Podcast Playbook (Part 9): How to Market and Grow Your Podcast — Strategies to Build Reach & Audience

Podcast Playbook (Part 9): How to Market and Grow Your Podcast — Strategies to Build Reach & Audience

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 269 of the Business Development Podcast, and today we're diving into part nine of Podcast Playbook Marketing and Growth. In this episode, I'll share the exact strategies you can use to grow your own podcast audience from leveraging guests to free promotion on LinkedIn and socials, to clips, emails, community, and even how to approach advertising the smart way.

Stick with us. You are not gonna wanna miss this episode.

Intro: The Great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. And we couldn't agree more. This is the Business Development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

In broadcasting to the world, you'll get expert business development advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs. And business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business, brought to you by Capital Business Development Capitalbd.ca. Let's do it.

Welcome to the The Business Development Podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 269 of the Business Development Podcast and part nine. Of our podcast playbook series. As we are closing in on the last parts of this series. I wanted to take a minute to thank you for sticking with us This far Podcast Playbook has to date, been the most challenging topic that I've ever covered on the Business Development podcast.

I have worked very hard to give you the most UpToDate and accurate information that I could to give you the best possible chance of success that I can. I have poured my heart, soul, and hard lessons learned in building the Business Development podcast over the past years in hopes that you too will find fulfillment, joy, and much success in your podcasting journey.

Thank you so much for sticking with me again. And remember, your podcast will likely affect the lives of millions over time. Stay the course. You are on the right path. If you've made it this far. You got this. In part eight of Podcast Playbook, we dove into launch day strategy. Today we are going to lead into marketing and long-term growth strategy.

From this point forward, growth over time is what matters most for your show. Creating strategies that build, reach, attract listeners, and grow your show will help you stay in the game long enough to win. And the first thing that we have to talk about with regards to your success is mindset. Like most things in both business and life, your mindset will play a massive role in the growth of your show.

Growth is not instant, not in podcasting, not in business, and not in life. It is slow, steady, and compounding. Most shows fail because people don't find that instant success and give up way too soon. Having the right mindset upfront, accepting that this will likely be a multi-year journey, and looking at the big picture upfront will help you through the times that make you question why you started on this path in the first place.

Here are some of the growth mindset rules that I want you to live by. Number one, accept that growth takes time, months and years, not days. Number two, focus on creating value consistently in every show. Remember, guys, value is absolutely everything. Nothing matters in your episodes Other. Then you deliver value each time because the more value, the more reason people have to keep coming back.

Value compounds over time. Number three, look at the trends monthly and annually, but not daily. Listen, podcasts, trends, and stats go up and down. You'll have many incredible days and many days that suck. Don't worry about it. The good days are great. The bad days happen. What matters is what's happening month over month, year over year.

Look once again at the big picture. Number four, celebrate all wins. Your first 100 listens 500 lists. Listens. A thousand listens. Guys. We had like, we had a little party. A thousand listens. Okay? It was a big deal. It took a while to get there. I wanna say it took like literally a couple of months before we got to our first thousand downloads.

Celebrate that, guys. Celebrate that. Celebrate episode 10, episode 21, episode 50, episode 100. Set milestones. And seriously celebrate. It's a big deal. If you get that far, make sure that you're celebrating everything. The big, the small. Everything. Podcasting is a long game and you have to make the journey enjoyable.

Find your reasons to celebrate. It'll keep you in the game. Number five, think Evergreen. Your catalog is a permanent library. To this day on the Business Development podcast, our top listen two shows are some of our very first episodes. I think a lot of it is that people find the show and they go back to the beginning, and so understand that.

Your very first show, your very first handful of shows might long term be the shows that have the most listens. So understand that your content is evergreen. People are going to find your show and listen to the back catalog. So from the very beginning, understand that all of your content is going to be valuable and people are going to go back and listen again and again and again.

It is a long time permanent library and that is going to be valuable for you over time. It took a hundred episodes guys before the business development podcast really took off. Like truly give yourself the runway and the back catalog to stack the odds in your favor. Podcast growth is not linear, and this is just simply true.

