Mastering Podcast Growth and Optimization with Courtney Elmer

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 297, mastering podcast growth and Optimization with Courtney Elmer. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance in movement, package and position their products and services, and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast.

Welcome back to the PT Profit Podcast. I will just be giving you your intro for the episode. So today Beverly interviews Courtney Elmer who shares her journey of personal transformation and how it led her to start her own business. And she discusses the importance of having a niche and a problem to solve, as well as the power of using your voice to create meaningful change. Courtney also explains her process for launching and growing a podcast, including the importance of creating binge worthy content and leveraging your email list. I'll go ahead and let you enjoy. And if you do, be sure to rate this podcast five stars on your favorite podcast listening platform.

What's up, Courtney? Thank you so much for joining me on the show today. How are you?

Oh, Beverly, I am so excited to be here. Thank you for having me. I am doing great and I am so looking forward to this conversation.

This is going to be so amazing. I have been looking forward to this since I've heard, I've watched your trainings on Podcast Girl. I've heard you speak in. We have similar communities in terms of our entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial world.

Wow.

Try to say that 10 times fast. And so honestly, it is a pleasure and a privilege to have you on the show. So for those of you who have not been introduced to your work, can you please share with us a little bit about who you are, who you serve and how you got there?

Yeah, of course. I'm the creator of Pod Launch and what we do is we work with entrepreneurs, experts, coaches, consultants, people who are heart centered at their core. Meaning that they're here on a mission to make the world a better place in whatever way that they do that. And we help them through podcasting, reach a global audience with their message and learn how to create binge worthy podcasts that rank in the top 100 every week and that attract new listeners to their community, that convert to clients on repeat without having to rely on social media or on expensive ad campaigns. But you know, Beverly, it's so crazy how I got here because first and Foremost, I never saw myself teaching podcasting, not in a million bajillion years. When I started my business, which at the time of this recording is almost eight years ago, at this point, I had just gone through a very intense and deep personal transformation. And when I was 25 years old, two days after getting home from my honeymoon, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. This was something I didn't see coming. I mean, we didn't have a family history. This was nowhere on my radar. And it was one of those moments where, you know, like, if you're in a scene in a movie and, like, everything just kind of stops, and it's like. And it's like the slow motion, right? And it's like, that's how I felt sitting in the doctor's office that day, where it was like, what is happening right now? And why is this happening? And at the time, I was climbing the corporate ladder, I was doing well. I had the luxury car, I was making the money, right? I was working my way up. And very quickly, I realized that I. I had gifts and talents that were going to waste, that I just was not using, things that I was passionate about that I was ignoring. And I wanted to change that. Because as cliche as this is going to sound, in that moment, I realized how fragile and how short life really is. And if you've ever had an experience where you're faced with your own mortality like that, or where you've lost someone close to you and you've come face to face with this reality that we all experience as humans, it puts things into perspective really fast. So I wish I could say that I walked away from that experience, you know, started my business, killed it to seven figures, you know, have a top 100 podcasts, and life has been glorious ever since. But it didn't quite go that way, because I wish it would have, right? There were moments I wish it did, but it didn't. And when I got into business, it was just to help people full stop. I didn't have a niche. I didn't have a problem that I solved. I didn't have any of that. I had just gone through this personal transformation, and I wanted other people to experience that, too. So fast forward through the, you know, eight plus years at this point, you know, almost learning, you know, marketing, getting certifications, like, actually opening the doors to the business, finding my first client, and all the iterations of the business that have come following that. Podcasting was never on my radar until about four years ago when my son, who's now almost six was home with me full time. He was about 18 months old. I didn't have him in daycare. And I was trying to scale my business in, like, the nooks and crannies of the day, working when he napped. And I just could not spend a single minute more creating another piece of content for social media that I knew was going to get buried in the newsfeed after 24 hours, if I was lucky, that it would get, you know, two likes and four spam comments and drive zero sales to my business because my time was too valuable. I mean, If I had 30 minutes when he's napping to work, you know, I couldn't spend that time creating a reel that would just, you know, totally get overlooked and. And be on zero people's radar. So I was listening to pilots, load them up with snacks, pop my AirPods in, and we'd walk the neighborhood. I'd listen to podcasts, and I'd listen to everyone that you guys listen to, probably James Wedmore and Brandon Lucero and Amy Porter Field and all the industry leaders who were teaching me how to market my business. And then one day it dawned on me where I was like, you know, here I am listening to what they're telling me to do, but I'm not paying any attention to what they're actually doing, which was podcasting. You know, like, once you see something, like, you can't unsee it. It was like one of those moments where I'm like, great. Their podcast is literally the center of their entire marketing strategy. Like, that week's email tied back to the podcast, that week's social content tint tied back to the podcast. You know, every blog post, everything tied back to the podcast. And very quickly, I saw what they were doing with their time, which was creating leverage in their marketing. So I decided to launch a podcast after nine months of overthinking it. And right, it's like, dun, dun, dun, right? We all fall into that trap. And I was like, oh, do I? Do I have the expertise? Oh, what if. I don't know, what if this fails? What if this is just another waste of my time? A shiny object, right? You name it, I went through it, I thought about it, and finally I was like, what do I have to lose if all of these experts out there, and I can lame just about any one of them, 99.9% of them have podcasts. They wouldn't have those podcasts if those podcasts were not bringing them some sort of very tangible return each week for the time that they're investing. So I took the plunge and I launched my show, and we had, like, over 65, five star reviews in the first week. Blew me away. And very quickly, people started reaching out. Well, how did you do that? You know? Can you tell me what you did now to remind you? I was not teaching podcasting at the time. I just had a podcast that happened to have a successful launch. And suddenly people, like, see you as, like, this person who, like, oh, my gosh, you know everything about podcasting. I'm like, actually, no, I don't. But I'll tell you what I did, and if it works for you, great. So that was our very first beta group of what is now pod launch. And it's amazing to me that this is now what I do. However, the irony is not lost on me because there were two very important pieces in my journey that, as I look back, I could see clearly pointed me to what I do today. And the first of that was my mom at 9 years old telling me, courtney, your mouth is what gets you into trouble. And how for the next 20 plus years. I didn't speak because I didn't want to be rejected. I didn't want to lose the possibility, ability of love and affirmation and approval from other people if I opened my mouth. And that belief drove the bus for so many years. And then when I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer was when I began to become aware of how that belief was affecting me. Because the biggest risk of having the thyroidectomy that I had was that your vocal cords could be severed and you might not ever be able to speak again if that were to happen. Wow. So as I look back, Beverly, I mean, it's taken me eight very long years of, you know, putting my arm open, letting it bleed all over my desk, right? To grow my business to where it is. But I can't imagine myself doing anything different. And to be able to help other people use their voices to create meaningful change and to, gosh, just use their voice to step into the fullest expression of who they're meant to be. There's no greater gift.

