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What if you could save 12+ hours per week in your business? Being a solopreneur sometimes focuses too much on the “solo” part: doing all the jobs, figuring things out yourself, and spending too much time in your business. But we didn’t start out own solo business to spend all of our time at our desk.
We did it because we want freedom: to travel; to spend time with our family; to watch a movie in the middle of a week day. That’s why Streamlined Solopreneur exists.
Each week, host Joe Casabona talks about how you can build a better business through smarter systems and automated processes. He does this by bringing on expert guests, and sharing his own experience from years as a busy solopreneur parent — so that being a solopreneur feels…less solo.
With every episode, you'll get insights, great stories, and 1-3 actions you can take today to improve your business processes and spend your time the way you want.
Joe Casabona: To grow your podcast, you need Facebook? Now, that’s not advice I’ve ever given, but that’s what Phil Better, self-described Podcast Mogul, says. And it’s just one piece of advice that he offers as we exchange notes and thoughts on things like YouTube, lead generation, and growing your podcast audience. Plus, in the Pro Show, we talk about automating social media, which is something I always try to do to limit my time on social media.
Throughout this episode, look for these top takeaways. Don’t just limit yourself to one platform. Be on all the big ones to maximize your podcast reach. Get people into your newsletter. In your newsletter, you can grow your show by sharing the top takeaways and what’s in the Pro show instead of just announcing new episodes. You want to do more than that.
And of course, have a Facebook group and join groups in your niche. This is where you can help people and get ideas for content. It’s a great episode and I know you’re going to enjoy it. Get all of the show notes and find our sponsors over athowibuilt.it/316.
But for now, let’s get to the intro and then the interview.
[00:01:12]
Intro: Hey, everybody, and welcome to How I Built It, the podcast where you get free coaching calls from successful creators.. Each week you get actionable advice on how you can build a better content business to increase revenue and establish yourself as an authority. I’m your host Joe Casabona. Now let’s get to it.
[00:01:36]
Joe Casabona: All right, I am here with Phil Better, podcast mogul at Podcast Launch Agency. I’m really excited to talk to Phil because I feel like we swim in similar circles. We haven’t crossed paths before today, but Phil is going to offer us really great advice on podcast growth and lead generation through podcasting. So, Phil, how are you today?
Phil Better: I’m doing wonderful. I’m glad that we’re talking because I’ve seen your stuff online on Facebook and that, and I was like, “Oh, I need to talk with Joe,” because in the same circles, right?” And then you agreed to come on my podcast. I’m coming on your podcast. It’s going to be like… I love how podcasters just work together. So I’m excited for this because I just want to share everything with your audience.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, that’s awesome. And I think I found your show through the Tink Media podcast Swap Database, which is-
Phil Better: Yes.
Joe Casabona: Does that sound familiar to you? Okay, cool.
Phil Better: Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Casabona: I think that’s one really good way to grow podcasts. But let’s just dive right into the main event here because podcast discovery is really hard, right? There’s no like YouTube for podcasting.
Phil Better: Yet.
Joe Casabona: Yet. Right, yet. I’m very bullish on YouTube for podcasting. Let’s talk about that first. How do you feel about YouTube getting into podcasting?
Phil Better: I love it. They already have the analytics and the system behind the scenes because of their video platform, so they know how to make things pop. A video is just the podcast, except you have video because that’s where we get vodcast, right? You get a lot more podcasters thinking if they have a show on YouTube, that’s a podcast where it’s really you need an RSS feed. Like once you have an RSS feed, you’re technically a podcast. That’s how I would start it.
So I always tell my clients, anybody I work with, anybody who sends, ask me questions like, If you’re not on YouTube, you’re losing out. Because there are some people that like listening to it on their phone, on their computer throughout work. Maybe they like listening on YouTube because they get that playlist. YouTube has that easy playlist and it’s easier to find.
So I always tell people, Get on YouTube because, one, YouTube is going to end up paying you. So if you hit that a thousand subscribers, 4,000 hours, YouTube is going to start paying you. Now you have a great source of revenue that’s passive for your podcast.
Joe Casabona: That’s really like the trifecta, right? They’ve got the audience’s attention, they have a way for discovery and they already have a monetization method in place. This is something that no other plat… like Apple Podcasts is trying with their premium subscription. But you still need to get the people who are willing to pay for your podcast, right? Like you still need that.
Phil Better: Yes, you still need that. And YouTube obviously already is a huge person in the game. Like you have Vimeo that has another video-sharing platform, but they don’t really pay or I don’t understand their payment structure. Facebook has decided to stop paying creators for reels because they think of what’s going on with the restricted bands going to pass through all that. Like not touching politics like… But YouTube has a place. They make billionaires.
Like if you don’t know who Mr. Beast is, he was offered already a billion dollars for not only his main channel but all the subsidiaries. That’s a billion dollars someone was willing to pay for his conglomerate of businesses. So just think about it. If he started ten years ago on YouTube with bad content, with poopoo content, if you will, and now he spends like $4 million on one single video. Like where he’s come, he’s been able to make a chocolate bar brand, a restaurant brand. He has philanthropy companies. He is just building out and using his audience to help him. Like, whatever this man goes into, he’s going to be making $1,000,000 easy because he just has to put the ad on his YouTube channel.
