Can You Actually Grow a Podcast Without Ads? (What 10 Days of Daily Episodes Taught Us)

[00:00:00] Hey everybody and welcome back to Content Is Profit. We meet again and today I bring you a very special episode. It's a little bit of a look behind the scenes as I was going through some of the stuff that we've been doing in the last few days. So I'm excited because we just started a passion project. If you haven't checked it out, go back to the previous episodes. Sorry about that. Go back to the previous episodes and check out.

[00:00:27] But we're basically running a daily podcast and it's not a business podcast. It is out of full passion about the sport, soccer or football, how we call it. So we've been running a daily podcast since the World Cup started as a way to, you know, get the show out. We've been talking for months to get it out, but also as a case study on the production side.

[00:00:50] So we've been doing 10 videos, sorry, daily video, which is the episode about 15 to 20 minutes. We do 10 clips and 7 graphics and with minimum team and a couple of tools that we have set up. So everything from start of the recording to finish distribution for all that, it takes us right now about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes.

[00:01:17] So rule of thumb for comparison for somebody that maybe haven't done something like this before is for every hour of production, you should account for four of post-production. So keep that in mind as we move forward. But today is not about the production. If you're interested in that, let me know. At the end of the day, at the end of like the month of the World Cup, we're going to share the SOP for this and for the process.

[00:01:45] We're also thinking about running a workshop to teach everybody how to do this thing. But so far, I want to share a little bit of the behind the scenes and the results that we got in because people are like, well, why should we do a daily podcast? Or how do we do this? And what's the purpose? Well, for us personally, I think is extreme curiosity and passion around the content that we're creating. There's a bigger project on the football side that I'll explain later. It's somewhat related to BizBros, but a little bit different.

[00:02:15] But at the same time, I've been sharing kind of how to do it because we get a lot of people in the studio that either they don't have the resources to hire a lot of production. So it's easy because like Luis, you just send the video to your editor and then they do it overnight. I'm like, well, it doesn't really work that way because not a lot of people are doing it. So we really wanted to run it ourselves and test different things.

[00:02:38] Right. And if you're not a business creator club, we go through six different phases like research of content, how to record it on the creation aspect, production, distribution, monetization and how you run this thing. So all of that is what we've been applying to this and we were going to build the thing. But the purpose of this episode is like once it is produced, once it's done, doesn't matter if you do once a day, you know, once a week, once a month, it's on the distribution aspect.

[00:03:07] We're like, how can we grow this as fast as possible with the least amount of money possible? And we're like, OK, that's an interesting take because, you know, for context, content and profit, the show that you're at right now, we have invested very, very little in ads in the 640 or 700 something episodes that have been published. Everything has been organic and we're extremely grateful, but it's also taken, you know, a few years to get to that point. And I think there's still a lot more, you know, room to grow and get better.

[00:03:36] And depending on the type of content that we create, not only interviews, but these solo episodes as well. So the experiment, I'm going to go through here through my notes. But, you know, I already told you a little bit of, you know, what we did, the system that we've created that we talked about it in the in the last episode. But very simple is I hit record on a tool called Descript. I do my talking head video and then we hit stop recording and then we go through a cloud agent that pulls out the references.

[00:04:05] We load images on those references, things that I mentioned, you know, for example, I talk about a soccer player. Then the soccer player is a reference. And then the agent itself edits inside of Descript, not only the main episode, but also the 10 clips. The accuracy is like 98 percent. It's like right there. It's almost good today that our main editor was like when he was doing the quality control. He's like, I think this is pretty solid. But I also want to share the numbers a little bit of behind the scenes. I was like, what is the point of doing all of this?

[00:04:35] And then kind of what surprised me and then answer the real question is like, can you grow actually a show like this without ads? You know, you hear all the major business creators or influencers or people. There's a lot of common, I guess, advice that says high volume post as much as possible. So that was the premise is like, OK, can we do 10 clips a day, you know, with seven graphics a day? What is the point? Well, the point is to test it out like we just because we can.

[00:05:03] But a lot of people don't think they have the luxury to do that. And then it's like, is that going to allow us to grow or can we try new growth strategies for this podcast specifically on YouTube that can help move the needle when it comes to this? And then what would be the benefit of that if we don't have a monetization strategy? A lot of people that we talk to, they really want to do the show. They might want to do something entertainment or even for the business. And if you have a business, you might have a clear idea.

[00:05:30] It's like, OK, yeah, I'm going to use it to get leads or to get my emails or to sell. Or like we're just talking about earlier how we've used content as profit in the past to develop a relationship with somebody that could become an opportunity down the line. On this specific case, we don't have a real solid plan for monetization apart from whatever opportunity comes through the relationships and maybe an audience. Right. So I'll share those numbers in just a second.

