TBF 76 | Podcast Media Experience

 

A funnel isn’t just a one-way thing. It’s more of a pipeline when it flows both ways. Successful podcaster Bree Noble has multiple shows going on that feed off each other and serve musicians in different but valuable ways – Women of Substance, Female Entrepreneur Musician, and The Profitable Musician show. With her in-depth knowledge of the industry, Bree’s shows continue to have success and move forward. On today’s podcast, she joins Tracy Hazzard to share how she handles keeping three shows going and how she decided that podcasting is the way to help promote female artists and their music. Committed to making the strongest media experience for your own show? Then you shouldn’t miss this episode.

Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here:

Committing To Make The Strongest Podcast Media Experience For Your Show With Bree Noble Of The Profitable Musician Show

We’re back to doing interviews with successful podcasters. We’ve been doing a series on coaching and getting that strategic mindset in place. Here’s a podcaster I’m bringing you who definitely did her homework, figured out what she wanted to do from a strategic standpoint. She’s continued to shift it and then some cases and this is why I’m so excited to bring her here to you, is that she has also, at times, decided that she needed to start a new show to make that happen. I have a successful podcaster, Bree Noble. She quit her corporate job as the director of finance to pursue music.

After a successful run as a touring singer-songwriter, she founded Women of Substance Radio to promote female quality artists in all genres. She hosts The Profitable Musician Show as well where she teaches musicians how to make money by drawing on her extensive experience as a musician, online marketer and business owner. Female Entrepreneur Musician is also another one that she has. She has multiple shows going on. Women of Substance, Female Entrepreneur Musician and The Profitable Musician Show. We can learn so much from Bree and how she handles this. Let’s welcome Bree Noble.

About The Profitable Musician Host Bree Noble

TBF 76 | Podcast Media Experience

Bree Noble quit her corporate job as a Director of Finance to pursue music. After a successful run as a touring singer/songwriter, she founded Women of Substance Radio to promote quality female artists in all genres. She hosts the Profitable Musician Show where she teaches musicians how to make money by drawing on her extensive experience as a musician, online marketer and business owner.

 

Bree, thanks for joining me. I’m excited to talk about music and the industry related to podcasting because we’re hearing so much about that right now. You’ve been covering it for so long. How many episodes have you done?

The Women of Substance podcast is on episode almost 1,200. My other, Female Entrepreneur Musician, maybe 220. I’ve started a new show, which I know we’re going to talk about.

The Profitable Musician. This is the thing. It’s like, we were hearing all this news about Spotify making it easier for musicians to do podcasts and adding music into your podcast. We’re hearing a lot of that going on but there’s been this podcasting exposure you’ve been doing for a long time to women musicians specifically. Tell me how you got started on why you decided podcast was the way to go.

It started as an online radio station. Back in the day, people considered radio the height of getting exposure for music. When I discovered back in 2000 that you could create an online radio station on what was back then Live365.com. I thought it was the coolest thing ever because it was before you could have an iPod or anything so you could make your own playlist before Spotify playlist and all that. I started with an online radio station that I wanted to focus on women because I felt like women weren’t getting exposed enough for their amazing music. If you turn on SiriusXM or something, it was 80%, 85% men. That’s where I came up with the plan for Women of Substance and exposing music with great messages and fantastic vocals and all that.

No matter what musicians can teach you about their career, if you don't love their music, then you’re not really connected to them. Click To Tweet

In 2014, online radio isn’t where it’s at anymore, it’s podcasting. Podcasting had been around but it was going through this surge. That’s when I switched over to it being a podcast. I always loved old-style radio shows where people talked about artists and stuff. That was the style that I did it in. Over time, I had built up this following of female artists because I was promoting their music on my show. It was a natural progression for me to do the Female Entrepreneur Musician Podcast where I could help them with their own careers and marketing and business.

It’s such an interesting show to go back and we’re going to talk about your more recent spinoff show. In Women of Substance, you cover 3 to 5 at least each episode of musicians. You talk about them, talk about what they’re doing. You play their song. That’s a lot of work you’ve built into the show.

When we started that show, it was five days a week. We were doing maybe seven songs back then per show. Now it’s ten songs a show and three days a week.

