According to Listen Notes, the Dear Bri Podcast, with just 12 episodes and launched to an email list of 600 people, is in the top 5% with 184 average downloads per episode. While I embraced this podcast launch with an other-worldly confidence and certainty, even I was shocked by this success.
Here’s how we did it.
The Context
Dear Bri was the third podcast I created. I can say with absolute confidence that Dear Bri wouldn’t have been the success it was without those first drafts to help me learn:
the types of discussions I love to facilitate
how to align format, packaging, and channels
exactly what it takes to make it great
I learn by doing, and those early drafts gave me the freedom to date around before finding the one I wanted to marry. But I was also didn’t marry my high school sweet heart. If you’re gonna create a shitty first draft, learn from it and evolve. Don’t just keep doing the same thing over and over again in the name of consistency (or commitment).
Takeaway: This overnight success was four years in the making.
Now, let me tell you about how the stars aligned for this crazy story.
The Right Message
One of the greatest lessons I learned from creating my Community Dissection series is that if I’m not STOKED to listen to my own episode about 2-3 times, then probably no one else is going to care.
The Community Dissection series is a tremendously valuable library of content, but the loose, organic, and video-centric nature of the show just didn’t align well to create a compelling package. I wasn’t excited to watch those episodes which meant I certainly wasn’t excited to market them effectively.
After binging Normal Gossip on a bumpy dirt road through the Costa Rican countryside, the idea to adapt the concept for community strategy under the guise of juicy community fiascos struck.
I grabbed on and refused to let go.
Everything coming next hinged on this first: a brilliant idea I would move heaven and earth to bring to life.
Takeaway: If you aren’t excited to binge your own podcast, no one else will be either.
About halfway into the podcast, I consciously put together what my body already knew from the beginning: alignment.
✅ I was creating from a place of Daring and Joy (honestly, MANY of our episodes made me nervous, I had summon my courage)
✅ I positioned myself as the support, not the savior (I don’t have to have all the answers, but I’ll bring someone on who knows what it’s like)
✅ sharing wisdom through storytelling (the best way I like to reach people)
I’ll never forget this voice note from Murtaza Bambot. He said: “You’re like a bright light that goes into the most chaotic community spaces and creates calm.”
Finding a message that aligns fully with the work you want to gift to the world is an art. I don’t always get it right, but I’m so glad I listened.
The Right Business Strategy
Without the strong foundation of a format and message I was amped to bring to life, I certainly would have half-assed it, done my own editing, and settled for what I see commonly in the podcast world: the “slow and steady” mindset.
It’s commonly accepted that you don’t see much return on investment with podcasts until after around 50 episodes. There’s this unspoken rule that unless you’re willing to commit to 200 episodes, don’t even do it.
I refused to accept this as a rule and decided to do it my way.
First, I don’t have enough focus to do anything for 200 episodes - I’ll get bored, you’ll get bored, what a stupid rule.
Second , the purpose of this podcast is to serve my business. I can’t have folks thinking they can just binge my podcast for weeks on end instead of signing up for my community. The podcast as a whole has to be a binge-worthy BANGER and then it has to come to a hard stop so they come in to work with me.
I decided we were going to do it right and knock it out of the park immediately, or I wasn’t going to do it at all.
Takeaway: You can change the rules.
The Right Team
Alright, so at this point, we have a brilliant idea I’m stoked on and it has to crush.
Now, I have 2 options:
1) become a masterful podcast editor and producer myself, or 2) hire someone.
I decided on the latter.
I did my research and turns out, like most things, you can pay as much as you want to pay for a podcast producer! After a few calls I had an idea of a relative, reasonable budget.
I decided to work with Rosa Sarmento and her team over at Idea Blossoms because she had a clear, proven process at an accessible price point and I really felt her energy and excitement for the podcast. I knew she thought it could be something incredible.
I hire people like how I want folks to hire me. I want you to hire me because you’re building something spectacular, I see that, so I’m going to do everything I can to make it extremely successful because I like having my name attached to something spectacular.
I told her this upfront. I said something like: “Rosa, I want you to be my partner because I want this podcast to blow up and bring in a ton of business for you.”
Holy quacamole was that the best call ever.
I also knew that guest selection was going to be critical for each episode.
At the beginning it was a bigger part of my strategy to seek out well-known names and faces that could provide visibility to their episode. Over time, I realized it was more important that the guest was able to speak to the issue in their letter in a compelling way. If they have a big name or a big audience to tap into, that’s great, but it can’t compromise the quality of the episode and our rapport together.
Takeaway: Hire the person who believes in your vision and benefits when you win.
Ideablossoms: the right partner for your binge-worthy podcast.
At Ideablossoms, Rosa helps subject-matter experts and small business owners launch, manage, and grow their podcasts. With services like done-for you podcast launch (10/10 recommend!), podcast launch marketing plan, audio editing, podcast production, podcast management, guest management, and content repurposing, your binge-worthy podcast is in good hands. → To get started, book a call here.
And tell her Bri sent you!
The Right Sponsor
Okay, so we’ve decided:
✅ the idea is brilliant
✅ it’s a banger
✅ I’m only doing it if I can hire Rosa, so now?
I need a sponsor to pay for my producer.
There’s another unwritten rule that you can’t get a sponsor until your podcast is bringing in some serious results. I decided to throw that one out, too.
