[00:00:00.090] – Stephanie Feger
Now, as an entrepreneur contemplates growing their business, I actually have a few ideas on how they could leverage a Capsule Podcast to help them do it. So let me take a minute and walk you through some of these. So, the first one I've talked about before is utilizing a podcast as a tool to help you, the author, take the learning off of the page and into the life of your reader.
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 impactful 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.
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 Podcast as my guest this season, and together we're talking all things podcasts. Capsule Podcasts, that is.
Hey Betsy, we're back. We are over halfway through of the Capsule Podcast season on The emPowered Author Podcast. 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.
[00:03:24.040] – 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, 15-20 minutes each, stand alone miniseries that integrates and is holistically aligned with your marketing plan. So, you're going to take six episodes and you can use the medium without having to start this kind of never-ending weekly show.
[00:03:50.600] – Stephanie Feger
I love it. And let's be real and let me share with you, the reason that I'm even hosting a podcast now is because your capsule podcast strategy felt so realistic to me. Finally, something I've always wanted to do. And now I have a very, very focused approach to how this integrates into my overall business strategy. Love it. Love you.
[00:04:14.210] – Stephanie Feger
So pumped that we get to do this collaboration and we have the opportunity to help many other authors and authorpreneurs. And that happens to be the topic of today's episode, the authorpreneur. So, we've been talking to authors in previous episodes, and those are people who are typically about to launch a book. Specifically, maybe they've already launched and we're looking to relaunch a book. But today we're making a shift. We're making a shift over to what I like to call the authorpreneur out there. Have you ever heard of that word, Betsy? Or were you like, Stephanie, where did that come from?
[00:04:49.450] – Betsy Wallace
I'm learning so many new things from you. Like, I didn't know about the internal book launch, and I did not know the authorpreneur. But as soon as you said it and talked about it, I thought, oh, yeah, I love, as we talked about before, nonfiction business books. And quite a few of those authors are definitely entrepreneurs. And I love it when people do that because I want to consume all their stuff and like, yes, give me more of what you are doing.
[00:05:14.620] – Stephanie Feger
Absolutely. I'll tell you, I had no intention or even knew what an authorpreneur was until I accidentally became one myself. The reality is that when I decided to publish my book and began the journey of publishing, I really thought that the end result of that whole experience would be a book, something people could touch and hold and feel and read and experience, but I never thought of what could come after. And quite frankly, I could never have planned that. In particular, when my book released, when it came out, when it entered into the world, which included, Betsy, a wave of emotion, to be completely honest, that was a big deal. The floodgates opened. And I say the floodgates, the tears. I remember the day it came out. The tear floodgates opened, but also new opportunities opened within as well. Things I had never really thought of. I knew that I wanted to spread my book's message. I knew that the message within my book had power to emPower other people, but I never expected it to take me here where I actually had the opportunity and the challenge to learn how to start a new business, how to run it and how to be strategic on how that aligns with my book's message and my overall life message.
Now that really wasn't something that I went to school for. It's like podcasting, right? Like many things that we're doing now we might not have gone to school for, but that doesn't mean it's not something that we have the opportunity to embrace.
[00:06:45.890] – Betsy Wallace
Yeah, it's funny because as we both know, times are changing, industries are changing, marketing is changing and as much as we can do to embrace that change and move forward with it, it feels exciting instead of feeling like something you're dreading.
Like if you can get excited about the opportunities that are ahead and just that forward momentum, I think that's really like a mindset shift that as soon as I was like, you know what, let's just keep going with this. This is new and exciting and opportunities are out there. Just kind of embrace some of that willingness to change.
[00:07:26.590] – Stephanie Feger
Yes. And I have to say, when you mentioned mindset, oh my gosh, I probably need to do a whole season on mindset for authors because there are so many mindset issues and hurdles to work through. But I think for the authorpreneur specifically, there is that shift in mindset that hey, I really love to write but I also don't want to leave opportunities on the table. You might not have gone to school for how to create a business, but you know how to write, you know how to share a message in a beautiful way and now you're charged with looking at that through a whole different lens. That's the lens of what I call the authorpreneur experience.
