I recently did something I’ve never done before: Whipped out my credit card in the middle of a packed club and punched my digits into an order form to purchase a WordPress plugin. It’s a plugin that has totally transformed how I look at publishing information online and something I expect to use for many years to come.
It has nothing to do with writing, however. Instead, it’s designed to help make your podcast easier to digest for your audience, and easier to grow for you. Here’s the kicker: It’s only available for 72 hours, or when 300 licenses are sold. Whichever comes first.
The plugin is called Smart Podcast Player and was created by the most recognisable internet marketing blogger online: Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income. I have been begging Pat for months to let me promote this as an affiliate and now he’s given me the exclusive opportunity to do so, but I’m not going to use an affiliate link.
I decided that instead of just turning this blog post into a review of the plugin – which is amazing – I wanted to look at Podcasting as a whole. It’s not a topic I’ve really covered before, despite many individuals building 7-figure online empires with this medium…sitting in the comfort of their own home.
Just 300 Copies Left
Pat only rolls out this plugin in stages to make sure he can offer top-notch support to all users. As such, I’m the only person you’ll find on the internet talking about this plugin today. It’s not like those JV launches in the IM niche where you get emailed by a dozen people hoping to win a $10K Rolex watch if they can sell the most copies of something.
I’m not getting credited for this financially in any way. The most genuine recommendation I can make for something is that I use it myself and you’ll see that I use SPP on my podcast page and absolutely love the way it looks (you can change all of those colours).
If you would like to pick up your copy today then head on over to http://smartpodcastplayer.com/glen/ and use the coupon code ‘viperchill’ to get $30 off your order. A single license is just $67 after the coupon price is applied.
The plugin will no longer be for sale after 72 hours or after 300 copies are sold. Whichever comes first.
If you’re still on the fence about podcast and want to know about some people who have turned this medium into full-time incomes then allow me to share a few examples…
Case Study #1: The Art of Charm (100,000+ Downloads Per Month)
I only came across the Art of Charm (AoC) in the last 48 hours but think they’re an awesome example of having success podcasting on a not-so-obvious topic: dating.
Founded by two friends, AJ and Jordan, AoC looked to help fellow men have more success with the opposite sex; something they were actively trying to do themselves. They describe their podcast as a place “where self-motivated guys, just like you, come to learn from a diverse mix of experienced mentors, including the world’s best dating coaches, relationship experts, bestselling authors and other professional badasses.”
After reaching just 30 listeners in their first week, the podcast continued to grow, quickly reaching 10,000 downloads in a month. The most recent data I can find on AoC is actually quite dated, where they had just hit over 1,000,000 podcast downloads in a single 12 month period.
No doubt that number is far higher now.
How are they making money? They’re turning that huge audience they’ve amassed onto their own dating-related information products, such as:
Attraction Alchemy eBook Bundle: $247
The TXT Book: $97
The Art of Charm Academy $67/m
Find Her in Four 3 monthly payments of $97 ($291)
I can’t predict exactly how much money they’ve made but with such a popular podcast they’ve no doubt been able to build a brand that’s worth in excess of a million dollars. They both get to do this full-time, had their own show on Sirius XM as a result of their success, and have numerous American full-time staff who take care of their customer support.
Case Study #2: Fat-Burning Man (500,000+ Downloads Per Month)
Abel James has made a name for himself in the diet and fitness world with his hugely popular podcast, Fat-Burning Man. With over 1,000 5-star reviews in iTunes he has managed to position himself as an expert in one of the most profitable industries online.
After just one month of the podcast launching he had hit the number one spot in iTunes in eight different countries. How? In his own words: “Because you listen! What started as a hobby to help spread the truth about health turned into a massive podcast with half a million downloads a month! No corporation, no sponsors, no PR or media campaigns – I’m just a dude with a mic who is passionate about helping as many people as I can.”
Clearly that passion shined through in his episodes and helped him to grow a loyal audience who trust in what he has to say.
As mentioned in his own quote, Abel does not allow sponsors to advertise on his podcast. This may be a huge source of missed revenue for him but it also may mean he has more trust from his audience which increases their likelihood of following what he has to say. He hasn’t let a lack of sponsors stop him from generating revenue, however.
