Imperfect Marketing
Imperfect Marketing
293: Ready to Use Podcasting as a Marketing Tool? Here's How
In this episode of Imperfect Marketing, host Kendra Corman welcomes podcasting coach and marketing expert Darren Saul to unpack the power of podcasting—not just as a content tool, but as a full-fledged marketing engine for business owners and entrepreneurs.
Darren shares his journey from corporate recruiting and photography to launching two podcasts and building a thriving content ecosystem. From simple tech setups to editing hacks and promotion strategies, this episode is your all-in-one starter guide to launching a podcast with imperfect action.
We explore:
Why Podcasting Still Works in 2025
- Darren's shift from traditional marketing to digital content—and why podcasting stood out
- The personal connection podcasts create by putting your voice in someone’s ear for 30–60 minutes
- Why guesting is a great first step—and how to make the most of it with repurposing
Getting Started Without the Overwhelm
- Why podcasting today is more accessible than ever (you can start for under $200)
- Recommended low-budget tools like Zoom, Podbean, Riverside, and simple mic setups
- There are no hard rules—your podcast can be as short or long, polished or raw as you want
Tackling the Tech and Editing
- Darren’s take on modern editing tools like Descript, iMovie, CapCut, and AI solutions
- Why you don’t need to edit every “um” and “ah”—natural is better than robotic
- Streamlining your workflow by editing video/audio together in one place
Promotion: The Most Important Piece
- The biggest mistake podcasters make (hint: not promoting enough!)
- Darren’s tips on ongoing podcast promotion using clips, snippets, quotes, newsletters, and more
- Tools he loves: Opus Clip, Canva, Riverside, ChatGPT for show notes and blogs
Making Your Podcast Content Work Harder
- Why podcasting creates five types of content: audio, video, images, quotes, and written
- Repurposing strategies to avoid “everything looking the same” on your social channels
- Darren’s advice: creativity is a muscle—exercise it regularly to stay fresh and inspired
The Business Value of Podcasting
- Why podcasting saves time and amplifies your marketing
- Building trust, authority, and audience connection with consistent publishing
- How podcasting helps you build relationships faster than a website ever could
Darren’s No-Fluff Advice
- You’re already creating content—why not podcast and kill two birds with one stone?
- Use AI to save hours of editing and content creation time
- Don’t chase perfection—launch with what you have and iterate
Key Takeaways for Marketers
- Podcasting is more accessible, affordable, and effective than ever
- Imperfect action beats no action—just start
- Promotion is just as important as production
- Podcasting builds trust faster than most marketing channels
Whether you're a solopreneur thinking about launching a show or a business owner ready to maximize your content strategy, this episode will give you the real-world tools and encouragement you need to get started now—not later.
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Hi, I'm Kendra Korman. If you're a coach, consultant or marketer, you know marketing is far from a perfect science, and that's why this show is called Imperfect Marketing. Join me and my guests as we explore how to grow your business with marketing tips and, of course, lessons learned along the way. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Imperfect Marketing. I'm your host, kendra Corman, and today we're going to be talking about podcasting, which is clearly something that's important to me, as you're listening or watching my podcast, right, I'm super excited to have Darren Saul here to talk about podcasting. Welcome, darren. Tell me, how did you get into podcasting?
Speaker 2:Well, thank you. First of all, thanks for having me on the show. Lovely to be here with your audience. Yes, podcasting is one of those things that everybody loves to talk about, me included.
Speaker 2:My background's interesting. I've been a corporate recruiter for over 25 years and I do a lot of work as a photographer. And probably about seven, eight years ago I realized that the traditional ways of marketing and building prospects and clients and getting work wasn't working as well. You know, cold calling ads in local papers, letter drops, whatever, what have you and I thought you know what? There's got to be a better way.
Speaker 2:And I was doing a lot of research and I stumbled onto podcasting and digital media and I was kind of new to that whole world. But then I thought what the hell? And I'm very impulsive, so whenever I have an idea, I just dive right in and don't worry about anything and just jump in and just build it as I go. So I ended up building two podcasts, one for my recruitment business and one for my photography business, which I still run today and I've loved it so much. You know, seven, eight years later, that I'm really trying to build an ecosystem and train people around using podcasting for marketing. So I call it podcast marketing because I'm extremely passionate using podcasting as a marketing tool. That's a quick little rundown into the last seven years.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, well, and podcasting is an amazing marketing tool. It is unbelievable the reach the audience, the way that you can connect with people. I know that I've had podcast listeners reach out to me with questions or they've hired me as for some consulting work and things like that. They feel like they know me because they've been listening or watching me for months or years, right, and so we've created this relationship that's based in who I am right. They're not surprised by what I look like or who I am or what I sound like. Like we just connect that way, which is fantastic.
