How Direct Conversations Boost Podcast Popularity

Summary

Episode Summary: "How Direct Conversations Boost Podcast Popularity"

Podcast: School of Podcasting
Host: Dave Jackson
Date: September 15, 2025
Episode: 1001

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Overview of the Episode

In this episode, Dave Jackson explores the real engine behind podcast growth—not just talking at your listeners, but engaging in real conversations with them. Drawing on his decades of podcasting experience (and wry humor), Dave gives actionable advice, shares personal stories, and provides free tool recommendations to help both aspiring and established podcasters create remarkable, audience-driven shows. He also unpacks some recent news and issues in podcasting (notably around Spotify) and closes with practical community and monetization advice.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Engaging With Your Audience: It's Not a One-Way Street

• Dave highlights that the most successful podcasts truly connect with their audiences—not just through content, but through ongoing dialogue.

• Quote:

  "When you can tell me the eye color of your audience, you're really doing something right." — Dave Jackson [02:19]

• Real Story:
  Dave recounts Jared Easley attending John Lee Dumas’s first meetup, which had just five attendees, emphasizing the value of intimate, face-to-face feedback—even with a tiny crowd.

  "It was intimate. I'm sorry, not tiny. It was intimate. That's how we say small in podcast world." — Dave Jackson [03:25]

2. Audience Feedback: The Best Growth Tool

• Direct feedback can be transformative. Dave shares his own misadventure sending a market research email to his entire list, resulting in two weeks of non-stop conversations with listeners.

• Quote:

  "That was the best mistake I've ever made." — Dave Jackson [06:13]

• He encourages podcasters to set up calls or meetups—even if scary—to learn what resonates and what doesn’t. Hearing honest “why I tune out” feedback helps polish the show.

• Best Practices:

  • Use simple, free tools like Luma or Zoom to host meetups and feedback sessions.
  • Invite audience members to help decide future topics—making them co-creators.

3. Practical Steps for Podcasters

• Host Virtual Meetups: Announced a live virtual meeting on October 16 at 7 PM EST, designed to gather audience ideas for the podcast kitchen, reinforcing the “recipe, not a statue” idea for your show.
• Tools Revealed:
  • Luma (for registration/reminders)
  • Zoom (for virtual calls, recommend monthly purchase for one-time events)
  • Free email list tools like System.io

4. Community Building and Customer Service

• Drawing from his experience at PodPage and in customer service, Dave underscores the necessity of welcoming criticism and being available:

  "We’re not afraid of our customers. We actually, you can schedule live support calls at PodPage. We have monthly meetups with our people." — Dave Jackson [10:53]

• Listen to audience suggestions—even small tweaks (like adding a /newsletter link) can make big differences.

5. On Podcast Monetization: Moving Beyond Ads

• Dave discusses a trend towards direct listener support versus advertising, inspired by shows like “Pod News Weekly Review” slowly growing a base of supporters.

  "I’m starting to think that the way podcasters are going to make more money in the future is not ads. It’s gonna be through support." — Dave Jackson [22:57]

• Encouraged creators to offer premium/paywalled content, even if only a handful of fans take up the offer.

6. Cautions and Podcast Industry Updates

• Spotify Walled Garden:

  • Dave and guest experts discuss Spotify/Anchor’s questionable practices (e.g., inserting itunes block tags that limit visibility on other platforms).

  "Those guys are real a-holes." — Podcast Industry Expert [18:18] "Really? … It's just amazing they were doing that." — Dave Jackson [18:33]

• Industry Hype vs. Reality:

  • On Spotify’s misleading video stats:

  "Sports video podcast consumption … is up more than four times year on year..." — James Kridlin [20:39] "…that was because this time last year The Ringer had zero, zero, none, zero videos on Spotify." — James Kridlin [20:56]

7. Listener Question: From Idea to Launch

• Question from Todd the Gator (Guardian Downcast):

  "How long did it take you to create your podcast from just an idea in your head to actually taking action and executing your plan?" [24:35]

• Dave invites listener submissions to foster community insight—reminding podcasters to talk about their journey and share their show link.

8. Music Licensing Tip for Podcasters

• Dave shares that he secured a lifetime deal with Tune Reel for podcast-safe music, recommending it as a lower-cost solution compared to Audio Blocks.