Some of his income sources include:
14-Day Juice Challenge iPhone App: $3.99 / Reached #1 in Food on the iTunes Store
Caveman Feast iPhone App: $2.99 / Reached #1 in Food & Drink on the iTunes Store
Gluten Free Deserts iPhone App: $1.99 / Reached #1 in Food & Drink on the iTunes Store
Fat Burning Chef eBook: $37
Caveman Feast eBook: $27
Gluten Free Deserts eBook: $9.95
30-Day Fat Loss System: $27
Fat-Burning Tribe Community: $27/m
That’s a lot of products on offer, with more on the way. His Caveman Feast app alone reached number #6 on iTunes Worldwide with over 1,000 5-star ratings in just three days. No doubt this was made possible by the huge, targeted audience he has been able to grow through the podcast.
Abel is clearly someone who follows marketing blogs as well, looking to grow his audience further and convert that into sales more than ever. I see a lot of resemblances to Pat Flynn’s site — especially on his footer opt-in forms which are almost identical.
Case Study #3: Personal Life Media NSFW (1,000,000+ Downloads Per Month)
Personal Life Media was founded by husband and wife team, Tim and Susan Bratton. I didn’t find their podcast because I was looking for how to become a better lover (honest) but actually because Susan ran a marketing podcast, believe it or not. Over on the Dishy Mix, which has won various awards, Susan interviews famous media and internet business executives and extracts their secrets for success. It seems like this particular show hasn’t been updated since 2012 – even though it had hundreds of episodes – but other channels are still going strong.
The brand is now home to over 40 different podcast shows which pull in over 1 million downloads per month. PLM then group each podcast into a category and sell in-podcast advertising for listeners in the 100,000 to 250,000 range.
Clearly focused on adult entertainment, the brand offer information products which cater to this category.
Such titles include “Revive Her Drive” which sells for $197 and “Keep Her Coming” at $147. There are a number of other titles in the series but I’m worried that typing them out would likely result in me setting off some filters on home internet security software. You can check out the site here (probably best when not at work).
Case Study #4: Entrepreneur on Fire (16,000+ Downloads Per Episode)
If you follow a number of blogs in the internet marketing space then you’ve very likely heard of John Lee Dumas. His 7-day per week podcast nets him hundreds of thousands of downloads per month and is constantly topping the Business and Marketing categories on iTunes. If you wish to advertise on his show then he promises every episode will receive at least 16,000 downloads.
I was fortunate enough to be recently interviewed by John (the show goes live next month) and he revealed to me that when he started out he was a terrible podcast host. He would stutter, ask less than appropriate questions and hadn’t quite found his flow when interviewing people. Now that he’s more than 700 shows in you can see he has clearly perfected his art.
His bank balance is looking healthy, too. His income for August was $272,000 with over $240,000 of that being pure profit.
He averages around $40,000 to $50,000 per month through podcast sponsorships, but the majority of his income is generated through Podcasters Paradise, a private membership site which teaches his readers how to grow their own successful podcast.
These Numbers Are Difficult to Find, but Podcasting Success Stories are Everywhere
When researching this topic it was actually very, very difficult to find success stories. It seems like nobody has ever really covered this in detail. Many Google searches simply led me to people who are offering theory on how to grow a successful podcast rather than highlighting those who have done it already. I think one main reason for that is people who podcast don’t really think about the web-marketing side of things where they want to share their download numbers, revenue and so on.
I did find many more examples such as Marc Maron, Joe Rogan, Adam Corolla and Jay Mohr to name a few. The only reason I didn’t cover them in more detail is that they are doing things I don’t think the average person can do very easily (many have celebrities on their episodes or offline promotion on TV and radio networks which helps them grow). In other cases I would find individuals with thousands of reviews and topping their respective categories, such as The Art of Wrestling, but I just couldn’t find any audience or revenue numbers to share with you (though I expect them to be very high).
Of course, you don’t just have to start a podcast with the aim of bringing in tons of cash. It can simply be a great way to grow your current audience and offer your content on another medium. There’s no harm in simply reading your blog posts aloud and putting them up on iTunes. I’ve done this for a couple of my episodes and have never received any negative feedback because of it.
I’m never going to become rich from my podcast episodes – the angle I cover is simply too niche – but that hasn’t stopped me from growing my audience with a podcast and getting great feedback because of it.
That’s almost 100 reviews in iTunes with an average 4.7 (out of 5) worldwide rating. Not bad for only having 12 episodes.
For the screenshot above I took the information from CommentCast (Mac only). This allows you to see the ratings for your podcast across all international versions of iTunes; something you can’t do from your individual account on the iTunes store.
The Strangest Thing I Noticed About Successful Podcasters
Is that their podcasting success doesn’t seem to equate to other social channels.
