Leveraging the Classical Music Podcasting World

I recently wrote a guest post for Adaptistration about the growing world of classical music podcasts.  This is a topic that I’ve been thinking about a lot these past few months.

A year ago, there were maybe one or two classical music podcasts.  Now there are over 20!

I realized that I left a few off of my list.  Apologies to these folks:

• The Full Voice Podcast
• Shat Talk (great name!) with Zach Brock
• The Superduper Music Podcast

Growth in this space

I’ve been podcasting in this space for a decade with my show Contrabass Conversations.  I’ve been amazed at the rapid growth this past year.  Entrepreneurially focused shows like The Entrepreneurial Musician and The Portfolio Composer seek to provide career advice for musicians.  Other shows like Clarineat are more instrument-specific.  A Musical Life blends career advice and profiles of prominent artists into a highly engaging “NPR style” show.

Leveraging the classical music podcasting world

I’ve been fascinated watching Seth Hanes leverage the classical music podcasting community for the launch of his book Break into the Scene.  Seth appeared on 10 podcasts to promote his new book.  The book hit #1 in music business on Amazon the first day it was released.

I talked with Seth about why he focused on this classical music podcasting community for his book launch.  Here’s the video of our conversation:

Here’s a highlight from our conversation about Seth’s podcast strategy:

SH: Any form of marketing, you’re essentially trying to figure out, “where is my audience and how can I reach the most amount of those people at the highest leverage point and the lowest investment.”

You want the marketing to not cost you a lot of money, but you want to reach a lot of people.  Podcasting is not terribly new, but it’s still a very young medium.  It has been around for 10 years give or take, but it’s not always been as accessible as it has been now.

I’ve been following book marketing strategies for several years now in preparation for knowing that I was eventually going to do my own project.  One thing that I’ve seen with every single huge successful launch is doing a podcast tour.

Seth may be the first in the classical music podcasting space to do a podcast tour to promote his book, but he certainly won’t be the last.  I am being approached by more and more people looking to appear on Contrabass Conversations to promote their album, book, or event.  I’m sure that the other classical music podcasters are experiencing this as well.

Check me out on some of these shows!

I’ve been a guest on several of these other shows! Here are some links if you’d like to year me rant about freelancing, exploding cars, teaching high school, and other such topics:

• A Musical Life
• The Entrepreneurial Musician
• The Musician’s Guide to Hustling

I’ll also be appearing on The Portfolio Composer and Crushing Classical in the next few weeks.

Are you thinking of starting a classical music podcast?

Let me know if you’re thinking of starting a classical music podcast!

If you just launched, let me know for sure!  I’d love to add you to my list.  Email me at doublebassblog@mac.com and I’ll help spread the word.