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How to Make Your Podcast Discoverable with Omni-Channel Marketing · Abbey the Podcast Lady

0:05
Welcome back to another episode of Abby the Podcast
0:08
Lady. We have a special guest on today. This
0:11
isn't something that I have done previously.
0:14
This is actually something new that I'm introducing
0:16
to the podcast lady. All thanks to Podmatch,
0:20
which is a service that hooks you up with podcast
0:22
guests in your desired topic or industry or genre.
0:27
And I have my very first Podmatch guest on today,
0:30
which I'm super excited for. Please welcome to
0:33
the show, Maylee. Oz Talay. Welcome. Hey, Abby.
0:37
Nice to be on your show. I'm glad we got connected
0:39
with PodBadge. I know. I'm so excited. I actually
0:42
met, I think it's Alex, at PodFest last year
0:47
when I was down in Orlando, Florida. And I had
0:50
been kicking around like, oh, should I get signed
0:51
up? Should I get signed up? And then I finally
0:53
did just a few weeks ago and you were one of
0:55
the first matches that came up. So I'm excited.
0:58
Yeah. I mean, I just started using PodMatch.
1:01
I don't know. whatever, six months ago or something
1:03
like that. And I found it so much easier. I,
1:06
as the guest, type in who I want and, you know,
1:09
what type of shows I'm comfortable with. And
1:11
it matches me up accordingly, right? And now,
1:15
of course, I got a few that weren't right. But
1:17
for the most part, it's always on track. And
1:20
it's so much easier than trying to pitch. you
1:24
know, podcasts, uh, hosts individually, this
1:28
is just makes it so much easier. So I, yeah,
1:30
I'm, I'm good with this. Not sponsored by it,
1:33
but I don't know. I wouldn't turn down a sponsorship.
1:35
Let's just say that we'll say good things. Absolutely.
1:39
So for all of our listeners, can you give me
1:41
a little background on who you are, what you
1:43
do, what's kind of your background in podcasting?
1:46
So I'll give you two sides of that. Number one
1:50
is I have a 38 -year -old marketing agency out
1:53
of the Detroit metro area. It's a long story,
1:56
but I've got a team of roughly about 25. We've
2:00
got creative, marketing, technical. writers,
2:03
everybody's in the Detroit metro area. My current
2:06
team's been with me since the financial crisis.
2:08
So they've been running with me now for 14 years.
2:11
There's very little we don't do when it comes
2:13
to marketing, digital marketing, branding, take
2:16
your pick, PR, et cetera. We pretty much cover
2:20
the basis of anything and all marketing. That
2:23
being said, I'll tell you, I'm an early adopter.
2:25
I started our internet group in 94. So it's been
2:29
a long ride. I've been through all these changes
2:31
upon changes upon changes and technology and
2:35
society and, you know, all the different things
2:38
that came along with it. But at the same time,
2:40
you know, but roughly during the financial crisis,
2:43
I started being an industry author, guest speaker.
2:46
And, you know, I used to get invited on radio
2:48
shows before the pandemic. I used to go to conferences
2:51
and be a guest speaker. Of course, nowadays you
2:54
don't need to do any of that anymore. And the
2:56
story right now is this, and this is where I
2:59
think you and I kind of got together, is six,
3:02
seven months ago, I created a podcast with another
3:05
group of three people. And as I was telling you
3:07
before the show, of the four people, we all have
3:11
like 30, 40 years of experience in business,
3:13
right? Everybody's coming from different angles,
3:15
which is cool. We do the show's recording on
3:19
Wednesdays. We come to the show at 4 p .m. Eastern
3:23
every Wednesday and we don't have a clue what
3:25
we're going to talk about. And so we spend about
3:27
15 minutes going back and forth what we're going
3:28
to talk about. And all of a sudden we hit something
3:30
that we all like or that we all feel comfortable
3:33
talking about. And once we get started, you can't
3:36
shut us up. And so at one point we decided that
3:39
we need to cut our podcast off at 30 minutes.
3:43
And so I get to play the bad guy at around 25
3:48
minutes. I'm like, okay, guys, we got to wrap
3:52
it up. So what are our takeaways? Time to land
3:57
the plane, boys. Exactly. But at the same time,
4:00
it also came down to how do we promote this,
4:03
right? So that's the other side of the equation,
4:05
which I'm happy to get into all that as well.
4:07
That's amazing. Well, before we get into how
4:09
you guys are promoting the show and your experience
4:11
with marketing things, what's the name of the
4:14
podcast so people can go listen to it? Oh, you're
4:16
going to love this one. It's called Business
4:17
Lunatics. Shut up. That's amazing. I love it.