It's so powerful. So powerful. And so, you know, before. Thank you, by the way, for sharing, because that's really, you know, just very powerful story. And so for those of us who are potentially, you know, sometimes when we hear those stories, we think, oh, my gosh, who am I to be running a podcast? Because I don't have a transformation story. I'm just an expert who went to school and I became a health and Wellness professional. And I don't have it. I don't have amazing stories like that to share. What would you say to someone like that who's thinking, oh, well, this can't. I can't. I must quit my podcast, because who am I to be doing it? There's hundreds of people doing it already.

Yeah. Okay. So the first thing that comes up for me is I didn't actually realize I had this story till about nine months ago because the dots didn't connect for me until very recently. Yeah, all of these were aspects of my story, but I didn't see them as such until recently. I've been teaching podcasting, you know, for way longer than that, but that was something that only recently connected for me. The other thing that comes up for me is like, look. Look at people. Like, let's just say Amy Porterfield. I remember following Amy, like, way back in the day. Okay. She was like, you know, miss Email Marketing Queen right when she started. And I was in network marketing at the time following Amy on How to grow my email list for my side hustle. And I can remember Amy, right? The Amy we think of today, the Amy that, you know, you respect, admire, know, and love today was not the Amy of 12 years ago. You know, when I started following her, her story today was not the story she had 12 years ago. And I think the reminder and the lesson for us here is we have to start where we are with the story that we have. Maybe it's not the story someone else has, but it's not supposed to be the story that someone else has, because then it wouldn't be your story.

I also think something that you said that is so powerful that people forget is that. Is that we're so close to our.

Own stuff, and we.

What you think doesn't matter or isn't powerful is not the same as what your clients will think is powerful and. And meaningful. It's not for you to decide.

It's for you to show up. Exactly. It's kind of like climbing a mountain, right? And we look at the people that we respect and admire. You think, you know, your Amy Porterfields, your Alex Hormozis, they're all at the top of the mountain. They're at that peak. They're at that pinnacle. But right now, the person that you're here to serve is at the bottom of the mountain or maybe the lower, you know, quarter of that mountain. You might be a little bit, like, maybe the third up the mountain or halfway up the mountain. You're not as far up as these big people we all look up to. But you're also a lot closer to the people you're here to serve and where they're looking to go. And we forget that because people like Alex, people like Amy, you know, they feel untouchable to a large degree. They can't turn around and just reach their hand out and help all those people who were down there struggling on the lower fourth of the mountain like you can. Right. There's a lot of power in that. Right? So true. So powerful.

Okay, I love that. So now I'm curious, you know, since now you're doing the pod launch, can you walk us through a little bit of your process on how you carry a new or struggling podcast through your process of, you know, growing it, setting it up, growing it, optimizing it, and scaling it?

