MYP - How to Launch a Podcast

In this episode, Hector shares the blueprint for launching a podcast. Ready to launch one? Make it exceptionally good & listen to the 3 key steps you’ll need to take in launching a podcast that drives activity, attention, and a whole lot of love. 

Topics Covered 

• 2:49 - First Step; record at least 10 episodes before the launch. 
• 3:50 - Reasons why recording dropping 5 episodes is important. 
• 7:24 - Second Step; get 100 advanced listeners. 
• 8:46 - How advanced listeners trigger an algorithm that you’ll need. 
• 9:43 - Third Step; connect actively with people. 
• 10:28 - How to efficiently connect. 

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M Y P fam what's going on.

My name is Hector Sanon and I am your host and I get way too geeked up about

creating amazing podcasts that can fuel your lifestyle and your business.

. I've been producing and promoting podcasts for over half a decade now.

And this show is to help you learn all the things that do and do not

work when it comes to marketing and monetizing your podcast.

And on today's episode, we're gonna talk about how to relaunch a podcast,

or we're gonna talk about how to launch a podcast, or maybe you're gonna

launch a new season, or you just want to get some boosts in your downloads.

We're gonna talk about what you can do to get your show.

Maybe on the charts, maybe see a little increase in your audience.

And obviously get some momentum behind your show.

And this episode came up because I was actually talking with a

few new prospects and some, some new clients that are coming on.

And one of the things that we do is help clients get their show off the ground.

And so a lot of people, they have an idea, they have a message, they

have this general concept of a show, but then putting all of the pieces

together is a little bit of a challenge.

And so what we really help people do is to know what are all the

things that need to get done?

What are all the things that need to get created?

And then obviously, go out there and get them done as well.

and so I wrote a LinkedIn post and a few tweets about this that

seemed to resonate with people.

And

so I'm gonna give you the three part blueprint to launch a successful podcast.

And the first part is to have 10 episodes recorded before you launch.

The second thing to do is to have a hundred pre listeners, a hundred

listeners, ready to listen at drop

and the third is to connect with at least a thousand people in your community.

So we're gonna get into each of these numbers, but it's pretty simple.

Have 10 episodes, A hundred advanced listeners and connecting with a

thousand people in your audience.

So I think it kind of goes without saying, but a lot of people.

Miss this.

And I mean, I think the average podcast lasts what seven, eight

episodes, something like that.

And I think that happens because a lot of people don't anticipate the work

that comes with sustaining a show.

It's a lot, and it's a grind to put out a show week after week after week.

And so that's why we always encourage people to get help because it can really.

People to focus on what the things that they actually love to do,

which is oftentimes being the host, connecting with guests, working

on, you know, creating an impact.

And so if you have a little bit of a plan, obviously what it's gonna do is it's

gonna increase your chance of success.

But what it's also gonna do is it's gonna give you a runway, ? It's

gonna give you a timeline on which you can expect things to.

That's I think is the biggest thing is a lot of people don't

realize how long or short it takes to actually put a show together.

But our first recommendation is to have at least 10 episodes recorded

before you either launch the podcast before you relaunch a podcast or

before you relaunch a new season.

And the reason that we recommend 10 is specifically if you're

launching a podcast, we like to drop five episodes at launch.

And so on the first day that.

Well, let's back up.

You might put out a trailer early on , just to get your show up on apple or

Spotify, and to have your feed up there.

And that allows you to be able to drop your episodes , as soon as you want,

but on your official launch day, we like, we really like to drop at least

five episodes, because what it does is it allows the listener to really binge

if they want to, if they want to go and.

You know, five hours listening to it or spending the whole weekend.

We like to launch podcasts on Fridays and drop five episodes that Friday.

And over the weekend, it'll give people time to actually go through

and listen to all of those episodes.

Now, what that does is that does a couple of things.

The first thing that it does is it creates a little bit of

a habit for your listeners.

