009: Daily Habits That Lead to Podcast Growth with Jeremy Enns
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Are you wanting to grow your podcast listenership and reach, but there is so much conflicting “expert” information out there it feels overwhelming to know what to trust? Are you unsure where to focus your time and energy on how to grow a podcast?
A few weeks ago, we at The Wave had our first community event for 2022. Exciting!
Side note, there are plenty more events coming your way, so make sure to check out the links in the show notes to join our discord community for more information.
Our community voted on a bunch of interesting topics about podcasting to see what they would be the most interested in. The topic that won by a mile (with much excitement from me) was Habits for Podcasters That Lead To Growth. I had recently heard my friend Jeremy speaking about tips he was sharing on this topic, and I eagerly asked him to put together a presentation on building daily habits for podcast growth.
Today, I am going to summarize the event for you, breaking it down into bite-sized pieces. For those of you who bought tickets to this event, we sent out a replay for you, so check your inbox to get Jeremy’s wisdom all over again. If you didn’t make our event, that’s okay! You can still develop those high-growth habits with Jeremy at his FREE upcoming workshop, so stay tuned for more info on how to access that event!
About Jeremy
First of all, if you don’t know Jeremy, he is the Founder of Podcast Marketing Academy — a course and education ecosystem. He’s the founder of Counterweight Creative — a podcast agency that focuses a lot on marketing education and coaching. Through these, he has helped his clients collectively earn over 50 million podcast downloads and millions of dollars in revenue. WOWZA. He also writes two weekly newsletters: Creative Wayfinding, which he considers a letter to himself every week about what he needs to hear to feel encouraged and motivated as a creator, and Scrappy Podcasting, which is a weekly two-minute read with insider information for independent podcasters.
To sum it up? He is one of the best people I know to speak about podcast marketing because of all he has helped his clients achieve. Additionally, he is incredibly kind and we get along because he speaks to my practical and logical nature. With Jeremy, there is no fluff, no BS, no hours (and hours) spent engaging your audience in Facebook groups. You do you, but it’s a no for me. Nope, Jeremy finds efficient techniques for marketing that he tries, measures, and shares — often for free — on his many platforms. What a legend, right?
Growth Happens in Small Steps, Not Big Leaps
So that’s how I knew that his daily habits for growth were actually going to be helpful, and the truth is *whispers* …consistency and habit building is something I struggle with personally. I’ve read all the self-help books, and I mean ALL.OF.THEM. I have purchased all of the planners, productivity apps, and promises to make this happen easily. But I still find doing the same thing small things every day to be hard… Until I went to this event. Bless you, Jeremy.
To kick everything off, Jeremy told a great story that hit home about why continuous habit building is worthwhile. To summarize, a king in India was highly skilled in chess and had never been beaten (you might see where this is going but wait for the twist)! The king sits down with a promising visitor offering this man anything he wants if he wins. When the wise man wins, the king beckons for a bag of rice.
Some cool people on the internet were able to calculate that amount would cover all of India with a meter of rice! Are you kidding me? Pretty incredible, right? The point here is that a little adds up to something big over time.
So what are the little things that will make a big difference for podcasters? This is what you really want to know, I know, I know. Jeremy and I agree that podcasting is better than most mediums at some things, such as building trust, having nuanced conversations, and getting really in-depth with people. But there are some things that podcasting isn't great at, like sparking engagement, your discovery, and shareability.
Instead, you need to use tools that are built for this alongside the podcast itself. In order to make the most of these other platforms, we have to spend our time on marketing activities that fill in the gaps. There are small things we can do on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis that helps us contribute to those components and help our show be successful.
That’s where Jeremy presents the three C’s:
Consumption
Creation
Connection
Consumption
Jeremy asks us to do something super easy, and that is to pay attention to what works on us. He asks that you start to pay attention to what causes you to pause when you are scrolling social media, flipping pages of a magazine, or walking by the abandoned building that has been postered. Is it the headlines? The colors? The graphics and imagery? What speaks to you in this marketing?
You want to keep track of this so that you can understand the connections by starting a thirty-second daily habit of thinking about why you clicked a link, opened an email, or bought something. If you really want to go for it, you can start keeping a daily marketing journal, taking notes of “I clicked on this… this is why”. You may be surprised by the things that happen over and over, and it will be useful for you to notice these patterns to apply to your own work. Once you are seeing what is working, it becomes a no-brainer to try it yourself.
