143 | 12 Days of Podcast Growth Day #1: The Podcast Ladder

This is Grow the Show, the podcast to help you grow your podcast. My name is Kevin Strindland and welcome to day one of the 12 days of podcast growth. This is going to be my first time ever as a podcaster publishing daily episodes to my podcast feed. And for the next 12 days, including today, I'm going to be releasing audio course content on how you can grow and monetize your podcast in 2024. So we are ringing out 2023 by giving you the latest and greatest in what I know and what I have learned about how to grow and monetize podcasts. Now, if this is the first time you're hearing from me, just a really, really quick intro on who I am and how I got here, I basically became a podcaster in 2018. Back then, I was a software developer at a big health insurance company, wasn't super passionate about health insurance software, was super passionate about my home city of Philadelphia, launched a show called Philly Who in 2018, quit the corporate job really quickly. It was actually rather ill advise, I kind of burned the boats before I really should have. I had no audience growth, no monetization, but what that did was it put my back against the wall. I spent six months absolutely struggling, getting no audience growth being super consistent, super confused. Why isn't my show growing? Why can't I make any money? Usually things came to a head. I paused podcasting went into a six week monk mode cave where I learned, it took courses, I read books, I got in touch with some big time podcasters, I listened to every single podcast on the top 100 charts for a whole weekend, just to see what are the podcasts that are actually successful doing and how can I emulate that. What I learned is that what the internet tells you when you Google around how to grow a podcast doesn't really, really work if you implement it exactly as they say or at least it didn't in 2018. And so I put into effect the things that I learned in actually listening to successful podcasts and within a year I was able to take my Philadelphia podcast past $100,000 downloads, $100,000 monetized. Did that for about a year and a half totally full time and then in 2020 I started helping other podcasters to also grow monetize their shows since then grow the show in its three and a half years has served more than 400 plus podcasters via my accelerator program and we've gotten somewhere between 30,000 podcasters to join the Grow the Show audience and the Grow the Show movement. So that's where I am today. It's been a wild, what, five, six years I've learned so much and this 12 day audio course is here to give you the latest and greatest in what I know having grown two shows past six figures and downloads, seven figures and revenue and also working directly with countless podcasters to help them with their show. So today what I'm going to do is I'm going to share with you my high level framework for how to grow and monetize a show. So everything days two through 12 of this audio course is going to basically come from what I am about to teach you, which is as I said my framework for growing a show. And so without further ado, let's hop into lesson one of the 12 days of podcast growth where we dive into the podcast ladder. Now the podcast ladder is what I call my framework for how to grow and monetize a successful show. So I want you to picture a ladder that you climb up with four different rungs. Each of those rungs represents a specific skill that a successful podcaster needs to either have or have access to through a team in order to have a successful podcast and a successful podcast is defined as a podcast that is growing each and every month and is fully monetized right is actually generating revenue and is profitable. Now at the top of the ladder are those podcasters that have our that have all four skills locked in at the bottom of the podcast ladder or podcasters that do not have those skills locked in those are podcasters that are publishing consistently, but they're not seeing any growth or any revenue from their show. They get the same number of downloads each and every week, they're super consistent, but they're starting to wonder, you know, whether this is all worth it, whether podcasting is all that it's cracked up to be or whether podcasting is just not for them. So if that is you have no fear, I'm about to show you and explain how you can climb the ladder of podcast success. Now it's really important to emphasize that like climbing any ladder, you can't skip rungs. If you want to climb a ladder, you can't focus on stepping on the third rung and then step on the first rung and then the fourth and then the second, you have to go in order. You have to step on rung one, then rung two, rung three and then rung four. And so this is very important that these skills stack and that if you are somebody who has not mastered level one of the ladder, but you have mastered the skill that is at level three of the ladder, you might be the best in the world at skill number three. But if you don't have skill number one, you will have the results of someone who has no skills, right? So getting level one locked in unlocks the ability to get level two right level two unlocks level three. And what you're about to hear is that most podcasters are focusing on how they can improve level three and they have no idea how deficient they are in levels one and two. Of course, getting one, two and three together makes level four, not easy, but much more simple, much more doable. And so what are these levels? What are these levels, Kevin? What the heck are you talking about? I'm here for podcasting. You're talking about ladders. All right. Let's dive in. So level one of the podcast ladder is having what I call a cat one