If I look at the business development podcast growth chart, our first year was crazy. We grew like crazy, like hand over fist. We won an incredible award. We won Quill Inc's best business podcast 2023 in our very first year. So like, it was a wild ride and we had lots of downloads and things took off.

And 2024 it kind of steadied out. And you know, mid 2024, like halfway through the year, we actually had a massive collapse in downloads. The whole industry did. Understand that that like affected me, but I also understood that it's not linear. And over the course of the last year, we've actually built back up, but it still ebbs and flows.

Podcast growth is not linear. You're gonna have ups, you're gonna have downs. Think about it like a stock. It's like watching the stock market. Your podcast is gonna go up, it's gonna go down, it's gonna go up, it's gonna go down. But what is the consistent thing? If you stick in it, just like stocks, typically you buy a good stock and you hold onto it.

Long term, that line is gonna go higher and higher and higher. Your podcast is the same thing. You have to stack the odds in your favor by staying in the game long enough. Like I said, took a hundred episodes for us before our show really started to get some legs. Okay? Give yourself the runway to win. The return will come.

So that is the mindset you must come to podcast Growth with patient, consistent and steady. But mindset alone isn't enough to actually grow. You have to put that mindset into action with the right tools and strategies. Let's start with one of the most powerful avenues you already likely have. Your guests.

Okay? Guests bring a number of helpful growth levers to your podcast. They bring reach networks and credibility, but you must make it easy for them to do so. Listen, your guests will promote what you promote. That's something that I've kind of learned over time, so you have to make it easy for them to refer.

You think about it like referrals, right? We don't just like go up to somebody and say. Hey, would you like refer me? Right? Typically we'll go up to people and say, Hey I have a course coming up. I'm gonna send you the information on it. Do you mind maybe sending that to somebody who you might find valuable or, I have like a big show coming up.

Here's the event page. Check it out and please share it with someone. You know. Think about it from the standpoint of like, your guest. Your guest isn't gonna like just hop up on social media and type in, I'm going on the X, Y, Z podcast next week. Come check it out. They're gonna want something to share.

Make it as easy as humanly possible for them to do. So you're going to want to create that content. I remember one of the lessons that maybe Shelby gave me pretty early on when I started sharing clips to promote the podcast. I would just be sharing clips from the show. Like, I just wasn't that like understanding of how to do this yet, and I would just be like sharing clips from the business development podcast guest episodes.

And Shelby came to me and, and said something that kind of changed it around for me. She said, listen. Nobody cares about what you say in your guest episodes. And actually she was completely right. She said. People care what your guest says. As an early interviewer, I hadn't really put two and two together, but she was absolutely correct.

When you do a solo episode, it's you. At the end of the day, it's you providing thought leadership to the world. But when you do a guest interview as a podcaster, it's not about you. It's about the guests. It's your job to make them sound great and to give them great questions that they're gonna wanna riff off of and create essentially an entertaining show.

But at the end of the day, people want to hear what your guest has to say. And so the piece of advice that Shelby gave me at that time, which I've used to this day, is. In all of your guest episodes, when you're sharing and promoting that show, make sure that you are promoting the highlights from the guest.

Make sure you're sharing the guest's best moments. Make sure you're letting the audience know, like what an amazing conversation it was to have with them and the insights you got from them. Make it about them. Here's the other side to this. If you make it about your guests and you make them feel good, and you give them great content to share.

They are going to share it. They are going to share it. Why? Because you gave them great content to share. So make it as easy as humanly possible for your guests to promote your show and your odds of them wanting to do so skyrocket. How do we do this? Number one, create and send them shareable assets. Okay.

Clips, show posters, graphics, quote graphics, make them the assets for them to share and make sure that they are promoted in a positive and good light. That's the other side of this. You always want to make sure that you're highlighting your guests in a good and positive light, because if you do that, they're gonna like you and they're gonna be far more likely to want to help you. Okay? Number two, we wanna create great posts and tag them in all socials that they're active on. So if your guest is, you know, big on LinkedIn or Instagram, make sure that you're tagging them on those socials that they are heavily active in or have high follower levels. Okay? We wanna make sure that we are making it, like I said, as easy as possible.