Speaker 2:It's a very intimate experience. You're in someone's ear for 45 minutes an hour and it's a very intimate experience. You're in someone's ear for 45 minutes an hour and they really get to know you.
Speaker 1:So one of the ways that I started was just starting with my own show, because why not right? But I know a lot of people start with guesting and then they enjoy doing that. Why would someone put the effort in creating their own show?
Speaker 2:That's a really good one. And, like I do a lot of workshops and teaching around podcasting and I get that question all the time Like, is it a lot of work? Why should I bother? Is it saturated? Should I even start? You get this all the time and the way I answer it is I say, actually that's a really good point.
Speaker 2:Look, you've got two ways to go around things or two ways to go about it. You can either get on other people's shows. If you're really not sure about putting in the work to build your own show, get on other people's shows first. Do that whole what's the word? Roadshow of getting on other people's podcasts, but at least do one thing and ask for the footage and then use the footage, Because a lot of people my biggest gripe with podcasters is they don't do anything with the footage they make and, as podcasters and also podcastees is they put in all this energy to go on people's shows, prepare, tell their story, execute beautifully, and then they do nothing with it.
Speaker 2:So to me that's crazy. And so, from a guest point of view, at least get the raw footage, chop it up, market it, use it, put it into all these other great tools that are around and you can go for a six-month, one, one year roadshow, creating incredible amounts of content, just getting on other people's shows, and then, if you're really serious about building your brand and you want to do it on your own and you want to go to the next level, do that. So you can really go two ways and it's up to you which way you want to go and how much energy and how much commitment you think you've got to have.
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean. So guesting is a great way to start and then leveraging that content. It gives you some authenticity, some authority in the space and I think it really gives you a feel for how people do their shows differently and how you would want to do it Right From a guest perspective and then from a listener perspective. It doesn't hurt as research to be doing that, but I yeah, if you're serious about building your brand, having that content out there is is huge. The next question that I usually get asked is I'm not really good with technology or I don't have a big budget. I'm just starting out. You know how much is this going to cost? I usually tell people it can cost as little as $12 a month for the hosting platform. What about you? What do you recommend people do from technology and how much is this going to run?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's the beautiful thing about this new generation of podcasting I'll call it pre-pandemic time. You had to have a studio, you had to have an audio engineer, you had to have a videographer if you wanted to video. There was a lot more work involved, whereas during the pandemic and after the pandemic, all this amazing technology has just come to the market to make this really easy and to allow people to have their own home studio and connect and collaborate with people all around the world. Which is fantastic for peanuts. So for those things like Riverside and Zoom is close to free and all those other tools and your podcast apps like Spotify, for Creators, podbean, they're either free or $5, $10 a month. They're nothing.
Speaker 2:And then all you need is some kind of microphone which, if you really want to go simple, you can use your AirPods or something really simple, or you can get a really basic mic like this for $50, some lighting and some kind of camera, and that's it. So you can set up your whole studio for under a couple of hundred dollars, and then that's a once-off and then it's a very small monthly fee just for some of the tech and that's it. So it's become really cost-effective and really great because you can collaborate with people around the world much better than just always having people in your own city.
Speaker 1:Yes, it gives you so much more reach and access to more stories. And it's fantastic, because I'm always amazed by the people that are like oh, I'm so nervous, I'm going to be on a podcast. Yeah, yep, that's good. You can be nervous the first couple of times, but it's not that bad, right? Or they'll be like I was invited to go on this podcast and I don't know, I don't like the way I sound. Suck it up, buttercup, that's what I like to say. I'm like you don't sound like nails on a chalkboard. Let's go, you know, give it a try. People are paying attention to the content that you're sharing, not necessarily how you sound, right.
