How We Built A Podcast With 1.2M Monthly Downloads

Okay guys, today we are going to talk about how we've been able to build a podcast that gets 1.2 million downloads a month and to date about 35 million downloads so far and counting. And so that's for the Marketing School Podcast. I want to talk about some of the lessons that I've learned along the way and hopefully they can carry over to you because podcasting is a hot thing because look, You have Joe Rogan doing a podcast deal for over $100 million. I believe Stitcher was just acquired for $300 million by SiriusXM. And Spotify, they're making a splash with all their acquisitions, buying Anchor and all these other— well, they did buy the Joe Rogan podcast, and they bought— I think they bought, what's his name, Bill Simmons' podcast as well. So the podcast wars are heating up, and so now is a good time to get into it. I can tell you Some of the benefits I've gotten from podcasting, I'll give you an example. I've gotten clients from podcasting. These are clients that pay 6 to 7 figures in terms of contract value. And what else has happened? Lifelong friendships, lifelong relationships because of the podcasts. That's how they heard of me, that's how they invited me to speak at a conference, and eventually that becomes a friendship where, you know, we're meeting up, we're going out, and things like that. And beyond that, I was able to you know, get references for coaches to hire for some of my team members. I was able to find a coach for myself as well. And I've had a couple of executive coaches in the past. But there's just a lot of— when you think about podcasting, when you think about the content that you're building out, you're just basically building relationships at scale. And those relationships go a long way. And for me, personally, I'm an introvert. So I prefer for things to come my way. And I guess that's why I like producing content. I like teaching. And if you are a learner and you naturally like teaching, then podcasting makes a lot of sense for you. So, the Marketing School Podcast, I'll give you a couple tips right now. What has made that podcast, you know, quote unquote successful, we're not at Joe Rogan's level where he's getting, you know, hundreds, 100 million plus downloads a month or so. I think maybe he gets that amount. But you have other people getting, you know, millions and millions of downloads. So, you know, we're doing okay, you know, 1.2 million a month. The first thing that I would say is If you can, do a daily podcast. So there are some other podcasts there that will talk about perhaps religion. You can do something, you can do like a daily prayer podcast. What else is there? Happy quotes, motivational podcasts, you can do it every day. And the more frequency you have, the more your downloads are going to go up naturally, and you just have to stay consistent with it. So with the Marketing School Podcast, we do it every single day, but it's not as tedious as it seems because we actually every 2 weeks will record episodes and each episode is about 5 to 10 minutes and we'll do a live recording session on Zoom and then from Zoom it will push to our live channels using Restream. And so we'll make the most of that content. So that's the second tip over there. Make the most of your recording sessions by going live on, you know, Facebook, On YouTube, on Periscope, which is Twitter, you can go live on Twitch as well. And make sure that you're answering the comments as well, you're answering the questions, and you're engaging with the audience. So what we end up doing instead is during the podcasting session, well, after we record 2 to 3 episodes, maybe 20 to 30 minutes or so, we'll stop, we'll answer questions for maybe 10 to 15 minutes, and then we'll go back to recording. And then that entire session will take about 90 minutes or so. So every 2 weeks we'll spend 90 minutes It's actually not that bad. And usually we try to stay ahead by about 30 days or so. So I do the podcast with my co-host, Neil Patel. He is, he's, he's a marketer. So our podcast is called Marketing School. And yeah, you know, we enjoy doing it. We have fun doing it and that's allowed us to build a community around it. And, you know, maybe I can talk about that in another episode, but so first things first, think about how you can do a podcast consistently and think about how you can make the most of it by restreaming, using a tool like Restream to stream live. And then the other thing that you want to do too is you want to release— if you can't do weekly or daily podcasts, do weekly, but you got to release consistently. And when you first launch your podcast, come out with 5 episodes at once, and that's going to allow you to basically say, hey, you know what? People will say, hey, this looks like a serious podcast, because it actually seems like they're consistent with it. So there's a follow-up to it because people want more episodes. People want to know that you're for real. And then after that, you can release on a consistent schedule. But you got to be consistent because people are going to tune into your show like it's something that— that it's something like maybe like the old days where people watch things on TV, they watch a television show and they'll tune in. For example, I used to watch The Simpsons all the time when I was younger. So those are a couple things. And then also, if you do happen to have an audience, let's say you have an email list, let's say you have a lot of Instagram followers, a lot of YouTube followers, push them over to your podcast because it helps things grow. It will help things compound very quickly, and then if your podcast is actually good, they'll mention it to other people as well. So that goes a long way. I would also recommend that you plug your podcast analytics into Apple's podcast analytics, Spotify's podcast analytics as well. There's also something called Chartable, and you combine these 3 together, you're going to have more insight into where are people dropping off exactly, what podcasts do people consume the most. So for example, at Chartable, you can see a 7-day moving average, same thing with 30-day, like what the average is. And you can, using that data, it will guide you to make better decisions in terms of, hey, you know, what does my audience resonate with? I should probably be producing more of that content. And well, if you're able to do that, then great, you're pleasing your audience and it's going to be a good experience for everyone. Great. The other thing I'll say too is if you can have an offer at the end of your podcast, so maybe you can tell people to opt into your email list. You can have a giveaway at the end as well. Just entice people to, you know, you can use a tool like KingSumo Giveaways. KingSumo Giveaways will allow, you know, they can get each for, let's say they like you on Instagram, they follow you on Instagram, they opt into your email list. Each one counts as one entry and they can win something like a prize, like a course from you, or they can win your product, something like that. Right. Right? Those are a couple things that you can do in terms of growing your podcast. I'm trying to think. The other thing I'll say, earlier I just talked about streaming. So that goes a little further. That's a form of repurposing. But if you can, try to record videos. You want to be able to record videos and you want to chop up the videos, repurpose them. So if you have a brand team ideally, or you can hire someone off of Upwork, they will chop up the videos for you and then you can post them to different social channels. And your content will go even further, because you're going to have all this micro-content. And I think micro-content is where a lot of people fall short. I'm not going to say I'm the best at it, but I think we've gotten a lot better. Just by doing video, it automatically becomes podcasts, and then you can repurpose it into different forms, into social media as well. And you want to make the most of what you have. And then if it's a really good piece, you might want to consider boosting the post as well. Maybe you put, you know, let's say $5, $10, $15, $25, maybe even $50 against it. And that would be great. But just keep in mind at the end of the day what you're trying to do with the podcast is you are trying to build relationships at scale and you're also trying to build relationships in person with someone that you might be interviewing or the guest that you're partnered up with. You know, you might be building a stronger relationship there and then, then, you know, maybe after a year or 2 then you can consider monetizing this podcast. Just really focus on audience building initially, let the growth compound and it will take time to do it because my first podcast took me about 2 years to really get going. After the first year, I was only getting 9 downloads a day. After the second year, only 30 downloads a day. So, look, it's gonna be a slog and, you know, things that are worth it are typically— you're gonna have to get through, you know, go through some adversity to get there. But I think it's very doable. I think, you know, it's taken years to do it. But, you know, really happy with it and I hope, you know, you're able to build a very successful podcast. And, you know, our podcast, again, I think it's decent but I think Those of you that are, you know, let's say you're targeting wider, I think you're gonna be able to do much better than that. So yeah, those are a couple things. Maybe I'll talk about monetization in another video. Let me know in the comments if you wanted me to talk about monetization if you're watching the video right now. And also don't forget to hit the like and the subscribe button because it helps us grow. And if you're listening to the podcast, don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe. Alright, so that is it for this video. I guess this piece of content. Maybe I should just say that. And, uh, we will see you tomorrow. Bye.