Market Domination for Podcasting: Secrets From the World's Top Podcasters

ISBN-13: 9781630479251

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Morgan James Publishing

Publication Date: 01-17-2017

Pages: 278

Product Dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

Seth Greene is a top rated podcaster, a 5 time marketing author, and the only person in history who has been nominated 3 years in a row for Marketer of the Year. Seth has been featured on CBS MoneyWatch, CBS news, The LA Times, The Boston Globe, The Miami Herald, and the #1 morning radio show in New York City.

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CHAPTER 1

INTERVIEW WITH KARL KRUMMENACHER

Seth: Today I have the good fortune of interviewing Karl Krummenacher of Wellness Media Group. Karl, welcome to the show.

Karl: Seth, it's great to be here today.

Seth: Thank you so much. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about how you got started?

Karl: I've been a lifelong entrepreneur. In December of last year, I actually decided to step back from a busy job as a president of a direct sales company specializing in making personalized nutrition and skin care based on DNA. It's a cool company. After working on that for three years, I started to ask some questions about what I really wanted to do and focus on – I've been a fan of direct response marketing for years. I loved the health and wellness space.

I used direct response to grow my network marketing business and generate product sales for myself, my team and clients. After growing a large team I started to find ways to apply direct response strategies throughout my career after that.

Back in December of last year, I made the decision to apply all that I learned in health and wellness along with direct response marketing to help consumers and health care professionals find each other. The idea was to create a platform of platforms. Something that would really transcend any personality and allow consumers to gain access to the wealth of incredible information that exists today about living a truly happy and healthy life.

You know Seth, when we are born; our bodies are one of the most complex systems on the planet. The problem is that there's no manual. Over the last 100 years or so, technology and medicines evolved, but the practice of wellness was going the other way.

People are getting many times the healthcare interactions they got just 20 years ago, but the outcomes are worse. The generation born in the last five years is expected to be the first to live a shorter life span than the ones that preceded them.

I've been exposed to several experts in health, nutrition, personal development, the psychology of happiness. Many of the experts I've met or interviewed have remarkable evidence-based research and have discovered really cool things about measurably changing health outcomes. But for any number of reasons, they're not getting the attention of mainstream media. So that became my goal – to get around this organizing principle that transcends any personality which is wellness and create a platform of platforms, leveraging the reach of our existing list of subscribers and develop a syndicate of content that helps people that we're calling the Wellness Radio Network.

That's why I formed the company Wellness Media Group. We want to invest in businesses and people focused on delivering consumers true wellness. Initially we made an investment in wellness.com - they get it, and as a company are working hard to surface the best, most actionable content available for consumers to get the greatest results with the least effort.

Next we created a new media property, the Your Best Life Podcast, which just opened three weeks ago. And in that period of time, we've been fortunate to get just over 24,000 downloads for the first 21 days, make it to number two, in New and Noteworthy on iTunes and do some dramatic list building for the experts that we featured.

Seth: That's incredible. How have you grown so fast?

Karl: Practicing the principles that I've been exposed to by some of the greats, people like Dan Kennedy, Ryan Deiss, Perry Belcher. These guys had a dramatic influence on how I thought about marketing. We basically took all of the wellness related information that we have access to and looked at the way that we could leverage that across multiple platforms. And when I speak of a platform, what I mean by that is an expert's or an author's tribe, or existing list.

So the strategy was kind of simple. Wellness.com is a great brand. It is the brand of wellness. Because of the hard work of its founders it generates over a 100,000 unique visitors every day from a long tail search. So, if you were to search cardiologist in San Diego or your physician's name, there's better chance than not a wellness.com directory entry for the physician, procedure or practice type will show up in the first page you Google.

That's generated traffic which was monetized with Google ad sales revenue. Until last year there was no focused list building going on. The first thing my partners at wellness.com did was start building and warming their list so that they could 'on-demand' reach people who expressed an interest in who we were.

