Ep. 016: Should your digital marketing strategy include podcasts?

All you need to know to create a successful podcast! Our guest is Daniel Fuller, host of the "Plants Grow Here" podcast, 

Our conversation centers on:

• the role & importance of podcasts in today's marketing and business
• how to start your podcast and why it should be very targeted
• secrets to a successful podcast
• how to market your podcast and grow your community
• how can you as marketer get help in starting with your own podcast

If you are a podcaster or aspiring podcaster, and especially if you'd like to use a podcast to grow the audience for your B2B business, this episode is for you!

About Daniel:

Daniel Fuller is the host and producer of the Plants Grow Here Podcast – a popular podcast for the horticulture and landscape industry. He is also a writer for the Hort Journal magazine, a trade and industry journal for the nursery and garden industry. Besides his passion for nature and the environment, Daniel likes to help B2B businesses grow in the industry through niche advertising and give tips and tricks on launching new podcasts successfully. 

His background in landscape maintenance and expertise in a niche branch informs his current work in the media space and enables him to share valuable insights.  

Daniel's Plants Grow Here Podcast ranks among the top 3% of almost 3 million podcasts globally and is currently #14 in Australia's leisure and home & garden category on Apple Podcasts. 

Follow Daniel or connect with him on LinkedIn. You can also reach him via the contact form on his website www.plantsgrowhere.com or by email: hello@plantsgrowhere.com.

Interested in plants, horticulture or landscaping? 

Check out the Plants Grow Here podcast:
www.plantsgrowhere.com
on Spotify
on Apple Podcasts / iTunes

Further listening:

Check out Daniel’s Plants Grow Here episodes about a musician who plays music with trees (Tom Wall, Cosmic Knots):

• “Plant electromagnetic output as music” 
• “Jamming with giants: journey to find the music of the Sequoias and Redwoods” 

Daniel also suggested the “Smart Passive Income” podcast by Pat Flynn as one of his favorite podcasts. Here’s the link to it on Spotify.

About our sponsor ReadyForSocial:

ReadyForSocial is a leading social selling company and sponsor of this podcast. Since 2014, ReadyForSocial has supported large companies in the DACH region, Europe, and the USA by introducing, managing, and expanding their social selling programs.

Learn more about their solution and services here.

Lisa and Monika both work for ReadyForSocial. Feel free to contact them about this podcast or about ReadyForSocial's services: Lisa Davidson and Monika Ruzicka.

Transcript

Lisa Davidson: 0:04

Let's get straight to business. Whether you want to optimize your lead generation, make the most of your marketing budget or gain and maintain a competitive advantage in the field. Monika Ruzicka and Lisa Davidson give you the expert insights on social selling to take your business to the next level. This episode is brought to you by ready for social the b2b, social selling experts. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to straight to business. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of our podcast about social selling and b2b. Today Monica and I are looking into whether or not your digital marketing strategy should include a podcast as well. When Monica and I started our straight to business podcast, we came across an article in Entrepreneur magazine online entitled Why podcasting is the next marketing frontier. That was four years ago. According to podcast insights, there were 525,000 different podcasts in 2018. That number grew to 2 million in 2021. The increasing use of mobile devices has partly fueled the interest in podcasts. Another reason is the plain lack of time that many people experience today. listening to a podcast is a great way to learn new things or be entertained while doing other activities from driving the kids to soccer practice to cleaning the house. So it's no surprise that more and more businesses are exploring podcasts as a marketing tool to build brand awareness become thought leaders and increase leads and sales. Some examples are large companies, such as German based food electronic or T Mobile US, which have launched their own podcast, but let us tell you one thing from our own experience. Podcasting is a bit like social selling. It's definitely a marathon, not a sprint. Today we will explore this topic in more detail with professional podcaster and content expert Daniel fuller. Hi, Daniel. We're so excited to have you here today.

Daniel Fuller: 2:08

Today, Lisa and Monica. How are you going?

Monika Ruzicka: 2:10

Good. How are you, Daniel? How is Australia?

Daniel Fuller: 2:13

Really good. Thanks so contracted probably what you guys might think about Australia. It's very wet and cold in Melbourne right now.

Monika Ruzicka: 2:20

Oh my gosh, it sounds like Seattle.

Daniel Fuller: 2:23

Yeah, it's quite miserable.

Lisa Davidson: 2:26

I definitely picture it like always being sunny and warm and you can go surfing and it's just fun.

Daniel Fuller: 2:33

That's what what you we want you tourism dollars. So we're happy. We're happy for you to believe that.

Lisa Davidson: 2:40

Okay, well guys, before we focus on the specifics of whether or not a podcast is the right tool for businesses digital marketing strategy, I'd like to give our listeners at home some more information about Daniel. Daniel Fuller is the host and producer of the Plants Grow Here podcast, a popular podcast for the horticulture and landscape industry. He's also writer for the Hort Journal magazine at Trade and Industry journal for the Nursery and Garden industry. Besides his passion for nature and the environment, then he likes to help b2b businesses grow in the industry through niche advertising and give tips and tricks on launching new podcasts successfully. His background in landscape maintenance and expertise in a niche branch informs his current work in the media space and enables him to share valuable insights. You guys need to know that Daniels plants grow here podcast ranks among the top 3% globally and is currently the number 14 in Australia's leisure and Home and Garden category on Apple podcast. Originally from Melbourne, Australia, Daniel enjoys traveling and helped his wife launch her own digital wedding invitation business before he started his podcast. So as you can see, Daniel has an impressive background and is extremely successful with his own podcast. That's why we believe he is the perfect expert to answer all the questions you might have about the role of podcasts in modern marketing. Daniel. With that, I'd like to jump right to our topic and ask if you could explain the role and importance of podcasts in today's marketing business.