I have a signature program, it's actually called The emPowered Authorpreneur and it's meant to help authors in this space specifically. Together we navigate this unknown with confidence and ease. But today I want to talk about a specific tool that should be a part of the overall authorpreneur toolkit and you guessed it, it's a capsule podcast. I love these capsule podcasts, love everything about them.
So Betsy, we've talked about how a capsule podcast can be utilized effectively in both internal and external book launches. But in this episode, we're really making that shift to the business side of being an author. And let me tell you, from figuring out how to take credit cards to paying sales tax and everywhere in between, it is a business. And I bet that you see a lot of authorpreneurs out there who utilize a capsule podcast to help them grow their business, don't you?
[00:08:58.330] – Betsy Wallace
One of the great things that we have talked about is that you think about it in this structure, which is six episodes, 15 minutes each. So they're not like an hour long and you can kind of align that structure with whatever phase of business you're in or whatever project you are trying to have a marketing strategy around at the moment. And so we do, I'm doing some work right now with business coaches too. So they are having a capsule podcast around their key fundamental principles of how they teach and a lot of them are authors too. So you have these sort of different strategies that align with different parts of your journey as an author or a coach or a speaker. And you can think about the capsule podcast as sort of a compartment to put this information in that aligns with what you're doing right now to deepen that strategy and help move the needle.
[00:10:01.370] – Stephanie Feger
I love that. I absolutely love it. And again, it reiterates something that we talked about on episode one in this season, that your podcast, a capsule podcast or not, should be a tactic to an overarching marketing strategy. Let me say that again, it is a tactic to an overarching marketing strategy. Whether you are an entrepreneur of any kind or an authorpreneur, you really want to use it as a part of an overarching strategic approach that you have an overarching plan to help you meet a specific need. Now as an authorpreneur contemplates growing their business, I actually have a few ideas on how they could leverage a capsule podcast to help them do it. So let me take a minute and walk you through some of these.
So the first one I've talked about before is utilizing a podcast as a tool to help you, the author, take the learning off of the page and into the life of your reader. An innovative way to do that is to actually create an experience for your reader outside of the book. So I coach authors on how to create online courses and programs that really align and stem from their books' content but are built in a way that invites the reader back in.
Maybe a course takes readers on a journey with what I like to call on a trip to find an Easter egg. Right? These are those little unexpected tidbits of information that they learn along the way that maybe they wouldn't get in the book but they feel extra special and become super fans from it. A capsule podcast could be integrated into the online course as a resource that could allow those to then opt into the program and those who do opt into the program that they will get access to. So in essence, you can record and produce a capsule podcast and never launch it on a podcast platform but go this route instead. It's actually launched within your course. Betsy, is that correct?
[00:11:56.820] – Betsy Wallace
Yeah, we are seeing a lot of really interesting ways people are using podcasts right now. So a podcast within a course is a really interesting thing because again, we talked about this screen fatigue and some people are wanting to consume information in different ways. So it allows your people in your course to get off their screen and get that information in a way that's through their earbuds while they're driving, while they're doing something else.
[00:12:24.430] – Stephanie Feger
Another way an authorpreneur can actually utilize a capsule podcast is use it as a value add to an innovative book marketing strategy or strategies. And I really like to talk about the strategy of using a subscription box. I love subscription boxes. And Betsy actually shared a little bit earlier in a previous podcast about how someone she knows, one of her clients who is in the cooking industry, does a subscription box with cookbooks and has utilized a capsule podcast to help bring that to life. It's beautiful, it's exciting, and it's something that really you should be considering. I also encourage authors to really do some research when I work one-on-one with them to figure out how could a subscription box be a part of your overall strategy. And I don't mean you create the subscription box, you could reach out to somebody to see if your book could be a part of theirs. Now imagine if a company that utilizes subscription boxes absolutely loves that opportunity, but then you added, guess what? A postcard in the book when they open up the subscription box and that postcard has a QR code where they can go and listen to six episodes only for them.