premise, cat one since for category of one. And what that means is that you have a podcast that is truthfully one of a kind. You can truthfully say this is the only podcast in the world that blank. Now I know that sounds like a tall task, but what that does when you put your podcast into a category of one is number one, it illuminates any competition, right? So you are not competing with any other podcast. You were not trying to do the same thing that other podcasters are doing. You are doing something that is completely unique to you. But how can you actually achieve that? Well, there's three steps. As far as I'm concerned, you can create a category of one premise, a cat one premise, by achieving a unique combination of these three things. Number one, your audience or who the show is for specifically. Number two, the mission of your show, AKA, what is the show going to do for its listeners, not for you, the host, not what you are going to do every single week, not what you're interested in, but what is the show going to do for those listeners? And then the format, how will the show do it, right? Are you interviewing people? Are you doing monologues like what you're hearing right now? Is it audio course content? Is it something else, documentary style, whatever it might be? Is it narrative? How is the show actually going to deliver on the mission? So that's audience mission format, AMF. Now days two, three and four of the 12 days of podcast growth are going to dive deeper into those three things. It's going to dive deeper into how we can achieve a cat one premise. And I know this part might sound boring, you're just like, how do I get to the growth? I just want more listeners, but I promise you the vast majority of podcasters that I come across who are struggling, who think they have a growth problem, actually, which is level three, spoiler alert, actually have problems with levels one and two. And so we need to get this right. And even if you think you already have this locked in, trust me, you are going to get clarity by revisiting your premise. And so tomorrow we are going to talk about how you can define your audience. On day three, we're going to talk about your show's mission. And on day four, we're going to talk about your show's format. Now it's very easy to get lost in level one of the podcast ladder. Many people have no idea how to accurately define their audience. It might be hard for you to declare and articulate a podcast mission. This is something that I work really, really hard with when on the occasion that I work with somebody one on one. We spend a lot of time trying to pull out from them. What is the mission of this show? What is it there to tangibly do for its listenership? And then as far as format goes, most podcasters default to the weekly 45 minute interview format, which for a number of reasons is not ideal. And we'll dive into that on day four. There's also a lot of resistance to level one of the podcast ladder. And so you might be somebody who's afraid of pigeonholing yourself into talking about the same thing for the rest of your life. Or you might be worried that if you narrow down your audience that you're going to have a smaller audience, right, you want your audience to be as big as possible. So let's make it as broad as we can, right? Or you might be somebody who does buy into the idea that, yes, I know I need to have a specific target audience, but I don't know how to do that. And so we are going to dive into that tomorrow. You also might be somebody who has already invested time or money into your current podcast premise or your current podcast branding and I get that all the time. Yeah, but I just, I already have the trademark. Oh, I spent so much time, you know, working on my podcast artwork, I've already published a hundred episodes like this. I get that totally, totally valid. It's frustrating to have the change course, but I'm telling you, if you go back and you get this right, it's going to change the game. What's also true is that, you know, those of you who are one year into a non-cat one premise and feel that you've invested tons of time and money into your current podcast premise or lack thereof, let's say a year, just know that you are sacrificing 10 years of podcast success to hold on to the one year that you've already invested in a podcast premise that is not sufficient. So as I said, this is literally the most crucial level of the latter because it is the most abstract, it is the most pie in the sky, but it is the most important. And you could be the best, literally the best podcaster in the world. You could have levels two, three, and four completely locked in, but without a clear cat one premise, your show is not going to grow. And in fact, there are tons of huge celebrities, even past US presidents, people who have millions and millions of followers from social media who have tried their hand at podcasting and they did not create a cat one premise. They figured that they were so famous that they didn't need a premise. They just, you know, hey, I'm famous, listen to me talk. And guess what? Those people are not podcasters anymore. And I don't want the same fate for you and your podcasts. So level one is crucial. And so days two, three, and four tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, we're going to dive deep into this. And so at that, after that, you will know what you need to do to have a cat one premise. Once that is achieved, you are ready for the, in my opinion, more straightforward levels of the podcast latter. Level two is drum roll, please retention, keeping listeners coming back for more. You see this podcast game is not just about getting eyes and ears. It's about keeping them, right? So ask yourself, are you keeping the listeners that