[00:05:57] So let me go here to my dashboard and I'm going to I'm not going to share screen, but I'm happy to share all of it. So in the last 28 days and keep in mind, we started this June 12th is the day that we started publishing the video. And right now it's just June 20, 24th. So about 12 days ish we've had we've published since almost a daily podcast. I think I missed two days, but for every daily podcast there.

[00:06:24] So let's say 10 podcast episodes, 15 to 20 minutes. And for every podcast, we have about 10 clips. So that's about 100 clips and a few graphics. But I don't think they really make a difference. But here's the thing as far as this is YouTube only. So views about 100, 100 K watch time about almost 400 hours and then subscribers. We've gained 2,500 subscribers.

[00:06:51] So on all the show, the channel itself is almost at 5,000 subscribers. It's called The Football Show by Break FC on YouTube if you want to check it out. But I think that's incredible, right? And that's just 12 days of decent effort. But if you want to make it in content, I think that's necessary. And research is nothing crazy. We're just telling our own opinion about the things that are happening and so on and so on.

[00:07:20] So, okay, Luis, what have you done to grow the views or the watch time or things like that? Well, there is one thing that we really wanted to test from the beginning. We've done this with Content Is Profit here and there. It's been very spotty, which is YouTube promotions. And, well, how much money are you investing in YouTube promotion to get to 5,000 subscribers and 100,000 views? The podcast itself, let me see here, analytics. The podcast itself, that playlist is about 12,000 downloads.

[00:07:50] It took us maybe a year, I think, to get to that in Contenous Profit organically, which is crazy. Actually, do I see consumption here? That would be interesting too. But anyways, we can dive in in Business Creator Club. We'll dive into this on Friday calls at 1230. And I'm happy to answer any questions there. So, businesscreator.club if you want to be a part of it. But as far as like what are we doing differently is, okay, we're distributing organically on YouTube. So, that's off the bat.

[00:08:19] We are optimizing our titles and our descriptions to things that are happening that are topical. So, that's why we need the speed. And then we are running YouTube promos. And here's the cool part about this thing. People think they have to invest thousands and thousands of dollars into promotions. And if you go, if you're ever on YouTube, you just go to your YouTube studio. And then on the left-hand side, just click content and then the promotion tab on the right-hand side.

[00:08:47] And then you can just click create a new promotion. It's very simple to set up. If you've never done it, it's going to walk you through how to initially start it. You need a Google Ads account. You can do it directly from YouTube studio. And then you can select a video and assign a budget to that video. What we found is we've been investing about $10 per video. So, that's like $100 total, right? It's like a dollar pays for a thousand views-ish on these main videos.

[00:09:14] And we've only promoted, except today, we've only promoted the main videos, like the 20-minute episodes, right? So, they vary, but on average, they get about 25,000 to 30,000 impressions. And then each video, I mean, depends on the topic, but we've had some with 2,000 views, 2,500 views.

[00:09:40] And then each video is bringing in anywhere between 300 to 400 new subscribers. Here's the thing. This is just 10 days worth of this, right? And this is just $10 worth of it. With $100 a video, what would that look like? With $1,000 a video, what would that look like? And I think it's a very exciting opportunity for channels like this to grow. It's like, well, Luis, these are just vanity metrics. And I get it. And I'm on that school. But here's what I've noticed.

[00:10:09] Like, let's say we want to bring professional players. Let's say we want to bring people of a big caliber into the channel, have conversations, so we can trigger opportunities, and we can trigger back show conversations. Well, I think this allows us to do that, right? It's almost like same channel. You come in, and the channel has 100 subscribers. And then you come in, and that same channel has 10,000 subscribers. The people are going to lean.

[00:10:38] We've seen it. People are going to lean towards the channel that has a little bit more subscribers. So that's our sole goal is, can we open doors by showcasing a channel that has 10,000 subscribers? Now, or more, by the way. This is going to continue to grow. But right now, it's been incredible. One example is I went with this channel, and I presented it to a big chain of franchises, soccer stores here in Florida where I live.

[00:11:06] I was like, hey, I'm interested in doing a partnership. I'm interested in maybe you guys can provide some equipment, some gift cards, some things for giveaways that we want to do with local academies for the soccer project that we're going to do. And it's like, hey, we have this YouTube channel that we just started. We're doing podcasting. I own a studio here in town, and the channel has 2,500 subscribers. This was before we started the World Cup content. And the manager was so stoked and excited that somebody with a small audience, I'm doing air

[00:11:35] quotations here, came to partner with them. And the immediate answer was, yes, let's do it. So I think this is an incredible tool for local creators, smaller creators, smaller podcasts, local podcasts in general, to open that door to the conversation to what we really want. Now, my relationship with that guy, now, it depends on me to maintain it. It depends on me to do something cool with it. But at the end of the day, it's going to pay off on the back end if we are smart about it.

