribed, cleaned up and become a blog. So I think they start to merge together. And, and even to the point of you look at somebody like Gary Vaynerchuck right. Does he have a podcast? I don't know. I guess it depends how you listen, right? Because if you listen audio, then it's a podcast. If you watch him on video, then maybe it's a log. Right. So really it's, I think the lines are starting to merge together so much. If you see a, a short clip of something on a TikTok, could you say, oh, that's, that was a great little piece there.
Tom Schwab (12:21):
Well, might have been a clip from a longer form on that. But one of the things I love about blogs and also podcasts is that longer form content. Even you look at when blog first started out, Google said it had to be 500 words in order to have any value SEO value. Yep. And then it went up to seven 50 and then a thousand, they realized that you can't add a whole lot of value in 200 words. And people were just trying to, to game the system for, for search engine optimization. So there's quality there. And I think we're seeing the same thing on podcasts. It's hard to say like the average length on a podcast, because some of 'em are news podcasts. Right. And they're just short to the point. Other ones are sports podcasts short to the point. You've got other ones that are more, a good discussion, right. And those are the ones that 30 to 45 minutes. But then you've got a podcast like hardcore history with Dan, Dan Carlin. I mean, he drops one like every quarter, maybe every six months and everybody complains how come it was only five hours and when's the next one coming out. <Laugh>
Ryan Fowler (13:34):
Only five hours. That's probably the problem to have for him.
Tom Schwab (13:37):
<Laugh>
Ryan Fowler (13:38):
Well, just, just to touch on that is when you are reading an audio book, for example, I heard in another interview that you listen to a lot of audio books and audio's obviously a big part of your world, but when you're reading for audio books, usually within an hour, there's about a, there's a span of rough 9,300 words per hour. So if you're looking at how Google relates, the amount of words in a blog post to a one hour podcast interview, you've got about 10 times the amount of content that Google needs in a transcript. So yeah, that there really is a lot of opportunity for repurposing there as well. Now you do lot of research at interview valet and you do regular webinars as well. I know I've listened to a few in preparation for this, for this podcast. And what have you found in your research and the results that you've seen come through of the rise of podcasting, especially in the last couple of years through the pandemic that we've been in, how has podcasting grown and then what does it look like now that we're still sort of starting to come out of it as well?
Tom Schwab (14:42):
Yeah, that's a great question. And everybody's got an opinion and you can have a small data set, but I'm a, a geek, right? So we keep data on everything over eight years, over a thousand clients, over 50,000 interviews. And so we report on that every year and we see the trends with it. Like one of the things that we saw was that pre COVID less than 20% of podcasts included video. And you could say, when is that due to bandwidth, whatever. Now, two years later, it's up north of 70% include video. We've all gotten so used to zoom that it, it seems normal now and people aren't turned off by that. The other thing too, is that the early on, before the pandemic Skype was the most common platform to use, to record podcast interviews. And there was Skype, there was a bunch of other little ones, but now two years later, we're seeing everybody so used to zoom that over two thirds of the interviews are done over zoom. Now, is it the best platform now? Right. There's a lot better platforms that record locally, but this is what people are using. We saw during the pandemic, remember when all the days got mixed together? Yes. Every day that ended in Y felt the same. Yep. So we, Friday
Ryan Fowler (16:07):
Was Monday, Monday was Sunday and, and so on and so forth.
Tom Schwab (16:10):
It makes no difference. Right? And we, before then we used to see seasonality to podcasts. People would take the holidays off right year, end holidays. The recordings would actually go down over and, and granted, most of ours data is us based. So during our summer podcasters would get a lot of interviews beforehand. Then they would take some time off in the summer. They'd burn down and then they'd start recording again. We never saw that in 2020 or 21 because they were just working all the time. And typically podcasts were always done Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were the most popular days then during the COVID any day with the Y was open game. And so now we've gotten back to, we just looked at it for the last six months and it's more Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are the, the most common days for that. The other thing I I've seen is that the quality of the podcast has gone up tremendously.
Tom Schwab (17:13):
And I, I look at qualities, a few things. One is the audio and video quality, right? Remember pre COVID, listen to some podcasts back then, or even look at some of the videos people's camera was awful. Their lighting was awful. The sound was awful, but it was good enough. That's what we're used to. In two years, the quality has gone up also as BBC NPR, a bunch of other big networks have gotten into podcasting. They've raised the bar for everybody. And I think that's great for the industry. The other thing that I really noticed is the quality of the conversation has gotten better. Now we, we talk about podcast interviews. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> I think the interview word is it's a misnomer, right? The interview. And you can listen to this in some old podcasts where they'd everybody the same 10 questions, no matter. And what you asked or what you answered.
