Should your newsletter have a podcast? (Our take after 6 months of episodes)

Summary

Growth In Reverse Podcast Summary: "Should Your Newsletter Have a Podcast? (Our Take After 6 Months of Episodes)"

Release Date: June 11, 2025

Hosts: Chenell Basilio and Dylan Redekop

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Introduction

In the 28th episode of Growth In Reverse, hosts Chenell Basilio and Dylan Redekop reflect on their six-month journey of launching and maintaining their own podcast aimed at empowering newsletter creators. Titled "Should Your Newsletter Have a Podcast? (Our Take After 6 Months of Episodes)," this episode delves into the successes, challenges, and key learnings from their podcasting experience, offering valuable insights for newsletter operators considering venturing into the podcasting space.

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Podcast Performance Overview

Chenell and Dylan kick off the discussion by sharing comprehensive statistics about their podcast's performance.

• Subscriber Growth:

  • Chenell shares, “Transistor has shown 10 subscribers on my end... And I have seen a few come from YouTube” ([05:04]).
  • Dylan adds, “We have 275 estimated subscribers according to Transistor... our numbers are pretty close” ([06:34]).

• Download Metrics:

  • The duo reports over 14,000 total downloads across 31 full-length audio episodes, averaging approximately 450 downloads per episode ([08:38]).
  • Chenell notes a discrepancy, mentioning Spotify plays aren’t fully reflected in Transistor’s metrics: “Spotify numbers don't actually count” ([09:23]).

• YouTube Performance:

  • Their YouTube channel has amassed 1,620 subscribers, averaging 57 new subscribers per episode ([11:04]).
  • Notably, their top episode, which underwent a thumbnail change to feature guest Justin Welsh and Codie Sanchez’s faces, surpassed 5,000 views after the update ([14:24]).

• Shorts Engagement:

  • They experimented with YouTube Shorts, achieving around 500 views per short ([13:12]), leading to questions about its effectiveness as a growth tool.

Notable Quote:

Dylan: “If you don't promote episodes, you are not going to get... you need to actually let people know that a new episode is live and what it's about.” ([19:04])

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Key Learnings from Podcasting

The hosts share several critical insights gained from their podcasting endeavor:

1. Podcasting as a Relationship Builder:

   • Dylan: “Podcast is a pretty powerful relationship builder... relationship with your audience and with other people in your niche.” ([16:12])
   • Chenell: Highlighted positive feedback at the Newsletter Marketing Summit, emphasizing personal connection through audio ([16:38]).

2. Promotion is Crucial:

   • Expecting organic growth proved ineffective. Active promotion strategies are essential to drive listeners.
   • Dylan: Describes using Riverside’s AI-generated clips for promotion, which boosted engagement on LinkedIn ([20:10]).

3. Podcasting Requires Significant Effort:

   • Chenell: “Knowing what goes into something like this is very eye-opening... a lot more steps to it than just that.” ([18:09])
   • The behind-the-scenes work, including editing and publishing, demands substantial time and resources.

4. Content Overlaps and Audience Segmentation:

   • There is both overlap and separation between podcast listeners and newsletter readers.
   • Chenell: “A majority of the newsletter does not listen to the podcast... some prefer reading and others listening.” ([21:13])

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Is Podcasting a Viable Growth Lever for Newsletters?

Chenell and Dylan critically assess whether starting a podcast is an effective strategy for growing an email list.

• Direct Growth Impact:

  • The podcast has shown limited direct growth in email subscribers. Minimal subscriber attribution suggests it’s not a quick growth driver.
  • Dylan: “A podcast is not going to be like a quick driver of growth.” ([05:18])

• Indirect Benefits:

  • Enhanced relationship building and increased opportunities for guest interactions can indirectly support newsletter growth.
  • Chenell: “[The podcast] helps me grow the newsletter faster just through those kinds of things.” ([18:50])

• Comparison with Other Platforms:

  • Highlighted challenges in podcast discoverability compared to platforms like YouTube or social media.

Notable Quote:

Chenell: “Podcast listeners and YouTube or newsletter readers are not the same people necessarily... others want to listen to a podcast because they're walking or taking care of their kids.” ([21:14])

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Advice on Starting a Podcast for Your Newsletter

Drawing from their experience, Chenell and Dylan offer practical advice for newsletter creators contemplating a podcast.

1. Start Simple:

   • Utilize minimal equipment, such as recording with a smartphone or using basic audio setups.
   • Chenell: “If you're going to do this... start out with just like yourself and a mic and hit go.” ([42:24])

2. Define Clear Goals:

   • Understand whether the podcast is for relationship building, monetization, or content repurposing.
   • Dylan: Emphasizes not starting a podcast solely for monetization without established growth ([34:03]).

3. Leverage Existing Content:

   • Convert newsletter content or deep dives into podcast episodes to streamline content creation.
   • Chenell: Suggests turning deep dives into audio episodes ([21:30]).

4. Promotion Strategies:

   • Actively promote each episode through newsletters, social media, and leveraging platform-specific features like YouTube thumbnails and AI-generated clips.
   • Dylan: Discusses using Riverside's AI clips for LinkedIn promotion ([19:04]).

5. Experiment with Formats:

   • Consider various formats such as solo episodes, interviews, or Q&A sessions to find what resonates best with the audience.
   • Dylan: Notes that interview episodes perform better on YouTube, suggesting a potential area for focus ([10:10]).

Notable Quote:

Chenell: “One thing I will say is that podcast listeners and YouTube or newsletter readers are not the same people necessarily, there is definitely some crossover.” ([21:14])

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Conclusion and Key Takeaways

Chenell and Dylan conclude the episode by summarizing their primary lessons from six months of podcasting:

1. Relationship Building:

   • Podcasts foster deeper connections with both the audience and industry peers.

2. Start Simple:

   • Begin with low-effort formats to gauge interest and personal enjoyment before scaling up.

3. Patience with Growth:

   • Podcasting doesn’t deliver instant growth; its benefits compound over time.

4. Multifaceted Content Strategy:

   • Integrate the podcast with other content forms like newsletters and YouTube to maximize reach and engagement.

5. Adapt and Iterate:

   • Continuously refine promotion tactics, episode formats, and content based on performance metrics and audience feedback.