Speaker 2:And how you sound is how you sound anyway in person. So what are you worried about? All you've done is just scale what you do in person. So what the hell? Just dive in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and hosting your own show gets you over like. I used to hate watching myself Well, still not a fan of watching myself, but anyway but I used to hate it Like really, really hate it, like leave the room if someone was watching a video where I was in. And I mean, the pandemic got me through a lot of that because I was on Zoom all the time. But you know, having my own show and my own podcast got me over a lot of that because I was on Zoom all the time. But you know, having my own show and my own podcast got me over a lot of those issues because now it's like nope, that's just me, that's just who I am. We're going to roll with it, right?
Speaker 2:Definitely and you kind of come into your own and you, you show, you position yourself as you want and you just start owning it, oh you position yourself as you want and you just start owning it.
Speaker 1:So all right. So they've decided to go off on their own and put in the work to have their own show. They've got the tech, they're all lined up, they've got their home studio. Now how much time is this going to take them to really create their own show and really?
Speaker 2:again, it's how long is a piece of string? I know podcasters that put out a one or two minute message every day. That's it on audio form. And then I know podcasters that go for three hours for one conversation and then that's could be heavily produced video and audio. So it's really whatever it is that you want it to be. And a lot of people ask me that they say how long should this, how long has to?
Speaker 2:There are no rules. This is a creative outlet. People think there's a rule book for podcasting. There's something they have to follow and if they don't, it's not called a podcast. That's absolutely rubbish. A podcast is whatever it is you want it to be, and it can be as long or as short or as expensive, and produced or unproduced and raw as you want it to be. And it can be as long or as short or as expensive, and produced or unproduced and raw as you want it to be, and it can just be your own creative outlet. So people have to just chill. Don't worry about it, just get in there, have some fun. You'll find your way. You'll find your style.
Speaker 1:Don't worry so much about what everybody else is doing and what everything shouldn't be like A hundred percent on that because, like my, episodes used to be an hour long. I started with one episode a week, then I moved to two, now I'm back to one because I'm working on some other initiatives. Yeah, I mean, it used to be an hour and then I found out that people were falling off around the 30 minute mark. Once you start getting data to, that can help dictate some of it. Also, right, you can start adjusting the length of of your recordings and how much time you're spending, because ultimately it comes down to when are your people listening and how long do they have.
Speaker 1:I still remember when we my husband and I went to Tokyo Japan, for he was going on business and I tagged along because it was Japan and I still remember we were doing a bunch of research about the Japanese culture, specifically Tokyo, and they were on over two hour commutes, some of the people into Tokyo from where they lived. That's a long time. Here in Metro Detroit you're like 15, 20, maybe 30 minutes on your commute. So if your audience is listening on their commute or on their walk, they might only have 15, 30 minutes to listen, have 15, 30 minutes to listen, so three hours might not work, but if your content's super engaging, like some of those longer shows people love and they will stay tuned in the whole time. So I think it depends on, like again, who you're targeting to and how much time they have. How long are your podcasts?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my sweet spot is probably about 45 minutes. Usually 40 to 45 minutes is my sweet spot. Some are a bit shorter, some are a bit longer, but I agree. I think that generally in a lot of the Western world the mainstream listeners are listening to podcasts at the gym, on their walk, on the commute, so that 30 to 40 minute mark seems to be about the sweet spot. But again, it depends on who you're targeting, where they are, what they're studying A lot.
Speaker 1:It depends. So start with what you have and what you can make interesting, right? I think that that's so important. So let's talk about the thing that people are afraid of editing.
Speaker 2:I thought you were going to say putting themselves out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, I mean, they're already scared of that, but we already told them to suck it up. So, um, but editing is. I think that's one of the big barriers that people struggle with.
Speaker 2:And with editing as well, you can really go crazy and you can edit for a day or you can not edit at all, or you can edit for 10 minutes, and with the new tools that are around now as well, there's lots of great AI tools that are there to help you. So when I started editing, I used to edit everything myself, but now I've got to the point where it's just I'm too busy and I have a team that edits for me and they use a lot of these great tools and they make it sound way better than even I could make it sound. And it really nowadays you don't have to spend a lot of money, you don't have to spend a lot of time. But if you're starting out, you should learn how to do basic editing, just so you can do stuff if you need to. You just know what the process is like, and if you're a Mac person, which I am, iMovie is your best friend. It's the most beautiful product.
Speaker 2:But if you're a Windows person, there are products like that that are just as easy, like CapCut and all sorts of other Filmora and all sorts of other software. That makes it really easy these days, and you want to try and streamline your editing as well. One thing that I teach when I'm teaching editing is try and put everything into. Put the audio and the video file. If you're doing audio and video, put the audio and video file into one place, edit it all together and then export separately. Don't edit twice. You're trying to streamline the process because you don't want to be spending hours and hours doing that.
