The Helpful Podcaster

By Mark Steadman

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Subscribers: 2
Reviews: 0
Episodes: 34

Description

After trying every short-term trick and tactic to grow his audience, podcast veteran Mark Steadman realised that serving listeners with generosity and consistency is the only way to succeed. Mark works with best-selling authors, TED speakers, TV personalities, impact entrepreneurs, and coaches to help them grow and monetise their podcasts. You are a Helpful Podcaster. You’re a seasoned, soulful entrepreneur who wants to turn your insights into content fans look forward to, and new listeners can't wait to binge. By leading with your expertise, being consistent and showing authenticity, you’ll build trust with your audience and get paid to do the work you love. Mark is here to help you on that journey.

Episode Date
Using Email to Grow and Connect with Your Audience
1786

When you’re looking around for new listeners, how much time do you spend thinking about the people who are already in contact with you? Today we’re going to look at how we can grow your podcast audience via your mailing list, what to do if you don’t have a big list, and how to use email to deepen the relationship with the listener once they’re following the show.


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Jun 04, 2023
Get Better Audio Quality From Your Zoom Podcast Recordings
467

Remote recording tools like SquadCast and Riverside are great. But if you can't afford another subscription, you might be surprised at what you can do with Zoom.


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May 28, 2023
What Transformation Are You Promising Your Listeners?
470

Your podcast is like a rope bridge connecting two islands. On one end is confusion, and on the other: clarity.


Each episode is a wooden plank that forms part of that bridge. People will listen to your podcast if you can be clear on the transformation you’re offering, but when we’re busy shipping regular episodes, we can lose sight of that island of clarity.


Let’s work on describing your show to your next listener, so they know exactly how it’s going to help them cross the bridge, and get the transformation they need.


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May 21, 2023
Stop Trying to Design Your Own Podcast Artwork
919

Your artwork is the first thing new listeners see, and if they like what they hear, it’ll take up permanent residence on their phones. Getting stand-out artwork for your show might not be as expensive or fraught a process as you think, and it could mean the difference between someone hitting Play, and scrolling straight past.


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May 14, 2023
Save Time and Stress by Streamlining Your Podcast Workflow
646

It’s Monday, 9pm. You’ve had a long day, and all you want to do is watch the Bake Off and eat M&Ms. But tomorrow’s the day you release your next podcast episode, and you haven’t recorded anything! Sound familiar?


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May 07, 2023
One Small Tweak Will Bring Your Listener Closer to You
577

There are three elements of trust: positive relationships, expertise, and consistency. We can show up each week and share our knowledge and insight, but I hear so many podcasters hold their listener at arm’s length, and most of them don’t know they’re doing it. The good news is there’s a really simple fix.

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Apr 30, 2023
Stop Interviewing People on Your Podcast – Do This Instead
594

There are three ways to stand out: be new, be better, or be louder. Being better takes time and is subjective. Being louder just means spending more money on marketing than the next person. Being new doesn’t mean starting from episode one – it could just be about being the first to do something differently.

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Apr 23, 2023
Three Formulas for an Unforgettable Podcast Name
701

Your audience will see your podcast name before they hear a word from you. Whether you’re starting a new show or considering a rebrand, could your name mean the difference between showing up first in podcast search results, or not showing up at all?


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Apr 16, 2023
The Single Sentence at the Heart of Your Podcast Strategy
665

What if a single sentence could help you galvanise your team, book the perfect guest, and give you a mile-long head start in branding your podcast?


Resources


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Apr 09, 2023
Creating Your Listener Persona: The First Step to Growing Your Podcast
611

The biggest problem podcasters face is getting more listeners. But the first question we have to ask is “who is listener #1?” Who is going to love what you do, recommend it to their friends, and stick around for the call-to-action? Let’s find out. This is the Helpful Podcaster.


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Apr 02, 2023
How to Keep Your Podcast Afloat in Tough Economic Times
1040

Everything costs a million pounds right now. We’re all tightening our belts, working hard, and feeling the pinch. If your podcast isn’t making you money right now, it might feel like a luxury you can ill afford.

But today I want to show you why recommitting, and reinvesting your time and energy into your podcast could be the best thing you do for your business in 2023. And it needn’t cost you any money… in fact, it might save you some.