  “I found this site called Tune Reel… you can buy a track over there for about 15 bucks, which is much cheaper…” — Dave Jackson [29:10]

9. Conference Announcements and Upcoming Topics

• Dave will be speaking at the Empowered Podcasting Conference in Charlotte, NC (Sept 26–28) and invites listeners to say hi.
• He teases changes coming to his unlimited coaching offer at the School of Podcasting.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "When you can tell me the eye color of your audience, you're really doing something right."
  [02:19, Dave Jackson]

• "That was the best mistake I've ever made."
  [06:13, Dave Jackson, on accidental mass email]

• "The best way to grow your show is to find out what your audience wants, and give it to them."
  [08:43, Dave Jackson]

• On embracing criticism:

  "Bring an extra set of skin, because you really, really want to find out what’s not working."
  [13:05, Dave Jackson]

• On podcast monetization:

  "I’m starting to think that the way podcasters are going to make more money in the future is not ads. It’s going to be through support."
  [22:57, Dave Jackson]

• Industry caution:

  "Those guys are real a-holes."
  [18:18, Podcast Industry Expert, about Anchor/Spotify]

• Reality check on statistics:

  "…the Ringer had zero, zero, none, zero videos on Spotify."
  [20:56, James Kridlin]

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Key Timestamps

• 00:00–02:50 — Episode introduction; summary of last week; theme for the episode
• 03:15–04:35 — Story about John Lee Dumas's first meetup and starting small
• 05:45–07:07 — Dave’s market research mistake and the magic of direct feedback
• 07:50–13:00 — Practical advice on soliciting/receiving and using feedback; setting up meetups
• 17:53–22:57 — Critique of Spotify/Anchor’s practices and discussion of industry headlines (featuring James Kridlin)
• 24:20–24:51 — Listener question from Todd the Gator; call for community responses
• 25:50–28:35 — Free and affordable tools for community and mailing lists
• 29:10–30:12 — Music licensing tip with Tune Reel
• 30:13–31:20 — Conference announcement, community invite, and show outro

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Final Takeaways

• Audience relationships are the core of podcast growth and loyalty.
  Don’t just broadcast—invite feedback, hold meetups, and be genuinely open to criticism and suggestions.
• Embrace feedback—especially the hard truths—and be proactive about inviting it in multiple ways.
• New tools and platforms abound, but basics like face-to-face (or Zoom-to-Zoom) conversation, a solid email list, and clear calls-to-action still work best.
• Be wary of industry “walled gardens” and deceptive growth stats; trust openness and direct engagement over hype.
• Prepare for a world where direct listener support may matter more than advertising.

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For show notes, links to tools, and ways to participate, visit schoolofpodcasting.com/1001.

Transcript

[Dave Jackson]

Last Week on episode 1000, we talked about how to grow your podcast and we focused a lot on making remarkable content. When I looked at some of the bigger shows, there was one key ingredient that all of them seemed to do, and that was they weren't just talking at their audience, they were talking with their audience. And so today I've got some free tools and insights along with some interesting news from our friends and at Spotify. Hit it, ladies.

[Show Announcer]

The School of Podcasting with Dave Jackson, podcasting Sense 2005.

[Dave Jackson]

