Why do I need a podcast about cut flower farming?
Roz Chandler started her flower farming business ten years ago. She will be covering strategy, marketing tactics, pricing, social media and upscaling your flower farm. No matter what point you’re at in your journey, this podcast will give you the information you need to grow your business.
In this episode, Roz takes you step by step on setting up your own podcast series in your cut flower business. If this is your first foray into podcasting then Roz explains in easy to understand language why podcasting is another form of content you should consider.
You will learn:
Resources mentioned in the show:
Connect with Roz Chandler:
Join my Facebook group: Cut Flower Farming Growth and Profit In Your Business;
Thank you for listening. I’d love it if you subscribed to the podcast and left a review or rating.
Why do I need a podcast about cut flower farming?
Roz Chandler started her flower farming business ten years ago. She will be covering strategy, marketing tactics, pricing, social media and upscaling your flower farm. No matter what point you’re at in your journey, this podcast will give you the information you need to grow your business.
In this episode, Roz takes you step by step on setting up your own podcast series in your cut flower business. If this is your first foray into podcasting then Roz explains in easy to understand language why podcasting is another form of content you should consider.
You will learn:
Resources mentioned in the show:
Connect with Roz Chandler:
Join my Facebook group: Cut Flower Farming Growth and Profit In Your Business;
Thank you for listening. I’d love it if you subscribed to the podcast and left a review or rating.
Welcome to the Cut Flower Farming Growth and Profit In Your Business podcast. I'm your host, Roz Chandler, a flower farmer for over ten years and thirty years as a business owner and Marketing Director. This podcast is for you if you're an ambitious flower farmer, and looking for hints and tips to grow your business, we'll be covering strategy, marketing tactics, pricing, social media, and upscaling your flower farm. So much more. I'm so excited to introduce you to my amazing guest speakers along the way. All of you will be at different points in your business. Our podcasts will take this into account. We look forward to joining you on your journey.
So today, we're going to be talking about podcasting and why I love it. Now, I'm not an expert. I've been podcasting for about six months. But I will say that it's brought a new audience to Field Gate Flowers and I think it's something that you should consider as part of your content strategy. Podcasts are just more convenient now for people. They can listen in the car or when they're working out or just doing chores around the house. So it's a very good form of content that you can deliver to people when it suits them. So there's a lot of unexplored space in the podcasting industry. There are at least 600 million blogs, 23 million YouTube channels, and only 800,000 podcasts in Apple Podcasts. This means for every podcast, there are 750 blogs and 29 YouTube channels. So it's a channel that's worth exploring. It's not overpopulated.
And what else will it do for you? It will obviously increase your SEO on your website. If you have a look at Field Gate Flowers’ website, there's a podcast area. And if we could put in show notes in there, we would obviously be using keywords in those show notes and increasing our SEO. It makes you an expert in a field and makes you stand out. So if you're a grower of peonies, for instance, and that's what you do for a living, you could have a really good series on growing peonies. Same if you grow alstroemeria. If you're a wholesaler for British flowers, that’s what you could talk about. If you're a florist, and you want to talk about different areas of floristry or sustainability or eco, it gives you a reputation of being an expert. It builds you an audience, so people like podcasts, they love the content in a different format. So let's go through some easy steps. What I thought I'd do is probably cover easy steps today and then revisit the whole podcast area in another level. But let's do some easy steps to begin with.
So step one, what's your concept? What are you going to talk about? What are you an expert in? Here at Field Gate Flowers, we have two podcasts. In fact, we have three podcasts. We have the Cut Flower Podcast and it says what it does on the tin. We have the podcast for flower farmers, which is about growth and profit in your business. And we also have a private podcast which we do just for people who are on a paid course. So they can have that content to themselves and it isn't visible. So we run three podcasts.
Step number two, identify your podcast goals. Why are you doing it? Is it to generate leads for your business? Is it to be recognised as a leader? We've talked about reputation. Or is it to share an important message or something that you believe in?
Step number three. Name your podcast. Now you think this was fairly easy. My recommendation is not to go for something cool and trendy like yellow banana or pink hair or whatever you think the cool and trendy is at the time. With podcasts, you need to say what it does on the tin because that's obviously when people are searching for a subject, your subject will come up if you've called your podcast that subject. So we've got the Cut Flower Podcast, for instance, which is a course about cut flowers. And the Flower Farming Growth and Profit in your business, which, of course, is about growing the businesses for flower farmers. And I recommend you really do give it a really simple name.
Step four. Choose your podcast format. Is it you or are you co-hosting it? So the different formats are, you can interview people. These podcasts feature a single host who interviews other people in a particular industry. You can have a scripted non-fiction podcast. These are normally serial podcasts that have a single theme for one season. Then you can have a news recap. So a format that summarises the news within the industry. So if you were talking about digital marketing, you might be having a clubhouse or what the new trends are, or any of the new things that are happening in digital marketing. They may be educational podcasts. So they may be scripted non-fiction shows that focus on teaching an audience. And quite often, there is a mix of them all.
