How Long Until My Podcast Pays Off? A Deep Dive into Timing & SEO

Hello and welcome to the show. Earlier in the day I was in a coaching episode. So I figured, let me just come over here and share some of that wisdom real quick in case there are some of you who are considering using podcasting as a tool to grow your businesses. So of course that was what the coaching session was about because there are a whole bunch of you who assume that you can use podcasting as a means of growing sales and business development.

Now, when I say assume I'm, I don't mean that you guys are wrong because like, yes, podcasting can be a tool for business growth and it can be a good way to grow your sales. But a lot of us come into podcasting and other content marketing ideas having the wrong set of expectations. Content marketing or any other form of, I mean, podcasting or any other form of long form content marketing because people can do short term content marketing by putting up, you know, like all these stuff that Brain Jotter and brother Shaggy,

Mr. Macron and you know, all those types. So maybe in a sense you can call that content marketing. I wouldn't agree. But if you're going beyond the short, quick, entertaining stuff and you want to start producing long form content, blog posts that are, you know, thousands of words long or podcasts that require a significant investment in time to listen to these things. Because the shortest podcast you're going to find is maybe 10

minutes. And if you find a 10 minute podcaster who is putting out shows two or three times a week, you know, that is a considerable investment in in putting out content. And you know, people invest in that relationship. That's the listeners. So podcasting is considered long form content. Now. There is no long form content that is going to give you business growth in the short term. So if you're looking for money in the next two weeks, three months, six months, then podcasting is not for you.

I repeat, if you are looking for money in the next two weeks, three months, six months, maybe one year, podcasting is not for you. You're going to need a considerable amount of time to create an audience, to grow the relationship, to create engagement. These things take time with podcasting. So this is something that you're going to consider. Make sure that you have the mental bandwidth and that you also have the money bandwidth to get along this ride for medium to long term.

Now, when I said money, bandwidth, I don't mean you have to spend millions of naira to get your podcast going. In fact, if you want to get your podcast up and running and you decide to come through, me, I'm one of those folks who's going to tell you that, look, so long as you have an OK phone or an OK camera or an OK, whatever it is that you have, I can check your stuff. We're pretty much good to go so long as we can find a quiet spot in the house or in the office that you can record and that you can get going.

You do not need to spend 345 million naira buying microphones, new laptops, padded sound booth. You don't need to spend any of that to get going. In fact, one of the fact, one that pains me the most is lady who had a really interesting idea. I'm not going to say what the podcast was about, so she doesn't know that I'm talking about her, but she tricked out everything, including the house, plus the equipment, plus editor,

plus everything, invested all that money, and then now it's been a year. How many podcast episodes has you dropped? Maybe like 5. Anyway, let me move on from that. So it's going to need a considerable investment in time and the money. So when I say money, it's not that you need to buy expensive equipment, but you need the money because you have to pay for the bills. You need to be paying for generator or pay for fuel, pay for Internet, what else?

Pay for food, pay for school fees, you know, pay for everything while you're hoping that this podcast is going to kick off someday. So podcasting not short term, please not short term. Then another set of expectations that I want to share with you guys concerning podcasting is this. A lot of you who want to get into podcasting are thinking in terms of branding. And so because of that, you guys come up with sexy titles.

And there's no problem with the sexy title, with a creative title or with a catchy title. Well, actually there is a problem. The problem is when your titles are cute or sexy or you build them around what you think your personal brand is. The thing is, for most people, nobody knows who you are just yet, so you're actually shooting yourself in the foot. Let me give myself and give you guys an example using myself. The reason why my show is called Sales for the Nigerian Business Person is because I know that podcasting is a new thing.

And so if anybody's going to discover my show, it is precisely because they type in Nigeria into the podcast search because Nigerian podcasts are not especially business podcasts are hard to come by. So I know that the person is going to type in Nigeria. I know that the person might type in business. I know that the person might type in sales. Some people have found me because I typed, because they typed marketing into the search podcast.

And then my show came up and that's because I put it under the marketing category. So it makes more sense to look for keywords that you think your potential listeners will be searching or your potential customers will be searching. So usually becoming at this not from a branding mindset, but come at it more from a sales mindset. So be looking at this thing more like SEO because whole point of SEO search engine optimization is to make sure that people search, find you, and then quickly become a buyer, become a customer, become a client.

So take an SEO mindset when it comes to titling your show. So no fancy titles. If I called my podcast talking with Tavishima because I think Tavishima is a cool name, nobody knows who Tavishima is at this point in time. In another 5-6 years when I'm a bona fide big boy in the podcasting space in Nigeria, then yes, I can call my show whatever I want, chilling with Tavishima and then people will find me. It's like that guy Tea with Tea.

I mean everybody knows who Tea is because Tea has been in the game since like been in the game for a long time, you know, doing his, his thing, small acting roles here and there, you know, shows, comedy, this kind of thing. I mean he's been doing his thing for OK from uni like this till now. I don't know, maybe it's like almost like 20 years. So when he calls his show Tea with Tea, people know him. I has already popped off on Instagram, Ebonylife and then all these other things.

So people already know him. So T with T actually means something. Somebody can actually say, oh, I want to listen to today's podcast. And then they'll go on open the search engine and then they'll type in TA. But right now that you and I have not reached that level yet, coming up with these cute titles, you know, conversations with Joe Ogdenbe. Nobody knows who Joe Ogdenbe is yet. So give your podcast title, make your podcast, give it down on sexy title and make sure it is built around keywords that people will search for.