Final Quotes:

Dylan: “So really good relationship builder with your audience and with other people in your niche... Start simple... Do not expect overnight rewards or success.” ([46:19])

Chenell: “Let me know... if you like listening to podcasts, you might enjoy actually having one.” ([21:30])

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Engage with Growth In Reverse

Chenell and Dylan encourage listeners to share their ideas and questions to shape future podcast content. They invite submissions via their website at growthinreverse.com/questions and social media channels, promoting an interactive and responsive content creation process.

Closing Remarks:

Chenell: “Feel free to submit questions there and you might hear your question on air in a few weeks.” ([47:30])

Dylan: “We'll put the link to that show in the show notes so people can quickly, easily check that out.” ([45:18])

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Recommendations

For those interested in exploring effective podcast strategies and their interplay with newsletter growth, this episode serves as an insightful resource. It balances honest reflections on challenges with actionable advice, making it a must-listen for newsletter operators considering podcasting as a supplementary growth avenue.

Additional Resources Mentioned:

• Matt Giovanisi’s Money Lab Podcast: A raw, informal podcast where Matt discusses marketing strategies and business insights.
• Lenny Richicki’s Substack and Podcast: Illustrates successful integration of newsletters and podcasts for monetization ([28:06]).

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This summary captures the essence of the episode, providing a comprehensive overview of the discussions, insights, and actionable takeaways shared by Chenell Basilio and Dylan Redekop.

Transcript

[Chanel]

I've wanted to start a podcast for about 10 years. It's been a lot of work.

[Dylan]

There should be a big focus on actually promoting your episodes, not just like, hey, we published one and then expecting people to come find it.

[Chanel]

I just was shocked at how many people kept coming up to me and they're like, I love the podcast. Who doesn't like nerding out about newsletters? I think we should dig into the number that people probably want to know most. How many email subscribers has the podcast driven? Hello, and welcome back to the Growth in Reverse podcast. I'm Chanel.

[Dylan]

And I'm Dylan.

[Chanel]

And today we are a day past our six month anniversary of launching this podcast. So we thought it would be fun to kind of talk through what's happened if it was a success so far and if we're going to keep doing it.

[Dylan]

Yeah. Ooh. Stay tuned. Is this the last episode? I don't know. I don't know. I think, I think you had this idea that we were coming up to kind of our six month anniversary of publishing and we have stuck true to a new episode every week, almost always video episodes included with audio episodes. We'll get into that and why we've done that, but I think, I don't know, just, I feel like we should be proud. We've stuck with this for six months, publishing a new episode every week alongside all the other stuff we're doing. So just a little pat on the back here.

[Chanel]

Yes.

[Dylan]

And kudos to you.

[Chanel]

Yeah, likewise. It feels like such a, I don't know, a short time, but like, it's been a lot of work, like more for you than me, but it's been a lot of work. So I'm excited to kind of talk through this and just, just like rehash what's happened and where we're going from here.

[Dylan]

And we're kind of going back in time because, you know, the short haired elephant in the room is your hair is shorter than when we first started.

[Chanel]

Isn't it a thing where, like people cut their hair when, like different things happen in life, like, I don't know, changes or some people get tattoos, some.

[Dylan]

People get less permanent things like haircuts. Maybe I should just shave my head and just go all in on the midlife hairline recession. Let's do it.

[Chanel]

Amazing. Oh, it's so good. Yeah. So I'm excited to talk through this. So we've published 28 videos. How many is it?

[Dylan]

28 videos? Yes. And that's excluding kind of our initial video, like our our 50 second teaser launch video or pre launch video. Yeah, but if you count. Yeah, 50 full ish length videos. Sorry, did I say 50? I meant 28 full ish length videos. And you have also done a few solo ones where you've kind of run through a few deep dives of guests that we were going to bring on the show. So you kind of did like a pre episode where you're just kind of running through their deep dives to give people some context to our chat with them.

[Chanel]

Those are fun. Maybe we'll do more of those. But yeah, it was good to test that out.

[Dylan]

Spoiler. One of those episodes is actually one of our top 10 viewed episodes on YouTube.

[Chanel]

So that blows my mind.

[Dylan]

I know, right?

[Chanel]

Because I thought I recorded that and I was like, is this interesting? Like, I think it's interesting. But for me to just like read back something I wrote was probably a little strange. I'm wondering if there was like some excitement around it because it was the first one that I did like that. I don't know, I'm not sure why that took off.

[Dylan]

The other thing too is I think a lot, maybe in the title, 0 to 624,000 in 18 months or I think it was along the lines of the title. So I think whenever you put the these financial terms or numbers or figures in the title of any, whether it's a podcast, a subject line of a newsletter, anything like that, you're going to usually get a little bit more engagement just because people are super curious about money and how people earn money. So that probably didn't hurt.

[Chanel]

That's a good point.

[Dylan]

So let's rewind to kind of pre launch just really quickly to give people like a context of maybe this is the first time they're listening. They don't really know about what growth and reverse is, who you are. But even if they do, why did you want to start a podcast?

[Chanel]

The short answer is I've wanted to start a podcast for about, about 10 years. And I was like, you know what? We finally have like, I don't know, the content, the idea around it. And then like you left your, your job at a certain point and I was like, Dylan's done a podcast. This could be really interesting. Like it. He already has like knowledge around how to do this. So it just felt like the right time. And who doesn't like nerding out about newsletters? So if I can do that even more. Why not?

[Dylan]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And this is a great opportunity to do that. So have you enjoyed I think that begs the question, have you enjoyed the podcast experience so far?

[Chanel]

Yeah, I have, mostly because you handle a lot of the backend stuff and I don't have to do all of the really hard work. I think in the beginning it was very challenging and I was like, ooh, are we going to be able to keep this up? Then we had have Tim, like, editing the episodes and you're handling all, like, the pushing of the buttons on the back end. So I get. I just get to, like, show up for this, and that's really fun. So, yes, I am enjoying it a lot.

[Dylan]

Amazing. Okay, so with that background in context in. In mind, now why don't we jump into some of our stats? Because people might be wondering, well, are they getting tons of downloads or is this worth it? Maybe shy should do this. So let's be like super sober with our stats here and talk about.

[Chanel]

Oh, boy.

[Dylan]

I know. And talk about sort of the successes and. Or I'm not going to say failures, but the maybe shortcomings or challenges with growing a podcast and that being reflected maybe in some of the stats that we have.

[Chanel]

Yeah, I think we should dig into the number that people probably want to know most first, which is how many email subscribers has the podcast driven.