Tom Schwab (18:14):
It was very formulaic. It was easy for the guest. It was E easy for the host, but looking back on it, it reminds me of like television in the 1950s. When you look at it now and go, people actually watch that. Well, it was the best thing we had at the time. Now it's really more of a conversation. And I think that's what people like, because I, if I just have to know if I'm here to tell you the six secrets to make six figures on six seconds in Pinterest, I can Google that. Right. <laugh> yeah. You had interest there. That's not interesting. It's not worth a podcast, but if it's something that's a bigger idea, timely, but timeless a conversation, those are the things that are best suited for podcasts.
Ryan Fowler (19:02):
I agree. And the premise that I bring to this is having a conversation brings out story and story is one of the oldest forms of communication. It's how messages were passed, how knowledge was passed, how learning was done and how sales was done as well. So being a good storyteller comes out through conversation and understanding and, and relativity to the, the actual responses that are being given. And it's a back and forth. So to deliver the best value, at least in, in my opinion, it's to have that conversation, to bring out the stories and be able to share that with the audience between the host and the guest.
Tom Schwab (19:39):
I agree with you 100% and that word that you used conversation, I spent way, way too much time and way too much money later in life getting an MBA in my marketing. And it was like the history of marketing, all the rest of that. I think my grandfather could have told me what marketing was, right? Yeah. It's how do you start a conversation with somebody that could be an ideal customer? And sometimes I worry that my grandfather would be better suited for the future than say, my grandkids will be right, because wow. He understood the strategy behind it. He understood, Hey, I need to have a conversation. I can have a conversation, one on one, or I can, you know, go to a place where all my ideal customers are. I can get it in introduced at the golf course, or I can get introduced at the rotary club wherever it was.
Tom Schwab (20:32):
So he understood the strategy of how to build a business. And my concern now is that people focus so much on the tactics of what's the best platform to use. What's what's the metric, what's the app I need. And I remember years ago when Instagram was just starting out, my daughter was in middle school. So she was what, 12, 13 mm-hmm <affirmative>. And she came to me and she says, dad, you need to be on Instagram. And I said, why? And she says, because everybody is on it. Right. Yep. And it was like the cool thing to jump on. And I said, well, define everybody. And she said, well, me and all my friends <laugh>. And I'm like, at that point, it would've been creepy for me to be on it. And fast forward, like another eight years, then my clients are on it. Yeah. So I think it's that big strategy of how can I have the conversation with the right person? Not just, Hey, what, what's the new, what's the newest tactic this week?
Ryan Fowler (21:29):
That's it. And, and the youngest, the younger generations will be the first to adopt new social media strategies because that's how it happens. Look at TikTok and the rise of that. It started off younger and now the demographics are slowly becoming older and older, but while you're on this subject of marketing strategy, I really want to touch on this because podcasting and, and I wanna dive into being a guest here and, and even hosting as well. Podcasting is a marketing strategy in itself. We we've mentioned before that it's a platform that you own. It's not something that, you know, Google could take away a YouTube channel or Facebook could shut your page down. So using podcasting is a marketing strategy. Let, just break this down a little bit from the host perspective, and then we'll jump into the guesting side.
