Episode #043: 421,000 Downloads Later (What I've Learned About Podcasting)
421,000 Downloads Later (What I've Learned About Podcasting)
Hey hey Not So Average Marketer!
Are you considering starting or launching a podcast to serve your audience and grow your business? Then this is one episode you don't want to miss!
My podcast has been download over 421,000 times, and I want to share with you the value of those downloads and how we've translated them into business and sales!
When you tune in you're going to learn:
When to consider launching a podcast
What you need to know BEFORE you start podcasting so you're 100% ready
The 7 things I've learned from hosting a podcast for several years
I can't wait to hear what you think of this week's show!
Links Mentioned on the Show From Zach:
Not Your Average Membership Use code PODCAST to get 30 Days for $30
Full Transcript:
This is Not Your Average Online Marketing Podcast, episode number 43. In this episode, we're talking podcasts. Should you have one? Do you need one? What can it do for your business, and what we've learned from having a podcast for several years now? So if you're even considering a podcast for your business, this episode is for you. So stay tuned.
Hey, hey, hey, not so average marketer. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. I am so stoked for today's episode, as I think I say every week, but especially this week because I'm going to be talking to you about podcasting and specifically what I've learned from having a podcast for several years and over 421,000 downloads on our show. But I want to start here and say, the title of this podcast and talking about download numbers is great, but what's really been amazing with our podcast is that we've leveraged it into new clients, new sales, new results, and it's worked super, super well for us. So I don't want you to get caught up in this like, "Oh, this is so cool. I want hundreds of thousands of downloads too." The reality is, I'd rather have a show that gets 10 downloads a month but converts 10 of them into customers than a show that gets a hundred thousand downloads a month but doesn't convert into customers. Okay?
So I think the most important place to start is, if you're even thinking about having a podcast, what are the things that I've learned that you need to keep in mind? Well, the first one is that it can be challenging to stay consistent. Okay? With a podcast, you really want to be releasing an episode every one or two weeks. You want to stay on top of content creation, and that can get challenging because you always have to be coming up with ideas of what to create.
I can tell you firsthand that while I'm sitting here saying you need to be consistent, from late 2019 to early 2021, I was incredibly inconsistent with my podcast. I only recorded a couple dozen episodes over the course of two and a half years. I didn't really put a lot of content out there. I want to share that with you because I want to be honest. I want you to know that I've learned from that misstep, that my show could have grown. My show could be so much bigger and better and have reached so many more people, but it didn't because I got inconsistent. Even today, if we're completely honest, there's been a couple podcast episodes that I've missed. End of July, I missed a couple. I think I missed one in April. So it happens. But the one thing I want you to remember is that consistency and it's not about being perfect. It's about doing your best to show up consistently.
So that's what we've been doing, our best to show up really consistently and continue to drive engagement and traffic to our podcast, which brings me to the next point, which is that your podcast content lives forever. Okay, so even though I just talked about how we were super inconsistent for a couple years, we actually brought in over 92,000 downloads during that two and a half year period where I wasn't releasing podcast episodes consistently. So just know that you can actually take your content, put it into a podcast, and it lives on forever. We see on a pretty regular basis that even our old shows are getting downloaded dozens of times a month. So for example, about 30 days ago, we started looking at our stats, and we found that the episodes that we recorded even back in 2021 have gotten anywhere from 35 to 70 downloads in the month. And that compounds because we're always releasing new content. So just think about the benefit of always putting new content out into the world. It can be really, really powerful and really, really beneficial.
The last thing I want you to think about if you're considering doing a podcast is the value of being between someone's ears. There is something so powerful about people actually being able to hear you and listen to you. I think that written word is incredible, I think video is incredible, but I think there's this nice in between. And that in between is actually podcasting. Because if we're being completely honest, which I think I am, my hair is a mess right now. I woke up, I poured some coffee. I've got my bedhead on. I'm wearing my sweatpants, but I'm still recording quality content. I don't have to get fancy or prettied up to create this content, but it's also more powerful than just someone reading because you can hear my voice, you get to form that personal connection. And I think that that's really powerful. So if you're looking for something that's high impact but doesn't take as much effort, it can be really, really powerful.
