Hey, everyone.

I'm Todd Cochran, CEO and founder at Blueberry.

And I'm Mackenzie Bennett, marketing specialist here at Blueberry.

Welcome to Podcast Insider.

So today, we're gonna talk about something that a lot of podcasters probably overlook until they feel stuck.

In other words, AKA, the show's not growing.

They want it to grow, and that would be your marketing budget.

Yeah.

Definitely.

So whether you've got just a few dollars to spare or you're ready to invest more, today, we're gonna talk you how to set up a smart and realistic marketing budget without wasting your money or sanity.

You're listening to Podcast Insider hosted by Mike Dell, Todd Cochran, and Mackenzie Bennett from the Blueberry team, bringing you weekly insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks to help you start, grow, and thrive through podcasting, all with the support of your team here at Blueberry Podcasting.

Welcome.

Let's dive in.

I played a lot of things over the years and, some stuff has worked, some stuff hasn't, some stuff is you know, it all depends.

But the beauty about this is is many of us are independent content creators and you don't need a big team or really huge budget to market your show.

You just need the right plan.

So today, we're gonna divide into two paths.

One for podcasters who are already publishing and another for those of you who are still in the planning or prelaunch phase.

And, I think this will be good for for both groups.

I think let's start with the the folks that are already lit and live and have their show launched.

Yeah.

We assume a lot of listeners are already launched.

So we're gonna start out with that.

And number one on the list is start with a monthly budget that works for you.

Realistically, what can you afford?

You know, this is this is not exactly something you want to, stretch on a regular basis.

So, realistically, what can you commit to doing each month?

Because it's not necessarily something that you're gonna do one or two months a year.

This is something that you need to be doing constantly.

So we suggest maybe 10 to $25 for social media posts or doing, like, a promo swap, you know, maybe 25 to a 100 for boosted content, doing ads with, podcast directory apps such as Overcast or doing something with email.

And the $100 plus is getting into more like a VA, you know, a virtual assistant, some type of contract work that you're paying someone to help with the shows, a social media manager, something like that.

And in my case, always clear it with the boss.

And if you have a boss in your life, you know what I'm talking about, you know, go over the budget on what you want to spend, because there was a few times I spent, more money than I should, and I I got in a little bit of trouble.

So, yeah.

So, you know, just, you know, just experiment and and don't go crazy as it you can really go crazy if you want to.

There's a, you know they they always try to get more money out of you in these systems when you're when you're running ads and so forth.

But, again, I think it's important, to remember that we've got all kinds of tools for you to use that can will help with some of this as well within the platform.

So if you're especially if you're using Pie, we've got some social media tools that help you create some of the stuff that you may want to, promote.

Of course, we got a lot of great partners like Headliner and so forth as well.

But I think it's important to set those goals for each quarter.

You know, your spending should support really a measurable goal or like they call in corporate world, a KPI.

And, maybe it's growing a newsletter.

Maybe it's driving views to the website.

Maybe it's purely trying to get more downloads or, increasing social reach.

And all these are quite measurable because before you start, all you gotta do is you take the, you know, put in a spreadsheet or in a notebook.

Just say, okay.

I've got 500 in the newsletter.

I'm getting about, you know, 600 downloads.

I've got so many people on x and Facebook and wherever you may hang out with your tribe.

And then you spend a little money.

You can watch that growth over time and see how how it's how it does.

Now some of that will be natural, so you wanna take into account the previous natural growth that you've had and see, you know, that's been in a 3% or 5% or whatever that number is growth month to month.

And if you all of a sudden you achieve 20%, you know, you spent your money well.

I'm a really big fan of doing things by quarter, of setting goals for the quarter and not necessarily for the year.

Set maybe, like, one big goal for the year, and you can have that with your marketing efforts, but set specific tactics and goals within each quarter to accomplish that goal that you're trying to do throughout the, you know, for the year.

Breaking it down like that, I think, is a really good idea for a lot of people that feel overwhelmed, especially because this is your hobby.

And, you know, you have everyone has so much going on in their life nowadays.

Your job, maybe your second job, your kids, your your dog, everything.

So, that natural growth is is kinda like a bonus.

You know, that's just the continuous this is gonna happen because I am doing the right things over and over and over again.

The way that we help is, you know, I think there's there's a lot of stats that you can take a look at this along with something like Google Analytics and, you know, the Mailchimp.

What are you, like, what are your open rates?

All that type of stuff.

That's something that, like, you try to increase these each quarter.

It's slow but steady is typically good for the long haul.

You know, I've always been a bit of a cheap Charlie in some regards.

Mailchimp, if you you can use it up to a thousand folks on a list and then then you have to start paying once it gets above a thousand.

But I think a lot of people will be under a thousand.

So, if they don't have a mailing list, they can do that.

I've used a variety of services over the years to try to not spend money.

So I'm always looking at free offerings as well.

And I think the free marketing first should be, you know, to make sure that you're ready for paid marketing.