you get? Are you consistent in your publishing schedule? Do your episode titles grab attention? Or are they confusing or unclear? Or are they just the names of your guests who your listeners don't know those people's names? So it's just strangers names, right? Does the first 60 seconds of your episode grab the listeners attention and make an amazing promise and sell them on listening to the rest of the episode? Or do you kick off your episode with an ad or a call to action or some music and some voiceover guy talking about what your show is about? These are not the best ways to keep listeners. Do you know if listeners are sticking around for your entire show? What are your average completion rates? Do you even know how to check your completion rates? That is, in my opinion, the single vital sign of a podcast. Are you reminding your existing audience about new episodes? So regardless of how big or small your social media audience or your email list is, are you consistently telling them, hey, new episode available now? If not, we're not retaining as much as we could. So if you're unsure about any of those answers or if you know that you're not really hitting your marks there, we have a problem. And in the six years that I've been podcasting, here's what I have learned. Every podcaster thinks that they have a growth problem. Most, however, actually have a retention problem or a premise problem, right? So everyone thinks I really need to just get more listeners. But the problem is you can't keep the listeners that you get. Your show looks like it's stuck. So you get the same amount of listeners every single episode, but here's the thing. Those are not the same people. Your show has invisible churn. Every episode is the same number of listeners. Yes, but most of those listeners are people who are checking out the show once and never coming back. They listen to one episode. Yes, you did it. You got a newly listener, but they don't stick around. And for you business owners out there, it's the same kind of thing of other business owners who are like, I just need more leads, but their business sucks when they can't keep any of the customers that they get, but they're focused on getting more leads. It's the same thing. Now the thing with podcasting is you can't see this problem unless you know where to look for it. Because as I said, it can be completely hidden. You might think your show is stuck and it's the same people listening every single week, but in actuality, in most cases, it is not. And your show has a retention problem. And if you have that invisible problem, it's like trying to fill up a wicker basket with water. Right? No matter how hard you turn up the faucet, the basket just won't fill up. You just can't get the water level to rise. But once you learn the skill of keeping listeners, your podcast goes from a wicker basket to a steel bucket. At that point, the water level, aka your audience size, rises much faster with less effort. So days five, six, and seven of the 12 days of podcast growth are going to teach you how to keep the listeners that you get. And once you can keep listeners, because by the way, if you can't keep listeners, I could go and get you a million downloads this week. And next week, you'll be back to a right where you are right now because you're trying to fill a wicker basket. So once you get this locked in, you are ready finally for the namesake to grow the show. You are ready for audience growth, which is what you are here to learn about, right? How do I grow my audience? It is a great question. And there are two parts to the growth equation sidebar. If you are a YouTube first podcast, meaning your show is primarily a YouTube show, there are actually three parts to the growth equation, which includes the YouTube algorithm and thumbnails and everything like that. But I'm not diving into YouTube in this 12 day course because not every single podcast that's listening to it is a video podcaster. And if that's you and you're worried about that, it's okay. You don't have to be a video podcaster to get started to be successful. We'll talk another day about where I see video podcasting going, but just know that that's outside the scope of this 12 day course. Okay. So for this 12 day course, there are two parts of the growth equation. And when I share with you what these two parts, what these two ingredients are, you're probably going to say, I already knew that, but stick with me. Because if you did know, you'd be getting growth, right? So these two ingredients seem obvious and they are cliche for a reason. They freaking work once you learn how to get them to work. But most podcasters either do them wrong or they do them right, but with no consistency. So here are the two ingredients, social media and podcast guesting. You know, you becoming a guest on other podcasts, but not in the way that you're used to doing them. Or if you've never done them that you think you should do them. So days eight and nine of this course are going to give you the roadmap on how to actually get social media and podcast guesting firing on all cylinders. But here are the two things that are going to unlock level three podcast growth audience growth for you. Number one relates to social media. Here's the one thing for you to remember. You achieve audience growth on social media, not by promoting yourself or promoting your podcast, but by participating in social media. Don't promote, participate. That is the big distinction. The podcasters who say social media does not work to grow a podcast are not participating on social media. They're using it as a billboard to just promote, promote go listen, go listen, go listen. People are not on social media for you to tell them to go listen to their podcasts. They're