Creation
Of the handful of helpful habits Jeremy shared, the one that stood out to me was Zero Click Content. Essentially what that is asking is to create one original idea on one social media platform in a platform-native format daily. It isn’t asking you to leave that platform and head to the podcast. Nope, it wants to you stay right here and will keep you right here, with me, on my account, slowly falling in love with it, on account of being done so well.
What that can look like is taking something from the podcast or related to it and packaging it in a way that suits that social media platform of choice — because it is not the same rules or copy for every platform — but we can feel overwhelmed trying to tackle them all. Pick one, know the kind of tone, imagery, emoji, language, and graphic style that will work, and make it count for that one post on that one platform. Think about the kind of content that people expect to see on that platform and make sure you create that kind of content. Publish something that you are proud of. Let the pride be determined by you — what makes you proud? You will then see slowly but surely, consistent growth as a result.
Connection
This is something that really hit home for me because it feels the most rewarding in a deeper sense. It speaks to the values that exist within both my life and in my marketing. Hello, people who don’t like marketing! Does it feel slimy? Cringey? Needy? Listen up because this tip felt aligned with the things I do like doing.
One actionable tip was to just make friends. How nice. The best tip ever. The truth is that people like to make friends, they want to make friends, and the more friends you make in your industry or niche, the more opportunities you open up for high-value, win-win collaborations. Don’t overthink this; this doesn’t have to be (and really shouldn’t be) an overly engineered thing. Seek out people in the same or adjacent industries or niches as you who you genuinely like, admire, and would love to get to know.
The tiny daily action you could take to do this is to comment on the post or DM one person you would love to know and tell them how much you appreciate their work. No ask, no expectation, just gratitude. You never know what will come of that, maybe it will lead to a conversation full of spark and collaboration! The worst case is you told someone you admire that they have made an impact on you. Isn’t that lovely?
To Sum It Up
To recap, all you have to do is remember Jeremy’s three C’s:
Consumption
Creation
Connection
I hope you enjoyed this taste — which was merely a fraction of what was covered in our nearly 90-minute event — of what Jeremy has to offer in his infinite wisdom when it comes to building daily habits. My biggest takeaway was that Jeremy said we are all likely already doing all of these things, we just aren’t doing them in the smartest way possible. So rather than this being an entire overhaul of our marketing, we are just shifting how we are using our existing time. Think of tiny habits equalling big results.
Sign Up Today
As mentioned, Jeremy is putting on a FREE three-day workshop that will dive even deeper into all of this for you. Wondering to yourself “how can I take these actions and grow my podcast?” Be sure to sign up for this FREE three-day workshop before all the spots are gone!
COMPUTER-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT WITH TIME STAMPS
[00:00:00] Consistent growth happens, not through big actions that you take once a month, but through little actions that you take daily that build up over time. In this episode, I'm going to share with you the daily habits that lead to podcast growth with the help of my friend, Jeremy ends, who shared these tips with us a few weeks back at a live community event, stay tune.
[00:00:30] Hey, my name is Lauren Popish and I'm obsessed with podcasting a little meta, right. I started podcasting after a public speaking event. Gone wrong. Sparked a phobia of public speaking that almost ended my corporate career. Now I help women use podcasting to share their ideas, grow their businesses, start movements and leave their unique marks on the world.
[00:00:56] My company, the wave produces shows [00:01:00] for some of the most influential women in health, business, spirituality, beauty, and more. And in this show, I'm taking all of the strategies I've used to help my clients top the podcast charts, and I'm bringing them to you. If you're hoping to start grow. Or monetize a podcast you're in the right place.
[00:01:21] This is Podcast Like a Girl.
[00:01:30] Are you wanting to grow your podcast, listenership and reach, but there's so much conflicting expert information out there. It feels overwhelming to know what to trust. Are you unsure where to focus your time and energy when it comes to how to grow a podcast? Join the club here a few weeks ago, we at the wave had our first community event of 2022.
[00:01:52] It was very exciting side note. There are plenty more community events coming your way soon. So check out the links in our show [00:02:00] notes to join our discord community for more information. Our community voted on a bunch of interesting topics about podcasting that I gave them to see what they would be most interested in.