For them to share that content, but that we're also providing them ways to share on the platforms that are best for not only them, but us as well. So if they're big on Instagram, make sure that your show page is on Instagram and is promoting them there because they are gonna be far more likely to collaborate with you.

Likewise, on LinkedIn, if they're big on LinkedIn, make sure that you're tagging them on LinkedIn, their company's on LinkedIn, and you're highlighting them and giving them an easy way to promote their episode. On their platforms of choice Number three, showcase them as the experts that they are. The other side of it is right, make them feel good, and they will wanna support you if they are experts in a field, which highly likely they probably are, if they're on your show in one way or another, make sure that you're highlighting them in that way.

Make sure you're showing them and tagging them and and showcasing their expertise and thanking them overall for being part of your community and sharing their knowledge with your listeners. Number four. Thank them every chance you get. Okay. Your guest's time is super, super valuable, especially if you're interviewing high level entrepreneurs, CEOs, leaders, like most of those people, their time is worth thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars an hour.

Remember that. Remember that it is a privilege that they are on your show. Taking an hour to an hour and a half of their time to chat with you. Recognize them publicly for taking that time to support you. Absolutely critical. Every chance you get. Thank them because your guests are going out on a limb.

They're taking a lot of valuable time to probably come on your show for free. Remember that number five, build long-term advocacy by finding ways to repay the favor with your guests. Okay. Most of your guests, if they're experts of some type, they have consulting services, products, probably books, things along those lines, coaching programs.

Remember that and help promote their books, products, services, to become a trusted partner. We always want to become a partner with our guests. At the end of the day, these relationships, they last a very long time. Many of the guests that I've had on the Business Development podcast have come on multiple times, like we've had repeat guests many, many, many times on the show who have become friends, who have become advocates, and helped me promote not only my, my business development services, but my community.

My coaching, everything. Okay? They become partners in what you're doing. Remember that and work to nurture those relationships because those relationships are absolutely everything. If we're not out here building relationships, what are we doing? And your relationships with your guests can be some of the best relationships you ever built.

Another huge piece of the puzzle comes from how you show up on social media. The key here is to start free and focus on consistency. You do not have to pay to promote your show on social media. Okay? You can build a very thriving and powerful community without paying for it. Let's chat. Social media promotion.

A big social media following translates into a ton of downloads, right? Loyal listeners. Not necessarily social media in podcasting, just like in business, builds brand awareness, but does not always translate into listens. Okay? That is really critical for you guys to understand. I see a lot of people.

Doubling down on social media advertising and then wondering why their phones aren't ringing. Okay. It is a brand awareness strategy, but it is not a conversion strategy. I think that's maybe important to understand. You're missing a piece of the puzzle. However, brand awareness is still absolutely critical in the long-term success of your show because repeat exposure.

Can lead to downloads over time can lead to new listeners, but it is not a direct one-to-one conversion. Just because they saw your show on social media does not mean they're going to become listeners. In fact, they might actually follow your show page, and I've experienced this a lot on LinkedIn and Instagram.

People will follow my show page and they love the content that I put up, but they don't necessarily listen to the episode. And this is very, very common. When you are doing social media advertising and you see your pages growing, that's amazing. But once again, you're growing your social media page, not necessarily your podcast.

It is critical to understand the difference. Remember over time, brand awareness builds trust and credibility to your show and will drive more listens and opportunities in time. But remember. It is not going to translate directly to downloads of your show. It is going to drive awareness, okay?

That's what you're trying to do is make more people aware that your show exists. Number one, use LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram for brand awareness, right? We have to make the world aware that our show exists. You can't get more downloads if they don't know who you are, even if now isn't the time for them to find you.

Number two, share your show in groups, Reddit and other niche forums to help you find more listeners at. Scale. It doesn't matter how big your LinkedIn is, even if you have a hundred thousand followers on LinkedIn, which many of us don't have, or a hundred thousand followers on Instagram, that's still just a hundred thousand people.

