Marketing Strategy and Mindset Tips for New Solopreneurs

Hi, I'm Agatha, and I'm a business coach and marketing mentor for solopreneurs. I have nineteen years of corporate marketing experience and I'm a certified coach.

I host The Intentional Solopreneur™ which is the go-to podcast for ambitious women who want to launch service-based businesses. I share my best marketing and mindset tips to help women get the clarity and confidence they need to succeed as a new business owner.

My podcast helps you take your initial vision for your business and turn it into reality. My listeners are women who are in the early stages of launching their businesses who want help understanding the basics of marketing and how to start attracting clients. I also cover some mindset topics like the fear of failure and imposter syndrome which come up when starting a business and changing your identity in the world.

I also cover some more advanced topics like email marketing and building a nurture strategy, as my background is in marketing so I want to impart this knowledge on my audience from the very beginning. Most online business owners want to build automation into their business at some point to help them turn their cold audience into clients.
 

My initial reason for starting my podcast was that I wanted to teach new and aspiring business owners about marketing. I found that in order to simplify complex marketing topics, I needed more space than what I could get in a social post or in a blog article, so podcasting was a pretty natural format for me.

I coach new entrepreneurs and help them launch their business and build an intentional marketing strategy, and I found that there wasn't a lot of great advice out there for aspiring business owners. Many of the topics I saw being covered weren't really tailored for solopreneurs, but larger businesses or tech startups. I wanted to share both my marketing knowledge as well as lessons I had learned from launching my own business.

I also wanted to simplify marketing for new business owners because a lot of what you find online can be very overwhelming to someone who doesn't have a marketing background.

I started my podcast by recording episodes in Audacity and Zoom when I had guests. I edited my episodes myself using Audacity and used Podbean to release my podcast to multiple platforms at once. It didn't take me very long to release my first episode, and I did my best to have a few episodes ready to go from the very beginning. I had already heard of "podfade," and I didn't want to be part of that statistic.
 

When I started my podcast, I had a full-time job outside of my coaching business. So I started by releasing monthly episodes. It did take me a few hours to edit and release an episode, so I kept that in mind when thinking about the schedule. I released my episodes on Sunday mornings, so I had time to listen when they went live and make sure everything was working well on my website (I created a show notes page for every episode). When I left corporate, I increased the frequency of my episodes to bi-weekly.

Since I edit my podcast myself, I find that twice a month is a good cadence for me. It gives me the time to think of new topics, interview guests, record solo episodes and do all the necessary marketing. As part of my marketing, I also guest on other related podcasts so I allow time for that as well.
 

I don't have paid sponsors for my show. I created this podcast to share my knowledge about marketing and mindset for new business owners, and that's the benefit for me. I also know that having a podcast increases the size of my audience and can lead to new clients. An added benefit is that existing clients have told me that they listen to my show, which wasn't even something I was thinking about when I created the podcast.

Finally, having a podcast has helped me find my own voice and it's made it easier for me to pitch myself to bigger podcasts. Having a show helps me build credibility as a speaker and business owner. It's even made it easier to find guests, as many entrepreneurs now reach out to me vs. me having to find them.
 

I use Zoom and Audacity to record my episodes. If I have a guest on, I use Zoom. If I record a solo episode, then Audacity is enough. I export the audio and video files separately, and then edit using Audacity. I then create a short video clip in iMovie to promote the episode.
 

My podcast is listed on all the major podcasting apps. Almost 50% of my listeners use Apple Podcasts and the rest use a mix of other apps including Spotify (10% of my audience).

I market my show on my website, via email to my newsletter list and on social media (Instagram and LinkedIn). I think the most effective channel is social media, which is why I keep my social media profiles even though I don't use them much in my overall marketing for my business. I feel this is because the video content I create is most easily shared on social media.
 

If you're looking to start a podcast, my advice would be to think about your overall topic and what perspective you'd like to share before you begin recording. I had a rough idea of what I wanted to share, but it wasn't fully fleshed out until I started my show. I think this naturally happens over time as you build your voice, but it's better if you have a good idea of what you want to create before you do it.

It helps to build a content plan so that you can batch create episodes and also tie in your podcast to your other marketing channels. For example, if a blog post I write does well, I'll create a podcast episode around the same topic. And it helps me remember to include my latest podcast episode in my email newsletter.

And like I mentioned before, record and edit a few episodes before you launch so you can hit the ground running. Life happens, and it makes it easier to not fall behind if you have a few episodes already prepared. And come up with a simple promo plan so that you can share your podcast as soon as it launches.

Finally, take the time to be a guest on other podcasts! Hosts love it when you reach out to them with a topic you want to speak on that's aligned with their audience; it makes it easier for them to have you on. And being on other shows grows your community because more people get to hear you speak and it allows you to see what you like in terms of podcast formats.
 

Website: https://agathabrewer.com/
Podcast: https://agathabrewer.com/podcast/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agatha_brewer/
Blog: https://agathabrewer.com/blog/
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-intentional-solopreneur/id1588106756
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1sjetPhzcYn2gMdMmxMp8G
iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-the-intentional-solopreneu-87361018/