890: Start a Podcast in 2025? Here’s Why You Should (and How to Nail the Launch)

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2:01Treat it like a real launch because your podcast is exactly that. Like launching a podcast is a real launch and you want to think through it thoughtfully so that you can get that momentum that will not only boost your morale in the whole process, but will get people excited to subscribe and share the show. I'm Jenna Kutcher, your host of the Gold Digger podcast. I escaped the corporate world at the age of 23 with nothing more than a$300 camera from Craigslist and a dream. Now I'm running a seven figure online business that feels even better than it looks all from my house in small town, Minnesota with my family.

2:41Here we value time as our currency. We mix the woo and the work and we are in the pursuit of building businesses that give us the freedom to live lives that we love. I've always loved turning big goals into reality, and I'm here to help you do the same. This isn't just a peek behind the curtain. Come along with me and my guests as we tear the whole curtain down. Every week we tackle practical, no-fluff marketing strategies and host honest discussions on what works and what doesn't. Join me and my expert guests for actionable insights to help you grow your dream business with confidence. Pull up a seat and get ready to be challenged, inspired, and empowered.

3:20This is the Gold Digger Podcast. If you've been telling yourself that it is too late to start a podcast or that the podcasting space is too crowded, I am here to lovingly call you out. The truth is there has never been a better time to start a podcast. The industry is booming. Listener numbers are climbing and And podcasting is one of the only platforms where you get someone's full attention and you get to enter their life wherever they're at, whether they're on a walk, doing the dishes, driving to the grocery store. And let me tell you, there is still plenty of room for fresh, specific, binge-worthy shows.

3:57Now, here's the twist. It's kind of a hot take. Podcasting is still booming, but winging it, well, that's not a strategy. We are way past the era of sitting in your closet with your iPhone and hoping your tangents turn into downloads. You don't have to be fancy, don't get me wrong, but you do need a plan. A podcast isn't just a creative outlet anymore. It's a launchpad, a brand builder, a moneymaker, even if you're just getting started. In today's episode, I am breaking down why right now is actually the best possible time to enter the podcasting space and how to launch in a way that sets you up for success, not burnout.

4:34I'll walk you through what's working, what's changed, and what you need in place if you want a podcast to grow your brand or business. And if you're serious about launching and monetizing your own show, I have a free masterclass that walks you through this entire plan from setup to strategy. We're talking gear to making money. Go grab your free seat at teachmetopodcast.com. That's teachmetopodcast.com. Get your seat because sometimes seeing is believing. All right, let's get into it. My brother knew something that I didn't know. He could see something that I absolutely could not see. My older brother gave me a microphone that he had bought for a project.

5:14And years before I even started my podcast, he had said to me, you know, Jen, I think you should do a podcast. And I remember literally laughing at him saying, I'm going to run out of things to talk about on episode three. Well, turns out I have a lot to say. We're on episode 800 and something. And my brother was right. But I will never forget the day that I finally decided to go all in. Maybe my brother planted a seed and that seed finally sprouted. But the day that I decided to go all in, I was actually in the shower. I don't know about you, and maybe it's my ADHD, but I get the best thoughts and ideas in the shower.

5:51In fact, I know some of my listeners actually have notepads in their showers so that they can take notes. They're like these cool waterproof ones that you can buy on Amazon. But I was listening to my now friend, Amy Porterfield. She did not know who I was. I was just a devoted listener of her podcast. Her podcast was the first podcast I ever listened to before I even knew that our phones had a podcast app on them. I would literally go to her website every single week and hit play on the little player on her website to tune into her show. And I learned so much from her. And I'll never forget that day.

6:26I'm in the shower. I'd set my phone into a cup because I didn't have an MP3 speaker. And so the cup was kind of making the sound go a little bit louder so I could hear it over the suds. And Amy was talking about an offer that she was working on. She didn't even have it done. There was no sales page. It wasn't for sale yet. And I remember thinking as I stood in the shower, take my money. Like here's my credit card right now. I want whatever it is you're building because the truth was she had been my mentor. She had taught me so many things. She had given me so much value for free that whatever she put out next, I wanted to buy it.