Key points

  • Make your podcast the value centre of your business.
  • Everything you do should be in service of one problem or question that your listener is dealing with.
  • Specificity is key.
  • Your podcast is your most valuable asset because it's at the intersection between utility and personality.

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Mar 26, 2023
Introducing The Helpful Podcaster
111

The Podcast Owner's Manual has rebranded, and is now The Helpful Podcaster.

Register now for my free, invite-only Helpful Podcasters community.

If you were already subscribed to the Podcast Owner's Manual, there's nothing you need to do, and new episodes will arrive as usual every Monday.

But if you're new to this show, you can follow The Helpful Podcaster in your app now.

Mar 24, 2023
How to Get More People to Share Your Next Podcast Episode
950

It feels good to pass on valuable advice, to change someone’s mind, or to spread an emotion, whether it’s unfettered joy or spine-tingling terror. We don’t share things because we like them – we share them because of what they say about us.


So for those of us on a mission to make helpful podcasts, how can we speed up the spread?


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Mar 20, 2023
The Three-Act Structure for Creating Podcast Interviews That Keep Listeners Coming Back
1385

It's easy to fall into the trap of making our interviews all about the guest. Sure it means we get to tick the box that says “I showed up today”. But what value are we really creating for our listener?


In this episode, I'm going to show you how you can make your guests feel like a hero while helping your listener overcome a difficult challenge. The more helpful we are to our listener, the more they trust us. The more they trust us, the more they'll want to work with us, buy our products, and join our communities.


Key points

  • Structure your podcast interviews around a central question or problem that your listeners are facing.
  • Use a condensed version of the Hero's Journey to structure the interview into three parts:
    • the guest, and how they discovered the answer to the listener’s problem
    • the problem itself, going into more detail or discussing the challenges
    • the listener: how they can apply what the guest has learned, to solve their problem
Mar 13, 2023
Putting the Listener First: A Guide to Making a Helpful Podcast
2091

Is your podcast helping? More to the point. Who is it helping? Today we're gonna dig into the ingredients behind a helpful podcast so that you can build stronger, longer lasting relationships with the people you want to work with.


The main tenets of the Helpful Podcast are:

  • They put the listener first
  • Each episode a central question
  • They provide great show notes
  • They form a body of work

Links

Mar 06, 2023
Unlocking the potential of your podcast's past: three strategies for leveraging your back catalogue
1160

We’re service-orientated podcasters with a body of work behind us. We’re often so focused on the next episode that we don’t take time to look after our back catalogue. Let’s fix that right now, with three ways you can leverage your existing archive.


Links

Feb 27, 2023
The New AI Tool That Makes Writing Show Notes Infinitely Easier
782

This groundbreaking AI tool makes writing show notes simpler and more effective, by providing a concise summary of the transcript with the most crucial information at the top. Plus, it adds valuable context and detail, which makes editing and creating show notes a breeze. It can remove the toughest elements of writing show notes, automatically generating summaries and context to make sure the information is accurate.

Feb 20, 2023
Using Your Podcast to Raise Awareness and Funds for Humanitarian Crises
1665

Podcasting is a powerful way to increase awareness and raise funds in the wake of a humanitarian crisis. We have a megaphone in our hands – do we have a responsibility to use it, and if so, what’s the best way?


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Feb 13, 2023
How to Make Your Listeners Fall in Love with You
2304

Our job as creators is to help our listeners fall in love with us. Here are three guiding principles to help explain what this means, and how we can do it.


Links

Feb 06, 2023
Exploring the Bland Side of AI-Generated Podcast Content
3182

AI has been heralded as our salvation and our damnation. Chatbots can save us time by creating reams of seemingly sensible text, but when everyone has access to it, aren’t we just creating a race to the middle? I don’t think there’s a simple right answer, so let’s have a play and see what happens.


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Jan 30, 2023
High-Income Podcasters' Marketing Strategies Revealed in 2023
2583

Where do we listen to podcasts? How are we promoting them, and what are our thoughts for the future of podcasting?


Links

Jan 23, 2023
How to Safely and Efficiently Move Your Podcast to a New Host
1574

Moving media hosts can feel like a scary and complex endeavour that it's easy to get wrong. Let's see if we can make that process a little less scary.