I am your award winning hall of fame podcast coach, Dave Jackson, thanking you so much for tuning in. If you're new to the show, this is where I help you plan launch. And today we are still talking about growing your podcast. My website is schoolofpodcasting.com use the coupon code listener when you sign up for either a monthly, quarterly, or yearly subscription. Again, that'[e-mail] and so I went out and I looked at some of the bigger shows to see if I could spot any clues. They always say success leaves clues. And almost all of them had a newsletter. Most of them I saw some sort of voicemail. And then some of them I saw where there were ways to connect with the audience. And I say this and it sounds hokey, but it's true. When you can tell me the eye color of your audience, you're really doing something right. Let me tell you a quick story. And this comes from my buddy, Jared Easley, who now works for, for the national association of Broadcasters. That trade show, if you weren't aware of that, he used to work for Podcast Movement. I believe he is now working for nab. And Jared was talking about when he went to the very first John Lee Dumas meetup. Now, if you're not familiar with John Lee Dumas, he runs the show originally called Entrepreneur on Fire, now just called EO Fire, or something to do with Entrepreneur magazine. That got a little icky there. But John, here's a, here's a fun way to sum up John. John made so much money he had to move out of the country, you know, because you pay less taxes when you live in Puerto Rico. And the fact that it's Puerto Rico and it's beautiful. But John was not doing poorly. He did. He was one of the first. Not the first, but he was one of the first that did a daily show. He had a very tight format. He basically, now a lot of us would go, yeah, it's boring. He asked the same six questions over and over. But what he really did. When I saw it, I was like, oh, that's brilliant. Was. He walks people through what's called the Hero's Journey. And if you've never heard of the Hero's Journey, go to your favorite search tool, whether it's Google Perplexity ChatGPT, and ask for it. It is the backbone. If you read it, it's Star Wars. It's a hero in his normal life. A hero, you need to go save the world, not me. Oh, my gosh. And then a mentor comes along, and then the mentor goes, I don't know if I can do it. And then, you know, in the end, they win. And et cetera, et cetera. It's in the backbone of a lot of movies. And that's what John did. And so I say this because John is huge. And his very first meetup, Jared was talking about it. I believe it was an In N Out burger. And I believe Jared said there were five people counting Jared. So it was very, very tiny, right? It was intimate. I'm sorry, not tiny. It was intimate. That's how we say small in podcast world. In the. You know, it was an intimate gathering, and you gotta start someplace, but the best way to get feedback is face to face. So that's the best one. There's something weird, especially about eating food with people or a handshake or a selfie or whatever it is. If you can do that, do that. Then you get into things like zoom calls. I've said this before, but I'll say it again. I once set up my email list, so that was supposed to send out to 10 people. There was like, this filter, and I could have sworn it said, yep, this will go out to 10 people when you send it. And it said, hey, basically, I'm doing some market research. I'd like to get some feedback on the show, and I would really love your insight. Well, it didn't go to 10 people. It went to every single person on my email list. And along with that message came a link to my. My calendar. And so I had about two weeks of back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back meetings with my audience was the best mistake I've ever made. And so that is something you can do. Now. I realize you might be thinking, oh, meeting people. I don't know. I'm. I'm just so you got to remember something. These are people that like you, right? They like you. They're listening to your show now. That doesn't mean they might not have notes but you got to hear them out. What's the point of trying to promote a show that doesn't resonate with people? And I didn't have hardly any people that were like, oh, yeah, you know, I had people back then. My cat kept interrupting me and they were like, any chance you can get that cat to quit interrupting the show? And so I would recommend that and just to, you know, put my money where my mouth is. There's a cool tool because why I'm using this, I'm doing a thing on October 16th, so that's about a month from now. So you'll hear me talk about this for the next month and October 16th at 7:00pm Eastern Standard Time. So my apologies to anyone on the other side of the globe where you're like, bloody ey, it's 4am in the morning. Right? It's. That's not going to work. But it works for me. And so I need to be there so that. That kind of helps that. But I'm using a tool. I'm using two tools. You could do this in Riverside. You could do it in squad cast. I think squad cast is more one. You could do it in zoom. I mean, really, you could do it in zoom. And I'm using a tool because it's free and it's Lou Lu Ma. So Luma, I guess, and you can set it up. And why I'm using this, A, it's one click registration and then B, it reminds people, hey, remember that thing you signed up for a month ago? It's happening and it's pretty handy. So you'll see if you go to that, I'll put a link in the show notes where you can sign up for that because I'm really, really dying to hear. Here's what it says when you go there. Says, look, I always say your podcast is a recipe, not a statue. And so I'm inviting you into my podcast kitchen where I'm asking you what you would like for dinner. Because that's really what this show