Next, we decided if we're going to publish great content we have two choices, we could either be the author or we could be the publisher. That's something I learned from Ryan Deiss. It's so powerful. We're not the experts. We are really publishers. We can publish, edit and organize the information provided by leading experts. That's the right way to approach this market. We didn't need to be the expert. In fact, it would be impossible to be credible experts in all the various areas of health and wellness.

Shortly after we made that decision I started making phone calls. I discovered a great company run by Jessica Rhodes, called Interview Connections, a division of Entrepreneur Support Systems. Jessica has a cool service for podcasters which will reach out and secure great guests. I made a list of the people I knew that had evidence-based research with credible outcomes, people that were really moving the needle in the health and wellness space in their particular niche or category and who had or could develop a following.

I was surprised by how simple it is to get people to engage. Because like any other direct marketer, regardless if they did it for 10 years and they have millions of people following them or they're just getting started, everyone needs exposure to the right audience. These experts, if they're in tune with what it takes to get their message out, know the principles that will help create engagement and build their business and their brand.

This meant most were very open and willing to be on our podcast. Since I wasn't an expert at podcasting, I searched for what's available to learn how to do this right and found a course called Podcasters Paradise by John Lee Dumas. I jumped in to that, consumed as quickly as I could and followed those steps to a "T" to make sure that I focused on the essential few things that I needed to do in order to get the podcast launched quickly to a wide audience, and to get other people to promote it and start to build a new syndicate around wellness. I think those were the key things that we did that have the biggest difference.

Seth: I met Jessica at an event. She does a great job. You're absolutely right. And let me ask you this, what do you wish you knew when you started that you know now?

Karl: Wow. Well, several things. That list is longer than the list of things that I already know for sure. First of all, I think people need to understand if you're going to build a podcast, solid production quality with an engaging host and interesting content is equally important to your core message.

I see a lot of people who are getting into podcasting who participate in Facebook groups that get all worked up about their logo, or all bent out of shape about what microphone to use – but they're not really investing any time listening to successful podcasts understanding how to engage a guest or how to deliver true value in audio content.

I wish I knew what the ideal show flow for a podcast like ours was before I started. What was really working? John Dumas's course covers how to do an interview but there are subtle pieces in my niche that, had I invested the time learning before I launched it could have been better. I would also have learned the ways that I could quickly systematize the work that goes in to generating a podcast.

Knowing for example the best outsourcing resources that can do the tech stuff for us more efficiently that we can so I could have spent more time focusing on prepping and really getting to know my guest.

I also wish I knew the impact that preparing my guest before the show would have on the actual show product. The most important thing that I've done to produce better shows is focus on truly engaging my guests before we actually get start recording the show. Ideally, I want them to listen to the show, to understand the flow, to know what I'm going to be asking, and I want them to get prepared. Personally, I really also want to know how can I help them the best.

There's a good book out there called Give And Take by Adam Grant. I enjoyed reading this book. Its principles are really true for entrepreneurs. The key concept: it is through giving without the expectation of return that we ultimately get what we need. Really knowing full impact of that concept as we got started has been helpful because we've found that the more that we work to freely give benefit to the experts who have the content that compels an audience's attention, the more content we get that provides people massive transformational value, and that's a game changer for us.

Making sure that you know exactly what you can do to provide your guests clear value to promote the interview to their list, to create value for what they're trying to achieve and having them prepared so that the interview and the show that you create both provide great value to your audience. It's extremely synergistic. Today we have an email list that in the last year has grown from nothing to 1.2 million subscribers. We can mail to them daily. It's literally money on demand and we were now seeing that if we drop the iTunes podcast and let our listeners to jump on our email newsletter, leverage the email list to promote the podcast and to promote the experts who are promoting us, the multiplier effect of this is just insane and the leverage is dramatically greater than anything I imagined it could be, far greater than the typical "if you build it they will come" approach.