4:22
Business lunatics. I'm writing that down. We've
4:24
been around for too long. And honestly, if you're
4:27
an entrepreneur, if you're in business and you
4:29
own your own company, and you're either that
4:32
or you're in a startup, whatever the case might
4:34
look like, honestly, you got to be a lunatic
4:35
to keep going. Can confirm. I'm on, let's see,
4:40
I've been full -time self -employed for about
4:42
a year and a half at this point with my podcast
4:44
production business. I feel like a lunatic. I'm
4:48
like, what am I doing? I feel crazy. When I explain
4:51
to people what I do, they look at me like I have
4:53
a third eye. You have to be a little nuts to
4:57
be full -time self -employed and chase your dreams
4:59
and follow your passions. So I love that. Exactly,
5:02
right. It's not for everybody. You know, I know
5:05
that a lot of people like to have a structured
5:09
environment. Some people don't like a structured
5:11
environment. It just depends on, you know, who
5:13
you are, your personality, your character, you
5:15
know, what makes you tick. And so, yeah, for
5:18
me, it's always been a lot of fun. And I remember
5:22
when we came up with the show's name, Business
5:23
Lunatics, we're like, you know what, that works.
5:26
Okay, so you're in the marketing industry. I
5:28
actually, one of my podcast clients is a marketing
5:31
agency and they do deep dives on like what it
5:34
takes to build a brand. So I'm definitely familiar
5:37
with what you guys do as a marketing agency,
5:40
but that's not something everyone really knows.
5:43
So can you give like a 10 ,000 foot overview
5:45
of what a marketing agency does and how you can
5:47
help people with sharing their messages? Yeah,
5:50
so listen, because I've been in this industry
5:52
for so long, there's a lot of interesting stories
5:55
to tell. But you have to take a look at the marketing
5:58
agency as... The group that decides on the strategy,
6:03
they base that on research. They come up with
6:06
a plan. They come up with a strategy. And then
6:08
they decide, how do we move the needle? How do
6:11
we get to the objective? Now, if the objective
6:13
is I have to sell something, I'm going to sell
6:15
a product or I'm selling a service. For example,
6:19
I'm a B2B company and so I'm selling certain
6:23
things. Or it's that I'm... trying to get myself
6:27
known, right? I mean, whatever the case might
6:29
look like. You decide what the objective is,
6:31
whether it's lead generation, is it selling something,
6:34
is it selling a service or a product? And so
6:36
work through that. The plan then decides where
6:39
do we go next? How do we execute on that plan?
6:43
Plan is a starting point. It is not an end point,
6:46
which I think a lot of people make the mistake
6:49
that the plan is the end point and it's not.
6:52
It's where you start. The plan is a cycle. It's
6:56
a process. The process has activities. The activities
7:00
have tasks. The tasks and the activities have
7:03
to be measured. So if you think about a cycle,
7:06
by the time you get through the cycle, at the
7:09
end of that cycle, you're looking at the measurements,
7:12
you're coming up with reports, you're coming
7:15
up with an analysis, and more importantly, you're
7:19
coming up with an interpretation of the analysis.
7:23
And all of that has to be done across multiple
7:25
data points. That is what a marketing agency
7:28
does. It's fixated on your goal. It's fixated
7:32
on the process. And by the time you complete
7:35
that cycle one round, it's time to figure out
7:38
what am I going to do to improve the next cycle.
7:41
Exactly. That's what a marketing agency does.
7:44
And that's what a marketing agency should do.
7:47
The problem we have in the marketplace nowadays
7:49
that every Tom, Dick and Harry puts up a shingle.
7:52
and says, I do X, Y, Z. Well, that's all fine
7:55
and dandy, but what that boils down to is that
7:58
you're providing a service, you're executing
8:01
tasks, and what you end up with is the blind
8:04
leading the blind. As you can imagine, there's
8:06
a huge difference in price. Somebody's going
8:08
to provide you a service versus an agency is
8:11
going to get whatever. five, 10, 25 people involved
8:15
in your project, right? So ultimately you get
8:18
what you pay for. But answering your question,
8:21
what does a marketing agency do and how does
8:24
this all work? That's what the marketing agency
8:27
does. The best example I have for you is I was
8:31
with a client years ago. And honestly, I went
8:34
to the first meeting down in Phoenix and I got
8:37
to the meeting and the general manager looks
8:40
at me and he goes, what are we talking about?
8:42
Well, you pay us money and here we are 90 days
8:45
later, I'm going to tell you what's going on.
8:47
And then you're going to tell me what's going
8:48
on on your end so I can figure out what I'm going
8:50
to do, help you with whatever it is that you're
8:54
trying to achieve next. And he goes, no, nobody's
8:56
ever done that before. What have you been doing?
8:59
Well, I sent this check to so -and -so. They
9:01
sent me a colorful report. I look at it, it looks
9:04
good, and I ditch it. That's an approach. It's
9:11
an approach. And because this guy is my age,
9:15
and I'm 62, he's in my age range. I said, listen,
9:18
at what point in history was your printer your
9:22
ad agency? And the moment I said that, light
9:26
bulbs went off in his head. I said, listen, you've
9:29
been hiring your printer to do your advertising.
9:33
Now you're hiring an ad agency to take care of
9:35
business. And that made all the sense in the
9:38
world to him. And that's when it finally clicked
9:40
on him. And this is what we have in the marketplace
9:42
right now too, is the same scenario, is that
9:45
we have service providers that execute tasks
9:47
versus marketing agencies or advertising agencies.
