1.3 Using a Podcast with an External Book Launch

[00:00:00.170] – Stephanie Feger
All right, now let's talk external book launch. So your external audience is kind of your scary one. Sometimes it's the one most people want to go after and they want to reach, but they're not your hot leads or your warm leads. Those are the people who already know, love you, and are willing to invest in you. Your external launch are typically those people who possibly you're going to have to do a little bit of sharing to make them realize the value of what you bring to the table. 

Hey, I'm Stephanie Feger, and emPower is my middle name. Well, not really, but it should be. I believe that emPowered people emPower people, and I'm obsessed with emPowering you, the nonfiction author, with emPactful marketing strategies to help you take your important message and share it with those who desperately need it, want it, and will buy it. I'm a gal whose life was changed by a dream, literally. And that dream pushed me to write my first book, the book that changed everything for me. That dream was the catalyst to help me capture a message I was passionate about, and in turn, it gifted me with the opportunity to merge my two loves: my skillset for marketing and PR and communications and my love for books, both writing them and marketing them.

As the owner and chief strategist of the emPower PR Group, I help nonfiction authors with laser focused strategy and tactics to help them write books that sell, promote their books to those who need and want them most, and build a meaningful business from a message that is emPowering. Think of this as your one stop shop for marketing insights from an author who has been there, done that, and understands exactly where you are. So, grab a warm beverage and a comfy blanket. Get your pens ready because I am ready to emPower you. This is The emPowered Author Podcast. 

Welcome to season one of The emPowered Author Podcast, and I can't think of a better topic for the season than, well, podcasts. As an author, you likely know how important getting on the podcast circuit is to keeping your book and your business front and center. Podcasts give you a great opportunity to reach new people in new ways. But this season isn't about being a guest on podcasts. It's about being the host instead. You may have the dream of starting a podcast one day, but before you do, give this season of The emPowered Author Podcast a listen.

[00:02:43.250] – Stephanie Feger
Hosting a podcast is a big undertaking, but when you lead with strategy, it could be a very effective tool for your book, your business, and your message. I am excited to have Betsy Wallace of Capsule Podcasts as my guest this season, and together, we're talking all things podcasts. Capsule Podcasts, that is. 

Hey, Betsy. Welcome back. We are continuing our conversation on Capsule Podcasts as a part of The emPowered Author Podcast season one. We've already given so much information and valuable insights and tips. This has been so much fun and I'm so thankful that you're part of this launch of my podcast. And I can't think of a better way to launch the podcast for authors, nonfiction authors, than to do it talking about podcasts. Your creative podcast approach really caught my eye as a unique and an innovative strategy for others. Specifically for those who might just be tuning in now who haven't listened to the previous podcasts, let's do a quick level set. Remind them, what is a capsule podcast?

[00:03:56.480] – Betsy Wallace
Thanks for having me again, Stephanie, and I'm really enjoying this series. I think it's great. And there's so much information that you're packing in here. So a capsule podcast is a six episode, 15 ish, 20 ish minutes each, stand alone mini-series that integrates and is holistically aligned with your marketing plan. So, you're going to take six episodes and figure out if it's in your launch strategy or if it's supporting whatever your goal is for your book marketing. Six episodes, 15 minutes each, and it will be aligned precisely and strategically with everything else that you're doing. So, you're not creating a podcast over here and all the rest of your marketing stuff is down here. We're getting those six episodes that fit just like a puzzle piece into your overall strategy.

[00:04:43.230] – Stephanie Feger
I love that. And one of my mottos with the emPower PR group, which is the business that I own and I'm the chief strategist with is this...I don't believe in movement without strategy, truly. So, the movement of creating a podcast without strategy is not something I would ever encourage any author to do. However, if you have a strategy that is focused on recruitment, engagement, retention, specifics around income, and you utilize a podcast as a specific deliverable to help ensure that that strategy is reached, well, that right there is gold. And that is where I think a capsule podcast can come in. What do I love about what you do? Well, there's a lot of things I love about what you do, but one thing in particular is I love that not only is your business called a capsule podcast, but when I think of the approach that you bring to what a podcast could look like, I think of it in this capsule concept, like a time capsule, almost. And it helps me feel like a podcast might be a bit more achievable, a bit more realistic, a bit more affordable, and a better investment of my time.

[00:05:57.780] – Stephanie Feger
And so if I'm thinking that, then I know my authors are likely going to be thinking that too. 

