How to Market a Podcast
Growing an industry-leading podcast does not have to be hard. You do not need to hard sell or have millions of followers. How? Simply listen to this episode as I chat with Josh Tapp, host of one of the top 50 marketing and entrepreneurship podcasts The Lucky Titan. He shares the Pantheon method for scaling and growing a podcast using a self-funded marketing system.
Josh Tapp is the host of the Apple Podcasts top-ranking show The Lucky Titan, and founder of Pantheon.FM, company that has helped over 1,000 entrepreneurs launch, monetize, and scale their own industry-learning podcast.
Josh not only breaks down the 3-step Pantheon Method but discusses generating leads non-stop using the method, as well as what you can do to grow your audience in 2023.
The key moments in this episode are:
[00:00:00] – Introduction,
[00:01:42] – The Story Behind the Pantheon Method,
[00:05:35] – The Pantheon Method Explained,
[00:08:58] – The Importance of Marketing,
[00:10:49] – Focus on Strengths,
[00:11:52] – The Importance of Business Partners,
[00:15:15] – Podcasting as a Tool for Audience Growth,
[00:19:55] – YouTube’s Discoverability Engine,
[00:22:08] – Investing in Marketing,
[00:23:37] – Sponsors and Monetization,
[00:24:24] – The Simplicity of Business,
[00:25:44] – Bootstrapping Correctly,
[00:28:02] – Stop Trying to Do It the Freeway,
[00:29:27] – Building the Right Connections,
[00:31:09] – Final Thoughts
Josh’s Pantheon Method
- Back during his college years, Josh was running a Facebook ads agency that did so well in generating leads for their biggest client that…they got fired by them because they didn’t need the agency anymore!
- While attending a mastermind, one of the participants suggested Josh started a podcast.
- Fast-forward to today: Josh’s show The Lucky Titan has been featured on Apple Podcasts’ Top 10 charts several times, it has generated millions of dollars in revenue and has helped over a thousand people.
- The inspiration for the so-called Pantheon Method came when Josh decided to take what the mastermind participant taught him and asked himself “How do I leverage a platform to create an ecosystem of referrals for myself so that consistent leads flow in my company?”
- The goal of the method, which is a 3-step flywheel, is to avoid feast and famine moments like Josh experienced with his Facebook ads agency.
- The first step of the Patheon Method flywheel is money. You need money, Josh recommends $5,000-$10K. Take half of it and live off of it.
- Next, take step two: reinvest half of the money that’s left.
- And, finally, reinvest it into growth.
- If you invest in the growth of a platform that’s generating you consistent leads and referrals, you can monetize that audience and make more money, which you can ultimately put back in the reinvestment cycle to grow your platform further.
The Importance of Lead Generation
- One of the challenges with marketing is that you can grow too fast – something that Josh has done four times. And it isn’t fun.
- Josh believes in steady and consistent growth.
- Generating leads is key because, as Josh puts it,
“Many people forget that 90% of your business is actually marketing. Sales fulfillment is only about 10% of what you do as a company. If you don’t have consistent leads coming in, your company will fall.”
- Josh has found that most entrepreneurs fall into one of two categories: they’re either really good marketers and suck at fulfillment or they spend most of their time in fulfillment and never get good at marketing, so they eventually die…
The Thing About Community-Building
- After having interviewed over 1,500 people (many of which runs companies that generate $100M+), Josh has noticed that the #1 thing that helps scale a company is generating an audience.
- When it comes to community-building, Josh has found that podcasting is one of the fastest and most intimate ways to make that happen.
- One of the main reasons for that is that podcasting is the only form of media people can consume while doing something else.
- For Josh, thinking of a podcast as a marketing channel is one of the biggest obstacles in growing an audience. They think in channels, or silos – a website, a podcast, a YouTube channel, a blog… all separate from one another.
- He recommends hosting a show that can be repurposed on different platforms, also because different people prefer to consume content in different ways.
Tips for Growing an Audience in 2023
- Big one for you: social media does NOT grow an audience for you. Social media channels help maintain and ascend your existing audience.
- In the past, Josh has been able to hit the top 1% as a show by relying on the syndication model. He and his team pulled together a bunch of shows that target the same audience, ran ads, and cross-referenced each other to hack podcast discoverability.
- YouTube recently launched a podcasting platform, which is currently beating out Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all the other giants in the podcasting space.
- One of the keys is the fact that, unlike what happens in podcasting (where growth is linked to the number of subscribers), YouTube’s discoverability engine isn’t connected to how many subscribers your channel has but it focuses on other factors.
- Josh and his team helped one of their clients launch a show in one of the most competitive spaces: the financial sector. They spent $1,500 in ads to direct people toward the YouTube channel. That led to 400 subscribers and about 120,000 views.
- After that, they ran another $50/day retargeting ad campaign with an offer to those 400 subscribers. It generated 6 sales at $35,000 a sale!
- The key is to focus on mastering one platform, then take part of the income generated with it to fund the next platform you focus on. Rinse and repeat.
The Truth About Running a Business
- For Josh, running a business isn’t that hard because there are just three parts to it: marketing, sales, and operations.
- Most people make the mistake of starting by focusing on operations. What you should do instead, is to start with marketing, then you need to sell. And only then you build the product. It’s that simple.
- After finishing his MBA last year, Josh feels as if we often overcomplicate things.
- Josh suggests to stop doing everything the free way because it’s going to take a lot of your time. He ended up spending close to $300,000 doing things the freeway and wished someone told him to invest $5,000 in hiring the best agency to help him jumpstart things
About Josh
Host of the Apple Itunes Top 50 Marketing and Entrepreneurship Podcast, The Lucky Titan, Josh has worked with over 1500 of the world’s top entrepreneurs discovering their most coveted business success secrets and sharing them with the world. His company, Pantheon.FM, has helped over 750 entrepreneurs (and counting) to launch, monetize, and scale their own industry leading podcasts.
Leveraging the Pantheon Method (Josh’s proprietary method for scaling industry leading podcasts) he founded multiple 7 figure businesses and has spoken in front of nearly 500,000 entrepreneurs worldwide.
Resources mentioned:
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