9:52
And the question is, you know, how do you make
9:54
this work in today's environment? I think that
9:57
is a perfect example. I love this story of your
10:00
printer is not the ad agency. It's something
10:04
that I think people even find a little bit confusing
10:06
sometimes on my end. And I know I'm guilty. I
10:09
should probably be explaining this better, but
10:10
people will hire me as their podcast producer
10:13
and I make all their content for them. But it's
10:16
a totally different thing to actually distribute
10:19
that content. The social media graphics that
10:21
I make to promote the show, the blog posts, like
10:23
you got to get that out into the world. It can't
10:26
just sit there in the Google Drive file. And
10:28
if you're not doing the work to get it out there,
10:31
then. You're kind of screwed. Where are you going?
10:36
So I don't know if I answered your question.
10:38
You did, yes. Because I can go off on a few different
10:40
tangents here. I love a tangent. I'm tangent
10:43
girly over here. So let's kind of get into the
10:48
distribution, especially through the lens of
10:50
podcasting. So I like to say that podcasting
10:53
can be kind of the center of your marketing strategy.
10:55
It can be chunked up and turned into a lot of
10:58
different things. And I would love to know what
11:01
your thoughts are on how podcasting can help
11:04
be effective marketing and advertising for your
11:06
business. I'll have some interesting stories.
11:08
We have some of my loonies on the business lunatics
11:11
show. good at the marketing side of it. So I'm
11:16
sitting here pushing them constantly, trying
11:17
to get them to do the activities that we need
11:21
to do. You're absolutely right. You have the
11:23
show's video, the actual footage. But then the
11:27
good news is, especially with all these tools
11:29
that we have available to us, we can take that
11:31
footage and we can create a bunch of shorts.
11:34
Easy shorts that go into TikTok, that go into
11:36
Instagram, for that matter, they can go into
11:38
YouTube and LinkedIn, but you have these shorts
11:41
that help to give people a snippet of what it
11:45
is that you were talking about, or the snippets
11:48
are valuable for somebody to say, oh, I want
11:50
to listen to more of this show. I really like
11:54
what this person said, right? So you want to
11:56
take those short snippets to get people's attention.
12:01
Process is the hard part, right? You need a YouTube
12:05
channel. You need an Instagram channel. You need
12:07
a TikTok channel. You need a LinkedIn account
12:10
because you don't, you know, like I tell a lot
12:12
of our clients, you have to do what's called
12:13
omni -channel marketing. Ooh, that's a term I
12:17
haven't heard before. Yeah, so some people call
12:19
it a multi -channel marketing approach. The idea
12:22
is that you don't know where your target audience
12:26
is going to be hovering, right? I mean, yeah,
12:29
we know. We think they're on LinkedIn. We think
12:32
they're on Instagram or whatever, right? That's
12:35
all fine and dandy, but you don't know where
12:37
you're going to get that target audience's attention.
12:40
Let's face it, not everybody's geeked about LinkedIn,
12:43
right? By the same token, I can tell you that
12:45
everybody's geeked about Instagram. So your job
12:49
is to be sure that you're in all of these places
12:52
at the same time. What would be your best advice?
12:55
Because I feel like as a beginner podcaster,
12:58
someone might be a little overwhelmed thinking,
12:59
how am I going to be everywhere at once? So if
13:02
someone said that to you, what would be your
13:04
response? My response kind of goes in line with
13:09
an interesting story I can tell you. But the
13:12
short version of it is take it in small chunks.
13:16
Don't try to bite it all off at the same time.
13:19
First of all, you'll never get there and you're
13:21
going to frustrate yourself. And the story I
13:24
can tell you around this idea and this concept
13:26
is I was at a peer -to -peer CEO retreat years
13:31
ago. And if you've ever been in any of these
13:34
types of retreats, it's a very intense Friday
13:37
to Sunday, and it's nonstop. The only time you
13:40
get to turn off is when you go to sleep. And
13:43
amongst this, in that particular retreat, there
13:46
was a... We all had to go on some type of walk
13:49
and there were objectives throughout the walk.
13:51
But the walk is almost like all day long. And
13:53
by the time we got back, we were all very tired.
13:56
But we also started to split off. Some people
14:00
were faster. Some people were slower. Some people
14:02
were taking their time in the middle. It was
14:04
just all over the board. But there was another
14:06
CEO that I noticed he was really lagging. And
14:09
so I decided to go with him. and just keep him
14:12
company because he was in fact like. And as we
14:16
were going through that last stretch, whatever,
14:19
and I can't remember what it was. It was a one
14:20
mile, it was a two miles, whatever that last
14:22
stretch was. What I told him, hey, listen, you
14:26
see that rock over there? And I don't know, that
14:27
rock was like 30 yards away. We're gonna go hit
14:31
that rock. And then we got to the rock and said,
14:33
okay, look at that tree. Now we're gonna hit
14:35
that one. That was another 30 or 40 yards. My
14:37
point is take it in small chunks. Because if
14:41
you try to look at the whole distance, you're
14:44
going to frustrate yourself and you're not going
14:45
to get through it. Take it in small bits. And
14:48
it's a lot easier, right? Okay, I'm going to
14:51
just post on TikTok. Or maybe you say throughout
14:53
the course of the week, I'm posting on TikTok
14:55
on Tuesday. I'm posting on Instagram on Wednesdays.