is. Hey, what do you want? And then you can help me pick future topics of the show. You can help me add things you want to hear and maybe remove some things you're tired of hearing about. I will take your suggestions. I will put them in the oven for future episodes of the School of Podcasting. The best way to grow your show is to find out what your audience wants and give it to them. And I really, really hope you join me in helping me make this show the show you've always wanted. So sign up for that, if you would like to, even if it's just to say, this is what I really like about this show. But if you have things, and I have one thing that I think is gonna be one of those, like, could you please quit doing that? And I'm gonna offer that up because as much as my ego would love to have people just go, dave, you're the best, Roy. You know, I. I'm really interested more the like, well, this is why I tune out. You know, I'm trying to find out what you really liked about the show and. And what you really didn't. And for me, kind of that constant improvement, I'm always looking for things that I can do better. So it's not just me saying this, I'm gonna do it. And I realize that you might be afraid of this, and I'm gonna go back to my favorite mistake. It was the best thing I've ever done. And so I thought, well, let's lead by example. And I'll have to see. I'm trying to figure out if I'm going to record it because people may not be as willing to really be brutally honest if it's being recorded. So we'll see how that goes. But that if you want to grow your show, step one, we always say, is, who is your audience? And so it can be a live zoom call with a group of people. It could be a live zoom call, one on one. That really is the best. I just right now, at this point in my life, don't have the time. I've got a lot of things on my plate. I'm like, well, it'll be one to many. And that's always tricky because you might run into group speak where somebody goes, hey, I wish you did more of this. And then everybody else on the call goes, oh, yeah, me too. You know, so that's the only kind of downside. One to one is the best. But also, keep in mind, there are things like email lists. And so if somebody replies to your email, reply back. If somebody sends you just an email and it's not a newsletter, they just send you from your contact page. You do have a contact page, right? You know, or if they slide into your DMs, always, always, always talk to your audience. And I know that's kind of a duh, but I am amazed that some people have never thought of this or they're waiting for people to contact them. I talked about it in the last episode. One of the coolest things, like here I'm requesting feedback so the best kind of feedback is the stuff you didn't request when somebody just out of the blue goes, man, that was a great episode. That's one of the things I'm like, I'm gonna start tracking that. And so I'm just here to say, don't be afraid to talk to your audience. I'll give you another example. I am the head of podcasting at PodPage, and we kind of have almost a mantra where we're not afraid of our customers. We actually, you can schedule live support calls at podpage. We have monthly meetups with our people. We have all sorts of stuff. Because why I was at Podcast movement in Washington, D.C. and a customer came up and said, hey, you know how you have all these cool quick links like contact and follow all these things to make it really easy for the audience to remember your website while you get them to wherever they want to go, and they go, why don't you have a slash newsletter? And I thought, well, surely we must have a slash newsletter. That'd be dumb not to wait, we don't have a slash newsletter. And so I went to Brendan, I said, hey, we don't have a slash newsletter. He went, ah, you're nab deep. Hey, we don't have a slash newsletter. And so it's that kind of stuff that. And we made it, you know, you can now go to, you know, slash newsletter on your POD page. And there it is. There's your newsletter sign up. And so it's one of those things that we all want to grow our audience. And the easiest way to grow the audience is to have the audience tell their friends about it. Well, how do you get your friends to tell people about it? Well, you give them what they want in a way that's including. And that's what last episode was about. Right? We want to make remarkable content. Well, what's remarkable content? Well, go listen to episode 1000. And so find some way to connect with your audience. And if you're like, I'm not getting any audience connection, then make it easy and give them a time and place to meet you, because they can't figure it out. And always explain it to them how they're going to help shape the show. You can help me make the show you always wanted. And in theory, some people should act on that again, probably around 3%. But if, you know, somebody came to me and said, hey, Dave, or I know you like the Zoom PodTrack P4. I'm from Zoom. We're thinking of redesigning the P4 would you like to be involved? I would go, oh, yeah. Can we do that right now, please? So explain it in a way that you're. And be wide open. Bring an extra set of skin, because you really, really want to find out what's not working. Many moons ago, I won an award for a customer service position I was in, and I was there to teach people how to run their office equipment. That's what we told them. But what I was really there to do was to throw in hints on how to not run your office equipment. Do not put paperclips on the copier. Do not do this. Do not do. Then it was always just these little, you know, what do you call it? Passive aggressive things. And that's really what you want to do. Why? Because one of the easiest ways to grow your audience is. Is to stop the current audience from leaving.