And while that would be incredible for your show. There's millions, if not billions of people who would find value from your show. We have to get outside of our network, so using things like Reddit niche groups on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook forums, finding ways to reach a large number of people with our show content is going to be absolutely critical to growing our show over time at scale.

Number three, we wanna lead all posts with hooks, lessons, and insights, not just links. People aren't going to resonate with the link to your show in the cover art. Give them a message. Tell them in a big, bold statement, a big hook, a question. Find a way to grab their interest in words as quickly as possible, and that is going to ultimately increase your odds of them finding value in the post, and then potentially clicking to find more value in the podcast episode.

Okay, we have to lead with hooks, lessons, and insights. Number four, mix your formats instead of just always posting text, videos, images, swap 'em out. Use a text one week. Use a video the next week. Use an audiogram the next week. Carousel the next week, images the next week. Find lots of variety in your posts.

There's tons and tons of ways to spread information. Use them all and bring variety to your social media strategies. Okay. And number five, commit to at least two to three posts per episode. These can all be different posts. Like with the Business Development Podcast. I'll typically have a show teaser promotion for our guest episode.

I'll have the main drop for the guest episode with a custom video that I created, and then I will do a. Guest quote, like a powerful quote from the episode and create another piece of content. And even then, I might have, you know, let's call it five or six other clips that I share across other platforms.

There's many, many, many different ways to split up a show and advertise it and market it. But make sure that you're doing at least two to three posts per episode launch to make sure that you're casting a wide net. Do not underestimate the power of Facebook and LinkedIn groups, guys, to spread the word about your show.

Much of the early success with the Business Development podcast came from sharing our episode launch posts across like 50 plus groups every single week. Guys, like I went crazy with sharing the show across groups. You can't even share across 50 plus groups anymore a week. LinkedIn is cracked down on that, but once upon a time you could.

I was maxing out my group shares to get our information on our episode Launches far and wide right now. As of this recording, you can share across 20 groups per week. So if you are launching a show right now and you are looking for a great way to spread the word. F find a bunch of relevant LinkedIn groups, join 20 to 30 of them and start sharing your show post launches across all 20 to 30 every single week.

Max out your group shares every single week with your show content, and that will definitely help you with your organic growth strategy. Now it takes time. That's the thing, like it takes time to do that, but it's completely free. It absolutely worked for our growth and it'll work for you too, especially in the beginning.

Find your effective free avenues that can absolutely make the difference for your show early on. And they are incredible to this day. I still do it sometimes. It's still an incredible growth lever that I can trigger when I wanna promote an episode. Don't underestimate the power of sharing in groups.

It is absolutely powerful for building your podcast or your personal brand, whatever you wanna do. Social posts are great for awareness, but short form content like audiograms and clips make people stop in their tracks. And guys, we have to make people stop in their tracks, whether you like short form content or not.

The reality is millennials have a 12 second attention span and Gen Z. Has an eight second detention span and I always like to throw it out there. A goldfish has a nine second detention span, so we are not getting better. Listen, short form content is the way of this new world, especially for making people stop and pay attention.

Okay? Not only do audiograms and clips make people stop and take notice. They give people a taste of your show. Let's talk about audiograms and clips for a moment. Okay. Bite-sized content is the easiest to share and consume. We are now living in the attention economy, and right now, short form content, 90 seconds or less is absolutely king.

Here are some guidelines that have worked for me and I think they will work for you too. Number one, for solo episodes, use audiograms. To hook your listeners. Most people aren't gonna wanna just watch your video of your face, so audiograms is a great way to hook people in without having just a silly video of you talking to your computer Screen number two, for guest episodes, use 60 to 90 second clips.

To tease the episode, find some of like the best parts of the episode, take 60 to 92nd clips and start to share those across groups, LinkedIn, social media, to build interest in the show. You can use this to tease ahead of the launch and then use it to promote on the launch. And then, heck, you can even use these clips to promote after the launch if you really wanna get some highlight on this guest or this particular episode.

Number three, use tools like Descript, Riverside, Canva, and Opus Clips to help you create content fast. We have never, ever, in the history of humankind been able to create incredible content as fast as we can create it now, utilizing AI enabled tools, like I just mentioned, these are absolutely powerful.