6:59I was willing to invest. And I literally reached out of the shower that day because I realized how much Amy had served me and how valuable that had been in my life and how she had created this devoted fan, even when she didn't even know I existed. And I saw how powerful podcasting had been because she had changed my life. I hadn't even given her a penny at this point and she had changed my life. And when I really started to recognize the power of podcasting and the way that you can really make a difference was the day that I reached out of the shower and voice memoed the one person I had on my team at the time.

7:36She was a part-time virtual assistant. Her name was Caitlin. And I sent her a voice message and I said, hey, I think in my quote off season as a wedding photographer, I'm going to start a podcast. Why not launch it in the next 30 days? Literally what happened? Now, this was years and years ago, but the thing is, is that this is still true today. You might not be able to name an Instagram post that made you actually go through and buy a course, but you probably could remember the podcast episode that gave you so much free value. You wanted to pay more. The truth is, is that podcasting is working better than ever in 2025.

8:16Now, I'm not new to the game. I've been around here for a long time. And I know even when I started years ago, I felt like I was late, right? Like I was seeing people like Amy and she had already been years into the podcasting game. But what's amazing is that podcasting is one of the only industries that is still rapidly growing. There are over 460 million people expected to tune into podcasts just this year. Now, one thing that I love about podcasting is podcasting is this platform where people can give you their undivided attention. They can be fully engaged even while they're doing things in their life, while they're walking, driving, working, often for 30 to 60 minutes.

8:59When you think about the landscape of social media these days, we are dying to get people to spend eight seconds with us on a reel that we're creating, right? We're just trying to trick people into giving us their attention to get engagement. But the reality is, is that podcasting is this amazing opportunity to enter into the lives of the people that you want to impact, to literally be invited into some of their most intimate, sacred moments, whether they're gardening or they're driving to their cabin or they're on an airplane. You think of all the different places you might've listened to this podcast.

9:38I feel so, so valued that I get to enter into your life. One thing that I love about podcasting that I don't think people understand or think about enough is that a podcast is basically like a living library. Unlike Instagram or TikTok, episodes don't just disappear after 24 hours or get buried by an algorithm. They're still working. They're still serving. They're still available. Get this. So for our downloads, half of our monthly downloads come from new episodes, but the other half all come from our backlog, meaning people are still constantly binging on the archives. Yes, the latest and greatest content is exciting for us and hopefully exciting for you too.

10:26But the reality is, is that a lot of times people are searching for specific topics or episodes, they're going back into the archives. And I love that. I love that episodes that I recorded three years ago are still getting people results, are still landing in the homes and the earbuds of the people that I created it for. And so podcasting is an amazing way to create long form content, to build out a living library and to create content that allows you to enter into the lives of the people you're creating for, not just for 10 seconds, not for a minute, but for minutes and even hours. Now, all of this to say is that podcasting is just growing.

11:10But one thing that I want you to consider if you are thinking about starting a show is that as podcasting explodes, one thing is thriving more than others, and that is niche content. If you are considering starting a podcast, which I hope you are, you want to think about how you can create specific, helpful, focused content. Because when you do that, let me tell you, people will search for it, people will find it, and people will stay for it. Now, one of the things that I love is that I have been talking a lot about just some of my frustrations around social media these days. I feel like we've spent decades trying to grow this following.

11:52And now with algorithm changes, the people that are following us aren't even seeing our content. And all we're trying to do is catch the attention of people long enough to engage with it. But engagement doesn't even really lead to results, which is where I just have a lot of trust issues and where my whole premise of time being my currency just doesn't line up, right? It just doesn't add up for how much time social media takes. I have a really hard time connecting that investment to real results. And so one of the reasons why I love my podcast is because I feel like long form content builds trust in a much deeper way, right?

12:34You're not fighting for just five seconds of attention. You're invited into someone's life. This leads to more connection and conversion. It leads to greater results and it leads to greater change. Like we're in this really interesting era where you are consuming so much information in such a short amount of time. In fact, my grandpa who was 96, I was looking because I was so curious, what was life like for him when he was growing up? How did he consume information and news? We get way more information in 10 minutes than somebody who's 96 got in an entire year, right? We are just so exposed. And so when we're scrolling on social, it's like you're at a baby shower one minute and then you're grieving somebody's loss the next minute and then you're seeing another tragedy and then the world is on fire.

