34. Podcasting Clarity: Defining Your Audience and Message (POP: Freedom Before FI)

Do you struggle to get your target audience to listen to your show? It's a common struggle among podcasters. In today's episode, I chat with Greg, host of the Freedom Before FI podcast, and create a Podcast Optimization Plan (POP). We discuss content delivery, along with messaging and SEO strategy to attract his audience. Tune in to hear my tips for Greg and see which advice you can apply to your own show!

Listen to Freedom Before FI

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This episode was produced by me, The Podcast Teacher! Contact me at Hello@ThePodcastTeacher.com.

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Transcript

Julia Levine:
Hey. Hey. And welcome back. Today is the start of a new type of episode that I'll be incorporating occasionally on the show going forward. It's a podcast optimization plan. This is where I evaluate a current podcast at the host's request and identify a few specific changes to make in order to optimize the podcast's impact and potential. This idea of a podcast optimization plan came from my recent journey to become a certified podcast growth coach. I'm so close to being certified. I cannot wait to share the news when that happens. But our instructor encouraged us to do podcast audits, which is exactly the same thing, evaluating the podcast and identifying areas for improvement, except I feel like the word audit has a really negative connotation. It makes me think of a tax audit.

Julia Levine:
And no matter how meticulously accurate you are on your taxes, no 1 really wants to be audited. So I came up with the idea to call it a podcast optimization plan instead of a podcast audit. And then I also get to use a really fun acronym, POP. Let's create a podcast optimization plan to make your podcast pop. So much more fun than audit. Right? Anyway, so that's what this new style of episode is. If you'd like to chat with me about how we can make your podcast pop, you can schedule your own free call with me at the podcast teacher.com/pop. Today, I'm chatting with Greg about his brand new podcast, Freedom Before Fi, and you get to be a fly on the wall for the conversation.

Julia Levine:
As you listen to my analysis of Greg's cast and how he can optimize it, my hope is that you'll be able to take away some new insights for your own show. The first thing that I wanna say right off the bat is just that your show is great. Really great.

Greg:
Oh, alright. Okay.

Julia Levine:
This is my first 1 of these calls, and I, you know, have been studying about evaluating podcasts, giving people coaching on how to grow and whatnot. And so I pulled up your podcast and I listened to 4 different episodes. And I was like, what am I gonna what am I gonna tell them?

Greg:
Seriously. That's really funny because, I'm like I I'll I'll just tell you, like, a bit of a background. That's really funny. This what I'm like well, I find that really interesting is because I've done 0 marketing. Literally, I haven't done any anything. I, I was speaking to 1 of my friends, and I said, I'll just because this is more of like, a creative outlet that I'm experimenting with. And I said to them, we discussed and I said to him, why don't I just do, like, 10 episodes just to get a hang of it, see if I enjoy the process, see if I like it. If I do like it, I'll continue it, and then I could try marketing it.

Greg:
But that's why I haven't done any of the marketing because I'm like, the delivery sounds a bit weird. I sound too scripted. I was like, oh, that's really cringey. I I just cringe every time I listen to it. That's why that's why I just needed, like, an expert ear like yourself to to to to give some tips and guidance, really.

Julia Levine:
Yeah. Yeah. It it's totally normal for you to react that way to your own show. I react that way to my show. And it's it's completely, completely normal. But like I said, I I couldn't listen to everything, but I listened to 4 different episodes. I listened to the first 2 and then, I think it was the last 2 or close to the last 2. And it's so clear that you know your content and you have a lot of wisdom to share.

Julia Levine:
Your episodes are well structured. They're easy to follow. You have a nice mix of factual information, but also examples and personal stories in there. And I really like your episode length. They're pretty short and sweet to the point. I know that you seem to have some concerns about your speaking and delivery of it. And really, it's pretty darn good.

Greg:
Oh, right.

Julia Levine:
Yeah. So those first couple episodes, you know, they were I could tell you were a little stiff, maybe a little nervous in the beginning. As you've gone on, particularly those later episodes that I listened to, the inflection, the enthusiasm in your voice has really picked up as those later episodes, you know, that and that makes total sense. You know, you're getting more comfortable. You're getting, more natural at it. So just keep that up, and I think that will continue to evolve. I know you mentioned you are scripting. And as someone who scripts as well, you know, it can be hard to make it sound more natural and not as stiff and dry.

Julia Levine:
So, you know, my my tip there is just, you know, practicing the script, you know, a time or 2 before you record it for real. And then kind of imagining that you are on stage or you're in front of a group of friends or something like that, Not to get the nerves to kick in, but to be like, you know, when you're just talking 1 on 1 with someone, you're not naturally as, like, putting on your presenter persona as you would be if you're presenting to a group. And so really just taking that up a couple notches and and especially because they can't see you on a podcast. Your voice is the only thing expressing emotion, expressing enthusiasm, varying the conversation, you know, the the variety of speech. And so just kind of taking it up a couple notches has helped me personally. You know, I kind of sit down in front of the microphone and I put on my imaginary, like, speaker hat that I'm I'm up on stage. And so I I sit here and I try and talk with my hands as if I, like, I'm over exaggerating pretty much. And it feels silly to do that when you're by yourself alone in the studio.

