So You Wanna Be A Podcaster

Join host Melissa Ann and special guest Rayna Rokicki, a podcast growth coach and producer, as they dive deep into the world of podcasting for business growth. Focusing on podcasters (new and old), speakers, coaches, consultants, and service providers, this episode is a goldmine of information for anyone looking to leverage podcasting to boost their brand.

Rayna shares her journey in the podcasting space and offers expert advice on:

• Identifying and reaching niche audiences
• Crafting effective content strategies
• Navigating the technical and creative aspects of podcast production
• Optimizing podcast discoverability
• Balancing content creation with other business activities
• Understanding the evolving landscape of podcasting

Whether you're a podcasting newbie or looking to take your show to the next level, Rayna's insights will help you position yourself as an expert, monetize your show, and expand your reach. 

 Tune in to learn how to make your podcast a platform and a powerful tool for business growth and personal branding. Let Rayna be your podcast hype woman and discover why she believes ambitious women need a digital platform to amplify their voices!

Rayne LinkedIn
Podcast Growth Club

00:00 Using Podcasts to Grow Your Business
00:21 Introduction to Girl Talk Podcast
01:04 Meet Rayna Rokicki: Podcast Growth Coach
01:23 The Rise of Podcasting
04:52 Common Podcasting Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
07:30 Understanding Podcast Analytics
09:03 The Challenges and Costs of Podcasting
11:57 Tips for Aspiring Podcasters
16:06 Rayna's Services and Final Advice
23:17 Conclusion and Contact Information