Yeah, well, that's a big question. How much time we got? No, this is so, so good. And, you know, honestly, Beverly, one of the things, you know, when people come to us, it's one of two types of people. The first is someone who's been toying with the idea of launching a podcast. They've been thinking about it for three months or more. They're like, oh, it's that thing I want to do, right? But they just seem to never have the time on their calendar to actually do it. And they've put it off because they want to do it, right? They don't have a system yet. They don't have a framework yet, right? They want to do it, right because they know that if they're the type of person that if they're going to do it, they're going to go all in, and they want to make sure that it's successful. But often that desire keeps them from even taking the action and getting started, right? So they might have bought the microphone, but it's sitting on their office shelf collecting dust, and they haven't recorded a single episode, you know, and they bought that mic four weeks ago or more, right? So that's. That's one type of person. The other type is someone who did the thing. They launched the podcast, They've got the podcast. They've got a modest following. It's growing. When I say modest, you know, maybe they're getting a hundred downloads per episode, but they've got. They have yet to really cross that milestone, right? Where it's like, how do I get to 200? How do I get to 500? How do I get to a thousand? Right? And like, a thousand is kind of that next big jump for Them, but they, no matter what they do to try to grow the show, emailing it out to their list, dabbling in SEO, sharing it on social media, every time a new episode drops, they are not getting the downloads that they want to be getting or the conversions from their podcast.

And oftentimes, these people are the ones that are consistent. They're, you know, they're. We hear those tips of like, just stay consistent. And they're like, I am consistent. This is episode 150, episode, whatever. And it's interesting to me because when I look out into the space as a host, you see the people that are, you know, top 100, and then you see the people who are really catering their messaging to, like, here's how you start. So what do the people who are consistent, who are doing, you know, doing the thing, how do they grow?

Yes, and this is where I go deep on this topic, because a lot of the advice in the space right now is, like you said, stay consistent. Well, share the episode to your email list, share it to your social media, and it's like, well, that's all good and fine, but if your email list already listens to your podcast, if your social media followers already listen to your podcast, well, you're not getting in front of any new audiences. You really have no way to grow. So then they look to things like, okay, well, let me go guest on a bunch of podcasts, right? Podcast listeners listen to podcasts. How many times have we heard that? So, okay, now I need to get on other podcasts. But then not only are you now hosting your podcast, you're now having to guest on other podcasts and run your business. So there's other marketing, there's deliverables, there's sales calls. There's other things that go into that. You know, who has the time to really go on an effective podcast tour, right? I don't have time to go on 20 new podcasts next month. Are you kidding me? Right? So you might do one here or there, but at the end of the day, you're not seeing any impact in terms of affecting your download numbers and certainly not conversions. People are not converting from your podcast, on your email list or in your programs. So then they think, okay, well, let me try SEO. Let me see if I can hire someone who can help me, like, get more keywords. You know, keywords and search engine and how do I get. Or let me start a YouTube channel. Maybe if I just throw up my stuff on YouTube, then I can attract YouTube listeners over to my podcast. Or let me Start a Facebook group. Because if I can have a community of people that I'm building and get them over to my podcast, and my podcast will grow. And it breaks my heart to see people spend so much time and energy on these strategies that make sense at a certain point in the journey. But if you don't have a certain element dialed in first, then your podcast is essentially a leaky bucket where you're losing listeners to your competition. And the element that I'm talking about is the first piece in our methodology that we teach, which is a binge worthy content formula. Now, when I say that, a lot of people go, well, I am giving away my best stuff in my episodes. I'm. I'm delivering a lot of value in my episodes. People still aren't taking in the action. I'm still not reaching new listeners. And when I say binge worthy content, not just talking about the content in your episodes, that is important, but I'm talking about the five steps that a listener has to go through on their journey before they decide whether or not they want to hit play. And I call these your five content gatekeepers. Because