And now think about it. If that’s your podcast, you can start your company or start your business and just put your ad in there, and then you start generating leads. Your content obviously needs to be engaging, but YouTube is… YouTube will help podcasters.
There’s actually a platform I recently got connected with last year, late last year, called Podopolo. Now there’s strictly for podcasters. They were made by a podcaster. It uses AI to suggest podcasts to their users. So let’s say I’m listening to your podcast, How I Built It, right, and I’m just talking, talking, I’m listening to that, and then it starts giving me recommendations from other listeners of your podcast.
So let’s say they listen to my podcast because you’ve come on and a lot of your listeners come over to listen to mine. So if I’m a new listener, I go and I see, Oh, similar podcast. Boom. So it starts recommending. On top of this, this is what I love about Podopolo, they’re podcasters first. They want to pay podcasters by finding advertisers. They have a free tier… And look…
So full disclaimer. I am currently in the process of talking our business, The Podcast Launch, that I have with my business partner Chris, we are in talks to become official partners of Podopolo. But even before we were in talks, they want to monetize podcasts. And how they want to do that is by getting podcasters access to advertisers, either by being an ambassador, so I just bring people to the platform, I’ll get paid when they use my referral code, or by signing up to their podcast or pro package.
Even at the free version, you get paid because they’ll find advertisers who read it online and you get a percentage. So kind of like what Anchor does. But Anchor doesn’t or Spotify Anchor, whatever it’s called now, they say, “Hey, you have to get like 10,000 listeners per episode or you have to get a certain amount and then you get paid. Whereas with Podopolo, because you’re moving people to your platform, even if you only get like ten listens an episode, you will end up making money. It’s small peanuts, but over time that’s going to compound, you know?
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Phil Better: As you tell more people, “Hey, listen to me on Podopolo, I get paid by that,” people who want to support you, podcast listeners, they’re going to be like, “Oh wait, I go to Podopolo and I support my podcasts?” How many people will switch from going to Apple and using Spotify and Amazon music when they’re like, “Podopolo is paying, and all I have to do is listen, and either way, they get money that way?” So I think that is one of the best things in the world. And I think that’s going to be able to help podcasters get to the next level.
Like YouTube obviously will always dominate because it’s YouTube, right? It’s a search engine. That’s what makes YouTube so great. You can do search engines, but with a platform like Podopolo that’s doing most of the hard work and using AI to recommend your podcast to other listeners that are in similar demographics, the discoverability will go through the roof now because it’s more word of mouth. Because it’s like, Oh, other people listen to this podcast that I like and they’re listening to these ones, I’m going to go there. So I’m very high on Podopolo for that because of the ease of access they’re giving to podcasters.
Joe Casabona: Nice. That’s really interesting. I mean, let’s get to this next point then, which is, I mean, if you make videos, upload them to YouTube, right, don’t worry about Vimeo. Vimeo is its own thing. Don’t worry about Wistia. Wistia is a marketing tool. But you need to upload them to YouTube. With podcasting, as you said, like an RSS feed is the hallmark of a podcast. I’m on record as saying, like, I don’t think a podcast needs an RSS feed to be considered a podcast, but I do think a podcast needs an RSS feed. Just like-
Phil Better: As long as there’s an RSS feed somehow in there.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. My argument is that people say like Joe Rogan is not a podcast anymore, but he’s the number one podcast on Spotify. It sucks that he doesn’t have an RSS feed and I have to listen in Spotify. But like if you, dear listener, are thinking about starting a podcast, absolutely use a host and have an RSS feed because then you own your content, right?
Phil Better: 100%.
Joe Casabona: I mean, unless Spotify offers you like $2 million or $10 million, whatever they gave that guy.
Phil Better: 100 million.
Joe Casabona: 100 million. That’s right. It was a hundred million. 2 million.
Phil Better: I know they did not make any money off of that from publicity and all that simply because half of his listeners weren’t on Spotify. They were watching it on YouTube because they wanted to see the guest.
Joe Casabona: On YouTube. Yeah.
Phil Better: And he lost so much money because of YouTube, because now he can only put clips and he doesn’t get the same amount. But yes, you need to have an RSS feed. Going exclusive on one platform is stupid because that platform shuts down or you have a situation where the government wants to shut it down or restrict it or you happen to say something that the algorithm doesn’t like, you will lose out. So having it on multiple platforms protects you.
I’m always like that. Like even with social media, when I tell my clients… like, what platform should I be on? I’m like, Be on all of them but concentrate your growth on one until you’re at a level where it’s self-sustaining, then you can start moving on to others or pay someone to handle everything and grow them for you.”
Joe Casabona: Yeah, that’s exactly right. And I always advocate, like, get those people onto your mailing list, right?
Phil Better: Oh, only news. So important.
Joe Casabona: Right. So I like this: don’t go exclusive to one platform. And this is like we’re praising YouTube, right? But I know a lot of YouTubers, big YouTubers who make their money off of YouTube who are constantly worried about annoying the algorithm gods and they’re pretty explicit about it in their own videos. Like they’ll be like, “I’m not going to talk about this because I don’t want to upset the algorithm.” Like, how long until YouTube marks people who, say, upset the algorithm or whatever.