One thing it's really been effective that a lot of people don't do is swap promos with other podcasters.

In other words, if you had a podcast you love and you mentioned them on your show as as a podcast you may want to check out, let them know that you promoed them.

And often or not, some the the reciprocating podcast will often mention you as well.

You can also do official swap promos.

Say, hey.

I'll promote your show if you promote mine.

So again, it depends on the relationship you have with that podcast.

Of course, you wanna share your show in in the relevant communities, so make sure you know where your tribe is hanging out.

Make sure you know like my tech show, a lot of the folks are on x.

But on this show, I think the majority of the people are either on LinkedIn or on, on Facebook.

So it really depends, you find figure out where your audience is and, of course, share there.

Doesn't hurt to share in those other platforms to gain audience members as well.

But one thing that is often overlooked is if you've got this content already created, you've got hours and hours and hours and hours of past content that you can grab clips from as teasers.

Now I know I know it takes a lot of work to do that, but there's tools out there to be able to grab that, grab those clips and teasers to be able to to share.

And, of course, when you're publishing on your own website or with Blueberry, you get custom episode URLs and your podcast website to make sharing your content super easy and and super trackable.

You can see where that traffic's come from.

You know, you're you were talking about, the listeners here are most likely, from what we can tell, on LinkedIn and Facebook.

And that goes into our next topic, which is stick with just one or two platforms generally for the main social media that you'll do.

It's very easy to spread yourself thin very quickly, with both your time and your money of, you know, where your audience might be.

So this does kinda come into sometimes, like, if you have a social media manager or, like, a VA or something like that, they can they have more time to dedicate to going all across the board, or starting that way and figuring out where people are and, you know, kinda dump in one or two down the line and stick to some of the others that that are working for you.

And if you're if you're not used to these tools, again, with the small budget start, there's not a lot of risk and experimentation.

And one thing you do is track your ROI with with simple tools.

Don't get too fancy.

Create a spreadsheet, you know, put in the cost goals outcome, and then you're gonna kinda know what that value for that amount of money that you spent was worth.

Sometimes it's kinda hard, you know.

It it's if you boost something on Facebook, and and you spend $50 and they say, oh, you're gonna reach 4,000 people, but it doesn't mean that 4,000 people are gonna like the post.

So you should do a compare and contrast, you know, see what kind of likes and comments you get on stuff that you haven't boosted compared to those that you have.

Again, some of it can be a little bit tricky to even determine, okay, was this worth it?

Mhmm.

But, again, right in the dashboard of Blueberry is one thing that you can look at and see what content is gaining traction in.

That could be maybe an indication as something that you'd want to promote, something in an episode that did a little better than another.

And, you know, it it give you that little bit of a little bit of an edge.

But, again, lots of places to spend money.

Just be careful where you do and and, again, stay within budget and don't go crazy like I did and just automatically say, oh, yeah.

I'll spend $300.

And, you know, next thing you know, yeah, I spent $300, and it's like, what's this on the credit card bill?

Yep.

Yep.

Don't take yourself into a hole.

Or if you do, make it only that one time.

Yeah.

One of those ways is just track the ROI that you're looking for with like like Todd said, you know, these simple tools, that can be as simple as a Google spreadsheet or Excel spreadsheet.

You know, it doesn't have to be that complicated.

And one of the ways that you can also keep track of this is we have an event tracker in our, stat system so that you can, you know, add dates that you wanna keep track of this specific episode in in between these days and, you know, these days of the month because you are doing some type of ad campaign.

You're like, oh, okay.

This is great.

I can keep track of what happened during this period of time when I was promoting this.

It's just great to keep an eye on.

Don't stress yourself out over it, though.

Just take the information in and go from there.

And for those of you that haven't launched your podcast yet, I think it's if you're really serious about launching and you've recorded maybe a couple of episodes, two or three, don't record 10 or 20.

And just, you know, two or three is good.

Yeah.

You know, create a prelaunch budget and determine, what your budget is gonna be on a monthly basis going forward.

And some of that budget can initially be used to make sure you got good graphics.

Mhmm.

Maybe a teaser trailer, signing up for a basic email platform like like Mailchimp again, and, of course, building a landing page for your for your show.

So, definitely think about some of those, you know, initial launch expenses on in getting a good there's nothing better than having good show art.

We know that the AI has gotten pretty good now in creating some art.

But always think about creatively what will make you stand out from the rest, and also your teaser trailers as well.

And I just wanna do preface.

When you are starting your podcast, you're probably gonna the most money you're probably gonna put into it overall is at the beginning, unless you, you know, totally overhaul at some point and, like, do a bunch of upgrades or changes or something.

But, the the sticker shock you might get when you're like, oh, okay.

Well, what if I wanna pay someone to build me this graphic or, you know, help me with this web design, that type of stuff?

That that sticker shock will not will surprise you potentially, but also it's not gonna happen every month.

That's yes.

So so definitely keep that in mind.

And on that same note, define a simple goal before you do launch.

Like, you're you're putting money into this.