think about it this way. If you are a podcast listener and you are looking for a new podcast to listen to, then what most of us typically do, we find those podcasts one of two ways. Yes, we might hear that host on another podcast. We heard their interview, we go follow them, right? You're listening to this interview right now. You might like what I have to say and you might come check out my podcast. Hey, you might hit the follow button and I will earn a new follower from this interview right here. But I wouldn't earn your attention and your time if I didn't have this piece dialed in. Because these five content gatekeepers, I'm gonna give you the first of them. The first one is your cover art. What's the first thing someone sees when they're browsing a new podcast to listen to? They might open up Apple podcast. Okay, health and fitness. I'm gonna go click that. And then they start browsing the top shows in their category. Now, if you're on a phone, you're only gonna see the top 50 to 100 shows. This is why getting on the charts is so important. But that comes later. We can talk more about that. The first thing that they see is your cover art. And this is not conscious. They're not logically sitting there looking at it and saying, oh my gosh, this is just straight. Look at this beautiful artwork. It is striking. Let's go listen to this podcast? No, it's completely unconscious. Again, back to Amy Porterfield. She does this really well. Whether she's aware of this or not, I don't know. But she's the perfect example, because if you go to the marketing category in podcast and you were to take a screenshot of the top 10 shows in that category where Amy is hovering at any given time, and if you were to swing your eyes and look at all those little thumbnails, you would notice a couple of really important things. And the first thing you would notice is that most of the colors that are used in the COVID art on those top 10 shows are really warm, bright colors. You see a lot of oranges, you see a lot of reds. There's yellows. They're bright, they're neon. They're kind of bold. And you'll also notice some deeper colors like navy and black. Amy did the complete opposite. Her artwork, not only does it speak to the vibe of her podcast, which is online marketing made easy. The background of her art is light gray. Her shirt is a light blue. The only warm color we see on there is like a little tiny yellow box behind her name. Her text is clear, it's easy to read. The artwork breathes. It conveys what she's trying to accomplish in a visual way that conveys the message of her podcast. But most importantly, and more importantly than any of that, it draws your eye away from the competition. Because if everyone else in that category is using red and orange and black and blue, but your podcast looks totally different, then what's naturally going to happen? As someone browses those shows, their eye will be drawn to yours. And that's the first step. That's the first gatekeeper that a listener has to go through. Their curiosity has to be peaked enough to first have their attention, capture that attention. Then what are they going to look at next? Your show name. That's the second gatekeeper. And there are three more gatekeepers after this. But look, if they don't even make it through the first two gatekeepers, you've lost them. They're going to scroll right past you. And this is before they ever hear the amazing content inside of your episodes. Because you and I both know you have good content. You have high value content in your episodes. The content's not the problem. Yeah, we can tweak it. Yeah, we can restructure it a little bit better to increase conversions. But by and away, I see this time and again with podcasters who are struggling to break past that thousand download per episode milestone. They don't have these p, these psychology pieces dialed in and therefore they've got this leaky bucket where they're losing those listeners. And you're going to look around at some point, you're going to be like, well, wait a second, here's, you know, Joe Smith, competitor over here. His content's not half as good as mine yet. He's got twice as many, you know, he's charting every week. I look him up on listen notes. He's got a higher listen notes ranking than I do. Like, what is the deal? Because, and it's not coming from a place of ego, it's just coming from a place of, you know, your stuff, you know what you're talking about, you're good at what you do, you deliver great value. But it doesn't matter because if the potential listener doesn't know you, you, and if you're not able to attract new listeners to your show and capture them, you're going to lose them. And you're never, you're, you will never be able to grow. And that's why focusing on SEO, changing up the length of your episodes, tweaking your calls to actions, you know, blasting it out your podcast all over social media, hiring someone to do videos for you to put short form clips out there is not going to attract new people to your podcast because you've got to have this psychology piece dialed in first.