Phil Better: They probably already have that.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, right. Yeah, as we’re recording this. Things happen very quickly over there. You know, I offer a podcast audit, like a podcast growth audit, where I look to make sure you’re on between 12 and 20 platforms, like whatever, excluding the ones that I just kind of pull from Apple podcasts. Like if you’re on Apple Podcasts, you’re automatically on those but like… What’s your approach for like…? Is it be everywhere or is it like, you know, put your time into these places sort of thing?
Phil Better: So when it comes to podcasting, I always say, get to the big four: Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Google Podcasts, which is now YouTube Music or whatever they’re going to come out with. I always suggest getting on those because those are the most known. When it comes to everyday people, I personally… This is how I tell my clients a lot about the Podcast Launch, people are stupid. When it comes to podcasting, people are stupid. They don’t understand it.
They know what YouTube is, they know what Amazon Music is, they know what Spotify is, and they know what Apple Podcasts is. They don’t know what Stitcher is, they don’t know what Castbox is, they don’t know what Podopolo is because these aren’t mainstream branded names. So I always tell them, “Go deposit first on those four. Get on those four.
Slowly other ones that pull from Apple will start and you’ll start growing to other platforms. They get to the big four first so that you can get that initial rush of listeners, everyday people. Now when you start connecting with more enlightened podcast fans, I want to say… When I say enlightened, I only mean they know more about podcasts than the everyday person. Like that’s it their knowledge in podcast.
Joe Casabona: They’ve went off and found a third-party app that they like.
Phil Better: Yeah. They found like Podopolo which they know supports podcasters. Like, I want to support podcasters, I’m going to use Podopolo, good listen or good feed or good pods, you know, all these other ones. Those are what I call enlightened.
So like if you only listen on Apple, you’re still enlightened, you know about us. But then there’s the next level. The people who go into like, I’m going to become a fan of this one podcast, listen to every single one, and support them in every way. Those are your what I call your enlightened fans, the true fans of podcasts, if you will.
So I tell them like, get on the four main. Same with the social media. Get on the big four. You should have a Facebook group. Period. And then that’s where you send your friends because that’s where they can grow as a community. There’s a podcast called The Weekly Planet. It’s by two Australians. One of them is a YouTuber named Goes by Mr. Sunday Movies and he does trailer breakdowns, movie reviews. They’re pop culture, but they’re Australian, they’re hilarious.
They had a Facebook group that grew to about, I think it was close to 100k members and then it got closed up somehow. Within a week, they created an unofficial version, the same group. Because they had the official version for some reason they couldn’t access it. It was still there, they could access it. They made the unofficial. Within a week it was back to being about 10k members because of his podcast.
Joe Casabona: Wow.
Phil Better: And that’s because of the community. What’s crazy about it, it’s spawn subgroups as well. Inside the community, there’s a podcasting version for podcasters who are fans of this podcast. There’s nature group. I think there’s a book version as well. This is what having a Facebook group does. It creates a culture and super fans for you.
So I always say, have a Facebook group. Your Twitter, your Instagram, your TikTok, those are just… it’s a one-way conversation. It’s you talking to them or you showing them something. Whereas with a Facebook group, you can have that better interaction with a wider person. People say, “Well, Twitter, you can have the interaction.” Twitter you’re talking with one person every single time. It’s a single, solitary conversation.
Whereas with your Facebook group, you can talk to everybody because everybody can jump in there. Everyone’s part of the conversation because they can see the thread, right? So it’s more inclusive. It’s like a community. And that’s what you want to build for your podcast.
And then you have your email list, which is net… I always advocate, like you said, have your own media, which is having your website and your email list. I always advocate never put episodes in it. Don’t tell them about a new episode dropping because they don’t care. They have their podcast up. They know when a new episode drops. And if they’re hardcore fans, they know you drop by there on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, whatever day you drop. They know when they’re going to get it. Like, I know when my new TV shows come out and I know when my podcasts come out. That is something that’s ingrained into my brain because it’s a routine that I love.
So I always say, Hey, in your email lists, in your newsletter, tell them something behind the scenes. Like you do a premium membership version of the show like few minutes after this recording, right? So you can talk about, “Hey, we recently had Phil on, he talked about this in the regular episode, but in the premium he dropped these kind of golden nuggets.” And you just go overview. “He said how you can use podcasting, how you can find the podcast you should be guest on or whatever it is.”
Now you’re drawing people into the premium content. They’re like, “What? That’s what I’m missing?” I listen to the episode, Phil already dropped this… I’m using my name because, well, I’m on it. But like, if you go, “Joe comes on. Joe talks about how 90% of the people on his podcast built their business, which was just slow and steady, slow and steady or however it is. And then in a premium content you drop like this, he actually step by step, drops how to build a company to six seven figures, you know.
That’s what you should be putting in your newsletter. Say, Hey, this is what you’re going to get out of the episode. Here’s what the premium people are getting. You know, go to Patreon, go to our membership cycle, wherever. You’re selling. You should be selling. Your newsletter should be informing. But at the end of the day, it’s sell something.
And if you don’t want to have a premium content like Joe has, you can be an affiliate marketer, which is great. You find a product… I just did a post about this on Facebook. If you are a movie podcast, if you review movie podcast, find a platform that has an affiliate program and all you do is review movies on that platform and you share your affiliate link. Say, “Hey, if you want to watch this movie, check out our affiliate link. You don’t have to pay us. It doesn’t cost you anymore, there’s bonus, boom.”