Tom Schwab (22:12):
Perfect. Now I look at it's the same platform. It's just what your goals are. So I'll often people have people ask me, should I be a guest or should I be a host? And I put the question back, Adam, well, should you be an Uber driver or an Uber passenger <laugh> and it all depends on your goals. Yeah. Right? So it's the same platform and you could be a driver and a passenger at different times, right. Depending what you were trying to do. Yeah. And I think it's the same way with a podcast. If your goal is to go out and get new exposure, to get new leads, to get back links, then you need to go on other people's stages. If your goal is to nurture your current leads, nurture your current customers. Then I think being a guest or excuse me, a host is a wonderful way to do that today. There's what 400,000 podcasts that are live and active and governability is still such a hard problem there. So the idea that I'm just gonna start a podcast and everybody's gonna find it, if you build it, they will come. Yeah. I don't think that's ever worked
Ryan Fowler (23:20):
<Laugh> yes. That's not going to happen. It's not like a baseball stadium. So I love this perspective and, and I totally agree with you on what the value of being a host is. And can you just elaborate a little bit more on what being a guest is? Because it is a marketing strategy. It does help you build back links, but there are a few more psychological things that being a guest can help do being featured on someone else's virtual stage
Tom Schwab (23:43):
It's that transfer of authority and days past it was as seen on TV or that I was on this big publication. Now podcasted the same way. So there's that transfer of authority. The other thing too, is that the spotlight is on the guest and it's a different medium, right? You're not talking to somebody that is a, a trained journalist typically. Right. They don't come with an agenda to make you look bad. They want to have a good discussion. So there's not the gotcha interviews. The other thing too, is that some people aren't as comfortable to start a podcast on their own. Yeah. Right. So there's that tension. They have be behind the microphone. Well, if you can be a guest and almost get your confidence on other people's platforms, being asked questions about the things that you already know and are passionate about, right? Your business, your, your opinions, how you see the world, that is a great way for people to get confidence behind the microphone.
Tom Schwab (24:47):
Yeah. To find their voice and also decide what they might wanna do for a podcast. It's very common that we'll have somebody come to us as a podcast guest and into their first campaign. Typically we run campaigns of about six months. They're like, this is great. I wanna do my own podcast. Can you help me? Do I always say, no, our expertise is in podcast guesting, right? Yeah. That's like asking your dentist, can you do my knee surgery? <laugh> no, that's not what they do, but they'll introduce you to someone. And,,hat's typically what we do.
Ryan Fowler (25:19):
Yeah. That, that's a great differentiation that you actually know what you do. And your message is really key and really clear, which for brings me onto the next point. That was a, a, a nice little segue there. Wasn't, it is about the, the message that people actually bring to podcasts as a guest and how they're pitching themselves. And whether they're going to go into obscurity and, and not really define who they are or be really clear in their message. So what is it that people need to do to looking at the message and say, this is exactly what I want to talk about. What do I need to do here?
Tom Schwab (25:52):
Well, first I wanna correct a word there. I, you're not supposed to hate. So I loathe the word pitch, right? I know where it comes from you in, in, in media, you pitch an idea, you pitch inanimate objects and all of a sudden become, we're gonna start pitching people. And I think it's dehumanizing for the guests, the host and the audience. Right? So really the question is how can I introduce myself to the host so that it's meaningful? How can I introduce myself to the audience so that I'm memorable. And I think you want, want to be very clear on who you are, what you believe, who you serve the best. And it's okay to have strong points of view. The idea is not to go on a podcast and have everyone love you. Because if, if you try making sure everybody loves you, no one will remember you.
Tom Schwab (26:47):
Yeah. Now don't take you to an extreme and be offensive or objectionable. I don't like that. This is not the medium for that. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> but I think it's okay to be very clear. I always say, as you're talking, people should have two responses. They should turn you up or turn you off and that's fine if they turn you off. That just means that you're not a good fit for them. Okay. That's fine. Right. But if they resonate with you and they're like, oh yeah, I, I, I definitely like what Ryan does, what he talks about his viewpoint in life. Those are gonna be your super fans, your super consumers. And if you look at the data behind podcasting, the top 1% of all podcasts get 35,000 downloads per episode in the first 30 days. And people will say, well, I thought it'd be like millions or tens of millions. Well, no, it's, it's that 35,000. But think about it. I mean, how many people have talked to 35,000 people at one time? And the studies say that 70% of 'em listened to the entire episode. I mean, that has some great engagement, 35,000 people that are opting in to listen to what you have to say.
Ryan Fowler (28:01):
Yeah. I totally agree with that. And the value of, and, and just to look at the YouTube example here as well is people will see that a video on YouTube gets two to 3 million views. If it's in sort of that much higher ranking, that much higher rank in search, or, you know, subscriber based to the person. But if they're only getting a 20% or 30% or 40% engagement rate, then they're not getting the same amount of actual response as what the podcast is. So looking at the, the difference in enlister engagement is a really critical part of going onto podcast, right?