Take John Lee Dumas who I’ve just covered. His success is amazing and he deserves every bit of it, but it doesn’t seem to “pass over” to other networks. Most of his Facebook updates just have one or two likes. It’s very rare to see one with more than 10. He does have 24,000 Twitter followers but that seems low for someone who gets more than 500,000 downloads of his podcast every single month.
The Art of Charm received 3 likes in total for their last six Facebook updates. The Art of Wrestling Facebook page isn’t too active either, though definitely moreso than The Art of Charm.
When putting this post together I looked at literally dozens and dozens of popular podcast owners and how well they fared outside of iTunes. The engagement they get on Facebook and Twitter seemed to be very, very low compared to the numbers their shows are pulling in.
Pat Flynn who is opening the doors to Smart Podcast Player today is an exception. He gets huge engagement numbers on Facebook and Twitter and is also reaching hundreds of thousands of people per month with his podcast. What’s interesting though is that he states his podcast is the number one way people find his website. Despite all of the work he does outside of iTunes, it’s the biggest source for new traffic to his site.
My theory is that people who regularly listen to podcasts are simply in their own ‘league’ when it comes to reaching them online. They’re not the kind of people who can be as easily reached on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and so on. Podcasts are their thing.
If you aren’t podcasting you may just be missing out on a huge potential audience who you won’t find in the normal platforms you operate in online.
Your 6-Step Plan of Attack for Building a Successful Podcast
While I can’t promise to help you become the next podcasting millionaire, I do think I have some solid tips to get you on the right track to growing your audience with the medium.
1. Know your topic then pick an angle
If you’re going to be talking about something for what potentially amounts to hundreds of hours of speaking then you should be sure to pick a topic you’re truly interested in. I know I’m stating the obvious here but nobody is going to promise you “overnight success” with your podcast so the love for your topic will keep you going as you push through those initial barriers when growing your audience.
I’m really going to simplify my advice here on how to pick a niche but generally I suggest focusing on a topic that you a) currently read books about b) currently read sites about and c) feel like you could talk on in an authoritative manner. If not now but at least when you know more about the subject.
I would also recommend covering a topic from a certain angle or at least an angle that could potentially give you an “edge” that people remember. I’m not just running an SEO podcast, I’m running Glen vs Google.
Pat Flynn isn’t just running a podcast about making money online it’s about generating a passive income.
Abel James isn’t covering all aspects of fitness but primarily focusing on fat loss and his own version of the Paleo diet.
2. Find the top episodes from your “competition”
While iTunes isn’t the greatest place to be a publisher in terms of the data they give you (people have to use other software to find their download numbers) they do at least give you some insight into how popular your individual episodes are.
If you’re just starting out or even someone who has a podcast already and are looking for episode ideas, you may find this useful.
If you head on over to iTunes (you’re lucky if you’re signed in on an American iTunes account where you get more results) you should be able to see the popularity of any episode on any podcast.
Using Abel James as an example, you can clearly see his latest two episodes were a lot more popular than the few he released prior.
You can literally do this for any podcast in any industry and get insights into what people would like to listen to before you put your next shows together.
Of course that isn’t to say you should just copy what other people are doing but it should give you some ideas about what your potential audience prefer to download and subscribe to.
3. Get yourself on as many shows as possible
If you’re trying to grow a blog then it makes sense that you should try and write for other blogs which have a large readership despite whether it’s SEO-friendly or not (you can no-follow the links to your site if you’re worried). Guest posting has worked well for thousands of bloggers foir the simple reason that if you’re reaching people who subscribe to blogs then there’s a good chance they’ll subscribe to yours.
Similarly, if you’re getting out there in front of people who like to listen to podcasts then you have a chance of growing your own podcast audience too. John Lee Dumas said he tries to appear on at least ten “other people’s” podcasts per month to continue reaching new people who may not have heard of him before.
This will not only grow your reach but increase how comfortable you are speaking in front of audiences and facing new questions. This can only be a good thing if you’re really going to take your podcasting seriously.
4. Optimise for relevant keywords
One thing I learned about a year ago was that you can easily rank for pretty much anything you want in the iTunes search engine. All you have to do is put relevant phrases in the title and description of your podcast.
If you scroll up this blog post and look at the screenshot of my podcast reviews from Comment Cast you will see my podcast headline says “Similar to Pat Flynn, John Lee Dumas” and so on. I tweak this now and then to see what happens. While I would never want to outrank the person whose podcast people are actually searching for, it does put you up there in the top results.