Okay, so now let's say someone does dial in. That's great, thank you. So now let's say someone does, like dial in their back end in terms of the attraction formula of the podcast and they get the actual, you know, gatekeepers dialed in. How does someone cross that 1k per episode download? How do they get in front of their potential audience? You know, now that they would be selected, how would you recommend someone chart or get on?

Yeah. So this is the next piece in the process. So when we work with someone, once we dial that foundation in, right, that unconscious communication piece, then we can get into the practical, the strategy, the tactical. How do we get in the charts? What does that look like? How do we increase downloads, how do we stay in the charts, how do we get more reviews, and so on and so on and so on. So this is why phase two is, I call it a launch and relaunch system. Because whether you're launching a show for the first time or you have an existing podcast that either you never launched or that has lost its momentum, or you've just been stuck at this plateau, like whatever that number is for you, right, maybe it's 112 episodes a week, and you're like, how come I can't get 113? Right? It's like, whatever that frustrating plateau is for you, you've not been able to break past that, no matter what you've tried to do to grow the show. This is where this piece, I like to think of it like a vitamin B shot for your podcast, because what it's going to do is it's going to give you instant momentum. Then what we want to do is we want to build upon that momentum. We'll get there in a minute, we'll talk more about that. But this strategy is so key because this is going to be the thing that gets you in the charts for the first time. But I do want to caveat this, Beverly. For those listening right now, you know, getting in the charts is not an ego play. This is not so you can walk around and say, oh, I have a top 100 podcast. I'm super cool. Right? Like, your listeners will totally feel that. No, getting in the charts is for discoverability. It is the number one avenue that we have as podcast hosts to get discovered. And it's often the number one frustration for podcast hosts because they don't know how to get there, despite having really good content. So the reason we want to get in the charts, and I mentioned it a moment ago, if you're scrolling on your phone, then you're going to see the top 50 to 100 podcasts in the category that you're looking in, thousands of shows in that category beyond that, but we don't know if they exist. We don't know where to look for them. Unless maybe if you're typing in a specific keyword, it might pop up. But, you know, it's not. It's not as reliable. Podcasting has a long way to go with SEO. It's not YouTube, it's not Google. So the best avenue of discoverability to reach new listeners is the charts. But then that's the question. How do we get there? So what we do, you know, we actually had a client who came to us, this was about six months ago at this point, and he had been podcasting for two years. He was like, courtney, look, I love podcasting. I believe in the power of podcasting. I see what it's done for other people, but I'm only getting 30 to 50 downloads an episode, and I don't know how to get past that two years. Okay. I don't know that I would have still been in the game at that point. That's a long. He's committed. So he said, can you help me? Yeah. So we took him through, you know, we helped them dial in the psychology piece first. Then we're like, okay, look, we're going to teach you the launch and relaunch system. There's seven elements that make up the launch and relaunch system. And there was one of them that we really honed in on with him that I'm going to let you guys in on today as well, because this one can make an immediate impact for you. Now, keep in mind, it's not the end all, be all. It's not the only thing that's going to get you in the charts. It's not the only thing that's going to keep you there, but it can help with that initial momentum. You still need all other six. But this was something that he had never thought about, which was releasing your episodes on the quietest day of the week in your category. Now, when most people go to launch their podcast, and I say launch in air quotes because we'll talk about that in a minute, you know, they hit publish thinking that, okay, put a social media post, I've got a podcast. Everyone, woohoo, go listen. Right? And it's like crickets. So there's a right and wrong way to launch. But he had never given this any thought. He was releasing his episodes with what turned out to be. When we did the research, it was on the busiest day of the week in his category. When I say busiest day of the week, what I mean is most of the top shows in that category were dropping episodes on the same day. So let's just say that day is Tuesday, right? And if Amy, if you're in the marketing category, and Amy Porterfield and Brendan Burchard and James Wedmore all dropping an episode on Tuesday, and they've got these big followings. What's going to happen? They're going to pull the downloads and drive the charts for that day. So we want to zig when they zag. And if we can find the quieter day of the week to release our episode and then drive traffic to the podcast on that day, both for the launch and for an ongoing period of time, then we will increase our chances of ranking because now we're not competing, we're in a category of our own. Right. It's kind of like finding the blue ocean, but in the seven days of the week in the podcasting space. So it's the same theory and principle. So he was like, yeah, cool. I mean, I'm willing to do anything at this point. Turns out, because we had done the work on his listener psychology, we knew that that was actually going to be a better day for his listener to tune in anyway. They would be more likely to tune in. So we switched it and again, combined with the other six elements of the launch and relaunch system, but this was one that made a significant impact. He went from 30 to 50 downloads a week to over a thousand downloads in a single day. Wow. With the relaunch of his podcast. So it's something that if you have a podcast right now, it's worth taking a little bit of time to do the research. There's no fast way to do this, right. You're gonna have to carve out 30 minutes, grab a sheet of paper, open up your category, and go tally up who's releasing episodes and on what days. And very quickly, you'll see a pattern emerge. And you can see, okay, this is the quieter day of the week for me. And then as the host of your show, you get to call the shots. You can make that judgment call, do I want to change the release day? And see if that has an impact? For me, it's a small thing. It's something that you can't Google how to do. It's something nobody's talking about. But it is one thing that can make a significant impact. And from there, we want to look at, okay, now that I've launched, how do I grow? Because whether you're launching for the first time or you're relaunching a show, the launch and relaunch strategy is designed to give you, again, like I said, quick momentum. Instant momentum is designed to get you in the charts. Now we want to keep you in the charts. So it's very natural. Whenever you chart for the first time, the charts move. They move every week. They go up and down. But what drives the charts is downloads. So the launch gives us really important information because not only can it help you get in front of new listeners by getting on the charts, it gives you the number that you need in downloads per week to shoot for that. We can then build a growth strategy around because let's say, like for this client, right, it took thousand downloads. He broke the top 100 in self improvement. So we knew, okay, that's the target we need to shoot for if we want to keep you in the chart. Now, how do we build a growth strategy to keep you getting this number of downloads and growing every week and not slide back to where you are before? And that's where we go from there. And that's phase three of the process, the third and final phase, which is long term audience growth. And we can dive into that more if you want. But I'm a pause in case you have questions.

Yeah, I do. I, I do want to dive into that, the long term audience growth. I do want to talk about that because I think that there's some misconceptions around, you know, taking breaks and like, do I do reasons and stuff like that. But what I'm curious about, because something that I noticed you talk about a lot is the category. So it's making, it's, it's causing me to, to pause and consider that actually the category in which you select is very important. And so I know that I have people who listen to my podcast and because I'm thinking of my accelerator clients and they're potentially in, they're in the fitness, the health and fitness space, but maybe they're helping other coaches because they have a certification or they're, you know, they're a physical therapist helping other physical therapists in a mentorship. And so their category might actually be different than what they think it is. So I'm curious, in your opinion, how do you select and determine what your category is in cases like that?