And that’s what you put in your newsletter. At the end of the thing, go, “Hey, make sure you check out this platform because it’s this.” You should be constantly selling in your email but not selling to get money. It’s you’re selling to give value. It’s like, this is what you can get more of. And that’s what you should be doing with your newsletter.
In your Facebook group, you can do whatever you want. Talk on all the topics. If you’re a political pundit podcast, you know, talk about what’s going on in New York or what’s going on in Tennessee, what’s going on in Ukraine. That’s where you have those types of conversations.
And you’ve referenced them in your podcast. By referencing what’s going on in your Facebook group, on your podcast that gets people who are unaware of the Facebook group would be like, “Wait, I can be part of this conversation and get a shout out on a podcast.” They’re going to come into your Facebook group or they’re going to join your newsletter or they’re going to leave a review. If you show that if you engage with me, I’m going to promote you, more people are going to be inclined to engage with you.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. So there’s a lot to unpack there. I mean, now there’s a little in-built Easter egg because you mentioned… So we’re recording this probably about two months before this episode comes out. A little behind-the-scenes stuff for you there. But you mentioned New York and Tennessee specifically for news. It’s bonus points to any listener who can tell me what was going on when this episode was recorded about New York and Tennessee specifically. Unless you just picked random states, but there is stuff going on in both New York and Tennessee right now.
Phil Better: No, no, no. I picked them specifically… I didn’t know what to do anyways. My delay is about three months for when I record. So I didn’t know for yours. But yeah, it’s about two months. So if you can figure out… I don’t want to tell them the date because that’s going to make it too easy for you. But right now… Oh, well, no-
Joe Casabona: Then you can Google it, right?
Phil Better: Yeah. But if you Google right now when you’re listening what happened in New York and Tennessee at the same time and you can’t find what data it is, your skills of Googling need to improve.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, let me know.
Phil Better: Leave a comment.
Joe Casabona: You’ll get a prize.
Phil Better: There you go.
Joe Casabona: Comment somewhere. Howibuilt.it/feedback, that’s where you want to go. This leads me to my next point. You said very unequivocally, have a Facebook group, right? You didn’t say build a community somewhere. Why Facebook? That’s just the place for most people or that’s like the free version?
Phil Better: Because, one, it’s free. Like, I look at how I can bootstrap something from zero to a million dollars. Facebook will promote you. If you have a group that is engaged, Facebook’s going to promote it to more people. They’re going to be like, “Hey, you like this.” Look, the main goal of every social media platform, or any platform really that’s run by an algorithm is to keep the user engaged.
If you provide content that engages, the algorithm is going to reward you. So that’s why you saw at the beginning a lot of controversial posts blow up because it got engagement. The minute you put a little bit of controversy, doesn’t matter what it is, people start talking in your comments, Facebook is going to be like, “Oh, this is good? Through.”
Now, here’s the flip side. If you put any links in that, Facebook is going to be like, “No, you’re leaving the platform. I don’t want that.” So with a Facebook group, it’s okay you put links in there because it’s your group, right? It’s only to a certain select people. I also suggest never doing that because, again, Facebook is going to punish you. But with a Facebook group, it’s free. You don’t have to pay for a membership for it, you don’t have to have that upfront cost, you don’t have to worry about security.
Yes, there’s a lot wrong with Facebook, but also Facebook has close to 3 billion users or something ridiculous like that, so you have access to free people. So why wouldn’t you have a Facebook group? Whereas if I have a website, like if I’m using ClickFunnels and using their membership site, now I have costs of maintaining that, whereas Facebook makes it free.
At a certain point, like if I’m starting making like 20Gs a month, yeah, I’m going to make my own membership site because it makes sense. Now I control that. I can move people to there and I’ll have a small portion over there. But over time it’s going to grow because now I’m not talking about my Facebook group, I’m talking about my membership site that you can join either for free or for a monthly cost.
Joe Casabona: Right. The other thing to mention here is when Facebook went down… I forget when this was now, this was a while ago, right?
Phil Better: I think like six months ago?
Joe Casabona: But Facebook was down… Oh, was it that recent? I’m looking for my blog posts on this topic. But when that happened, lots of people said, “Oh, this is why you shouldn’t be on Facebook. This is why you need to own your platform.” It was October 2021 is the event I’m referencing.
Phil Better: Oh, that was 18 months ago.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yeah, it’s cool. We were still in pandemic time a little bit.
Phil Better: More clues for you people.
Joe Casabona: Yes. Yes. But I talk about like, do we really need to own our own platform? Like, imagine living in a cabin in the woods and then asking someone to visit you. That’s going to be a lot harder than like living in a suburb or a city and asking someone to visit you. If you build your own platform, you need to make sure people are going to your platform to interact. People are already on Facebook.
So you mentioned it’s free. Facebook maintains it, right? So you don’t have to worry about if it goes down or whatever and people are already hanging out there. I tried Circle community and I was paying 79 bucks a month for me to post on this website. Like for just me to post, right? No one was interacting there because no one had the habit of logging in to Circle. Other community owners have done Circle a lot better than I have. But Circle is also rolling out features to make it more sticky, like live chat, video meetings, courses to incentivize people to go there. Facebook people are already there. So having a Facebook group for your podcast I think makes a lot more sense than trying to like roll your own community.