Daniel Fuller: 4:18

Sure thing, Lisa. So let's start with it's as important as you'd like to make it right. So whether or not you make a podcast, the world's going to keep turning. Okay, what you really need, you really need food, water, shelter and love. But podcast, obviously is a really important space for a lot of businesses because we all want to grow in the online space. So people use podcasts to be entertained or to learn, right? So they're seeking out information as a brand. What you can do is provide information to people who are seeking out that information right. So let's say your customers are searching for a particular thing all the time. Let's say they're searching for how do you is a whippersnapper. Well, why don't you as a whippersnapper seller get on to a plants podcast and talk about with the Snipping so that then when people are learning about whippersnappers they keep hearing your brand name.

Monika Ruzicka: 5:13

I have a question. All right. What is the whippersnapper? A gardening tool?

Daniel Fuller: 5:19

Yes, it's a gardening tool. So we call it a whippersnapper in Australia, brush cutter or a line trimmer.

Monika Ruzicka: 5:28

Oh, okay, this like long stick with this motorized like miniature lawn mower. Okay, cool.

Lisa Davidson: 5:34

We call it edger in the US?

Daniel Fuller: 5:37

Yep, we call them that too, sometimes,

Monika Ruzicka: 5:40

Oh, my gosh, I already learned something.

Daniel Fuller: 5:44

So, there are different ways that you can do podcasting as a business like, do you just, is it worth it for you to start your own podcast? Or do you just want to get on to a podcast? So let's say you've got a few different apps and stuff like that a few different people who've created products and who are selling products who'd been on your podcast, right on the straight to business podcast. And they're not just getting on there and talking about oh, buy my product, buy my product, buy my product, they're on there to teach people something. And a certain percentage of those people are going to come away and be like, I actually need that product. Yeah. So that's really what we're doing in podcasting for business. You know, we're marketing and a podcast isn't a source of revenue, a podcast is a way to build an audience. And that's a very important distinction to make.

Monika Ruzicka: 6:29

I find that important. Thank you for highlighting that right at the beginning. That was actually also what motivated Lisa and I, to give our podcast, its own brand. So both Lisa and I work for the same company ReadyForSocial, we do social selling for a living. But we really wanted the podcast to be on a standalone basis. And while we talk about things around digital marketing and social selling, we didn't want we didn't just as you said, we didn't want it to be a promotion for our products and services at all. We want to educate people and have conversations. That's basically it.

Daniel Fuller: 7:10

And that's going to naturally happen anyway, right? People are going to be like, Oh, who is this? Monika? Who is this? Lisa? What do they do? You know, these guys are really cool. How can they help me?

Monika Ruzicka: 7:19

Thanks! Yeah, no, that's true. We've had like, a couple of conversations like, okay, what are you actually doing? And why does that matter? And so on. But yeah, it's I think it's really good also for us, you know, it's nice to, to have that out of our system and say, hey, you know, this is not a thing which we use to generate revenue. But like on the podcast, we can really focus on the content.

Daniel Fuller: 7:43

Great, great point. I'd also like to highlight something too. So I think a lot of brands, and particularly I find writers, they want to get into a podcast, and then they will actually reach out to like a PR group, who's going to write up a whole novel in an email, and they send them out to all these different podcasts. And it's so apparent when you read one of these emails that this particular PR person has no idea about your podcast or your audience. It's very generic, what they're telling you and it's really hard to go and read all of that content. So my advice would be, keep it real. If you want to reach out to a podcast, just write under eight sentences, probably six. Ideally, if you could do it in four sentences. Perfect. Just tell us who are you show me that, you know, my podcast, and then tell me how you can help my audience. And that's all you need to tell me. I don't need to know about how your grandma helped you and your journey.

Monika Ruzicka: 8:38

Yeah, we are we are not there yet that we are, you know, getting overrun with these kinds of emails. We are still like, we know we were hoping to get there we are right now. We are asking people to be on our podcast. But a lot of people are interested in being on podcasts because podcasts seems to be the thing to do these days.

Daniel Fuller: 8:57

It's where you say podcast and people just go oh, it's like the magic word. People just open up doors for you.

Lisa Davidson: 9:04

Yes. Right now,

Monika Ruzicka: 9:06

we had the other day, we had a guest speaker called Jeff Epstein from a medical device company up here in the Pacific Northwest, Tryten. And I know him from my network from from business school. And I sent him a message and we had a chat and he like we exchanged like two or three sentences. And he said you had to meet at the word podcast. Yeah, he was like, okay, yeah, I'd like to do that.

Daniel Fuller: 9:37

I actually wanted to bring up a point from that episode later on in this show, too.

Lisa Davidson: 9:41

So okay, cool. So Daniel, let's first talk about your own podcast journey. So obviously, you've been very successful with it. Can you share a little bit how it all started and how our listeners can maybe start their own podcast?

