At a Glance
Kivi Media is a super coaching company with multiple online schools and courses on micro niche business activities. It started with the Micro Niche Mastery podcast, which talks about the same subject in 2016. But founder Ziv Raviv quickly realized that what his listeners really wanted was direct business coaching. Since then, it’s grown to six different micro niches, each with its own name and identity.
Kivi Media is a coaching company that offers multiple online schools and courses focused on micro niche business activities. It all started with the Micro Niche Mastery podcast that discussed the same subject in 2016. However, founder Ziv Raviv soon realized that his listeners wanted direct business coaching. He established a three-tier coaching service for his audience, ranging from eight-member group classes to one-on-one, on-retainer coaching to meet the demand.
Over time, the demand for his coaching business grew, which led him to start a new business in a different niche (along with a corresponding podcast). Today, Ziv hosts five podcasts: Micro Niche Mastery podcast, Balloon Artist podcast, Kid’s Entertainer podcast, Generous Marriage podcast, and the latest one, Plumbing and Money Live. However, running separate businesses simultaneously became challenging, prompting him to restructure them and bring them under the umbrella of Kivi Media.
Today, Kivi Media has grown to six different micro niches, each with its own name and identity. As a result, the company is fully booked for the remainder of the year. The staff has also grown, including three graphic designers, four copywriters, two web developers, and a personal virtual assistant, all working remotely from the Philippines.
Ziv anticipates that Kivi Media will generate more than $500,000 in 2023, a company record. He is also working on a project to systemize and package his business model as a blueprint for other coaches to follow. This includes a training course and a book on micro-niching.
Much of Kivi Media’s success is attributed to Ziv’s belief in podcasts as the ultimate PR tool, and the most efficient way to grow a business from a marketing perspective. Consequently, he advises clients looking for more exposure to try and appear on as many podcasts as possible that are relevant to their niche. While this idea was sound in theory, it was often difficult to find these podcasts. To solve this, Kivi Media now provides access to relevant podcasts as part of their coaching benefits.
The Challenge
Ziv was using a scraper to comb through search engines to find podcasts of interest to his clients. It frequently missed important data, and the list was usually short or of questionable relevance. And if the client needed more matches, it was difficult to come up with alternatives.
Before Podcast Hawk, the podcast research process was completely manual. A scraper would search through Google and other search engines to find relevant podcasts for clients. However, this process often missed important data, such as the email addresses of podcasters, and the resulting list of podcasts was typically short or of questionable relevance to the client. If clients contacted all the listed podcasts and still needed more matches, it was difficult to find alternatives.
The task of researching podcasts for clients often falls to Sarah, Ziv’s personal assistant at Kivi Media. Her job is already hectic, including setting up video calls, email communications, webinars, graphic design, website maintenance, and HR responsibilities such as hiring and firing. When she has to spend hours finding 100 or 200 podcasts on a specific topic, the entire team grinds to a halt. Even if she delegates the job to someone else, it still adds one more task for her to manage.
As a business owner, Ziv is committed to giving his team the right tools to work efficiently, so he can support the people who help run his business. During an interview with Ray Blakney, co-founder of Podcast Hawk, for his Micro Niche Mastery podcast, Ziv discovered the solution to his podcast research problem.
Ray explained the idea behind Podcast Hawk, and Ziv realized this was the tool he needed to transform his podcast research process. Despite having tested many lead generation tools over the years, Ziv had never found anything quite like Podcast Hawk. He immediately emailed Ray, asking for urgent directions on how to sign up.
The Solution
With Podcast Hawk, it’s become much quicker to create a list of relevant podcasts. The smart filters, in particular, made it easier to search for podcasts using several criteria, and the search terms were simple enough to communicate to a team member or client over a call without much hassle.
It’s been nearly 18 months since Kivi Media started using Podcast Hawk. After an initial onboarding call, Ziv found the software to be intuitive and easy to learn, with all the filters and options he needed clearly laid out. The smart filters, in particular, made it easier to search for podcasts using several criteria, and the search terms were simple enough to communicate to team members or clients over a call without any hassle. Ziv trained the rest of the Kivi Media team on Podcast Hawk in just one Zoom call, and they were able to use it on their own with ease.
Aside from some payment issues due to outdated credit card information, which were handled promptly, Ziv has not needed any extra support from the Podcast Hawk team since that initial call.
Ziv says, “When I started using Podcast Hawk, I only used it for my own brand, and the return on investment was one to a hundred or something. But then clients were coming in, either from listening to our podcasts or seeing that we were featured here and there, and when we started using it for them, they really appreciated it. And they often stayed with us for a very long time, longer than a year in most cases.”
The success of Podcast Hawk gave Ziv the confidence to offer his services as a PR solution. He convinced several clients to ditch their expensive PR contracts with other firms, which often amounted to a series of “not very compelling” blog posts. Instead, Ziv prefers that his clients receive more exposure through podcast interviews, which he believes are a one-to-one connection that creates a powerful bond between the podcaster and listener.
Ziv is one of the first adopters of Podcast Hawk’s new Campaign tool for email outreach and monitoring. He is also participating in the new agency model, which will allow his customers to set up their own Podcast Hawk accounts under his own. He’s confident that both will help him reach more customers and make it easier for Kivi Media to hit its target growth this year.
Using Podcast Hawk has given Ziv some much-needed stability after a period of mostly selling one-off sessions and short-term packages. His client roster has become so deep that Kivi Media is now fully booked and looking to hire a new coach to meet the demand.
The Key Result
Podcast Hawk has greatly increased the demand for Kivi Media’s services to the point where it is now overbooked. A lot of clients have moved on from one-off sessions and short-term packages to year-long contracts because of their confidence in Ziv’s approach. That has translated into more stability and growth for Kivi Media than at any previous time.