Tom Schwab (28:42):
It is. And not everything can be met, measured, perfectly video right now has got a blessing and a curse, right? The blessing is that the vast majority of it is over YouTube so they can control it. They can give you all the analytics of who's watching how long they're watching, but the double edge sword is now YouTube controls everything. And they can with their algorithms show you or not show you, they can de platform you with podcasts. It's different because it's, you don't know exactly who's listening, how long they're listening, but I'd like to present a different, maybe take on what it means to go viral. Right. Okay. On YouTube, on video, that means you get a million views. I think for podcasts, to me, a, when a podcast goes viral, it means that someone listens to it in the morning.
Ryan Fowler (29:40):
Yeah.
Tom Schwab (29:41):
And then they start thinking about it throughout the day. And it starts to come up in conversation and you're talking to somebody and say, I was listening to this podcast. This real smart guy is out of Australia someplace. And he was talking about this and I never looked at it that way. And all of a sudden that virility is jumped from just being from one person. Now it's in the general conversation and those ideas are getting out there. And I think that is the power of conversation that you're just not gonna see in other mediums there.
Ryan Fowler (30:16):
I agree. And, and I've done a very similar thing. I've heard something in a podcast and, and it's actually how I found out about interview valet is through another podcast that you are on, cuz you've done quite a lot of podcast in your history so far. And I heard about interview valet, I thought, oh, that sounds like a phenomenal service. I'll go and look, go and check it out, found out that, you know, there's obviously an area for hosts and for guests in the service that you offer. So I thought, okay, let's touch base and, and see if there's a, a potential opportunity to connect here. And obviously that's now got you on the podcast and, and some of your other clients on the podcast as well, that offer a phenomenal quality, phenomenal difference in conversation. So it's great how podcasting can promote people to take action or, or spread the conversation. Even like, I know that I've recommended people to go and become a guest through interview valet and connect with your service in a different way to what I do. This is where I really feel the opportunity for podcasting. And you've just mentioned how that can connect with people in a long term way as well. So just looking at what podcasting, it can create short term results as well as more long term results. So can you sort of break down what each one looks like and how those strategies run over time?
Tom Schwab (31:34):
And I'm gonna define what short term is and what long term is because for those of us who have ever had experience with Facebook ads, right? You put a dollar in the next day, what came out of it? And I remember working with somebody early on and this was years and years ago and a week into it. They're like, well, I haven't gotten any leads. I haven't gotten any customers. I'm like, well, has a podcast episode gone live yet? Well, no. Well I said, so at this point you've been heard by maybe two people, right. You've been heard by the host and maybe the editor, that's it. Right. So if you think that it's just like gonna give you instantaneous results, it won't most podcasts. They take time to, to edit it, to promote it. And then even then when that podcast drops, not everybody listens to it on day one, 80% of the listens come within the first 30 days.
Tom Schwab (32:35):
And then after that, it's got a very long tail. I mean, I've personally gotten clients from podcasts that are over four years old. We've had clients that have gotten them podcasts that are four and five years old. I'm not sure if it's evergreen, but it's probably more like a, what a can of soup. It's good for three to five years. <Laugh>. So with that, they've got those results. And often I encourage people to look at both the, the, the, the quantifiable results and then the qual qualitative results. Right? What do you feel and what do the numbers say? So after you get off the podcast interview, you should have a really good sense. Was this a good interview? Did the host, were they engaged with this? Because guess what? The audience is like the host or aspires to be like the host, right? There's a reason they, they choose to listen to that host.
Tom Schwab (33:24):
So if you have, if you finish up the interview and it's like, wow, that was a great conversation. I really enjoyed that. I, I think we brought out the good things there. Well, that's that qualitative that, yeah, this is gonna work. Then the quantitative comes when an interview goes live and you see things like, maybe your traffic goes up, maybe your social media goes up. Now it's not a hundred percent attribution. There's some things that you can do to help that. But there's a flaw in the system and ran Fishkin from, he had a company called Maz. He was the first one. I heard explain this. And he did a masterful job on it. He says, if, when he's on a podcast and you hear him, well, you think about it, but you can't remember quite what it was. And so it was something like Moz was the name of his company.
Tom Schwab (34:13):
So you start typing it in there. And all of a sudden Google ads pops up and it's right there at the top. So you click on that. Well, Google's gonna say we brought you that customer. Yeah. Well, not really. You help them. And, and then I'm getting ready to sign up for it. I'm looking at everything. And something happens. I get pulled away from it. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so I leave, well, they have Facebook retargeting. So a few days later I'm on Facebook and I see, oh, that's right. I wanted to sign up for that. And I go back and now Facebook is gonna say, we brought you that customer <laugh> really yes. Sort of. Right. Yeah. And so what's the, the perfect attribution. Is it a third? I don't know. But podcasting gets no credit in there. Yeah. I think where you get that quantity is when you start or qualitative is when you start talking to people and they're like, I heard you on a podcast or this person sent me the link to your podcast. And I listened to that. So those little things there, and it's that whole idea of exposure brings opportunity. You can't always connect the dots perfectly, but you, you know, in your heart that, that it was having an impact.
