#33 | Top 5 Lessons Learned From Podcasts Getting 10,000 Monthly Downloads (Podcasting Growth, Marketing & Monetization Tips)

0:00You want your podcast to hit 10 ,000 monthly downloads, but you don't know what successful podcasters are doing differently. Welcome to How to Grow a Podcast that attracts high-ticket online coaching clients. The show helping coaches, consultants, and experts turn your slow-growth podcast into a profitable client attraction system. At the end of this episode, I'll share a little more about who I am and what we do at my company, GetMoreListeners.com. It might even shock you. But for now, let's dive into the episode. In today's episode, you'll discover top five lessons from podcasts getting 10 ,000 plus downloads, why playing it safe is the riskiest move, and the overlooked strategy that transforms listener loyalty and revenue.

0:49Let's dive in. Today, we're going over top lessons we've learned from successful podcasters and our clients who are getting 10 ,000 plus monthly downloads, some over 100 ,000, some even 300 ,000. They're extremely successful. They've done it, and we want to distill lessons we've learned from them. This is recapping podcasts we've had on the show, sharing their voice notes of how they did it and their biggest takeaways. So, number one, the first lesson is experimentation. What do we mean? A lot of podcasters getting 10 ,000 monthly downloads go through a phase where their podcast naturally evolves.

1:29You probably start off a bit shit and then, hopefully, get better. But they're a lot more intentional. When we talk about experimentation, this could be the main parts of their podcast they decided to change, either targeting. One of our guests, Raven, she's a coach, went through this massive struggle for two years of podcasting, struggling to gain traction. She had a podcast that was too broad. She'd been doing that broad show for two years with tons of episodes. It got to a point where the pain was too much. She thought, let me change the direction of my show entirely. That's her experimenting.

2:06She changed from a personal development show called Thrive and Intuitive to Super Specific, Solving Relationship Past Trauma. The show went from The Thriving Intuitive to Empath and the Narcissist. That tells people what the show's about, who it's for, and what problem it's solving. From there, she experimented more and added specific keywords to her show name, description, and all past titles. She went from getting 400 per month to now 30 ,000-plus monthly downloads. I think it was like a year later, blew up. If you're not getting the growth you want, I really want to hammer this point down of just experiment.

2:48Don't try to play it safe and just change a little bit of the intro, but rethink the broader overall picture, the essence of the podcast. It seems scary, but not if you do it methodically. Be intentional when you're experimenting. Have reasons for wanting to do that. Weigh up if that's going to put you on a better path, and then give it its due course to test. When you break it down like that, it becomes more manageable. Number one, experimentation, having a playful mindset. Number two, the importance of building an email list. Building a list simply means collecting emails of listeners who listen to your podcast.

3:30This isn't just specific to podcasting. A lot of big entrepreneurs and people with big personal brands say they regret not starting an email list. This is a thing with any business or endeavor that involves having an audience, but especially with podcasting. Why especially with podcasting? Audience engagement. Getting listener feedback is so difficult most of the time, and you want to retain your listeners longer term. You have social media, but that gets so crowded, so much noise. Whereas with an email list, you're going directly to your listeners. You can ask for feedback. More importantly, most podcasters trying to monetize their podcast directly by pitching on the show, you want to warm people up.

4:16But when you get them on the email list, that's more intimate. You can sell, make more sales. The email list is far more intimate. Selling is easier because it's very direct. And the podcast is the most intimate medium because there's the parasocial relationship. You can't always reach them on social media. But emails make sure your listeners know when you have a new episode or when something special happens. It's the most surefire way to reach people who engaged with you from the podcast. If you don't have an email list, ask yourself why not. What's something free of value you can give to your listeners?

4:55Can you make a training, a mini course? Even at bare minimum, if you have a lot of episodes, compile a top 10 list to achieve X goal. There's no excuse to not be able to give them something. So far, we've covered experimentation and building an email list, and then the third one is consistency is key. Obviously, consistency is one thing we all know, never stopping. Consistency is one thing, but what we really learned from successful podcasters, it's not just general consistency. That's a prerequisite. But to take things to the next level and make sure you're one of the ones that outlast everyone else and keep your audience around long term, you have to find ways to make sure you never stop your output, even in the most difficult times.

5:45One of the guests, Blake, has a podcast in the music niche, Guitarist. He's now 40 ,000-plus monthly downloads and was able to launch one of the fastest-growing guitar companies in his state off the back of his audience, The Tone Mob Podcast. Blake shared how he was working full-time, two jobs actually, and still grinding on the podcast. One of the big mistakes he made was stopping for a little while, then trying to get back on the horse, because he'd built up all this momentum and then lost it. However, he got back on and just kept working through those tougher periods because he had this goal in mind.