[00:02:12] And the topic that won by a mile with very much excitement for me, was habits for podcasters that lead to growth. I had recently heard my friend, Jeremy speaking about tips. He was sharing on this topic and I eagerly asked him to put together a presentation on building daily habits for podcast growth.
[00:02:32] And today I'm going to summarize that event for you, breaking it down into bite size pieces. Those of you who bought tickets to this event, we sent out a replay for you. So check your inbox for Jeremy's wisdom. All over again. And if you didn't make the event, that's okay. You can still develop those high growth habits with Jeremy at his free upcoming workshop.
[00:02:56] So stay tuned on more information on how to access the event. [00:03:00] I will be there as well. Joining you. First of all, if you don't know Jeremy, he's the founder of podcast marketing academy, a course and education ecosystem. He calls it. He's the founder of counterweight creative, a podcast agency that focuses a lot on marketing education and coaching through these he's helped his clients earn collectively.
[00:03:23] Listen up over 50 million podcast downloads and millions of dollars in revenue Wowza. He also writes two weekly newsletters, creative way, finding which he considers a letter to himself every week about what he needs to hear, to feel encouraged and motivated as a creator and scrappy podcasting, which is a weekly two minute read with insider information for independent podcasters.
[00:03:52] That's the serious version. Uh, this is the fun version as you can see. So I've been traveling full-time for the past six years. Uh, I'm currently in Dallas [00:04:00] at one point I had 148 day Wordle winning streak, which I was crushed to lose that one. I think I'm clawing my way back. I'm at like around 50 again now, but that was, uh, Disappointing.
[00:04:10] I used to play electric guitar and sing in a hardcore band called Sally field. I'm pretty obsessive about getting my, uh, 10,000 steps in every day. If people ask me to shut up about it fairly regularly, uh, I'll wear hats. This one will, you know, surely within six months will be just worn down into dust or grime or something else.
[00:04:25] Uh, especially my, my Patagonia hats. I love them. To sum it up. He is one of the best people I know to speak about podcast marketing, because of all that he has helped his clients achieve. Additionally, he's just incredibly kind and we get along great because he speaks to my practical and logical nature with Jeremy.
[00:04:47] There is absolutely no. No BS, no tips about engaging your podcast community in Facebook groups for hours and hours and hours a week. You do you, but it's a [00:05:00] no, for me, note, Jeremy finds efficient techniques for marketing that he tries measures and shares often for free on his many platforms. What a legend.
[00:05:11] Right? So that's how I knew that his daily habits for growth. Actually going to be helpful. And the truth is consistency and habit building is something I personally struggle with. I've read all the self-help books. I mean, all of them, and I've purchased the planners, the productivity apps, and I believe the promises that habit building can be easy.
[00:05:36] But I still find doing the same small things every day to be really hard. This event made habit buildings seem achievable at least for podcast marketing. So bless you, Jeremy. To kick it off. Jeremy told a great story that hit home about why continuous habit building is worthwhile to do in the first place to summarize a king in [00:06:00] India was highly skilled at chess and had never been beaten.
[00:06:04] You might see where this is going, but hang with me here. The king sits down with a promising visitor offering this man, anything he wanted for his wins. And so this Wiseman. He says, all I ask is that you give me one grain of rice on the first square, and then double that for each of the squares on the chessboard.
[00:06:22] So one on the first one, two on the second, uh, tile four on the third one. And so. When the wise man wins the king beckons for a bag of rice. And so it's one on the first two on the second four on the third and pretty quickly the king realizes that he's kind of made a mistake here because at the 20th square, that would be a million grains of rice.
[00:06:43] If you keep on this doubling and by the 40th square, that would be a billion grains of rice. And if you get to the 64th square, you keep doubling. That would be something like 15 quintillion grains of. Some cool people on the internet were able to calculate that amount would [00:07:00] cover all of India with a meter of rice.
[00:07:02] Are you kidding me? Pretty incredible, right? The point here is that a little adds up to something big over time. So what are the little things that will make a big difference for podcasters? This is what you really wanna know. I know Jeremy and I agree that podcasting is better than most mediums at some things like building trust, having nuanced conversations and getting really in depth with people.
[00:07:30] But there's some things that podcasting just isn't great at at all. Like sparking engagement, helping your discoverability. And shareability. Instead, you need to use tools that are built for this alongside the podcast itself, in order to make the most of these other platforms, you're gonna have to spend time on marketing activities that will fill the gaps.