This is the thing. I’ve been struggling to do the Giving Tuesday Podcast, which is my shout-out to podcasters and I wanted to feature five but it’s difficult. You need to do your research and you need to work into finding the right ones that are women of substance that represent what you’re going for. Someone has to curate that. How do you do that? How did you manage to put out a show previously daily but at least three times a week? That’s still a lot of work.

I had set up a system from the beginning for artists to submit to me so I didn’t have to go search for them. In fact, I asked them to pay a little bit to help cover my cost because it’s a lot of time to review their music. We researched them so we can say something knowledgeable about what they’re doing or awards they’ve won or something. That takes time. I had to set that up from the beginning. As it had grown then more people were finding us and it’s that snowball effect where the other artists that are on the show are sharing it out and the musicians, they know and see it. They’re like, “I want to be on that show.” You start getting all this word of mouth.

That’s what I found. There’s that little bit of research that only you can do because you have deep knowledge of the industry. The other musicians you featured before, you have a comparison that you’re constantly doing to say, “Is this good enough? Is this representative of the message we want to send?” Only you can do that or only your top staff at the end of the day can do that for you. That is a lot of labor and a lot of love that gets put into your show. It comes out in the end because the mix of the music shows a sensitivity to the one that came before it. It’s not this mismatch of a bunch of tracks in essence that you could have. It has an album feel to it. You curated it to go in a particular order.

I’m glad that you felt that because I have been a playlister back since the days of high school when I used to make mixed tapes constantly. I love the idea of, you never know what’s going to come next but it’ll feel like it fits and belongs there. It doesn’t give you whiplash but yet it’s not all the same sound either. I still playlist every show even though I no longer host that show because I have moved on to host other shows. I brought in another musician who’s worked with me for years to host it. I don’t even edit it anymore but I still choose all the music and I do all the playlisting because that’s super important to me. I’m a little obsessed over it.

TBF 76 | Podcast Media Experience

Podcast Media Experience: Women weren’t getting exposed enough for their fantastic music. If you turned on Sirius XM or something, it was like 80% to 85% men.

 

It does show that consistency. It’s why the show is continuing to have success and move forward for you. That’s great. This is a choice that a lot of podcasters come to is that your business and your goals and the things that you do shift. The choice is, “Do I shift my show or make a new one?” You’ve chosen to make a new one. It’s called The Profitable Musician Show, which is great because it captures you right there. I would like to be profitable and still be a musician. You got it right there. What made you decide not to shift the show and add a profitable musician segment but not shift the show but start a brand new one?

There are a couple of reasons. I feel like I’ve developed a trust with female artists. I wanted to keep the female entrepreneur musician show going. I felt like there were things that we could talk about there that you don’t want to talk about on any old show that’s only about making money as a musician. There are more sensitive topics in mindset and things that we deal with as women. I wanted to make sure to keep that going while also shifting to a way that I could serve the general population of musicians, not just women because my brand had been shifting that way. I had put on The Profitable Musician Summit in 2018 and 2019 and that had been so popular that I have shifted my entire brand in that direction. I’ve become known for teaching musicians income streams, helping them expand their profitability in so many different ways and making sure that they’re keeping more of the money that they make.

This is a curiosity that I have about you. You have a book and this business. Did the business and book come out of the podcast? Did the podcast come out of the book and the business side?

The book definitely came out of the business. I would say that the business started with the podcast. It started with Women of Substance and moved to the Female Entrepreneur Musician. From there, I developed my Female Musician Academy, which is for female artists to help them with marketing and business and grow their fan base. Within that is where I developed my framework of the musician’s profit path and how they go from an unknown artist to a professional profitable musician. That started out with this great framework for inside my academy. I built a blog post around it to help more musicians with that framework. That turned into a book. It’s all been a progression.

That’s great to hear because they have such great synergy going back and forth. Someone who wants to learn about the industry about how to make it about wherever they’re struggling, they’re in pain, they can easily find you and all those different places. They find this great support, this great inspiration in your Female Entrepreneur Musician series and the Women of Substance keep going, they get to hear some great music that they’ve probably never heard before. That’s an interesting play of getting them in whatever path and way they are and then capturing them through that and giving them even more in terms of a business or service, which you’re doing both at the same time.

It was organic how it happened but it’s worked out that I’m now able to serve musicians in two different ways that are both super valuable.

Are you finding women of substance who come on your show and get their music featured become academy members, clients, part of that? Does it go that direction?