I appreciate this question so much because it's one that I don't get asked often. And you're right, it plays a huge, huge part in people's ability to find you. And what we often find is that, you know, you might have a specific niche or topic or both that you focus on and that it might fit more than one category. Right. Maybe you are in health and wellness, but you also kind of do like mental health and maybe it's also kind of self improvement and maybe, you know, you touch on business at some point. Right. So it's like, okay, theoretically I could go into any one of these categories. Which one is going to be the best for me? So there's two questions that we teach our host to ask themselves. The first is, where is my listener most likely going to be browsing for podcasts like mine? This is a big one because if we want it's, I'm not so much concerned about the listeners who you already have. I want to help you get new listeners to your podcasts. And one thing that potential listeners do when they're looking for shows to listen to is they browse by category. They either category or keyword. So, but that's why both of those are important. If they're browsing by category and they're looking in health and fitness. Well, we want to get you on the charts in health and fitness if that really is where you need to be. But let's say that you're health and fitness, but you've got more of a mindset focus. Look, my personal trainer is excellent at what he does. He is so skilled on the strength and conditioning side, and he's also amazing at mindset. And that's a lot of what he teaches, and that's the core principles of a lot of what he teaches. And so for the type of person he's looking to attract, that might be a better fit in self improvement, maybe mental health. Right? So we have options. What I want you guys to. To trust here is that there's no right or wrong. This can hang a lot of people up. And this is why I say this, Beverly, because it's like some people are like, okay, now you've told me the category is important. Now I need to pick the perfect category, because if I don't pick the perfect category, that I'm gonna lose list, right? And it's like, my podcast might not succeed. No, no, no. All we're doing here is that we want to pick the best option available to us that we can. This is the strategy piece, okay? So it's not like, you know, you could be in mental health or you could be in health and fitness, and you pick one over the other. It's not going to, like, make or break your podcast. We're just trying to get in front of as many potential listeners and get your show in front of those people as we can. The other thing to consider, and this is another question you want to ask yourself. Here is what's most important to me when it comes to my podcast growth. Here's what I mean by that. I. And I'll use my podcast as an example because this is going to be very tangible for you guys to wrap your mind around. So I have a podcast about podcasting. It's also about psychology, and it's also about marketing. So I could go in the marketing category. It could fit in the business category. It might fit in the self improvement category, if you wanted to argue about the psychology piece. Right? Or it could even fit in how to in education. So the two things that I'm looking at are where are my listeners likely to be listening or to be looking, and which category is going to be to my competitive advantage? If growth is my goal, I know that business is a very busy category. Marketing is a very busy category. How to is also popular, but a little bit less so than marketing. So from a strategy perspective, we are currently positioned in the how to category on the quietest day of the week because I know that I can pull more downloads and find and new potential listeners to find me just by those two positioning pieces. There's multiple pieces that go into positioning. This kind of scratches the surface a little bit. Where these are the things we want to be thinking about. Most people don't think about this, but if new listeners is your goal, right. We want to have a place for them to come. It's not a leaky bucket where they're not going to fall out. Right. The container for them to come and find their home. And also to get in front of those listeners, where are they going to be listening? The other thing we didn't talk about that we can go into more detail if you want. That does play a role here is keywords, because that's the other way that people search. And so we want to make sure that you pop up in those search terms as well.

And that's different than category. Is that SEO or is that like.

That's more SEO.

Okay, so SEO and keywords, not in terms of like when you look, when you go to your podcast, you're like, these are my keywords.

Yes, got it, got it.

Okay, so now can you share a little bit more on how we continue to grow the audience in your phase three? Can you walk us through that process?