Seth: Absolutely. You are proving an incredible amount of value. I greatly appreciate it. I mean you are trying to literally create a key change in the world with the amazing work that you're doing. What is your biggest challenge?

Karl: I think the biggest challenge that we have right now is prioritizing our business strategy. Like most entrepreneurs, we have a long list of things we'd love to do, along with the people we'd love to interview and shows we would like to produce. But once we got going with this, we learned some really fascinating things. Everybody knows that podcasts are hot now. Soon, a podcast is going to be available in your car like FM radio is. ITunes and the Apple interface is making its way to the car, which will become a primary medium for consumers to get the exact content that they want to listen too. It's going to provide marketers an incredible opportunity to connect with their ideal audience.

And so right now, our focus is on prioritizing our activities so that we can grow predictably while continuing to deliver value and not overwhelm ourselves. We need to budget time to sharpen the saw and still capture the market share that we want.

For example, right now, we're trying to find talent much like Leo Laporte did when he created "This week in tech." It was really the Granddaddy to lot of these modern day podcast shows and networks. He was summarily let go of the tech TV network which was on cable when the owner of that network decided to cancel the show and fire a lot of the people that were there. He said, you know what, "I think the future is in podcasting," and he started just like you and I are doing right now, interviewing some of the big voices in technology. That's grown to a radio network that has I think some 20 or so shows, several guests, a dedicated production facility. It's like a CNN newsroom for tech news where they produce content 24/7.

We started with that in mind and created the Wellness Radio Network. The first show was Your Best Life. We have organic shows that are in development. We have a show planned to reach healthcare providers. We have over one million providers featured on our site. These providers need a way to market their services, to step out from the crowd to be able to share their unique gifts to patients who are looking for better outcomes while improving practice incomes.

And so, we're opportunity rich with the real need for us to be disciplined in our focus so that we don't outspend our capacity; deliver great value to consumers and really focus on keeping the brand value high because so many people start these things – podcasts, blogs, everything, with an economic mindset. That's good for short term result but when you really set the focus beyond yourself and ask "What can I do to provide great value to my audience?" you win and consumers win.

We see our role as supporting the experts and the authors, and others in the wellness space that have incredible information consumers need to get easy access to. That is our mission. It's what I'm irrationally passionate about. Wellness focused living has changed my life dramatically. So the big question is "how do we pair consumers and providers together? What can we do to bridge these two groups and create value for everyone?" Because it's in value creation that we are ultimately rewarded.

It all boils down to prioritizing and staying focused first on value creation because then your intrinsic brand value never goes away. You know, whether it's a podcast today, a blog post tomorrow, working on a newsletter or an eBook, these are only technologies. These will come and go. But by focusing on the fundamentals of creating brand value by connecting consumers with the specific solution they need (even if that's the third party), you can position yourself as the intermediary in that equation and do exceptionally well without having to be an expert yourself. To do that you're the manager and the arbitrator of that information.

Were so excited about what we're doing to bring this information to consumers and we're seeing such quick results that it's easy to get distracted by the revenue potential and to do things that might quickly monetize and lose sight of the big picture and not create that killer brand that we can create by being disciplined.

Seth: You mentioned the book Give And Take, would you be so kind as to recommend to our listeners two other books you read that it had some of the biggest impact on your work?

Karl: Well, probably for the marketing perspective, I'd have to go with Dr. Robert Cialdini's book, Influence. The idea of being able to identify the key seven triggers that cause people to do things that they might not otherwise do if they were making "rational, sane" decisions. That book had a tremendous impact on me.

I think one of the challenges we have is not letting that ADD kick in and staying focused on the things we need to do to be fully present, to give 100 % and stay in the moment and not suffer the tyranny of the urgency. We've all got our cellphones going off in our pockets constantly, text messages, twitter messages, Facebook messages, and we're hooked on the Dopamine that we get from that anticipation of what's the next cool thing. And it really brought me back to center when I read Tony Schwartz's book "The Power Of Full Engagement."

