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Podcasting Business School: Podcasting Tips for Content Entrepreneurs
627: Newsletter vs Youtube. Where should podcasters spend their time?
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A
Hey, hey. This is Vanda, host of the Hormone Health Class podcast. I joined Adam's Podcasting Business School group coaching program because I needed help with growing my podcast. By working with Adam, I've been able to have my highest month ever of podcast downloads by almost double. My favorite part about the program is the office hour sessions because I can easily get my questions answered and vet new ideas with Adam and other group members.
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B
What's up, pod pals? It's your buddy Adam and you are listening to Podcasting Business School. It's a show where I teach podcasters simple strategies to help you grow your audience and turn your podcast content into new clients. Today we are talking about the epic decision newsletter versus YouTube. Where should podcasters spend their time? As you guys know, I'm very big on simplification and growing as we build and learning things as we go and keeping that minimum effective dose with our content strategy. So we're going to dive into the should you spend time on a newsletter right now? Should you spend time on YouTube? I will try to be as unbiased as I possibly can. Although if you have listened to the show, you know which direction I lean in. But I just want to break down like I've been a content creator for 11 years and I want to break down both sides, the pros and the cons of each. Things that I have noticed that are good about both those platforms and that are not so good or make things more difficult. So this is something that I love, helping you all simplify your content strategy. I see so many of us getting going, trying to be everywhere on all platforms, learn all the things and we burn out and we quit. Now, if it's something that you struggle with or if this is a situation where you could use a little bit of help, I would love for you to hit that discovery call link in the show notes. We can talk about if my one to one coaching programs are a good fit. I've recently reconfigured all my one one to one coaching programs and pricing. I've got starting options to get started between 600, 1500 bucks, very affordable and very, very effective. I'm having a ton of fun with my one to one shout out to all those one to one clients out there listening in. Uh, so let's dive in here. I, I mentioned this a second ago, but I think the big mistake that we're dealing with here is that content creators are trying to be everywhere on social media and learn all the content creation things and some online business things all at once. This was what made my first few years as a podcaster really, really hard, really, really difficult because I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't have any email lists, I didn't have any obviously any podcast listeners. And I had zero experience with marketing social media. I had no followers on social media. So I kind of just, you know, hooked up to that fire hose and drank it all in all at once. And if I had to go back and do it again, I would focus on some very specific things. So something that I've noticed now that I'm, you know, a decade plus into this is that a lot of us that are, a lot of you, all that are now just starting are like, wow, but look at this big influencer. They're big on every platform. They are everywhere. But if you really look at many, many, many high percentage of people with large podcast followings, social media followings, email lists, they didn't build them all at once. They focus on one platform and built out from there. Amy Porterfield, good example, she was huge on Facebook and she built her email list and at first she was like the Facebook ads person. This is a decade ago. This is how I found Amy Portfield. She was, I took a Facebook ads course and that's what she was an expert in. Then she got into email list building and started teaching email list building. And then she started podcasting. It was this layered in Lewis Howes, another huge influencer that's in the media, TV and all this stuff. He was the LinkedIn meetup guy, all right, like a decade ago. That's what he was known for. He would host these big meetups, live meetups for LinkedIn and was. He was like the LinkedIn guy. So all these, those are just two examples with all these people, even Gary Vee, Twitter, that was it built a huge following and he's got millions of followers on every platform now. But he had that huge advantage of building millions of followers on Twitter first. That way when he gets going on TikTok, a lot of those people follow him over there also. It's not like he started from zero and building up a million people on each platform. You build that core audience and then it transfers over. I've got a big advantage of having a well followed podcast and when I launch a thing or get on a new platform, I can go, hey, here's a new thing I'm doing and a percentage of you all will jump into that. I'm not starting from scratch anymore because I built this up first, sort of. So I Eventually figured that out, but I think that's where we're really messing it up is we're trying to figure all the platforms out all at once. And I think that we need to focus more on mastering a platform and then layering in another one down the road. And it's a longer road, but I feel like it's a more effective one. And for me personally, my goal is to become excellent in creating content on as few platforms as needed. You know, new things come along and. And people really