Phil Better: What I always suggest to people and my clients and anybody doing social media, like it’s regardless if you’re doing podcasting or if you’re trying to be the next Instagram influencer, concentrate on one platform. Be on all platforms but the minute you get to 10,000 followers on one platform, you now can say maybe 1% will be able to be moved to a different platform that they’re used to.
I don’t use Twitter that much, I automate my tweets to it because it’s a hellscape right now and has been for a bit. But like I can say, if I get to 10,000 followers on Instagram, I can go, “Hey, check out my Twitter where I talk about upcoming shows.” So a portion of those people of my followers will probably be fans of Twitter, and they have to worry… I have a process in place. I know it’s users of Twitter because they like that type of engagement that Twitter gets them. So they’ll move over and start following me on Twitter.
And then I can start going, “Okay, I have my Instagram automated. So now I don’t know exactly… Mondays. I take 18 shots of myself doing whatever. Then I schedule them out through an app or through like Hootsuite or whatever. Now let’s concentrate on growing Twitter, understanding Twitter. How can I figure out Twitter? Because you can understand Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Clapper, this one, that one all at the same time because they’re all different platforms.
So what you do is you concentrate on one and become an expert. Like you can go a mile wide but be a mile deep on one platform. I know all the platforms. I love Facebook, yes. Facebook has a lot wrong with it, but I like it because I think of it like a mall. Facebook’s like a mall. Everybody’s at the mall. And then each store, quote-unquote is a Facebook group. And each Facebook page is like a poster inside the mall saying, “Oh, I can go to this store and get this type of stuff? Cool.” So, yeah, you have to have a Facebook page linked to your Facebook group because that’s free advertising.
I look at Instagram like the billboards on the highway because they’re pretty pictures that they try to sell you something really quick and you have to stop and read the caption, but the picture should sell you already. I look at Twitter as the man yelling on the corner of a street when in a city because that’s pretty much what it is. You have people just yelling for no reason.
I look at YouTube as TV. It’s the modern equivalent of sitting down watching ABC, NBC, CBC, all those channels, right? They are the broadcasting companies. But now every single individual and every single business can have their own TV station or TV show, if they will, or their own channel that can promote their business and that they can drive traffic to. But to understand how to work YouTube, you need to spend hours understanding unless you can hire someone. So I always say concentrate on one platform, get to about 10,000, because that’s when you can start moving people to other platforms.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, I like that. And maybe in the Pro show, we could talk about how you’re automating your social media. This has been something I’ve been very interested in a… I mean, in another episode I share my tip-
Phil Better: I actually have a course.
Joe Casabona: Nice. I mean, it’s certainly something that I do well because I’m like one of my brands is the automated solopreneur. I’m big into automation. But I’m always looking for good ideas, especially like to use social media without using social media. And I left Twitter some amount of time ago because, as you said, it’s a hellscape and I was just getting aggravated. But sounds like I probably need to at least post stuff on there, even if it’s not going to get any visibility because I’m not totally a bully.
Anyway, I want to touch on something else you said. Because at first, you lost me, but then you brought me back around. You said, “Don’t email your list about new episodes.” And I was like, “You got to tell your listeners when there’s a new episode.” But you brought it back and you said add value, right?
This is the approach that I take, right? Every Thursday, my newsletter goes out for my other podcast, The Profitable Podcaster. And it’s almost like a written version of the episode. Hey, blah, blah, blah. Here’s why you should pay attention to GenZ’s podcast listening habits. My big takeaways. And then like right in the middle of that newsletter, it’s like, “Hey, would you rather listen to this? Click here to listen to the episode.” But they don’t have to listen to it to get the main points.
Phil Better: That’s what you want to do. That’s adding value to your audience. It’s letting them know like, “Hey, I know your time is valuable. You can either listen to my episode, but here are the crux of what you’re going to get if you listen to it. If you want to go in depth, there’s more knowledge inside.” You’re providing a value, a reason for me to listen. On top of not just being a fan of your podcast, you’re giving me more in-depth into what it is.
And each piece of platform you have should be giving some sort of value. And you’re not asking for value. Because the minute you post, you are already asking for value or you’re asking your audience member the person to see it to give you at least 30 milliseconds of their time. And time equals money. Time equals money because that’s the world we live in.
So if they have to stop, they want to make sure that they’re getting value for their time. And people obviously value their time differently. But if I’m going to send you an email, I took the time to write that because I know that there’s going to be value behind it. So I’m going to make sure that you at least… So you’re going to have something to take away from that newsletter.
Business podcasters have it a lot easier because there’s a lesson they can teach. Like my client, Lloyd Ross, who just recently won an award for his podcast, Money Grows on Trees, amazing podcast if you want to learn financial literacy. And he’s not telling you, this is how you invest in this stock or this… He’s teaching you like, Hey, this is what’s happening with the banking sector and why you should be thinking about doing these or creating a side hustle. That’s what his podcast is about.
But his newsletters are like, “Hey, this is what I want to teach you about this week’s episode.” But also he goes into other things. He’s like, “Hey, if you need coaching, we offer free coaching. That’s every once in a while I get an email like that. But then he’s talking about other things that are going on globally. He’s providing value.