Yeah, totally. So that's phase three, you know, is because once your podcast is up and running, your brain shifts gears and it's like, okay, now how do I grow this? And for many of you, that's where you are right now. And this is why I always say, wait, hold on a minute. Because before we dive into the growth, we want to make sure we got the psychology dialed in, we got that binge worthy content piece dialed in so that when we do go to grow the show, we know that the time that you're spending to market and grow the show is going to yield a return for you. So once we've got that foundation built, then we turn our attention to growth. There's 20 different ways that you could drive traffic to your podcast. None of us need 20 more things to do on our plate. So we focus in on six of those that help you lay a strong foundation for growth, that you can mentally check that box in your brain and know, okay, as long as me or someone on my team is executing these six things at least once a month, then I'm Doing the bare bones, what I need to do to grow the show. And then if you have the time, energy, capacity, money, et cetera, you can layer on from there. All the strategies I teach are organized, organic. You know, a lot of people say, okay, I'm going to run ads to the podcast. Or, yeah, you could run ads. But that, to me, is something that comes after. You need to have this foundation in place first. So of these six different things, my favorite is leveraging your email list to grow your podcast and leveraging your podcast to grow your email list. Because this is a big one for people. Because when we say, okay, I want to increase conversions from my podcast, ultimately, what 99% of people mean when they say that is they want more client enrollments from their podcast. However, we know in marketing that someone doesn't, like, click on a social media post and then hit the buy button for your program, right? There's usually a few more things that happen in that process. And the same is true for podcasting. They don't listen to an episode and then, like, go find your buy button on your website and say, I'm in. Right? They usually want to book a call first. Maybe they want to get on your email list first. So this step helps to convert people from your podcast onto your email list so that now not only are they engaged podcast subscribers, but they're engaged email list subscribers. It shocks me who is on our email list. We get email replies from people sometimes. And, like, by the way, I loved this spreadsheet that you shared. Or I loved this or I loved that, or I heard this episode, and I'm like, this is blowing my mind right now. Like, I had. It's amazing how those dots connect when you see this paying off and you see those people coming in from your podcast. So one thing that we started experimenting with this year was, again, I'm all about leverage. And when I approach any. Any kind of growth, whether it be in my business or with my podcast, I'm not looking to do more. I'm looking to do less, better. And so how can I better leverage my time? So one day it dawned on me, and I can't take credit for this idea I was on. I was speaking at an online online summit where the host of the summit was like, all right, we're going to do two interviews. One of them, I'm going to have you teach what you do, why it's important. And then the second one, which people can pay for if they want access to, we're going to teach how to do One specific thing that you do, and I was like, that's brilliant. And why not use that on the podcast too? So now what I do with guests is whenever I sit down to record an episode, we have an hour blocked off. And instead of recording one episode, I record two. One of them goes on the podcast and the second is a bonus episode that we share with our email list, which now I can say on the show, hey, if you really loved what Susie had to share today and you found this really valuable, then boy, you are going to love what she shares in this bonus episode. Now, if you're already on our own your voice insiders list, you've already got access to it. It's going to hit your inbox this Friday. But if you are not on that list yet and you want access to this, then go to this link where you can access this bonus content. And that's one way to get people onto your email list. Now, we just started testing this for fun, just to see, like, okay, let's see if this, if this works. You know, in theory it sounds great, but does it actually work? Now I'll tell you, I've gotten people on sales calls from that that were like, wait a second, I listened to such and such episode on your podcast and then that got me on your email list. Then I started listening to your emails or reading your emails. Now I've been continuing to listen to your podcast. Now I'm like, okay, well I have to come to your workshops. And they come to the workshop and they book a call. And then now they're on the program and they're enrolling, right? So it's like, it opens the door for those next steps to happen. But the beauty is you don't. That's just how we've been testing driving traffic to the email list. Vice versa, if you're delivering that really, really good content, people are going to want to share it. And you can ask them for that too. You could say, listen, if this, if you got something from this episode that you can walk away with today that you're going to apply, you're like, oh my gosh, this totally changed my perspective on whatever it was that your topic was, then would you text this to a friend, share this episode with them? Because I know that you've got someone in your business and someone in your network right now who probably needs to hear this too, right? And so it does go back to the binge worthy content piece. But then once we have that, we can leverage that content. And there are different ways we can leverage it. Let's say you're doing the bonus episode strategy and you want to drive traffic to your list. You'd set it up like I just described. Let's say you want to use the bonus episode strategy to increase downloads. Downloads. Then you would simply air that on your podcast and increase your episode release schedule, which will double your downloads. Or let's say you want people to subscribe to that content. You can set it up for 5 bucks a month or 20 bucks a month or whatever you want to charge people as a low ticket item to subscribe to get access to that. So the, the key word here, and this is just one example again, I mean, we could, we could talk all day about how to do this, how to drive traffic, how to create more leverage, but that's the key word is leverage. Because, yes, we want growth, but at the end of the day, you are not podcasting full time. Your podcast is not your business. You're podcasting for your business. So we have to be really smart with how we choose to grow. Grow the podcast. Because, yeah, While there are 20 different things that you could go do, none of us need to do that. We need to focus in on the specific strategies that are going to make the most impact for us and our specific business and podcast goals.

Man, that was so good. Okay, I. I really want to be respectful of your time. So this is going to be my last question. And while this is going to be my last question, and I, I will say that it's. It's switching gears just a little bit. Okay. But it is a reflection of what we've been talking about. I want to just ask you some qu. Some just, you know, think of it as like off the cuff, rapid, rapid fire. Okay.

Yeah, let's do it.

In terms of some of the tech components.

Right.