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Transcript

0:00

Even with a small audience though, especially if you're like a speaker, a coach, a consultant, a service provider, you can be using your podcast to grow your business. So you don't need thousands and thousands of listeners to do that, to find, you know, clients that you can help with your expertise Welcome to Girl Talk Podcast with Melissa Ann. And I am excited today to have a special guest Rayna on the phone, and I will not attempt to botch Rayna's last name. She will let you know how to pronounce her last name, but really excited to have Rayna on because all of us want to be podcasters, our so called podcasters. And you see a gazillion podcasts popping up, but are we really doing them the right way? And so I thought I'd have Rayna on to talk through today. So you want to be a podcaster And there's more and you could actually get some of Rayna's services and she'll talk more about that as well. So without further ado Rayna, please introduce yourself Hey guys, this is Rayna, Rokicki. Thanks. My last name is a little weird. Yeah. Rokicki. I am a podcast growth coach and podcast producer, YouTube producer. And I pretty much live and breathe all things podcasting. So as you can guess, I'm always excited to talk podcasts and yeah, most of, like you mentioned, I mean, more and more podcasts keep popping up, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I think it's one of those niche platforms where you can have. Tons and tons of them, because you really need, you know, maybe a thousand true fans to make it your own, to start monetizing, you can even monetize with less than that, but it's a fun way to reach your audience, especially if you're someone who loves to talk, like, if you're a writer, maybe don't go into podcasting, go into, you know, blogging or something else, but if you like to talk, you like to have conversations. Podcasting is the way to go. yeah, and it's weird because personally I don't like my voice So I was like, eh, I'll do podcasting only because it was during the pandemic and I needed something to do. So I, I started out doing this as something fun and was quite nervous about, my voice and talking and making sure that there was dialogue, but it just came so easily. You know, once you start having a dialogue and making people feel comfortable with individuals. So what do you suggest or out first, the first question I have for you is how did you get into podcasting and has that always been something you wanted to do and radio or communications? Yeah. Great question. I've always loved audio storytelling like the, I can't say I've always been a radio fan, but I love listening to things. And, I did, I did go to college for communications, but actually I was a teacher for a long time. And I was an international teacher. Actually, I lived in Nigeria for six years and we came back during COVID. And, it was at that point where I'd done a lot of audio video projects with my students. And I was like, you know what, I'm ready to get back into the audio communication world. So I dove into podcasting, started having clients helping them out. And then of course I was like, I need my own podcast. So I did that. I am, I have two podcasts. One is called You Betcha She Did. And it's all about really cool, you know, Midwest women doing neat things, entrepreneurs, change makers. And then I just actually launched my new podcast this morning. It is called Podcast Growth Club. And it's all strategies and tips to help you grow your podcast like a business and also start to monetize it without sponsors. So No. if you are a podcaster, you're definitely going to want to check that out. It's a great example of podcasting. What it's like to work with me and some of the tools and tips I've used. because yeah, I've been in the podcasting space since COVID. I worked for a podcast production company for a while as well. And then I kind of went my own way, just focusing on, helping women podcasters. So it's, I don't know, it's a, it's a great field. Like I said, it doesn't, it doesn't seem to be slowing down. And I think. I think there's a couple of reasons for that. One reason is that podcasts, it's like the only medium out there where you can multitask, like you can be driving your car, listening to a podcast, you can be running errands, you know, whatever you need to do. Like you can't watch YouTube and clean your house, or you can't watch YouTube and walk your dog, or. Workout, whatever it is, same with social media. Same with, I mean, I guess you could kind of sort of read on the treadmill, but you know what I mean? But podcasts are one of those things where you can listen while doing a million other things. And I think that's awesome. And you kind of really get into the ear of your listeners. You know what I mean? Like we put those little earbuds in, you're making that really intense connection that's amazing. And one of the things that you and I talked about was. You, you have to make sure that it's, it's like sales or anything else. You have to have a differentiator from other podcasts, but, you know, for example, you talked about girl talk. So my, you know, I, I thought, Oh, that's snazzy. I'm from New York girl talk. But girl, talk what? Like, what do we talk about? And you brought that to my attention of, you know, what is the tagline or what is the subtitle? what are some of the mistakes such as those that individuals make that you find that in your coaching of, podcasters? Yeah, I mean, the, the biggest one I come across is people missing the mark on having listeners find their show, because like you mentioned, people want to have like a really fun title, a snazzy title, but unless they know you personally, or they're already connected to you on social media, new listeners aren't going to find your show and you don't want the name of your show to be the number one reason why people aren't finding it. So you could still have a snazzy title. especially