And so , you're gonna want to give them enough content to sink their teeth into so

they can get excited about what's coming next . So they can maybe start to see some

value, some benefit, and you can really start to establish your podcast as one

of the shows that they'll come back to.

Now, the second reason that it's really helpful to release five episodes

on that Friday is that it starts to trigger some things in the algorithm.

If you can release enough episodes and you can get enough people

doing enough stuff on your app.

What that does is that starts to trigger you in the charts.

And there have been some things that have been put out recently about

the validity of charts and whether or not they're actually important.

And I'm not here to debate that that's its own episode entirely,

but the benefit of putting out.

A host of episodes or dropping five episodes on that first day

is that it gives you a much better chance of ranking on the charts.

And so the next thing that we'll do just to kind of give you the

schedule is the next part of it is we will release the next five episodes

one a day for the next five days.

Right?

Well, starting on Monday, we give them the weekend to listen.

And then on Monday we'll release episode.

On Tuesday episode 7, 8, 9, and 10.

So over the first really week or so, you know, calendar week, there's

10 episodes that are released.

And what this does is it really amplifies everything that I talked about.

It gives listeners enough to really binge and sink their teeth into.

Right.

My wife and I recently started watching a show on Netflix.

And I imagine that it came from a network first because it's kind

of an older show that we found and stumbled on, but it is 22 episodes.

There's 22 episodes there.

And I was shocked because we got through.

The first time we found it, we watched like five in a row.

We were on, um, kind of like a mini staycation vacation.

We were in a hotel room with nothing to do for a few hours.

And so we just binged out on these episodes and only to realize that we

were five episodes in thinking that we were like almost done and there was.

17 more to go.

Now here's the added benefit of that, right?

From the, you know, from, from the creator side, we are still watching that show.

We're now 16, 17 episodes in something like that.

We're working our way to the, end of this first season.

But even that, after that, there's another.

40 episodes.

There's another two seasons.

After that, my point in saying that is that when you give them

enough to sink their teeth into, at the beginning, you have a much

better chance of sticking around.

If they only have one episode to listen to, and then you're gonna expect them to

come back the next week to listen to it.

Well, maybe they do, maybe they don't, but even if they do, they've

only now listened to two episodes and that's not nearly enough for

them to be able to create that habit.

It.

Now after we release those 10 episodes, that's when we'll go to a regular

schedule, whether that's one, a week, two a week, you know, we think that

three is probably the, unless you're doing a short daily podcast, three,

you know, you can kind of play with that, but after those first 10,

then we'll move towards our regular.

Now the best way to do these is obviously to batch record them.

And you can do that over periods of time where, you know, you record a couple

every week and kind of stockpile them.

That's one way to do it.

We like to batch them, put them all in one day, especially if they're

interviews or recordings, right.

And you're gonna, you know, kind of knock them out.

You can record two or three in a day and still have a lot of energy and a,

you know, and make it a great interview.

So those are a couple of ways to get.

Now the second part of the plan is to get a hundred advanced listeners.

And these are people that are often gonna be friends, family,

coworkers, connections, people that you're already connected

with that you can ask in advance.

Hey, we're releasing a new show.

I'm releasing a new show.

I'm releasing a new podcast.

, I'm releasing a new season, whatever it is.

On this date, we're trying to get this many downloads or we're trying

to get into the ranking for this.

And we could use some help.

Would you be willing to listen to an episode or two

if you had the time, something like that.

Right.

You know, I'm just kind of riffing here, but that's what we would say.

And we'd send that out.

And obviously if you're gonna get a hundred advanced listeners, you're

probably gonna have to send it out to more than a hundred people.

Here's the good news.

You've got more than a hundred people in your.

Oftentimes you have more than a hundred people in your phone book, you have

a hundred people in your Facebook friends list, your Instagram followers,

your, your, your LinkedIn connections.

I mean, chances are, you are connected either in real life or online with that

with well, more than a hundred people.

So awesome.