So we've talked about charts, and I was looking at the. What. I was looking at the top charts. What are the actual charts that we should be looking at to rank on? And then since there are so many millions of different platforms for, in terms of the tech for hosting your show, what are some of the top places that you recommend people use and why? Because some are free, some are not free. Free, and so on and so forth. So I'm just curious. And, and does that affect ranking? For example? So like, if we look at Joe Rogan, you know, he's Spotify only now because he signed that contract. So just out of curiosity, for people who have a smaller show, what would you recommend?

Yes. Okay, so big picture here. Apple is still the Mac daddy, no pun intended, of podcast charts. All right, so we've got. We got Spotify. We just found out Google podcast is going away. It's going to be rolled into YouTube. So there's evolution, there's change that's happening in the podcast industry at all times. Apple is still the number one, just like Google's the number one search engine. Even though we have Bing and Safari and Firefox, like, Apple's still the number one. Spotify may come out with their own charting system at some point, but as of this point, they really don't have that in place. So when I say the charts, I want you to focus on Apple. As far as the difference between the top charts and your category, what we're looking to do is get you charting in your category. That's a first step in order to get into the top charts of, like the, when you, when you log into, you know, podcast, it says, like, top shows. Those are the top shows of all categories, meaning those are the top shows of all time. And those shows carry a lot, lot, a lot, a lot of downloads. Okay, Dave Ramsey just crossed 4 billion downloads to his podcast. Okay, 4 billion. So he's with, like, the.01% of any people who have ever done that. But that would be considered a top show of all time. So for those of us who are starting our podcast, growing our podcast, we got a ways to go before we reach Dave level status. And at that point, you're usually part of a network, you're podcasting full time. The podcast is the business. Right. For many of us, that's not the case. And that's a good thing because you don't need to be in the top charts of all shows in order to capitalize on listeners who are searching for shows like yours. So where we really want to focus is the charts in your category. So that's just like a quick download. Again, no pun intended. Where am I with the all these podcast puns? So quick download on how the charts function, Right. Which ones to pay attention to? As far as the tech, there's different options. Sure. You could buy paid plans of, you know, give you all these insights and analytics. We really like chartable.com. they have a free plan. You hook your RSS feed up to it. For those that don't know what an RSS feed is, it's like the link for your podcast, right? You get that from your podcast host wherever you're hosting that, and that is where they will track where in the world you chart on what Categories and when they send you a digest every week in an email that said, hey, you charted this week in all of these countries. Here was the ranking. Here's how you've moved up and down the charts in the last seven days. You know, here's any new reviews you've gotten and so forth. And it's really helpful, helpful tool because we can then look and see, okay, where are we ranking? Are we ranking in the countries where our ideal listener, you know, where we want to be reaching people? You know, I've heard people, they laugh and like, yeah, I was rocking it in Estonia for a while, you know, but I've never charted in the U.S. how do I get in the U.S.

Number one in Belize. Belize, like my Belize people shout out to you.

Yes. So it is really cool to see where people are listening. And, you know, we can also look at. Okay, if I really want to be charting, like for me, for example, in the us, Canada and the UK and Australia, then those are. That's what I'm paying attention to. When did I chart? What position did I chart? What episode released that week? What was the topic? What did we talk about? Did I have a guest that week that maybe brought a lot? Right. And you can then kind of start to look at that at a deeper level and then that informs your content strategy. So, yeah, that's, that's a very high level look. But that's my quick answer.

I love it. That's so good. That's so good. This has been so helpful and amazing. I love it. Thank you so much. So for those of you who are tuning in and want to, you know, maybe start a show or grow your show, what are some of the best places that I should send them?

Yes. Okay. So I would say come to one of our workshops. These are totally free. We host them on a regular basis, usually once a month. There's no pitch. Just come learn our methodology. You're going to walk away with takeaways that you can apply to your podcast right away. So just go to the EffortlessLife Co workshop. We'll always have the latest details, next date and time and so forth. You can register right there. And then I love to hear from you. Like, if you got value from this episode today, do me a favor, come find me on Instagram. I'm at the Courtney Elmer. Send me a dm, let me know what the takeaway was. And I'd love. If you have a podcast, I'd love to hear a little bit more about it. And if you don't have one. You're thinking of starting one. I'd love to hear your idea for your show. So come connect with me over there on Instagram.

I love it. I love it. Great. So I'll definitely link all of that up in the show. So thank you so much, Courtney. I really appreciate it.

Yeah. Thank you for having me. This has been so fun.

Thank you for listening to the PT Profit podcast. If you like this episode, chances are your friends will too. So it would be a huge service to us if you would please leave us a review and share with your friends on your social media channels. When you leave us a review, be sure to take a screenshot of it and email that screenshot to my team atinfo simpson fitness.com and we'll send you a very special Instagram podcast that will show you how to create compelling content so that your ideal clients come to you and you go from wanting clients to a wait list of clients ready for your services. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.