[Show Announcer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dave Jackson]

Hey, I just wanted to take a quick second, as this is the second time I've recorded this, to say thank you to everyone who reached out on the passing of my friend Todd Cochran. This is a guy I've known for 20 years, quite the character, and he will be deeply, deeply missed. Pod Fest is going to be very weird because Todd will not be in the booth and Neil Galarte will not be DJing the Saturday party. Both of them, within the last year or so, passed away with no warning at all, which is always a gut punch. So I just thank you to everyone who reached out that said, hey, we're thinking of you. I deeply appreciate that. And in just a second, we're going to hear, you know, how much I love Spotify. Well, they're doing that Spotify thing again.

[Show Announcer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dave Jackson]

Are you ready to stir up some creativity? I am thrilled to invite you to a unique live virtual meeting happening on October 16th at 7pm Eastern. This is the first time I've done this, and I need your help. Look, I do this show for you, and the best way to know what your audience wants is to ask them directly. You can come here, let me know what I'm doing right, and anything that needs a little polish, and you can help me shape future episodes of this very show. I always say your podcast is a recipe. It's not a statue. So I'm going into my podcast kitchen to make your favorite show. Sign up to be [e-mail] kitchen. That's schoolofpodcasting.com kitchen. Look, I get it. Starting a podcast can be daunting. You feel overwhelmed, you have this fear of failure, and you're uncertain about where to begin and you start to doubt your abilities. And all that stuff just hold you back. But what if you had a guide? Well, that's where I come in. The School of Podcasting. It's here to help you launch and grow and monetize your podcast with confidence. With over 20 years of experience and tons of successful podcast launch, I'll walk you through every step from planning to promotion. You are never, ever alone. Learn at your own pace with video courses and join an absolutely supportive community and get unlimited coaching with me. Say goodbye to fear and hello to success. Start your podcasting journey today with the School of podcasting. Go to schoolofpodcasting.com to get started. No fear, just success.

[Show Announcer]

The school of Podcasting.

[Dave Jackson]

Hey, I am known. I love the Spotify music service. I use it all the time. But as a media host, I am not a fan. And if you're new to the show, I always like to explain why, because I want you to trust me. And so the man that co invented podcasting, Adam Curry, does a show called Podcasting 2.0. It's very, very nerdy. And he did say this about Spotify. And I've always known that a Spotify kind of hides their RSS feed. Now, RSS feeds make things very open. It's the syndication that makes it easy for you to syndicate. So if I use Spotify as a media host, which I do not recommend, but if I did, I could syndicate my show to Amazon and iHeart and Apple. And then I heard this and was like, oh, that's just dumb.

[Podcast Industry Expert]

The good news is it looks like Spotify, formerly known as. What were they used to be?

[Dave Jackson]

Oh, anchor.

[Podcast Industry Expert]

Anchor. Yeah. So all the old anchor feeds or a significant portion, because some people still show up with an old anchor feed. Anchor was putting in itunes block tags automatically. Those guys are real a holes. And so someone will show up and say, hey, you know, it says, I can't add this to the index. And I'll go in and look and oh, it's got a block tag. And they say, well, how'd that get in there? And there is no way to change it other than you have to actually call someone at Spotify.

[Dave Jackson]

Really? Yep.

[Podcast Industry Expert]

Yeah, you have to get someone on the phone. And I've had probably three people in the past week or so who popped. And they were able to figure it out. They were able to get to some customer support person, but it's just amazing that they were doing that. Like, what a bunch of horrible people.

[Dave Jackson]

And so this is be careful. Anytime you're dealing with a company who says, oh, podcasting's hot, we should add podcasting to our offering. Because, number one, the support you need. As someone who worked at Libsyn, the world's first media host, the support you have to deliver is insane. People love to break their feeds and things like that. So we always kind of jokingly call Spotify the walled garden. And there you can see, once again, Spotify by putting in a bit of code that stops you from syndicating your show to Apple is again, they love to do things that benefit Spotify. One other thing, this came from the POD News Weekly review. If you like this kind of stuff where it's news about the industry. James Kridlin and Sam Sethi. It's one of my favorite shows. I love this show. And also one other point before this, Sam and Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim Cridlin, who calls him Jim James Kridlin do a great job of their chit chat. We talked about it in the last episode about chit chat. Usually they do theirs at the end and I listen. Why? Because I'm a super fan. And that's where you put chit chat so that the people that are still there can listen to it. But James Gridland said this about Spotify because what I love about Spotify is they love to go, hey, here's a big, exciting headline. And then they don't lie because that'd be liable for me to say. But they do at times forget to include all of those details. Here's James talking about how video is just going crazy on Spotify.