[00:07:54] There are small things we can do on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis that help us [00:08:00] contribute to those components and help our shows be more successful. That's where Jeremy present. The three CS consumption, creation and connection.
[00:08:15] Hey there, I'm taking a quick break to tell you about a free workshop next week that I'm attending, and I hope you will too. Jeremy Enns, founder of Counterweight Creative and The Podcast Marketing Academy gave a special presentation to The Wave community just a few weeks ago about how to build daily habits that will lead to podcast growth.
[00:08:41] Well, starting September 27th, he's hosting a three day workshop on the same topic, diving deep into the one to five minute tasks that you can complete every day that will engage your target listener, improve your marketing content, and help you build the network you need to spread the word [00:09:00] about your show.
[00:09:01] Sign up for Jeremy's free three day workshop using the link in our show notes and learn how to shift your habits in three areas of your creative practice to get more growth from the time you are already investing. I'll be there on September 27th through the 29th, and I hope to see you there. Now, back to the show.
[00:09:25] Within consumption. Jeremy asks us to do something super easy and that's to pay attention to what works on us. There are people who I. Follow. And I like, and I actually like their marketing. Like I like to be marketed to as a consumer. It makes me feel good. It makes me feel like it is perhaps like calling me to be a better version of myself depending on what their product is.
[00:09:47] And it's not that kind of marketing that feels like, you know, if you don't buy this product, you're, you know, you're deficient in some way, which a lot of. Marketing is, is kind of designed to make us feel. I think that's the marketing that we as creators avoid because we see ourselves as being [00:10:00] generous, people, creating stuff for the good of, of the people who are following us.
[00:10:03] And that kind of undercuts it. If we're, we're gonna behave that way. And so we don't wanna do that. Is it the headlines? Is it the colors, the graphics and imagery. What is speaking to you in this marketing? You want to start keeping track of these marketing initiatives that are working on you so you can understand the connections to do that.
[00:10:22] Start a 32nd daily habit. That's 30 seconds. Only of thinking about why you clicked a link, opened an email. Bought something. If you really want to go for it, you can start keeping a daily marketing journal taking notes of I clicked on this and this is why you may be surprised by the things that are happening over and over again, subconsciously.
[00:10:48] And it'll be useful for you to notice these patterns, to be able to apply it to your own marketing work. Once you're seeing what's working, it becomes a no brainer to try out yourself [00:11:00] in the area of creation of the handful of helpful habits. Jeremy shared. The one that stood out to me was zero click content.
[00:11:09] Essentially, what that is asking is for you to create one original idea on one social media platform, in a platform native format. This piece of content, isn't asking you to leave the platform and head to your podcast. Nope. You're asking your audience to stay right here with you on their account, that they have open slowly, falling in love with it.
[00:11:34] And as a result you, because the content has been so well done and has been made for the app that they are. And usually how a lot of podcasters approach this is, they say, well, I've got this podcast and there's a lot of people who kind of teach this method, which I don't think is necessarily always helpful, but you know, you create the one podcast and you just get all this con all your content is done for you.
[00:11:57] And the problem is you might get, you know, this 50 pieces of [00:12:00] content from videos and audiograms and quotes and graphics and all this kind of stuff, but it's not actually made specifically for any one platform. And so it kind of just falls flat on all of. And so you have all these posts they're going out there, but they're not really speaking to what people on any of those platforms expect from content where they're hanging out.
[00:12:18] What that can look like is taking something from your podcast or related to it and packaging it up in a way that fits that social media platform of choice, because the same rules don't apply to every platform and it can feel overwhelming when trying to tackle. All of them or be masters of all of them.
[00:12:38] Pick one, know the kind of tone imagery, emoji language, and graphic style that will work and make it count for that one post on that one platform. We talk a lot about repurposing content, but repurposing can't mean just taking what you did, an audio clip of your podcast and posting it [00:13:00] directly to Instagram.
[00:13:01] Instead, we need to know what works on Instagram and build content that is native for that platform. Publish something that you're proud of. What do you wanna see and what would make you proud? You will then slowly but surely consistently grow your audience, who will be interested in your other content types, like your podcast, and your show will begin to grow as a result.