I'll throw in a third one there, which is, you know, we could talk marketing books all day long, the list is long and notable. But I think another great book is The Grain Brain by Dr Perlmutter. It caused me to think a little bit differently about how to stay sharp as I age. It's a remarkable amount of research that's gone into how grains are affecting diabetes and metabolic syndrome but equally important, how many brain disorders are now being considered type 3 diabetes and this whole notion of Alzheimer's, dementia and even Parkinson's disease being influenced heavily by the huge amount of grain and sugar we eat.

We, as entrepreneurs, we need to stay sharp and focused and healthy and alive. And make sure that we sharpen the saw so stay effective. We take on more work than everybody else takes. We are very, very passionate about what we want to do and too often, I see great entrepreneurs with incredible ability to leave their special mark burnout because they didn't take time to sharpen the saw.

So I could give you a long list Seth but, you know, those are a couple of that come to mind. Dan Kennedy has got so many great books. I must have at least 10 of these, The Ultimate Sales Letter was a great start for me, No B.S. Sales Success was another great book. When I was an entrepreneur and trying to make the shift, it was so important for me to really understand what it took to run an enterprise - eMyth was a key by Michael Gerber. So there you go.

Seth: All great books, absolutely, incredible interview. An immense amount of value, I've got pages of notes. I'm sure our listeners do as well. We will obviously send them all to wellness.com and to get your podcast as well. Thank you so much. It's been an honor and a privilege to get to spend some time with you. We greatly appreciate it.

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Excerpted from "Market Domination for Podcasting"
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Copyright © 2017 Seth Greene.
Excerpted by permission of Morgan James Publishing.
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Table of Contents

Interviews

1 How Karl Krummenacher built Wellness.com to over 1,500,000 subscribers (in the alternative health niche) and got to ITunes New & Noteworthy in the first week - Your Best Life Karl Krummenacher 1

2 How Joel Boggess built Relaunch into 758,000 plays in 12 months (business owners and entrepreneurs) - Relaunch Joel Boggess 12

3 Multiple Podcasts with over 750,000 downloads combined - PowerPodcasters.com Scott Paton 20

4 Nik Parks 29

5 800,000 downloads in sustainable agriculture - Permaculture Podcast Scott Mann 40

6 Read To Lead (the man who got Gary Vaynerchuck on his show) Jeff Brown 48

7 Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do Thom Singer 57

8 Excellence Expected Mark Asquith 69

9 The accidental entrepreneur turned writer for Entrepreneur magazine Ryan Lee 76

10 Making a living in a ULTRA MICRO niche market - Disrupting Japan Tim Romero 90

11 Author of Podcastnornics (with 25 client Podcasts to his credit) Naresh Vissa 97

12 Increasing engagement - VickensMoscova.com Vickens Moscova 106

13 How a family project became a Multi-Million Dollar Business (Kid Friday) Dave Swerdlick 112

14 How Creative Grassroots Marketing Grew The Amateur T raveler Podcast Chris Christenson 119

15 How a Local Real Estate Agent gets business from a podcast (St. Louis Realtor) Adam Kruse 128

16 How a passion for dance music became a hit global podcast Andrea Corelli 135

17 How to get amazing guests when you are just starting out (Lasting Love Connection and My Rapid Launch) Luis Congdon 143

Podcast Mastermind!

18 Gary Occhino 150

19 Michael Licata 153

20 Rebecca Poynton 158

21 Bill Knoche 161

Bonus Marketing Interviews

22 Multi Family Real Estate Investor David Lindahl David Lindahl 164

23 Originator of the Video Sales Letter Jon Benson 171

24 Perry Marshall 180

25 New York Times Best Selling Author Sally Hogshead 198

26 Digital Marketer Principal Roland Frasier 212

27 Will Duquette 223

How to Start Your Own Podcast and get impossible to reach decision makers to seek you out, write a book without writing a book, and get customers from ITunes for as little as $15 a month! 252