on social media to be entertained. And how do you entertain them by participating on that social media platform? I have had a few exceptional clients recently who have grown their podcast audience, not into the tens of thousands of downloads per month range. But in that one particular client via social media alone grew her podcast into the tens of thousands of downloads per day range again, not an average experience, totally exceptional situation, but it's going to be a great case study that I'll talk about on how you can use social media to grow a podcast really quickly. And this particular client went from launching a show to a million downloads in just 90 days via social media again, that is not the average result that is quite exceptional. But we and you are going to be able to learn from that example in exactly what she did. So remember, don't promote, participate. You'll learn how to do that and watch platforms to do it on and how to do it in a way that doesn't suck up all of your time on day eight of this course. But hey, I can hear what some of you were thinking, I hate social media. I am not a social media person. I hear you. I used to say the same thing. The reality is you hate it because it doesn't work for you yet. Once you actually understand it and you see how it works, you're not going to hate it anymore. It's actually going to become super fun. And others in your life are going to start asking you to help them because you're someone who gets social media, quote unquote, you are quote unquote a social media person, right? There's not this genus a qua that some people are born with or some aren't. It is a skill like anything else that you can and you will learn. OK, so we're going to dive into social media on day eight. And I promise you, it's going to be super fun because I'm going to change the way that you think about how to promote your podcast on social media. On day nine, we're going to dive into the second part of the growth equation, which is guessing on other podcasts. So we're going to dive into how to be a guest on the right podcasts that already have our future listeners attention today. Because here is the thing, 100% of your future podcast listeners that are going to be your loving audience members, listen to podcasts today. We are not in the game of trying to convince people to listen to podcasts for the first time. We will let the huge shows like this American life and Joe Rogan and call her daddy and whatever other shows get people actually to become podcast listeners. That is not our job. Our job is to get people who already listened to podcasts each and every week on a regular basis to learn that ours exists. And there is literally no better place to find more podcast listeners than on other podcasts. Right. It is the most efficient strategy because not only are 100% of the people that you reach via this strategy podcast listeners confirmed, but you're reaching 100% of them while they are listening to a podcast. Podcast listening is a very, very routine and specific type of content consumption. People listen to podcasts while they are doing something else and usually that something else is a part of their weekly routine. So the closer in time we can reach them to the moment where they are doing that thing, whether it's running or working out or cleaning or commuting or whatever it is that that person is doing while they're listening to a podcast, the shorter the amount of time between the moment that they find out that our podcast exists and the moment that they are actually listening to a podcast, the more likely that they're going to actually check out our show. Right. So we want to reach 100% podcast listeners while they are listening to podcasts. And in my opinion, there's literally no better place and no better way to do that than appearing on other podcasts. It is the most efficient strategies. However, like social media, which people get, yes, I need to grow my podcasts on social media, but most people are doing it wrong. The same thing is true with podcast guesting. Most podcasters get that showing up on other shows is the right way to do it, but they miss the mark when it comes to the actual execution. And that comes from either targeting the wrong shows, so not appearing on the right podcasts or doing it really inconsistently. And I hear this a lot where people are like, yeah, I know I should be on other podcasts. I did that like six times last year. And then I don't know. I just stopped. So just like you have developed the skill of publishing your podcast episodes regularly, you know you need to be super consistent there. You do not allow yourself to miss a publishing episode. We need to take the same energy of consistency and apply it to showing up on other podcasts. The rule of thumb that has come up time and time again as I have interviewed and chatted with mega podcasters who have achieved way more than I have, and I've asked them to share their secrets of audience growth time and time again. They say you got to be a guest on other shows. And what generally the average rule of thumb that I hear is that they try to average one podcast guest appearance per week so that averages out to 50 per year. And you can spread that out as you like. It can be one a week if you want for the whole year. You could do 12 over the course of three days and then not again for three whole months. You know, you can spread it out as you like. But just as you've learned to consistently publish podcast episodes, you must also learn to be consistent with this. And what's also true is you must also learn how to identify the right podcasts for you to guest on because this is the other thing that most folks get wrong is that they just search. They go somewhere. They just search around