Tools like Riverside can create great video and actually find you great clips inside of their own program. You can upload a full video to something like Opus Clips that trims it into bite-sized incredible content and even ranks it based on how well it thinks it will perform Descript can do, you know, editing and create video content very quickly by simply editing a transcript to make great video.

Seriously, we have never lived in a better time to create incredible content. Make sure that you are using the tools to help you create great content as fast as humanly possible, and you will be able to promote your show very well organically. Number four, post short form content. Everywhere. Everywhere, guys.

Especially on launch days, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, everywhere that you have accounts, some will hit, some won't. Don't worry about it. It will work over time. It's a long game. You have to build a back catalog of content. Okay? Short form content seems to have a very long shelf life. I still sometimes see content of mine resurface like a year later.

Build a massive catalog of content and let it work for you 24 7. Listen, people are consuming your clips while you are sleeping, okay? While you are sleeping around the world. Remember, the other side to this is just that podcasts are worldwide. It doesn't matter whether you're in Canada, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States, whatever content you put out is going to travel the globe and will be consumed while you are asleep.

That is the best part about podcasting or content in general. It is going to go worldwide. It is gonna be consumed all hours of the day. Don't worry about it. Just get that content out there. It will work for you. Once you have those clips, audiograms working for you, don't stop there. Every episode is an absolute gold mine of content.

If you repurpose it, well, repurposing content multiplies the reach of every single episode you make. Turn episode quotes into graphics. We've been doing this for like ever. Find the best quotes from each of your episodes and make incredible graphics from them. Graphics and quotes do very, very well. Turn clips into social media videos, right?

So find the best clips of your show and just put 'em out there. Put 'em out there for the world to find, make carousels out of lessons. Every single episode, I bet you put out there will have a lesson of some type. Turn that lesson into a, an image or a video carousel and let that thing work for you. Make blogs out of your episode recaps.

The internet likes to find things through words, make blogs with your episodes. And last but not least, make email newsletters out of your weekly highlights. You had a great show, maybe two great shows. What were the highlights? Put it into a email and get that thing out there to your listeners.

It's a great way to connect with your fan base. Now, everything that we've talked about so far can be done by you and simply costs your time. And that is where I recommend that each one of you start. But at some point you may decide to consider paid advertising, and this is where you have to be very smart about how you spend your money.

Listen, there's going to be. Thousands of people trying to tell you that if you send them 200 bucks, 500 bucks, $10,000, they are going to be able to make your show blow up on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Guys, it's mostly bullshit, okay? You have to be careful. If it sounds too good to be true, nine times outta 10 in pretty much everything in life it is right.

Podcasting is no different, and I can pretty much guarantee you once your show starts to become a little bit successful, you're gonna be getting hundreds of emails a month or messages a month in your Instagram, your LinkedIn, your email inbox, trying to tell you that somebody has the secret to growing your show.

Listen. They don't. They don't because there is no secret. Growing your show is a long term game. If you haven't got it from what I just said, paid advertising for podcasts is an absolute minefield. Everywhere you turn, somebody is gonna be trying to sell you the secret to rapid podcast growth. We have to be smart here, how you spend every dollar on your podcast.

Really matters, especially ahead of securing monetization. Money well spent can amplify your growth, but even paid advertising does not equal massive instant growth. It takes time. Here's some lessons that I've learned in paid advertising. Literally trying everything, guys, for the most part. Number one, start organic and get to 50 to 100 episodes before you start paying for advertising.

Make sure that you're building a large back catalog of episodes for new listeners to binge. Okay? If you only have like 10 to 15 episodes and you start paying for advertising. Even if it's working, even if you're getting hundreds of new listeners, they only have five to 10 episodes to get caught up. Okay?

What you ultimately want when you start to pay for advertising is to have a back catalog of 50 to 100 shows for them to binge, okay? You wanna make sure that if you're paying for acquisition, that. Not only are they going to find you, but they're going to find a massive back catalog to catch up on. That is going to exponentially multiply your download numbers, okay?