As a business podcaster, we have that. Like if you run a business, you have that kind of like I can teach you something extra about the business we’re in. When you look at more entertainment podcasts, that’s when you run into some difficulty because like I don’t know what to say in my newsletter because we just reviewed, you know, Friday the 13th and it’s like, okay, here are three articles about the Friday the 13th. One of them be yours, so that you’re moving people to your website to read your blog or your Medium post. Because Medium is free, and Medium will pay you the more you engage, right? So why not have a blog on Medium? Makes sense. Then you can have three videos.
Joe Casabona: I just started a Medium blog a couple of months ago. It’s really funny you mention that.
Phil Better: Good. How are you doing, by the way?
Joe Casabona: Okay, you know, I just joined the partner program. I didn’t realize that was something you need to explicitly do. I wasn’t really using it. I was kind of just cross-posting my blog posts over there. But yeah, now I’m writing some unique content. So we’ll see. I’m going to give it a couple of months, but I’m starting to gain more traction just being there like a couple of months. So it’s really nice to see that.
Phil Better: Yeah. So like I was saying, if you send out your Thursday email, you can be like, “Hey, here’s the latest article that I wrote on Medium about this topic.” Because then you can write articles on your episode that goes into more depth instead of just talking about the episode in a simple blog post, right? And then you can go, “Oh, here’s three podcasts, other podcast that talks about and put yours in there.” So you have like… you know, I’m going to take the example of one of my good buddies, Horror With Sir. Sturdy. He does pure horror movies. He’s an amazing podcaster.
So you can put, “Hey, Friday 13th is the second one. You can go to The Scene Snobs, another amazing movie podcast review Friday the 13th, and then you have like Johnson and Johnson, I don’t know, podcast reviewed Friday 13th. Now you have three options. Now you’re providing options and value to your listeners because if they’re a horror fan, right, they’re going to want to listen to other podcasts that are talking about what they love—horror movies.
And if you’re doing that work for them, they’re going to love you for it because it’s like, “Oh, he’s providing value. He’s showing us other podcasts that talk about the stuff that we love.” They’re going to look at you as more of an authority and they’re going to come to trust you more. And you haven’t done more work, you just simply went out and did a few bits of work from stuff that you already consume as your normal self, and you’re sharing it with other people who have the same love that you do.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, I like that. That’s like curation is really… you know, I’ve read it time and time again. Like curation is some of the best form of content because it’s like you’re doing work for people so they don’t have to do it. I have a whole process for that where when I come across articles I read, I log them into a place and I make a note so that I can share that with my audience.
Now, you’ve mentioned providing value a lot. I think this is something really important to dig into. I think we’ve also probably covered a lot on cultivating a better relationship with your current listeners. We touched on social media and things like that. What if I’m a podcaster who wants to get more downloads? I know this is not the problem that you’re supposed to solve because downloads are a vanity metric, but this is the problem most podcasters want to solve. What’s your advice for those folks?
Phil Better: So my advice is very simply, Facebook has a huge audience. Wherever your podcast is on, there is a Facebook group. Your job is to join that Facebook group. Your job is to add, again, value. And instead of just saying, “Hey, here’s my podcast episode,” look at those posts, see if they’re talking about something that one of your episodes touched on, jump into the conversation, go, Hey, this is what I think or whatever.” Add to the conversation. “I also talk about it on my podcast.” And then you say, add on to it, “If you’re interested, let me know and I’ll post the link or I’ll send you the link.”
Now, as you add value to those conversations, even if you don’t have a podcast episode on that topic, you have a topic for a future episode that you can post on. And then you save that post and then the next time you do an episode on it, you come back to it, You go, “Hey, I just did a podcast episode touching on some of the stuff you guys said in it, let me know if you want to hear it.” And now people are like, “Wait, he talked about us. Oh my God.”
Message those Facebook group admins, those moderators, get them on your podcast as guests because then they’re going to be sharing the episode. “Hey, I was on this podcast, we talked about this.” And they’re going to share the link because you’re making them feel like experts, you’re making them feel like celebrities, and now they feel important, they’re going to be a fan of your podcast.
Their authority in the group, because they’re a moderator, will have more weight saying, “Hey, you guys should listen to this episode.” Facebook groups in your niche of your podcast are your best friends to find the downloads that you want because they’re already built communities that you can jump into and you can just add more value. So you talk about it.
I’m in podcasting groups that I just jump in every single post I see, I go hedededede, “I think you should do this because of this.” Even if I don’t have an episode, what I’m doing is I’m showing like, Hey, I know my stuff. So when I do come to post an episode link where I talk about something, the people that I’ve already interacted with, that I’ve added value to their life, where I’ve shown like, “Hey, I want to give you my knowledge, they’re going to be more likely to interact with my post and listen to my episode so that they can get the value that they want. And from there I move them to my own media platforms, my Facebook group, my newsletter, my other social media platforms.
I try and do it as organically as possible. I do know paid version works and the best way to do paid. And this is free information for if you have a podcast or not, pay the influencer. Go to an influencer, so go to a podcaster that’s in the same niche because, you know they have an audience that listens to podcasts and you don’t have to teach them anything and either do a feed swap like me and Joe are doing. He’s going to come on my podcast, I’m on his podcast. You guys who are listening are probably going to jump over and listen to my podcast episode with Joe when it happens and when it’s released. And you’re like, “Oh my God, this is great.”