for any podcaster that'll accept them on their show. And they don't check number one. Does this podcaster have an actual audience that is beyond their friends and family? Or is their show, you know, being played to the same 150 people that know this podcaster personally every week? If that's the case, it's probably not the best use of your hour because it's not going to bring that many listeners to your show. So number one, is this podcast of the right size? And then number two, am I actually pitching the right thing? And here's the big mistake that a lot of podcasters make. They pitch themselves and their story, right? You're a podcaster. How many pitches do you get from people that you've never heard of who are like, ah, yes, you should interview my client who recovered from cancer and then became a mega-deca billionaire before he almost lost it all and he would love to share his story and bless your listeners with his experience, right? Nobody wants that. We get that all the time. So instead of pitching yourself and sharing your story, there's another way that you're going to pitch yourself to be on other shows. And that we're going to dive into on day nine. By day nine, you will have level one. You will have a cat one premise. You will have level two. You'll know how to retain listeners. You will have number three. You'll know how to get more listeners and you will be ready for level four, which comes down to monetization. The number one question that I get from podcasters, how can I monetize my podcast? Terrible question. What? Well, what does that even mean? At what moment is your podcast monetized? How can you know when you go from a not monetized podcast to a monetized podcast? Well, I don't know when I get paid, ah, okay, great. So who is it that's paying you? Well, probably my sponsors or I guess my listeners, that is true. But let me ask you this, who would be paying your sponsors? Well, I guess my listeners, bingo. Every single form of audience monetization boils down to one thing. Getting your audience, getting your listeners to buy something. That is it. Monetization equals getting your listeners to buy stuff. So again, how can I monetize my podcast is actually not a useful question because it is too abstract. Instead, you want to ask yourself, what might my listeners be excited to buy? And if you have no idea, you need to find out because your show is not going to be sustainably monetized until you know that, right? So your listeners can either buy something that you make, which is, could be a product, it could be merchandise, it could be a Patreon membership, it could be coaching, it could be consulting, it could be a service that you provide, it could be a course, whatever. Being that you make, right, they can buy it from you and you get paid, or your listeners can buy something that someone else makes, aka sponsors or brand deals or affiliates. So that you get them to buy something that another company makes and then you get a cut of that, right? That pretty much encompasses every form of podcast monetization, right? So that is what we are going to wrap up this 12 day course with. On day 10, you're going to learn how to decide between selling something you make and selling something someone else makes. And for those of you who are already business owners and you know that, we're going to talk about how you can do both. On day 11, you're going to learn the science of when within your podcast episodes to talk about the thing that you're selling aka when, when should you make your CTAs? There is a right and a wrong time to do it. There is a time where a CTA will crush you. It was a horrible call. It makes people angry. There's a time where a CTA crushes and it's the perfect time to get people to ask people to do something. And the same thing is true for your brand ads, right? So we're going to go into that on day 11, the science of when to make your CTAs. And on day 12, we will wrap things up with the art of making those calls to action in a way that is natural and not too salesy because I know that's what a lot of you are scared of. I don't want to be too salesy. I don't want to make my audience angry by asking them to buy my thing. Trust me. You won't. I'm going to teach you how to do that. At that point, it'll be literally 12 days from now and you will have ascended the podcast ladder. 2024 will be yours, my podcasting Jedi. So are you ready to dive in and learn how to ascend the podcast ladder and achieve the podcast growth and monetization that you have been craving since you launched your show? Me too. I will see you tomorrow when we talk about how to define your audience. And in that lesson, you're going to learn a new, better, more accurate way to define your audience. And I'm going to help you to forget the old way of defining an audience that is actually tripping you up. So I can't wait for that. That is tomorrow. I will see you then. By the way, if you want to get the text versions of these lessons in your inbox every day, as we go through the 12 days of podcast growth, there's a link in the show notes where you can subscribe or you can go to 12 days of podcast growth.com. That's one two days of podcast growth.com. And if you give me your name and email, I will send you these lessons each and every day as well. And then finally, if you have any questions about anything that I've said throughout these 12 days, I invite you to hit me up on any of the following social media platforms. X, threads, Instagram, LinkedIn. If you're on one of those platforms and you want to ask a question, just hit me up there, happy to answer, or you could also just, as I said before, subscribe to the email list and you can reply to the emails with questions. It's me answering the questions. So that's it.