Speaker 1:I think that that's really important and I think, again, you can determine the quality of your output right. So overproduced does not mean or a ton of editing time doesn't necessarily mean better content either, or better audio. Sometimes you can make it worse. But if you take out all of, I actually know what my waveform looks like when I say so as a transition, because I used to edit it out all of the time and then I started leaving it in because that's how I talk, that's what I use, right, and I think it's just so important. No, that wasn't a transition, that was actually in the sentence, so I'm good there. But it's so important to have some of those natural pauses and some of those natural fillers, because if you edit it all out, I had one guest that I think said um, like 750 times. So I took out like 200 of them, right, so you don't have to take them all out, and sometimes that makes for a smoother podcast that feels more natural.
Speaker 2:I 100% agree with you. Like a lot of my team, I'll say to them just make it, take out some of the filler words, but make it sound natural. Otherwise, especially with the AI software now, it can become very robotic and strange. If you remove all the filler words and everything, it's this chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, weird flow. So if you're editing, leave some of that stuff in there because, as you say, it's more human, it's more natural. But if someone's saying arm every second word, there's a bit of work to do. Yeah, and that drives me a bit nuts when that happens, but you got to do it.
Speaker 1:I think that you know, ken, you're going to publish it and rerecord it a hundred times to try and get it to your level of perfection. You don't have to do that. You do need strong audio quality. We overanalyze our podcasting quality or the content or how we're showing up in it too much.
Speaker 2:You know, people, even when they're listening to you, normally they don't even hear or take in half that stuff. They're just feeling what you're saying, they're getting the general gist of your content, they're feeling your energy. That stuff doesn't even compute. So why are we worried so much? When we podcast?
Speaker 1:It's the same thing, exactly, totally All right. So we've recorded it, with our wonderful stuff, we're getting ready, it's launched or it's launching and we need to promote it. What's next? That's the fun.
Speaker 2:That's where the fun comes in. And I always say to people you can have the most amazing podcast, but if you don't promote it and nobody knows it exists, what is the point? Just like a website, just like anything. So the big part, or the biggest part of podcasting is the promotion. Really, I believe it's going to sound good, it's going to sound reasonable. It doesn't have to sound perfect, but you have to promote it. And you've got to pre-promote it, post-promote it, promote the hell out of it for the next year and keep revisiting it. You've got to keep on repurposing and repromoting and being creative in how you do that, because that's the way people are going to come to your show. So I can't stress that enough. I think that's really, really important. And again, all the great tools out there, like Opus, clip and Splashio and CapCut and Descript and Riverside and all that stuff, create all those little snippet videos for you, those little bits of audio for you, the transcripts. Chatgpt is amazing when it comes to that stuff. You can do all this stuff really easily.
Speaker 2:But then you've got to use your social media channels. You've got to use your newsletter to use your social media channels. You've got to use your newsletter. You've got to use any channel that you have to link people back to your podcast constantly and don't always think that when you post something once or promote something once, that's it. Everybody knows about it. It does not happen that way. You're talking about 5% of your audience will never see it. So you can do it a hundred times more. Just be creative in how you do it and revisit it. Make it look a bit different. Two or three together. Put greatest hits, do whatever you got to do, put documentary content along the side of it, whatever. But you've got to learn to promote, because the promotion is everything.
Speaker 1:All right, so here's one that I've gotten as a question in the past. All of my content's starting to look the same because it's all the podcast. What do you say to?
Speaker 2:that Beautiful. And the thing that I love about podcasting is that if you do video and audio podcasting, like we're doing right now, it gives you the capacity to do everything, because you can strip audio, video, graphic, photo, written content, using all the tools that we have around nowadays, from that one show and if people think, oh yeah, it's starting to look the same, no problem. Take the audio, throw it into Canva, put a different image over the top, put a different video over the top, do whatever you want to do and make it look different totally, but it's still the audio content. Or just take the transcript, throw it into ChatGPT, write a blog article. You don't have to have the same video content snippets all the time. There are so many other ways to go about promoting the content from that show, and that's what I love about it, because it gives you those five different forms of content and it's up to you to decide what you want to do with it.