Always vet the product and make sure that you try it out and see that it is something that you think the audience would want and use. Click To Tweet

Yes. It’s hard to quantify sometimes but I know that it’s true or it may go the other way. They find me through the academy and then they submit music to Women of Substance because they didn’t know about that before. It’s this great synergy about how it works together.

That’s interesting to being able to use, I’m going to call it shows, as a funnel in terms of business terms and marketing funnels but that we do find that it goes both directions. That’s what people are missing. A funnel isn’t a one-way thing. I like to call it the pipeline because I want it to flow both ways. This is an interesting model to take a look at having different shows, having them feed off of each other. This is what I do here at The Binge Factor because I also have Feed Your Brand and I have other shows and they feed off of each other. You’ve created that dynamic where if you’re interested in a particular area like listening to music, you have that ability to do it. If you’re listening to how to take the lessons, how to learn how to be a profitable musician, it’s there for you as well. You’ve curated them again into a playlist, which seems to be your thing. I love that. Let’s get some tips for others out there because you’ve been doing this a long time and have some great ways to do that. Let’s talk about our five different things that you do that make you successful. How do you get great guests?

I mostly go after people that I love their music. I need to feel like I love their music before I want to talk to them about their career because no matter what they can teach me about their career, if I don’t love their music then I’m not connected to them. In the beginning, I would reach out to people that I heard through Women of Substance that I had accepted their music and I loved their music and I wanted to know more. Now pretty much a lot of good guests come to me, which is great, which means you’re doing something right.

It means they’re seeing the synergy of who came before them. That helps weed that out. It helps make it more relevant for you.

I’m definitely getting more people that are saying, “I listened to this episode.” Here’s what I love the best is when people come and they say, “Here’s something I see that you haven’t talked about on your show yet. Here’s an angle that I can give on this subject.” I had someone come to me with something that and it was awesome. I hadn’t covered it yet. I hadn’t even thought about covering it. She had been a previous guest. She had been following and figuring out where she could fill in gaps.

Over time you had originally an online radio, which was a lot harder, I have to say, in terms of increasing listenership because you didn’t have the support of Apple and all the other things that came around when podcasting came into play. Increasing listeners, do you spend concerted time on it? What are some ways that you have been able to increase listeners over time?

For a while now, we produce specific images for artists if they request them that they can use to promote on their socials. That has always increased listeners as well as increased bringing more artists into the show because they have artist friends. We’ve, we’ve done that longer than I’ve seen most other podcasts. A lot of people do that now but we have ten artists per episode and we offer to anyone who wants an image. They send their picture. They send what episode they’re on and the name of their song. I’ve had my daughter do this for me probably since she was eleven. We provide that for them for free because we know that it will make it easy for them to promote then they will promote.

TBF 76 | Podcast Media Experience

Podcast Media Experience: When a lot of good guests come to you, it means you’re doing something right.

They do it all the time and they tag me and so that’s fun. We have ten artists per episode, at least. In the holiday season, we have bigger shows. We have more than fifteen but we still specifically go and tag every single artist on media and all the channels to make sure that they see it and that it’s going to show up on their feed. We always have them submitting their social information so we can tag them. I feel like if we put it out there and hope that they’re going to promote it, they won’t necessarily. If you tag them, if you tap them on the shoulder, first of all, you’re making it easy for them because they can share that post. Also, it’s that reminder of like, “I should share this.”

It’s a lot more work. That’s what most people don’t realize is that that effort of sharing them, tagging them, it’s not as easy because of a lot of the auto-posting, Hootsuite, Buffer, CoSchedule, all of those programs on MeetEdgar. That’s the one we currently are testing out here. When we use them, they don’t have a tagging feature because they’re a third-party. You then have to go back into Facebook, back in Instagram, back into place at sometimes and retag people and do it in a more manual way, which is a lot more work.

I have an assistant that does this. He spends one hour every time an episode comes out doing this on all the platforms.

In the end, it’s worth it. That’s what you’re saying is it does increase listeners. That’s fantastic. That’s a great lesson that you’re highlighting here for a lot of podcasters out there is that they put all this work into curating. You’re building this great playlist, highlighting, finding a great guest, doing all of that. The mechanism of promoting it, of pushing it out, isn’t doing enough heavy lifting for you.