13:24I mean, it's like so much information overload. And I think that people are craving to go deeper and not wider. I think we're overwhelmed by how wide and how diverse the amount of information that is coming at us is. And so I am obsessed with long-form content because as somebody who loves to give context, as somebody who loves to share stories, as somebody who loves to get people results, not just giving people information, but helping them actually implement, long-form content allows us to do that. And it is a lot easier for me to connect the dots between long-form content and connection and conversion than somebody who is just passively scrolling, okay?

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16:04Sign up for your$1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash gold digger. Go to shopify.com slash gold digger, shopify.com slash gold digger. So this leads me to my next point. And that is, and as much as I hate to say this, this is the honest truth. You cannot just wing it anymore. Let me tell you, your girl was winging it when she started it. Let me tell you, when I started this podcast, you probably know the origin story, but in case you don't, I started this very podcast parked in my car with target throw pillows on the dashboard to quote, muffle the sound. I didn't even use the microphone.

16:47My brother had graciously given me because I didn't even know which cord was needed and how to connect a USB mic and how to make sure that microphone was recording. I sat down with my iPhone headphones in the front seat of my parked car in my garage and hit record. Now it worked because these were the early days, right? I feel like my kids lately have been saying, was that the olden days mom? And most of the time I'm saying, yes, Drew and I literally had a conversation the other day about how my gymnastics floor music was on a cassette tape. And when we all did floor routines, we would have two cassette tapes going.

17:19One would be rewinding and one would be playing. And we were just laughing because they're like, oh my gosh, we're so old. But the reality is, is when it comes to podcasting, you don't want to wing it. Like I don't want you to wing it. Even though I was winging it, I did a lot of things right. Let me just express why this is so important. This is kind of a fun fact, but also slightly depressing. Most podcasts don't make it past seven episodes. That's not just a statistic. That is a podcast graveyard. There are thousands, probably tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of shows that never made it past seven episodes.

17:59Does that tell you something? It tells you that a lot of times if you are going into this, just kind of saying, well, let's just see how it goes. It's probably not going to go far. A lot of people start out super excited, right? Maybe they buy the gear, they create the Canva graphic templates of vision board, but then they hit week three and they think, wait, what am I going to even talk about next? What do I have to say? I've already said everything I wanted to say. Where is this going to go? Now I am someone who is neurodivergent. I have ADHD, or maybe you're someone with just high energy, or you have this big vision brain like I do.

18:33If that's you, you've probably had these moments where you're like so excited, you're all in. And then the excitement wears off. And a lot of times the excitement wears off fast when systems aren't in place, when you don't actually have a rhythm to what this is going to look like, when it doesn't naturally fit into your life. And that's why I don't want you to wing it. I want you to think long-term. This is so important if you want to have a successful show. Now, when it comes swinging it, it doesn't mean that you have to have like a fancy studio or the best mic on the block. Audio quality doesn't have to be expensive, but we want to just be intentional with the pieces of our show.

19:15Listeners, they're going to forgive a lot, but they're not going to forgive like super echoey or hard to hear rambly audio with no point. We want clarity. People that are listening don't want their time wasted. They want clarity, not chaos. They want to know why they're tuning in, what they're going to get out of listening and where it is you're leading them. So I want you to have a vision well past episode number seven. I want for you to start this show with intention. So if you're considering starting a show or maybe you have a show that hit episode seven and you're like, dude, I'm over it. I don't know.

19:49These are the things that every podcast should be able to answer. One, who is this show for? Who's it for? Two, what transformation will they experience, they being the listener, when they tune in? And where do you want to guide them next? These three questions are going to answer a ton of your questions, and they're also going to help you really get crystal clear with clarity on what is the vision for this thing. Now, for me, I take this a step further and I go down by episode and say, what is the end promise of this episode? Like for every single episode of the Gold Digger podcast, I am asking myself, what is the ruler that you, the listener, are going to hold this experience up to, right?