You're putting your time and and, effort into it.

And on top of your money, you wanna have a goal before the launch of, like, what do I what do I wanna do?

Do I wanna build an email list?

Do I wanna get feedback from the trailer of, you know, what are do people like this?

That type of thing.

Trying to build an anti any type of social following.

What do you wanna do?

And, of course, you wanna work on your social following.

If you're like I was and I came into podcasting when there was no social media, you know, there there was really ero.

You you started completely from ero.

But if you've got a good social following already, that's gonna help.

But you don't wanna start building a social following.

And, you you know, when someone launches a new show, you know, obviously, it's mom, dad, and the family is gonna potentially tune in maybe and then friends.

But you'll definitely want to to work on, having the ability for people to sign up for the email list, collect that feedback, and, of course, get those early social followers excited about what the goal of your show is and what you're going to, what you're gonna be producing.

And you can join online communities and follow, hashtags of content that's gonna be associated with your show and and start to interact with potential listeners.

Now I would caution you in basic saying, oh, I wanna start a podcast.

And, you know, you maybe solicit ideas.

Say, hey.

I'm thinking about starting a podcast, and this is what I'm gonna be talking about.

Is this something that would be interesting?

And what are the type of topics?

That's the kind of engagement that you'll want, and do those necessarily outside of the podcasting groups.

Do those in the threads where the within the content, type that you're going to cover, on Reddit and Facebook and so forth.

The podcast groups in, on Facebook contain, a lot of noise, and you're gonna get a lot of advice that maybe is good and bad.

So, you know, basically, just go out and and make up your own opinion.

And the formula to create a show is not that complicated, but you definitely wanna engage with your your community where that's gonna be and wherever they may be on LinkedIn, TikTok, etcetera, for sure.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

And similar to, you know, where your future audience is, If you are getting if you are building that audience, build an email list.

It is, I think, sometimes underrated, in the age of social media, but people, you know, switch back and forth all the time, but getting into their email, makes it seem more, I don't I guess, you know, loyal to that show and really interested in what it's yeah.

It builds a lot of loyalty, I think.

So if when you're doing that website, when you're about to get ready to launch, absolutely add an embed of a sign up form right there on your website to you know, so so that they can get more information whether that is just something you wanna talk about or a link to the episode.

It is whatever you wanna do with it.

And and you don't need a a a full blown episode to launch your show.

You just start with a trailer and you can test and promote.

Use and make the trailer short, less than five minutes.

And, you know, and actually, maybe even that's long.

Mhmm.

And what you wanna do though is be very specific in the trailer.

This is what the show is gonna be.

This is the goal and here's the type of content that I'm gonna be talking about and have that semi well refined and you'll start getting some feedback on that And, and let people know what do you think?

How did my voice sound?

How did the audio sound?

Did Mhmm.

Did I come across as warm?

You know, you're gonna get all kinds of feedback.

But I think the key here is is really to get your feet wet and at the same time start building and making the community know that their input is very important.

I think that's the main thing is a lot of time podcasters forget to ask their audience for feedback and, always engage the audience no matter if it's a new trailer or your any episode you're creating say, hey.

What did you think today?

You know, send your feedback because sometimes it gets very quiet out there and, you can get lonely creating your podcast because people aren't so inclined always to, drop you an email.

But, ask for that input and those that truly like the show will will do that.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

I kinda think of your trailer preview episode as your elevator pitch, you know, of why should I listen to your show.

You've got me on this elevator for twenty seconds, on my phone before I scroll away, and it's it's gotta have that hook.

So definitely something to think about when you are releasing that.

I think we've covered everything here that we're just gonna talk about.

This is a light overview.

It's nothing technical about how to do it.

There's plenty of YouTube tutorials out there on how to do advertising on any of these platforms.

So use those tutorials.

Yeah.

And so use those tutorials and take a look if you're using Blueberry on all of the ways that we make this available too.

You know, there's a lot available in the podcaster dashboard, and there's a lot in the sidebar that might be helpful that you just are unaware of right now.

And, of course, remember, your marketing budget doesn't need to be big.

It just needs to be aligned with your goals and and really, your stage in your podcasting journey.

Right.

So focus on consist consistency, lean on the free tools available to you, and always measure your progress no matter how small.

And most importantly, don't forget, Blueberry includes a ton of features that help podcasters get discovered, track growth, and promote their show so you can spend less and do more.

And matter of fact, make sure you check out our, introductory series to podcast stats.

It's on YouTube.

It gives you, really a a quick deep dive and a a three part series on on the entire platform so you get to know how to use all of that as a new or existing podcaster.

Be sure to follow or subscribe to Podcast Insider for more strategy, support, and tools to help your show thrive.

Thanks for joining us.

Come back next week.

And in the meantime, head to podcastinsider.com for more information.

To subscribe, share, and read our show notes, check out the latest suite of services and learn how Blueberry can help you leverage your podcast.

Visit blueberry.com.

That's Blueberry without the ease because we can't afford the ease.