[Dylan]

Oh, man, you're going. You're going right to the meat.

[Chanel]

Hey, why bury the lead? We got to do it.

[Dylan]

Yeah, good call. Okay, so how many. How many subscribers has the podcast? Can we attribute attribution? This is a top of funnel content project, right? It's top of funnel content. It's really hard to attribute growth with. But. But that being said, I think there's a few ways that we can do that. So what number did you come up with when I posed you this question a few hours ago?

[Chanel]

Okay, so we use Transistor to host the podcast, and so it creates these pages for each episode, essentially. And a lot of those links have a URL UTM parameters associated with it. So if I look at my email list, Transistor, from what I can tell, post December 4th, which is when we launched, or December 1st, I should say around then. Transistor has shown 10 subscribers on my end. You said you saw like 20, so 18. 18. Okay, close enough. And then I saw from YouTube directly, which is a big place. And I have been on other podcasts, so who knows if it's like our show or other shows, but I see 151 since December 1st.

[Dylan]

Yeah. And I've got about 170. So pretty, pretty close. And my numbers were very much not me going in there like a forensic scientist and instead taking your export, shoving it into ChatGPT and saying, hey, I'm looking for this data. And so I have not gone through it with a fine tooth comb, but our numbers are pretty close despite that. So I think we can extrapolate that. Is a podcast, a really quick growth lever for newsletters?

[Chanel]

No. No, it's not.

[Dylan]

No, it is not.

[Chanel]

Wait, I have a question. Yeah? Did you get any subscribers to Growth Currency?

[Dylan]

I have had a few.

[Chanel]

Did you look?

[Dylan]

I did not. Just anecdotally, off the top of my head, I have seen a few come from YouTube, but like, I'm talking like maybe a dozen. Then again, I don't check where every subscriber comes from, so I'd have to, I'd have to hop in there and figure that out. But I'm sure it has helped in a few ways. But yeah, definitely not something I'm like, man, this YouTube thing is really blowing up my list. Definitely not. It's definitely not happening.

[Chanel]

Okay, I was just curious.

[Dylan]

Nope, no worries. So we've established that a podcast is not going to be like a quick driver of growth. So let's talk a little bit about maybe some of the stats to see. Like, well, if it's not driving growth, then is it worth doing? And let's talk through some of the stats to show like what it has done for us and what we've kind of benefited from it. So we've published 31 full length audio episodes. That excludes our launch episode, which is only about 50 seconds long. And it also excludes, I think, your exploding episode where you launched the 30 days of growth. So removing all those. We have it on Transistor, we host on Transistor fm, which is a great platform. We're not affiliated with them in any way. We just, we, we like it and we use it and we pay for it. And we have 275 estimated subscribers according to Transistor. The nice thing with that is that that number continually is bumping up every month that goes up. It's a. Again, it's an estimate, but it's a good signal that that number keeps increasing. Now, this isn't downloads or anything like that. That's strictly what Transistor estimates as subscribers.

[Chanel]

And I've heard that's like questionable on some counts, but it's probably pretty like directionally correct. So I like that.

[Dylan]

In terms of all time downloads just on Transistor. Again, are we willing to share that information? Yeah, sure, let's do It So we have over 14,000 all time downloads. So that is in about six months of publishing 31 episodes. I should have done the math before to figure out what the average per episode is. Through the magic of editing, I have an answer for you. 451 average downloads per episode. That works out to. So 14,000 over 31. About 450 downloads per episode. So that's. I don't know. That is what it is. We don't have a ton of context to a lot of other people doing similar stats from the back end. So how do you feel about that number?

[Chanel]

Yeah, I feel pretty good about it. And the one thing I will say is that because we have uploaded videos to Spotify, those Spotify numbers don't actually count. They don't get reflected in those transistor numbers. So it's, it's really a black box. Podcast analytics, from what I've learned is very confusing. Yeah, it's a little questionable. Let's see what Spotify says for all time. 8,300 plays all time. So I don't know if some of those are included in transistors numbers and some aren't. So who knows?

[Dylan]

Isn't there an issue because we upload our video, when we have a video edition, which is almost every episode, we upload that to Spotify. The confusion therein lies if that counts in the downloads in transistor. It's all murky. It's a bit of a black box. We don't know. We just know the stats that were shown.

[Chanel]

I just know that 275 people listening to as subscribers is pretty fun. I think that's so cool. Like yeah, 40,000 email subscribers. But that's not like somebody's like you're in somebody's ears listening. So like hello to 275 of you. That's so cool.

[Dylan]

Yeah, that's very awesome. Thank you for being here.

[Chanel]

We appreciate you.

[Dylan]

Yeah. Okay, so we've got into. We've established sort of a rough amount of, of audio downloads. I think it's important also to mention we have eight interview episodes. So most of our formats are similar to this. You and I bantering back and forth about certain things or maybe we do a newsletter roast. But we've also had eight interviews episodes in our arsenal. And there are, I think about 50% of our top 10 videos at least were interview episodes. Maybe that's a signal that we should do a few more video episodes or sorry, interview episodes while we're talking through this.

[Chanel]

Like if you have ideas or Thoughts on what you want to hear more of or if you want me and Dylan to do separate solo episodes sometimes. We could totally do that. I'm open. I think we'd love to try some new things, so feel free to send us some emails or DM us on social or whatever. We'll think about it.

[Dylan]

Yeah. Topic ideas. We are. We don't know what we don't know, so we don't know what you want to hear, so please let us know.

[Chanel]

Amazing.

[Dylan]

In terms of YouTube, we've had 28 videos published. How do you feel about these numbers? 1 6K or 1600? It's like 1620 subscribers, which works out to about 57 new subscribers per episode if you were to average it out. So how do you feel about that number? And is that kind of in line with what your expectations were above, below?

[Chanel]

Yeah, I honestly, I went into this not really knowing what to expect with numbers, so I was just excited to, like, keep putting these out every week. Um, I think moving forward, it might be fun to, like, try and figure out how to do better with these. Um, but I mean, we're still figuring out, like, the thumbnail game, the. The title game, like packaging and all that stuff that is so important for videos. And so I'm sure we have a ton more to learn and get better at. So. Yeah, I'm just excited to see, you know, we broke a thousand. I think that's really cool.

[Dylan]

And we are a few hundred hours away from being like a monetized channel on YouTube. We've already got broken the one barrier to get. Getting like a. Was it like a. Their partner program, I think they call.