20:39If I'm telling you why 2025 is a great time to start a podcast and why you can't just wing it anymore, how am I delivering that inside of this episode? I want for every episode to lead to a potential transformation. Now I understand you might not implement every bit of information from the show, but I want to give you information that you can implement because if I can get you results for free, then you will be curious about what is next for you, right? Where do you want to guide them next? I want this show to not be a dead end. I don't want for you to finish listening an episode and be like, cool, now what?

21:16I want this show to be an invitation into transformation. And so again, the three questions, who is this show for, what transformation will they experience, and where do you want to guide them next? If you can't answer these three questions, there is a very good chance that you will not run a successful show and that you'll get burnt out because you're not actually tying it to anything tangible and you're not thoughtfully leading it to real results. So pod fade is what we call it when people just fade out into the ether where the podcast just lives and dies. It's real. It's not just burnout, but building something without infrastructure to support it.

21:56It's real. You've probably seen this happen in your life in a million different ways when you're trying to eat cleaner or you're on a new workout regimen or you have this new business idea. You probably experienced this type of burnout and it's not because the idea or the thought behind it or the intention behind it wasn't good. it was because you didn't build out infrastructure or systems to actually support it. So my advice here is to answer those three questions, but also to harness your excitement and challenge yourself to start as simple as possible. Start small, start simpler. That is actually the smartest strategy when it comes to podcasting.

22:35A lot of times you'll get on a roll and you're like, I want to just get all of these episodes out into the world. I want three episodes a week. I'm going to show up every day. All of these things. No, nail your system first and then layer on more if and when it makes sense. So for example, this podcast that you were listening to started out one day a week. So I was like, okay, I can commit to four episodes a month. Now my podcast actually started as a total experiment. So I was a wedding photographer at the time. And essentially being a wedding photographer in the Midwest means you have six months of crazy.

23:11Like I'm talking shooting every single weekend, sometimes double headers. But then once winter comes around, things slow down a ton. And so I always packed my schedule where it was six months of crazy. Basically it was like March until October ish. And then I would do like November through February to March. So I would have about six months on six months off. So in my off season, I was like, I'm going to do this thing as an experiment. I'll do one episode a week. I can commit to four episodes a month. Well, once I got the hang of things, I was like, you know what? I'm actually going to add on a second episode a week.

23:46Even there was a time when I did three episodes a week. Now, what is so powerful about this is one, it made it way more sustainable. Two, adding on the second episode wasn't double the work because I had the systems and the infrastructure in place. And it allowed me to kind of expand the show out. In fact, if you've been listening since day one, you might recognize that at the very beginning of my show, I didn't even do solo shows. I'll tell you why in just a minute, but I started as an interview only show. Now I look back and I'm like, that's crazy. So point number three is this. When you think about podcasting, if you want it to be a valuable return on investment with with your investment being both your money and your time, you want to figure out how you can use the podcast to fuel your business or brand growth.

24:38Now, this is coming from someone, again, who treats time as my currency, and I want anything that I'm spending my time on to be tied to a tangible result. If I am doing things in my life or business that isn't directly connected to my values or directly connected to a result, I will often burn out or leave it behind. It's not worth it. Right. And so for me, we often look at the podcast as the starting point for the bigger goals of my business. We use gold digger to support promotions and launches that are happening in my business. We use it to support affiliates and partners. Basically we're looking at this podcast as this place to warm up my audience for a new offer to support a launch and to recognize again, that we're building something that will live in this library that will build long-term brand equity and help buyers feel more ready, right?

25:35So it is like this long-term warmup strategy that we'll live on. That feels good for me. So when I think of this podcast, I think that Gold Digger is often where we plant the seeds. It often sets a stage before anything goes live. It lets people in behind the scenes of the launches, the offers, the things that we're working on. So that by the time somebody sees a sales page or an Instagram post, they already have heard the backstory. They already know the why they've experienced part of the transformation. They're more likely to be on board. They're more likely to be excited about the offer. They're more likely to be a part of it.