So this episode we are going to focus on, we're going to continue actually, our conversation on book launches in episode two. We spoke a lot about the internal book launch, which might have been something that many authors had never considered even doing in their book launch process. Many of them, probably when they think of a book launch, they're thinking of the external launch, which is what we're going to dive into today and really discuss how could a capsule podcast be a part of your larger, overarching external launch approach. So just a quick recap before we go too deep. I'd like to say there's two types of launches and really two more. There's the soft launch, which is typically connected with an internal launch. And then there's that hard launch, which is typically connected with an external launch. Today we're focusing on the external launch. Think about your book and your business as like a product or service or something you're trying to launch out into the community. You have that internal audience that knows you, loves you, supports you, and then you have a group of people that could really benefit from what you bring to the table, but they don't know you yet.

[00:07:12.280] – Stephanie Feger
They don't know that they need to know you. And that is where this external launch concept comes in. And using a capsule podcast to do that might actually help you stand out amongst the crowd. 

Now, Betsy, before we get started in going into all of the depths and some examples of an external launch, I feel like we have to talk about this dreaded topic that many people, when they think about marketing, want to run away from, and that is this topic of target audience. Yes, I know. If you've ever worked with anyone in the marketing industry, communications, PR or marketing, they're going to quickly ask you, first and foremost, do you know who your target audience is? But you might not. Betsy and I just actually, right before recording today, we actually talked a little bit about how her business has already been really niched down. And when we say niche, we're talking about understanding who your target audience is and ensuring that you are reaching them in a very unapologetic way. So, Betsy, I'm interested, I've always been interested in how your business evolved because you were a podcaster and you are a podcaster and your podcast has a very focused target audience.

I would love for you to share a little bit with us on how your podcast has a target audience and how you reach them.

[00:08:34.160] – Betsy Wallace
So you are right, a target audience is both very important and can be this sort of overwhelming buzzword if you are not in marketing. Sometimes it feels like a hard thing to get a handle on. So for our Dinner Sisters podcast, this is my weekly show that I do with my sister, our target audience is beginner, intermediate cooks who are looking for new recipes and who love to talk about cooking. So that's who we speak to every week, who we are really looking for. For the capsule podcast, this was really funny, Stephanie, because when you and I connected on LinkedIn, I had put together a package saying, I want to do podcasts that are promotional. They're for launches, they're for pop ups, they're six episodes long. This is a really distinct structure, and it's not for everyone because some people want a weekly show, some people want an interview style dropping twice a week type of thing. And that's not what we're doing. We're doing only six episodes, and it needs to tie exactly to a marketing strategy. It should be promoting a launch or a product or something that's already existing out in the world.

[00:09:41.770] - Betsy Wallace
And you reached out and said, I saw launch and it spoke to me. This really spoke to me. This is exactly what I need. And we were able to have a really productive conversation from that because it was so crystal clear on both of our ends who we were serving and what we did. So that really helped us kind of get right into the meat of the conversation.

[00:10:07.010] – Stephanie Feger
Absolutely. And I think when you look at your book authors out there, you think about who could benefit most from your book's message, especially nonfiction books, whether that is a cookbook, a business book, a memoir, anything in between. You want to make sure you know precisely who is going to benefit most from it, and you are unapologetic on how you're going to reach them. I like to say to many people, if you try to reach everyone, you're likely going to reach no one. Most authors that I work with, when they come to me, I like to ask them, who do you think your target audience is? And many of them, my favorites are when they say, oh, you know, anyone could really benefit from my book. Yeah, well, they could just like my book. I know many people could. But if I don't focus on who I think really could benefit most, I will never reach the people who will actually invest in my book. It's very important as you start to think about how a podcast can be a part of your external book launch that you have crystal clarity on who your book's target audience is because that will help you figure out who in the world is going to listen to your podcast.

[00:11:18.850] – Stephanie Feger
So I want you to figure that out, and then I want you to ask yourself what will actually motivate those who listen to your podcast to take action from it? 

All right, now let's talk external book launch. So, your external audience is kind of your scary one. Sometimes it's the one most people want to go after and they want to reach, but they are what I call your cold leads. They're not your hot leads or your warm leads. Those are the people who already know, love you and are willing to invest in you. Your external launch are typically those people who possibly you're going to have to do a little bit of sharing to make them realize the value of what you bring to the table. I think you could probably use a capsule podcast to provide your internal book launch team with the information that they need to help you with an external launch. So remember, in episode two, we talked about the internal launch and who's on your internal launch team. Remember, those people know, love you, believe you, support you, want to do anything possible to help you achieve success. Well, what if you were to use a capsule podcast to help them promote you?