[Chanel]

It, which you can like, have people subscribe to your channel, which I don't. I don't know how that would work.

[Dylan]

But yeah, like paid subscriptions. Either way, we haven't really considered doing that at all. Yeah. Um, but we're. We're close to the 4000 watch hours and close to monetization, which is great. So let's go through some of these stats a little bit quicker and then we can talk about kind of our learnings and whether or not people should. And whether or not we think you should start a newsletter or. Sorry, start a podcast for your newsletter or not. So let's go through talking really quickly about shorts. So YouTube shorts for those. A big growth driver. Um, we did about six or seven of them and they all hovered right around 500ish views and then just died. So.

[Chanel]

Yeah.

[Dylan]

What are your thoughts on that?

[Chanel]

I was talking to. I thought that was so good. Like when, when we posted a short and it got like, hit that number super quick. I was like, wow, that's awesome. But then I talked to someone and they're like, oh, they're all around 500. That means that's your barrier. Like that's your low bar. And you have not exceeded like you haven't broken out yet with shorts. And I was like, oh. And I was like, is this really worth our time? I don't know.

[Dylan]

Yeah.

[Chanel]

So maybe we'll come back to them. I still do want to publish some on like Instagram or some other short form video platforms, but in due time.

[Dylan]

I thought it'd be. It was also interesting just with regards to YouTube and I honestly can't remember if I mentioned this already, but our top 10 podcast episodes have all surpassed a thousand views and we've got a few knocking on the door around like 990, 950 kind of thing as well. So I guess the top third of our videos exceeded that number again, for whatever that's worth. It's kind of, it's not irrelevant, but it's just an interesting, I guess, milestone that we're kind of breaking that 1000 view barrier. And our number one top viewed video is our oldest. It was our first episode and it's got over 5,000 views. It just cracked the 5,000 view threshold recently and it was.

[Chanel]

That's cool.

[Dylan]

Yeah, it was. I think one thing that actually was really interesting. This is. I don't know whether this is actually valid or not, but we changed the thumbnail for that video at about the 2,500 or 2,300 view point. And we took out our faces and we threw on Justin Welsh and Cody Sanchez's faces on the thumbnail. And the reason we did that was because we had gotten some advice that for people that we are talking about in these videos, if they are more recognizable than us, we should probably include their faces on the thumbnail rather than ours. And so we did that and we changed up the letters or the words I should say on the thumbnail. And that seems to have continued to drive some views for that video.

[Chanel]

Yeah, I also think that topic and or format was very interesting.

[Dylan]

Yeah.

[Chanel]

So I wonder if there's a way to kind of rehash that into another episode or two.

[Dylan]

I think it was like the six wildest growth strategies of newsletters that you've. That you've covered at least for growth Reverse. There's definitely an opportunity to do a edition number two or three and so on. For that. Cool. Okay, so that's just a little bit inside the details of some behind the scenes of the podcast with in terms of statistics and that sort of thing. Now let's talk a little bit about maybe some learnings that we've gone through. So we touched on this briefly, but I think one learning that I've had is podcast is not a growth lever, so to speak. At least not in the way that we. We've built it and the way that we talk about growth levers.

[Chanel]

Totally. It's. And if it is your growth lover, I really hope you have a good YouTube strategy because that is the. Probably the only way you're going to grow a podcast or grow a newsletter through a podcast, I should say. But yeah, I mean the direct, the direct subscribers, it doesn't, it doesn't reflect the work that's put in. That is not a good growth channel for newsletters, I would say.

[Dylan]

One other thing I think we've learned is that podcast is a pretty powerful relationship builder, both with a relationship with your guests that you bring on if you, if you do have that kind of a format, but also a relationship builder with your audience. So I think you mentioned when you went to the Newsletter Marketing Summit in February, people were referring to the podcast at that time. It was still pretty fresh, a couple months old. But can you just share a little bit about what happened there?

[Chanel]

Yeah. So when I was at the Newsletter Marketing Summit, I just was shocked at how many people kept coming up to me and they're like, I love the podcast, love the podcast, really enjoy how you do X, Y or Z. And I was like, man, nobody is talking about the newsletter and we're at a newsletter summit. So I was like, huh, this is super interesting. But I think people, you know, they get to know your face and like how like your mannerisms and how much you fidget with stuff on air and. And so I think there's to that. Whereas with written content, it's like maybe it's super detailed and it's helpful, but they don't really get to know your personality as much as they would through video or even audio. So I think there is definitely something to the, the level of trust that is built through a podcast versus written content.

[Dylan]

I totally agree. It'll be interesting. This episode is coming out actually, right. While we are basically at Crafting Commerce in Boise. So. So hi if you're there. But we. It'll be interesting to see where people are at in terms of reflecting on, you know, comments you receive about the newsletter versus podcast versus 30 days growth, which is even more recent. I think you said people had talked about that mostly when you were at the other newsletter conference in New York City a month ago. So.

[Chanel]

Yep.

[Dylan]

So yeah, it'll be interesting to hear how that's received.

[Chanel]

And, and if you're listening to this and you're in Boise right now, come to our meetup on Friday.

[Dylan]

Yes, yes.

[Chanel]

In the app. Okay. Be there, be there.

[Dylan]

Nice plug. Nice plug. So what other. What, what's another learning that you have from the past six months about publishing this podcast?

[Chanel]

I would say, I don't know, I think just knowing what goes into something like this is very eye opening. I've been on other people's podcasts before and I'm always just like, oh, we just talk and you just like upload it later. And it's like there are a lot more steps to it than just that. It's. There is a lot of work that goes into putting a podcast together. Um, I also think on another note, like going back to your relationship topic that you were just mentioning, I feel like I've gotten more, I would say more people asking me to go on their podcast, which is definitely a growth strategy for newsletters. So I would say through the podcast I am able to grow the newsletter faster just through those kinds of things. But it's not a direct correlation to the episodes we're publishing.

[Dylan]

Right. But I guess in that people see you on a podcast or that you have a podcast that's just like natural, like, oh, she's on a podcast. She's obviously comfortable talking in real time and being recorded. So she'd be willing to probably come on mine.

[Chanel]

Definitely.