if that's like a brand you've worked on for a while, but I would definitely add a title extension on like, like we were talking about where you tell exactly who it's for. Like, who is this specific show for? Like, what are the keywords someone would be searching for in, you know, Apple podcasts or Spotify to help them find your show? Because if you type in, you know, maybe it's like key topics for, moms, you know, like make sure you've got mom in there if it's key topics for, black women, like make sure you have that in there so your audience can find you. If you don't have that, they'll, they'll never find it because no one's going to search for girl talk, right? Unless they know you, but we want, we want to keep those podcasts growing. So making sure you have keywords in your titles, important. your cover art is really important. You want to make sure those keywords are also there and that the cover art, It's easy to view, like it pops out at you, so some, some kind of standards for that I would say is have either a light background or a dark background and have the font easy to read, but then the opposite. So if it's a white, whitish background, use a dark color to pop and so on. because again, a lot of people have these beautiful cover swirly writing, but when it's tiny on your phone, it's really hard to read. And they might, they have beautiful professional photos, but you're like, I don't know that person. So I don't, I don't know if I want to listen to them, you know? So It's interesting. Yeah. Small things you don't even think about that is attracting your audience. Yes. What would you say, you know, when I'm looking at some of my downloads, what do you think are some, what's like a sweet spot for downloads on streaming as far and, and then YouTube, we know YouTube could go all the way off the charts, but what do you find are the sweet spots where you're thinking, okay, this podcast has something there. Yeah. I mean, it's, I'll give you some statistics to kind of frame it all. I mean, the one thing you want to see with your podcast is consistent growth over time. And the longer you do it, the more. Ideally, your downloads are going to increase, but if you are getting more than 125 downloads per episode after 30 days, then you're in the top 50 percent of podcasts. So podcasts are getting less than that, which is, which is a lot of podcasts. And then 50 percent are getting above that. If you have more than a thousand downloads per episode after 30 days, then you're in the top 20 percent of podcasts. that being said, Even with a small audience though, especially if you're like a speaker, a coach, a consultant, a service provider, you can be using your podcast to grow your business. So you don't need thousands and thousands of listeners to do that, to find, you know, clients that you can help with your expertise. So I think that's one thing that's magical about it. Cause I know some people are like, what are these numbers good? Are they not good? I think the key is just, like I said, that you're seeing growth over time and that you're also. the whole process of podcasting, people think it's easy. It's not very easy. You know, you come in and you think, Oh yeah, I'll just start this podcast. Cause it's very easy to. Jump online, but you, you don't think about the costs associated with the editing, the software that you have to use to even do the podcast, you know, advertising doing, it's a lot of work and it's not cheap. Editors are very, very expensive. So when you look, what do you look for in an editor? I would look for turnaround time, that they can get it back to you, you know, in a timely method so that you have a chance to look at it and see if you need to make changes. I would also look for, you know, I'd love to see examples of past work and if they can give you tips to make your podcast better. I mean, it's one thing if they can edit out the ums and the likes and, you know, when you trip up your words, but you really want someone to who's going to give you tips to be a better speaker, better ways to use the microphone. if you're looking for like a podcast producer, you would really want someone who can give you content strategy planning. So really help you with that long game of like, how can we link episodes together? How can we, Make things more bingeable. How can we look at those, viewer analytics or listener analytics and look at those trends, figure out what's working, what else we need to double down on. so you want someone who's not only just going to like take that off your plate, but help you with the strategy down the road, because if you're already paying a lot of money for the editor, you want someone who can put in that strategy as well. So the editor, so, so, the editor, and so, like I said, I do this for fun, but the editor and the producer, two different things. Yeah. There are two different roles, but it could be one person, if that makes sense. Okay. for example, I'm a podcast producer. So my clients will hire me, I edit it. I'm like the social media. but I'll also help them plan out content and give them the analytics report where I'm like, here's based on what I'm seeing with your audience. This is what I, what I think you should do. Here's why let's try this for the next 90 days. And then let's revisit again and see what's working. You know, what keywords do we need to keep showing up for? what content was like the most downloaded, like let's do two more episodes about that and then link them. So they're bingeable. So that's, but some people just specialize. Some people just do editing. Some people just do the social media. Some people just do the YouTube side. so it kind of Yeah. The social media itself is a lot of work. Yes, it is. I know. Yeah. I know. That's, that's probably my least favorite part. It's like a necessary evil. Like you've got to, you got to tell people what's going on to keep the listeners you already have engaged so they can keep listening. But it's, yeah, week