just act like I'm a complete moron for not being on, like, LinkedIn or TikTok or whatever. And I'm just like, I don't need to be on LinkedIn and TikTok to accomplish the. The content creation goals that. That I want to accomplish. All right? So my goal is to be excellent on creating content in a few platforms versus being mediocre and frustrated on lots of platforms, which I know a lot of you are like, I'm not calling you mediocre. I know you're frustrated. I know you're trying to be everywhere and get content out on all these different platforms, and it's really frustrating because you want to be everywhere, but you really aren't feeling like you're getting engagement anywhere. And that is. That's like the definition of being frustrated as a content creator. Now, I want to throw one quick tip out there, as I know we've got a new. A lot of new listeners and a lot of newer podcasters and people that are thinking about starting a podcast. I got in a little bit of a. I wouldn't call it a debate. It was a discussion on threads, which is the only social media platform I'm active on. A couple days ago, where I really. I'm. When people are coming to me to launch a show, I'm strongly encouraging them to do this. This strategy, and I really feel good about it. So here's the scary stat. 83% of podcasters don't make it to episode 10. Only 17% of us get there. All right, episode 10. So I'm suggesting to podcasters that are just getting started, I go, hey, start audio only for the first 10 episodes. Get in that top 17. That's not top 17%. Get to that place where only 17% of us go past episode 10 and make it as simple as possible. Audio is super simple compared to layering in video. We're going to talk about that here in a second. But then you could start, you know, learn how to be an audio podcaster for 10 episodes. You can still record video content, those episodes and bank it and use it later. So it's not just like being thrown away, but then you can learn how to add that video layer in there after episode 10. So just something to think about. A little bonus. Quick tip. Now let's Talk about newsletter versus YouTube. What should you honestly be focusing on right now? Because really, I only want you focusing on one or the other. I feel like it's just, it's too hard of a lift to grow an audio podcast, a YouTube channel, and a newsletter all at once. Especially if you're doing this part time. Especially if you have a family and a spouse and you're doing other things, like trying to stay healthy and work out and get sleep and things like that. Like, I'm not one of those guys that's like, okay, work your nine to five, and then you work your five to nine. I'm like, that sounds like it kind of sucks. So let's, let's figure out a simpler way to do this. So I really want you to consider, it's not a forever deal. It's like build one of these first. We're just picking what we're gonna build first. Not that we're never gonna have both of these assets. All right, so let's dive into YouTube first. And again, I, for those of you that are new, I will tell you, I am not on YouTube. I've done YouTube. I've tried YouTube with my health channel, I tried YouTube with podcasting, business school content. And you know, it's a mix of, I don't like being on the platform. I don't enjoy creating video content. And you know, if you don't enjoy creating the content, it's usually not good content. So I, and I just don't want to put in all the effort of YouTube. It's not for me. Maybe it's for you. Lots of people, it is for you. So let's discuss pros and cons of what I've noticed with my own YouTube experience and watching other people that have been really successful with it. I have some friends that are really crushing it on YouTube and I've got kind of their insight, their behind the scenes opinions on the pros and cons. So pros of YouTube. Number one is that potential virality with that YouTube algorithm. Like you can post, you know, an audio podcast doesn't go viral. There is no virality. And Apple and Spotify. All right, YouTube 100%. You, you post that same podcast content as YouTube video, it could go crazy for you. Know, mysterious reasons. Sometimes we just have a video that goes crazy. You're like, wow, I wonder why that, why that happened. So the virality factor on the YouTube algorithm is something that is a major pro. Second pro YouTube monetization. If you have a video go viral, if you grow a large following, you can get monetized via, you know, YouTube starts running ads on your content and you can make money. All right, number three, potential sponsorship and affiliate income opportunities. We see the big YouTube influencers, you know, especially with the podcast plus YouTube. If you're running sponsorships now, you're. You got double dip on the audience. Hey, we'll feature you on the podcast. With this many downloads per episode and we're averaging this many views on YouTube, you can ramp up your sponsorship opportunities. And if you're just doing affiliate income, it's, it's more opportunity there as well. That's another major pro. One more pro here. It's a great option if you love creating video content and enjoy. If you're that person that loves like the tech of content creation, you're like, I love microphones. I love all the different sound board and wires that plug in everywhere and lighting and background and like setting up your podcast studio and making it like aesthetically, like looking all cool with the, the show name. If that's like part of it for you that you really enjoy, then yeah, YouTube is probably gonna be something that you really enjoy doing. All right, if you love all that. Okay, so those four solid pros of YouTube. Of YouTube. I