Links

Jan 16, 2023
Simplify Your Podcasting with These 9 Useful Techniques
2149

Podcasts often fizzle out, or fail to get started entirely, because the process of putting out regular episodes just feels too hard. Here are 9 ways to bring ease into your podcasting workflow.

Links

Nov 10, 2022
Making Podcast Guest Management Easier with Automation
1933

Wrangling guests for a weekly podcast can be a bureaucratic nightmare. Tools like Calendly, Zapier, and Notion can help keep track of multiple guests, but among all the automation it’s crucial to remember the humans reading the emails.


Links

Nov 04, 2022
Putting One Episode in Front of the Other: Building Habits for a Successful Podcast
1275

What separates podcasts that get 20,000 downloads per episode from the ones that get 20 downloads per episode? Well, it can’t be the goal, because if it was, we’d all be in Apple’s top 100. What if, instead, it was just about putting one episode in front of the other?

Links

Oct 26, 2022
Why Twitter's Podcast Feature May Not Be Good for Podcasters
1115

After Facebook abandoned its attempt, Twitter is the latest to try integrating podcasts into their app. But they’re making some crucial mistakes that prove that really, social media wants nothing to do with podcasting. So if that’s the case, what can we do about it?


What is the excitement around Twitter’s “Podcasts” tab? What’s the plan, and how does it affect leaders using audio to build trust and strengthen relationships? Also, why do social media and podcasting have such a fraught relationship?


Links

Oct 06, 2022
Riverside vs SquadCast: Which is the Better Remote Recording Tool?
1181

Riverside and SquadCast have been close competitors in the remote recording space. But with SquadCast having shipped a recent apology update, which is the service to use?

Sep 29, 2022
Captivate vs Transistor: The Battle for Dynamic Content Insertion
1189

Captivate rolled out a big update to their dynamic content platform this week. Transistor is still my favourite, but they’ve just lost a bit of ground. If you want to mix timely messaging in with your evergreen content, you have two great services to choose from, but only one of them gets my gold star.

In the wake of Captivate’s recent update, let’s look at what dynamic content, why it's useful, how Captivate are making it easier to manage, along with what host you should pick and why.

Sep 22, 2022
The Search for the Perfect Podcast Editor: How to Make the Right Choice
1536

Carrie has a lot of podcast episodes to edit, and very little energy to take on the task. She wanted to know how she should go about finding an editor who can help her lighten the load, so she can keep the creation process joyous.


Links

Apr 07, 2022
Finding Great Guests for Your Podcast
1789

Daniel Lynn wants to come out of the traps at a clip, releasing new episodes of his debate podcast three times a week. But with that many episodes needing to be recorded, where can you find a sustainable source of guests?


Links

Mar 31, 2022
The Art of Interviewing: Balancing Natural Flow and Valuable Content
1754

Nirish Shakya has conversations with guests about human-centred design, and wanted to talk to me about how we can make our conversations sound natural, but also engaging. And how do we let our guests do most of the talking?

Links

Mar 03, 2022
The Challenges of Growing a Podcast Without Friends and Family Support
1451

Roger and Nina are podcasting under pseudonyms while they wait for their kids to turn 18, so the challenge of growing their show feels even harder since they can’t rely on friends and family.

Links

Feb 23, 2022
Tips for Efficient and Effective Solo Episode Planning and Editing
1748

Michelle records a mix of solo episodes and guest interviews. She finds her solo episodes rewarding to provide to her listeners, but with deadlines comes a looming sense of dread to plan the next one.


Michelle makes multiple passes while editing her episodes, which starts to feel draining, so she and Mark discuss ways to keep that attention to detail without a loss in quality.


Links

Feb 13, 2022
Maximizing Your Time as a Busy Podcast Creator
1332

Gregory Anne transcribes her audio using Descript, and passes that off to an editor. She's curious whether it's worth publishing transcripts, given that she suspects few people will use them, but it's important for her to make them presentable and accurate.She records her show on Zoom and uploads some of the episodes to YouTube. She's heard conflicting advice about publishing full episodes (with and without video) to YouTube, so is coming to Mark for advice.


Links

Feb 05, 2022