14:57
I'm doing LinkedIn on Mondays. Whatever that
14:59
schedule looks like for you, take it in small
15:02
bits. Believe me, you'll be able to do it. And
15:04
this is not necessarily a race that you need
15:08
to get everything done yesterday. By time, I
15:10
guarantee you, just like we did with Business
15:12
Solutions, by time and here we are, six, seven
15:14
months later, all of a sudden we have a YouTube
15:16
channel that's full of videos. We didn't start
15:19
off that way. And they were all perfect. Your
15:21
last page would start out pretty blank. Yeah,
15:23
exactly. So that's my advice. Do it in small
15:27
bits. And it can be overwhelming. I completely
15:30
understand. I've been there. I know what it feels
15:33
like. But like I said, don't frustrate yourself.
15:45
Right, exactly. I'm just... Take it in small
16:06
pieces. Believe me, it works. And eventually
16:09
you're going to find that, wow, look at all this
16:11
stuff I've just accomplished. And you'll get
16:13
there. And it works. It'll happen eventually.
16:16
What advice do you have for people who might
16:18
be doing it in the small chunks? They're maybe
16:20
at that stage where they're doing what they can.
16:22
They're sharing periodically across a couple
16:24
different platforms. they're not necessarily
16:27
seeing the numbers that they think they should
16:29
be seeing. Their videos might only be getting
16:31
a couple hundred views or maybe they had one
16:35
pop off and then the rest of the videos just
16:37
aren't doing as well. What advice would you give
16:38
them to keep going? The most important tool that
16:42
you have in your arsenal is the entire podcast.
16:47
It is the most powerful thing you have, especially
16:50
with the tools that we have available to us now.
16:52
So number one, take the entire transcript, run
16:55
it through ChatGPT and have it suggest to you
16:58
what would be an appropriate title, what's appropriate
17:01
description. And of course, the description varies,
17:04
right? YouTube has 5 ,000 characters. You know,
17:07
if you go to LinkedIn, you have a different set.
17:09
If you go to TikTok, you have a different set,
17:11
et cetera. But based on the platform that you're
17:13
using and per platform, if that's the case, ask
17:16
it to give you the appropriate description for
17:19
that platform. And that has to include hashtags.
17:21
And now all you're doing is copying and pasting,
17:24
right? Title, description, tags. Not just hashtags,
17:29
but then you need the tags as well. And depending
17:31
on the platform, you want to copy and paste those.
17:34
You need to be able to take advantage of the
17:37
AI platforms to help speed this process up. and
17:41
to get your quote -unquote virtual assistant,
17:44
right, to help make sure that all you have to
17:47
do is copy and paste. Another more important
17:49
piece in your arsenal is your own blog. And I
17:52
would suggest getting a blog if you don't have
17:55
one. And why? Take the transcript, turn it into
17:58
a blog post. You got your, you know, let's say
18:00
it's a WordPress site, right? You got your title,
18:02
you got your... text copy, you've got your H2
18:05
tags, you've got your categories, you've got
18:07
your WordPress tags, an image, et cetera, et
18:10
cetera. Throw your podcast, if it's audio only,
18:14
that's fine. Take the embed code, stick it in.
18:16
If it's a video, I take YouTube and put that
18:18
in there. And more importantly, when you're done,
18:20
ask ChatGPT to give you what's called the JSON
18:26
code, or what's also known as structured data
18:29
code. It's a piece of script. that is specific
18:32
to the search engines and the AI engines. When
18:37
they read your website and they see that script,
18:40
that script tells them everything that they need
18:41
to know. You want to take that, copy and paste
18:44
it. It's all you're doing. So if you think about
18:47
the infrastructure that you're going to create
18:49
here is to take your transcript and use ChatGPT
18:53
to help you with all the various content elements
18:57
that are effective. And to be perfectly honest,
19:00
you're perhaps more effective than what you might
19:01
come up with because ultimately you're asking
19:04
ChatGPT, give me the title, give me the description,
19:07
the tags, et cetera, so that my podcast can be
19:11
found, so that my podcast grabs people's attention
19:15
and that it's going to make it interesting for
19:18
them to listen or view me. Now, if you give it
19:22
the appropriate instructions and the proper prompts.
19:25
you're going to get what you need so that this
19:26
works a lot easier. So the piece that you and
19:29
I are talking about right now is laying that
19:31
infrastructure down. Once the podcast is over,
19:34
you have your transcript. Now, how do you lay
19:36
that foundation across the different platforms
19:39
on the web? Love this so much. I think this is
19:43
so valuable. I think something that gets overlooked
19:45
is that transcript and using it, especially to
19:48
create a blog. I tell people this all the time.