So those are some of the things to consider if you're thinking about starting a podcast. And I want to share with you that on September 8th, 2022, I'm actually going to be hosting a live training called The Leveraged Podcast Live. This is going to be a couple hour workshop that we're hosting where I'm going to take you through how to launch or relaunch your podcast to get more engagement, more downloads, more customers. I'm also going to talk to you about how to create really great audio for your podcast. We're going to talk about this in a minute, but audio is really, really important. We're going to talk to you about how we've been able to grow our audience and our show, how to come up with amazing content ideas, how to flip your podcast into a revenue generating asset, and of course my favorite tools and softwares for actually creating really great podcasts.
So if you want to check it out, you can go to heartsoulhustle.com/leveraged. That's heartsoulhustle.com/leveraged, L-E-V-E-R-A-G-E-D. You can join the workshop for just 25 bucks. We would love to have you. We've already got dozens of people registered. We're so excited to put this class on, and I'm really stoked because I want to show you how we've turned our hundreds of thousands of downloads into a profitable piece of our online business.
So with that being said, let me give you a sneak peek of some of the stuff we're going to talk about on that workshop by telling you one of the things or some of the things that I've learned from having a podcast. The first thing I want to talk to you about with podcasting is that there's this misconception that if you create great content with your podcast, it will grow your audience. And I actually think the opposite is true. I think that as you grow your audience, your podcast grows. So we are always leveraging different strategies to get our podcasts to grow, to get more people to connect with our podcast. So I do things like advertising, Instagram Reels, posting on Instagram, posting in my Facebook group. I'm always trying to expand my audience of people that listen to the podcast so that my show is always growing.
Some people think that, "Well, if I really make good content, then won't people share it?" And yes, that does happen sometimes, but I find with a podcast, it's more word of mouth and it's more social shares from time to time. And even then, how often, really ask yourself, do you see something on Facebook or Instagram and go, "Oh, I'm going to go download that podcast"? Generally, you follow someone, you connect with them, you engage with them, you find out they have a podcast, and then you go listen to it. Or you're on the podcast app searching for a piece of content, and you find a podcast related to it. So keep in mind that it's not just, "Oh, how do I grow my audience or grow my podcast?" It's, "How do I do both?"
The second thing that I've learned from having a podcast is that the bells and whistles are nice but they're not essential. So we used to be The Heart, Soul & Hustle Podcast, if you didn't know that. This is episode 197 that I've recorded of my podcast, even though it's only episode 43 of Not Your Average Online Marketing Podcast. This podcast used to be called The Heart, Soul & Hustle podcast. We recorded, I want to say, several dozens of episodes, like 143. I'm not looking at it right in front of me, but around 143, 145 episodes. We used to do all the bells and whistles, the intro, the outro, the fade, and the upgrade, all of the bells and whistles, sound effects. It was great. We would have it edited down and beautified. And what we found is that we get comparable results on the Not Your Average Online Marketing Podcast, and I don't do all those fancy things.
Now, I will say I've gotten better at podcasting. I've learned how to edit down my ums. You don't hear me say um, I hope, a lot on the podcast, and that's because I've practiced recording the show. So we don't even really edit down the show. We don't have a podcast editor that edits it down. We use Buzzsprout, which automatically adjusts the audio and quality levels to help us sound really good. I use great audio equipment that helps the sound quality be really great without a ton of editing. But for the most part, I just record and release, and I record it in one foul swoop. From time to time, I do have to edit down. Sometimes I trip up on my words or I have to pause and start over, and I will edit that down. But my editing process for a show is literally no more than two to five minutes maximum, or I'm just re-recording and starting over.
So you don't need the fancy intro, outro music, the fancy bio, the pre-roll, the post-roll. You don't need all of that to be really, really successful with your podcast. We learned that the hard way by pulling out all the stops on our first show and then editing down to a more minimalist show this time, and we still get comparable results.