And you love how I talk, and you’re like, “Okay, let’s listen to some of the previous episodes. Oh my God, He had this person. He had that person. These are amazing people,” you know? And then you start listening to more of my podcast. Or you go and I go, “Hey Joe, I want to pay you how much for an ad in your podcast.” And you go, “Well, I get this amount at 25 bucks. It’s this amount.” So I go, “Okay, here’s one episode, here’s the X amount of dollars.” And now I have an ad in Joe’s podcast and it’s like, “Oh, Joe’s monetized now.” And there’s another podcast that isn’t in the same line of what I like to listen to. I’m going to go check it out.
Joe Casabona: I like that a lot. What I love about everything you just said there was… Again, we’re leveraging Facebook. The name of this episode it’s probably going to be leveraging Facebook and value to grow your podcast. But “let me know and I’ll send you the link I think is the crucial part,” right? Because I was doing that for a while. I was on a few podcast groups and then somebody asked something where I wrote like my magnum opus on it, and I provided a bunch of value and at the end I said, “If you want to read more, here’s the link.” And they warned me. They’re like, “Hey, you can’t post your own links.” So I like quit that Facebook group. I’m not just saying like, Hey, promote it on Reality Records. I’m saying, “Hey, here’s all this value. There’s even more value over here.”
Phil Better: Yeah. One I love the Reality Records reference. Thank you so much for that. And if you’re a podcaster, you know-
Joe Casabona: No problem.
Phil Better: But Facebook groups, it’s not ours. It’s like in my group, I allow one day a week that you can post your links. And that’s what it is because I know how valuable it is, and new members are coming in and this and that. So it’s like poster links here. And I’ve automated that. I made it. So it’s the day when the Facebook group posts about new members. I literally write in the caption, “Hey, let’s welcome our new members. Let us know a bit about your podcast and share your link.”
So all links are free on that post so everybody can post their links. So you know I don’t have to worry about outside promotion. Everybody knows the rules. You can promote. Wednesdays are the day or Thursday, whatever day you want, is the day you promote your podcast.
Other groups are more stringent no because they want to get rid of the crypto scammers and all those scammers who just post links to screw you out and steal money. So you deny all links. But if you go, “If you’re interested, let me know.” And then you can jump in the DM. You’re asking for permission. And people will either grant you that permission by saying, “Yeah, I would love to know,” and they just go, “Hey, just DM’s you.” So they check the DM, you give them a nice “Hey, thanks for checking out. You can find it on podcast on Apple. Here’s the link.” You could give them a link tree or you give them that slide bio or whatever it is that you use that have all the links to each of the platforms that you want them to listen to.
Again, on podcasting, you should be directing them to one platform so that you can get that initial bump and have a concrete stats pretty much. Like for one of my clients, we do Spotify because it’s universal, right? Everywhere in the world you can get Spotify. It’s easier for my clients. I like regardless of how many downloads you have, you get stats. Whereas Apple, you need to have a certain amount or you have to be there a certain length of time to get it. Spotify is a little less stringent on that. So I pushed everyone… I told them, just push to Spotify. We were able to hit 3,000 downloads on Spotify with I want to say-
Joe Casabona: Wow.
Phil Better: I think we have about 1,500 followers now officially on Spotify. I want to say. I’m not too sure. But he’s getting about 3,000 downloads an episode because we moved to specific platform. Like I said, if you’re on social media, start with one social media and be on all of them, but concentrate moving people to that one platform.
Similar with podcasting. So if it’s Podopolo, move them to Podopolo. If it’s Anchor, if it’s a specific one of the big four, move them there so that you have more data. Because if you’re going to look for sponsors, they want hardcore data. Unfortunately, the hosting platforms are kind of iffy with that because you can say, “Oh, how are you calculating your downloads? Whereas on Apple, on Spotify, on YouTube, and on Amazon, they have more robust because they control. It’s their platform, their own media so they get all that great data.
Joe Casabona: Right. It’s their platform. That’s really interesting. Because I just moved from Castos to Transistor and I was using Chartable for stats because Castos I learned just wholesale filters out all of China. I mean, I asked Apple about this. I was like, “Is this legit?” And they’re like, “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” And I’m like, “I guess you’re right.” But I get a fair amount of downloads from some pockets in China. So like the downloads that were reflected in Castos were not the ones reflected in Chartable. And the ones in Transistor are a lot more accurate to Chartable at least. So that’s really interesting.
I think if you’re an established podcaster, right, look at your stats from your host and see what app is the most popular, and I would say like push people there. Because that’s like the easiest lift, right?
Phil Better: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: If you’re getting like 40% of your downloads from Apple Podcasts and like 10% from Spotify, it’s going to be hard to be like, Hey, abandon your favorite app and go to Spotify.” But if it’s just like the way around, yeah.
Phil Better: And you can say it in your episode. I always say one of the big things is your call to action in an episode should be one thing. One thing.
Joe Casabona: Yes. I’m going to stop you here. I agree with that. This is going to lead perfectly into what I want the last question to be, which is around lead generation. I don’t think podcasters do this well enough. They just hope like downloads is theoretical money, but you need to tell people what you want them to do, right?