You wanna make sure that you're giving people enough content to binge to catch up, so you have to have enough content in the bank first. If you want to get the best bang for your advertising dollars, you have to make sure you have the content to back it up for those new listeners. Okay? I forget who I was interviewing, but I was talking to a podcast expert at one time and they brought up the point that you really don't want your show to blow up in the first 50 episodes or so because you wanna make sure that when your show does blow up that you have an absolute ton of content.

What's better you show to blow up when you have 150 episodes or your show to blow up at episode 30. I don't know. I think 150 episodes is a much better number 'cause it's really gonna get you to those million downloads a lot faster. So think about that. You don't necessarily want your show to blow up in the very beginning.

You wanna make sure there's enough content to back it up. Number two, social media ads tend to build you a following on that specific platform. So if you're advertising on Instagram or LinkedIn or whatever. You're probably gonna get followers on that platform, but that does not necessarily translate into downloads of your show on either Spotify or Apple Podcast, or followers for that matter on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Absolutely critical distinction. Okay. Followers on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Probably listen to your show followers on Instagram, LinkedIn, wherever you're promoting that show. That does not necessarily mean they like your show. It might mean that they like your social media content on LinkedIn or Instagram.

Remember that major, major difference. You have to target podcast listeners where they listen. You have to get them listening if you want to make sure that you're actually getting real followers of your show. Big distinction. Okay, big distinction. Number three, invest your dollars where your listeners are listening.

Okay. Spotify ads, podcast apps like Player fm, Buzzsprout ads, castbox, or there's many others. Guys, take your pick, but you wanna make sure that you are targeting podcast listeners where they are listening. Why? Because it is a much easier step to get them to listen to your show on an app. That they already listen to shows on then to get them to go to Spotify from LinkedIn or Spotify from Instagram, that's a big leap guys, but it is not a big leap to get them to pick a different show on Spotify, is it?

Think about that. That is the absolute best way to get new listeners or to advertise to listeners is to get them to hear about you. On the app that they are actually listening to you on. Okay? We wanna make sure that we are advertising to our listeners wherever possible in a situation that they are listening to something similar, okay?

You want people to find you while they are listening, not while they are scrolling socials or the internet. It's far less of a jump for them to give you a show, a try, and this is absolutely critical. Number four, be intentional. And consider how, where, what, and when people listen before you spend a single dollar, if 90% of your listens are coming from Spotify.

Don't double down on castbox, okay? Don't double down on Instagram ads. Double down on Spotify ads because they're already listening to you there, and you can find more listeners right there. Okay? Double down on what is working now. Things like Spotify ads, they're not the cheapest options and it is slower.

But here's the thing, at least you know that your advertising dollars are building real listeners of your show and long-term. That is all that matters. All that matters is that you are building genuine fans of your show. Genuine listeners, real people, not bots, not Instagram followers. Real podcast listeners over time, that is what is going to grow your show.

Real fans, is what will grow your show. Make sure every dollar you spend is building real lifetime fans. Number five, avoid shady growth services. And like I said, there are tons of them. Stick with trusted agencies and platforms. They cost more, but real listeners are not cheap to acquire. That's important to remember.

Real listeners are not cheap to acquire no matter how you go about doing it. Whether you're paying Spotify or Audio Go, or Castbox or Player fm, any of these things, they're not cheap. But understand that real listener acquisition is not cheap. And if somebody is telling you the opposite, that they can get you hundreds of downloads, hundreds of real listeners.

Question it. It's probably not real. Remember that? Always, and keep in mind, long game mentality, it is a long game to acquire growth as a podcaster. Using things like email and building community are absolutely powerful growth drivers to consider. Socials are noisy. Email and community build real loyalty.

And here's the thing, if you get one listener and they love your show, they're gonna tell like 10 people, every new listener you acquire and knock outta the park, you know, you give them what they want, you teach them, you make them raving fans of your show, they're gonna tell like 10 to 20 people. So if you want the best.

Growth strategy. Make your listeners happy and make sure that you're getting real listeners every chance you get. Now, how do we build that tight relationship with our listeners that we already have? Number one, build a signup form on your website and give them content. Send them updates on the show. Send them promotions tell them what's coming up over the next month.

