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158: Mastering Podcasting: Unlocking Growth and Authenticity with Courtney Elmer · Imperfect Marketing

• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Imperfect Marketing.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Kendra Corman, and today I have a fantastic and exciting guest with me.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: We have Courtney Elmer.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: She is the founder of the Effortless Life and Creator of the Hip Podcast Launch Program, Pod Launch.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: She is a sought-after consultant, host and speaker who's known for helping entrepreneurs embrace failure and grow through what they go through to create the greater income, influence and impact they deserve.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Welcome, Kendra.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: I am honored and delighted to be here.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I'm super excited to have you join me because I love podcasting.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Clearly because I have the Imperfect Marketing Podcast.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I'm a guest on podcasts.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: It's just an amazing tool for people to grow their business.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Talk to me a little bit about how you go about teaching people to grow a top 100 podcast.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, you know, kendra, I agree with you.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Podcasting is one of the most powerful vehicles that we have today to share our thought leadership and to really use our voices to create positive change in the world in a way that social media can't do.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: About four years ago, I was in a place in my business where I was not getting anywhere with social media.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: When I say not getting anywhere, what that looked like was spending an hour or more creating a super highly valuable post that I knew was packed with good information and that could help people.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: But then I would hit post and then you'd get like two likes, four spam comments and like nobody in the DM saying hey, could I work with you, can we book a call?
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: That was so frustrating because at the time in my life I was a new mom and my son was about 18 months old and he was home with me full-time by choice.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: I didn't have him in daycare.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: I was working in like the nap time pockets of the day, so I didn't have a whole lot of time to give to my business.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: So it was just like soul crushing when you would spend that much time creating a piece of content to get no return from it.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: And so I was listening to podcasts at the time and I'd trap my son in his stroller, would go for walks in the neighborhood, I'd load them up with snacks and I would just binge listen to podcasts.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: All the gurus, you name it.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: I listened to them.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: You know Amy Porter Field and Jenna Kutcher and James Wedmore and all the people who were telling me what I needed to do to have success with marketing.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: But then one day it clicked for me, kendra, and I was like you know what?
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Here I am, day after day, listening to these people tell me what I need to do, but I'm not paying any attention to what they're doing, which was podcasting.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: So then that like set off this little like light bulb in my brain and I was like you know, I could do that.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: I could build my own stage.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Having the format of a podcast would allow me to go deeper on topics that I wanted to go deeper on with my community and really build that trust and build that connection.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: So I overthought it for about nine months.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Okay, do I do this?
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: How much time is it gonna take?
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: You know what if people don't listen?
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: What if people don't like the sound of my voice?
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: You know all of these things, all the little chatter that goes through our head, and I finally launched it.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: And when I launched my show, we had over 65 five star reviews come in the first week and suddenly people in my network were like, how'd you do that?
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Can you teach me what you did?
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: This is like at the height of COVID I had launched before we saw that big wave with podcasts.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Mine was on the front end.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Mine was on the front end of that, but by then we were all locked in our houses and people twiddling their thumbs Like I think I'm gonna start a podcast, you know.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: So people were asking me how'd you do that?