Ryan Fowler (35:25):
It does. And it's the podcast that built the authority and the trust in the guest, in this case, Maz or ma <laugh>, whatever ended up being. But it's the podcast that built the trust and authority and the guest to actually prompt someone to go and click on the Google ad, that then ended up going and getting the retargeting ad. So personally, I would attribute that to the podcast, but it's when the feedback comes in it's and where people actually found you is where the value really comes into it is what is what I feel. So just on this point of being able to start to leverage the interviews that you do as a guest, because once the interview's done, it's not just up to the, the host to promote it. It's the guest that also has the opportunity to build their own trust and authority and, and get their name out there even more. So what can guests do to leverage the opportunities that they get out of a podcast?
Tom Schwab (36:22):
I, I wanna repeat something that you just said, mm-hmm, <affirmative> this should be,, tattoo on every guest. It's not just the host responsibility to promote the episode. And there's some people out there that are teaching. You don't need a website. You Don social media, you don't need to do anything. Just jump, jump on a podcast and talk. That is bad information that will hurt you. That'll hurt your reputation and let's drop the word podcast. Let's just think about what it means to be a good guest, right? Yeah. If you get invited to somebody's house show up on time, add value, be polite at the end, you know, send a thank you. Note, little things like that. The same thing with being a podcast guest, if you are on a show and you took an hour of your life to speak to their audience, why wouldn't you want to keep connecting with them?
Tom Schwab (37:16):
Why wouldn't it gets posted? Why wouldn't you go in there and, and make some comments on it, engage with them, share it with your audience. It's great content there. And I get paid per the interview, right? Yep. So when people hire us, the packages, the bigger the package of interviews, the more we get paid, and I'm still the one that keeps telling them, don't do more interviews, do more with every interview. So with that, if you're gonna be on an interview, make sure that you're promoting it on social media, make sure you're repurposing it, get, get every squeeze out of that, to that lemon that you can. And I probably just mixed metaphors there <laugh>, but there's a lot there just to keep jumping a up on and talking for 30 or 45 minutes, that will actually hurt you in the long run because people will just say, oh, they're just here to use and abuse the audience.
Tom Schwab (38:09):
They're not, they not, they don't care about the relationship there. Yeah. And we've got an entire guide that we did that we listen to our clients that what they were doing, how do you promote it? The best ways to do that? How do you repurpose it? How can you do it? Where it takes no more of your time and has either automated systems or outsourcing it. Even we've used college interns, higher, a journalism intern, right? That's what they do. They listen to stuff, they watch stories. And then they write a article about it, which is basically a blog post. If you wanna make a journalism major, happy, give 'em an internship and say, okay, here's my last 20 podcast interviews. Could you write blogs for that? Yep. You thinking this is homework, they're gonna smile and go, oh, this is great. Do you have any more?
Ryan Fowler (38:59):
<Laugh> absolutely. I can check as much content at you as you like. <Laugh>. Yeah. I, I love that. And just being able to share that out there, because podcast hosts do talk to each other. I know that I'm in communication with other podcasts. So, so I work and do production stuff for other podcast hosting. Well, and they'll come back and tell me, this person was great. This person wasn't. So the reputation does travel and it does it, it sometimes it's bad if the guest wasn't great, but sometimes it's really positive. It's like this person was amazing. They shared the content and they're a great guest to have. They really love information. They're passionate about it. They share it. So maybe they'd be good for your podcast as well. And O obviously that's where some podcast networks and things come too, to help promote that out a bit further. On the flip side of this, the guest, yes. Does of often want to share the content that is being done in the podcast episode out there, but what can the hosts do to actually provide a bit of content to encourage the sharing to happen?
