There has been a lot of hype around private podcasts for years now and I haven't really talked about them. So private podcasting is such a cool experience for business owners, in my opinion, to use to grow their business in so many different ways. In today's episode, we're gonna talk about what a private podcast looks like where you can host one, how it actually works, the types of podcasts that you could turn private, and all things private podcasting, let's dive in. Hey, y'all, welcome to the clocking in Podcast, the podcast for podcasters entrepreneurs and professionals making their way in the working world while building their own personal brand in the podcasting industry. I'm your host Haylee Gaffin, owner of Gaffin creative a podcast production company for creative entrepreneurs. If you're a podcaster, or even just dreaming about launching your own podcast someday, this show was built to help you merge your love of conversation, education and business. You can find resources, show notes and more for the clocking in podcast at Gaffin creative.com. Today's episode is brought to you by MIC CHECK society, a community that was built for podcasters who are looking to take their podcast from good to great, scale your podcasts, improve your processes and connect with your listeners through our educational trainings, our private members only community and our monthly calls. If you're ready to join us, you can head over to Mic check society.com and enroll today. And you can get $10 off per month with the code podcast. Now let's clock in and get to work. So what are private podcasts? Well, essentially private podcasts are created for specific audiences. They're not released publicly on podcast players. But instead, listeners can access them via a private RSS feed that they can download into their favorite podcast player. Releasing a private podcast is a creative way to reach your audience with exclusive content. And it means that you don't actually have to commit to producing a weekly podcast episode. Instead, you can release a limited series podcast that you can create, record and produce within a few hours to a few days. So sometimes future and hopeful podcasters will look at private podcasts as a way to get started and dip their toes into the pool of podcasting. Now I want to walk through the different types because I think this is important to understand there are different types of private podcast when we talk about, I guess, strategy. So the first one is one we have talked about. It's a limited time podcast, which we talked about back in episode 80, with Meghan Ward, all about pop up podcasting. Now, the second version is a limited series podcast. And this is usually like a training. So this would be a few episodes, you don't update it over time, unless you're just like redoing the whole thing. But it is set as a private podcast, these few things, it's a training. And that's how I look at it. And then for the final option is a private ongoing podcast. And these are usually behind a paywall, or what people tend to do to monetize their podcasts is they will have the public podcast with a paywall option, so they will have the public version. And then you pay me this amount each month and you get all this bonus content, which would be like behind the scenes additional episodes. I've even seen True Crime podcast do this where they hook you with a couple of episodes. And then they put the final episode behind a paywall so that you pay for it. And I mean, we have to support podcast you know, so I can't I can't not going for it. Now across this series that we're working on. In the next couple of episodes, we are going to be talking about the limited series podcasts that you would treat like a training. So when I talk about private podcasts throughout the next few episodes, that's what I'm talking about is limited series podcasts. For a limited series podcast to be successful, it needs to be educational value packed in depending on your goal, it needs to guide your listener to a higher ticket purchase or higher ticket resources. After listening to your private podcast, your audience should feel that they were just given so much of this free content that they should have paid for because it adds so much value to their lives. It might be painful to give that content away however, you can leverage your private podcast to link to other items in your shop. Now I do want to highlight one thing in a future episode I will be talking about turning your private podcast into a paid resource, but we'll get to that. Now back to linking it to items in your shop. For example, You can release a limited series private podcast that gives you an intro to say photography. At the end of this series, you can tell your listeners about your full paid course or membership group that you dive deeper into with your content where they can learn even more. As silly as it sounds. It's marketing 101 to give away free, amazing content to hook your audience before you ask them to purchase something from you. Using a private podcast as your lead magnet offers more offers more value than a PDF resource. So it's even more effective at creating a loyal follower for your business. How does this whole process work? How do private podcasts even exist? Well, public podcasts are published on RSS feeds like this one that anyone can access so you can go and you can find my podcast. But a private podcast is released on an on a private RSS feed that is not listed online. So it doesn't populate to all the players. And these are different types of RSS feeds that podcast hosting platforms actually generate for you. So how does it work using a private RSS feed? Well, first, the host has to create the podcast on a private RSS feed, then the podcast host distributes that link to the RSS feed to the people who opt in for it. So one way you could do this is to create a opt in form where they would sign up to get access to the private podcast, or behind a private paywall. Now, what you essentially would need is there as either, depending on the hosting platform you're using, there's either a QR code that makes it super simple, they can just like scan it and it populates, or you have to give them the instructions to actually adding the RSS feed into their favorite player. Most of these hosting platforms usually give the instructions for you. So you don't have to. But that's just something to consider, you need to be able to link them to that RSS feed. Now, this allows them to choose their podcast player and not all hosts, not all podcast players will allow for it. But the majority of the big ones will be which hosting platforms can you use. So this one's a little confusing. And I'm going to tell you, the ones are just that are set up for this version of a private podcast through the limited series. So hello, audio is the one I typically tend to use is the one I have become most familiar with. I don't love it for standard podcast hosting. But if you're planning to host, a private podcast, it's included in your subscription. Then there's also Captivate transistor Spreaker. And I know there's some that I'm missing, but those are the ones that allow you to actually create a private RSS feed. But I also want to talk about there's a few others like Buzzsprout, and Libsyn, and many others that are out there. That would give you an option to create a subscription model the paywall, but it treats it more like a membership, where they're paying month over month, instead of just like giving them access to the whole thing for one price. So I do recommend those first few that I mentioned. If you're looking to do this, what I highly recommend is determine your goals, what you need, and then go looking into players. Because you may think like, Oh, I'm gonna go on Hello audio because Haley said to, well, that might not be the best tool for you. That's just the one that in most cases I've worked with has been the best option. Or you may say, Well, I'm already hosting on Buzzsprout. So I'm just going to use their membership style. But that might not be the right fit for you either. So there's so many little intricacies when it comes to choosing one of these. So I highly recommend just doing a bit of research before you decide. Maybe you're thinking how can I actually use this in my business. The number one way that my clients have used this in their business is to create a limited series that serves your business in your niche and what you teach by finding and creating a training specifically for your audience in what they're struggling with. This would be something that, for example, I could have made this entire series that I'm working on a private podcast. Why did I not I didn't because it's not matching the the goals I have for my business right now. And that's totally fine.