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: So I started teaching them what I did and they went out and got better results than I did.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: So then I was like, okay, I think we're onto something here.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: And so really, there are three ingredients.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Now here, four years later, having taught this, you know and it's actually a method, it's our methodology now.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: But that's how it was born and we've tested it time and time again with coaches and experts and consultants who want to do the same thing, who are sick and tired of the social media game.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: They wanna reach a global audience with their message, but not just for ego.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: They wanna do it to really create positive change and meaningful change.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: And so there's three ingredients that you really need to have a top 100 podcast.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: It's not a high quality mic, it's not a consistent episode release schedule and it's not the best content on the face of the planet.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: What it is are three things that allow us, as hosts, to tap into the psychology of our listener.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: When we're clear on that and when we can design our podcast and our content around that, then you can begin to create a podcast that people can't ignore.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: And when you do that, that's when it goes viral.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: That's when the word starts to spread and people start sharing it and start talking about it, and that bumps you up in the charts to help you get discovered.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: So that's super high level.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: I know that your listeners probably wanna hear what those three ingredients are, but I'm gonna pause right there in case you have any questions for me.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: No, I think I love that and I love tapping into your audience.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: That's the key.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: People have a tendency to skip defining who their audience is and understanding their audience.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: I have that discussion on a practically daily basis with people I teach part-time, I'm adjunct faculty at a local university.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm banging it into their heads Target audience, target audience, target audience.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: We're in a class, we're working on a little mini marketing plan and they're like TikTok.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: And I'm like tell me again who your target audience is.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: They're like women 45,.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, tiktok.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: And then they're like, oh yeah.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: I didn't think about that.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: So you really gotta think about who your audience is and where they're at to make sure that you're talking to them.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I think that's key.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: So key, so key and we don't go deep enough.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: This was look, I may have made every mistake in the book.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: You know, in the early days of my business, it was well, I can help everybody, and that wasn't necessarily what I was going out there to market, but it was how I was marketing because I was afraid of getting nobody.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Therefore, I wanted to make my messages applicable to everyone as I could.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: I think we've all been there.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: We've all been there and we all know that it doesn't work, because, whether you've been there and you've learned from it, or whether you're there right now and you're like, wait a second, this isn't working for me.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: We've all had to come to that hard realization.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Then on brain goes well, how do I go deeper?
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: How do I get to know my target audience?
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: And this is a piece that was really challenging for me for many years, because I never wanted to feel boxed in, I never wanted to niche down so much that I felt like I couldn't talk about other things, and I always had this intuitive sense that that really wasn't how to pick a niche age where they married or single, male or female, how many kids, what career, occupation, where in the world that they live.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what we're taught to do.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: So that's what we do, because we tend to follow in the footsteps of those who've gone before us and have done those things.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: They're successful.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: We assume, okay, we gotta do those things to.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: And so on some deep level, I always knew that there was a different way that I needed to speak to my audience.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: To do that, I had to first get clear on what were the problems that my ideal people were experiencing.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: And we've heard that to in marketing.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Right, get clear on the pain points, market to the pain points.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Pain points sell more.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: And then even that has gotten a bad rap because we have these you know, quote unquote, bro marketers that go out there and abuse this weather.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: You know really Using that as a tool, not for good, and I know those listening here today.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: That's not your intention, that's not what you're here to do.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Maybe you shied away from doing that For fear of looking like those people who do exploit that.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: So when I say get clear on the problem, this is really the first step in the first pillar of a top 100 podcast, because the first pillar is a binge worthy content formula.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: When I say been to the content.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: I'm not just talking about the content in your episodes, because you have the best content but nobody knows how good it is.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: They're not gonna say yes to spend their time to listen.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: So we have to get really clear first of all and who are listener is what problems are keeping them up at night, so that we can then communicate to them along the listener journey.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: There's five significant steps along the journey before they decide whether not they want to hit play.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: We can tap into that and we can start to communicate with them.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Unconsciously, subconsciously.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: First of all, you're putting yourself in a category of the one percent, because 99% of hosts are not doing this.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Now, in order, I call these your five content gatekeepers, because they really are that if someone can't make it through those gates, then you're gonna lose them to your competitors.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Even if, let's say, it's real estate podcast, even if you're like, wait a second, I teach this totally differently than joe smith down the street teaching real estate, but to your listener they won't see the distinction enough and they will have never made it inside your episodes to understand the difference.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: So we gotta communicate to them before that point in the listener journey.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: So to do this, we have to be clear on the problems.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: When I say clear on the problems, a lot of times we'll get clients who come to us, especially those with existing podcasts that aren't growing like they expected it to.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: You know, they're still getting less than a hundred downloads an episode.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: They've been podcasting a year more.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: They're doing all the right things that they have been told to do to grow their audience and nothing seems to be working.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: They have no idea which one of those is making an impact, if any, despite sharing that religiously on social media, sharing that with their email is guesting on other podcasts, tabling in sco right the laundry list of things they're trying to do to grow.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: But what they don't realize is what's happening.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: They have leaky holes in their bucket, so they're losing listeners before they even get to their content.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Okay, so in order to capture those listeners and to grab their attention, we first need to know Specifically what is that problem look like.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: So when we get people coming to us, you know, with these podcasts that aren't growing, they're like well, you know, my listener is a parent and they're very overwhelmed.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: You know that's an over their stress.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Overwhelmed, frustrated because they can't get their kids to listen.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, describe to me what that looks like.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: And they, they kind of fumble and struggle, like well, they're overwhelmed, you know, they, their kids, just aren't listening and they kind of repeat what they say.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, tell me what it looks like.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: If I'm watching this video, I'm watching a netflix documentary about overwhelmed parents.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: What am I watching on the screen?