Tom Schwab (40:02):
Oh, great question. Right? Make it easy for people. So the best hosts are keeping in contact with the guest between recording and it going live. Don't do just drop it live and expect them to see it there. Tell 'em a week or two beforehand, because if they've got busy social media, they're probably already scheduled out there, give them copies of all the memes, the clips that you're to use so they can use them. Also. The other thing that I often ask the host for, and some hosts will give it to me even early, before you edit the entire thing. Can I have a copy of it? Because that's probably three or four weeks before it's gonna go live. Well, let me give this to my team. I'm not gonna scoop somebody's old podcast and release it beforehand. Yeah. <Laugh> but while you're working on it, we're, we'll go and make some assets there too.
Tom Schwab (41:00):
We'll cut it up in different ways. So when you release yours, we'll release ours and we can share each other's content there. And the other thing there is don't think just because the podcast went live last week, that you can't promote it anymore. Right. This is evergreen content, 80% of the listens come within the first 30 days. So make sure you're promoting it that entire month and then start to put it in a, a cycle and few times a month. Right. Always tag the host to remind them. Yeah. And we've even had clients that would buy advertising on the host site, right. To try to keep in front of the audience there for that, that 30 days. Yeah. You know, some sponsored posts, whatever it was. It, it, it makes a whole lot of sense. Why wouldn't you do that?
Ryan Fowler (41:51):
It does. Absolutely. And there's something that you mentioned here, and you mentioned it earlier in the interview as well, is the word evergreen. Now I, I know what this means and I promote a lot of content for it, but there are people that are listening. And I know that I've had conversations with plenty of business owners that do listen to the podcast. That aren't exactly sure what evergreen truly means. Could you just give us a definition of that before we, oh, I
Tom Schwab (42:16):
Jump in, I, I hope I get the definition, correct. It just means it sticks around for a while. And there's some things we do that like an email, you do it once you hit send and well, you gotta redo it the next day. Evergreen content means that people will, it, that they'll consume it. It'll be out there is, it's not like doing a, an advertisement and a paper, right. That it makes, it makes the Sunday paper. And by Monday what's in the trash these are out there for a long time. And with that, you've gotta make sure that that it's evergreen content so that you treat it like that. Let me give you an example. We always advise our clients never mention day of the week season, anything like that, because it could be the day before Christmas and we're recording this and I go, oh, Ryan Merry Christmas.
Tom Schwab (43:13):
Well, it's very then, but what if the interview doesn't come out until, until February and now it's Valentine's day and you just heard Merry Christmas. It sounds so dated. Yes. Or I, I, if you mentioned seasons, right? If I start saying, oh, we're getting so so excited for springtime coming well, Ryan's halfway around the world, right? Yeah. His audience is going, wow. That's, it's really late. That's an old podcast. So don't even talk about that. Other things is predictions early on. We sat down with all of our clients at the beginning of COVID, whatever you wanted to call it and warned them. I don't know what this is gonna be called three months from an hour or six months from now. Is it gonna be called a pandemic? Is it gonna be called COVID Corona, China, flu, nothing political in there. But if you call it the wrong thing on a recording, it can come back to bite you.
Tom Schwab (44:10):
Or what if you make the prediction wrong? What's that gonna look like? And I can think of there's a gentleman. I know that does was just into his, his podcast. It was probably the end of 2020. And it had been out for a couple of months and it was a great interview. He was talking about how the world was gonna be changed because of what we've gone through and everything he said, I was like, oh, that, that makes a whole lot of sense. That's right. That's good. And then he ended it up with you, mark. My words. He says, I, I don't know if it's gonna be Easter. I don't know if it's gonna be summer, but when we come out of this, the world's gonna look different. And it's just forward six months after that, you're like, oh, he missed that prediction, right? Yeah. And if you get the prediction, right, everybody will say, oh, we all knew that if you get it wrong, everybody will say, oh, what an idiot. We all knew that. Right? Yeah. <Laugh> so don't make predictions on evergreen content or time it's recorded.
Ryan Fowler (45:08):
I agree with that. And the, and again, example, that's just popped into my head and this happened, I can't remember exactly what year it was, but the movie back to the future to bring a pop culture reference into this is back to the future made predictions. I think it was 2020 or something. And when the date hit in 2020, everyone took what they predicted in the film got back to what was reality and thought, okay, what's real. What's not, how's this happened, what's changed here. And then once that was over, it was done. So back to the future had quite a, a long lifespan of sort of what was it, 22 years or something that, that it had running there. But now that the predictions have happened and it's got to the year doesn't have as much impact anymore. So it loses the impact of what the prediction was.
