Scout Sobel is the founder and CEO of scouting agency, which focuses on running Podcast Tours for female founders. She sat down with Jessica Abu to discuss how podcasts can boost your business.
Jessica Abo: Scout, how did you come up with the idea for your company?
Sobel:
About four years ago I started a podcast with my sister and quickly realized that when we had female entrepreneurs, female coaches, artists, authors, personal brands and content creators, our community would start following them online, buying their product, sign up for their course, become a customer. That’s when I had an aha moment that in the midst of this very intimate and long medium, there was also a very important PR strategy at play – that being a guest on a podcast was a form of PR. And so the concept for Scout’s Agency was born.
What was the first step you took to bring your desk to life?
Sobel:
I put together a list of over 1,000 female entrepreneurs I wanted to represent. I emailed them all within 24 hours and Gmail blocked my email because they thought I was spam. So I opened a second email. Jokes aside, I gathered a roster of 10 clients very, very quickly and we hit six figure sales in our first year with Podcast Tours. Over the past four years, we have grown as an agency by 600%. We’ve booked over 2,000 podcasts, we have a database of over 5,000 podcasts that my team and I have built manually, and we’ve hosted over 150 women’s podcast tours to date.
Why do you think joining a podcast can help someone’s business?
Sobel:
I’ve seen books become the bestseller through a Podcast Tour. I’ve seen our clients sign high-profile entrepreneurial clients. I’ve seen our customers do collaborative networking events with podcast hosts. I’ve seen them get thousands of followers on Instagram. I’ve seen them increase their earnings month after month after month. With a Podcast Tour strategy, there is a plethora of opportunities that come from reaching these new engaged audiences: from social media growth to product sales, to customer signing, to developing their platform as a thought leader and an expert. in space .
Why do you think podcasts get results?
We are all trying to grow our community, and therefore our impact, and yet growing in today’s digital and social media landscape is difficult. It’s hard to reach a new audience. In a world where we need to capture someone’s attention in three seconds or less, content can feel endless and superficial and too consistent. When it comes to being a guest on a podcast, you have someone’s attention for up to an hour. The average podcast episode is 43 minutes long, which means you’ll be in front of a new audience and tell your story straight from the source. It is not composed, it is not edited, it is not filtered. It’s your story. They hear the inflections in your voice. They hear your challenges. They hear your successes. They hear the inspiration behind why you started this business. And today consumers do business differently. We don’t buy products because of the product. We buy products or sign up for courses or buy books because of the person behind the brand.
What advice do you have for someone about to start a podcast? How can they maximize their exposure?
Sobel:
Stay yourself. Podcast episodes are human. They are vulnerable. They are intimate. They go deep. People want to hear from you. They want to hear about your challenges, successes, roadblocks and struggles. They want to hear why you started your business or why you launched a book, or why you have a group coaching program on the way. The best way to connect with a podcast audience is to be human. Yes, of course, this is an interview where you stand up professionally and are the thought leader and expert in your space – and the thing that will make a Podcast Tour conversion is how well you resonate with that audience as a human being.
And of course there are so many marketing strategies we can use to maximize these podcast episodes, right? You need to post them on Instagram, tag the podcast host, collaborate with the podcast host and share it with your newsletter. But at the end of the day, you can share a podcast episode as many times as you want, but if you don’t show up in your most sincere expression, the episode will fall flat. And if you show up and you’re human and you’re vulnerable and talk about why you’re doing what you’re doing, then you’re going to see that a Podcast Tour leads to business growth.
Janice has been with businesskinda for 5 years, writing copy for client websites, blog posts, EDMs and other mediums to engage readers and encourage action. By collaborating with clients, our SEO manager and the wider businesskinda team, Janice seeks to understand an audience before creating memorable, persuasive copy.