[James Kridlin]

Sports video podcast consumption on Spotify is up more than four times year on year, with lifts across the ringer titles.

[Dave Jackson]

And.

[James Kridlin]

And I just like to stop there and go, okay, so it's up 4% year on year. And the ringer has seen at least 4% increase in video podcasts. Ah, yes, that was because this time last year the ringer had zero, zero, none, zero videos on Spotify.

[Dave Jackson]

Thank you, James and thank you, Sam. It is a great show. And what I just heard on the latest episode, then this is just something I want to share. These guys are titans in their industries, right? Sam has an amazing background. James has been in radio since it was hand cranked and now is in the pod. When James came into podcasting, like multiple newsletters about podcasting just shut down. They're like, oh, well, we can't beat that. And I just point this out because they just said on their recent episode they got their 23rd supporter and they're using Buzzsprout. So you can do. I think it's 3, 7, 5, and 10 or something, I don't know. But you can pick your own level. But they were, and this is just my own opinion, they seem somewhat surprised, like they didn't know if they were going to get anybody. And now they're like, hey, we're up to 23. And so it's one of those things where, again, I think we're afraid to say, hey, would you like to support the show? Because if nobody does, then you feel like your show is invalid. And that's not the case because sometimes I did a show for musicians and just kept trying to find ways of them. I had a book I was selling. And I'm just here to tell you, when they say starving musicians or starving artists, that was the case. That particular audience had. Well, I could not convince them. I was gonna say they had no money. That's one way to look at it. The flip side is I didn't convince them of the value I was providing in my book. Right. There's always two sides to that story. But I'm starting to think that the way podcasters are going to make more money in the future is not ads. It's gonna be through support. And, you know, the great thing with Buzzsprout also captivate, makes this really easy. And you can go in and say, look, make the last 10 episodes free. Marc Maron used to make the last 50 free, and then you put the rest behind a paywall. Now, that doesn't work. Like, it wouldn't work for me because, well, it might. But I want you to find all my episodes so that you can hear me talk about the school of podcasting. That's the main sponsor for this show, and that's me. That's the most profitable way to make money. But if you've ever looking for a way to make money, you could just turn it on and say, look, we've got 30 episodes. 20 of them are free. The first 10 are only available if you pay me 3 bucks a month or whatever it is. 5, 10, et cetera. It might be something you consider, but just realize again that about 3% of your audience, if you're really good, is going to take you up on that offer. And, you know, sometimes you got to do things that are a little scary. When I do the question of the month on this show, I always wonder, is this the month that nobody's going to send in an answer? And speaking of that.

[Podcast Industry Expert]

Ooh, now that's a good question.

[Dave Jackson]

This month's question comes from Todd the Gator from the Guardian Downcast where they talk about the Destiny 2 video game. And here's his question.

[Todd the Gator]

How long did it take you to create your podcast from just an idea in your head to actually taking action and executing your podcast plan?

[Dave Jackson]

And then he threw on this maybe.

[Todd the Gator]

Add how long did it take your podcast to find its audience or community?

[Dave Jackson]

That's an interesting question. When you go to answer the question, don't forget to say a little bit about your show and where we can find you. I need your answer by September 26th. Simply go to schoolofpodcasting.com question or follow the link in the show notes. That's schoolofpodcasting.com question. Oh, where am I going to be September 26th through the 28th in Charlotte, North Carolina? You want to attend this one? It's going to be great. The Empowered Podcasting Conference. I'll be there and I'll be speaking for all of my appearances. Simply go to schoolofpodcasting.com where and if you want me to talk at your online or offline event, Simply go to schoolofpodcasting.com Contact.

[Show Announcer]

The School of Podcasting I.