feel like I'm being fair here. Now, cons. These are things that I've experienced personally and again, just people that I've seen do well on YouTube. I asked, you know, I asked a few of my friends, like, what's the dark side of doing this? So a few things. Number one, you have to serve an algorithm. All right, so that was, that's a pro. You can go viral with that YouTube algorithm. But also it's, it's social media. Like, you have to serve an algorithm, so we have to, you have to figure out that language. And as we all know, algorithms shift and change daily. So all of a sudden your content could be going great. Algorithm shifts happen and nobody's seeing your channel anymore. Uhoh, problem. Gotta figure it out. So that's a con. Another con. The path to monetization is gonna be long and difficult. Like, we talked about YouTube running ads on your show and we're talking about dollars and you know, it's not, it's not thousands of dollars or tens of thousands of dollars until you grow your channel substantially. Like I, some of my friends have six figure, not six figure, not six figure income, but like a hundred thousand plus followers on their YouTube channel. And they're not making much when it comes to ads and things like that. It's just, it's not a huge amount. It's not a meaningful amount of income for most people. We're like, oh, I'm quitting and going full time because of ads on my show. Third con, video content is a much heavier lift compared to audio or written content. It's just a different animal. We gotta be camera ready. We gotta have more tech. We have to understand the tech. Editing is harder no matter what AI you're using. It's, you know, again, my friend that's got a hundred thousand plus YouTube subscribers, he told me that on average for a 15 minute weekly video, he edits for six hours. That's, that's, that's a hard pass for me right there. I'm like, I could get in like five workouts in six hours. I'd rather do that. So anyway, you just have to understand this. That's why that little quick tip that I gave earlier about launching your show with audio only for the first 10 episodes, that's why I like that a lot. Because you can kind of learn how to be a podcaster first and learn how to be an audio podcaster and then layer in video instead of having to try to figure out how to do all that, that audio editing plus video editing all at once. All right, all right, next con, there's potential expense for all that video tech. You know, the lighting, the background, the podcast layer, studio type thing, microphones, all that cameras, all that stuff costs money. So it increases your initial startup expense. That's something to consider. Last giant con is YouTube can shut down your channel. This is a social media platform. You do not own this channel. YouTube owns this channel. And we all know these people that complain about my channel got shut down or my channel got shadow banned and all this stuff. That is a thing. And that is something that I've seen happen to people that have not only hundreds of thousands of followers, but millions of followers. And for some reason, boom, channel goes down. Oh, all the monetization, all that stuff out the window. And how long did we just spend building all that up? All right, so those are some pros. Those are some cons of you putting in significant effort in building a YouTube channel right now as a content creator. Now let's dive in a newsletter. I got pros and cons here, all right? Trying to be as unbiased as possible. But you guys know that I'm a big fan of newsletters. So pros. The biggest pro that I can think of of having a newsletter is that it builds your email list, which is an asset that you own that can't be taken away. You own your email list, all right? It's not a social media platform that can be shadow banned. It's not a line of communication that can be taken away by the, the, the large platform gods, all right? You own your list as you build it. Every relationship, every name on that email list, you own that relationship, all right? Number two, you don't have to serve an algorithm. There's no social media algorithm that determines whether people are engaging with your newsletter content or whether that email list is building or not, all right? So you don't have to worry about the algorithm factor. Number three, pro. Great for building expert positioning and then selling your programs and services to your audience. People that are reading my newsletter, I have a captive audience there. They are looking at a screen. They see a link on the screen. It's very simple to click and sign up for a thing, click and, and sign up for discovery call or buy buy coaching or whatever. So it's very, very effective for that pro. Minimal tech and tech skills needed. You gotta just know how to type, all right? And you have to understand the platform that you're on, whether it's kid or whatever else. But really minimal tech skills needed here, which I love. Pro number five here. There's still potential sponsorship and affiliate income opportunities. Lots of, like my. One of my newsletter coaches, Chanel Basilio, she's got a great newsletter called Growth in Reverse. Top of every newsletter, there's a little sponsor slot there. People are sponsoring her newsletter. So it's the same as an audio podcast sponsor or a YouTube channel sponsor. And you can package all those up as well. So whether you do audio podcast plus newsletter or audio podcast plus YouTube, I highly recommend. If you're going the sponsorship monetization route, you need to be packaging those two things up. That way you can get more bang for your buck, literally, and get more value and increase the what sponsors are paying you