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: What am I seeing?
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: And so this is where we get to take it a level deeper and we actually have to create a verbal picture Of what does overwhelm look like for someone.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: So I always tell people and if you're listening to this, right this down, because whether you have an existing podcast that you're looking to improve your thinking of starting one at some point in the future.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: This is gonna be so key for you because it's what's gonna set you.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Feelings are not problems.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Feelings are just feelings, just emotions that we feel as a result of a problem.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: So that parent might be saying to herself gosh, I have to yell at my kids three times every morning to get them out the door for school on time, and even then we're running ten minutes late.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: I'm honking at people trying to get down the road for traffic.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: You know my coffee sloshing around in the car, the kids are yelling in the background.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking to myself oh my gosh, did we get the homework that?
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: I check off all the assignments, finally get the school drop off the kids, give me a quick hug and a kiss and then take a deep breath, because this is the first moment I've had to myself all day.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: That might be what overwhelm looks like for that particular parents, say, of a school age child.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: For the parent of a toddler, it's going to look different.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: For the parent of a teenager, it's going to look different For the parent of an adult child, hey, they might be overwhelmed too, but that's going to look different.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: So we have to first understand what are the problems that are causing the feelings.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: So if you notice yourself and look, go look through your podcast description and notice if you've got any of those feeling words in there hey, are you someone who feels overwhelmed by the day-to-day demands of your job?
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Well, people think they're being specific in that, but they're not being specific enough.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: So take that feeling word and then ask yourself how would I describe this if I couldn't use the word overwhelmed?
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: And that will help you peel back that layer and get deeper.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: That's how you get your listeners going.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it's like you're inside my head right now.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: This is how we do it and this is how we begin to create that subconscious demand for our content inside of our episodes.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Because if you're a listener, if you can pinpoint kind of like a good doctor does, pinpoint the exact problem that they're experiencing when they present all these symptoms to you.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: You can look at the feeling words as symptoms if you want.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: I'm frustrated, I'm overwhelmed right, those are the symptoms, but let's pinpoint the problem, then you have their attention and you earn their trust, which we know is so, so key.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: I think one of the things that you said, though, is extremely important, and that is it's not about women 45 to 54 that live in the suburbs, or whatever that happens to be.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: You have to really understand your audience, because I can't picture what a woman 45 to 54 necessarily looks like living in the suburbs of a major metro area.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: That doesn't give me enough information, but what you describe of a woman, and through her morning routine, that's very different.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: I don't care how old she is right, she is who she is.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: I think that that's really important.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: You really need to be able to visualize who your target audience is.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: I do that with my students all the time.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: I do that with all my clients.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Who is your audience?
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: They'll start to give me owners of manufacturing companies with $100 million plus more in revenue.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: I'm like okay, here's the list.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: How about it?
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: It's like they're not all going to hire you.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Why not?
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Because you don't fix the problem that all of them have.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Who has the problem that you need to fix?
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Whether it's a podcast or a service or a product, I think it all goes the same way, right?