Tom Schwab (45:56):
That's interesting. And I think you're right on that, cuz I remember 1984 as a book and as a movie, right. That was really something. And now I haven't heard anybody talk about that in ages. Well, and then flip that around and animal farm were, which probably talked about very similar things. Didn't put a date on it. So that one is okay. The circling back around that's evergreen. Yeah, because it's just as applicable now as it was, what, 70 years ago when it was written,
Ryan Fowler (46:28):
That's it? And, and that's my definition of evergreen is if you can look back at it, it 10, 15, 20 years later, and it still have the same impact or a similar impact, that's not going to date. Then it will stay evergreen for you. And that's where podcast interviews really do offer a lot of great opportunity in that. Now the other thing that you mentioned is sharing content and you know, the host can send different things, different documents, different files. But this also brings up the cop, the question of copyright who owns, what, where do things go and having been a videographer, I've looked into this a lot, mainly in Australia, not so much in the us, but you can certainly enlighten to, to what this entails on your side of the globe, but bringing in the content copyright side of it. What happens to that? Because when someone, at least in Australia, when someone creates something here, it belongs to the person that created it and unless it's paid for and copyright is sold. So how can guests and hosts both manage that balance between getting enough promotion out and, and sharing content without taking away from the copyright?
Tom Schwab (47:35):
I believe, and I'm not a lawyer, but I've asked Gordon fire, mark, who's the big intellectual property lawyer here in the United States. I asked him about this. And he said, when you record it, you've added the value you to it. So you own the copyright. So you're recording this on your side. So that file is your copyright. If I was doing a backup copy here, that would be my copy copywritten copy of it. I think where you've really gotta get into is that yes, I would never use anything without your permission. Right. And I'm always going to give attribution that this is where it was from. I remember it asking pat Flyn oh, this had to be by 2017, he was at podcast movement. He was podcaster of the year, super nice guy, smart, passive income. And I asked him on the stage, the question, copyrighted material, I said, would you ever let a guest use portions of your podcast if they attribute it back to you?
Tom Schwab (48:40):
And he looked and he says, I don't care where people hear me as long as they hear me. And as long as they get directed there. So I think it is like, anything else, it's a partnership, right? We're both want this same thing. We want people to hear this. Yeah. So being respectful of it and, and using it in a way that always points back to the podcast shows 'em where they can get more information and presenting it in the format. It was, I, I think the only time I would advise people that they might get into some issues would be, if you're on a podcast with the BBC, if you're on the podcast with NPR or something like that, you're probably gonna have to get written, written releases on that because they employ a lot of lawyers <laugh> whereas most podcasters they're lucky if they have editors that they, they employ. So just be respectful.
Ryan Fowler (49:32):
Yeah. I totally agree with that. And if someone comes on as a guest in the podcast, of course I'd love them to share it. If there's clips and audiograms and episode cover images and quote cards and all that sort of stuff that, that I usually send to people sure. Send it out. That's fine. Promote it. Do whatever you want to do with it, but just send the, listen back to the podcast and, and where it's come from. And it's a fair exchange of value on both of our ends. So there's just one more thing that I want to ask. And, and we've talked about sharing content and getting the right interview and clarifying your message. But the point of podcast as a marketing strategy and being able to use that is how can we then convert the listeners into leads? What are some good techniques that we can employ to actually start to build on what we've done and the time that we've spent and the time that the host has spent to create this podcast episode.
Tom Schwab (50:26):
So this is gonna be Hery to anybody that knows anything about digital marketing. We've tested it. We've looked at the numbers and every digital marketer knows one call to action. Right? Well, on podcast interviews, bring calls to action, always work, best, meet people where they are give 'em a small all. Yes. Just to come back to your site and, and see things. Right? Give him a medium. Yes. It's gonna take maybe a little bit more time, maybe a little bit of money. And then if they've listened to you, right. And they're like, oh, Ryan can help me. I love him. He's smart. He's the answer to my prayers. Don't slow. 'em Down in a funnel, right? If they come with credit card in a hand, ready to talk to the wizard, let 'em talk to the wizard. Just in natural conversation, bring in freeways that you can help them.