[Dylan]

Nice. One learning I've had is if you don't promote episodes, you are not going to get, you know, you're. It's not like people are going to magically find your episodes, whether it's video or audio, and suddenly become subscribers. So there should be a big focus on actually promoting episodes, not just like, hey, we published one and then expecting people to come find it. So just recently I, I've started kind of dabbling with Riverside is what we use. It's our tech that we use for recording these. It has its, it has its flaws, but one of its actually perks is that it creates these custom or these AI generated magic clips they call them, and so they kind of take a piece of your episode and they put it into a short form clip and you can edit it, you can add subtitles and all that stuff and then you can publish It. So I've been dabbling that a little bit more and I have noticed that just my LinkedIn posts with those videos and clips has driven a lot of engagement and I can only imagine it's driven a few more views and a few more people to the podcast. So that's just one interesting takeaway that I've had is if you don't promote it, it's not like the Field of Dreams. You can't just like build it and expect them to come. You need to actually let people know that a new episode is live and what it's about.

[Chanel]

Yeah, that makes sense. I think it's funny some, some weeks like the episode will do well the first couple days and some weeks it like really doesn't. We're like, ok, really got to put this one in the newsletter this week because otherwise it's not going to take off at all. But it's been. I've been really enjoying the way that we can kind of take the content we create here and turn it into a long form written piece and send that out to the email list. I think I've gotten a lot of good feedback on those posts and a lot of people don't realize that they are coming from podcast episodes. So I think my other learning is that podcast listeners and YouTube or newsletter readers are not the same people necessarily. There is definitely some crossover. But I would say I would. I mean, a majority of the newsletter does not listen to the podcast. Whether they don't know about it is a probability as well. But I think some people prefer reading and aren't going to listen to a podcast and others want to listen to a podcast because they're walking or, you know, taking care of their kids or doing something.

[Dylan]

Yeah.

[Chanel]

And they have time to actually listen, whereas they don't have time to read. So it's been interesting to see that like overlap and the, the separation.

[Dylan]

So do you think there's an opportunity to even just record audio versions of your Deep Dives in that? In that regard?

[Chanel]

I do. Yeah, definitely. I think I've been asked a number of times for people from people to like actually have me just sit down and read my Deep Dive. Um, again, doing that with the video felt weird. I don't know, it's like there's something weird about like reading your own writing and trying to like add emphasis to it. So I don't know how that would come off, but I would be open to it.

[Dylan]

I would even think that the people that are requesting that probably don't have time to Just be sitting in place watching you do this. They are probably the type of people who. Who have kids, have a busy schedule, have like maybe an hour lunch break that they can just, like, binge a podcast, and that's when they would probably consume it. So whereas otherwise they have to, you know, sit at a computer, read it or watch it. So I think even a video component probably isn't 100% necessary for that. And then you can always tease in that regard. You can tease like, oh, if you want to see all the visuals that I'm kind of referring to in this audio version here, check the link in the show notes right to that deep dive that I'm talking about.

[Chanel]

I think that would be interesting. I don't know. We'll see. If you want to hear that. Let me know.

[Dylan]

Yeah, exactly. Enough. Enough demand. It will be made. Okay, well, that kind of leads us into maybe some questions that I think that I might have as a listener or that other people might have. So I remember about a year, Geez, almost a year and a half ago, I interviewed Jeremy Ends, who's a podcast marketing whiz. I'm sure a lot of people listening and in the audience have heard of Jeremy. And I interviewed him on the Sparkly podcast, and I wanted to talk about newsletters and podcasts, and I asked him, do you think newsletters should have podcasts? Like, should all newsletters. I kind of asked it as a very. Like, should every newsletter operator have a podcast? And I won't tease his answer. But what do you think?

[Chanel]

I think it depends. It's. It's challenging. I would say if you have the capacity and you have the bandwidth and you're willing to stick with it, I think it's a great platform. Even if the only outcome is that you are able to better formulate your thoughts and talk through things, whereas otherwise you're just writing them down. I think that's been a huge takeaway for me is like, being able to talk through some of these, like, ideas and concepts that I'm thinking about versus just like me sitting in my basement office writing them out. So that's been cool, I think. I think if you have the bandwidth and the ability to do that, I would 100% do it. Don't try and do video at first if you. If you don't have the bandwidth. Our friend Becky Davidson, she actually just launched a voice memos podcast, which is amazing. And I'm so excited because she just. She's like, I'm not doing video. I'm just going to do voice, because I know I can stick with that. And so I think, I think at the bare minimum that would be a cool place for newsletter operators to start is like take your, take your weekly send and read it and like talk through your ideas and your concepts that way. Um, so in that regard, I think a hundred percent everyone should. But I don't want everyone to start a podcast thinking they're going to hit a million downloads in like six months. So there's some, yeah. Realism that needs to come into that.

[Dylan]

Yeah. And I think it depends on what your, your goals are with your podcast. If you're, if you're wanting to use it as this kind of a relationship building tool, whether it's with like as a networking tool or people in the industry that you'd like to connect with, or if you're just. Or if you're using it as a relationship builder with your audience, like sounds like Becky is and kind of like how we're using it, then I think that's. And you have the bandwidth, then I think it's a great thing to do. If you are wanting to, like you said, become like a huge YouTuber, then probably you have to focus all of your time and attention on it and make some pretty hard pivots. Somebody who we both know and a lot of people listening know as well, who's done actually quite well with this is Jay Clouse. Because he had, for the longest time he had his Creative Elements podcast and it was strictly audio only and he was doing decently on it. But I think he came to the point where he's like, I need more discovery for my podcast. I put a lot of time and effort into it and podcast discovery, just the audio version is really tough. So I remember he had Amanda Natividad on his podcast and they started bantering about episodes and she kind of said, like, Jay, you should do like an episode like a show, like a J Close Creative Elements show and publish it as an episode on YouTube.

[C]

And he's like, podcasts, as you know from Running the Growth Machine podcast, just so difficult for organic growth. It's an order of magnitude harder, in my opinion than an email list or a social media following for sure, or YouTube, because there's just so much more organic sharing and discoverability in those mediums. I've been thinking about what would a video version of the show look like?

[Dylan]

And I think that was kind of. At least that was the outward facing moment when Jay kind of sort of committed to the doing that. And ever since he did that I think that was probably two years ago ish, if not maybe a little longer. He's had a YouTube channel, he's had YouTube episodes. He hasn't published every podcast episode that as a YouTube video. But he's really just thought through how that looks and feels. And I think he's reached, we say reached a hundred thousand subscribers, 100,000 now, so it can be done. But Jay would probably say, yeah, this takes a lot of time and effort and thought and strategy so well.