19:51
I have a dozen clients and my client that is
19:54
raking in the most downloads every single month
19:56
is the one that puts every show out as a blog
19:59
with. all the tags, embedded codes and all that
20:02
stuff. It is so important. And I feel like people
20:05
overlook it because maybe they don't know how
20:07
to write a blog or don't know how to run a blog
20:09
or are scared to use ChatGBT to do it or just
20:12
don't know how. I mean, keep in mind, the blog
20:15
is another element in your omni -channel marketing,
20:18
okay? One more piece of that puzzle that you're
20:22
creating. And the blog is an effective tool.
20:25
From the blog... You get to link to everything
20:28
else. You get to link to Instagram, to TikTok,
20:31
to LinkedIn, to YouTube, whatever you're using,
20:35
right? You get to sit there and link to all these
20:38
places, which helps to facilitate the search
20:41
engines and the AI engines to better understand
20:44
what it is that you're about. And based on your
20:47
links and everything else that you're creating,
20:49
it's going to help to facilitate the marketing
20:51
process. I think that is such valuable advice.
20:55
That's like a little nugget of gold you're holding
20:57
in your hand right there. I think that is just
20:58
fantastic. And there is one more. Oh, keep them
21:02
coming. Keep them coming. All right. So I'm going
21:06
to pitch us as just a smidge, but the concept
21:09
still applies. So we just launched in the past
21:11
year, our press release marketing service called
21:14
Smart Press. Why is it that I was so gung ho
21:18
on us doing this when there's so many different?
21:22
services out there that will either syndicate
21:24
your press release, which is the low budget end,
21:27
versus distribute it, which is the higher end
21:30
through the more professional channels. And that's
21:34
because a lot of press release services really
21:36
lack in the piece that I think is so important.
21:39
But press release marketing is another inexpensive
21:42
route to take. Why? And I won't get into all
21:46
the details, but once you've laid, don't do this
21:48
right away. Okay, please. You need to lay your
21:51
groundwork first. So don't hit publish on your
21:53
podcast and say press release marketing. Yeah,
21:56
no, no, no. That's no, lay your groundwork first
21:59
because you need stuff that has to go into the
22:02
press release that's going to travel with the
22:04
press release, the links, the images, the videos,
22:07
whatever it is that you're going to attach to
22:09
the press release when it's going out there.
22:11
But here's the thing. Since the pandemic, the
22:13
amount of noise on the internet is mind boggling.
22:16
And I don't mean noise in terms of competition
22:19
or whatever, just like noise, period. It's just
22:22
everybody and everybody and everything just one
22:26
in house. And all we could do on pandemic was
22:29
get online. And believe me, once we got online,
22:31
we could not let go. Where press release marketing
22:34
facilitates this process is that it helps to
22:37
get above the noise because let's face it, it's
22:40
paid. You don't want to use a free syndication.
22:42
It's not going to work. You're going to pay for
22:44
your press release. And I'm not suggesting you
22:45
have to do one every day or one every week. One
22:48
a month is fine. If you can do two a month, that's
22:50
great. Don't exceed two a month. Everybody reads
22:52
news. So if you put out a press release about
22:56
your podcast, you're likely to get attention.
23:00
at some point. And that attention is going to
23:03
do two things. Aside from getting you notable
23:06
links back to all of your infrastructure, which
23:10
is important for Google's and for the AI engines
23:13
and for Wikipedia type sources, you're going
23:16
to turn around and get the attention of the media,
23:18
the journalists, the editors. If they consistently
23:21
see you, they're likely to say, who is this?
23:25
They're going to want to interview. you. Now,
23:28
all of a sudden, you're going in a completely
23:29
different direction. You started off with the
23:31
news networks. All of a sudden, now you're into
23:33
the media. And the media is going to help to
23:35
facilitate getting you out there even further.
23:37
But you need to start with the press release
23:38
marketing. And I do suggest you find some level
23:41
of consistency to run these press releases. Again,
23:45
use ChatGPT. Speed it up. Get your links together.
23:48
Get your content, your PDFs, your videos, right?
23:52
Because if you pay for it, then that content
23:54
travels with the press release. So I think this
23:57
is an important element to consider in today's
24:00
world is to do press release marketing. I cannot
24:03
believe that I never thought of that. I was a
24:05
radio DJ for almost 10 years and I would get
24:09
press releases in my inbox every single morning.
24:13
Why have I never thought to do that for my clients?
24:16
Yeah, yeah, there you go. Sometimes it just takes
24:19
someone feeding you the right idea that you've
24:21
probably thought of but didn't like. actually
24:23
bring it to the forefront. I love that. That
24:24
is genius. I have some clients with some actual
24:28
in -person events related to their podcasts coming
24:30
up in the start of 2026. And I'm like, now's
24:33
the time we should be getting press releases
24:35
out about this. Exactly. Oh, Maylee, you're a
24:38
genius. First of all, I remember I was on a radio
24:42
show moons ago and I was introduced as the expert
24:44
digital marketing or digital marketing expert.