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: This is a fantastic way to take a look at your audience.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, and think about it this way too.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: If you are someone who is, I like country music for this analogy, because country music kind of hits the nail in the head.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Now, if you don't listen to country, you know this thing.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Taylor Swift, okay, because she kind of crosses all genres.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: But there's a reason why Taylor Swift's music resonates so much.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: There's a reason why she has a cult following.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: It's because people see themselves in her music and she's not just sitting there going oh, I fell in love with someone and my heart was on fire and we lived happily ever after.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: She's like no, we were sitting on a bench and he reached out and brushed my hand and we were sipping a milkshake with two straws, and you know, it's that level of specificity and detail.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: There are writers who do this extremely well in their work.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Asian writers especially.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Jody Pickolt is one of them.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Frigia McFadden is one of them.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Two totally different genres that they write in, but they write with such detail that you're hooked because you're forming these pictures in your mind.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: So we can take those same principles for our singer, songwriters and for our book writers and our authors and apply that here in podcasting as well, until you're marketing as a whole, of course, but specifically in podcasting too.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Because if I'm a functional medicine practitioner and I help women, let's say, in that 45 to 55 age range, they're in perimenopause, they're having some different symptoms, weight that they can't lose, and they're waking up with hot flashes at night.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: Well, I want to know how often are they waking up at night?
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: How low are they turning that thermostat down?
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: How many times a week are those hot flashes happening?
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Right, and specify and that's one way we can get specific is by adding in numbers how much weight are they looking to lose?
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Because if you say, you know, I'm just gonna, I'm here to help women lose weight and we're gonna approach this holistically, well, suddenly you sound like everybody else out there who's saying something similar.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: But if you can say to your person, if you're someone who wakes up two or more times every night drenched in sweat, where you need to change the sheets if it weren't for your sleeping husband next to you, and you have to turn the thermostat down at least five degrees to get comfortable, peel off all your clothing, and it takes you two hours to fall back asleep, I can help you right, that's more specific and of course, I'm making this up all the top of my head so we can even get more specific there.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: But you can see just by that example it's totally different than saying you're someone in Perry Mini Paul's with hot flashes versus here.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: I am describing exactly what you're experiencing, because then they go oh, you understand me, you get me.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're looking at it.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: They're like that's me.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's me.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: So this is key, because when we have this information, then we can go and design a Benchworthy Content Formula around that.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: We can align those five content gatekeepers to attract our listener at every click of your podcast, from your cover art all the way to the moment that they click play, then, in your episode, we can begin to structure that episode to create desire and demand for what you offer, while still not giving away everything right, not teaching them all the how-tos, but creating demand to work with you by delivering very valuable content that's geared towards those specific problems, and that's just pillar one of a Top 100 podcast.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Once you have this, though and we've worked with countless clients who did not have this in place before, and, like I said, it's like a leaky bucket you're losing listeners.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: All the growth strategies, all the launch and relaunch stuff that you can do to boost momentum, then that will actually stick, then it will actually work.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: There's no point trying to grow a podcast if you've got holes in the bucket.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: That's just like putting more water in and then more is gonna fall out.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: We gotta plug those holes first.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: So we look at that psychology piece first, then we can get into the strategy and more of that practical, tactical how-to.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: What do I do to get in the charts?
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: What do I do to stay in the charts?
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: What do I do to attract more listeners like this?
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: And so pillar two is a launch and relaunch system, and that's really important because for a lot of us, when we start podcasts, what most people do is they buy the best mic they can afford, they figure out where to plug it into their computer, they Google okay, what is a hosting provider?
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: They pick one that's reasonable in their budget, right?
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, $12 a month, I can afford that, right.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: They sign up, they set up their account, they find time on their calendar.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: They block off that 30 minutes or one hour to record some episodes and they think, if I can just figure out how to get those episodes up and hit publish and if my content's good enough, then people are gonna find it and they're gonna listen.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: And most of those hosts 88% of them in fact are dismayed to find out that five, six episodes in, they're getting maybe 10 downloads, maybe 15 downloads, zero ROI, no one saying hey, can I work with you, despite you giving those calls to action in every episode.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: And it's frustrating because you know that for as much time, energy and effort as you are putting into this podcast, given away your best stuff for free, not getting a return on that.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: That hurts.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: And that's when we begin to wonder to ourselves well, am I enough of an expert?
