Because of My Podcast: My Family Was Fed A Giant Meal Cale Nelson of Ham Radio 360 sent in a great story where a listener told him NOTt to make dinner the Thursday before Christmas. Then sent Cale a giant box of Barbecue. When you've got a houseful of kids, and your wife is happy because the food is excellent, and she didn't have to cook it - it's a big win. Check out Cale's show at HamRadio360.com Starting a Podcast Your Customer Wants To Hear Should your business have a podcast? Probably. It's a great way to get in front of your target audience no matter where they are. I was asked to be on a new podcast coming out today (my episode is in the future) and its from Tim Sinclair. You may or may not know that name, but I'll reveal who his is in a second. I just checked out his site and then it hit me. This is a great example of using a podcast for your business. Tim Sinclair is the CEO of Ringr . This is an app and service that allows you to record both sides of an interview. If you're worried about doing a "mix minus" then you may want to check out this service. Plans start at $7.99 a month for the basic, and $18.99 for the premium. For more information go to http://ringr.com/podcastcoach The people that use Tim's technology interview people and want a good recording. There are two ways to learn things. You can be shown how to do it right, or your can bring in those two famous trainers that seem to help everyone. You may know them as Trial and Error. They are not very efficient, but their lessons cut deep. You want your podcast to do one of these things Laugh Cry Think Groan Educate Entertain If you have your show do more than one of the above, you're headed in the right direction. So what Tim did is launch a podcast filled with fun, entertaining stories that can be educational as well. The podcast is called My Worst Interview Ever.  He has interviewed people like Cliff Ravenscraft, The Mobile Pro Shawn Smith, The App Guy Paul Kemp, XM Radio’s Doug Hannah, Blubrry’s Todd Cochrane, Libsyn’s Rob Walch, syndicated radio host Brant Hansen, Dave Jackson, Dan Franks, Jeff Brown, Daniel J. Lewis. The stories I understand are hilarious. The first episode is John Lee Dumas talking about his worst interview ( a rock icon famous for selling coffins). So when creating a podcast, one strategy is to create a podcast that your target audience wants to hear. Tim identified his audience and has come up with a fun and entertaining way to produce good content without making his show a giant infomercial. Remember, nobody tunes into an infomercial on purpose. The next thing I like is Tim is already in iTunes and Stitcher. He doesn't seem too worried about the magical happy place of New and Noteworthy and his first eight weeks. With content like this, I bet he'll get listed because he didn't name his show wtf this week in cold cases on fire. He also made sure  NOT to make it giant Ringr commercial. He does a quick mention in the middle. He understands the idea is to build an audience first. Check out his show at worstinterviews.com and check out his service at ringr.com A Not Great Example The Penzu podcast is meant to help promote their company (penzu.com which I love and use) Nobody is looking for "Penzu" that doesn't know then) so how is this supposed to bring in new people? They are using Soundcloud as their platform (who are leaking money). Switch to Libsyn.com and your back catalog comes for free during the first quarter of 2017, and get a free month using the coupon code sopfree  Their titles look awful.  There is no description.  They only have seven episodes (which is fine), but they have the podcast in their software (so their customers have had "episode 7 in their platform all year) Back to the Basics Of Your Website I recently did the "Favorite Podcast Ever" show where you sent in your favorite podcasts and explained why they were your favorite. I always then go to the website of those show and share that someone thinks you're the best. I am amazed at some of the things I find. Before we get into those, you do need to decide what your website is for. By this mean I mean if your podcast is to drive leads to your business, then you might have a giant sign up form. If you're trying to grow your community, you might really be sending people to your Facebook group. So in the end, there is no one size fits all. However, there are two things I hear over and over and over. I hear, "I want more downloads, and I want more interaction." When I go to the websites of these people, there are no links to subscribe to their show. There is no easy way to contact you. One person I had to tweet at (and their twitter account was waaaay at the bottom of their screen).  I had someone who was going to hire me to help him get more subscribers. I went to their website, and said you don't need to pay me for this, but there isn't a single subscriber button on your website.  Ready To Start Podcasting? Join the School of Podcasting or Schedule some One on One Consulting