VOICE ENTREPRENEUR WITH BEN SMITH #22
<8 min listen by audio:
How to market your Voice skills and podcasts so people actually listen:
1) EMAIL
Email is still the #1 way to acquire a larger, more engaged audience. Email is also the way to build a passionate, rapid community. And make no mistake, every voice skill and podcast needs a community. You may think you do a simple voice skill about different dogs, so why would you need an email list? What you don’t realize is that the number one way to get your users to RETURN to your voice skill. With voice skills the retention rate is incredibly low. And part of that is it’s hard to figure out how to call users back to your skill. That’s where email comes in. By emailing your users and listeners on a regular basis, you develop the ability to summon traffic upon demand. You also create brand recognition as you’re regularly in the mailbox.
If you’re not collecting email addresses, then you’re not in the game. The number one mistake I see voice developers and podcasts doing is they don’t collect email addresses. This topic will be its own show in the weeks to come.
2) FACEBOOK
Facebook is the undisputed king of social. Go find Facebook groups with interests that correspond to your voice skill. Go talk to people in the group. Be polite, don’t spam, but actually ask questions and be yourself. You can get amazingly far by just adding a few comments and taking by taking a genuine interest in the group. You can also experiment with Facebook Ads. We’ll be covering Facebook ads in depth on Voice Entrepreneur. But it’s easy to get started, and make sure you set your daily budget to just a few dollars so things don’t get out of hand too quickly.
If you’re interested in how to get a Facebook group going from scratch, come join the Voice Entrepreneur Facebook group to see it in action.
3) LINKEDIN
I LOVE LinkedIn. I have the most fun talking to people on this platform. People are there to explicitly network and to learn more. Use that to market your voice skill. Join groups on LinkedIn. Make sure you send status updates through LinkedIn. I’ve found that LinkedIn shares my messages at a higher depth percentage to my connections than any other platform by far. I also get the most people who truly want to play with my voice skills and projects. It’s a fun community, and it doesn’t feel smarmy if you do it right.
Feel free to follow me on LinkedIn, and you’ll see how I market to my LinkedIn audience in an authentic, credible way.
4) COLLABORATIONS
Some people don’t know this about me, but I was one of the original Google Video employees, and was part of the team that acquired YouTube. I worked on some of YouTube’s earliest partnerships, monetization work, and new initiatives. And what I learned at YouTube was that one of the most powerful ways to promote your video work was for influencers to appear on each others videos. It ended up being called “collabs”. You appear on my video, and I will appear on your video– and we all share audience. This is an awesome strategy for voice skills and podcasts too. Find similar voice skills and podcasts, and offer to swap appearances. With a voice skill, offer to cross promote on each other’s email list. I also believe Amazon Alexa will continue to make it easier and easier for developers and influencers to promote their Alexa skill, so we’ll have to keep a close eye on new developments as they progress.
(Want to COLLAB with me? Let me know here.)
5) GUERILLA MARKETING
Marketing is a full contact sport. Consider using unlikely tactics to get attention. The best marketers I know find ways to get attention from large numbers of people quickly and often for free. It may be that you create a giant 10 foot plaster of paris ear replica, and march it down the street in your city. Maybe you alert your local media that a dangerous Amazon alexa developer has made a skill so addictive that young people are laying down in parking lots unable to move (and then you hire the young people). These type of tactics work, and they work because we all crave new experiences and new stories. Nobody is marketing like this right now with Alexa and it’s a giant opportunity.
I’m going to be going into depth on all of these topics in the weeks to come. Make sure you keep checking back and let me know when you want more detail. I’ll be doing video walkthroughs in May 2018– can’t wait!
I want to know about your progress! so if you have questions, just EMAIL me, or talk with me on Facebook, and let me know. Let’s win together!!