We email all the artists too. We’re hitting them on all sides but truthfully, our content is so good. I was talking to my co-editor. We’re like, “How can we get this out to more people? I feel like we’re not doing enough. What else can we do? It’s so good. We want the world to hear it.” I know all podcasters feel that way.

You don’t want to be a hidden gem. The best podcast no one’s listening to. That would be horrible. We don’t want that. I know this is the key thing. When I ask this question, every single podcaster who’s come on the show has said the same thing. “I’m maybe not doing enough here. This is an area of growth for me.” All of them, no matter how successful they are, you’re not alone. You produce your show a pro. You’re talking about that you have systems at the front end for bringing in guests for making sure you get all their social profiles. You’ve got quite a system for production here and I don’t want to talk about post-production. What do you still do? What is it that makes the show more professional?

I have a professionally produced intro and outro. That’s important. I always pull out quotes for my guests because people want to know what they’re going to hear before they hear it. I also oftentimes pull out quotes to the beginning of the episode. Before they hear the intro, they hear a little quote of what’s coming up. That helps people be like, “I need to keep listening to this.”

A binge listener appreciates structure. It makes them feel comfortable, but don’t make it boring either. Click To Tweet

Do you choose that yourself?

I do. I choose that myself and I try to do it right afterward when it’s top of mind and you’re like, “I love that he or she said this,” and I go pull that right away. That’s part of the thing with having this many shows that I’ve had to organize. I need to do the work for that show right after it’s done instead of putting it on the shelf and be like, “I’ll have a day next week when I go back and do post-production.” It’s a lot better and quicker too. I’m thinking about what they said and trying to make sure that I’m conveying that in the best way possible. Even if I go in and do an intro for them too after the fact, I’m highlighting the things that stuck out to me instead of waiting and then doing it the next week and then, “Now what did we talk about?”

You have the energy of the moment. That’s what I consider it to be. That feeling of energy is where that important, that a-ha moment happened. You do that well. You’re getting a community, you get a group going on. You’ve got people coming through your course, you got people buying your book. You’ve got all these artists who have participated in the Women of Substance and their music has been featured. How do you encourage them to engage with each other and with you?

I have a Facebook group that I’ve had for years now. It’s for female indie artists and it’s for people that aren’t ready for the academy yet. I want to give them a place to be heard, seen and understood and have that get some support when they’re first starting out. That’s a place that people can go where they can also know what’s coming up on the podcast, get support. We have community managers in there that do some Facebook Lives that end up on the Female Entrepreneur Musician podcast. It’s all becoming integrated, which I love. There’s this support group for female artists. We’re specific. We only let people in there that are female artists. My assistant goes and looks at their Facebook page and are they a musician or are they trying to get in there because they want to promote to my audience? We’re selective. We’re about a little over 4,000 now. We could be way bigger but it’s important to us that it doesn’t become a spam fest.

This is a theme with you, Bree. Everything you’re doing is carefully curated and vetted. That is beginning to be this pattern of success for you. I love it. The last thing that we look at here is super simple things. We can get great guests, increase listeners, produce a pro but we got to eventually monetize somehow. What do you think has been one of the best ways that you’ve been able to monetize your show? I know you’ve used a lot of different methods so maybe you could highlight some that you felt might work for others but maybe didn’t work for you.

First of all, I am able to highlight on the Women of Substance show the artists that want to get their name more out there, get people to their website or they have a release coming up. I offer advertising to them and that’s one way we monetize that show. We also offer things that musicians would like. We’ve got some affiliate partners, like a website platform for musicians and things. It’s not helping us monetize but it’s helping those musicians. A lot of them didn’t even know that platform exists and it’s amazing. They’re so happy that they found it. That’s one thing that we’ve done.

Also working with affiliate partners for different things that maybe we don’t offer that musicians would also like. I’ve had many different music companies that offer headphones or microphones or things that have approached me. I also always vet the product and make sure that I try it out and see that it is something that the audience would want and use. It’s been successful for us but we also use it to sell our own stuff. The Profitable Musicians Show, I want them to join my rock your next release program or whatever boot camp I have coming up. It’s great that we have the ability to switch up the ads based on what’s happening in real-time.

TBF 76 | Podcast Media Experience

Podcast Media Experience: Think about what your guests said and make sure that you’re conveying that in the best way possible.