Phil Better: So with the leadgen, you can either say, Hey, you know, leave a review. That should be one of your call to action. And that’s the only call to action. If you’re an independent podcaster, that’s not a business-oriented podcast, I say move them to Patreon. The only thing you talk about in your episode is Patreon. And there’s a great podcast called (bleep) tsnGigs Podcast. The two UK guys. I love their stuff. I think like last year got hooked on them. They started in the pandemic.
But the way they do it, within the first 10 minutes of their podcast episode before they got to the size they are now, they would talk about their cult babies, which is what they call their fans on Patreon. You are our cult babies. They give shoutouts to their cult babies, and they made the things very simple because they were working 9 to 5 jobs. So they had to make these things simple. So it’s like, Hey, you get access to exclusive pulls at one level. You get the pulls, plus you get a weekly newsletter, let’s say. And then the final one, you get a monthly AMA. So you get that jump in a call with them and have conversations with them, or you get to pick topics on a podcast. Like those are the bare, easy things. And now you have your Patreon providing you content for your podcast. So they’re paying for the privilege to be on the podcast. Now you monetize your podcasts that way.
If you’re a business podcast now, if you’re using it for, you know, your home renovation company, your real estate company, whatever it is, move them to your newsletter and then sell them on your newsletter. Send them to, you know, “Hey, I want a free 15 minute call because I’ll give you a consulting.” So like if you go, “Here’s my website, book a free call.” Now you’re creating leads right there. That’s the beginning. And in the end, you’re like, Hey, if you’re looking for…
So something I always tell some more businessy clients, I’m like, Hey put an ad in your bumper. You can automate this by pre-recording it. You can pre-record all your call to action for your bumpers for pre and post. And then like you do, you have your bumpers, you prerecord them or you have them already done afterwards. But you just record straight the episode.
I like more efficiency than that. So for me, you’re going to see when you come on my show later today, I don’t have the ads yet because I’m always changing my ads and all that. And I don’t like putting ads on video. But the audio ad is like, Hey, if you’re interested in launching your podcast or starting a podcast, stay till the end, you will find out some more crazy information.
I have my intro play, so it’s the video version, but also the audio. I have my episode at the end. It goes, “Hey, hope you had fun. Make sure you follow us on social media.” And then I put an ad saying, “Hey, if you’re interested in launching your podcast, check out the podcastlaunchagency.com/challenge.” And you can see how we go monthly. We launch at least 20 podcasts a month. And if you’re an expert, you need to have a podcast so you can monetize a passive income stream.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What host are you using for your show? Another reason I moved from Castro to Transistor was the dynamic content.
Phil Better: So I use bCast, which is created by Tom Hunt. I was lucky enough. And the reason I use it is because I got a lifetime deal—pay once and I have it for life. And I have unlimited podcast, unlimited sub-account so my clients can get free hosting from it. They can do unlimited podcast, unlimited episodes, unlimited downloads, and they also can have Zapier integration to send lists.
Joe Casabona: Wow.
Phil Better: It doesn’t really let you put ads. You can put ads in, but they’re not dynamic insertion. If I had the chance to get Captivate as a lifetime deal like I do now with every add-on that they have, I would have gone there because they’re adding more things. I’m like, Oh, this is smoother for podcasters. It feels like it’s more made by podcasters instead of business users, whereas I feel bCast it’s more business-oriented, but they’re great.
Like my account would cost $75 a month, $75 a month for the account that I have. So it’s like $75 a month for unlimited everything. That’s not a bad deal. And I got it for very, very cheap. The only one that I had a big problem was with Anchor because I didn’t like the stats that they give. I didn’t like the UX and all that. Like it was just my personal like, Hey, you want to use Anchor, it’s free, go ahead. Like if you don’t want to pay a single cent, use Anchor. Bro, that’s the best thing. It’s just my personal biased. That’s all. Like it’s only my personal bias. Like, that’s it.
Joe Casabona: Gotcha. Awesome. I love that one call to action. I like that you kind of separate the calls to action. Like if you’re more creative, push to Patreon; business, move to your newsletter. I think that again, makes so much sense.
We’re coming up on time here, so I want to wrap up. Phil, this has been great. If people want to learn more about you, where can they find you?
Phil Better: Very simply, go to Podcast Launch Agency. That’s right there. You can go there. You can find our social medias are there are podcasts that we’ve launched are there, you can find out more about our challenge, what we do all together. If you’re looking to start a podcast, just go to podcastlaunchagency.com. Very simple.
By the time this is up, our website should have been updated. Right now we’re in the midst of editing. My business partner… He’s the real guy behind the scenes doing all the real work. I’m just the voice because I just love talking and selling. That’s what I do. I do the promotion. I’m a like a P.T. Barnum, if you will. He builds the business. I’m the P.T. Barnum part of the business.
Joe Casabona: That’s funny. That’s really funny. That’s awesome. I will link that and lots of stuff. Everything that we talked about over at howibuilt.it/316
. Phil, thanks so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it.
Phil Better: It was my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me, Joe.
Joe Casabona: All right. And thank you so much for listening. If you want to hear Phil and me talk about automating social media, definitely sign up for How I Built Pro over at howibuilt.it/pro for just five bucks a month or 50 bucks a year. Phil also said that he has a special deal for member-only. So that 50 bucks a year is probably going to get paid for very quickly if you join for this episode. So again, that’s over at howibuilt.it/pro. Thanks so much for listening. And until next time, get out there and build something.