[00:13:27] Eventually you start converting people, but it's, it's less about like, just promoting the podcast in one post. It's about being a valuable, helpful person that they see as someone they want more of in their lives. And eventually, you know, we can't predict when that's gonna happen, but it does. And that is actually the, the better way to, to use social media.
[00:13:44] Lastly connection. This is something that really hit home for me, because it feels like the most rewarding in a deeper sense. One actionable tip was to just make friends. How nice is that? The best tip ever? The truth is is that [00:14:00] people like to make friends. They want to make friends. And the more friends you make in your industry or niche, the more opportunities you open up for high value win-win collaborations.
[00:14:12] Don't overthink this, this doesn't have to be, and it really shouldn't be an overly engineered thing, seek out people in the same or adjacent industries or niches who you genuinely like, and you admire, and you want to connect with the tiny daily action that Jeremy suggests that you can take to do. This is to comment on their post or DM one person who you would love to know and tell them how much you appreciate their work.
[00:14:39] No ask no expectations, just gratitude. You never know what will come of that. And maybe it will lead to a conversation full of spark and collaboration. The worst case is you told someone you admire that they've made an impact on you. Isn't that lovely. Jeremy has a great story about how reaching out to [00:15:00] one person on social media has led to a lifelong friendship.
[00:15:05] Literally one of my best friends. Now I had to call with her every week. We had it just before this, met her through Twitter last summer. And, uh, my partner Kelly and I, we went down to Mexico city for two months to hang out with her earlier this year, which is kind of crazy from a Twitter friendship. And, uh, potentially she's gonna come hang out in Portugal later this year.
[00:15:21] So it's like, Kind of crazy how, when you like follow this and we've talked about collaborations, we've done that few small things together, but nothing's ever like really come of that in a like business sense, except that we both talk about our businesses and help support each other every week when we talk.
[00:15:34] So there's, there's that as well, um, which is, is super valuable, uh, on that side. And so I think this is something that. For a lot of people who don't like the idea of marketing, like this is how I've met so many people who we've done collaborations that have resulted in, you know, big kinds of, of benefits when it comes to getting people onto my email list or signing up for workshops or, um, through courses sales or anything like that.
[00:15:56] Um, that there have been a lot of those relationships started out like this and, uh, [00:16:00] it's a really fun way to market. This could be us building our communities, building our networks and building new friends through simple daily actions of gratitude on our chosen social media platform. To recap, all you have to do is remember Jeremy's three CS.
[00:16:19] Consumption creation and connection. I hope you enjoyed this taste, which is merely a fraction of what is covered in our nearly 90 minute event of what Jeremy had to offer in his infinite wisdom. When it comes to building daily habits for podcast growth. My biggest takeaway is that Jeremy said we are all likely, already doing a lot of these things on our own.
[00:16:43] We just, aren't doing them in the smartest way possible. So rather than this being an entire overhaul of our marketing processes, we're just shifting how we're using our existing time. Think of tiny habits, equaling big, big results. As I mentioned, [00:17:00] Jeremy is putting on a totally free three day workshop covering these exact topics, going even deeper into habit building and the three CS.
[00:17:11] If you're wondering to yourself, how can I take these actions? What other daily and monthly habits did he mention? I really wanna grow my podcast. What is the most effective way? Then you need to sign up, go to the show notes. The link is there. I will be there. So you can wave to me. I will be learning alongside you.
[00:17:30] That's how good Jeremy is. Podcast educators want to learn from him. I hope you sign up and continue to grow your show. Not through big actions, but through those tiny daily steps, we can all take together. Save your spot now and sign up using the link in our show notes. Buy for now.
[00:17:48] That's all for today, pod broads. Thanks for listening, keep podcasting, and enjoy the ride.
[00:17:57] I know just how many [00:18:00] podcasts you could have been listening to, which is why I'm so grateful you decided to spend the last 20 minutes with me. Speaking of time, if you're a podcaster and you've ever wondered what else you could be doing with your week if you didn't have to edit, write show notes, and create marketing materials for every podcast episode, then let the lady pros at the wave treat you to some me time.
[00:18:23] Get 15% off your first month of a production package. By going to thewavepodcasting.com/podcast-editing-services and enter podcastlikeagirl, all one word lowercase at checkout. Now the only question is which podcast you're gonna spend all your new found time binging. See you back next week.
