Ever since I was a DJ in college–I have always wanted to entertain people.
That’s one reason I spent two years in theater at Abilene Christian University my freshman and sophomore years.
My theater director was Dr. Lewis Fulks, who himself studied under Cecil B. DeMille of Hollywood fame.
I originally was introduced to theater by my high school theater director, Gerald Snider to portray one of the three murders in Shakespeare’s MacBeth.
After two years in theater–I went on to finish my BA-Mass Communications degree (Radio-TV specialty) at Abilene Christian.
I worked for a Christian radio station, KCAD (located in the basement of a shopping mall) at the Sunday morning (graveyard) shift, then eventually took over the all night slot at Top-40 leader, KRBC one year later.
The life of a college all-night DJ did give me some exposure to fame (I had my share of groupies) as well as getting to meet KISS and other celebs.
But I began (out of being bored most of the night) doing some impersonations that I worked up.
After a while–I began to realize how powerful radio was–not only for information, music and entertainment, but in forming emotional connections to the audience.
In podcast #44, John Verlin delves in to the magic of audio (one reason he does podcasts) and how they can emotionally connect with his audience.
And yes–he does do his Jimmy Stewart and Jerry Lewis impersonations!
It’s all a part of our three-part strategy to drive SEO and web traffic and make your business exceed the profile and exposure of your competitors with an extended marketing platform–the perfect compliment to a Google Adwords campaign!
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Now, enjoy the video podcast!
Marketing Your Business; The Magic Of Entertaining Podcasts, I’m Finally Doing My Jimmy Stewart and Jerry Lewis Impersonations, Podcast #44!
Host: John D. Verlin
Transcript:
[Music]
Once again good afternoon John Verlin, OnDemand Advertising Solutions and another
Digital Marketing Update. I’m gonna try to make it through this podcast today because
I’ve been looking forward to doing this. But I want to start out with a answer to an email
I got from a lady named Janine in Lenexa, Kansas. She basically has some really good
questions here but I want to try to explain this quickly and then move on to today’s
podcasts about the Magic of Entertaining Podcasts and how you can do things
emotionally with them, like do impersonations of Jimmy Stewart and
Jerry Lewis. Which I want to do and I will do that here in just a minute.
She says John, I’ve been listening to some of your podcasts checked out your
website question I’ve had people in content marketing as well as search
engine optimization suggest various programs for me to do. It’s quite expensive to
optimize this that the other. Why do you use podcasts over blog post and why not
why shouldn’t I just put more money into other media that’s gonna draw quicker
response? Good question. I need to thank you for asking it. Well, I’ll give you
sort of a short answer here but basically if we go back to what I talked
about yesterday in the forty-third podcast about 2018 marketing and the
projections of how important it’s going to be to tap into Millennials for future
growth of businesses. What they are looking for. What they are engaged with
is the emotional connection and authenticity. This is something
that’s it’s it’s a pretty big deal. But basically it’s the experiences sharing,
expert experiences is what a lot of people now are saying you need to
really connect into for customer engagement. These are the buzz words
going on in marketing right now. But it’s really important now because there are so
many options as you know. But you got to engage the customer somehow. Maybe
have a party. Maybe you know you know you’re doing. Maybe direct mail or whatever.
But how effectively are you engaging them? That’s kind of what it’s coming down to.
What I have found that by recording content as a podcast, you’re gonna stand out if you
make a video podcast out of it. Which is what we can do. You can include pictures
about your business. You can include video but you can also include your
voice like I’m doing now. And that has emotion and this has all come about
primarily from my radio background. Seeing what I saw as a DJ back in
college. I worked at a Christian station that was 500 watts in the basement of
the mall–about his graveyard shift as you can get. Then went to a top 40 station.
Had an all-night radio show for a year and in Texas. And it was great. I
mean I learned a lot. I had a lot of people call in. I got to go out and meet
people and you begin to see that engagement when they meet you for the
first time and they’re like wow you’re a star. That kind of thing.