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'm not cut out for this?
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: You begin to question your message.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: You begin to question your expertise.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: You begin to question well, do people like my voice Right?
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Like we just try to grasp it?
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: Straw is figuring out.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: What could it possibly be?
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Where did I go wrong?
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Because I'm doing everything I thought I was supposed to do, when the reality is you simply didn't have a plan or a strategy to get your podcast into the charts from day one.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Now, when I say the podcast charts, what I mean is that on our podcast players think Apple when you open that up on your phone and you click into the marketing category or the health and fitness or self-improvement, and you scroll to the bottom, you're gonna see the top 50 to 100 podcasts in that category.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Depending on your phone, they'll show you the top 50 to 100.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Beyond that, there might be thousands of shows in that category, but we don't see them.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: We only see the shows that are charting at that point in time.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Podcasting has a really long way to go with SEO, we've got a long way to go to match Google or YouTube.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: My hope is that we will get there one day, but for right now, we can't rely as heavily on SEO on this particular platform for discoverability.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Now we've had people come to us and say look, I just want a million downloads.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Can you get me in the charts?
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: What do I need to do to get there?
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: I'm like well, two things.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: First of all, even if I told you the steps, you'd go out there and you wouldn't get the results.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Because, first, your heart's not in the right place.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Second, you're doing this for ego and your listeners are gonna feel that.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: And then that's the second piece is the ego piece when, if you're just doing this because you wanna have some bragging rights, then okay, you might get in the charts, but you're not gonna stay there, and so we have to look at it this way.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: And when I teach about getting in the charts, I want to be clear.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: I'm not talking about doing this to boost your self-esteem.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about getting there, because that is your number one avenue and best chance that you have to get in front of potential listeners who need what you have to offer.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: The charts are all about discoverability.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: There is no algorithm on the podcast apps yet that suggests more podcasts to you that you may like, based on your listening habits.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: Netflix does it, disney Plus does it.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: All of the streaming platforms do it, but podcasting doesn't do it yet.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: So if we want to have the best possible chance of reaching those global listeners, we got to get on the charts.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: You need a strategy for doing that.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: The beauty of this is when you know how to do this.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Then you don't have to wait two years or three years of toil and sweat and tears and feeling like you're cutting your arm open, letting it bleed all over your desk and your microphone as you record, because that is how long it might take you without a plan in place.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: But with this you can get on the charts from day one.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: You'll know exactly how many downloads you need to stay on the charts and then we have that valuable information that we can use to build a growth plan for the podcast long term.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: So launch and relaunch system is something that, first of all, it's essential for the health and success and traction of your podcast from day one.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: But, second of all, can be utilized again and again.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: You can rinse and repeat it anytime your podcast hits a plateau, because it will, it's going to.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: We all hit those plateaus and those can be also really tricky because you're like wait a second.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: I grew to this point.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: What made it stall all of a sudden?
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Why am I not seeing those downloads increase week over week?