Daniel Fuller: 9:58

Sure. Well, look everyone's journey is going to be unique, right? But hopefully, our listeners can hear something generic and what I'm talking about and something that applies to them. So as we sort of said, at the start, I helped my wife built her business. And then at a certain point, she just became self sufficient. And I in the afternoons came home watch TV. And that was getting a little bit boring for me. So I thought, all right, well, what's my project? So it took a lot of nights staying up with my wife talking at night, just like we did with her business of just thinking like, so what is it? What's this next project that I'm going to do? Like, what am I going to do with this time I have in the afternoons, and I have to years, literally, I remember walking around with coffee is talking about it. And I even we, me and my wife went to a cafe recently, and we went, we'd sat and ate the same tree that I used to dream about what I was going to do. So it's interesting how that happens, but definitely just a lot of dreaming and a lot of learning. So I at work, I listened to a lot of podcasts about online business about horticulture, and also Pat Flynn's one from about podcasting. That was a really influential podcast for me. And that was probably the resource that I use the most to start my podcast. So in lockdown, that's when I realized it was time. So we had eight weeks in September of 2020 to, we started an eight week lockdown. So I had all this time and even gardeners weren't allowed to garden. So I had all this time suddenly. So I started. I had a blog already horticulture blog. So I started reaching out to a bunch of business owners trying to create an article about would you rather hire someone with more experience, or someone with less experience? And one of the people who got back, he was interested in the podcast based too. And he was like, Hey, what are your plans? And I was like, I want to start a podcast. I was like, Hey, can I help? So he was there. And we sort of like talked a lot and drained a lot. And I told him, I brought him into my plans and stuff like that. In the end, it turns out that that wasn't really for him, he ended up leaving, and that's that was fine. But yeah, it took me eight weeks to actually put together the content and launch the thing. So anyone out there who wants to start a podcast, I will tell you think about how long you think it's going to take you and just quadruple it because it took me eight weeks of full time to release podcasts with 10 episodes. When I recorded the episodes, it took me a long time to get my voice, right, because I've always been lazy with my voice. I think everybody is until you start speaking publicly. So that was a steep learning curve for me. And you know, you listen back to your voice and you hate it. And I still hate it. But I'm getting better with some things. So the first 10 episodes actually re recorded my end of most of those episodes. So everything that you hear in the in the first few episodes, a lot of that is me re recording myself, because I'm speaking too quickly. I'm speaking too slowly. I'm not speaking with enough enthusiasm, or I'm speaking with too much enthusiasm, all these things can kind of make for a bad listener experience. And I think the main thing I did was I spent a really long time thinking about the mission because I was like, I know what podcast I want to listen to. And it doesn't exist yet. There is just, you can talk about all the little decisions that you make. But my advice to anybody would be spend way more time before you launch the first episode than what you think you need to. Because getting the mission, right is the number one thing I think that podcasters do wrong. They just go like, Oh, I'm just gonna start a podcast. And then they just turn the mic on. And they just start talking. And it makes for a really bad listener experience. What do you guys think? Do you think that spending a lot of time to plan the podcast in the start is a good idea. Yep.

Monika Ruzicka: 13:32

we have a little story about this, Daniel. So for our listeners, so Daniel and I met through a podcast episode that Daniel had recorded, not with me. But anyways, that was the common connection. And so when Lisa and I were thinking of starting a podcast, or we were maybe kind of halfway through our process of getting the first episode out, and I reached out to Daniel asking for some like advice, and he gave us some amazing advice, which we had first not It's not that we decided to ignore it. But you know, your advice there. No, it was amazing. But we felt like, oh my gosh, now we've already come so far. And he tells us to go back to step one, and we weren't okay. No, we just want to move ahead. And then we moved ahead. We didn't have a very good segmentation and targeting admission in the beginning, but we just wanted, you know, we were so close. We're like, Okay, we need to get the first episode out. And then we record it the first 1, 2, 3 maybe, episodes, just Lisa and I, and we showed it to our team, and one of our company owners at ReadyForSocial who was giving us feedback and he was like, Oh my gosh, like go back and do your homework. And then I was like okay, wait, we had this great document from Daniel. Okay, let's indeed go back to step one and do it properly.

Lisa Davidson: 14:52

Yeah, we did. We did your document, Daniel. And then I did I don't know I did like two weeks of like intense research. and put like a whole other document together for Monika to go over. And yeah, then we changed our whole whole concept from just Monika and I being on the show to like having changing guest speakers and experts. And then we started again.

Daniel Fuller: 15:21

Yeah, yeah, I think that that's what winners do. Right. So I think that that speaks volumes about you too. As professionals.

Lisa Davidson: 15:28

I think we both have, sometimes the perfectionism is good, sometimes not so much. And in the beginning of our journey, it was definitely helpful to do it all over again. But then like, the closer we got to the launch, we had to remind ourselves like, look, it's good enough for now, we just really need to start start now. And we're still learning throughout the process. And I think that's where we are right now.

Daniel Fuller: 16:01

I'm listening. And I think you guys are doing really, like really great work for me as a horticulturist. And as a person who dabbles in marketing, jumping into your podcast, it was hard to start at the start, right? Because it's deep. It's how I imagined people who are home gardeners probably getting into the plants grow here podcast, and I even say in the pot in the intro, it's like, enter a hidden world of deep horticultural knowledge like, and that's how I felt I felt completely submerged. And in the first couple episodes, I had to listen to twice to actually get the concepts but after that, you're actually providing a very helpful resource to people.

Monika Ruzicka: 16:35

Thank you so much. That means a lot, then you're coming from your and I'm proud of us that you listen to our podcast.

Daniel Fuller: 16:43

I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you, too.

Monika Ruzicka: 16:45

Thank you so much. No, I just wanted to ask two very quick questions. So the first one is Daniel, this resource that you mentioned, I think you I believe you said Pat Flynn was that person's name, who you thought was a great podcast about podcasting, just in case you have that handy? That would be an amazing resource for our episode speaker notes.