[Chanel]

And he's also like hired people on the back end to help him with editing and even just like producing and it's, it's insane. And he also had a podcast for five plus years before that. So I would say also Jay is a beast and he is just able to pump out content like no one I've ever seen do it before. So he is very good at it. So don't look at Jay and be like, I can do exactly what he did. Yeah, there's a possibility. You can figure it out. But I would say it's definitely harder. He's definitely an outlier.

[Dylan]

He's an outlier, but he's proof that if you commit to it and you approach it the right way, it can be done. It's just, it's probably going to take a decent amount of capital investment that a lot of people don't either have or are willing to spend on something that isn't guaranteed ROI essentially. So I just wanted to bring him up as a, as a really great example. Some of you don't want to. And Lenny Richicki is another one. Everybody knows Lenny. Just about everybody knows Lenny Richicki and his success on Substack with his. What started out as just a newsletter and now is a newsletter and podcast. And when we were doing, we did a, we'll link to this one as well. But we did an episode on when Lenny hit a million subscribers back in April on Substack. And I think he, when we were researching that episode, he mentioned that his podcast takes way less time than his newsletter. And it makes, I don't want to say the multiple, but a lot more money drives more revenue for him than his newsletter does. Which is, which is interesting. It just shows you the opportunity.

[Chanel]

And he's also in a great niche slash industry where you know, a lot of the companies that are sponsoring his podcast are like VC backed and they have money to spend or they're like established businesses. So it's a pretty cool like spot that he's found himself in. I really just, I Think he's just great about, like, everything he does and, like, the way he was able to find that market fit with this content is really cool.

[Dylan]

Yeah, he did a really good job with it. And somebody who's also. I'll just. Maybe one last drop, I think Akash Gupta, who we actually have interviewed on. On our podcast, and you've done a deep dive on as well. He's done pretty well with his newsletter that has now turned into kind of like a newsletter and podcast, and it just worked out really well for him too. Okay. So I guess my. My question I teased it about Jeremy ends. You said it, Dep. Whether every newsletter should have an accompanying podcast. Jeremy was basically like, no, not every newsletter needs a podcast or should have one.

[Chanel]

Yeah.

[Dylan]

And I appreciated that reply on a podcast that I was publishing about newsletters, so. But one thing he did say is that he thinks every podcast should have an accompanying newsletter, so.

[Chanel]

Well, yeah, that's clear.

[Dylan]

Right, right. But I mean, how many podcasts do you listen to that definitely do not have? Yeah, exactly. So I think there's an opportunity there. If you're listening to this and you have a podcast and it's doing well, and you're like, man, why isn't anybody clicking through to, you know, my website in my show notes or anything like that? I think adding the newsletter component, an email list, at the very least, opportunity to subscribe to something is just kind of, I don't know, content marketing 101. In this day and age, where you need to get that email address and kind of dripping out content to your readers, it just makes it. Or listeners, it makes it that much easier down the road when you have something you need to sell or promote or anything like that.

[Chanel]

I think that's a huge missed opportunity. But I get it. Like, when you're spending so much time trying to build a podcast and make it great and do all the things, it's like, oh, man, I have to add this newsletter component. That sounds so hard. And like, for someone who's interested in the visuals and the audio side of things, they might think of, like, emails boring. And they don't want to do it. But I think there is a point where you kind of need to just figure out how to set up a. An email service provider. Whether you start on substack or kit or whatever and set up a form and just capture email addresses, even if you don't send them anything. Like, this is the. The thing, like, you can send them emails six months later, but if you don't start Today you're not going to have anyone to send emails to in six months when you do decide, hey, I should start this newsletter.

[Dylan]

Totally.

[Chanel]

It's not the best strategy, but it's a better strategy than not starting at all.

[Dylan]

And even a bare minimum, like, leverage AI in terms of like, if you're like, well, I don't know what to write about, people might just want like a recap of your episode. They might not have time to listen to the whole thing. Right? Especially if you're doing a longer form podcast episode. So take your transcript, throw it into AI and say, like, break this down for, you know, my newsletter. What we talk about some highlights and maybe pull a memorable quote and then you can at least send that to listeners. And I know that spot Spotify. If you're subscribed to a show, they're going to show it to you in your, you know, Spotify home feed. But at the same time, I've got a bunch of those and my time is limited and I don't always know which one to go to. So if I'm getting an email from one of my favorite podcasts and it has some interesting information, bullet points, synopsis of the episode in there, then I might be more likely to listen than.

[Chanel]

Than otherwise, I would say, actually, you don't even need to go that far if you don't want to. Yes, that's a great idea. But I remember Dicky Bush and Sahil Bloom are examples of people who were big on Twitter and they started a newsletter and it was 10 links of their. Their most popular post from that week or that month and they just sent that out. I think Dickie started off monthly and then he went to weekly. I could be wrong on that, but he was just sending links to his episode or his top tweets because at a certain point you have to realize like an algorithm doesn't show every single subscriber or follower your stuff, right? So like you just said on Spotify, there are so many notifications. Or like, I open up the app and I have like 10 episodes. I'm like, that's a lot. I don't know what to do. And if I'm subscribed to 20, yours probably isn't showing up either. So it's just a great idea to. Even if you just drop a couple links to your YouTube or put the thumbnail in the episode and have people click through, I wouldn't just send that image, but you know, like add a little like a sentence or two, like, hey, hope you're having A great week, whatever.

[Dylan]

Yeah.

[Chanel]

But I think that's a really great bare minimum place to start. You're going to see some incremental views from that, I guarantee it.

[Dylan]

Yeah, I agree. That's a good point. That's even simpler than what I said.

[Chanel]

But that is a good next step. I think that one is a good next step for sure.

[Dylan]

So in terms of reasons you would start a newsletter podcast, we talked about reasons not to a little bit. Like, if you're expecting quick growth and something really easy you can just do on the side, probably, and your time is limited. Probably not ideal. But what is a good reason to start a podcast that is. I'm using like the word accompanied, like an accompaniment podcast to your newsletter. It doesn't even necessarily have to be, but, you know, ideally it probably is. One thing I've got is you need to like talking as much or more than you like writing. So I don't know, I just. It seems kind of obvious. But as soon as you start a podcast and then realize, oh, I don't like talking or I don't. I don't feel comfortable with, you know, how my voice sounds or you can get over those things. But it is kind of a, A key point or a key part of running a podcast.