Step five. Choose your optimum podcast length. Don't make it any longer than it needs to be. Be short, be snappy, but be informative. We try and keep it to twenty minutes max, and only really go longer if we're interviewing or it's a more in-depth conversation.
Step number six is about consistency and podcast publishing schedules. It really is important, and your listeners will look out for your podcasts that you publish on a consistent schedule. So when you decide in the beginning that you're going to start podcasting, please don't set unrealistic objectives. You're not going to podcast every day, even two times a week is quite challenging. Start off with perhaps once a week or a bi-weekly podcast. It needs obviously to form part of your content strategy.
Step number seven. Think about the equipment and the software. That's quite important. What do you need? In simple times, you need a microphone. We use a Samsung QU2, which we think is great. You need some headphones. And there are masses of different variations out there. You can use Audio Technica M20x headphones. Look around for your software platform. So you've got your kit, you've got your microphone, you've got your headphones. Now you need two other bits of kit. You need your recording studio. We use Alutu. And then you need another portal that's going to distribute your content and we use Buzzsprout. There are many others. There's Audacity, there's GarageBand, there’s Hindenburg. You can record on Zoom. You can record on Skype. Really have a look with that and where you want to actually put your content. So there are lots of other ways you can distribute your content. Then I would write a podcast outline. I don't think that you should read a podcast, although that’s a personal opinion. It sounds too scripted. I think it needs to be a bit more informal, a bit more conversation. But it does help to jot down the bullet points so it keeps you on track.
Pick a place to record. Now I'm quite fussy about this. I record when no one else is around. So no one's going to ring the doorbell and no one's going to come in. So tonight for instance, I’m on my own, and I did ask my husband, what time are you coming back. He's just popped out. In order so that I can concentrate and just do the recording myself. Alright. The best thing is to record in a quiet, large room, with plenty of space around you.
Next step, editing and uploading your first episode. Please, please don't get obsessed with editing. Personally, I rarely do any editing unless the doorbell or the phone goes. This editing is where you segment your podcast, you remove those distractions or the doorbell and the phone and you insert voiceovers, intros and outros. With the help of the right software, honestly, it's really easy. I am not so technically inclined but using Alitu and using Buzzsprout has really been easy for me.
Next step, create your podcast intro. This is what's going to introduce you at the start of every podcast. So it's the same. Once you've recorded it once, you're using it for all of your podcasts. So it's basically saying, okay, who are you? What are you going to talk about? What is this? So I normally say hi, I'm Roz from Field Gate Flowers. I'm a digital marketeer and I'm trying to help farmers grow their business, etc, etc. And then they need to know what's in it for them. What are they going to learn? What are you going to be talking about? Are you going to be bringing guest speakers on and who might they be. So it's quite a defined format. I suggest that you go and listen to some podcasts. And you’ll see what their intros are like. In the same way, you need to do an outro at the end. So what is your call to action? What do you want people to do? Do you want them to join a Facebook group? Do you want them to go over to your website? Do you want them to go to your Instagram and follow you and there needs to be a call to action at the end and something for someone to do to carry on the relationship.
Next one. And again, please don't get hung up on this, choose your podcast theme song. If you decide to do this, you can use royalty-free music, that you can use your podcast. And I certainly started with that. I then moved and in one of my other podcasts, you'll see one of the tools is Fiverr. I then asked somebody to produce just a little 17-second intro music and I gave them a brief of what I actually wanted. I wanted it to sound like nature, and I wanted it to sound a little bit like water rushing and sort of quite relaxing. And I actually paid $14.99, I think, for someone in Chile. And it was amazing. And I hope you've listened to it at the beginning, and you’ll listen to it at the end. And you'll agree with me because actually, it gives my podcast some personality and some character. And yes, I did start with royalty-free music and I don't see any issue with that. So then you're going to put your episode to Buzzsprout or the platform that you've chosen. We talked about the different platforms you could use. I use a Buzzsprout and that uploads my file and then I can publish it to lots of different directories. And that's all done within Buzzsprout. So I can publish it to Apple or Google or Spotify.
Think about your show notes but we'll probably revisit that in another podcast episode because it's quite a big subject. Most important, don't get imposter syndrome. The feeling that you're in over your head, everybody knows more than you. It's not true. Someone always said to me about knowledge: that if you know more than the average person in the room, you've got something to talk about. So I recommend that you start with podcasting. It does feel very daunting in the beginning and the more you do it, the better you'll get at it. I know people now who are on episode number 185 and they’ve really got it nailed to perfection. So I recommend you give it a go, you build your audience, you start talking about what you know about. I look forward to hearing them. Thank you.
This has been your host, Roz Chandler. If you'd like to know more about growing your cut flower farm, do join our Facebook group. It's called Cut Flower Farming Growth and Profit In Your Business. Many thanks.