Send them guest lists. I like to send guest lists. Find ways to give back to your audience to make them excited about what is coming. Okay? Number two, send them updates weekly or biweekly. If you have like show insights or lessons from various shows, just send them weekly or biweekly helpful updates on your show.

Provide them value and they won't leave. Number three, funnel listeners into your community space. Build a community. It's never been easier to build a community. As you may know, I have the Catalyst Club for our listeners, not just our listeners, but entrepreneurs in general. Leaders in general. But the Catalyst Club ultimately is a hangout place for the business development podcast listeners too.

So find your community, build one if you have to. But communities are incredible and the friendships and. Connections you will get from doing so will benefit you for the rest of your podcasting or business career, whatever you choose to do. Number four, engage authentically with questions, polls, spotlights.

Don't be afraid to shout out your awesome rockstars out there as I try to do all the time. Highlight, great listeners. Don't be afraid to shout them out and let them know you appreciate them. Also, a message, a DM goes a long way. Don't be afraid to connect with them and shoot them a personal message or a thank you or a video chat, whatever.

It goes a really, really long way. And last, number five, turn listeners into advocates or peers. Listen, if you have the ability. To make friends with your listeners. Nothing is more powerful than that. Find every opportunity to build genuine, authentic connection and it will multiply your growth over time.

Not to mention, it's just great to have friends. It's great to know the people who love your work. It really is. There's nothing, there's nothing in my mind as a podcaster that's more rewarding than the relationships that have come because of that podcast. Once you have a home base, another powerful lever is collaboration.

Don't be afraid to team up with others to cross promote. Why would you maybe want to collaborate with other podcasters partnerships? Extend your reach into new, trusted audiences. Listen your other podcaster friends have audiences that love their show. Odds are pretty good that if they have a show that's similar to yours or a similar category, they'll probably love your show too.

Number one, literally cross-promote with other podcasters trade shows for a week. Powerful guys, you get exposure to a new audience that you wouldn't have had exposure to otherwise. Don't be afraid to bundle episodes with your peers. Partner with aligned brands. Figure out if there's other ways that you can give back to your audience by partnering.

Number four, run joint lives and webinars with other podcasters and guests. And number five, guest on other podcasts. Guesting is so awesome. I probably guessed on like. 10 or 12 other shows and I wish I could guess on more, like guesting on another podcast is a great way to build brand exposure and get your show in front of new audiences.

Alright, we've now walked you through the tools, guests, social clips, ads, email, and collaborations, but I want to end with a reminder that ties everything together. Probably the most critical thing that I want you to take away from growing your show, and I know I'm repeating it, it's like a broken record, but growth is a long game.

It's a long game. I've been at this a long time now, guys. I've been podcasting for going on three years. I've seen good months, I've seen bad months, I've seen horrible months, and I've seen it go right back to good months again. It is a long game. There's no replacement for consistency over time. You have to keep showing up when it's good, bad, ugly.

Excellent. Take your pick. It's going to be all those things. You have to keep showing up and understand that as long as you're in the game long enough, you're gonna win. You're going to win. You're stacking the odds in your favor every time you show up to the mic. There are plenty of weeks. I don't wanna show up to this mic, but I show up anyway because that's just what I've committed to.

I've committed to the long-term success of this show, and I'm gonna keep showing up come hell or high water. And I recognize that if I'm having a bad month, it's gonna be proceeded with maybe another bad month, but it's probably gonna go up things. Tend to get better. Things don't tend to stay shitty for long, so even if you're having a bad month, it's probably just a blip in the radar.

And over time, your show is going to grow. It is simply going to grow, but you have to give it the runway and you gotta stick with it long enough to stack the odds in your favor. In podcasting, the long and strong. Period. The game is simply an outlast game. You have to outlast your peers, outlast your fears, outlast the bad days, but most importantly, outlast your desire to give up because it is damn well going to be strong at times.

I promise you it's not always sunshine and rainbows, but it's not always shit either. Okay? There's plenty of days in podcasting that are absolutely sky high, incredible. Actually more days that are sky high incredible than are shit. So understand that, but you have to have to have to.