[00:12:04] So I think that's the whole purpose of content like this, is opening those doors. So now with 5,000 subscribers, I can start having those conversations. And they can see growth. And they'll be like, they can introduce me to somebody else that I really need. We've reached out to level A people in that world specifically, like professional football players. And they've all said yes to come to the show after the World Cup. So if you have a business show, are you investing in something like this to grow? But we sometimes get so caught up in the organic way to grow.

[00:12:33] And I want to encourage everybody to start looking to things like this. Like we got caught up for years in the organic way to grow. So now we're like, okay, how can we now test these new paid where the possibilities are a little bit endless? Endless. That we have more possibility to promote the thing. And today is the first day that we actually put money behind one of the shorts, which each one of them is doing about 2,000 to 2,500 views, which is really cool to see on YouTube specifically.

[00:13:03] And keep in mind, we're publishing that volume in all the platforms, Instagram, TikTok. I think Facebook has them coming out too. And YouTube has been the one that we've seen the most growth. So we're like, okay, should we pick just one and go with that? We'll see. Now, let me go back to my notes. So just a quick recap. Like I said, more than 100,000 views in the last 12 days.

[00:13:33] About 400 watch hours, gain 2,500 subscribers and climbing. And this is just with a hundred bucks. A hundred bucks organically. Yeah. I mean, what are the indicators? Things that we should be looking at to get better. It's like, okay, what is the watch time? Like, are people actually watching the full episodes? Right? Are people actually, let me see if I can actually see that content. Are they watching throughout the whole thing?

[00:14:01] Are they, you know, I mean, we have here 45 people stay to watch. I mean, that was compared to 10% when we first started this. Right? Like, it's increasing. So what can we learn from this data? It's like, are people staying? Are people continue to watch those videos? And here's the cool part. Those subscribers are going to see your content every time that comes out. And now you're going to get more organic views. And that's what we've noticed. We don't run the ads right off the bat. We wait like one or two days to run the ad to the video.

[00:14:27] And what I've seen is like those initial downloads get higher every single time. It's because those subscribers that are new to your channel are going to continue to click on that and they're going to grow. So what I've seen this flop massively is when people invest maybe a higher amount of money and the marketing and then they decrease that marketing investment. And you see the dip. Right? So this is what we wanted to try with like very small amounts now.

[00:14:53] And then as we bring partners into the show, into the network, we can increase that. And I think this is a strategy that we're going to continue forever where it's like, okay, if the minimum that we put in is 10 bucks an episode, what can we do? And then you can have conversations with different partners where it's like, can we plug it? You know, can we plug the product in? Can we plug and mention it? And, you know, what is the budget that we're working on? It could be hundreds of dollars for smaller shows or it could be thousands of dollars for bigger shows. Cool. All right.

[00:15:23] Here to my notes. What are we at? We are at 15 minutes. Okay. So let's see. I don't want to leave you with like, okay, try, just try ads for the podcast. There's obviously organic ways that you can do this too. If you're like, Luis, I don't have 10 bucks or I don't really want to go through that. Okay. Well, I'll tell you the alternative, which is what we tried. And it has worked really well, by the way. It's just taking more time.

[00:15:54] So here's, oh, this is interesting. Okay. So, but I think we'll talk about this daily volume. It's like what cracked, what broke in the system. We can do that later. Okay. But we're, let's say on market, let's say in promotion side. So can you grow fast actually without, without the ads? Right. So you saw the numbers. I think like that's the fastest we've grown and I'm like, okay, well, can we put more money into it? Probably.

[00:16:22] Like maybe like you can always put more money into it, but it's like, what is the thing that we get out of it? Right. So just keep that in mind as far as, um, as far as like, okay, what's the purpose of this? Just for the sake of subscribers. I don't think that's a good play. Uh, just for the sake of views. I don't think that's a good play. That's why we've keep it like really, really based right now. Cause for that show, we have no idea, you know, what's going to come out of it. There's plenty of ideas of things that we really want to do, but can we fulfill on those? I don't know yet.

[00:16:50] So that's why we keep, okay, can we start growing it so that we get to a point where we can start getting actual feedback from the people watching the show. So we talked already about number way. Number one, which is the YouTube promotes apps. All right. A second one that has worked really well for us in content is profit is shout outs in cross promos, uh, and feed swaps with other podcasts. And this is completely free. This is just going to cost you your time and the relationship. So, um, the way that we've done that is we, we are part of a network and the way that

[00:17:20] the way, the way that we got into that network was through the network method. We brought them in and we had a conversation. We asked for the opportunity to be on the freaking network. And they said, yes, but you can do this with platforms like pod match, for example, where you can, excuse me, connect with other creators, or you can reach out to people online and send them the videos, be authentic, right? I don't do the, the cold pitch of these emails that we all receive all the time. Do the opposite. Be yourself.