That's unique and fun and exciting and allows them the chance to learn a bit more about the message that maybe they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Maybe they get some behind the scenes information. Maybe they learn a little bit more about a reflection that they can do. Or you're challenging them with a seven day challenge that goes along with it. Something really unique and interesting. And even that last episode could be a lead magnet to help lead people to your opt in. We'll talk about that in episode six. But what a novel idea, right? It's really cool, really exciting, something different. The opportunities are really, truly endless and you might continue to go through and come up with new ideas. But I've got one more to share.
One of my favorite collaborations I've actually done over the years was with my local library. I love the library so much. Maybe it's a not because I'm an author. I find libraries to be so meaningful in my own life. And over the years, I've built a great relationship with mine. I've done speaking engagements, they're paid ones too, of all types. But consider what a capsule podcast could do with a collaboration like my library.
[00:14:59.190] – Stephanie Feger
Libraries are always looking for content to share, and content from a local author might be really enticing and exciting to them. Or what about using that same approach with a corporation you're hired to speak to a group about your books topic? Which is awesome. Fantastic, but how about utilizing a capsule podcast as a six-week post speaking engagement email drip that allows you to continue engagement from what was shared in the presentation and really keep the team focused on the message and implementing it into their own lives. We feel confident that that would be a bonus that any corporation would love and value.
[00:15:40.190] – Betsy Wallace
Stephanie, I love all of these great out of the box ideas, and this is exactly the kind of stuff that's going to set you apart and help you break through that noisy marketplace out there. I love, love all of the innovative, new, fresh ideas when it comes to podcasting. And I'm just so excited that you're embracing this concept and really pushing it to the next level.
[00:16:08.550] – Stephanie Feger
So I don't want people to think of a capsule podcast as only a podcast, especially not authors. In fact, a capsule podcast could never be put on a podcast platform and still help you recruit new, loyal followers, engage your current fans, and retain those who know you and love you already and are going to love you because of this experience. And capsule podcasts don't have to be a one and done experience. This concept of a six-episode season makes The emPowered Author Podcast easier for me to be able to invest my time into. It feels easier to tackle, but no worries, there will be more seasons and more ways that capsule podcasts and its approach will be utilized. Betsy, thank you so much for joining me on this episode. We've got two more to go in our capsule podcast season, and up next, we are talking opt ins and lead magnets and nurture campaigns. Are those words that are like a foreign language to you? They might be, but they're truly critical for any author to consider. So tune in. We can't wait to share, authorpreneurs. They are some of my most favorite people to work with because I know them, I get them, I am them.
[00:17:28.050] – Stephanie Feger
Many people who write books do so with the expectation of selling books, not building a business from them. But it happens, and those businesses can become extremely successful. While I have a whole signature program to support authorpreneurs, today's episode focused on one innovative way to help authorpreneurs stick out from their competition. And of course, we utilize capsule podcasts as the tool to do so.
Remember, think of a capsule podcast as a tactic to support your strategy for entrepreneurs. Reflect on your overarching strategies. Are you looking to recruit? Are you looking to engage? Are you looking to retain? Are you looking to grow? Are you looking to stabilize? Are you seeking an innovative way to capture value add content that you can repurpose? Every business should be utilizing a capsule podcast as a tool if you are an authorpreneur. Whether it helps you with ongoing engagement after a professional speaking event, a tool to utilize within an online course or another derivative offering, or even a resource for your strategic collaborators to use within their own organizations, never forget that a capsule podcast could be an answer to a strategy that you are unsure how to tackle.
[00:18:52.090] – Stephanie Feger
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. 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. Be sure to listen to the rest of the season's episodes as they are chockfull of innovative ways that a capsule podcast can emPower you. The next podcast within this season is perfect for those who might be looking for ways to involve some marketing lingo in their every day. We will be talking lead magnets. We will be talking opt-ins and email nurture sequences. Don't worry if you don't know what those mean quite yet. You will at the end of that episode and you will know how you can use a capsule podcast to make that happen. 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 is here to help.
I invite you to visit www.empowerprgroup.com/capsulepodcast for more information on how Betsy and myself can help you. From strategy to concept to podcast, we are ready to emPower you in the creation of your capsule podcast. Are you ready? Remember, emPowered people emPower people. I've emPowered you. Now it's your turn to emPower others.