24:47
We were on the live show. It's Tampa. I told
24:49
the host, I said, listen, I'm not an expert or
24:52
in this case, I'm not a genius. But what I have
24:54
is knowledge and experience to apply to whatever
24:57
it is that we're doing. The only thing I need
24:59
to add is understand the technology and the strategies
25:02
that are never ending, changing every 30, 60,
25:05
90 days. But outside of that, the question is,
25:08
how do you take your knowledge and experience
25:09
and put it to work? And as you can imagine, after
25:13
40 years, you gain a lot of knowledge, experience,
25:15
and more importantly, a lot of fun stories to
25:18
tell. Yes. Well, and you mentioned early on that
25:21
you're an early adopter of things. I'm sure that's
25:23
a huge help too. Yes, absolutely. Especially
25:26
when something new comes out and I've got to
25:28
figure out how to use it to help our clients.
25:30
I think it's imperative in today's world that
25:34
you just... You know, my forays of change, for
25:38
example, right, evolved over time. But more importantly,
25:41
you need to accept the changes. If you think
25:43
about the fact that you need to anticipate change,
25:45
what that means is you have to set aside money
25:48
for future investments into your company. You
25:52
need to accept change, which is where my clients
25:54
tend to fuss and fume about it, which I think
25:57
is... Because it changes moving forward. It's
26:02
either you're with it or you're not. And if you're
26:04
going to stay behind, or like I like to say,
26:07
if you decide to get off the Google train, that's
26:09
great. But your competition is still on the train
26:11
and they're moving at 100 miles an hour faster
26:14
than you are. So there is no version. There's
26:17
no logical version of you getting off that Google
26:20
train. You need to stay on the Google train.
26:23
It'll cost you. 10, 20 times more to catch up
26:28
to your competition afterwards. Just accept the
26:30
change, get your emotion out of the way. Now,
26:33
the next two items are actually pretty easy.
26:35
Adapt to the changes, which means what do I need
26:37
to do to make this happen? What do I change in
26:39
my process? What do I change in my content? What
26:42
do I need to do to enact this change? And last
26:46
one's the easiest, adapt it, implement it basically
26:49
and just move forward. And so this concept of
26:52
accepting change. trying out new things. Don't
26:56
worry if you make a mistake, which unfortunately
26:58
so much of our society is based on the fact that
27:00
I'm not allowed to make any mistakes. It's like,
27:03
no, I love mistakes. I keep on trying to figure
27:06
out how to make more mistakes. And so I think
27:10
it's imperative that we look at the new things.
27:13
Like nowadays, right? We want to take a look
27:15
at AI agents. How do we use the AI agents? to
27:20
do more than just what we've been able to do
27:22
since ChatGPD came to the market. OpenAI has
27:26
its own agents that you can set up. You might
27:30
be familiar with N as in Nancy, the number 8N
27:33
as in Nancy, N8N. That's another platform, but
27:37
that one's more designed for developers. OpenAI's
27:40
agents are a little more run -of -the -mill for
27:45
everyday people to figure out how to use. get
27:47
involved in that system. I think that's an important
27:49
area to start looking into and do so quickly.
27:53
I love that you're in the marketing industry
27:55
and you're not afraid of AI. I feel like I've
27:58
just been... I'm on kind of the marketing side
28:01
of TikTok. And I feel like I'm seeing more and
28:03
more marketing people. They're like, oh, no,
28:05
it's human touch is the way to go. And it's like,
28:07
yes, human touch is important. But if you don't
28:10
start adopting AI in some capacity, like you
28:13
said, you're going to miss the train. And then
28:14
you're going to spend the rest of your life trying
28:16
to catch up to it. I'm a huge proponent of using
28:19
AI for almost everything. Obviously, you got
28:22
to put your own spin on it. You got to. prompt
28:24
it the right way. But it's such an important
28:26
tool. And I feel like... Well, I think, yeah,
28:29
it's a little bit of, you know, some of these
28:33
people are more concerned on the creative side.
28:35
They're thinking that, you know, they feel like
28:37
AI is taking over creative. And then, of course,
28:40
writers are saying AI is taking over content,
28:43
you know, text copy and so on and so forth. And
28:46
my suggestion is you decide at your level for
28:50
your company, for the work that you do, To what
28:53
level are you going to use AI and how you're
28:55
going to use it? Granted, it's being abused.
28:58
Well, maybe not abused is the wrong word. It's
29:01
being misused in a lot of cases. And I, listen,
29:03
I'm on board with that. But you as the user of
29:07
the AI platforms, you can decide to go in that
29:12
direction where it's being misused or you figure
29:15
out how to use it the appropriate way for your
29:18
business, for your clients. in, you know, if
29:21
you want to call it an ethical way. But that
29:23
doesn't mean that we sit there and argue how
29:28
to put the cat back in the bag. It's just not
29:31
happening. Right. This is not a choice. That
29:35
cat is out and it is gone. It's running down
29:37
the block at this point. So, you know, I understand
29:44
the arguments and believe me, I've been in them,
29:46
but I still think it comes down to the individual.
