DISCLOSURE: THIS EPISODE MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS, MEANING I GET A COMMISSION IF YOU DECIDE TO MAKE A PURCHASE THROUGH MY LINKS, AT NO COST TO YOU.

Hey all, welcome back to the podcast! I hope you’re having a great day. Something I’m wondering about is where do you live and what do you do while listening to podcasts? Are you in the US or another country? I’m in South Carolina and when I listen to podcasts, I love to be on a walk. Walking is my podcast listening time and another spot I listen to podcasts is when I’m alone in the car. I also love to listen to podcasts when I’m at the gym. 

Aside from podcasting and building an online business and of course, my family, my other love is lifting weights! I’ve been in the gym since my mid 20s and I love the challenges of lifting weights and getting stronger. The gym has taught me so much, especially the idea of consistency creating results. If I only went to the gym every few weeks, I wouldn't have much muscle. Similar in building an online business, it’s about consistently putting in the work to reach my next goals. 

This episode is part 2 of how to start a podcast. I want to dive a little deeper into the technical side of things in this episode.

Remember in the last episode I stressed the importance of knowing your end goal as you contemplate starting a podcast. Do you want more sales? More customers? Grow your membership or courses? More partners to join you in your business? 

The reason I want you to really think about this is because podcasting is great and a lot of people want to just start a podcast and share content and value. I applaud that but I also want to tell you that you will burn out fast and fade if you don’t figure out a way to monetize your show. Podcasting takes work and it takes time to come up with content so I highly recommend figuring out how you will monetize your show before you hit record.

Now that you’re thinking about how you will monetize your show, you’re going to want to set up a few things as you’re planning out your podcast:

• Lead magnet and email marketing service
• Website
• Podcast hosting service
• Recording system 
• Editing
• Music 

Lead Magnet

What piece of valuable content will you offer your audience in exchange for their email? It really can be anything, so get creative! A short e-book, how to guide, a challenge, workbook, even a quiz! Whatever it is, you want to craft your lead magnet that calls out your target audience and offers them value. For example, as I mentioned earlier, I have a quiz as one of my lead magnets. 

Email marketing service

This is important because you want a service that allows you to set up a follow up email sequence that goes out to the people who’ve signed up for your lead magnet. I use Aweber and find it to be pretty friendly even if you’re tech challenged. You can also create sign up forms and landing pages with Aweber. They have a lot of resources to help you get started. There are other email marketing services out there so make sure to do your research on which one is best for your needs. 

I believe you need a website. It’s your property on the internet. Your place to share information, sell your products or services as well as where you want your audience to head to. Think about it. This is your internet real estate. You can drive traffic to your site and that’s what you want. You don’t want to rely on social media because as we’ve seen, it can go out at any moment and if you say something they don’t like, well they can...