Reverse engineering a podcast episode is a tactic I’ve been using for years now. For the longest time, it used to be my secret weapon when it comes to content marketing – and it indeed was quite effective.
Not only did this secret method of mine save me time, but also made it easier to market any podcast episode, regardless of when it was launched.
This in turn made some of my friends, who were also starting out with their podcasts at that time, curious as to how I was able to create all those marketing materials and still find time to do other marketing tasks.
But now that I have come to a point where I now have a decent sized audience, plus the fact that Podblade is slowly gaining momentum in the industry, I believe it’s time to let the cat out of the bag.
So if you have a podcast that follows a talk show format, then you might want to take advantage of these super easy, and effective, podcast reverse engineering marketing and branding techniques and turn them into evergreen content..
Shall we start?
Podcast Reverse Engineering Tip #1: Take Note Of Your Guest’s Achievements
- How many years has your guest been in the industry?
- What makes him/her stand out from his/her peers?
- Why is he/she considered as an authority in his/her industry?
- If they have their own podcast – how many listeners or downloads does it get?
- If they are active on Social Media – how many followers does he/she have?
How To Use It: You use the information you gathered about your guest and turn it into teaser content on social media.
The reason for this is to establish the authority of your guests to your audience.
By explaining why people should listen to what he/she has to say, you increase the value of an episode, and force people to be curious about potential talking points that will be discussed within said episode.
It is best to start posting these teaser content a week before the launch of an episode. This is to ensure maximum visibility regarding who the guest is, and the potential value listeners could get from said episode.
Podcast Reverse Engineering Tip #2: Take Note Of What Was Discussed During The Episode
Example:
- What were the struggles your guest faced when he/she was starting out?
- How did your guests overcome said struggles?
- What was the eureka moment that turned things around for your guest?
- What were the strategies and methodologies he/she used?
- When and how did your guest realize that he/she has moved on from being just another person to “the” person within the industry?
- How did success change his/her life?
How To Use It: You use the information you gathered as promotional content days after the release of the specific episode.
The reason for this is to give your contacts an idea of what the episode contained.
By revealing some of the talking points within the episode, you get to trigger and hit different pain points from your contacts that were not yet able to listen to the episode.
Now I used the word “different” because each person has different pain points when it comes to achieving their goal.
Some might have a hard time dealing with what strategy/methodology works best. Others may just need a little bit of motivation to move forward.
The more pain points you hit, the higher the chances of a person hitting that download button.
Podcast Reverse Engineering Tip #3: Take Note Of Tips/Advice
Example:
- What advice did you guest give about starting a business or a podcast?
- How was he able to grow his/her business or audience?
- What new, or out of the box, ideas did he/she implement?
- How did he/she overcome the fear of trying out new ideas?
- What did he/she do to earn the trust of his/her target audience/market?
- How was he/she able to come up with original ideas?
- What did he/she do to make his/her business/podcast stand out from the competition?
- How was he/she able to grow, scale and monetize everything effectively?
How To Use It: After converting these to marketing content, you can post them before or after the release of an episode.
If you post it before the release, it will pique the interest of people making them curious about what else is on that episode.
If you post it after, it will serve as a call to action that somewhat says “If you have these problems, then my guest might have the solution you need”.
This approach is very effective as it is absolutely evergreen and would still be an effective marketing tool – months or years after the release of the episode.
Podcast Reverse Engineering Tip #4: Identify Potential Quotes
The great thing about quoting your guests is that sometimes, you get quotes that are completely unique.
“Unique” in the sense that it just spawned out of the conversation you were having at that exact moment. And if said line blew you away, I’m pretty sure your contact will have the same reaction as well.
And the best part is that, you’re the first person to use it.
So even if that guest of yours goes to another podcast; and even if said podcast uses the same reverse engineering tactic as you – you’d still have a one of a kind marketing content.
So yes, make sure to keep an eye out for those “quotable quotes”.
How To Use It: You can either create image quotes or as a regular tweet (of course without forgetting to mention who the quote came from)
Podcast Reverse Engineering Tip #5: Take Note Of Resources Mentioned
Example:
- Third party websites
- Tools & Applications
- Other People
How To Use It: You can use these as potential B2B cross marketing tools.
What you do is to reach out to said websites, tools/applications and individuals and say that they were mentioned on your podcast by one of your guests.
Inform them that you will be including their name, be it on an image or regular text based marketing post.
You can then ask if they would be willing to re-use said content for their own marketing.
If they say yes, then your brand instantly gains access to their followers.
What Else Can You Do?
You Can Create Pinterest Images
Pinterest offers great SEO juice to your site for free. So it is something you should be leveraging.
You can transcribe a section of the conversion and create a Pinterest image for it.
The transcription need not be long – but you have to make sure that it’s interesting.
Don’t worry too much about what audience it will attract. The main point here is that you are getting good SEO juice off Pinterest, and you are hopefully giving a sneak peak of your podcast to someone who is interested in that exact topic.
Create A Slideshow
Let’s say your guest has tons of achievements.
What you can do is take each of those achievements and create a slideshow with it on SlideShare.
Again, it’s one of those websites that provides great SEO juice, and allows you to market your podcast to anyone who happens to stumble upon your slide.
Create A Short Marketing Video
The idea here is that you already identified most of the important talking points. So why not create a short vid and explain to your contact what the next episode has in store for them.
Create a Blog Post
Just like the marketing video concept above, why not create a full blog post about the episode.
In fact, you can either create a blog post that promotes the coming episode – just like how I suggested you make a marketing video.
Or you can do one that summarizes the episode.
Include key sections about what you and your guest talked about, as well as other talking points you want to add.
Conclusion
A well planned podcast episode encourages great conversation between host and guest.
When this happens,you instantly have a goldmine of marketing material just sitting there waiting for you to reuse them.
And the only problem you might end up having is not knowing how to do with all of that fresh content.
And this is where we might be able to help.
As an emerging name in the podcast editing industry, Podblade is not just limited to making podcasts sound good – we also make sure that the marketing and branding of your podcast is as good as it’s audio quality as well.
- Video Editing
- Audiograms
- Basic and Advanced Show Notes
- Quote Cards
- YouTube Thumbnails
- Blog Featured Images
We can even publish content on your WordPress site if you like.
Using our services will not only save you time, but allow you to divert your focus on other aspects that can help your podcast grow.
Anyway, I hope you found this article about reverse engineering a podcast helpful.
If there’s anything you wish to add to the discussion, please feel free to do so at the comment section below.
As always, stay safe, and we will talk again next time.
Rom is a podcasting specialist, ranking his show in the top 100 for all business podcasts in only his first 6 months since launching. He is also the co-founder of Podblade, creating an affordable yet professional editing solution for podcasters. When he isn’t working, you can find him watching his favorite soccer team (Tottenham Hotspur) in action.
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