29:49
You as the individual decide how to use the tool.
29:52
And like you said, you mentioned a really great
29:54
way to use the tool with taking the transcript
29:56
and using it as a way to come up with titles
29:59
and descriptions. I think that is so, it's an
30:03
easy way to get into using AI to help distribute
30:06
your show and do it in a way that's actually.
30:09
moving the needle in some capacity other than
30:11
just throwing up your show and hoping that Google
30:13
picks it up by some chance. And listen, you know,
30:17
I think we all know the number of podcasts in
30:20
the world and on the internet is mind boggling.
30:22
Apple has its own platform. Google has its own
30:25
platform. You've got all these different variations
30:27
out there using a variety of different tools
30:30
and platforms for their podcasts. You need to
30:34
figure out how you're going to stand out. Either
30:38
it's a niche or it's because of the work that
30:41
you're doing to help get it noticed. Listen,
30:44
there's no reason why you can't go to ChatGPT
30:46
and say, here's my podcast. Tell me how to promote
30:49
it. And I'm not suggesting it's going to come
30:52
back with a lot of options that are practical
30:55
for you. None of the choices are going to be
30:57
wrong. The question is, is it practical for you
30:59
to execute what it suggests? But again, same
31:03
thing. I'm going to say, find a starting point.
31:05
Start off small. Build on it slowly but surely.
31:09
Don't try to get it all knocked out in two hours.
31:13
It's just not going to happen. Definitely not
31:15
going to happen in the blink of an eye. But I
31:17
think you have shared some wonderful insight
31:19
with us today. As we kind of wrap up the show
31:21
here, I have just a couple of quick little questions
31:24
for you. One, as you just mentioned, there's
31:27
a bunch of different hosting platforms, Apple,
31:30
Spotify. Where do you guys host your podcasts
31:32
through? What are you using for distribution
31:34
on that end? For our little... Business Lunatics
31:37
podcast, we just throw it up on YouTube. We're
31:40
not doing anything fancy. We don't have it on
31:42
Spotify. We don't have it on SoundCloud. We don't
31:45
have it on Apple anywhere else at the moment.
31:47
Again, it goes back to the same thing. All four
31:51
of us are business owners. All four of us have
31:54
a lot of responsibilities that we already have
31:57
to do. to contend with every day and every week.
32:00
There's only so much we can chew off. And so
32:02
we decided we're going to chew off YouTube right
32:04
now. I'm trying to get the rest of the loonies
32:06
to at least do their thing with, you know, thumbs
32:09
up and comments and replies on LinkedIn, on YouTube.
32:13
Just trying to get them to get through that has
32:15
been enough of a difficult process. But they're
32:19
slowly getting into the rhythm, so to speak.
32:24
I don't think there's anything wrong with any
32:26
of these platforms. You have to decide what's
32:29
going to work for you, for your audience. And
32:31
more importantly, how much time do you have to
32:35
be able to copy, paste, post across all these
32:40
different channels that are available to you?
32:42
If you want to hire a virtual assistant, I mean,
32:44
this time when I say virtual assistant, I mean
32:47
a human being. If you want to hire a virtual
32:49
assistant who can help you. copy, paste, you
32:53
know, because at the end of the day, it's mundane
32:55
work. They might be able to go in that direction.
32:58
These AI agents can do this as well. And the
33:01
biggest issue with these AI agents is you have
33:04
to figure out how to set it up. Once you get
33:06
it set up, though, it will run for you. But those
33:10
are my suggestions, right? Either a human being
33:13
that is an assistant. Or consider AI agents,
33:17
understand them, learn them. Go to the one at
33:20
OpenAI because it's easier to understand. And
33:23
then, of course, the last option is you do a
33:25
lot of these things on your own together with
33:28
ChatGPT. But somewhere in the middle of those
33:31
three options, one of them is going to do the
33:33
trick for you. I absolutely love that response
33:36
because oftentimes when people first start their
33:38
podcast and they come to me and they're like,
33:40
well, what's the right answer? How often should
33:42
I be posting? What should I be doing? I'm like,
33:44
The best thing you can do is whatever is sustainable
33:47
long -term for you. So if that's posting once
33:50
a month, if it's posting once every two months,
33:52
if it's posting every day, whatever you can do
33:55
consistently and not lose your ever -loving shit,
33:59
for lack of a better term. But you use a very
34:04
key word there, consistency. Make sure that your
34:08
frequency and consistency is there. If you can't
34:11
keep up the consistency, then you need to back
34:14
off. Find the consistency that you can maintain.
34:18
It's so important. I should tell you a whole
34:20
story on that one as well. Go for it. I got time.
34:25
Go for it. Go for it. We had a client project
34:28
several years ago, and it was a B2C project.
34:32
And we were given... Just such a short notice
34:35
amount of time to get everything together was
34:37
crazy. But I implemented a new social media strategy.