after week, it gets to be quite a bit. You know, it just. Monotonous, you know, kind of, do you have any, you know, tips for those out there that are struggling, in the podcast world, like take a step back. Obviously they need your services. So you want to talk more about your services, but take a step back and do what Yeah. Yeah. If you're, if you're struggling, well, there's a couple different ways you can go about it. You can really take a look at the things you love to do and say, can I keep doing these? And can I hire someone out for the things I don't love to do? If you're like, I don't have any budget. I can't do that. you've got to really work on streamlining things. tools that are going to make it easier for you. for example, Buzzsprout is a hosting platform that you have to pay for. So in the podcast world, there's free ones, which is like Spotify for podcasters, which is great. But if you want more in depth analytics and more tools, I would say Libsyn and Buzzsprout are great. And like on Buzzsprout, they have a tool called magic mastering. Well, it'll automatically even out the sound between you and your guests. So it's way less editing. And then they also have something called co host AI. So artificial intelligence, and it'll generate the show notes. It'll generate a newsletter. It'll generate social media posts for your episode. You still need to wordsmith it because it's not, you know, it's not your voice and it's, it's not perfect, but it's a great, great tool. It's a great time saver in having to do all those things. So, you know, find systems that work. I think for people who are serious about growing their podcasts, you really want to focus on putting content out every week and that, that can be a lot. 52 weeks a year. So, you know, I tell my clients, like, let's figure out ways to do, to make this easier. Let's figure out ways to batch episodes and episodes can definitely be shorter. in 2024, the ideal podcast episode, I can't remember if I told you this, Melissa, is 22 minutes. So it's not that long actually. Ah, really? yeah. and the reason that it's 22 minutes is because the average car commute in America is 22 minutes. So after people are done running their errands, or like I said, walking their dog. If it's a great episode, they'll probably continue listening, but sometimes they don't. Sometimes they're like, I'm done at the grocery store. I'm, I'm just gonna do something else now. And they don't finish that episode. So, a good tip actually is to look in Apple podcast analytics in, iTunes, Apple, Apple podcasts. It's the only analytics where you can look at the percentage of the episode that was listened to. And these, this is great for looking at which episodes were the most engaging, like which ones did people listen to 90 percent or more if people, like if you have an hour episode and they're, they're only getting through 53%, you're like, Hey, if I probably need to make shorter episodes because, or you could take that long episode chopping in two. Yeah, you got part one, part two, just put a new intro on the second part and then you're good. So that's another way to keep the content flowing, but you know, make it less daunting, for the host to produce. is interesting. So I, you know, and. Honestly, I've always said, you know, my podcasts are 30 minutes. Sometimes they run 45 minutes, you know, sometimes a little longer. So I'm not thinking that, people are not really listening to the entire episode because they've run out of time. But I do find, our shorts on YouTube. Get a lot of hits Yep. because I, cause I guess that's what you were saying is people like really fast information versus the 45 minute draft dragged out. So, okay. So I'll take that into practice. Totally. Yeah. After this episode, go to, go to Apple, go to your analytics and just check, check those rates and see where they're at. Be like, are people listening to the longer ones? Maybe they are. Maybe they aren't, but you can really see which episodes were the most popular. And then those, you know, are good topics. You're going to want to keep doing, you're like, let's do another topic about that one or another episode about that topic. It makes sense. So given the time that we have together, what do you want people to know about your business and how to reach you? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So, Like Melissa mentioned, I am a podcast growth coach. So I would definitely check out my new podcast, Podcast Growth Club. you can, it's great strategies, just like we're talking about today. And if you have a podcast and you're not seeing growth or you want to start monetizing it, which a lot of us do, right, even to just cover the cost of producing it, please reach out the emails in the podcast. my email is Rayna, R A Y N A at ladiesfirst. com. digitalmediacompany. com. You can find me on Instagram at podcastgrowthcoaching, but yeah, I do a two week podcast booster where we get some strategies into place right away. You've got access to me for 14 days. You can ask me all the questions you want. if you want a deeper dive with strategy, I have a 90 day program. Where you, you're with me for three months and each month we're looking at analytics. We're looking at what's working, what's not. if you want someone to just produce your podcast, you're like, I need to take it off my plate. You can, you can hire me for that too. I'll help you with editing. I'll help you with social media, with your show notes. So you just have to. Produce your content and then forget about it. You're Oh, that's what I like. Forget about it. That's right. So, so what is your, your, you know, your sweet spot customer, all clients, or is there a customer that you will, you know, not necessarily ready for your services? Yeah. gosh, I mean, I, I love working with women podcasters because I really, I'm really big on making sure women's voices are heard. So that's kind of my sweet spot. But, I have, I do help people launch their podcasts