for those relationships and for those ad reads or written ads in a newsletter. All right, Last pro of the newsletter is this is a great option if you enjoy writing and you want to turn your content into clients. Like, if you actually enjoy the written word, this is a great option for you. If you love social media platforms like Twitter, threads, substack maybe even LinkedIn. If you really like putting words together, then a newsletter is a great form of content for you. Right, let's talk about cons of the newsletter. Number one, there is no algorithmic virality factor. There's no newsletters going viral. Now. There's some new platforms out there. I know Beehive is one of them. I think kid is doing a little bit of this where there's like sharing and people can. There's some discovery that's still in its like infancy. And it is nowhere comparable to the virality factor potential of YouTube videos. All right, so it's more effort based. When we talk about growth. Con number two of your newsletter, you cannot phone in content or over leverage AI. If you're like, I'll just use AI to write my newsletter, it's going to suck. If you don't love writing it, the content is going to suck. You can't just like, have these like, no effort based writing. Because people already view email as kind of annoying. You know, like we get a bunch of emails, like, we're annoyed about it. We aren't like, yes, so many emails. Thrilled. If you got 30 emails in your inbox, you're like, oh, crap. So we have. That's the, the base we're operating from in the relationship with our email readers, our newsletter readers is we have to have that subject line, have that relationship and be known as that person. That adds value to the point where maybe even the subject line doesn't matter. I have a lot of my readers say, adam, I don't care what the subject line is. I see it's an email from you. I open it because I know there's value on the other side. And it's taken me half a decade of writing to get to that point. All right, so that is something to think about. If you're just like, oh, I'm gonna take the transcript from my audio podcast and just send that out as a newsletter, I don't think that's a successful strategy. All right, if you're gonna have AI summarize something and write it up for you, I don't think that's gonna be a successful strategy. If you're just gonna use your newsletter to promote your latest podcast episode, I don't think that's a successful strategy. If you're gonna use your newsletter to try to sell every single week, and that's what the point of the email is for you, I don't think that's gonna be a successful strategy. All right, con number three, you're gonna have to invest in an email platform kit. Beehive. I've been using Kajabi. I actually looking about moving off of Kajabi. I've got some exciting news coming out next week. But anyway, like this, you're gonna have to spend some money. A lot of, a lot of email platforms start off if you have a smaller list you're just building, you can start in a free zone and then, and then eventually it's going to cost as you build your list. It's not a huge amount, but it does cost something. So that's something to factor in. I put that on the cons list. And then the last con is you're going to have to learn how to grow your newsletter list via effort based marketing and or paid marketing because there's no, again, no virality factor. So you're going to have to learn a little bit of social media promo. How do I, how do I get people off of social media onto my newsletter or paid marketing? How do I sponsor other newsletters? How do I effectively market this on other people's podcasts or whatever? Or can I run Facebook ads and Instagram ads? And you know, I've dabbled in all these things, so you have to learn that. And sometimes, you know, obviously paid ads cost money as well. So we put that in the cons list. All right, so I've had four or five pros and cons for both the YouTube and the newsletter. Again, I really think that I just want you guys to make an informed decision. That's my goal of this show and especially this episode is just like, how do we break this down so you can honestly look at it? And the real point of this episode is I'm challenging you to simplify your freaking content strategy and your business game plan here. I'm telling you, if you feel like you're not getting anywhere with any of these platforms, just focus on one. I don't care if it's YouTube or newsletter, audio, podcast, whatever. You have to simplify. The best business advice I ever got from one of my mentors, Dan Sullivan, was Adam. You have to simplify so that you can multiply. Because I was trying to do all this stuff. He caught me. I worked with Dan for seven years and he caught me right at the beginning stages of all of this online stuff. I was going from a brick and mortar business owner with my fitness business and transitioning to online space. And he was the perfect mentor for me because I was that guy that was trying to do everything and learn everything and all at once. So that really hit home and that helped me. So I passed that advice along to you today, podcast listener, pod pal, you need to simplify so that you can multiply. So what is it going to be? You've already got a podcast or most of you do. Are we gonna focus on podcast plus YouTube or podcast plus newsletter? Do one or the other and you can always fold in the next thing later down the road. Now let's say you decide to do the newsletter. So let's say you, you wanna do an audio podcast plus newsletter, like I do. Like, I don't spend any time per week on video content. It's nice. Let me tell you, for me, it's really nice. I don't even have to do my