That only happens I mean it’s you can do that as an author and print may in a
definitely in television but there’s some magic there. And these are very
cost-effective. okay it is one reason. It engages emotionally. You can do
10-minute versions of podcasts and dive deep so to speak in them more than you
can do with a blog post. You know you can do that it and it just may be not as
engaging, not as interesting. And by the way, speaking of blog posts. We transcribe
these podcasts. If you look on my blog you see there’s written content
as well of what I’m saying. So that is a blog post. It’s doing
double-duty content but it allows people to access it 24/7. You can be
listening right now to me from my website and working out on a bicycle or
walking or whatever. So it’s engaging constantly. It’s very simple to
engage. By recording this content, you do connect that
emotional element and that’s hard to do. It’s just like old-time radio. If you
listen to the old radio shows you start laughing or whatever. That’s the
entertainment side of this thing. It’s hard to entertain in, in writing so to
speak to get the same effect with the content. Like I said, you can be doing
other things and engage other activities while you’re listening and you may be
doing that right now. You can do a combination of things. You could be
ironing, walking, whatever you’re doing while you’re listening to this. I‘s why
people buy CDs and talk-related content you know for for learning and education.
Now basically, what the whole deal is, is that by using these you have
more flexibility to get your content. Engaged, I guess what I’m trying to say.
When you’re doing this with your employees or your prospects you have
your own little radio show. Guess what? You can interview them. Maybe you have a
loan officer you’re a bank president and you can put them on a podcast take
pictures of them being interviewed by you. Or you have your employees. So you’re
engaging your prospects, during your little radio show. And doing
segments and getting the employees involved, your staff involved. All of this
is fun. That’s a key thing here. Not sitting, writing laborious notes and
posting. This is engaging in various snippets of education, entertainment and
information. So if you go to look at my website now. This is the front side of
this thing. The entertainment side. The education side of content. The
back end side if you google my business, On Demand Advertising Solutions you’re
most likely gonna see not only my Google my business site page. You’re gonna see
some links to my video podcasts. Now if I hadn’t done these, you probably
wouldn’t see those. Matter of fact, you probably may not see a lot of links
from other businesses if they don’t do a blog. They’ll just have your
yellow pages maybe. You’re linked to Facebook, Twitter maybe. But this is read
by the search engines on YouTube. YouTube’s owned by Google. So this
is the back end benefit as you get ranked higher. It’s also something that I call part of
the marketing platform. You can promote this content. There’s a reason
now you can tell people to come to your website. Now think about that. If you
don’t have something for them to come see, what are they gonna do? Why would
they want to come see it? So what I do by doing these video podcasts for clients, I
give their prospects and customers a reason to come to the site. And that’s
what this is all about. Getting people to your website. Having a first impression
to follow through and follow up and call you, or come into your store.
Does that make sense? I’m trying to do this in a hurry kind of because I want
to spend some time here. But that’s why this is going to be really
important for future growth of your business is engaging customers. Getting
emotionally involved with them somehow. And I found, through my experience in
radio, you can make these emotional connections through podcasts. You can hear my
expression. You can feel my passion or whatever. Well that’s the same thing when you do
podcasts discussing your expertise. People can listen and go wow I didn’t know that.
And guess what? They’re sucked into your podcast on your website, which is
linked to YouTube. All that’s being searched by Google and you’re
being ranked higher. Does that make sense? I hope it does. Because that’s the short
answer to all this. Now, I want to talk about the entertainment side of
podcasting to follow up on my podcast yesterday about connecting emotionally.
When I was in college, I got into theater and I was in a number of productions.