Do you find that podcast listeners become the best clients, the ones who go through the chorus and take it?

Yes. It’s fun when they quote back something you said. They’re like, “I don’t remember what episode it was but I remember when you said this and I took it to heart. This is how it changed the way I did my career.” I’m like, “I remember when I said that a year ago.”

I love it when they contradict me. They say, “You said this before. Why is it different now?” I love that when they push back on me. I was like, “That’s a true listener there. That’s awesome.” They become more active and engaged. They have better success because of that.

There’s much to be said for that connection of listening, them being in your ear, you being in their ear. I know for me when I listen to podcasts, I have that amazing connection with those people that I’ve chosen to follow. It’s like nothing else. It’s not like watching a video or reading a blog post.

It isn’t like that at all. Did you ever imagine when you started that there was such a thing as a binge listener that you had binge listeners or you would ever have them?

I know that I’d been a binge listener for certain things so I knew they existed. When you first start, you’re like, “I’m trying this. I hope it works.” You don’t know if it’s going to stick or not. That the way that I started the radio station, it was a thing for myself. I found that people came on board and they liked it and were listening every day. I was like, “There can be,” because I knew it was a musician you can have super fans so you can have super fans as a podcast as well.

They make everything go right in the music world, I imagine. Do you put something particular into your show in the way that you have created your show because you have a binge-listening background?

Sometimes there can be some embarrassing moments where you say the wrong thing, but that’s actually endearing to your binge listeners. Click To Tweet

A binge listener appreciates structure. I do have a structure to my show that makes them feel comfortable and that they can appreciate but it’s not it’s the same show every time. It’s like kids, they want structure. It makes them feel comfortable and they recognize it but we don’t want to make it boring either.

What do you think your binge factor is?

My binge factor is that I am completely authentic and I don’t often sensor myself. I’m editing my own show a lot of times but I try not to be all perfectionist about my editing and take things out. If I have to change the way I said something, I don’t go back. I don’t want it to sound like reading a script. That’s why I’ve never been good with doing YouTube videos because I felt it had to be perfect. With podcasting, I want it to be my authentic self over the mic like I would be talking on a live stream where I can’t go back and make changes. Sometimes that shows some embarrassing moments where you say the wrong thing but that’s endearing to your binge listeners.

Part of my show here is that I get to psychoanalyze your show even though I don’t have a doctorate but that’s okay. I’m going to analyze your binge factor. This is interesting to me because you have a very unique show compared to many that I listened to because you have three shows. In all three shows, what you’ve done is demonstrate this deep commitment to the business of music, to exposing the path, the tactics, successful women and people in general in that music industry. That deep commitment, merely the fact that you’re hitting up to 2,000 shows is one side of it. The fact that each one of those shows maintains that curated quality that is your thumbprint on each one of those shows, that’s what’s amazing. That’s your true binge factor, Bree.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Being a musician myself, I can’t imagine doing these shows without having lived a lot of them.

You show that you truly lived in everyone’s shoes and where they want to go. What’s next for your show? Where are you going to go with this? You got The Profitable Musician taking off. Where’s it headed?

I’m excited about where it’s headed. I’ve set up a framework with that show where I’m helping musicians with these different pillars of their income. I feel like there’s so much to unpack there especially now in the state of the world where musicians have lost certain parts of their income and they’re being forced to look at new areas. I want to be the person to shine the light on those things for them and get them out of that. Maybe they feel like they’re stuck or they don’t know where to go next. I want that show to be that for them. I’m excited about the show because it’s timely for musicians and for people in general needing to look at different streams of incomes and different ways of doing things in pivoting, what you’ve been already doing.

TBF 76 | Podcast Media Experience

Podcast Media Experience: Switch up your ads based upon what’s happening in real-time.

 

I’m a vocal critic of how the podcast and music industry in general treats artists. I’m not going to hide it because you can certainly hear me talk about that at various times. As a designer of products who lived her life on royalty for 25 years, I have a deep respect for the creativity being directly responsible for business success. I’m curious as to what you think is going on in the podcast industry. Is it going to continue to support musicians and creative artists more? Is it hurting them?