The next thing that I've learned from having this podcast is that it's really important to create a brand and a movement with your podcast. What do I mean by that? Well, yes, it's nice to have the visual brand, the colors, the logo. And we did hire a designer to help us with that when we launched this podcast. You don't have to do that. Frankly, you could start in Canva and then improve over time. And that's generally what we do, but we had the funding and we had this big vision for the podcast so we invested a little bit in design work early on. But what I'm talking about is more about having a movement or a brand behind it.
So the Not Your Average Online Marketing Podcast, for those who haven't listened to episode zero of the podcast, is really about talking to the marketers that aren't average. They don't want to do the things that everyone's telling them to do, just because that's what you do. They kind of feel like, "Oh, I don't want to use countdown timer because it doesn't feel good. I don't want to have fake scarcity. I don't want to use outdated funnels that everyone says I should be using."
People who are not so average marketers, they want to be part of something bigger. They want to be part of something grander. They really want to believe in their marketing. And I want you to understand that that is what I think personally has really contributed to the success of this podcast, that it's done so well, because we have a mission, we have a movement. It's not just, "Oh, come listen to more content from Zach." And yes, that is a big part of it. I'm not going to lie, creating good quality content is important, but we have this kind of stance that we take in the marketplace that people want to get behind. So when you have a stance in the marketplace, when you talk about that stance, when you stand for something, you attract more people. And that has worked incredibly well for us, and we want to continue, frankly, doing it more.
I don't think that, on this show, I talk about enough how we believe these things and how our membership site is designed for these types of marketers and how we want to attract people that are these type of marketers and how we believe these things as marketers. So it's really important for you to understand that if you want more listeners, you've got to have that mission, that movement, that brand, that people feel compelled to follow.
The next thing that I really wish I'd have thought more about, and frankly, this is where I'm still a little short, where I come up short, is promote, promote, promote. Every time you release a podcast episode, you should promote it. You need to put it on your Facebook. You need to put it on your Instagram. You need to put it in your bio. You need to put it in your Facebook groups, and email your list, and do all of the things. Because the reality is, people won't see it if you don't tell them about it. Now, generally we get most of our downloads from people who are already subscribed and in the player, but even if you get just three or four new listeners who become loyal listeners, when you release a podcast every single week, think about that, that's two, 300 downloads extra a year every time you release an episode. And I talked about this earlier, but there's this compounding effect with our podcast that we do see when we release an episode, we get a jump in downloads because we try our best to promote it consistently across the board.
For me, promotion has three arms. I have my email arm, I have my organic arm, and I sometimes, not always, but if I have a good episode, I have my advertising arm. So I'm always letting these three arms play together to get us more new people engaged with our podcast. And it works super well. It's super simple, but it's super effective. And if you're listening to this going, "Well, how do I advertise a podcast?" It doesn't have to be complicated. You can take a post about your podcast and run it for traffic to your website. You can take a post for your podcast, run it to people who are on Apple devices, and run it directly to the podcast app. There's so many options for how to advertise it. And it's not about spending thousands of dollars or spending a ton of money. It's really more about pushing your content out to the right people. Okay?
Now, the other thing I want to talk about is how important quality is. If you don't have quality audio and quality content, you're not going to retain listeners. Now, before you panic and go, "Oh my gosh, Zach, I heard that I have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on amazing podcast audio equipment." You don't. You can get started with a simple microphone. They make some really quality microphones for under a hundred bucks now. But you do have to invest in some equipment, I'm not going to lie to you. It's important that you have good audio quality because people are listening to you. And if you sound like this or you're super mouthful, then people can't understand what you're saying. You're not going to get people to stick around. Right?
You want people to like the content, but also be able to listen to it without going, "Man, I can't listen to this anymore because the quality's just not there." And I've talked to people who have said that like, "Oh, I love so and so's podcast, but I can't really listen to it because the quality is just not there. It's like nails on a chalkboard. And I can't place why, but I'm just not enjoying the show. The content is great, but the quality is not." So you need to make sure that you have quality. My favorite thing to use is just a Yeti mic. It's called the Yeti, the Blue Yeti. The last time I looked, they were a hundred bucks on Amazon. I'm actually going to pull them up while I chat here just so that I can give you an accurate price. Yeah, they're a hundred bucks. You can create a small little sound booth with even mattress pads in a box or just be in a really padded room.