[Chanel]

Oh, yeah, for sure. And it also helps you recognize when you're saying things often like, for sure, yeah, or no, no, I think that's a good point is like, I like writing, but I actually am finding that I enjoy this format a lot of just like talking and, I don't know, synthesizing ideas and coming up with different things and like, challenging each other on. On stuff. It's fun. So it's really cool to get to do that.

[Dylan]

Um, I. I just said. See, now I'm like, super conscious about it.

[Chanel]

Sorry.

[Dylan]

One other component, if you have like a sizable newsletter audience, you might want to consider starting a podcast because for all of the other reasons that we've talked about, you could also potentially monetize it a little bit faster. You could bundle, for example, if you're running newsletter ads in your newsletter, you could start bundling those into a podcast. Of course, when you first start, you're not going to have the, the downloads in the audience to really make it that appealing to advertisers, but you can get there, right? So. So it's just another thing that you can, you can add on to start driving a little bit more revenue and attracting maybe the right kind of advertisers too.

[Chanel]

I like this call out, and it's it's interesting, though. Like, I keep hearing a lot of podcasters say that they're gonna step away from doing sponsored spots in a podcast or YouTube because it's just challenging, like, especially if you wanna do it well, trying to figure out how to fit a sponsor into a video. You actually have to think through, like, the actual video concept or the podcast concept if you want it to be like an integrated ad. Nobody really likes those reads from just like a random person that, like, pop into an episode of your favorite podcast. You're like, whoa, who's this person? Yeah, and they're just like, talking, really. Advertiser speak, if you will. Oh, yeah. So it's. It's challenging to do that kind of thing. And it's also like another thing you have to sell or like, add on to your sponsor spots. I don't know how to phrase it.

[Dylan]

But yeah, it is. And it can be tedious. If you have a bigger team, that might be definitely more appealing for you. But there are a few podcasts that I listen to that do it really well. Trevor Noah, I'm a big fan of his podcast, and he has a really interesting ad spot where he just, like, you don't even really know that it's an ad spot, but he starts talking about the sponsor with his co hosts and just like, you know, just discussing maybe the problem that that sponsor is solving first. And then they kind of mention the sponsor and it's just like, it seems a little bit more natural and relatable and interesting and not like this harsh, like, oh, here's some different music. Here's a very obvious, like, ad read from the host or from somebody else. So this isn't. This isn't a podcast episode about podcast ads, but I just think there's. There's also a way to do it where it's a little bit more streamlined and feels more natural.

[Chanel]

But don't start a podcast just to have more sponsor spots, because I think it's way more challenging than you would expect it to be.

[Dylan]

Fully agreed. Fully agree. It's more of a. An opportunity you can pursue once you've had your podcast running and it's a little bit more established and you've got. And you've got some bandwidth to do it. Okay. So I think it's an interesting. We talked about this really briefly. One reason you might want to do it is just simply to add an audio version of your newsletter. So we talked about you potentially doing that with your deep dives. Somebody else who's done this well, Who. Who You've. I believe you've done a deep dive on Jason Woodruff of the Pour Over. So Jason doesn't do it himself, but the Pour over publishes three days a week and they have somebody who just reads an audio version. It might even be AI, I'm not honestly sure, but they have somebody who reads an audio version of the newsletter, basically word for word, and they publish that as well with their newsletter. And back when I heard Jason on the Sparkloop podcast back when I was working on it, but I didn't interview him, he had mentioned that he gets. They get tons of downloads from that alone too. For people who are driving on their way to work and they want to, you know, kind of listen to the newsletter, so to speak. So that can be a low lift way to start and kind of gauge how you like being on the mic, how you like hearing your voice go over any kind of feedback you want to get quickly. That would be a lower lift way to start it.

[Chanel]

If we're going to that topic of like, what's a good way to start a podcast? As a newsletter person, I think either the voice memo option, like Becky and our friend Joe Casabono is doing. Yeah, J.J. is doing quite a few of these as well. But just, you know, take your phone, go on a walk and like talk through something you're thinking about or a topic that you keep getting questions about. These can be anywhere from like 2 to 20 minutes long, if not longer. And it's just like a really cool way especially to build trust with people and like, take your relationship to a deeper level. I think getting to hear someone's like unfiltered, raw thoughts on a topic is super cool. Um, so I'm always a big fan of that. That's an easy way to start. You're literally either using your phone or taking like a little road mic, like a handheld mic with you. Um, and you could do it in on a regular mic too. But I think there's something about walking and your brain just starts like that. It fires better. Yeah, um, at least for me. But I think the other good way you can start is trying out like a, a private podcast. So maybe it's a seven part series on something and you're kind of breaking it up into podcast episodes. This is kind of like a 30 days of growth type thing. But it doesn't have to be that long. It could just be seven days or even shorter. Maybe you have a framework that you like to walk people through for whatever your expertise is. You can have one episode for each piece of that and then give that away as a private podcast. You can do, you can make it complicated and do like referral program for or what. But I think that's an interesting way to start. And then if you like that and you're getting good feedback, then maybe you're like, hey, I, I do want to start a full blown podcast and see what happens.

[Dylan]

Absolutely. And I think one thing we just talked about was monetizing a podcast, which we don't recommend. You know, you going into a podcast for the strict reason to monetize it immediately. But if you have a paid newsletter, why not start adding a. One of the perks to your paid subscription could be an audio version of your newsletter or like you did with the 30 days of growth you mentioned, a private podcast feed, something that is more exclusive, gives people more incentive to potentially subscribe to your paid newsletter and pay you X amount of dollars a month. It's relatively low lift if you make it so. And it can still be a value add. So I think that could be an interesting way to, or a reason at least to start a, a podcast would be for your paid members. There's even a podcast I listen to where they do have a newsletter, but their podcast is their main media entity and they don't do ad reads. They strictly rely on Patreon subscriptions or Patreon, what do they call them? Patrons. So people basically donating essentially, you know, five bucks a month to their newsletter, which they explicitly say, this just helps keep the podcast going.

[Chanel]

Are you going to name them? I'm curious, what is it?