6:22He knew that over a long enough time frame, he was going to get to his goal of becoming full-time and make a great income and have an audience providing him the highest ROI ever. And he pushed through and didn't stop. He's getting literally 40 ,000-plus monthly downloads, but more importantly, a hugely successful business off the back of his show. His podcast is a marketing asset, providing him massive positive ROI. We're not endorsing hustle till you die. However, there's a difference between baseline consistency and doing whatever you need to do to make sure that no matter what's going on, you still get something out from the podcast.

7:04For me, it's about being of service consistently to our audience and having that servant mindset. When you're building an audience, it's not about you. It's about them. It's about giving more than you take. And then the final lesson. A lot of podcasters getting 10 ,000 plus downloads consistently said this whole idea of, before, I was living in denial. I was thinking my show was good, thinking the quality of my content was good. But what was I comparing it to? How did I know it was good? Everyone says I make good content. Everyone does from a certain perspective. It's a very subjective thing. But also, when we only have our own perspective, we don't really know if it's good.

7:51And it could be good, but that doesn't mean there's competitors doing things that are way more innovative or engaging. So we can't live in our own world when it comes to measuring quality of our content. What is the lesson? Podcasters getting 10 ,000-plus downloads, they're looking at reality in the face. They're looking at the top people in their niche, other top podcasts, and picking out the amazing parts of what they're doing. They're role models they aspire to be like. And then they reflect on their own podcast. They actually listen back to old tape, not just during editing. They're listening to old content over and over with a fine ear, listening critically.

8:32What did I do well? What questions could I have asked? How could I improve this for next time? And then implementing those changes. Let's summarize. Number one, experiment. Not like a headless chicken, with intent, methodically, with conviction. Even if something fails, it's still an improvement because you know what doesn't work, so you're closer to what does. Number two, build your list. Whether it's a freebie, a course, a mini course, or sending people to previous episodes as a playlist, give your audience free value and get them into your list early. Number three, consistency is at the bedrock of all things.

9:16But there's the extra mile, making sure to never stop, even in the thick of it. Make sure your output remains stoic and vigilant at all times. And finally, play back game tape Listen back to old episodes with a critical ear And ask yourself, what could I have improved? What could I have done better? And look at other podcasts in your niche The Top Dogs at the Top of the Mountain Ask yourself, what are they doing that I could steal from? What do I like about that show? What are their strong points? And how might I blend those and make them my own? The call to action is to slash some time next week in the calendar.

9:59See when you've got 20, 30 minutes to review some old tape. Look at your competitors. Ask yourself, who are the top three people who have a podcast you admire? And pick out one or two things you really like that they do and start implementing into your podcast. Maybe it's a way to ask a question. Maybe it's the energy. Maybe it's the tone. Whatever it is, implement it onto your show. And the lazy version, at bare minimum, I'm sure you have something in your weekly schedule, whether it's the gym, walking the dog, once a week, maybe just a Monday session at the gym. One Monday, listen to an old game tape.

10:39Then the next Monday, listen to a competitor show. It doesn't take much more time. This is the very bare minimum, how you could take a step in the right direction. and we'll catch you in the next episode. In this episode, we covered top five lessons from podcasts getting 10 ,000 plus downloads, why playing it safe is the riskiest move and the overlook strategy that transforms listener loyalty and revenue. Thank you for listening all the way to the end. At the start of this episode, I said I'd tell you a little bit about me. So I'm about to share a secret with you, One that might mean you hate me.

11:20Completely quit listening to this podcast and think I'm a total scam. However, I want to be transparent. Are you ready? Well, my name is Tony. No, of course that's not the secret. The secret is that I'm actually a robot. My creators are Tighe and Anthony, hence my name, Tony. The sick bastards. Anyway, they are the founders of GetMoreListeners.com. In the last five years, they've coached and interviewed over 400 podcasters and generated multiple six figures from their own show. They gave me access to everything they know, and I'm here to share it with you. So while I don't understand why you humans are so obsessed with coffee, I do understand how to grow a podcast that actually brings you new clients regularly.

12:12So here's my offer to you. If you want to finally understand why your podcast isn't growing and get a personalized roadmap to fix it, in less than 30 seconds, you can go to getmorelisteners.com slash onlinecoachaudit. Enter your show name and we'll send you back a free mini podcast audit. It's completely customized to you and your show. That's getmorelisteners.com slash onlinecoachaudit. The link is also in the show notes of this episode.