I had a friend who started with the Blue Yeti mic and would record in her closet because she had clothes everywhere and carpeting, and it would make it feel really soundproof ish, and it worked super well for the quality of her audio. So you can do that. You can make a small sound box. I'm going to talk about some of how to get really quality audio for really low price on The Leveraged Podcast Live workshop. And we'll talk about that kind of stuff. But just know, invest a hundred bucks in a microphone. Get started. Put it out there. It's really going to benefit you to invest in a nice microphone early on rather than say, "Oh, I don't need a good microphone. I'm just going to create content." Good content is great, but with bad audio quality, you won't retain people.
The next thing I want to talk about is asking for what you want. When you are recording a show, ask for what you want. Okay? Sometimes we forget that our podcast needs to feed into our business strategy, and so we create really great content, but it doesn't go anywhere. So for example, on this exact podcast episode, I talked about my podcasting workshop, the $25 podcasting workshop. If you want to go to that workshop, I have to invite you. I can't just record a really great podcast about our podcasting experience and then hope you'll go to my website and hope you'll stumble upon what I'm working on and hope that you'll sign up and hope that it's a perfect match. No, I have to tell you about it and I have to ask for it. I have to say, come sign up for my workshop.
The same thing goes with getting reviews, with getting coaching clients, with getting course sales, with getting webinar signups. You absolutely unequivocally have to ask for what you want. If you don't, people don't know what to give you. And the thing about podcast in my experience is that they create this really great reciprocity where people want to pay you back for your kindness and for your content. So you can get really incredible results from having people listen to you, but not if you don't ask them, because people are not psychic and they can't understand your business and what you're doing the way that you can.
The last thing I want to talk about that we've learned from having our podcast is the power of experimentation. Try new things. Okay? What we've done and what's worked really well for us is just always playing around, just trying new things. For example, before this episode even started, you probably heard a short 60 to 90-second audio clip of me talking about the podcast workshop, but here's this cool little thing. You'll actually hear that little advertisement on every episode that we have out right now because we're doing what's called a pre-roll dynamic content. Basically, what that means is, I can record a 60 to 90-second audio clip, it can actually go up to five minutes but we like to keep it around 90 seconds, that talks about whatever I want to promote across all of my podcasts. We don't know how well it's going to work, but we're testing it. And that's the key, always be testing. Test different things. See what works. Experiment. Try different topics. Try different angles. Try different creative. Try different ads. Try different things consistently and regularly, and you'll be shocked at how well it can go. Okay?
So, super quick recap of everything that we covered that I've learned from over 400,000 downloads of the podcast is, number one, grow your audience and your show will grow with you. Number two, bells and whistles are nice but not essential. Three, create a brand or movement behind your show. Four, promote, promote, promote. Five, quality content and audio matters. Six, ask for what you want your audience to do. And number three... Not number three. Oh my goodness, we're going to leave that in just so you can see I'm not perfect. Number seven, experiment all the time. Always be trying something new.
So if you got mad value from this episode, do me a quick favor. Don't be afraid to head over to iTunes and leave us a review. We always appreciate it. For those of you that want the full transcript and show notes, you can head over to heartsoulhustle.com/nyap043. Again, that's heartsoulhustle.com/nyap043 for Not Your Average Podcast, episode number 43. I hope you got mad value from this episode. And if you've been flirting with the idea of a podcast, I hope you put it out there because the world needs to hear your voice. And if you're thinking about, how do I get it out there? What do I do? I'd love to have you on The Leveraged Podcast Live training coming up on September 8th for 25 bucks. If you need the link to that again, we'll also put that in the show notes. I hope you have an incredible rest of your week. Get out there, crush your podcast, and we'll see you next time on the Not Your Average Online Marketing Podcast.