[Dylan]

It's a triathlon podcast I listen to. It's called that Triathlon Life. So it's definitely outside of the newsletter realm, but they're great people and they provide a lot of their time to this podcast, despite being busy people in the triathlon world. So a $5 ask a month isn't, isn't a ton. And one of their big things is they read questions from their listeners. Right? Like that's one whole segment of every episode. So I think giving back in the way that they are by answering questions, it kind of makes sense to have that, I guess, that revenue angle. Right. Donate some money a month. And they also do have some perks for those paid members. So that's another basically what I'm talking about here with these paid newsletters. You can add this as a perk to too.

[Chanel]

I like it. I like it a lot. I think, I think that's a cool way to do that. And the, the question and answer type thing is, is definitely an interesting one for paid newsletters because it feels simple. Like, you just ask people what their questions are or look at the comments you're getting on some of your posts and just kind of pull out trends and be like, okay, this is a common struggle people are having, or a common question and answer. That that can also be done for free. You don't have to make it a private podcast for paid newsletters. You could do that for a regular newsletter as well. And I think that's a cool start as well.

[Dylan]

Yeah. And you can, you can make it as exclusive as you. As you want to or don't want to. So, like, turn that lever as you wish. We've run through some reasons why you should may or may not want to start a. A podcast for your newsletter. But what is the. If you were to do this a hundred percent by yourself, so there's no me, you're just doing solo hosting. You were the one coming up with the ideas, which you still do, but like 100% yourself, and you are editing, you're recording, editing, and publishing these all on your own. How would you. What's the simplest version of this that you would build if you're doing this like a hundred percent by yourself?

[Chanel]

The Voice Notes podcast, I'd probably talk through either growth levers I'm finding or questions people are submitting or, I don't know, I think I forget who told me this recently. If you think about your, your, your niche and your industry, and you take 30 questions or topics that your audience has, if you can create one episode for each of those 30, you have huge Runway for your podcast, and it's building out multiple content pillars in your business that you can kind of refer back to while you're writing your newsletter. You can be like, hey, I have this episode over here on this exact thing I'm talking about. Go listen if you're interested. I think that could be a really cool way to start. Think of it almost like, I don't know, just like reading your most popular issues. And then from there I think you'll find your groove of, like, direction you want to go in, of, like, what types of episodes. And if you want to end up making this more complex podcast, you can if you want to add video later. But, but I think starting out with just like yourself and a mic and hit go. One of my recent favorites has been Money Lab for Matt Giovanisi. And he, he used to be big in the podcasting space, and he had like professional mics and like all this stuff. And he quit for a while because he wanted to focus on his main business, which is like a pool care website. And now he is going back and he's just recording into his phone while he's walking on his treadmill or walking on his basement because he's. He's A, trying to get healthier and he's like, this is a forcing function for me to A, walk and B, create a podcast. And he's like, you can hear the background noise. Like, it's very raw. But it's so good because he's just coming up with these. Like, he's a marketer by, like, naturally a marketer. So he talks through, like, how he's actually marketing his business and the things he's doing and how he's thinking about AI and what tools he's using, and it's just really interesting. I've been enjoying that one lately. So, though it's. It's pretty cool. No sponsors. No, he doesn't promote it. He doesn't even have a newsletter for it, as far as I know. Um, he's just. It's kind of like if you were listening years ago and it's not. It's still in your feed, you're like getting these updates. You're like, what is this?

[Dylan]

Is that how you figured discovered it?

[Chanel]

Yeah, because I wasn't. I stopped using Apple podcasts for a long time and then I recently redownloaded it to have, like, I don't know, I do like my deep dive research on Spotify, but I don't want to, like, mess up my place in that episode. So I, like, started with a new app. So I opened it up and I was like, money Lab has new episodes. What? And so I started listening again and I was like, oh, this is so interesting.

[Dylan]

So we kept him under the same feed. Yeah, interesting.

[Chanel]

Okay, so if you're interested in marketing and such, you should go listen to Matt. He's also from the east coast, natural, like, originally. So he has like. He's a fun guy.

[Dylan]

Yeah, he's. He's got the Chanel east coast vibe. Does he? The Jersey vibe.

[Chanel]

A little more east coast than me. Yeah, A little more Jersey than me. Which is fine.

[Dylan]

Fun. More. More east coast than Jersey.

[Chanel]

More. Yeah. So it's a good show. I would definitely recommend it.

[Dylan]

And yeah, we'll put that, we'll put the link to that show in the show notes so people can quickly, easily check that out. Okay, so any. Any parting thoughts? Let's let's kind of like put a bow on this. What, what have we main things we've learned, I think over publishing this podcast over the last six months are what's number one?

[Chanel]

It's going to help you build more relationships. Yeah.

[Dylan]

So really good relationship builder with your audience and with other people in your niche, network or your topic area of expertise. Number two, I think start simple. If you do want to start something like we just talked about, don't do a really heavy lift cuz you'll do one or two episodes and be like, wow, this is tons of time, energy and money. Potentially start simple. Like Matt, talk into your phone. And I think number three is for me at least would be do not expect overnight rewards or success. It's not going to be a instant growth lever for your newsletter. But these things do compound over time. Right. So I think for me that would be kind of the third takeaway.

[Chanel]

I like it. Yeah. Start simple. If you're going to do this and I would say try, try out like a little private podcast for people. I think it's a cool lead magnet if anything.

[Dylan]

Totally.

[Chanel]

Yeah. And you can, you can set those up. I used hello Audio as the tool name for 30 days of growth. You can also use like, like Transistor has a private podcast option, but you will only get up to like 50 subscribers or so, which is probably plenty for a lot of people. Yeah, either tool could work great and I'm sure there are others as well. But just start simple and I don't know, try it out, see if you like it. If you enjoy listening to podcasts, you might enjoy actually having one, but.

[Dylan]

Very true.

[Chanel]

It's a good experiment.

[Dylan]

Awesome. Well, on that note, why don't we, why don't we wrap it here? And again, just one more call out to anybody who has ideas for us that they're like, man, I got more questions about X Topic, ideally around newsletters, even podcasts. We'll take questions on, but please send us, send us an email.

[Chanel]

You can actually go to growthinreverse.com questions. I think I have that set up from before. So if you ever have questions or feedback or anything like that, feel free to submit those there and you might hear your question on the on air in a few weeks.

[Dylan]

You can always also DM us on all the platforms. So yes, totally cool. All right, well we will see you guys when we get back from Boise and we'll have lots of fun stuff to share from that.

[Chanel]

Definitely. See you later.

[Dylan]

Bye.