Creating a podcast might be the next thing on your digital marketing to-do list, but have you considered the strategies you’ll need to find and keep an audience engaged? A podcast should be more than just another piece of your law firm’s marketing strategy. You have to attract listeners and keep your audience coming back for more. Here are some tips for how to launch your own successful podcast to boost your exposure, reach new clients, and connect with other legal professionals.

1. Define your topic, discover your audience

It’s not enough to create a legal podcast about general topics. A strong podcast that attracts more listeners is one with a clearly defined scope. Popular legal podcasts, like Lawyerist Podcast, LawNext and Legal Toolkit, all have a very specific topic and defined niche. When you create your podcast, you need to be able to describe in one sentence what it’s about and why anyone should care to listen to it.

Who will listen to your podcast, who will host it? Create a list of personal and professional attributes of your ideal audience to help you figure out what your podcast will and won’t cover. What will this audience prototype want to listen to, what topics will keep them engaged, and what tone will be most effective?

2. Plan out your episode topics and guests

Planning everything — from the podcast name, artwork and design development, creation and selection of theme music, and editing and uploading the audio files — is important, and takes time. Be prepared to create a script and a storytelling format that you can consistently follow. To the best of your ability, storyboard your individual episodes as well as the trajectory of the entire season.

Part of that process might be done by consulting special guests. When you know exactly what your podcast is going to be about, you’ll have more direction for who to interview and what subjects to cover, episode by episode. Create your dream list of interviewees, and consider what subjects they might talk about. Then, design the progression of your show around those subjects.

Next, you’ll want to determine how often you’ll be releasing your podcast. Every other Monday? The first of each month? The key here is consistency. Whatever schedule you decide, don’t stray from that, and don’t let your podcast trickle out of production entirely. You need to be prepared to stay on schedule for your podcast to be successful.

3. Get quality equipment and software, and publish it

A great thing about podcasting is the low cost of creating one. You can really create a strong podcast with a computer microphone and basic software that’s already on your computer, like RecordIt or iMovie. However, sound quality is absolutely key to keeping audiences listening. The strongest podcasts are recorded on high-quality microphones and edited on proper podcasting software.

Once you’ve finished recording and editing the raw audio file, you will want to upload that raw audio file to an audio editor that transforms it into a single audio file that you can publish. Once you’ve got that file, you’ll need to upload it to a podcast hosting site, such as iTunes or Google Play, or Spotify.

Since a podcast is a time investment, you may want to have a professional production company handle the finishing touches. This will ensure consistent quality and will save you time.

4. Edit and post your transcripts for SEO

By posting transcripts of your podcast, you’re creating new content for your website. Transcripts are an easy way to give Google a nudge to see you as an expert in your field, which will help your SEO. Optimize your transcripts by breaking down any content into words that might speak to search queries. Doing so will make your podcast more accessible and interactive, and give users a place to easily share the podcast, comment and submit questions. You will also be able to post links to anything you discussed on the show and special content for users to engage with.

5. Reach and retain listeners

Producing the podcast is one thing, but marketing it is altogether a project of its own. How will you reach listeners, and how will you keep them listening?

Our first recommendation is to blog about your new podcast. Let people know that your podcast is coming, and what they should expect from it. Build up some hype by placing links to your podcasts on social media profiles, sending out a press release, and an email newsletter. Make clips and share them through an email or social campaign. Otherwise, you might be creating a podcast that no one will know about.

You may also consider a paid promotion on social media or on platforms like Spotify.

6. Put passion into it

Lastly, the key to a successful legal podcast is the palpable passion transmitted through it. There’s no way around it: a good podcast is one where the audience can hear the excitement and passion of its hosts when discussing the subject in detail for weeks or months on end. You’ll only create a great podcast if you care about it enough to keep up with the many subjects that arise in your overarching topic, and if you put in the energy to do those subjects justice, month after month. With that kind of dedication, you’ll share your knowledge with those who are hungry for it, and you’ll likely gain new clients from that passion.

With all of these steps in mind, do you think you’re up for the task of creating a podcast? If you’re running your practice full-time, you might feel that you don’t have enough time to keep up with your podcast schedule. We’ve got you covered.

At CLM, we can take care of all aspects of planning, editing, and marketing your podcast, so you can focus more on discussing the topics that you’re most passionate about. Leave the rest of the details to us.