It’s a bummer. For example, Spotify dropped my Women of Substance show because they find that it is a competition to their playlisting, which I understand on one hand. To me, it’s a different thing. It’s a music commentary show. That’s the category we’re under. I don’t think it’s a playlist necessarily because we talk on there too about the artists. I was a little bummed when that happened but I do think that it’s great that musicians who are all on Spotify can listen to the other shows that will help them, the Female Entrepreneur Musician and The Profitable Musician Show. I’m glad that Spotify and places like Amazon Music are coming out and making those more prominent.

When I look in Spotify under my name, the first thing that comes up is my podcast, which is weird because it used to be my music as an artist. Now my podcast, I was like, “My podcast comes up first.” That’s cool on that end because those are places where musicians are. They’re automatically on Spotify because that’s where they’re making income and they’re trying to get more followers and stuff. That’s great where it’s supporting musicians but it’s a bummer. I should consider that a badge of honor that they considered me competition.

Maybe there’s going to be a better place. I’m thinking that maybe Amazon might do better for you guys in the long run because your ability to tag the purchase of songs or the purchase of albums, that ability in and of itself is right in line with Amazon’s model and where they’re going with Audible. You may become the Amazon darlings next.

We used to get people to try to download songs that they heard on the podcast on iTunes when there used to be iTunes a few years ago. Now it’s all about Apple Music and streaming. It didn’t work quite as well. That’s an idea. Maybe Amazon will be our place.

You might have to go through a lot of episodes to update the tags and links. That sounds like a nightmare but it might be worth it in the end because you might become that next Audible darling. You don’t know how that’s going to play out because Spotify has some heavy lifting competition, that’s for sure. It’s interesting because what you were saying before about your name showing up is that I have the same name as a music artist. Tracy Hazzard spelled with two Zs, the same thing. I beat her out on Google every single day of the week and that’s crazy to me. She’s a music artist. She has albums out. It shouldn’t be that way but I do the same thing on Apple. It happens that if you type in my name, I show up everywhere because I have six shows total and thousands of interviews and other things out there. That’s an interesting model for musicians to get themselves to the top of the list by showing up on some podcasts.

I was surprised. I’ve always shown up as my music as the top one forever. This changed. They are going all-in on podcasts.

You don't have to be perfect to start a show, but you can get started and you will get better. Click To Tweet

Bree, there are people out there reading that are thinking about starting podcasts that maybe are music artists. Is there some suggestion that you can make for them as to how they might want to think about starting a show for themselves to gain them more listeners to their music at the end of the day?

I know Song Exploder is a popular podcast and it’s cool because they’re analyzing a song and why it works and all that. There could be versions of that style of show that you could do as a musician where it showed off your knowledge as a songwriter and your ability. You could definitely throw some in there of your own, analyzing your own music as well, which would be fun. It used to be that they used to encourage musicians to have their own radio station. They would play it. You could play your own new music along with other artists. That was one idea I had but I didn’t end up playing a lot of my own music on my own station but it’s something you could do. You could be like the go-to podcasts for bluegrass music if you have bluegrass music and then throw yours in there sometimes. That could be a great way to bring people into the genre.

Do something for super fans. We were watching the Bee Gees documentary. It’s good. My husband and I have worked together for over many years and we have a shorthand. It occurred to me when I was watching it that the brothers had that same thing. It is these a-ha moments that you get from watching the story behind the story or the story behind the music. You could become that for your own fans. Why let somebody else do it? Why not you?

There are two ways to look at a podcast. That way, which would be to give more to the people that already like you then another way would be to get more new people to discover you. You can do both. Why not?

Bree, anything else you want to share with our readers, other podcasters out there?

I don’t know where I’d be if I hadn’t started a podcast way back when and if I hadn’t have followed organically how that would take my career. Don’t be afraid to start a podcast. I remember on my 500th episode of Women of Substance, I went and played some of the audio from my first podcast. I sounded like I was asleep. I didn’t edit myself. I’m like, “This is how I started the show but now I’m here and I have this many listeners and so it doesn’t mean that you don’t have to be perfect to start a show but that you can get started and you will get better. I promise you.”

I was hoping maybe you could give us a little tactical tip. Some people are afraid to put real music and real musician. We buy this horrible stock music because we’re so afraid of not having royalty-free music on our show but you do it all the time. There’s no proper way to do it. What tactics and what techniques do you use to make sure that you’re properly listing the copyrights for the music and all of that so that you’re able to share that? What permissions do you get on the other side from the artists?