Daniel Fuller: 17:06

Yes, I can give that to you. It's Pat Flynn's podcast is called passive Smart Passive Income SPI Smart Passive Income podcast.

Monika Ruzicka: 17:15

Okay. Cool. Yeah. Well, I would love to include that. And the other thing that I'm personally interested in, because you said about your voice, I think you sound amazing. But I know people are self critical about their voices. But what did you do specifically, that you do any like specific things that you can recommend for people who want to work on that?

Daniel Fuller: 17:36

On my to do list is joining Toastmasters? So I would love to recommend that to people, but I haven't even taken that advice myself yet. Yeah. For me, there's a term and I think we were interacting on LinkedIn recently, moniker about this. There's a term called bottled enthusiasm, right? So it's about you want to be enthusiastic, but you want to be slow. So if you get too enthusiastic, blah, blah, blah. It's like the pot bubbling over and it kind of spills over and the energy is not nice to listen to. The other way is you have no enthusiasm when you're too bottled. And you sort of sound like this, and you have no vocal tonality variation. So I think of bottled enthusiasm as being like you're being a little bit singsong II like this, your tonality is going up and down. People like to listen to that. That's interesting. You sound enthusiastic, but at the same time, you're breathing slowly. So I'm not saying I'm an expert at this is just what I practice is trying to keep enthusiastic. But breathing slowly.

Lisa Davidson: 18:31

Yeah, that's a good any warm up exercises for your voice, Daniel.

Daniel Fuller: 18:37

I should, but I don't.

Lisa Davidson: 18:40

Yeah, because I read about that. And it reminded me of choir practice in school. Yeah.

Daniel Fuller: 18:48

Exactly. All that stuff. Yeah. La la la la la la. Yeah, that's probably why my voice can sound different between two different episodes because it might be tied in one and loose in another episode.

Monika Ruzicka: 19:02

Yeah, that could be alright, Lisa. Sorry. Let's shoot with the next question.

Lisa Davidson: 19:07

Okay, so we talked about podcast rankings in the beginning. Can you explain a little bit how those rankings work? And where exactly does your podcast fit in, Daniel?

Daniel Fuller: 19:18

Sure. So ranking. There's a few different places you can rank generally the accepted podcast rank is the Apple podcasts, top charts. So within Apple podcast, top charts, you have categorized major categories and then subcategories. So plants grow here is I believe it's in nature, education, and Home and Garden. Nature and education. For some reason, they just don't, I just don't get any recognition on those two subcategories. All my recognition is on Home and Garden. So I usually rank and each country has a different rank. So you'll have the Australian top charts, you'll have the Thailand top charts. So my My category that I mainly contend in Home and Garden, that's a subcategory within leisure. So I'm always happy when I'm ranking and leisure, which is usually these days. Usually I'm in the top 50, sometimes just below 50. But I like ranking and leisure because it says a lot about a podcast that can compete against other subcategories like automotive, hobbies, gaming, these are all really competitive podcast niches and to be competing against those as I think something I'm really proud of.

Monika Ruzicka: 20:27

Nice. Yeah, I think especially automotive and gaming they have so I don't know any specific podcasts in that area. But I just know, even from my family. Everybody is just crazy about these topics these days.

Daniel Fuller: 20:41

Dungeons and daddies is one of my favorite titles. It's it they make it very clear that it's not a sexual podcast, it is a Dungeons and Dragons podcast.

Lisa Davidson: 20:54

Man, Daniel, you said these podcast rankings, they can change daily, right?

Daniel Fuller: 20:59

Yes, multiple times within a day, I think if you have an Apple device, but I mainly use just so I have podcasts, which will tell me all the different rankings where I'm ranking. So I use podcast and my wife has an Apple device. And she can see the live version just by going on to the top charts.

Lisa Davidson: 21:17

Okay, that's cool. And what was the highest you ever ranked

Daniel Fuller: 21:22

number three and leisure still thinking about that to this day

Monika Ruzicka: 21:28

Impressive. Oh, and you have over 100 episodes by now.

Daniel Fuller: 21:34

Yeah. 109 now,

Monika Ruzicka: 21:37

Wow,

Daniel Fuller: 21:40

So what goes into ranking on Apple, there are a few things. So you've got how much engagement people have. So how long they listened to an episode four. So if you've got 3 million listeners, and they all listen for 10 seconds in a 40 minute podcast, your podcast is going to tank, you need to be having at least two thirds of those people listening in the hallway. So one piece of information or one recommendation a lot of podcasters give is short episodes of up to 20 minutes, because it's easy to have people listen to the whole episode. I don't like that advice for myself, because my podcasts need longer they take as long as they take sometimes they take 20 minutes, sometimes I take 90 minutes just depends on the topic.

Lisa Davidson: 22:18

Yeah, I read that too. And I read something suggesting that if it is a longer episode to split it in two parts. But I thought that was a little weird, too, depending on the topic, because I mean, you can just always break it down in the middle, and then have people come back the next week for the second half. I wasn't really sure if that would work for every podcast,

Daniel Fuller: 22:43

I completely agree. And you have to think about what are your priorities too? Are your priorities to rank? Or are your priorities to make a good listening experience?

Lisa Davidson: 22:51

Yeah. So we mentioned that you gave us like a, or a couple of sheets of advice before we even launched our podcast? Can you maybe share some secrets or your personal secrets with our audience? And how they can make and produce successful podcasts as well?

Daniel Fuller: 23:12

Sure. So the document had quite a few different programs that I use, and I can talk about them. But mainly it was about targeting your audience avatar. So I had like, what was it 30 questions or something about your audience. And I love that because like you sit there looking at it at first and you think like, What a stupid waste of time. And then you get in there and the questions prompt you to think like, ah, where do my listeners hang out? Like, what do they do on the weekend? What do they believe? So we're getting beyond demographics of age, sex, location, career, and we're getting into psychographics of how do these people think? So I remember on my document, when I filled it out, it was stuff like these are people who who like hearing other opinions. So like maybe they have strong opinions, maybe they don't but then they like having the opposite opinion. So I think a lot of gardening podcasts in the space either swing very heavily to the left or very heavily to the right politically, whereas I didn't want to play that game. I just wanted to have people who have varying different beliefs and then we can get them all in together and then we can take away from it what speaks to us and then sometimes we're gonna listen to it and be like You're wrong. You're an idiot. And that's great. Yeah, so I'll tell you some of the programs now so I record in Zencaster why I do that is I get a separate track for each speaker and myself so let's say just then there's a little bit of talking over each other I'll probably just remove that or I'll remove maybe part of what you said or part of what I said just so that it makes it cleaner so we're not talking over each other so that's that's fun. That's why I like using Zencaster and sometimes on zoom you know when you're speaking and then I speak it meets you or it meets me or whatever just trying to get one voice and I don't like that I want to be able to decide which voice I erase. So as zoom makes the choice for me whereas Zencaster I can make the decision. I edit audio in a program called audacity. It's a free program. I love it. Once you get used to it, you get used to it, but it's like hieroglyphics at the start. Now when I'm looking at the waveforms, I can tell which is a breath, which is a clicking sound, which is an S, like S, S and F sounds familiar, but s and k occur. Sound is very distinctive. So sometimes I won't even need to check. I'll just be like that's a breath. I can remove that. Although I don't remove your I'm getting. Can you see it? Can you read? Hieroglyphics?

Monika Ruzicka: 25:34

Yes, I'm getting better. Not with everything. But yeah, the Ss and Fs. They are like I can distinguish them. And you know, if I listened to like a certain stretch over again, I can basically, I start to be able to see it instead of just only hearing it but yeah, yeah. Sorry. I'm not very advanced yet. But it's it's a fun program. And I've looked around a lot for other tools, because I was so frustrated with this tool in the beginning. But then we came together again. And now I'm in love with Audacity.

Daniel Fuller: 26:08

Yep. So stats, we can get our stats from Apple podcasts and Spotify. So that'll tell us how many listeners we have on each of those platforms. And those two platforms will also tell us how long people are listening so I can tell how long people listen to an episode on Spotify. And then I can tell how long people listen to that same episode on Apple. Don't ask me why Apple people seem to listen just a little bit longer. Also, Apple listeners tend to listen to the most recent episode and Spotify listeners listen more to the oldest episodes. I believe that's because Spotify defaults to oldest episode first. So it's really interesting. On the oldest episodes, I've always got so many more Spotify listeners, and on the newer episodes, not as many Spotify listeners interesting. We can also look at stats through our RSS host. So I use Buzzsprout for my RSS host. These terms, they sound confusing at first, but an RSS host is basically just the place where you upload your audio. And then that host sort of spreads the episodes around between Apple podcasts, Spotify iHeartRadio, everyone, so you don't have to upload every individual, every individual episode on to every individual platform. Now, I check out spot podcast for some stats as well, particularly for the Apple podcast, top charts and and podcasts got stats can just go on and on and on. Jeff Epstein mentioned something about vanity metrics in Episode 11 of the straight to business podcast, which is really interesting. You know, like, let's not get bogged down in metrics for metrics sake, like you don't get a gold medal for being high on the charts. Honestly, people don't really care that much. It's just social proof. That's about all you get out of it and a little ego boost. So focus more, I think on making a positive listener experience, then then stats.

Lisa Davidson: 27:52

Yeah, I feel the same way. And I think that also goes back to focusing on your audience, and really make this your show for the people that it's aiming to teach something.

Daniel Fuller: 28:06

And I love that because it's sort of like, okay, do you make something for everybody? And then nobody's probably going to end up liking it? Or do you make something for some weirdo some really, really specific person who has really specific needs. And then you know, that specific person is going to be like to their weird friends. Hey, this is really weird post podcast. It's just for us. And it makes it much more shareable within a small niche community.

Lisa Davidson: 28:30

Yeah. Because even when I'm listening to podcasts, and they're getting to random with their topics, just to have another show that always annoys, it's I like it when it's like really detailed and exactly what I kind of want to hear and hear more about. And if they're getting too widespread in their topic selection, I start I stopped listening to them,

Daniel Fuller: 28:55

and then you hit the unsubscribe button, and then they've lost a listener. So they've not only just lost adding a listener for that one episode, they've lost a loyal fan. Yeah,

Monika Ruzicka: 29:03

yeah. So then you'll how because this is something that Lisa and I also discussed before we started so like in your case, or if you imagine like you would advise a business who is looking to start a podcast within your audience, you probably have, or let's say within your target group, you have probably multiple personas, multiple, just different people. How do you actually really go about deciding who you are gonna offer a podcast to?

Daniel Fuller: 29:31

So my niche is finding like I've just been telling you about make something really, really specific. My niche is, it's a psychographics. I've told you about psychographics. I want to hear widely, but really, it's about green industry professionals. So I could have easily made maintenance gardener, podcast content or nursery industry, podcast content, but I've gone a little bit wider than that. And the reason why is as a maintenance gardener, I actually wanted to hear what the nurseries were doing and I actually wanted to Hear about what was going on at TAFE. And I wanted to hear about all of the industry because I knew one day I might move to a different part of the industry. So I balance podcast within this within this industry. But I care more about the psychographic content. So I can psychographics about how people believe and about how people think. So I'm trying to serve someone who is working within the industry, but who wants to know about all different aspects of the industry. So there's always the common themes of the style that I interview, I always write out 12 to 20 questions per episode, just so that we can stay on topic. And it's about choosing topics that I think the interest my listeners will care about. And then it's about doing the best justice to that topic, and about getting guests from just all different types of guests. Like I love having guests who are just so different from each other. Like, I'll have one guest who's a big lefty from the UK, and then I'll get some guests who is really into their mono crops and their genetic modification, who probably goes against the grain of what everyone else says. But I think it's interesting to have those two people together and ask them honest questions, and just have them speak from their own experience and use their own expertise. Because each of my guests knows a lot more about the topic they're teaching than I do.

Monika Ruzicka: 31:14

Yeah, I loved that episode. I need to mention it with that gentleman who could turn that tree sounds into music. That was just so out there. And so like, interesting.

Daniel Fuller: 31:29

Yeah, that was one but I was like, how's this gonna go? But I can't not do this episode.

Monika Ruzicka: 31:33

Yes. I thought it was fascinating.

Daniel Fuller: 31:38

Yeah, so what he does is he plugs probe into the roots. And then he clips one on to the leaf and then plays through. Basically, there's a device that interprets the electromagnetic output of the plant into musical notes. And then Tom Wall, who was my guest from a band called Cosmic Knot will play guitar back to the plant and actually changed its tune. So it can change its timing and everything. Basically, he's changing its emotions using music. And we already know that music can affect plants, like the way they grow and stuff like that. But it's just really interesting to see it in real time. And that is the closest thing I've ever seen to human plant communication.

Monika Ruzicka: 32:14

Wow. I thought Yeah, that's so cool. We have to include that specific episode. I mean, we're gonna include a link to your podcast but that specific episode, we have to include it in our show notes too

Daniel Fuller: 32:26

I had to do a second episode with him to see those two.

Monika Ruzicka: 32:29

Yeah, let please like, let I can find them. But we'll we'll include those. Yeah,

Daniel Fuller: 32:33

there's a lot of episodes to trawl through. I'll send you the links. Okay, cool.

Lisa Davidson: 32:38

Good. So Daniel, before we jump to our next topic, I'd like to ask you our mandatory question here on our podcast. So we have experts from every part of the world on our show. And I'm always interested in hearing what favorite local food they have. Until now, we never had a guest from Australia. So I'm especially excited to hear your answer today.

Daniel Fuller: 33:01

Awesome. So as the first Aussie, I'm gonna have to say meat pies. Have you ever heard of a meat pie before? No, no, that will be crazy to a lot of Australians that you've never heard of a meat pie. So it's basically it is what it sounds like it's a pie with meat and gravy on the inside. Lots of different ways to do it. You can have onions you can have mushrooms you can have even curry pies, lots of different ways the classic is just beef and gravy and extra points depending on how thick the beef is. So the bigger the cuts of beef and the juicy here they are in the fattier, they are the better so a lot of traders so work workman like me, professional workman will go to the local server in the morning and grab a coffee and a pie and that's called the tradies breakfast of champions.

Monika Ruzicka: 33:47

Well, wait, do you eat that for breakfast?

Daniel Fuller: 33:49

Yes, yes. And lunch.

Monika Ruzicka: 33:51

Gosh, only in Australia. It sounds like it gives you a lot of energy though.

Daniel Fuller: 34:00

Yes, it does. And there are pie connoisseurs so workmen such as myself when we travel around different suburbs. If you need to find the best pie just ask us because we've been to all the bakeries and all the surveys and we can tell you are the best pies are

Lisa Davidson: 34:14

so you can really buy that at a bakery.

Daniel Fuller: 34:16

Yes, and that better usually better at a bakery especially if there's been a lot of love and care into it with big fatty chunky pieces of steak.

Monika Ruzicka: 34:25

Wow.

Daniel Fuller: 34:28

Would you ever eat that?

Monika Ruzicka: 34:29

I would totally eat that. I would. I will. I'm German, and Lisa is too, we are both German but I like I'm used to kind of heavy food. But then yeah, no, I will try it definitely.

Lisa Davidson: 34:45

Well I didn't eat meat since I'm like 13 years old and I recently just kind of started to reintroduce some chicken so I don't think I could tolerate the pie

Daniel Fuller: 34:58

711 makes a great had chicken and leek pie

Monika Ruzicka: 35:01

711. Yeah.

Lisa Davidson: 35:05

By the time I come to Australia, maybe I'm ready to

Daniel Fuller: 35:08

be ready. Yeah. You'll have to become one of us. You'll need your Australian citizenship first. Oh, gosh.

Lisa Davidson: 35:17

I'll be working on that. But wow. I did not expect that kind of answer. I don't know. Something...

Daniel Fuller: 35:25

Were you thinking kangaroo steak? We actually don't eat much of that. Some of us do, but it doesn't taste as nice. So like a lot of us, I think, wish we could eat more kangaroo meat, but we just don't enjoy it.

Monika Ruzicka: 35:38

Okay, I have never tried that, too.

Daniel Fuller: 35:41

It's very gamey.

Monika Ruzicka: 35:43

Gosh. Well,

Lisa Davidson: 35:45

okay, Let's jump back to our topic. And we spoke a lot about podcast basic basics, including how to start a podcast, what kind of software to look into, I'd like to focus a little more on the marketing aspect. Now, can you explain what's necessary to market your podcast? And how can you grow a community?