Cristina Fríes is a MA in English/Creative Writing from UC Davis (2019), and is a legal marketing strategist and content developer for CLM. Her interests include creating compelling marketing content, writing books, and traveling the world.

Records, cassettes, CDs, mp3 – this is the evolution of portable recordings. Now that we are in the streaming era of digital media, new ways have emerged for you listen to music, books, and shows wherever you go. One company that provides streaming digital media is Spotify.

Spotify is a streaming service that provides access content from entertainers and other professionals all over the world. At the basic level, it provides free music consisting of millions songs. However, the users and subscribers of the service are also able to listen to podcasts and watch videos.

With over 200 million users, Spotify is one of the biggest music streaming platforms. Of these users, approximately half them are premium subscribers, which gives them access to podcasts. The huge selection of music from different genres and podcast for a variety of topics, Spotify has something for everyone and markets to many different demographics, which is likely why user listened for an average of 25 hours each month.

In addition to streaming music and podcasts, Spotify also offers businesses and individuals the option to advertise through its streaming service. The Spotify Ad Studio is a platform for advertising that lets you create and manage your audio ad campaigns. You can create ads that are 30 seconds or less that will appear during the break between songs. The ads are available for free users and paid subscribers to hear.

The Spotify options of podcasts and advertise are great ways for lawyers and law firms to reach potential clients and make their business known to a large audience. They are essentially mobile commercials to engage people you may not interact with traditional marketing and advertisement methods.

Lawyers and law firms succeed by securing clients and earning revenue. While people still watch television, listen to the radio, and read prints ads, it is important to advertise everywhere people are going to see it. Today’s society is focused on the internet, streaming music, and podcasts. Spotify includes all of these sources.

Lawyers are missing out on the advertising opportunity available on Spotify. Placing a law firm advertisement between songs is a great way to impress your business, almost subliminally, into the mind of the listener. People can listen to Spotify everywhere, including their computers, laptops, tablets smartphones, smart televisions, and game consoles. People listen to music to relax, unwind, even to hear songs that speak to what they are going through at the time. Whatever their reason, let the music play. When the your ads comes up between their songs, it be just the information their need to hear. The positive side for the lawyer or law firm placing the ad is that free Spotify users can not skip ads.

Starting a podcast through Spotify is also a great advertising opportunity for lawyers and law firms because it can help to an audience of recurring fans and potential clients. The podcast can be an advertisement in itself because the lawyer-host can insert the name of the company through the podcast. The Spotify for Podcasters also lets the podcaster owners see stats daily of who is listening and where they are located. To keep track what is working well for your podcast will help you create an advertising strategy that will reach your target audience as well as expand pool of potential listeners and clients.

Spotify is another avenue to reach more potential clients and introduce your company to the world. The person listening may not need a lawyer now but may need one in the future. Your ad or podcast may stay in their mind to reach out for consultation or representation later. A listener may also inform others about your business and become another method of advertisement by word of mouth.

Chyrra Greene is a content developer for law firms at Custom Legal Marketing.

These 15 tips will help you get your law firm marketing plan ready for spring.

In July 2014, Google released the Pigeon algorithm update. As 2015 gets underway, learn how important it is for law firms to understand the effects of Pegeon on local SEO strategies.

Listen as we outline some strategies companies may sue to integrate their PR and SEO marketing.

In this month's CLM Lab podcast, we talk about the history of link building and what is in store for the future. Quality links are still at the center of your search engine marketing campaign and we look at new ideas and debunk old ones in this month's Custom Legal Marketing Lab.

Google released a new algorithm, nicknamed Pigeon, which alters the way local search results are generated in Goog Maps and Google Web.

Building a trustworthy Yelp profile is clearly important for prospective client approval. With this information in hand, everyone at the Custom Legal Marketing Lab wanted to dig a little a deeper. Does Yelp’s popularity also convert to more referral traffic? That is, do these visitors to your Yelp profile then visit your law firm’s website and reach out for contact?

Read the full story.

If your law firm wants to take advantage of a 10-20 percent conversion rate, try retargeted ads. Find out how that works in this podcast.

Google’s Authorship project has officially ended. How will this impact your law firm's website and author profiles?

Read the full story.

Three years ago, Google launched Google+, but you could only use your real name to participate. The rules have now changed.