[00:17:47] I will even try to find the phone call or a previous guest that you had, or a previous partner and be like, Hey, um, can you give me a phone number as this person? And give them a phone call. Not a lot of people do that. So, um, you know, this will pay with, with time, but it will borrow, uh, your, your trust. Like, um, some of the ones that we've been showcasing has been like Jenna Kutcher. Uh, we've been on, uh, we've been, uh, on my first million. They've been promoting our show as well. And every time something like that happens, like downloads and new subscribers into the

[00:18:16] audio side, uh, has been great. Now we're switching from the football show to content is profit. So that has been like really positive. So it's like, is there a way that we can find a show that we can exchange episodes, exchange interviews, exchange intros where they do an intro and I do their intro where, you know, we do shout outs. It doesn't necessarily have to be an ad read. Here's where being creative is going to pay off. Right. Um, obviously network promos. We talk about that as a third one.

[00:18:44] So if you have the opportunity to find a network that aligns with your message, with your customers, um, this might not be like an official network, but can it be a mastermind group that you guys all exchange things like that? And then you rotate it, you exchange the episodes. Um, number one here is like buy, like build a relationship. Like a lot of people, um, that we've seen, uh, tackle this as a, just as transaction, but

[00:19:09] it's like, can you build good relationships, uh, with platforms or networks or, or people that can help you or help each other promote your shows, um, on podcasting specifically, uh, news newsletter placements. So usually podcast listeners are also newsletter subscribers. So I would probably do an internal research on your own shows. Like how are people finding your show? What is that other type of content that they consume?

[00:19:37] Uh, we had a customer once that previously before launching a book, she decided to go and do a survey to see how people found their show or how people found, you know, uh, consume what other things they consume. And they gave us a list of authors. They gave us a list of podcasts. They gave us a list of YouTube channels that they consume that then we can go reach out and be like, Hey, is there a way that we can do a promotion swap where you come, we do an interview, we build that relationship and then we do the ask and it worked really well.

[00:20:06] So what are, what is your audience consuming right now that because of their consuming, somebody else is consuming that, that might, they might also be your audience. Um, and then this is a hack I think is live events. If you have the possibility to go to live events, if you speak at live events, uh, this is where you plug in your show. Every time we go to a live event, we have a forefront. Hey, we're the hosts because of content is profit.

[00:20:32] Um, a lot of, we see an increase in traffic organically just because of that, right? We have it in the slides. It's almost like part of our, of our brand, right? So it's, here's the thing, all those things, all those organic hacks that you're going to go and look on Google or ask chat GPT or Claude, they work, they work really well. And, uh, but you're going to pay for them with your time, your intention. And, uh, you know, if you have your hands in multiple things, um, and you might not be able to hire somebody or if you hire somebody, but they're not good at it, like there's going

[00:21:01] to be, um, it's going to take time, which is fine. And, you know, for us, it was fine. Like it worked. Uh, but for some people, they rather pay and, and have it a little bit faster. So I gave you a couple of paths. Uh, what have you tried? I would love to hear from you to see like, what are the things that you're doing to promote not only your show, but maybe your YouTube channel would love to test that out. I'm going to continue with the football show as a case study, and then we're going to publish it on the production side and also on the promotion side.

[00:21:30] But, um, I think that, you know, what are some creative things that we can do to the content? Um, the content is also product. And I think that's something that we, that we mentioned here in the studio quite often is like, how can you promote the content as well? I don't forget that the content, yes, is promoting an idea for them to, you know, go to the next stage if you have a business, but also we have to promote the content. So it's like, how do we put it in front of those people?

[00:21:56] Um, where are the pockets of people that we can put the sign and be like, Hey, here is my show. Here's my message. Um, and those pockets of people can be online communities, Facebook groups, uh, school groups, circle groups. Um, they could be newsletters. They could be other shows. I was like, how can we make it happen where, so we can show up there, make a good impression and then bring them into our show. That could be guesting, for example. Yeah. We didn't mention guests and you can go on other shows, um, as well. So anyways, there's a lot of ideas.

[00:22:24] I just wanted to kind of grab what I was thinking and put it out there as I was looking at this data and, uh, maybe encourage you to, to try something new like we did for the football show. So I'll keep you posted on how that goes. Uh, in the meantime, be subscribed to the club. You can join there. And every Friday at 1230 Eastern, uh, we have open Q and A where we talk about this and we break everything down. So happy to see you. And thank you for coming and hanging out with me today. I'll see you on the next episode. Take care.