Greg:
I don't know exactly what you mean.

Julia Levine:
But it comes through in the microphone, and it really helps. So I don't think you have a ton of work to do there. But since, you know, that was 1 point that you really mentioned being concerned about, you know, I thought I'd give you those couple tips.

Greg:
So do you think it's obvious that it might be scripted? That's why it needs a bit of work. Does it do you think people care or curious on your thoughts of I I think that's my main issue. I feel like it's scripted and, it doesn't engage it's not engaging at this point.

Julia Levine:
Okay. So let me flip the question around to you. Does it bother you that my show is scripted?

Greg:
No at all. No. Yeah. That's a good thing.

Julia Levine:
Because I'm giving you the information and that's the most important piece. Right?

Greg:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Julia Levine:
So if you were listening to a comedy show, obviously, you wouldn't want that to be scripted because you're listening for the purposes of entertainment.

Greg:
Yeah.

Julia Levine:
But if you're listening to learn something, something, you're listening for the information, it doesn't really matter so much how it is presented. Now, of course, you want to you don't wanna feel like you're learning from a robot. You know? You want to feel like you're there's a human talking to you in your ear. So that's where that little bit of inflection enthusiasm comes in and does play an important part. But I think it's totally fine to have it scripted as, you know, I do. And that that helps our delivery. Right? Like, it helps us stay on track. We're not rambling or losing our train of thought.

Greg:
Yeah.

Julia Levine:
And it helps us get the information across in a very clear and concise way, which is the whole goal. Right?

Greg:
Yeah. Exactly. And that saves a bit on editing as well, isn't

Julia Levine:
it? That too.

Greg:
Alright. So, yeah, as you as you said, just take it up a notch. Just just 1 quick 1 before we move off of that 1. How did you practice taking up a notch? Because I because, you you know, when you're the affections and things like that, because I even when I'm doing enough, I feel like I'm it's really exaggerated already. So I'm wondering how did you take it up that bit further in your in your perspective and experience.

Julia Levine:
So you may or may not know that I have a background as an elementary school teacher, and so I was the librarian. And so for 12 years, I read books out loud to children. Right. And so when you've got, you know, a room full of 5 year olds and you have to keep their attention. You get really good at, like, being dramatic and doing the voices and all of that stuff. So I had a lot of practice in that area. So yeah. So, again, I I don't think that your delivery is bad by any means.

Julia Levine:
I'd say you're probably at, you know, 85, 90% of what I would ideally want it to be. So you have just the tiniest bit of improvement to work on, growth to do there. And, you know, being introverts, we tend to be overthinkers. We tend to be perfectionists. And so I I hope that you're hearing me say you are really good at this, and there's just a tiny bit of improvement to get to that really top notch.

Greg:
Got it.

Julia Levine:
Yeah. And then I really love the personal anecdotes that you put in there, your own experiences. I know, at least for myself as an introvert, I kind of hesitate to put myself into the podcast.

Greg:
Oh my gosh. Definitely.

Julia Levine:
I hear from people all the time that that resonates with them the most. I should do more of that, but it's hard. And so in case it's hard for you too

Greg:
Yeah.

Julia Levine:
I'm gonna be the voice saying, that's good. Keep doing that.

Greg:
Oh, okay.

Julia Levine:
I loved how you told your personal story of being, you know, in the geo arbitrage. I loved how you talked about your father's work experience, retirement experience, date nights with your wife, you know, your favorite part of your week. Like, all of that, It makes you a human that's sharing the information. You know?

Greg:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. No. No. Good good good point there.

Julia Levine:
And so I think that, you know, you're doing so many things so well in this show. And I think the only thing that's kind of holding you back is that it's not a 100% clear immediately who this show is for. Yeah. And so, you know, you and I are obviously in a different situation because you directly gave me the podcast. I didn't stumble upon it. And I'm looking at it obviously with a professional lens, but I'm looking at it. I'm not a finance person. I had absolutely no idea what buy stood for.

Julia Levine:
I actually pronounced it fee. At first, I was like, what is freedom before fee? What is this? And then I'm looking. I'm trying to gather context from the cover art, and I'm going, okay, palm tree. And I also looked and I noticed that your category is self improvement. And then I I read your description and it's FI and you say financial independence. I'm like, oh, okay. There we go. That answers the question improvement category.

Julia Levine:
And I've got my palm tree here on the front. And so I think there's a little bit of clarity that could be done around the messaging. Yeah.

Greg:
Okay.

Julia Levine:
So I'm assuming that your target audience knows what 5 Yeah.