Speaker 1:Well, I think about pulling out yeah, I mean along the lines of the blog pull out a quote, put that on an image in Canva and then link to the podcast. Right, there's a million different ways you can make it look different. But I find that when people start getting into the habit of doing it with the clips and things like that, that they sometimes forget about those pieces. And there's just so much that you can do. It's so important to know.
Speaker 2:You really have to learn. Like, creativity is a muscle and the more you exercise it, the more creative you become. I stole that from a guy, the guy that started Creative Live. His name is Chase Jarvis, I think Lovely guy, and he writes books on this and he has a podcast on this exact concept. Creativity is a muscle and you need to exercise it. So the more you do it. If you sit down and think, all right, how am I going to work with this today? What can I do today that I didn't do yesterday, Then you will come up with all sorts of things. You've just got to sit down and actively think, all right, how can I create something different? But if you're just in the mindset of being automatic and robotic and not thinking about what you're doing, it's going to be all the same. So you really have to have a little bit of awareness and thought about being a little different and being creative.
Speaker 1:And, again, your podcast lends to all of those. So there's so many different ways that you can do it. It's just amazing. So podcasting is fantastic for lead generation, business opportunities, networking with your guests you, if you're a guest, networking with your hosts. There's just so many different things that you can do with your hosts. There's just so many different things that you can do with your podcast. I am a huge fan and I do recommend to a lot of my clients that they start one. They just got to find the time to do it and prioritize it, because it can save them so much time in the long run, so much time in the long run.
Speaker 2:That's a really good point If I could just jump in. Yeah, like a lot of times, people will say, oh, should I podcast? Should I? Blah, blah, blah, and I'll say, look, you're running a business, yes, you need to market, yes, so you've got to be marketing anyway and you've got to be creating content anyway. Why the hell just start a podcast and use that podcast and kill two birds with one stone? Why the hell would you do it.
Speaker 1:I agree, 100%, 100%. It just streamlines the process so much. And again, as you were mentioning the AI tools, I save over three hours an episode just with AI. It's crazy and it's just. Yeah, it's so much easier now than it ever used to be. And I started before AI. Yep, yeah, it's so much easier now than it ever used to be so, and I started before AI.
Speaker 2:So, yep, me too, I know. I remember the old days of manually doing everything.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes. So thank you so much for joining us and for talking through the podcasting process with me today. Hopefully everybody that's listening and watching got something out of it. There's just so many gems in there that I think if you're on the fence about starting a podcast, hopefully this will put you over that over on the other side and get you started. If you want to connect with Darren, we'll have his contact information in the show notes and video description down below, so be sure to do that. Now, before I let you go, I do have to ask you the question that I ask all of my guests. This show is called Imperfect Marketing because marketing is anything but a perfect science. What's been your biggest marketing lesson learned?
Speaker 2:Really good one, and we've touched on this beautifully today actually during the conversation. Really good one, and we've touched on this beautifully today, actually during the conversation, because we've discussed how everything is so subjective and so fluid. My biggest lesson learned really is that there is no one size fits all with marketing. You have to constantly be testing and tweaking and working out what's going to work for your audience and your style, whereas following a formula of somebody else is not going to work necessarily. So it's really about constantly testing, and I'm doing podcasting. Maybe one channel works better for me in terms of marketing than someone who's doing finance. You just have to play and experiment and see what's going to work for you. There's no one size fits all.
Speaker 1:I love that and I agree with it One million percent for that one, because it is. It's about testing and experimenting and finding out where your audience is and how you resonate with them, and podcasting is just such a powerful tool for that. Again, if you're thinking about it, I encourage you to think harder and start taking action Imperfect action when you get started. Nobody wants you to listen to their first episodes. Right, Go ahead Like, yeah, don't listen to mine, Don't listen to my first podcast that ended at eight episodes. Right, have a plan, have a strategy and know what you want to achieve with your podcast and just get started doing it right. Because this is one of those things that you will be so happy that you started it now, rather than 10 years from now.
Speaker 2:I always say to people that these days, a podcast is almost replacing a website. People are finding you and learning more about you from your podcast than they are from your website.
Speaker 1:Definitely. And the content that it brings and they're building a relationship with you, and we know how important relationships are in business. They build that know like and trust factor just so much faster. So thank you again, darren, for coming. I appreciate it. Thank you all for tuning in and listening or watching. If you learned something today, it would help me out if you would rate and subscribe wherever you are. Until next time, have a great rest of your day.