[Dave Jackson]

Had mentioned that there are tools to do all this stuff, so zoom is 18 now. Keep in mind you could order a month of Zoom, do your little meetup and then cancel it. They do have a free version of Zoom, but it's only 40 minutes long and depending on the scenario, maybe you start there another tool When I talk about email lists, I use Kit, which used to be ConvertKit. But if you're looking for something free, there's a tool called System and I'll have a link to this in the show notes where you can have 2,000 people on your list for free. I know Mailerlite just reduced their amount and when this happens and prices go up, you just need to ask yourself what can I do with this tool to increase my monetization if that's the case. So with my email list a I'm gonna be really diligent on writing a weekly newsletter cause it's costing me money and then I will maybe be a little more blunt with my calls to action. But if you want to try a free service, Freemium is kind of an all in one. So their email is fine, but it's not going to be as robust as Kit. They have a membership part, but that's not going to be as cool as say something like Heartbeat or Circle. So if you're Looking for a community, but it does the job. They do landing pages, which look really good, and they do. It's one of those all in one kind of things. But if you're looking for free, that's not a bad place to start. So there you have a free tool for an email list and a community, and then it's 20 bucks maybe once for zoom. So I'll have links to those in the show notes [e-mail] 1001. And speaking of tools, the school of podcasting, I don't know about you, but I like to go in and see my monthly charges. And years ago I got a Black Friday deal on Audio Blocks, which is a huge catalog of music. So when you listen to my computers, my computers, my computers, seriously, wow. My commercials, a lot of that music comes from Audio blocks. Well, the $50 was my black Friday. Then it went up to I think $129. And then one was 149. And I saw where last year it's going to renew on December 1st at 199. And I just wanted to let you know I found this site called Tune Reel that I've been promoting for a couple years now, mainly because even though they have like a monthly subscription and then you get access to all that, you can buy a track over there for about 15 bucks, which is much cheaper than I've seen them other places. And I just found this and signed up for a lifetime deal of 250 bucks as I record this in September of 2025. And so I went to their help section and said, what does the membership plan cover? Where can I use this? And they say their music can be used in YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Vimeo, weddings, commercials, podcasts, yes, video games. The only exception is if you are later in broadcast tv, radio or theater, or an OTT network such as Netflix and Hulu. But podcasts are directly mentioned. And I'm going to like I said that, that lifetime deal because for me now do they have as many tracks as Audio Blocks. And I'm like, how many funky tracks do you need? You know, how many happy inspirational tracks do you need? They have a lot. I went over because you know me, bring in the noise, bring in Dafunk. I like the happy funk music. And they had 12 pages. I was like, okay, I think that's enough. So if you're a person that likes to have music, you know, transition music, things like that, you might want to check out Tune Reel. They do have an affiliate program. So Just full disclosure, I am recommending this. A, because I like their music, and then B, Yeah. Also, if you use my link, that's another way of saying, hey, Dave, thanks for the value. Thanks for letting me find this and use that link and I'll get a small kickback.

[Show Announcer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dave Jackson]

Hey, if you are going to be joining me in Charlotte, North Carolina, this is September 26th through the 28th, I will be speaking at the Empowered Podcasting Conference. And if you see me and you listen to the show, please stop and say hi. I never quite get how people are like, oh, I didn't want to bug you. Or I'm like, I feel like I'm the most approachable guy on the planet, and yet people somehow are intimidated by me. I don't, you know. Okay, your feelings are real. What is it? I acknowledge your feelings. I'm just here to say I'm a pretty nice guy. At least I hope I am. I try to be. And if you're coming, I look forward to seeing you. Now, if you like. Dave, I don't even have a podcast. Or maybe you got a podcast and it needs to grow. Don't forget about a the school of podcasting. We can get you up and going in the right direction, along with an amazing. An amazing community, along with coaching. Unlimited coaching from me. Next week, I'll talk about something that's going to change that unlimited thing. Just a little FYI. And if you need to grow your show, look, you can do that at the school of Podcasting. But I also have podcast hot seat.com where we help you identify what's working and maybe those things that need a little polishing, links to those in the show notes [e-mail] 1001. Thanks so much for listening. Until next week. Take care. God bless. Class is dismissed. Hey, this is Doug from King's X. And if you like what you hear, go tell someone and may the groove be with you.