Greg:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a few there's a few, like, what like, 1 of the biggest podcasts out there is called Choose at 5.

Julia Levine:
Yes.

Greg:
There's a few of them with FI and stuff like that. So in the in the financial independent line of community, it's a well known sort of acronym.

Julia Levine:
Yes.

Greg:
So in my mind, I'm thinking if someone that's already in the community that knows it. Because I've I've been I've been trying to niche down because, like, finance is such a broad thing. I've tried as I've tried to niche down as much as I can. That's how I came to it. It was like, because there's, I'm trying to capture an audience that's going to like, on that path to, like, financial independence, but kind of, like, kind of burning out on the way there. And they wanna, like, they wanna feel elements of freedom before they get there. So that's the yeah. But I totally get you what you're saying from because a friend of mine said the same thing.

Greg:
They're like, what is what bi? What does that mean? But I have to explain to them. So, yeah. Yeah. III totally get that as an outsider.

Julia Levine:
Yeah.

Greg:
Yeah. Yeah. But maybe there's a few things, like, tweaks I could do. For example, maybe even put financial independence on a conference so it's clear what FY actually means as well or something along those lines.

Julia Levine:
Yes. Okay. So I'm glad you clarified that you're kind of targeting the people who already know what this is. Yeah. And my guess is, or you actually just said it, that you're trying to kind of convince them, hey. You don't have to be, like, miserable on this journey to do this. Here, let me show you kind of an alternative perspective.

Greg:
Absolutely. Yeah. You got it. Yeah.

Julia Levine:
So these people are searching things like fire, financial independence, investing, things like that. Right?

Greg:
Correct. Yeah.

Julia Levine:
So I think there's 2 things that you can do in particular to make this even more clear. So the first thing is to add a subtitle Mhmm. To your title. So when we're talking about a subtitle, this is purely for search purposes, for the robots behind the scenes. You don't ever have to say this phrase. You don't have to put it on your cover art. You don't have to do anything with it other than just slap it into the title field, but you want to cram some keywords in there. Okay.

Julia Levine:
So looking at some of the stuff that you had in in your description, I looked at the opt in for your substack page, and so I haven't quite gotten a, like, beautiful version of it, but I came up with Freedom Before FI, Finding Purpose and Joy on Your Journey to Financial Independence, Early Retirement, buyer, put that acronym in the title field

Greg:
yeah.

Julia Levine:
Through earning, saving, investing, and geoarbitrage. Geoarbitrage isn't a highly competitive term.

Greg:
Alright. Yeah. Okay.

Julia Levine:
So, like, investing. You're looking at the keyword investing, there are so many podcasts that are trying to address the topic of investing. So it's highly competitive. Geo arbitrage, there's not a ton of content out there about that. There's some.

Greg:
Yeah.

Julia Levine:
But if you put that in your title and someone is searching that word, you're likely to pop up in the search results because it's not as competitive of a term.

Greg:
Yeah. Yeah.

Julia Levine:
And I have some notes here that I will send to you in an email because I I

Greg:
was gonna say.

Julia Levine:
I know I'm kinda rattling some stuff off.

Greg:
That's fantastic.

Julia Levine:
But yeah. So putting some keywords after your main part of your title just for the purposes of search. So think whatever your target audience is gonna be typing into their search bar.

Greg:
Yep. K.

Julia Levine:
Put that into your title field.

Greg:
Okay.

Julia Levine:
And kind of along those same lines when we're talking about your cover, I think it's fine if you don't have financial independence spelled out on the cover. Partially because those are really long words and they're gonna take up a lot of space.

Greg:
Yeah. Yeah. Take up a lot of real estate on there.

Julia Levine:
Yes. But on your current cover, all of the words are the same size and the same color. So what I would recommend is you need to make the FI pop somehow.

Greg:
Oh, okay.

Julia Levine:
And so I think that was the podcast that you were referring to was a big 1 in the niche where it has FI, like, huge on the cover in, like, a speech bubble or something.

Greg:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Julia Levine:
So, obviously, don't copy their exact design, but that's the kind of thing you want. You want f I to, like, slap them in the face when they see your cover. That's the first thing their eye should see.

Greg:
Right. Right. Okay.

Julia Levine:
So you can accomplish that by making the other words smaller and making that FI I bigger. You can make the f I in a different color, or both. You can make it bigger and in a different color. Put a box around it, put a shadow behind it, something to make it really stand out.

Greg:
Make it pop.

Julia Levine:
Exactly. Yeah. Awesome. Well, it was so nice to meet you. Thank you again for being a fan of the show. I hope this call was helpful and not too overwhelming.

Greg:
No. I'm really helpful, and I appreciate appreciate your time. 

Julia Levine:
Alright. That's all for today. If you'd like to chat with me about how we can make your podcast pop, you can schedule your own free call with me at the podcast teacher.com/pop. Until next week, happy podcasting.