My only suggestion is to be careful who (or what) you want to rank for. When I first tried this out after learning about the tactic from John Lee Dumas I put ‘Joe Rogan’ in my podcast title. I was surprised to see that I ranked second for his name and my listener numbers increased substantially even though our podcasts weren’t totally related. As he gets hundreds of thousands of downloads per month however there were a few people who didn’t like my ranking and left me negative reviews for being listed near him.
I guess that’s fair so I removed his name from my title.
Try to think of what terms people would search for in iTunes to find your show and make sure you have them in the description.
5. Consider targeted advertising on Twitter & Facebook
One thing I’ve been doing more and more of lately is running ad campaigns on Twitter and Facebook. They work exceptionally well if you get your targeting down.
For instance, I’ve been running campaigns for people who like certain Facbeook pages to like my own page. People who like Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal and Hubspot are likely to be interested in ViperChill so I targeted them with an introduction to my blog.
As a result my Facebook fan following has grown by almost 1,000 likes in the last two weeks and my status updates are reaching more people than ever.
In my latest status update I announced an episode on my podcast and directly targeted – through Facebook’s tracking pixel – people who are on my email list and had visited my website in the last 7 days. I was getting engagements on the post for as little as $0.07 each.
Though a lot of podcasters aren’t very active on Facebook, you could also utilise Twitter advertising where podcasters seem to have a more active following. For instance, to promote my podcast I could run ads on Twitter solely to followers of John Lee Dumas. They likely follow him because they listen to his podcast, so they may be interested in my podcast as well.
There’s a lot more I could cover on this subject but don’t want to overwhelm you with too much information so if you have any questions or need more examples I’m happy to share them in the comments below.
6. Equip Yourself with the Smart Podcast Player and Grow Your Audience
If you would like to get your hands on the coolest podcast player ever – which you can have up and running in minutes – then I highly recommend you pick up the Smart Podcast Player created by Pat Flynn.
Simply go to http://smartpodcastplayer.com/glen/ and use the coupon code ‘viperchill’ for a $30 discount. I do not receive any commissions for this recommendation; I’m simply a huge fan of Pat, his blog and this plugin so I’m more than happy to share it on this blog.
The reason you have to go to that URL is because Pat only sells this plugin in stages – to make sure he can offer fantastic support to all customers – and there are only 300 licenses available.
Anyone who has ever followed Pat will know he’s hugely inspiring with his blog posts and income reports and his new plugin is all you could expect him to release and more.
I’m not joking when I said I begged him to let me have a copy the last time he opened the doors (I was worried I would miss out because there were limited slots available).
I was drunk in a packed Bangkok club when he told me I didn’t have long to pick up a copy but that didn’t stop me from rushing outside to make sure I got my license.
Whenever I’ve had an issue with the podcast, of which there were few (I wanted colour customizations that weren’t available but are now), I was even able to speak with the developer, Jonathan, directly.
As someone who has owned one of the most popular premium WordPress plugins ever released and at times totally struggled with support I think Pat is doing the right thing by releasing this in stages to make sure he can give users the attention they deserve.
Pat wanted me to add that if you purchase today you’ll get lifetime support updates; something that will come at a cost when the plugin is available for anyone to buy.
The plugin hooks right into SoundCloud so you don’t need to keep uploading episodes via your WordPress backend or anything like that. Simply upload your episodes to SoundCloud (you can still use iTunes and Libsyn and all that good stuff) and they’ll automatically show on your podcast player.
One thing I love about using SoundCloud is the stats they give you. You can see how many plays, downloads and reposts every single one of your episodes has had.
Additionally, SoundCloud also shows you which cities people are playing your podcast episodes from the most. They also show users of SoundCloud who have listened to a number of your episodes. This means you could then go and message them directly and thank them for being an active part of your audience.
A lot of those downloads you see in my SoundCloud stats are a result of people downloading episodes directly with the Smart Podcast Player. The tool doesn’t include it’s own analytics but using Clicky I can watch people in real-time clicking on the download links for individual episodes right from my podcast page.
Of course, once you have everything in place, the key is to be consistent. If people don’t see you regularly publishing new episodes or on a date they can expect (say every Wednesday) then they’re going to stop looking for your content directly and move on to another show in your niche. I’m hoping to increase the rate of my podcast production now that I have a great player to show it off and a new angle in the niche I’m covering.
Do you run a podcast? Do you plan on starting one? I would love to hear your own personal stories in the comments below…