Daniel Fuller: 36:10

Right. So, listen to a lot of Seth Godin YouTube videos and read all his books, step one. Okay, step two, just get the mission right. So listeners the number one priority, make something worth listening to make something worth sharing, use tactical empathy to get inside the head of people who have a need that's not being met. So create something that doesn't exist yet. Don't just go and create the next plant square here podcast. I'll Dominator go and make the next nursery podcast make it a smaller niche. So get the mission right, straight up. logo. Look, logo, is it important? Is it not? I mean, when people are scrolling through Apple, they just see the logo, they can't hear you. So I went with a green logo with the leaf illustration on it. Now you can say that's hardly purple kale. But you know exactly what it is. It's a plant podcast. So I've got that going for me. And then when you hit the end, you start listening, then I've got something a little bit purple kale, which is a mysterious kind of a music. So hopefully that's not what people are used to. They're used to hearing Sunny, upbeat music. So hopefully when they hear the mysterious music, they go, Oh, what's this? This is different. And a bit of a purple kale thing going on? theme music just touched on that. So pick something that describes your vibe. So I didn't want something that was sunny and upbeat. I wanted something that felt like you're entering a mysterious like a mysterious forest of hidden knowledge. I didn't want to sound like we were just staying on the surface. I wanted to sound like we are going deep. Guests pick good guests. The guest is everything in an interview style podcast, right? So I just try and get just everyday normal people who are just doing the work. That's the vibe I'm going for regularity of episodes is also important. How regular Are you going to place episodes? Are you going to do them once a month, are you going to do them once a week, whatever you do, make sure you stick with it. Because if your listeners are expecting you once a week, and then they turn up two weeks in a row and you're not there. They may unsubscribe, but you're going to lose loyal fans and they're going to stop talking about you. They're going to stop sharing you they're going to stop giving you that precious download every week. I recommend weekly just because that's just people can keep up with a weekly podcast. But it's a lot of work. And I think you're much better off doing a fortnightly or even a monthly podcast if that's all you can do. But pick a goal that you can stick to. So don't start doing weekly. If you don't think you can keep up with it. You're better off starting monthly and then moving up to weekly out.

Monika Ruzicka: 38:37

Okay, no, no, no, it's okay. We can we can take it. So no, but yeah, it's a good point. So we started with with weekly and it just because we are doing this not as a full time job. So it just just became a full time job with regards to doing it weekly. And especially as we were still learning how to do everything. At some point. We're like, okay, gosh, no white flag we are going to do with.

Daniel Fuller: 39:00

And I think because you did it early enough. That's really good. And also, you know, you haven't built up expectations too much to disappoint people. And also you decided that no, we can make one episode every two weeks. That's going to be awesome. All we can struggle to make one episode a week and is probably not going to be as good. So you made the right call.

Monika Ruzicka: 39:17

Yeah, thank you.

Lisa Davidson: 39:19

Definitely kind of started being like a burnout. Yep. syndrome almost. Yeah. So I think the bi weekly works for us. And then who knows? I mean, we can always change it back. Yeah, and more efficient and professional we're getting with this, but we'll see. Once every two weeks. time do you usually put into your podcast?

Daniel Fuller: 39:45

I'd like to batch do things so I'll spend one whole day two whole days editing up a bunch of episodes. So I used to say one hour of audio used to take me three hours to edit but that's gone way down now. Probably takes me, depending on the episode between an hour and a half to two hours to edit. It just depends on the episode. Sometimes there's a lot more editing, sometimes there's less editing. And yeah, I listened back to the whole episode and then I sort of edit out bits and pieces and I listen to it at 1.8 times speed. So it does sort of speed things up and I don't have to listen to my voice sound like a chipmunk, which is good.

Monika Ruzicka: 40:23

Yeah, that's the painful thing during editing. I find that to be when you have to like listen to yourself. I wish I could rerecord that. But you as you said, you did it in the beginning, but then I'm like, I can't rerecord every episode, then it becomes like five hours of editing. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. So then, sorry, I just wanted to ask you one more thing, as we also Lisa and I at least talk also about social selling and the podcast. Sorry, The podcast is also dealing with social selling as its main theme. So I know you use LinkedIn to talk about your podcast, to connect with your audience or to get new listeners what, what other channels do you use? Do you use social channels a lot more? How? How do you market your podcast?

Daniel Fuller: 41:07

It's mainly Twitter and LinkedIn. For me, I do have an Instagram, I don't focus on that very much. The Twitter I'm trying to tweet out as regularly as I can, depending it might be five or six tweets a week, or it might be five or six tweets a day, depending on how I'm feeling. I try and get regular content out there. I try not to leave too many days in a row where I'm not talking. Yeah, Twitter, I find it's there like shower thoughts. Sometimes a good day, they go well, like just just things you think about silly little things or things you notice along the street. That goes well. And then every now and then I plugged the episode, I try not to be too salesy. I'll put a little audiogram up there so people can listen to a short snippet. LinkedIn, I'm still figuring LinkedIn out about what my personality is on there. I think I'm a little bit all over the shop sometimes with my content, because yeah, I'm trying to get on to try and create content for people who want to listen to the podcast. But then I'm also focusing a lot on people who want to advertise on the podcast. So kind of a bit Higgledy Piggledy there, but it works for me because I don't only want to speak to advertisers or only want to talk to listeners on LinkedIn. That's really where both of those people are as working professional horticulturists. And big brands.