I learned an awful lot. It was a great experience. If you’ve ever been in
theater, to learn for public speaking. The first two years of college got in
theater at Abilene Christian University. Studied under a man named Dr. Lewis Fulks,
dr. Lewis fulks who actually studied under Cecille B DeMille or his brother
I believe, in Hollywood. So had a great experience. The last two year of college, got into
radio and did an all-night radio show at a top 40 station. Learned a lot. The key was–a lot
of times, when I would go on remote broadcast and you know young girls would come
up and–I listen to you all the time! And they would get all excited and they’re just all
bent out of shape about this. So they would get all worked up over meeting me
because they had listened to me all the time. This is the emotional connection. They felt
like they knew me. They felt like they knew me. John, how are you? Oh I’ve been
listening to you. You know, I’m their best friend. Well, that is the emotional connection
you can draw to your prospects and customers through these podcasts. How do I
know this? Well, I’ve experienced a bit at the same time when I was in radio. We had
advertisers, we had talk-show hosts, all post podcasts of ads they did by themselves or
that they were being interviewed during a radio show. And they would post those
podcasts on their website and their customers could go in to the website and listen to
them. And that formed a powerful impression. Not only that they heard them on a
radio station but they actually got to experience that on their website. Now, if
you’re going to buy your product or service and I’m a customer and I go to
your website and I see and hear that, how is that going to compare that if I go to
a competitor and I don’t see that at all? Think about that. That’s what this does–
to separate you from your competition. And in the back end, it elevates you in
the search engines because you’re providing good content, relevant content
and you’re having fun. you’re having fun. You can feel that excitement. That’s why
podcasts, I love them because they’ve got so many multiple benefits to doing and
their transcribed just like a blog so you’re getting the benefits of pretty much
everything. Now, why do I offer this? Why do I focus in on this? Why am i pretty much
the only one doing this with animated videos? Well, animated videos, they test well. You
can get it in 30 seconds. You can put them on your Facebook page. You put them on all
platforms if you want. They’re fun. They’re different and unique. The same with
podcasts. Fun. Different and unique. And what are we looking for today to stand out
from the competition? What are we looking for to lure people into our web sites, to our
content. To pay attention to us! That’s why I focus on them and because I produce all this
for you and promote it. I could charge really reasonable fees because it’s basically
my effort and my experience and that sort of thing. So entertaining podcasts,
they’re great to get engaged people. They’re one way to interview, as I
mentioned your staff or customers. Great clients. Say, I want to put you on my
podcast. Would you be willing? And they would be thrilled to have you interview them.
You then send them or I do the mp3. I tell them, go ahead and send this out to
all your customers. Let them know you’ve been interviewed by so-and-so. Now you’ve
got a whole another market of their customers getting exposed to your
podcast. Do you see how this builds out? It’s an extension of your marketing
platform. Okay, so anyway I got into theater and loved acting. Loved all the
stuff. Started doing impersonations and radio because I was bored. I had a
midnight to 6:00 shift and by the way, if you haven’t noticed–I’m telling you a
story. Storytelling is one other aspect that’s going to be really important and
has been. But it’s becoming more so, because people want to hear
about somebody. It’s like when your grandpa, grandma said, let me tell you a
little story. Then, you would just be grandpa, how did this happen? Now you’re engaged.
It’s the same thing. So, I started doing impersonations because I
was bored in college. There, in the radio show playing American top 40. This is
actually about the time of the Bee Gees and Donna Summer and that sort of thing.
Actually, I judged a disco dance contest in a Methodist Church of all places. So, I
started doing impersonations and had a lot of fun doing it. I had listeners call up
laughing wanted me to do them again. Uh , you may or may not like them but here
we go. Alright here’s Jimmy Stewart as I promised. This is Jim, Jim… Jimmy
Stewart. You know, John gets excited when he talks about don’t doing podcasts. And I
can see why he might because you can there’s so much you can do when you’re talking to
somebody like this. And you get right up on the mic like this and you can talk very softly
and get a lot of emotion. Like I did when I was in It’s a Wonderful Life. I yelled out
Merry Christmas you old building and loan. That’s why I think what he’s talking
about makes some sense. Okay, now I learned years ago how to
do Jerry Lewis through watching David Frye an impersonator on a TV interview.
He said the way he would do impersonations is, he would get in front
of a mirror and make facial expressions of that person and then suddenly the
voice would came. So what, I’m in junior high and I go in and I go to a mirror
and I start doing this. I know you can’t see this, but I’m imitating Jerry Lewis’ face and
the voice just came just like he said. And I would do it in junior high
and high school. Call people up. Get girls laughing at college. Whatever. So here’s my
Jerry Lewis. Oh hello. oh I’m Jerry. Who’s your little whoesy? Who’s you
turtle dove? Who’s your little whose it? Who do you love? ha Oh,
John I don’t feel so good. Lady, would you help me? Anyway, you’re either gonna tell
people–you got to hear this guy, he’s terrible! But it the key is– they’re listening!
John Verlin at johnverlin12@att.net My cats are coming up to me on
the table. Want to know what happened to me. They probably think I had a stroke or
something. johnverlin12@att.net or
visit www.OnDemandAdvertisingSolutions.com
we’ll see you again next week have a great day
[Music]
All podcasts are recorded by Verlin Studios / Gardner, Kansas
Copyright, John D. Verlin 2017
