70M+ Download Podcast Marketing Strategy EXPOSED 🔥

Do you wanna grow a big podcast? So we've grown a significant podcast with about 70 million downloads, and I have a handful of them. One's called Marketing School, another one's called Leveling Up, the other one's called Creators of Web3. So we've learned a handful of things over the years. I've been podcasting probably close to 10 years now as of this recording, and I wanted to share a couple lessons. I wanted to expose the strategies that we've used to grow, because as a marketer, I will say that podcasting is by far one of the most rewarding channels that I've ever grown, but it's also by far one of the hardest channels, right? And I don't want that to discourage you, If you follow the strategies in this video and you stay till the very end, you're going to get everything. You're going to get a little bonus as to the right optimizations you should be aiming for. And the hint here is not exactly downloads or views. Okay, so number 1, it takes time to compound. And what I mean by that is when you think about growing a podcast, I'll share a story with you. About 9, 10 years ago when I first started, after the first year where I was spending 6 hours a week editing, I was doing the show notes, I was posting out there, I was trying to promote, I was trying to get the guest guests while trying to run a business at the same time, I only had 9 downloads a day to show for it after the first year. Now I continued on into the second year and I only had 30 downloads a day after the first year. Again, if you stay till the end, I will reveal the one thing that you should be optimizing for instead. Number 2 is thinking about growing through other podcasts. So what you do there is you can get on other podcasts that are in your niche and you can use a tool like Guestio. Or you can use a tool like Chartable to find relevant podcasts out there. Number 2, you can advertise on other podcasts. So that starts to get expensive. I have friends that spend, you know, 6 or 7 figures a year advertising on other podcasts. And the 3rd thing that you can do is you can trade impressions. So right now we're doing a partnership with another podcast that gets a couple million downloads a month. And, you know, we're saying, hey, like we'll trade you a couple hundred thousand impressions. You guys do the same thing. We're working out that deal right now. And it makes a lot of sense to do that. And a lot of these podcasting tools out there will allow you to ditch in these ads, right? Meaning that you can kind of dynamically insert these ads. To continue to grow. Now look, if you're liking this video so far, hit the like button because it helps the YouTube algorithm and it helps us grow. Now number 3 is staying consistent. So for the Marketing School Podcast, I think we're probably at 3,500 episodes or so, something like that. But it doesn't matter if I get sick, doesn't matter if he's traveling or I'm traveling, right? And so we make it a priority, it's important, and we're gonna do whatever it takes to be successful. And that's what it takes. Now the 4th thing is also staying focused. And what I mean by that is not trying to change up the format of your show every time, right? So for Marketing School, we're daily marketing podcast 4 to 5 minutes a day. For Leveling Up, it's more of an entrepreneur interview one. And for Creators of Web3, that's more reacting to the news around Web3 and also sharing kind of what's going on in our lives in the world of Web3. So those are just a couple of things. I mean, you got to stay focused, you got to stay locked in and hit the subscribe button and hit the notification button as well if you want more stuff like this around business and marketing. Now, the 5th thing is being uniquely you in the same vein of kind of staying focused and staying locked in and not getting too distracted, not trying to say, oh, I'm going to do this podcast and now I'm going to go try and do this TikToks and I'm going to go try to do all this other stuff. Right. And by the way, you can You can do that later, but in the very beginning, if you want to start to grow on one channel, you got to focus on one channel first before you start to go into other channels, right? So staying focused, locking in there. Just because Joe Rogan is doing a 3-hour podcast segment, or Lex Fridman is talking about science, Andrew Huberman's talking about health, right? And we have all these other podcasts that are out there. My First Million's another great one, but you got to think about being uniquely you. So for me, for example, I'm interested in Web3, so I have one on Web3. I'm interested in entrepreneurship, so I have one on entrepreneurship. Also interested in marketing, so I have one on marketing. But also all the formats are different, right? One's an interview podcast, the other one's more of like reacting to news, the other one is quick bite marketing lessons. So there's a different style for each one. And so that's me being uniquely me for each one, and each one has its own audience. Number 6, it's not optimizing for downloads. And so what I mean by that is when you're first starting out, what you should be optimizing for is the unsolicited response rate. And what that means is people that are, you know, commenting every now and then saying, wow, I don't know why this isn't getting more views. I don't know why this isn't getting more downloads, but what you're saying is really helping me. This episode was really helpful, right? You're looking for that. But more importantly, you want learnings. You want to feel like you're growing from your podcast. The guests that you're speaking to, are you learning something from them? Or if you're teaching out there, you're starting to see more volume. Are you seeing the unsolicited response rate go up? Right. But also at the same time, when I feel like I'm teaching, I'm also articulating my thoughts. I'm also refining how I think about things. So I'm getting value that way, especially if you're interviewing people, you're building these relationships, but also you're learning from these really smart, really successful people. That's worth its weight in gold. And the downloads, the views, those are going to come later. And obviously you have to continue to promote, right? You got to promote to the channels that you have already. But when you think about it that way, that's going to allow you to build for the long term. That's going to reframe your mindset into building for the long term. And that's going to have you still being there 3 years into it. Because I always like to say along with my podcast co-host that it takes 3 years to build an audience, right? It takes a long time to get going and a lot of people don't want to wait for that. So tell me what you think in the comments. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Do you think I missed anything? And also more importantly, leave in the comments what you would like to learn next from a marketing and business standpoint. And we'll try to help you with that. But that is it for today. And check out the next video over there. And we'll catch you later.