Monika Ruzicka: 42:13

Yeah, and it takes a while. I mean, it's just normal. I think it takes a while to figure things out. I mean, there are so many, besides your audience on LinkedIn, there's a lot of different things that you can figure out like the length of the post, you use video or audio or pictures, or what hashtags I know you work with memes a lot. That's kind of fun, because it actually stands out in my feet. So every time Yes, it does. And it's like a little bit of lightness in the feed. So I find that pretty cool. I actually did not have access to memes in the past a lot. But my son who was 11, he got me into memes. And now I see one or I don't know if they are called memes, what you're using, but these little, yeah, you know what I'm talking about? Are they memes? Or am I using the right word for it?

Daniel Fuller: 43:03

I think you probably not far off, I probably call them gifts. So they're like gifs or GIFs. However you want to say it. So I use like a lot of Simpsons and South Park gifts, sometimes undercut what I'm saying. So one one I did recently was like about how hardly anyone cares. And you can set yourself above the average by just simply caring about what you do. And then I had Bart Simpson going, can't promise I'll try, but I'll try to try.

Monika Ruzicka: 43:29

I think I saw that one. Nice. Lisa, do you want to sorry? We have a last like, Yeah, question where you go ahead.

Lisa Davidson: 43:39

I mentioned during your introduction that you help marketers get started with their podcasts, what does that look like? Exactly.

Daniel Fuller: 43:46

So I can. So I've got this pretty awesome, like sheet that I've created, right. And that's going to turn into a bit more of a fancy document. So I do want to help people get into the podcasting space, because I've seen what it can do. Just having having attention in the in 2022 is just so valuable. It just opens doors for you professionally and personally. And it's just a really good thing to have for an individual or for a business. So what I can do is I can guide you to make your own podcast using that document that I share with you guys and also just coaching. So it's basically like an online course a short online course just straight into the deep stuff. We're not going to talk about the shallow stuff, we're just gonna get straight into the deep stuff. So that's a coaching service that I can provide for people.

Monika Ruzicka: 44:34

Yeah. So from my SEO said, I mean, I honestly didn't realize that podcast as a service was a big space because you know, Lisa and I we didn't research that we just got started and then we we had your support and your knowledge to base our podcast on. But what I really liked when you will help like in our first conversations that I totally get what you mean by when you say that you go deep. So I felt I'm getting a lot of knowledge from you in a short amount of time, but you keep it real. So I always could understand what you're talking about instead of, oh my god, this is going to be too much work. That sounds too difficult. But I felt like you made it accessible.

Daniel Fuller: 45:23

Thank you that I'm a big believer in accessibility. That's the podcast to a tee always thinking about making knowledge accessible for people.

Monika Ruzicka: 45:31

Yeah. No, you really did that for us. And when you say that you are doing that for other people or businesses. I mean, we are not in the horticultural industry. But do you do that across industries? Or do you have a specific industry focus of companies or people that you help?

Daniel Fuller: 45:49

Yeah, no look, any any type of business, I'm particularly interested in the marketing, online business and horticulture spaces, but at the same time, I'm very keen to learn about all different things. So the beautiful thing about editing a podcast is you actually get to listen to the whole podcast and learn about it. So pretty open to anything. Probably just wouldn't want to make a podcast like plants grow here. Happy to make other podcasts within the space that are more targeted towards different parts of the industry or, you know, home gardeners, stuff like that. I just, I just don't think that you can replicate plants grow here. I think it's a one of a kind kind of a thing.

Monika Ruzicka: 46:23

Yes. And that would also be counterproductive, I guess, to

Lisa Davidson: 46:30

produce your own competition.

Monika Ruzicka: 46:34

So anyways, Daniel. So if people would like to get in touch with you, should they contact you on LinkedIn? Or should they go to your website? What What would you recommend if somebody's interested? Probably LinkedIn

Daniel Fuller: 46:45

search, Daniel fuller plants grow here, and you'll find me, I'm in Melbourne, and I've got a microphone in front of my face as my profile picture, I might change that. So or the website contact to negate I've got the website as well. So you can visit my contact page on plants grow here.com or just email me at hello at plants grow? here.com Awesome.

Lisa Davidson: 47:09

Thank you. We make sure that we put all those informations in the show notes.

Daniel Fuller: 47:15

Awesome. This is a long episode for you guys. Right. 52 minutes.

Monika Ruzicka: 47:18

Yes.

Lisa Davidson: 47:19

Let's round up real quick. And then then we're done. So Daniel, thank you so much for this insight and great tips and tricks. And thank you at home for tuning in to the straight to business podcast with your host, Lisa Davidson and social selling expert, Monika Ruzicka. We hope you enjoyed our episode on whether or not your digital marketing strategy should include a podcast. Thank you so much,

Monika Ruzicka: 47:43

Daniel, for joining us. This was really cool.

Daniel Fuller: 47:46

Thanks so much, Monica and Lisa. Yeah, really great experience.

Monika Ruzicka: 47:49

Thank you so much.

Lisa Davidson: 47:51

If you're keen to learn even more about social selling and how to use it for your business advantage, join us next week. As always, you can head over to www straight to business dot life. For additional resources to sign up to our email list, or to join us as a guest speaker. Don't forget all the information from today's episode can also be found in our show notes. If you have additional questions, please feel free to comment on our blog, or get in touch with us on LinkedIn. The links to our profiles are provided on our website and in the show notes. If you enjoyed this episode, and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others post about it on social media or leave a rating and Bing. We hope to see you next week.