After people search for these keywords. I listened to you for a while. Remember this is going to be medium to long term Listen to you for a while. Maybe 1-2, three years, Who knows, Maybe after four or five years when you pop off and you become a big name in the podcast in space, then you can now do something. So that's the reason why Oprah can't name her show Whatever and people will listen because the name Oprah means something.

So she can be cute, she can call her show omnipresent with Oprah and the thing will, will, will, will, you know, the thing will, will pop off and Schwarzenegger can call his podcast, you know, Whatever arm wrestling with Arnold and people will listen because Arnold Schwarzenegger means something. If Obama decides to start the podcast today and he calls it bullshitting with Obama, you think it will pop off because people know who Obama is.

So let's be patient, especially when it comes to these branding plays. A whole lot of us are not there yet. You know, your name might be cute like mine, but right now nobody knows who Tava Shimai it is, realistically speaking. I mean, yes, you love the podcast and over 20,000 downloads, but realistically speaking, in the big scheme of things in Niger, nobody knows who Tava Shimai is. So coming up with some cute thing around my name because I'm doing some branding play or something like that.

It's just being cute for the sake of cute. You're going to slow the progress of your show. So let's be practical. Let's put some keywords in there. Now we know people are going to search for, let them discover our show. After a while when things pick up, then we can start doing branding, branding, ploys and all of that. Then let's see what else. I think that's pretty much all that I wanted to talk about when it comes to podcasting because lots of people are thinking about podcasting.

They think it's a viable medium for growing your business. And yes, it is. Just remember that you're not going to start podcasting in January and then you're going to blow in March. It doesn't happen that way. So give yourself some time. Come up with the content calendar. Try and come up with like a year's worth of content. Start recording. Give yourself medium to long term. Don't assume that you will start podcasting in January of 2024

and by January of 2025, you know your container will land and you're hammer and you're a big boy or you're a big girl. Don't think about things that way. Then when it comes to the title, please, nothing cute. Please nothing creative, please nothing sexy, at least for now. Keep it as basic as possible, as basic AF, very, very basic keywords, terms that people search for. I mean, look at my own playbook. My show is called Sales for the Nigerian Business Person.

So that if anybody's looking for Nigerian podcasts, I will pop up. If they're looking for sales podcast, I'll pop up. If they're looking for Nigerian sales podcast, I'll pop up and then I put it in the marketing category. So if they even type Nigerian sales and marketing podcast, I will pop up. And that's how people are discovering me. And I've confirmed from those of you who reach out to me on LinkedIn or on WhatsApp and we chat.

I'm surprised no more people who say, oh, I just typed in Nigerian marketing podcast and then your show came up. So that's what we have, what we ought to be thinking about for now. So that's you pretty much for today. If you're thinking of starting a podcast, you need my help, then reach out. Let's have a chat. I'll do my best to get you going. Or just realize that you don't need a whole bunch of money. You're going to start pretty easy, pretty affordably, pretty cheaply, just like I am doing because I've run through, since I started podcasting, I've run through maybe four or five phones, but it has always been a mobile phone, apart from the time when I was interviewed by Nene Battle Boxes, a communications specialist based in Canada.

Nigerian babe. But of course she Jaguar long time ago, over a decade ago, before Jaguar was popular. Well, she's a tech head, you know, Aspire microphone and audio and everything. So she took it upon herself. I think it was Riverside or something like that. She recorded it, she edited it, she did everything, did the graphics for the promotion and all that. So that's the only time that on my podcast we did as incorrect,

like production value, production level podcast. So for that one, you won't hear any sniffles, you won't hear any cough, you won't hear any noise. You know nothing because recording was tight then I made sure of that. But for the rest of the episodes, the over 960 something episodes that I have on the podcast is just been me and my phone. I look for a quiet place padded up and then I hit record and then that's it from in a noisy place.

I'll let you guys know like, hey, look, this one is going to have a bit of noise and then I get straight to it. But bottom line, what I'm trying to say is you don't have to spend a lot of money to get into the podcasting game. So if you're thinking of podcasting, please reach out. Let's have a conversation about it. My concern will be to make sure that you get on the microphone as quickly as possible. Those of you who you guys who think podcasting good thing to grow the business, but you say I'll get to it in 2025.

I'm like, what's like, what's the delay for really? 2025 is going to come and go whether you get moving or not. So you might as well if you get moving now in November, like it's not going to hurt. There's no need to wait until 2025. It doesn't have to be that deep. It doesn't have to be that hard. And don't worry, the podcasting space is not crowded or overcrowded. Look, even if you think it's overcrowded, when it comes to sales and business development,

it's all about execution. So even if podcasting is crowded, it's about how you execute. Come in, let's see how you execute. It's the same thing with phone calls or Flyers. Everybody makes Flyers. Yes, everybody makes Flyers. There might be too many Flyers, but it's all about how you execute, how you make your phone calls, how you make your podcast, how you handle your your prospecting, your meetings at the office. It's all about execution.

So you're thinking about it coming to the space and let's get things going. So thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode. You want to reach out, you can send me a message on WhatsApp. The phone number is 08064662140. Country code is +234. Then on LinkedIn, I am Tavi Shima Ayede. That's that's my name. I'm the host of the show, so use this link. We're listening to the podcast right now.

Highlight my name, copy pasted the search function in LinkedIn, and then my profile comes up. Send me a connection request and we can get chatting in as little as 24 hours, maybe 48 hours. But I respond to everyone eventually. So thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next recording.