[00:12:27.310] – Stepanie Feger
What if you used six episodes to help them have content to be able to share on social, to be able to talk about you in a very authentic and beautiful way? Maybe it's you giving them a glimpse of the insights in your book. You pick a chapter or a piece of a chapter that you read. Maybe it's you telling a little bit more about why you wrote your book or how people could actually collaborate with you. An external audience might find that very interesting. And when you're emPowering an internal group to do that for you, well, let me tell you this...people nowadays don't just buy something or invest in something that someone doesn't recommend. And that's typically accurate in regard to the book industry. So if you have people who know and love you talking about you in a way that's easy for them to go ahead and share it and allow others to share it, you're capitalizing on this word of mouth marketing.

[00:13:19.470] – Betsy Wallace
One really great way I've seen this successfully used is a popular podcaster. Lewis Howes has this kind of inspirational podcast, right? And at the end of each of his shows, he will say, do you know someone who could really benefit from hearing this message? So if you have a nonfiction book and it's got some advice or takeaway, he'll always say, text this to someone. Text this episode to someone who you think needs to hear this message today. Can you send us in? His prompt and his call to action at the end of each of his episodes is to send a text message because you can text a podcast through the Apple platform and through Spotify and Stitcher. And I think that's such a clever way to expand your reach in a really organic way and builds that word of mouth referral, just cue people to text your podcast to a friend or a colleague who might also want to hear this message. So there's a lot of ways that you can use it really strategically and that's baked into every episode. So they text it and the next person is going to hear, hey, text this to someone who you think might need to hear this message and that can just keep jumping and jumping.

[00:14:34.230] – Stephanie Feger
Oh, I love that idea. I love it. Yes. So the more that you provide people with insights on how you want them to take action, the better. And allowing your internal launch team the opportunity to take that information and to share it on your behalf is just, I don't know, we'll call it brilliant. Betsy, all right, so another idea for the external launch would be, what if you used a capsule podcast as a way for you to develop upon the messages that are baked within your book and encourage people to incorporate your book into things outside of their lives. I like to call this a strategy to help you help them lift the words and the messages from the page and invite them into their everyday, especially for nonfiction books. Lots of people like to get together and do masterminds or book clubs. It would be really interesting if you were to include on your website not only some insights on how they could leverage your book to kind of pull together a group of like-minded individuals, but then you were to offer a six-episode capsule podcast series that allows them to invite you to be a part of their book club or their mastermind discussion.

[00:15:51.320] – Stephanie Feger
So maybe you have some really cool questions or thought-provoking topics that you could include. And then you encourage them, should they pull together their group virtually or in person, they can actually use that podcast episode. And there could be, again, a series of six episodes that leads and guides that discussion. Oh, my gosh, I think that's awesome. And you know what? You could even take it a step further. And if your book isn't quite out yet, you could incorporate a QR code into the different chapters where you feel like you have some really great thought-provoking questions that someone could scan immediately. Go to the podcast episode that aligns with it, and they then can not only hear you, but feel like you are a part of that experience as well. Love that. Feel like that's super innovative. And I think one other idea that I have for you to consider today is also that your capsule podcast can be a great tool to help you secure speaking engagements, media interviews, and even other podcasts. We'll talk more about that in the future. But many times, people who are willing to pay you to come talk about your message, they want to know what they're going to get. They want a little glimpse. I call that the taster bite over here. They want a taster to see if that's something that's going to align with their values, their mission, their specific needs. So if you have a six episode capsule podcast in your repertoire, on your speakers page, on your website or wherever, you can give them that chance to hear you, to see you, to understand the message you're going to bring and allow them to figure out if it's going to be a great fit. Betsy, what do you think about all of those? Like, I want to go relaunch my book now.

[00:17:33.510] – Betsy Wallace
I know. I love it because I am actually a nonfiction business book person. I could read them all day long, seven days a week. I have got to hold myself back on that. And I was just thinking too, oh my gosh, if I had an author who I loved their book, I'm already in a few of these kind of mastermind groups that we get together and we talk about books that we're reading and podcasts we're listening to. If we could be like, hey, let's structure a couple of sessions this author has provided, we can read their book and then they will walk us through some questions to get us started on a really productive conversation. Holy cow. That would be a life changer for me because we're all kind of looking for how do we format these sort of small groups, whether they're book clubs or masterminds or different things. And I think I don't know if you have the same experience, but one of the things we run into is like, how do we effectively format this so we're all getting a lot out of this time together. And if an author is helping me do that with their expertise and their questions and allowing us to dig deeper into their content, I would say sign me up. I love that idea.