34:41
And the social media strategy was basically building
34:43
an army of freelancers where we said, post this
34:48
into your account. We hired like 20 people. Then
34:52
we would turn around and ask them to cross post,
34:55
repost, cross comment, and so on and so forth,
34:59
right? To get attention. The interesting thing
35:01
is our budget was... the same every month. This
35:05
is a brand new website, the brand new brand.
35:08
The amount of content we had every month was
35:10
identical. The number of people working on the
35:14
project were all identical. Of course, as you
35:17
can imagine, we, you know, with the team and
35:19
we didn't have AI back then, we had to create
35:22
all that content ahead of time so that we're
35:25
not sitting here waiting for content to be created
35:29
before we can do something with it. So we usually
35:32
had about 30 days worth of content pre -planned
35:36
and ready. That's a lot. That's a lot. But it
35:40
required that because it goes back to that frequency
35:43
and the consistency. Now, considering that everything
35:47
was identical every month, and the only thing
35:50
we had to do is just bite the bullet and get
35:53
the first 30 days out of the way, because during
35:55
the second 30 days, while one team was posting
35:58
and distributing, the development team was creating
36:03
again. So the biggest challenge we had was starting
36:06
that first 30 days worth of content, get that
36:09
out of the way way before the campaign started.
36:11
Now, all things being equal and everything being
36:14
identical, I can tell you that in four months,
36:16
now I still have the Google Analytics for it,
36:19
we drove 824 ,000 people to that website over
36:24
that four -month period. We did an analysis afterwards
36:29
to try and figure out why was that. And it came
36:32
down to the fact that we had that consistency.
36:35
We had the necessary frequency. People got used
36:39
to the content over time. And of course, we did
36:42
our research strategy and planning ahead of time.
36:47
But it was interesting to see the compounding
36:50
effect month over month over month. And although
36:54
this is a strategy I came up with because of
36:57
Google's hummingbird algorithm in 2013, because
37:00
I got sick and tired of Google. I'm like, we've
37:03
got to find a different way than relying on Google
37:05
for everything, right? And so the social media
37:08
strategy was built on this concept, but I never
37:10
took into account the possible compounding effect
37:14
because of the consistency and the frequency.
37:17
The amount of content was identical. There was
37:24
this huge growth every month thereafter. It was
37:27
crazy. But this comes down to what you were saying,
37:29
consistency. Consistency is key. It's a saying
37:32
for a reason. I agree. I love it. That's a wonderful
37:36
story to wrap on. I have one last final follow
37:38
-up or final question. Sure, go for it. Other
37:42
than your own podcast, what podcast have you
37:44
been listening to lately? Oh, geez. Which podcast
37:52
am I listening to? And I'm just going to give
37:55
you a flat out honest answer. Honestly, I don't
37:59
even have time to listen to my own podcast. That
38:02
is the most business owner answer I have ever
38:04
heard. I'm just being real. Honestly. It's so
38:10
real. It is. For me, I know some people, they'll
38:17
exercise and listen to a podcast while they're
38:19
doing it. They'll be in the car, they'll listen
38:21
to a podcast. But honestly, when I'm in the car
38:24
or I'm exercising, I need to turn off. I'll lose
38:27
my mind any other way if I don't. As you can
38:30
imagine, running this agency and the team and
38:32
everything else that we've got going on, there's
38:34
a lot going on. I don't want to say it's all
38:36
stress. It's not necessarily stress, but you're
38:39
trying to. meet goals, you're trying to, you
38:42
know, achieve the results that everybody's looking
38:45
for. And at some point, it's just like one more
38:47
thing I can't handle. And this is the wonderful
38:51
world of entrepreneurship. Exactly. Which is
38:55
why we're lunatics. I love it. Well, Maylee,
38:59
this has been a fantastic conversation. Thank
39:02
you so much for being my first guest. This has
39:05
been a wonderful introduction to adding this
39:07
to my show. I'm so glad that Podmatch connected
39:11
us. I absolutely am with you. Hopefully we can
39:14
do it again. Yes. If people want to stay in touch
39:16
with you, how can they find you? So I have 22
39:19
,000 really close friends on LinkedIn. So what
39:25
I usually tell people to do is, number one, tag
39:27
me on your post. You don't have to be connected
39:28
to me to tag me. Just tag me on your post. I
39:31
will get an email in my regular inbox, which
39:35
will tell me, hey, I need a... Somebody tagged
39:37
me, so I need to react and comment, which I do.
39:39
I put a solid comment in, solid hashtags. And
39:43
of course, the other thing I suggest is connect
39:45
with me on LinkedIn. I guarantee I'm the only
39:47
Malia Astley there. You're not going to find
39:50
another Malia Astley there. And so I usually
39:54
tell people just catch up with me on LinkedIn.
39:57
It's the best place to find me. Wonderful. Well,
39:59
thank you so much for your time today. I really
40:01
appreciate it. Thank you, Abby. It's great to
40:03
be on the show.