For a community strategist, partnerships with community platforms is an easy match made in heaven.
While I’ve developed relationships with several platforms over the years, Heartbeat was my #1 choice.
And after a proper presentation and proposal, they agreed to sign on as the Season 1 Platinum Sponsor.
What you have to understand is I’ve partnered with Heartbeat (also the all-in-one community platform I chose to host my community on) in a variety of ways over the years. They brought me in to kickstart their customer community and I’ve frequently hosted workshops with them.
This sponsorship was built on a foundation of trust that was built over the course of years. And truly, I hit the jackpot. Most partnerships feel like this: you do this for me, we’ll do this for you.
Murtaza’s approach has always been (and Dear Bri was no exception): how can we make you extremely successful? Here’s 3 ideas I have. WOW. Freaking wow.
Takeaway: Find yourself a partnership who want to make you successful and do everything you can to make them successful.
This season of Dear Bri was sponsored by our friends at Heartbeat.
Heartbeat is an all-in-one community platform and it’s the one I chose to host my own community. Your members can finally have events, conversation, content and courses in one distraction-free, intimate, customized place.
I’m an affiliate with Heartbeat which means when you sign up through my link, I get paid a small amount at no extra charge to you. Thank you for supporting my work in that way.
The Right Launch Strategy
Along with podcast production, Heartbeat covered the cost for Rosa to develop a podcast launch plan that included messaging and deadlines for me and my team to push out.
Core to our strategy was:
My small but mighty email list of 600 people (and my sponsor’s email list)
LinkedIn posts + newsletters
The Hype Squad
I create incredible, compelling, and meticulous launch plan for others all the time.
But when it comes time to do my own? F*ck that noise. Rosa added this package option on a whim and I’m so glad she did.
All I had to do was review messaging and pass content along to my executive assistant Linah for scheduling. AND EVEN THAT FELT HARD! 😂 I’m a princess.
I can only imagine what a tragedy it would have been if the launch plan had been on my plate. And people noticed.
The Results
You already know we are in the top 5% of podcasts.
Within 48 hours of launch, we hit 1k downloads.
In the first week of the launch, according to Ausha, we made it in the top 100 in The US, Canada, and France, (at one point being #28 in the US). We ranked in the top 3 for important keywords like Community Strategy and Community Strategy Podcast.
LinkedIn performed less than expected.
At the beginning of the year, I brought in a fabulous LinkedIn strategy coach to help me create a funnel and refine my content strategy for LinkedIn. While my LinkedIn audience and results have steadily grown, LinkedIn’s decrease in engagement across the board in 2024 is tough to ignore and we definitely felt it with the podcast.
YouTube performed better than expected.
Really we packaged the distribution more for LinkedIn and then threw it on YouTube as an afterthought. But 7,000 views later, you don’t need to tell us twice that it’s time to make season 2 a YouTube first podcast.
The Impact
A podcast is a slippery thing to track in terms of ROI. It exists as one part of a greater ecosystem, so it can be difficult to judge.
But unequivocally, it has boosted my business. Here’s how:
Direct business: I’ve had 1 person sign on as a client directly from the podcast. Excited for this to grow, but that direct cash flow ain’t nothing!
Nurturing + Visibility: I tend to overlook the value of this stage in my funnel, but WOW have I felt the impact since launching the podcast. Before the podcast, getting ghosted after a discovery call was a regular occurrence. Now, when folks get on my calendar, they feel like they are already in a safe, trusting relationship with me. Almost every call I’m on references the podcast or I pass along an episode to help nurture their curiosity. I even had one person (who became a client) reference my podcast to me not knowing that it was my podcast 💀
Audience Growth: Again, hard to know for certain, but a few key metrics tell me we’re moving in the right direction. First, being in the top 3 for our critical keywords tells me we’re getting in front of new eyes. Second, we can see a direct correlation between Dear Bri episodes and YouTube views and subscriber count increase. YouTube is an incredibly difficult channel to get traction on and master, but these early results have me jazzed about what we can do here next.
I asked Rosa how common it was for folks to get into the top 5%. Because I have no clue! Is this normal??
She said: “in my experience, VERY rare. This usually only happens this quickly if you already have a pretty big and engaged audience on other platforms. Most of our clients only saw that kind of result after about 30-50 episodes.”
Now I understand why, when I pitched Seth Godin to be a guest on Season 1, he told me he’d consider it once I have 50 episodes under my belt. (I bet I can barter him down to 12, what do you think??)
While we did have access to Heartbeat’s customer email list, my own Ember email list only had about 600 folks at the time.
My main theory on how we got this much traction in so little time with such a small audience was the Hype Squad.
I go into a lot of depth on what we did with the Hype Squad and in this article on how to leverage niche communities to grow your business. TLDR: if you don’t have a big audience, start creating value today in niche communities where your ideal clients and customers are already gathering.
I’ve been absolutely delighted to bring season 1 of Dear Bri into the world and it truly wouldn’t have been possible without the folks who believed in me. Thank you Murtaza, Rosa, Linah, podcast guests, folks on the Hype Squad, and all of our listeners who supported in ways big and small.
Your belief in me and support in making the community spaces feel a little less lonely and and a lot less crazy means the world to me.
Be the first to hear about Season 2 when you join the email list below.
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