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: I've been getting the same number downloads the past four weeks in a row and I can't figure out why.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: And if you reach that plateau, then just run this process again and you can get that momentum back in place.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I liked most about what you just said was definitely it's not about ego.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Right, you have to.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: If you're not authentic and you don't have a message to share, again it's.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't have to be super inspirational or it can be very tactical Again it's what you have to share.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: If you're not authentic in that and you're doing it for ego, everybody can tell, everybody can see it, they can hear it.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Don't do that Like.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: It's just not a good reason to have a podcast and, to be honest with you, podcasting is takes too much time and effort to really be worth it.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: There's other ways that you can build your ego and, yes, dope that up right, but take a lot less time and effort, absolutely, and on that note, kendra, you know, one of the big mistakes we see people doing when they quote unquote, launch their podcast is they'll go and try to buy reviews.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: They'll try to buy listens from people.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: You're going to get shadow banned by the podcasting algorithms if you do that, because Apple is very smart.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: They can tell if it's a real person or a robot listening to that episode.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: They can tell how long someone's listened to that episode.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: They can tell if they've gone back to listen to that episode, if they've come back for more.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Those are the things that they're looking for.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: So this is why we dial in the psychology piece first, because when you have that, your listeners are naturally going to take the steps that the algorithm wants to see.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: They're going to want to follow your show, they're going to want to download those episodes, they're going to hit play and they're not just going to listen to 30 seconds, they're going to listen to the episode till the end.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: They're going to come back and if they really love your content, they're likely going to rate and review it.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: And so those are the things that Apple's looking for, but it's got to be genuine.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: So you'll shoot yourself in the foot if you try to shortcut that part of the process.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: The beauty is that with the launch and relaunch strategy, it's 100% authentic.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: It's helping engage your existing community around your launch.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Think of it if you wrote a book, you know you would never just sit there, like hire someone on Fiverr to do the cover art, hit, publish on Amazon and like sit back and, you know, cross your fingers and hope that it becomes a best seller.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: We wouldn't do that, yet that's what so many people do with their podcasts, and so we've got to have a launch strategy.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: But what has to be for the right intention, exactly like you said, and then from there, that data.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Once we launch a podcast or relaunch it, if you have an existing podcast that you never launched, or maybe one that you did, but you're ready for a momentum boost, then we can get really good data that will tell us exactly what you're going to do to grow the show, because there's over 20 different ways that you could drive traffic to a podcast.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: No, none of us have time to do 20 different things or add 20 more things to our list, and the beauty is, when you have the data from the launch, you don't have to, because you'll know exactly which two or three things are a perfect fit for you your time, your capacity, your energy, your desire.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: You know, because if you don't want to run Facebook ads, okay, well, you don't have to.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: That doesn't fit your budget, no problem.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Maybe you're really like just tight on time and you don't want to show up on 20 podcasts next month as a guest?
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Okay, you don't have to.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: There's different options that we could then build and customize that growth strategy.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: But we need some really important data first, and that is how many downloads is it going to take us to get in the charts in your category?
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: The launch will tell us because, let's say, you launched and you got a thousand downloads and you landed, you broke the top 100.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: And you're like, oh my gosh, this is so exciting.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: I never thought this would happen.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Right, and it's a journal in and it's a lot of fun, and you're probably gonna fall out of the charts the next week.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: Very normal, and our goal from there is okay.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Now how do we get you back?
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: We know it took 1,000 downloads to break the top 100.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: Now we're gonna track over the next couple of weeks and see how many downloads are we getting week to week?
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Where's our ballpark, where's our benchmark average?
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: And then what's the gap.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: You know, if your average is 300 downloads a week, okay, we got a 700 download difference to make up.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: How can we build the growth strategy then to help you meet that?
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: And it makes it so easy and so clear because, first of all, you know exactly what to do to grow, you know exactly what goals you're shooting for and you can track to see which of those things you're doing is actually having an impact.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Because what most people do is, when they get to the growth stage of their podcast, they just create a carbon copy of what they were doing in their marketing before.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: They thought their podcast was gonna become the hub that replaces their time on all these other platforms.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: But without this strategy and this third final piece, the long-term audience building strategy, they just wind up with you know one more thing to keep up with, one more thing on their plate Everything's working in silo and it's not working in tandem as a cohesive strategy.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: So these are really the three elements and you know we've just scratched the surface here but binge-worthy content, a formula for creating it that taps into the psychology of your listeners.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: You can communicate with them subconsciously, which is what 99% of people are not doing.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Launching and relaunching to get in the charts for discoverability, so you can gain that traction from day one and to get the valuable data we need to build the growth strategy.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: And then, third and finally, the growth strategy itself.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: And what specifically does that look like for your show in light of your podcast goals and your business goals?