in a way that it's going to grow as well. So if you're like, I really want to do a podcast. But there's so many things, I don't know where to start. If you want an expert hand to guide you, I've got a great 12 week program where we work one to one each week. We get your podcast launched, we help you streamline things so you feel comfortable with it after. but yeah, my, other than that, my ideal customer is someone Who, like I said, is a coach, consultant, business owner, and wants to use their podcast to grow their business because that's, that's where I feel like my zone of genius is I can look at all, all the aspects and say, all right, let's, let's, here's a strategy to get us through the woods and to get you start making money, to start getting new clients. That's, I kind of love digging into that. That's nice. That's good. Do you find yourself, practicing with those? Who, you know, have full time jobs or is podcasting in their full time life. Yeah. A lot of people want to get to that full time podcaster, but, right now it's, it's like a, A platform they're using to grow their business and then eventually it will become their business, if that makes sense. Okay. I see a lot of individuals like, you know, have studios and I, and in my head, I'm like, Ooh, ah, you know, here I am in my dining room. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think with the technology today, you don't need a studio. Yes, it's nice, but even in the past four years, the equipment, the digital recording spaces have gotten so much better that, like, if you have interviews, your guest doesn't need a microphone. You can make the audio sound great, which was not the case. I would say four or five years ago before you're like, yeah, let's meet in a studio. You know, we got nice walls that are soundproofed. You don't need that anymore, which, which is awesome. So yay for technology for making it more accessible. Yeah, that's cool. Just to, you know, bounce from one room to the next and, and release. I think for me, this is like a tension release. It's really cool to have these conversations with individuals. You know? Yeah. So, last question, what would you, what advice, top three things you would tell, someone who wants to start a podcast. So you want to start a podcast. So here's the top three things you need to know. Okay. yeah, if you want to start a podcast, you definitely want to know who you're, who it's for, who is your ideal audience. The more you can niche it down, the better you're going to do. Cause I know at first, sometimes people are like, it's for everybody. It's for women. And it's like, Nope, Nope. There's so many out there. You got to niche it down. think about what makes you unique that you can bring to it. you, I would also really make sure you have the time, like you were mentioning, because you, you want to keep it up, right? You want to keep doing it week by week, so I would say make sure, especially at the beginning, that you have at least five hours a week just to dedicate to it. Yeah, as you get better and better, it'll get easier and easier and you can streamline that down. But when you're first starting, you know, editing and all that stuff takes, takes time. The other thing I would tell them, you are serious, it's not just a hobby, but you want to use it to grow your influence, to grow your brand, to grow your business. I would hire someone like myself to help you because you're going to save yourself so much time and money in the end because we'll show you the best ways, like I said, to have listeners find you, to set up your episodes for success, to help you with all the tech issues. you can do it on your own, but it's, it's kind of a rabbit hole, like a lot of things. So if you like, if it's not a hobby. You know, then I would say, spend the money to have someone, you know, bring you, bring you right down the path of success. So you don't waste all that time, time and energy trying to figure it out. Yeah. I think I've been with my editor going on, I don't know, four or five years or so. And, I found him on Instagram, which Oh, you know, like doing a search on Instagram and I lucked out because it could have been a weirdo that was going to take my money, but it was just, you know, lucked out, he's excellent at what he does. So we've kind of grown together. So I think that, finding someone like yourself in him, is beneficial to the art of this because without. In experts such as yourselves, and it's very difficult in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. And you're just going to get frustrated and then you won't have your podcast, right? You're going to get pod fade. You're going to burn out and you're going to toss it away. And then what good is that? You have good ideas to share with the world. Like make sure you get them out there. right. I agree. Well, it's been awesome. you have me at the 22 minutes now and all of my podcasts will be 22 minutes Perfect. You're like, that's it. Got to go. yeah, we just like, you know, normally this shoot and shit keep going, you know, but you know, 22 minutes makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, it does. I know. Once you know, you can't unknow. You're like, Oh, it's 22 minutes. Let's Yeah, let's wrap this up. Rayna, it's been an absolute pleasure. I'm so excited to, have you on. I enjoyed the conversation and I'm sure that the rest of the community of individuals who are listening will get something out of this too. And I hope that if you are listening, that you reach out to Rayna. Rayna. and you're starting a podcast, reach out to her and utilize her services. Rain again, where can they find you? Yeah. You can find me on LinkedIn at Rayna Rokiki. You can find me on Instagram at podcast growth coaching. And of course you can find me at the podcast growth club podcast. So listen in. You can contact me there as well. I can't wait to listen. So thanks again, Rayna. And as always, I see you because I am you. Thanks for listening.