Overcome your desire to quit in podcasting. The long and strong come out on top. And whenever you question this, I want you to look at your favorite shows. I want you to look at your favorite shows and see how many episodes they have. And I bet you if you're looking at the top 1% of shows. They're going to have hundreds, hundreds, if not thousands, the long and strong survive.

I bet you some of your favorite shows are approaching hundreds if not thousands of episodes, and that is why they are your favorite shows. They have survived the test of time. You can too, but you have to stick with it. Growth compounds if you don't quit. Remember that. Commit to 100 episodes or at least a year before judging or coming to a conclusion about whether to keep going with your show.

Trust me, give yourself the runway. Number two, publish consistently. Consistency over time breeds success. If you say you're gonna put out a show every Wednesday and you do over time, you are gonna stack the odds in your favor. Number three, build a backlog of episodes to avoid gaps and always have an emergency show and reserve.

Things are gonna come up. Bad days are gonna happen days you can't record are gonna happen. If you keep a couple shows in emergency reserve, you're never going to have a gap in your shows and it's going to help you mentally with keeping going. Number four, focus on monthly trends and do not get caught up in daily or weekly statistics.

Listen, you're gonna have shit days. You're gonna have incredible days. They don't matter. What matters is the trend Over time. If you wanna look at your stats, always look at your stats over the course of a month or a year or longer. Look at the long-term trajectory, and as long as you're staying steady or going up, you're fine.

Number five, nurture loyal fans. Okay. Your loyal fans have the ability to grow your show 10 x, but you have to show them you care about them. If somebody sends you an email, send them an email back. If somebody messages you on a platform, message them back. Be human, be authentic, build genuine connections, nurture, loyal fans, and your show is going to grow.

Why? Because they are going to tell a hundred people about you. The secret to success guys is you simply have to give yourself the time and runway to win. And I mean that. And that's in business, that's in podcasting, that's in life. You have to give yourself the time to win. So there you have it. The truth about marketing and growing your podcast, it's not about one magic trick.

It's about pulling the right levers over time, leveraging your guests, showing up consistently on social, using audiograms and clips to spark curiosity, repurposing your content, building community, collaborating with others, and when you are ready. Advertising in the places that people are listening, and most importantly, it's about the long game.

Growth is slow and steady and full of ebbs and flows, but if you stay consistent, if you keep showing up, you will look back one day and realize that you have built something absolutely incredible. I know I have, and I'm incredibly proud of it. Remember, you have to give yourself the time to win. There is simply no replacement.

Okay, guys, that takes us to the end of Podcast Playbook Part Nine. Stick with us next week for Part 10 where we will dive into monetization strategy and how to actually turn your podcast from Passion project into revenue. Stick with us. You're gonna absolutely love it. And if you love this show. If you were part of this community, I wanna do a quick plug here for Catalyst Club.

Catalyst Club was built for you. It was built for leaders, podcasters, entrepreneurs, and it is built as a safe space for you to come together and get the help you need with a group of people who actually get what you are going through. One of the biggest problems we run into is leaders is that it's lonely at the top.

Typically you find yourself in a bit of a silo with nobody that you can talk to, and even if you do talk to people, they don't necessarily get it. The Catalyst Club is built as a safe, private community. Nothing leaves the Catalyst Club guys. It is completely private. It's a safe. Private community for you to come to and collaborate with other leaders to build something incredible.

We have weekly events such as Coffee with Rockstars, which is basically therapy for entrepreneurs. It's incredible Unplug q and A, which is like a group q and a to just come in and bring your hard questions and get them answered by leaders who have been there. And we have catalyst sessions and workshops to learn various skills and ideas.

Trust me. We are building the support community that entrepreneurs have needed the whole time. It is completely virtual. You can attend it from anywhere in the world, and you are welcome. Please come check it out, Kelly Kennedy official.com/the catalyst club, Kelly Kennedy official.com/the Catalyst Club.

Until next time, you've been listening to the Business Development Podcast and we will catch you on. The flip side.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry, and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development. Your business development specialists. For more, we invite you to the website @ www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.