hair, y'. All. Bald guy joke. All right, so let's talk about just really quick thoughts on if you wanna go down the road that I am currently going down with audio, audio only podcast plus newsletter. Like, how's that done? Right. In my opinion. So for me, that means one audio only podcast episode per week. You know, these episodes come out on Tuesdays and hopefully you are enjoying these. And then I do a newsletter once per week on Thursdays. Now I do send a bonus newsletter on Mondays to people that are actively opening my emails on Thursday, so that's just something that you'll notice. But the core newsletter goes out on Thursdays, so that's one time per week. Now, the real key for me is that they're on different topics. I want you as my podcast listeners to understand that if you only listen to the audio show, you're missing out on 50% of my best content every week. Because the Thursday newsletter is on a totally different topic. It is not a promotion of this episode. It is not a summary of this episode. It is on a totally different topic. All right. Totally different topic. So today we're talking about, you know, newsletter versus YouTube. The Thursday newsletter might be about podcast growth or making money or getting clients, or it'll be on a totally different topic. All right? That's a key thing. My newsletter cannot be a promotion of this episode. That's not value, that's promotion. Big difference. I think that's a key question to ask ourselves. Is this email I'm sending, is this promotion or is it value? Now you will notice that I promote at least one thing in every single newsletter. And I do mention, like, I'll mention this episode in the P.S. i go, P.S. great new episode this week on Newsletters versus YouTube. Go check it out. But the point of my Newsletter that will come out on Thursday will be teaching and adding huge value. I will write for 45 minutes to an hour on adding value to you before I add that little PS Go check out this episode. All right, now, if I do have a focus, call to action, I do usually align those on my podcast plus my newsletter each week. So if I'm launching something new, you'll probably hear about that on the podcast. You'll probably also hear about that in the newsletter. But it's real simple. And that is not the main point. Like you, it's, it's not. I'm not just going to send an email going, got a new thing, go get it. It's awesome. There's going to be a boatload of value on the front edge of that email. And that's something that, for those of you that are on my newsletter list, you know what I'm talking about. All right now. And if you're not on my newsletter list, by the way, spoiler alert. Little insider tip. I add that newsletter link to every single show notes for every single podcast episode. So you can click on any of the episodes and you'll see my newsletter link and you can get on the list right there. Okay. So pod pals, again, the point of this episode was to help you simplify so that you can multiply. It's not gonna hurt my feelings if you want to focus on YouTube, like if that, if all the pros and cons of YouTube make sense to you, do that. I will be thrilled for you. I want you to be a happy and energy filled content creator that feels excited about the content that you're creating and you love every single part of it. I just want you to know that you don't have to do all this stuff. Like I am really searching for that minimum effective dose across the board. How few social media platforms do I need to be on? How few episodes? How few emails do I have to send every single week to reach the content creation and business goals that I've set for myself and create the lifestyle that I want to live? These are questions that you need to consider. I know that it is the polar opposite of what you're hearing. Everywhere else you can get those tips and how to grow everywhere, how to use AI to repurpose content and be everywhere, you can get those tips everywhere else. If you want to simplify so that you can multiply and take a simpler route from a guy that's working two and a half days per week as a content creator that does audio only, plus a newsletter, then I'm your guy. And if that's something that you want to discuss again, my Discovery Call link is in the show Notes. I'm having a ton of fun with these 14 day sprints I've been doing with one to one coaching. I've got an option for that. I've helped a few people put together their pod, their audio podcast plus newsletter strategy. We're moving quick and getting that set up. So if that's something that you would love to talk about, hit that Discovery Call link. We can talk about working together. I would love to have the opportunity to chat with you and the potential to earn your business. All right, so that sounds good to you? Then hit that Discovery Call link and with that pod pals, I'm going to send you out into the world witnessing you health, happiness and many downloads. I will talk to you on the next episode. If you need a little bit of help with your podcast launch, growth or monetization strategy, head on over to my website www.podcastingbusiness.school and get signed up for a free podcast Profit Potential Discovery Call. During this free 20 minute discovery call session, I'm going to analyze your podcasting brand and tell you where I think you're missing on an opportunity for profits. Next, I'm going to tell you exactly what I suggest that you do as your next step. If I've got an offer that would help you accelerate the process, we can discuss working together as well. So head on over to my website www.podcastingbusiness.school and click on the Discovery Call button to schedule your free podcast Profit Potential Discovery Call.