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: I think it's about being intentional.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: These are marketing basics that I would say 99.9% of people do not do correctly, and it goes beyond podcasting into anything that you're doing If you prefer, blog writing.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Again, the same stuff applies, and I think that that's really important and really insightful, and I really appreciate your time and all of the information that you've shared.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Courtney, we're running close on time because, again, the data has showed that people do not like staying online with me for more than 30 minutes, but again, it's really good information, so hopefully you're getting a lot out of it.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Before I let you go, I do wanna ask you one question that I ask every guest.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: This show is called Imperfect Marketing because, as we all know, marketing is anything but a perfect science.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: What has been your biggest marketing lesson learned?
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Kendra, this is one that maybe people have shared on the show before.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's more common than I realized, but for me, the hardest and biggest lesson that I've learned is that, strategy aside, budget aside, the end of the day, marketing comes down to trusting yourself, because we can listen to all the experts out there tell us what to do.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: I just gave you a lot of great information that you can absolutely take away from this episode and go apply.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: And, at the end of the day, you are the leader of your business.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: You are the host of your podcast, and too often in my own business, there were times when I gave that responsibility away and I threw money at people to fix my problems for me, when really those decisions to make were mine.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: Just this year, we rebranded our website and I had hired two incredible copywriters to write the site for me, and I had booked this a year in advance.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: I had paid my deposit, had to wait eight or nine months to kick off the project and a couple of weeks before that project came to be, that date came up on the calendar.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: They refunded my money and canceled my contract, and it was a shock.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: It was like wait a second.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: I just waited nine months to have this work done.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: We have a deadline to get this site up and running.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Now I don't have anyone to write it.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, what am I gonna do?
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: They had had some personal issues going on.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: I wasn't the only one they had to cancel and of course, I understood right.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: There's times when those personal things do trump our businesses and I respected them for drawing that line in the sand instead of saying, hey, I'll write it for you and just doing, like you know, a halfway job.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: So I appreciated that.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: But it put me in this predicament where I'm like gosh, now I have to write this.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: And it was the best thing that ever happened for two reasons.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: One, because, in hindsight, it needed to be my voice anyway, even if they could have captured the essence of that.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: It had to come from my heart Because, just like we've talked about a moment ago, there's gotta be that energetic connection, there's that energy exchange.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: People can feel the authenticity.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: On the other hand, I realized that hiring those copywriters as incredible as they are and as talented as they are and as much as I wanted them to write my site for me because they're that good it was one of the most unfair hires I had ever made, because at that time in my business, I was looking for them to tell me what I needed to do with my brand and I was hoping that in them getting clarity on the copy and in going through this discovery process, the answer would have become clear and then I could have checked the box in my brain and said, okay, problem solved.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: The reality was, I had to go through that process.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: It was not their responsibility to fix my business, that was mine.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: And there are so many times where we don't trust ourselves enough to be the leader of our business and yes, there's absolute.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, I have mentors.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: I've had mentors through the eight years that I've been in business.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: I will always, always hire mentors when I need those people and their support in specific ways in my business.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: And there are some decisions that come down to you and to you alone, and that has been my biggest lesson is learning to trust that, learning to trust that inner voice and going for it, going with it and then recognizing that you know what.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: I can always change my mind If I decide something that doesn't work out three months down the road, six months down the road, we can pivot, we can change and allowing yourself the freedom and the permission to do that.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: I think that that is hugely, hugely insightful.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: I love it because, yes, I talk to people all the time.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: I'll have a VIP day where we're going through a building their marketing strategy and the tactics that are going to go along with it, and then they're going to reach their target audience.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: But I'm going to ask them, I need the information from them, because they're the expert in their business.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: I'm just a facilitator when it comes to this VIP days.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Yes, I've got years of experience and expertise and I can give them things that they may not have thought of, but a lot of that needs to come from them because, again, they are the expert in their business.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: They're the expert with who they like working with, who they don't like working with and everything in between.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much again, courtney, for joining me, and thank you everybody for tuning in, listening in or watching wherever you are watching or listening to your podcast.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: We do really appreciate it.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: If you want to connect with Courtney, we'll, of course, have links in the show notes, as usual, so be sure to do that if this is a path that you're looking to go down and learn from her.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you learned something today, it would be great and really help me out if you would rate and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Thank you again for tuning in and have a great rest of your day.