Tom Schwab (51:20):
Small. Yes. Medium. Yes. And a heck. Yes. And now pull behind the curtain here. What I usually do is there's an assessment. We have interview marketing. Will it work for me? Right. 10 questions. Get your scored answer. There takes you about two minutes. Right? Everybody wants to know what their answer is. So that's the small yes. Yeah. The medium. Yes. I usually throw out there when somebody mentions my book, right. Podcast, guest profits. How to grow your business with the targeted interview strategy. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> not here to sell the book. Right? So I'll always say, if you want a free copy of it, just come back. Love to give you a free copy. If you're in the states, I'll mail it to you. If you're outside the states, I'll email it to you. Yeah. So we had the small, yes. The medium. Yes. Right? And that wasn't any money, but that's it's time that people would take to read the book.
Tom Schwab (52:10):
And then the heck yes. Is if this, what resonated with you, right? If you think that you could help a whole lot of people by being a guest, if you're the best kept secret out there, if you'd like to see how you can leverage other people's audiences. Well, let's have a discovery call. Let's talk about this. I'll put my calendar scheduling link there. So the, the three calls to action, then the other thing is always send them to one place. Right? We talked about this is evergreen traffic. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so send them to an evergreen page. If you just send them to your homepage, that's gonna change over the years. So send 'em to a page. And so this example, go to interview valet with a v.com/digital approach. When you go there, you'll see what a welcome page looks like. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> give you a hint.
Tom Schwab (53:01):
First thing that's gonna pop up is Ryan's picture the podcast artwork right. In the industry. E-Commerce is called a trust seal. Ryan, you like Ryan, you get to that page. And you're like, okay, I'm on the right spot. Then there's a little boy to boy boiler plate text, then there's my picture. Right? So maybe you just go there to see what the voice or what the face behind the voice looks like. There's some social media icons and then the small yes. The medium. Yes. And the heck. Yes. And so you just always tell people, just go back to that one place. I hear some, some interviews where people say, yeah, I'm here on Instagram. I'm here on Twitter. This is my email, all the rest of that. And do not realize what people are doing. They're driving, they're working out. They're multitasking. They're not gonna remember any of that. So give 'em one place to go to and make it easy to remember.
Ryan Fowler (53:54):
Just tell us a little bit more about what interview valet does, who you are and how you actually help people. We've touched on a little bit, but just share a little bit more for us.
Tom Schwab (54:03):
Well, thanks Ryan. I know that there are people out there that could help so many people, right? Right now with your current product or service, I don't care if it's version 1.0, there are people on their knees praying for it. They would gladly hire you. They'd gladly give you money. There's only one problem. They don't know you exist. Right? Obscurity is your biggest problem. With that understanding of that problem, what interview ballet does is that we help businesses. We help coaches, consultants, non-fiction authors, leverage other people's audiences to get on podcasts so they can talk directly to their ideal customers so they can connect with them. You know, there's that old thing, you can't say enough things to enough of the wrong things to the right people or the right things to the wrong people. Yeah. We'll work with you to get you comfortable with this, to get you in front of the right people so that you can turn them from being passive listeners to active visitors and ultimately engaged lead.
Tom Schwab (55:08):
We've got a team of 35. We've been doing this since 2015. Our team's in Europe and north America, nobody in Australia yet, but we'd love to help you. And if we can be of any service, feel free, just come back to interview ballet with a v.com to slash digital approach. There'll be the assessment there, free copy of the book and my calendar scheduling link. You could help people, right. But they have to know about you. We don't buy the best we buy the best we know of, and people get need to know about you.
Ryan Fowler (55:43):
That's exactly right. And I appreciate you coming on the show, sharing your insights and knowledge with everyone. I know that there's been so much value shared in this interview and this conversation that we've had, that a lot of people listening are really gonna say, hang on, podcasting might be a thing for me. And I hope that you'll reach, reach out to Tom because the service that they do have, I can say from experience and knowledge of what they do, that they do generally care about the people that they work with. And I've heard that feedback from a few people so far, so it's well worth reaching out, having a chat. And Tom, thank you for being here.
Tom Schwab (56:17):
Thank you, Ryan.
Ryan Fowler (56:18):
That brings us to the end of today's episode. I really hope you've got some great value from it. If you're not subscribed yet, be sure to do so where you get your podcasts as an inspired business owner, you can join the digital approach podcast community for free over on Facebook. Just click the link in the show notes. It's a growing community and I'd love for you to be a part of it. If you'd like to find out more about what I do and grow your business with video, head over to a Ryan media.group and book a free 20 minute info call. Thanks for listening. And I'll catch you on the next episode of the digital approach podcast.