[00:18:50.810] – Stephanie Feger
So the fact that you just said sign me up, oh my gosh, wouldn't any nonfiction author want to hear from a reader that they're like, sign me up? Anything that you give you want, I'm in. Right? I think that is exciting to hear from your perspective. But as an author myself, it gets me excited because here's the other thing to keep in mind. Time is limited. You can't go to every book club or mastermind. You won't be able to speak to every group that could possibly benefit from the message that you are going to bring to the table. That doesn't mean, though, that you can't speak to them. If you happen to do a capsule podcast, I love it because you're right, Betsy, what is happening in that experience is you're giving a value add. And I will say in the emPowered PR group, another motto of ours is don't give up, don't give in, don't give way, give value. When you give value, first and foremost, people will love you. They want to follow you, they want to be a part of you and they'll want to invest in you. They'll want to invest in your product, your service, and any other derivative work that goes along with it.

[00:19:56.780] – Stephanie Feger
And I really think that a capsule podcast as a tool in your marketing arsenal allows you the opportunity to be seen and heard and build that relationship in a way that's extremely meaningful. Let's be real. External launches are going out to cold audiences. So anything you can do to help make that cold lead into a warm or hot lead is something that I highly consider when I work one-on-one with authors, nonfiction authors, on their launch plans. I really challenge them to reflect on who their target audience is and get crystal clear there. Become unapologetic about who you are and how you're going to reach them. I think that you can utilize a capsule podcast as a smart tool in an external launch in a couple of ways. You can help a cold audience feel like they know you. And here's the deal. We're in a relational world that wants to be connected, yet connection looks very different today than it used to. We want to know people before we buy them, and this gives you the chance to do that. It can also help you book business. It just might be the deciding factor to help you secure that next speaking gig.

[00:21:07.950] – Stephanie Feger
It can help you give your book legs and allow it to run instead of writing a workbook. Although I am really excited and love companion workbooks as a companion piece to your book, you might want to do a capsule podcast instead. It's definitely a lower cost, a less risk opportunity to consider. I think capsule podcasts have so much potential to an external launch. Whether you're launching a new book or you're about to relaunch a current book, a capsule podcast is smart. It's cost effective, it's purposeful, it can be strategic. It's something I really encourage you to consider. Betsy, this episode was fun, just like all of the others. We have three more to go, and next up, we're going to be speaking to the authorpreneurs out there. You don't know what an authorpreneur is? Well, don't worry. Tune in to find out. 

When most people think about a book launch, they think about an external book launch. That hard launch that they do to the masses. Many people who write books that they love feel like their message could empower everyone. But let me share with you this. Out of the 7 billion people in the world, if 5% of 5% of those people, which is, I don't know if my math is right, around 17 million people, if that percentage bought your book or your service, you would be rocking it.

[00:22:31.810] – Stephanie Feger
But honestly, you even need a fraction of that to achieve the success that you're seeking. Trying to reach everyone will likely mean you will reach no one. Before considering an external launch, reflect on your target audience and niche, niche, niche. An external launch is always exciting but think about how exciting it could be with a capsule podcast as a companion. You could use it as a tool to help your internal launch team externally promote your book. You could use it as a taste tester for media outlets or companies seeking speakers to get a glimpse of you and your message. And you could even use it to help people lift the book's messages from the page and invite them into their lives. Have you wanted to start a podcast but wasn't sure how to or better question why to? A capsule podcast may be the perfect solution to help you accomplish your specific and measurable goals. Now, I am not a fan of movement without strategy, so I caution you to be deliberate about how a podcast can help you take your important message and share it with those who desperately need it, want it, and will buy it.

[00:23:43.080] – Stephanie Feger
Be sure to listen to the rest of this season's episodes as they are chock full of innovative ways that a capsule podcast can emPower you. The next podcast within this season is perfect for the authorpreneurs out there. Those are the people who realize that their book has uncovered a business, a business that they are now embarking upon. If you are a nonfiction author who is interested in utilizing a capsule podcast as a tactic to support a meaningful marketing strategy for your book or your business, the emPower PR Group can help. I invite you to visit https://empowerprgroup.com/capsulepodcast for more information on how Betsy and myself can help you. From the strategy to concept to podcast, we are ready to emPower you in the creation of your capsule podcast. And remember, emPowered people emPower people. I've emPowered you. It's your turn to emPower others.