You're you just have to reach out and ask them now.

How much do you want to succeed?

How much do you want your show to succeed?

How, how, like, that's, that's what we're talking about here now in your

head, you're probably asking what does it matter if my mom listens?

What does it matter?

If whatever?

Well, for sure.

What, what does it matter if your mom listens?

I don't know.

Hopefully you're making a show that people can get some value out of, and maybe your

mom can get some value outta the show.

But frankly, if my mom listened to this show, she probably wouldn't

get a whole lot of value out of it.

But to that.

What that's gonna do is it's gonna get you some downloads, but more than

anything, it's gonna trigger in the algorithm that you're a show that is

legitimate Spotify and apple, and all of these apps they're looking to see which

shows are getting the most activity.

And then they're going to use that data to be able to know which

shows are worth recommending.

And right now the machines are not smart enough to know whether

or not it is your mom or not.

All it sees is a download and lets it know that this is probably a good show.

Now, is that going to make your show successful in the long term?

Absolutely not.

Which is why we have part three of the blueprint, but.

if you do these in conjunction, right?

You've got your 10 episodes, you get a hundred advanced listeners.

There's actually a really good chance that you're gonna get into the rankings

and you can actually pro and you can try and leverage that into getting more

downloads because the last part of it is connecting with a thousand people.

In your audience,?

A thousand ideal listeners.

And you can do this a variety of ways, but the easiest way is probably

gonna be through social media somehow, you know, some way online, whether

that's through Twitter or TikTok or Instagram or however you can connect.

But we, I mentioned those ones.

LinkedIn is even another great one.

Any of these places where you can actively go out and connect with people, Facebook.

Those are, are great platforms for you to be able to connect with people.

And what you do is you just start connecting you comment, you like,

you know, you can go and join groups.

You can comment on videos.

All of these people are starving for connection.

And so if you can create a real genuine connection with someone in your niche, in

your audience, in your ideal listeners, then you're going to some of them,

not all a thousand of them, but some of them are gonna trickle into your.

You can set it up the right way.

We have a breadcrumb method that we recommend of getting people to your show.

Right.

And that's probably, you can go back and look at some of the episodes on that,

but if you're just getting started, you're brand new, you're going to have

to go out and connect with these people.

They are not going to come to you.

And so, like I said, comment on.

On their tweets on their posts, reply to their tweets comment on

their posts, reply to their videos

and make real genuine connections.

And the ones that reach back out, the ones that express in interest really

go deep with those ones really take advantage and, and not in a negative

way, but, but take advantage of the opportunity to connect with these

people . In your potential audience while you can, while the numbers are

smaller, so you can learn what they want.

You can learn what they need.

You can learn what they're interested in, what they're challenged by.

All of these things are really, really important.

So hopefully this, this three step blueprint, this three part blueprint

gives you a, a simple process to know how to drive some activity to

your show, and when you do this, you're gonna see some activity.

You're gonna see a bump in your download.

You're gonna see it go up.

And the good news is, is that you can replicate this

process over and over again.

. Are you going to constantly have to be messaging your mom and your

friends and your coworkers to listen to your podcast all the time?

No, you probably should.

Not only have to do that one time.

If you do part three the right way.

And if you continue to do part three, so I'd love to know if this makes sense.

I'd love to know where the holes are, cuz this is just, I.

Kind of spitballed this after jotting down some notes and writing and, you know,

first I wrote a post on LinkedIn that seemed to really resonate with people.

Then, uh, I kind of went through a little bit deeper and put some thoughts to paper.

And now we are getting this episode here that, uh, hopefully you are

able to stick with me through.

So if you have any questions, come find me on a Twitter, Hector underscore podcast.

If you guys need help with your podcast, check out amplify media.com.

All the links will be in the show notes.

And if there's someone else who needs help with their show would love for you

to send them this one and see if we can help have a great and wonderful day.

And thanks as always for being part of the NYP fam.