TBF 76 | Podcast Media Experience

Podcast Media Experience: With the state of the world right now, musicians have lost certain parts of their income, and they’re being forced to look at new areas.

Basically, you have to get permission from the artist. When artists submit music to me, they are giving me permission to play it. Not only playing it, I don’t pay royalties. All you need to do is find an artist that you like that is independent. It’s going to be harder to get that permission from a label. They probably will charge you but an indie artist would love to be mentioned. They’d love to be able to use that in their bio. My song is the intro song for this podcast. In fact, on my new podcast, I use music by one of my artists that’s in the academy because I love the style of music that she had. It’s symphonic electronic music. It’s cool. I asked her, “I was thinking about how the song would work well for my intro and outro. Would you be okay with me using it as long as I mentioned you?” She was happy to do it. You need to keep your eyes and ears open for music by indie artists that you like. Come listen to the Women of Substance podcast, you’ll hear tons of indie artists. Approach them. They all own the rights to their own music. They have the ability to grant that to you.

That’s what’s interesting, when you were mentioning before about your name showing up for your music before but podcasting is trumping that a little bit. What you can do is as long as you put in your description of your episode, every single episode, you put a credit to that artist. They’re getting mentioned hundreds of times over the times you produce that show. That helps their visibility within the search engines of Spotify, iHeart and Apple. That could help them tremendously. It’s a good deal for them.

Everyone that listens to my show hears her name at the end of my episode if they don’t turn it off before the end of the outro. That name is going to be household for anyone that listens to more episodes than 1 or 2.

For you artists out there, musicians out there, think about it. It’s maybe a great way to go. Get some more visibility for yourself. Bree, thank you for your contributions to the podcasting industry and for women in music in general because that is unparalleled. We appreciate you.

Thank you. I appreciate being able to come on here and hope it inspires other people to start podcasting.

I learned so much from Bree. I got many great ideas for how you could adjust your show, how you could create better music that sets a better tone, how you could help the music industry at the same time. We have to remember that many of our players are musically inclined. They started on the music side. Apple Music and then the podcast spun off from there. We’ve got Spotify who’s going heavy into it, heavy that they discontinued Bree’s podcast, that they think she’s a competitor, which is a good thing in some ways. It means she’s doing something right.

In a way, it also hurts your circulation. How can you do that better? How can you play within the rules of how music players search? That’s what’s happening because podcasts seem like money makers for them and easier to do because the whole industry of royalty in music is complex and expensive and they’re always trying to find ways to cut out the artist’s part of the deal in the process. We’re sitting here as independent podcasters. I love the idea of playing with that and hacking the system to make sure that great musicians get visibility.

I also love the idea of you playing the game of how to get circulating within the music search engine that is all of these podcast search engines. Learning from what Bree’s been doing and what’s she’s doing successfully is important here. Bree Noble, definitely a woman of substance on her own, let alone the host of Women of Substance, making profitable podcasters is what we’re here for. Her making Profitable Musicians was aligned in that view of how the world works. I love what she does bring digital skills to that. I hope we’re bringing digital skills to you. Marketing skills, ideas for show structures, different things here. That’s our goal at The Binge Factor. It’s to expose you to all the different show types that are out there. The ones that are doing something right and successful like Bree Noble is. I would love to have more of you participate in the process of nominating some shows. I get shows from publicists all the time. I have to tell you, a lot of the time they’re not great.

I’m having trouble finding shows that I think yield a significantly different viewpoint that you would be interested in as readers. I take my curation as seriously as Bree Noble does about her music. I take my curation of the podcast I’m bringing to you. I want to bring you quality shows and that comes from you suggesting someone. Please, reach out to me at The Binge Factor. You can go to TheBingeFactor.com and make a suggestion. You can even nominate a show directly through there. You can just send me a message anywhere on social media @TheBingeFactor or @TracyHazzard, anywhere you can find me on social media. Thanks for reading. I appreciate how engaged you’ve been. I appreciate the messaging you send us and I would love for you to be more engaged about what you want. If you can do that this 2021, that would be great.

Don’t miss Tracy Hazzard’s Authority Magazine article about Bree Noble too!

Important Links:

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!

Join the Binge Factor community today: