How To Podcast Like A Pro

[00:00:00] Calan Breckon: Today’s episode is sponsored by Castos. Castos is a podcast hosting platform trusted by thousands of brands. With Castos, you can create as many podcasts and episodes as you want, no matter which plan you choose. Full disclosure, the podcast you’re listening to right now is actually hosted on Castos, and I can say with 100% confidence that Castos is the best option. Castos has their seriously simple podcasting plugin for WordPress, making it easy to run your show through your own website. This is a must have, especially if you’re looking to grow your business and audience through SEO driven content. I’ve been using Castos for over three years and the team has always been super friendly, quick to respond, and has supported my podcasting journey since day one. You can find out more by visiting CalanBreckon.com/Castos or just clicking the link in the show notes. Now let’s get into today’s episode.

Welcome to The Business Gay podcast where we talk about all things business, marketing and entrepreneurship. I’m your host, Calan Breckon, and on today’s episode I have podcast growth strategist and marketing expert Kylee Chandler. Kylee has scaled top podcasts, including The Amy Porterfield show, which she helped grow over 234% during her time there. Kylee has also led audience growth for Cathy Heller and BossBabe, just to name a few. She has worked with networks like HubSpot and now runs her own company, Podcast Marketing Hub, helping podcasters grow their audience and build their email list with high converting strategies. Kylee is also the host of “Podcast Growth Tools” that you can find across all podcasting platforms and I am so excited for her to share her tips and tricks for the podcasting and marketing trade with us today, so let’s jump in.

Hey, Kylee. Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?

[00:01:52] Kylee Chandler: Hey, Calan. I am so great. I’m so happy to be here with you.

[00:01:56] Calan Breckon: I know. I’m so excited. We were talking a little bit before how this is kind of like a full circle moment in like the podcasting world because you and I talked like two years ago now when you were working somewhere else around podcasting and you got me on as a guest and now I’m having you on as a guest and I just. I just love the full circle moment.

[00:02:17] Kylee Chandler: I do too. It’s. It’s so sweet. It’s so easy to feel so isolated in this online space, but when we have moments like this, it feels less. It. The world feels a little bit smaller and I like that.

[00:02:29] Calan Breckon: Yeah. Yeah. Being a podcasting is my favorite, like, way of communicating. We can, like, chat, have a really good conversation, and everybody feels filled up. Okay, so you are, like, a podcasting queen. You’ve been in this world for a minute, and you’ve worked with some very big names, which we talked about right off the top. I’m. I’m wanting to dive in all about podcasting with you. So let’s start off with why do you think brands and businesses should be using podcasting as part of their marketing strategies? Because a lot of people are starting to pivot in this direction.

[00:03:03] Kylee Chandler: I love this question. I really just feel that there’s no better way to nurture your audience. I mean, not only are you giving them an opportunity to get to know you, to get to know your brand, get to know your values, and hear you as a thought leader, or if you have a brand, your owner as a thought leader or head of marketing or whoever, but it also allows them to, like, almost feel like they’ve become your friend. I mean, how many times do we hear like, oh, yeah, so and so. I mean, people referencing, oh, I heard it on a podcast. Like, it’s their friend telling them over coffee. So that’s something that I love. The other piece is podcasts. So become part of somebody’s routine. Every Tuesday, I go on a. Let’s say every Tuesday, I go on a run or I go on a walk. And guess what? I’m bringing this podcast with me, because that’s what I do. I have it stack, and I always listen to it, and it’s downloaded in my phone. So you really are integrating into their whole life. It just. It becomes so part of that. And that’s why, you know, when we do see brand partnerships for podcasts, people are eager to do them because people buy from podcast hosts, you know, because they trust them. It’s like this new level of trust. I really. I know that YouTube is so great for certain podcasters. People are very excited about it right now, but at the end of the day, like Calan, are you a 90s kid and 80s kid?

[00:04:27] Calan Breckon: Oh, I’m. I was born in the 80s, but I grew up in the 90s.

[00:04:30] Kylee Chandler: All right, okay, so I was born in the 80s. Same thing. Grew up in the 90s. I bet we’re the same age, but it’s like we grew up listening to the radio station, and podcasts are basically the same thing that we grew up on and that people have been listening to for. For so long that they’re. They’re here to they’re here to stay. You know what I mean? It’s. It’s just that we can curate them now and, and have them in our.

[00:04:53] Calan Breckon: Pocket with us 100%. I love something that you just said when you said habit stacking, because that is so true. And so on point, like, I listen. Pivot Podcast is one of my favorite podcasts with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway. I talk about all the time. I, without a doubt, every Tuesday and Friday when they release their episodes. Like, that is how I start my day on those days. And, like, I haven’t really decided who the Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are that kind of have a bit that I mix through in certain ones that are like, either seasonal or whatever. But Tuesdays and Fridays, like clockwork. I am listening to them and I trust them explicitly. So what? Like, everything that they do, I’m like, they are magical and amazing. And if you can become that person who’s the earworm in somebody’s ear. Podcasting is like the new age, like, pirate radio. Back in the day, you used to have that obscure, like, person you listen to on the radio, and you just love their personality. And now podcasting gives you that access to people to be the friend in their ear and to talk to them and to build that trust on such a intimate way that is so different than video or so different than other things. Because you can multitask when you’re podcasting.

[00:06:08] Calan Breckon: You can go to the gym.

[00:06:09] Calan Breckon: You can be in those moments of like, okay, I’m taking a break from my set. But I’m also, like, actively really engaged in what’s being talked about in my ear. And so I can focus on a different level than if I was, like, watching a video or something like that. So I appreciate that habit stacking. I’m going to take that one and run with it.

[00:06:28] Kylee Chandler: What.

[00:06:29] Calan Breckon: What are some of the biggest mistakes that people make when they’re trying to grow their podcast? And how can they avoid them?

[00:06:35] Kylee Chandler: Well, first of all, you and I were talking about SEO in kind of a different platform, but it comes full circle. One thing I do see as such a mistake is one, people naming their podcast something way out of left field doesn’t really explain what the podcast is about, and it’s not serving them from a searchability standpoint. Like, when you are naming your podcast, think about what the people are going to be searching for. Me, people want to know about podcast growth, so they’re going to type in the search bar. Podcast growth or podcast downloads. I’m going to show up. Because my podcast is literally named Podcast Growth Tools. Now for I want to speak to those of you who are maybe already have a fun, whimsical name. And also what I’ll say is if you have, I’m really talking about like business or brand building or that type of thing. I mean, when it comes to storytelling, there’s a little bit of a different approach there. But when we’re talking about business, that’s you, you really want to be thinking, what are people searching? And if you already have a name and you’re like, it’s not ideal for searching, you can actually go and edit your name in your podcast place platform by just so. For instance, one of my clients has a podcast named Wine After Work, which is cute and I like it. It’s specifically for women in AEC in the agriculture or architect, engineering and construction, maybe aec. But she changed, she just went in and edited her name. Women in aec Colon, Wine After Work. She didn’t change her marketing nothing. She just changed it in the platform. She didn’t even tell anyone. It’s just there, same artwork, same everything. But that’s gonna, that’s gonna be what people are searching. So that’s something to think about. The other thing is I see too many people rushing through titles or only letting ChatGPT create their titles and then same with their episode descriptions. We have to slow down. You need to understand what keywords, key phrases your audience is searching and then think how you can infuse them into your titles. How can you infuse them into your descriptions as much as possible.

And so that’s, that’s really one mistake I see is we’re not optimizing that. And you know, Apple, Spotify, they’re their own search engines. So think about it that way at all times. I’ll pause there and then maybe I can share another one. I’m trying to think on the spot.

[00:09:04] Calan Breckon: Those are, those are really, really great. Because SEO, a lot of it does come back to search engine optimization. And if you are creating a business based kind of podcast, not just like a whimsical Chatty Cathy one, then you.

[00:09:18] Calan Breckon: Need to be able to be searchable.

[00:09:19] Calan Breckon: And if, pardon me, if you don’t have that capability for somebody to come.

[00:09:25] Calan Breckon: On and look for you and find.

[00:09:26] Calan Breckon: You organically, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Like this podcast alone. I get so many people coming to it just because it’s the only, only one that is a queer business podcast. Specifically talking about the things in entrepreneurship.

[00:09:39] Calan Breckon: That I am talking about.

[00:09:41] Calan Breckon: And I named it the Business Gay Podcast because it’s business. I’m gay. And so many people have come to me and like fallen into my DMs or like emailed me being like, you’re the only podcast they found that is doing this. And they just literally looked on Apple or Spotify or whatever. And that helps me because I find guests, I get listeners. And so it really pays to pay attention to those little things that make a difference that you might not think make a difference, but, like, trust me, it’s going to impact you if you don’t have a name, quote, unquote, like a name. Do not name your podcast your name. Because that’s kind of reserved for people who have already built something in their business. You’re starting from scratch. You need all the help you can get.

[00:10:23] Kylee Chandler: That’s such a good point. I actually wanted to circle back to that. For instance, Amy Porterfield, literally today that we’re recording this went from online marketing made easy for 16 years to the Amy Porterfield Show. She didn’t do that on day one. And good for her. I mean, you don’t want to Jasmine, like the Jasmine Star Show. You just. If you want to move in that direction, you can. And that’s the beautiful thing. You don’t have to have this podcast name forever. Be smart about it right away, though, if you’re looking for growth. Another thing I wanted to say is that I would like to see more podcasters start working to build their email list from episode number one.

Because I am such. I mean, I come from the world of Amy Porterfield. So what do you think? I like an email list. I like, I like a big email list. And so you are never too small to start you. And here’s what I’ll say is when you are small and you start to get subscribers, they are so loyal to you. And they are. That’s another way to create superfans. But if you need, if you need to reach out and talk to them or send an offer or send some piece of nurture content to them, now they’re on your email list. You can do that directly. So I highly, highly recommend, if you’re starting out or if you have a little bit of traction but you don’t have an email list, get your listeners onto your email list. It will take your relationship with them to the next level.

[00:11:46] Calan Breckon: Okay, this is, this is perfect because the next question I wanted to ask was about building email listing quizzes. So, like, why are interactive tools like quizzes so powerful? For audience growth and like lead generation. And how can they be used effectively? Because I know you helped Amy Porterfield, like really grow her list and she is kind of like the email list queen. But like, why are these specific tools so important? Especially when you start, even though you’re like, oh, it’s only a couple listeners, but like, that grows.

[00:12:17] Kylee Chandler: I love this question. So a podcast centric quiz specifically is. Is so good. Whether. So I’m going to kind of teach you two ways to do it briefly. One, I’ll teach you if you’re really new and you don’t have a huge back catalog of episodes. But then I’ll also talk to you, those of you who do have maybe I would say like 50 or more episodes to choose from. So maybe you’ve been podcasting for almost a year or something like that. So let’s talk about that. So if you’ve been podcasting for a while and you do have a back catalog of episodes, when somebody comes to your show as a newbie, they might not know where to start. It can be overwhelming to choose from 50 episodes. Or I think about a woman I just spoke to, she has 400 episodes, somebody new coming to listen is like, I don’t even know where to start. So a podcast quiz is a wonderful way to give them a curated playlist of where they should start based on their. Where they are in their journey. So when I think about creating a podcast centric quiz, I think about two bookends. I start with, who is your ica? You might have two or three or four. Great. Those are basically your results, right? So you have four different ideal customers. That’s result one, result two, result three and four. And you craft the quiz based on the details you want to know about those people. And then the other bookend is what are you offering them when they go through the quiz, through the nurture sequence, Then what are you offering them? Is it more free resources? Is it a low ticket offer? Is it hopping on a discovery call? Is it a product, an app? I mean, there’s so many things that you can offer, but if you know those bookends, building out the center of all that is so juicy. And this is going to give you not only drive people to your podcast, new and old listeners, because they’re people love to take quizzes like quizzes will they are not going out of style. People always want to know their personality type or what percentage they are to xyz. So not only is it going to give you that, it’s going to give you really important detail about your audience. You might think that you have that ICA number three, your ideal customer number three is who is in your audience the most. But you might find out that the beginner is actually who’s listening to your podcast most. So it’s going to give you ton of tons of details there and then it also nurtures them. So again, it takes that, that relationship and it makes it even deeper. And then it gives you an opportunity to say, hey, by the way, I have this great resource that I think you should that will serve you so well whether it’s paid or free. So that’s, that’s why they’re so powerful. Um, the other thing, when it comes to like ad cost quizzes, is it the cpc? It’s significantly. Yeah, it’s significantly cheaper than other types of ad spend that you can run because people like to take them and they’re free. So that’s something to think about. And then the other thing, if you don’t have a huge backlog of episodes, you can still create a quiz like this. There’s something, gosh, I’m blanking on the website right now. But basically it gives you a score and so you might be like, or it can give you an audit quiz or a score quiz. So I’m gonna blank or I’m not gonna come up with a very clever, clever score score kiss for you right now. But basically you can do that instead and say you’re, you’re X, you’re 70% to XYZ. And then you can still have the podcast playlist as a way to improve their score. So listen to these episodes to support you and getting to 100 for whatever. Does that make sense?

[00:15:57] Calan Breckon: Yes, I hear what you’re saying. It’s like with my, with this podcast specifically, it would be like, I interview tons of different types of entrepreneurs across the spectrum in different areas and fields and this, that and the other. But it could be specifically like, what area are you looking to improve as your entrepreneur? Like, where are you? Oh, here’s my episodes on venture capital. Or if that’s where you’re at, you’re looking to be fundraising and all these things. Okay, well, here’s like five episodes. Start here and that’ll help build your knowledge over here. Or, oh, if you’re a brand new beginner, here’s a couple great episodes that’ll help fill in some of those gaps around building email lists and starting things and kind of starting at like a more basic level. Whereas raising capital is a very different level. And so, yeah, leading people to the right resources for them and then allowing them to grow and then they’ll want to go listen to other episodes. And it works when you have not a ton of episodes, but also when you have a lot like Amy, to help guide the audience to build that know, like, trust. Because after they’ve built it with the episodes you recommended, then they’ll go listen to the other episodes as well because they want to keep, you know, kind of that habit building.

[00:17:08] Kylee Chandler: Exactly. And the way that I work with my clients in building out these quizzes is we have this beautiful nurture sequence on the backside of taking the quiz that does make them become a super fan of the podcast. There’s one email that’s wholly devoted to what the podcast is, how to make sure you are following subscribed automatic downloads. So you’re kind of bringing them along that journey. And yeah, eventually it leads to people who are, you know, showing up every single week for your podcast.

[00:17:38] Calan Breckon: Yeah. So, okay, so quizzes, SEO, what are beyond these? And like maybe beyond social media, what are some other high impact yet, like overlooked ways to promote your podcast that maybe people aren’t thinking about? Because I know you’re crafty.

[00:17:55] Kylee Chandler: I am crafty. Crafty, Scrappy. What did I did? I just. Did I just call myself crappy? I think I was like combining crafty with scrappy and call myself that. So. Well, here we are.

Okay. One thing that I love is co marketing. So yes, being on other people’s podcasts is like a.

It is work. It has. It worked 20 years ago, it worked 10 years ago, it works today. Get on other people’s podcasts and I will say, Calan, at the beginning of this, before we push record, we talked about finding your little communities and how it feels so good to connect with people who just like get you. And I do feel 2025 is the year of podcast collaborations. Like, people are excited to support each other. It’s not just about their podcast or their business. They’re like, how can we collaborate and make this work? So go out there, get on other people’s podcasts and then find ways to co market. So when, like Calan, you’re going to come on my podcast. And so we’re doing a podcast swap, which is so great.

But when I send over all the details for you coming on, you’ll notice I give you a Google sheet that basically says, I am so excited to share this content. I know it’s going to be top tier. I would love to invite you to help me market it and here are all the ways that we can do that. And then I give you a checklist that literally says, do you want to do a newsletter swap? Do you want to do an Instagram live? Do you want to do a podcast ad swap? Do you? There’s so, I mean I have like a full list and then at the very bottom I also have none at this time, thank you very much. Or something like that. This is kind of an easy, like, okay, you can hop out of here if you’d like.

But that is a really powerful way to just let them know that hey, we’re going to create this content anyways. People are always looking for content, so why don’t you invite them a little bit earlier on in the process to help them start thinking like, oh, oh, she would create newsletter content for me that I just need to like upload and send. Oh, that sounds great. Yeah, I’d love that. You know, it’s like one less thing that they have to do. But you’re still promoting you and you are the expert on my show anyways, so why don’t you want to position yourself that way? So I love just thinking about that. How can I invite them in really early on to share this with me and know that they, they have a little bit of a task as well when they come on my show. So that’s one.

And then another thing that I love to do is if you have traffic to your website, which Calan knows all about that and he’s an expert in, you should be optimizing your website with pop ups and lead magnets that are basically just podcast, podcast playlists, bundles, whatever it might be, because you’ve already created the content and then you just bundle a few of your episodes together and say, hey, I, you know, I just created this bundle.

Now I’m trying to give you copy for a pop up that is not snappy, but make it snappy.

[00:20:59] Calan Breckon: No, but I love it. I’m like actually taking notes over here.

[00:21:03] Kylee Chandler: Oh, I love hearing that. Honestly, you can make it so easy. You can put it together in a PDF listing out the five episodes that fall into this bundle. Right. So if it’s a list building bundle, here’s five episodes on list building that you need to binge right now. Or if you want to get really simple, just put it into a delivery email, link up the five episodes. Boom, your lead magnet is done. So thinking about and the way I like to do this, I’m going to take this a step further and it’s identify your top performing Web pages.

So maybe depending on how big your website is, if you can identify like 10 to 20 of your top performing web pages that get the most visits, optimize those pages specifically. And if you can create a bundle that aligns with that specific page, the content on that page, even better. So Calan, you help people with SEO. You know how important SEO is. So let’s say somebody has done a really decent job of creating SEO rich blog style show notes and they’re getting traffic to a show notes page or blog style show notes page. All about list building. Again, you would put a pop up on there that says, I see you’re loving this content. If you want to take it a step further, grab this list building audio bundle or something like that. Or for for instance, a different one that’s kind of very different than that is we did this for Amy and one page that’s pretty well visited was her careers page. So we literally took one episode that is about where she’s talking about what it’s like to work on Team Porterfield and we put it in the pop up. Hey, I see you’re interested in working for Team Porterfield. Want to hear more about what that’s like, grab, put your details here and I’ll send you an episode all about what it’s like and then we just send it to them. So it’s not like far left. It’s very specific to that webpage. If you can do that. If you can’t do that. Still, putting together a bundle is a great way to attract those listeners, get new subscribers and then get new, new downloads and new listeners.

[00:23:11] Calan Breckon: Okay. There was, there was so much goodness in here. Like, I’m just like, my brain is just like process, process, process.

Yes. Having a pop up. And like thank you for reminding me because I don’t always run a pop up on my website. But I’m like, I really should get on top of like putting together like a package episode of like here’s the top five episodes of the podcast or top most listened to episodes. And in saying that I actually was my episode being on the Amy Porterfield podcast was listed for quite a long time as one of her top five episodes to listen to on her website. And I have like a screenshot of it. Cause I was like, yeah, Yep.

And. And those things are just really cool. And it helps people kind of figure out what they want to listen to. Going back to your first point about being on other people’s podcasts. Yes, yes, yes. Because if you’re, if I’m looking for guests on my podcast. Other people are also looking for guests on theirs. And I’ve had many successful podcast swaps. Not in a sense that, like, that’s how we come into it, but. But it’s like, oh, you have one as well. Like, yeah, I’d love to talk if it lines up. Like, you’re not going to line up on everybody’s podcast because, you know, I’m more business technical. I’m not going to go and just gab about whatever. Um, but I’ve had a number of successful ones that way. And. And it’s always great because, you know, I have an email list. They have an email list. We’re going to talk about each other and promote each other, and there’s always going to be a couple people that trickle over and it’s like, oh, these things align and I want to listen. And borrowing other people’s audiences is one of the best ways to build a following with the caveat of you do or should have that pipeline kind of set up, whether that’s just a website and, like, a simple email capture so that at least there’s somewhere for those people to go when they do come over and find you. But, yeah, I fully agree that podcast swapping, especially going into 20, 25 and beyond, I think it’s. It’s. There’s a shift back towards community, and it’s a way that people are. Are being able to kind of engage in that. Okay, diving a little bit deeper. I. I’m bad at this. I don’t really track my stats. I’m. Maybe I’ve been podcasting for too long. Like, I’ve been podcasting for five years now. Five, maybe six years.

How can tracking tools like a. UTM parameters help marketers and podcasters gain deeper insights into their audience behavior and improve strategy? And I don’t even know these kinds of things. I kind of look at them like, okay, that’s how many people listened. But I consider myself more of a casual podcaster, not like a hardcore focused business podcaster. So I’m really curious as to what you might have to say around this.

[00:25:54] Kylee Chandler: Yeah, so I think, you know, it’s easy to overlook these because, oh, you have to make them, and then you have to, like, make sure they’re set up so that you. There is some, you know, technical setting up to them. But the beautiful thing about understanding where your audience is coming from is that you can pour more into what that platform may have delivered to you, or you can systemize your efforts. Like, it’s so Easy to get caught up in. I have to be here and I have to be here and I have to make sure I, you know, communicate with the people over on threads and Instagram and LinkedIn and oh, Pinterest. But, but if you understand that, oh, you know what, LinkedIn is actually not working for me, but Pinterest is really showing up for me, then spend more time there. That tells you that your, your listeners, your ideal customers, they’re hanging out over there. So really understanding where the traffic is coming from. And you can use UTM links to really understand this. That’s important. One way that I really like to use ISO, the way that I work with my clients is we create a quiz together and then we turn that quiz into a podcast promo week. Using the quiz is kind of the center of, of that podcast promo week. Because I’m all about treating your podcast like a product just like you would launch anything else. Do the same with your, with your podcast. And so when I sit down to create a podcast promo week, for instance, there’s, you know, maybe you do a banner on your website or there’s a certain pop up, or you do an Instagram post or a LinkedIn post, or you send a newslet to a segmented list or, or you run ads. Like those are all different marketing efforts. And when you can create specific UTM links for them at the end of your promo, you can sit down and go, okay, what worked? What was worth my efforts? Where was the traffic coming from? Because if I do another podcast promo week, I would like to maybe make my promo week a little skinnier. So where can I trim the fat? Oh, these UTM links are going to give me that information.

So that’s how I like to use them specifically.

[00:28:03] Calan Breckon: Okay. Okay, gotcha. So it’s, it’s just getting all the details in nuts and bolts. And don’t feel bad if you don’t do it, everybody, because I don’t do it 100%. Because sometimes when you’re a one person show, it’s, it can be difficult.

[00:28:16] Calan Breckon: But when you have the knowledge and.

[00:28:17] Calan Breckon: Know how, or you’re like Kylee and you’ve done it and have somebody like Kylee to walk you through it, it makes it a little bit easier to kind of set up those nuts and bolts pieces.

[00:28:26] Kylee Chandler: I will say that I’m so glad you said that because honestly, I’ve worked with some fairly sizable companies and most of them don’t do it. Most of them don’t. But here’s what I’ll say. I know Veronica Veronica Romney. Check into her. She’s amazing. She is like the marketing queen and she is all about the UTMs. And when I started working a little bit with her, she really drove it home for me and I started to see the value in it. But you’re absolutely right.

Don’t worry about this if you’re just starting out, but keep it in the back of your mind, play with it from time to time. I mean, you, you can create a UTM link for free. And so play with it, see what happens, see if you can track it and all that good stuff. So that’s, that’s a great point. I’m glad you said that.

[00:29:10] Calan Breckon: Yeah, definitely. So we’ve talked about, you know, kind of starting a podcast, building ways you can build using quizzes, building your email list. But at the end of the day, eventually, I assume the reason people are making podcasts are for fun. But also from our standard we’re talking about now is business. And at the end of the day, you need to make money with a business. So do you have any ideas or what are some of the most underrated monetization strategies that creators and businesses should be leveraging when they have a podcast or when they’re creating a podcast?

[00:29:46] Kylee Chandler: So I am going to be upfront about this. I’m not the person, excuse me, I’m not the person who’s going to talk about brand partnerships. I have other people I can, I can show you the way too, who are really good at that. Same with like ad insertions from networks or even like Libsyn allows you to run ads or Spotify for creators. That’s, that’s great. And I think there’s definitely a time and place for those. I am all about using your podcast to promote your products, so anytime you can. That’s why I’m such a big fan of using your podcast to drive subscribers, get them on to a welcome sequence. Maybe you offer them a low ticket offer at that point, maybe you don’t. Maybe you just nurture them and then when you have a big launch, they’re there.

Another fun, fun way that you could actually monetize is maybe you have, let’s say you have like 900 downloads for an episode in a month. I mean, that’s so great. Let’s say you have 200. Let’s say you have 9,000. What if a segment of those people joined you for a monthly membership call and make it so easy. All you do is host a zoom for like, I don’t know, 47, 67. Every, every single month. And you jump on with them. They can, you can talk about your podcast more in depth about the episodes you release that month. If you had a guest on, maybe you invite them on. You can dive deeper into it. You can host a Q and A. I mean, let’s, let’s say you have, like I said, 900 people who generally listen to an episode. What if 100 of them wanted to pay you $47 every single month for this little bit of extra, you know, support, guidance. Oh, I get to do Q A with you. Oh, I get a little bit more from your guests. That is a really fun way to play around with making a little bit of quick money with a little bit of a low lift, you know, especially if you have guests, just invite them on and banter back and forth. Have fun. And yeah, people can just do month to month payments and I, I know there’s like Patreon and things like that and I think they’re pretty. And people are also doing Apple subscription, which I think is great. This is kind of a fun way to support your audience and then also nurture them. So continue to nurture them. And so let’s say that they have been coming to these monthly calls every month and then you are going to sell a big ticket offer. Those are probably going to be your hottest leads. They’re going to be like, absolutely, take.

[00:32:21] Calan Breckon: My credit card, definitely.

[00:32:23] Kylee Chandler: So that’s kind of a fun way to play with too.

[00:32:25] Calan Breckon: That is. Yeah. A lot of podcasts, especially like really focused niche or specific podcasts that can, that’s very successful for them. They can, they can definitely do that. I know the podcast I was a part of before this, the Gay Men Going Deeper podcast, we had memberships and all that kind of stuff and we definitely did that to support the community and everybody who wanted to be involved. And Apple like subscriptions, we would release episodes early. And it’s a really like the membership can take a lot of time and effort and energy, but the, the kind of low bar of offering subscriptions on your Apple and then allowing them to either get episodes early or even having like secret special episodes just for them, it’s like you know, a $50, $2, $5, like you can make it whatever your monthly subscription cost is, but it’s so low that that little bit amount.

[00:33:15] Calan Breckon: Does end up adding up because that’s like at the end of the month or the end of the year or.

[00:33:19] Calan Breckon: Whatever that could end up being like your costs to run your podcast. And as long as it’s like a Self fulfilling loop, then that way you’ve kind of built that security in. I will also say that some other low hanging fruit for monetizing your podcast because I’m kind of blanket the entrepreneurship. There’s not one specific thing that I focus on and what I think works really well for me because I’m also like not high maintenance is affiliate marketing.

[00:33:44] Calan Breckon: In terms of the ads that I run off the top.

[00:33:46] Calan Breckon: So I don’t get paid specifically for that ad to run. A certain amount of times I have an affiliate link that if somebody goes through and purchases that product, I get a little bit of a kickback from that and that like if somebody ends up doing it, it makes money.

[00:34:01] Calan Breckon: If not, it’s all good.

[00:34:02] Calan Breckon: But over time I’m not losing an opportunity of making that money because that affiliate link is always going to be there.

[00:34:09] Calan Breckon: And not that a ton comes in.

[00:34:10] Calan Breckon: From my ads, but like enough has.

[00:34:12] Calan Breckon: Come in over the months and years.

[00:34:14] Calan Breckon: That it’s like every little bit kind of helps. And as the podcast grows, that’s only going to equal more. And those are really low bar, they’re really easy to implement and you don’t need to upkeep them because that link is always going to be relevant and valid. And that’s another way to kind of play with different brands and different things without needing to like really work on a deal or tell everybody what your ma like your numbers are and all that kind of stuff.

[00:34:38] Kylee Chandler: I love that. And that kind of makes me think of how we talked about earlier, how people, that’s why affiliate links and things like that do so well on podcasts, because people trust you and they’re like, oh, you like this brand of collagen? I have to go get it. Even though it has nothing to do with what you actually teach on your podcast. But the other thing I wanted to say is yes to affiliates, especially if you’re just starting out or if you’re fairly new, do that like go just, you can go to so many websites and just click the affiliate link and get, get a code within minutes. However, the cool thing beyond that is if you do find, hey, you know what, I’m actually getting some traction with XYZ affiliate, XYZ affiliate. Then you can reach out to them and say, hey, I’ve been actually promoting your, your XYZ for a long time and I’ve had this really great success. Let’s talk about a brand partnership. I also have a newsletter I can promote you on, promote you on, or a social media following. And then they are Actually going to be really enticed, be like, oh, you’re already doing this for us. You have, like, proof is in the pudding here. Yeah, we’ll pay you, you know, a thousand dollars a month or something to promote for us and create this brand partnership. So it’s a good way to just like, get your foot in the door and then kind of grow from there.

[00:35:52] Calan Breckon: Yeah. Using that leverage that you build for yourself.

[00:35:55] Calan Breckon: I love it.

[00:35:55] Calan Breckon: That’s great. Okay, we’ve talked a lot and covered a lot of things today. Is there any kind of, like, last suggested words of wisdom or little, like, nuggets that you want to, you want to share before we kind of wrap things up here?

[00:36:11] Kylee Chandler: I think two things I just want to reiterate is one, have fun with collaborating. This is 2025. We are coming together as a community in a, in a unique way. So I think podcasters are all excited to be in here together and just be excited to support each other. So look for opportunities like that and, and think about it as like, more of a co collaboration than versus like, I’m on your podcast or you’re on mine. Like, think about fun ways to support one another. And then the other thing is just build that email list. Use the podcast to grow your email list. Use the email list to grow your podcast.

[00:36:48] Calan Breckon: It goes hand in hand a hundred percent.

[00:36:51] Calan Breckon: Kylee, this has been so great.

[00:36:53] Calan Breckon: You are full of so much amazing knowledge, especially when it comes to podcasting. Where can folks find out more about you and your services and what you offer and how you can help people build their podcasts?

[00:37:03] Kylee Chandler: Yeah. So I created a fun little lead freebie for you guys that are listening. If you guys want to learn a little bit more about the strategies I recommend for growing your email list and your podcast together, you can head to podcastmarketinghub.com forward/playlist and you’ll get a great free resource there. So check that out. You can also check out my podcast, Podcast Growth Tools. I’m going to have Calan on there, so we’ll let you know when that airs as well. And then I definitely, I do discovery calls if you guys want to talk further about your podcast, your brand and growing it. And you can just find that podcastmarketinghub.com/playbook.

[00:37:42] Calan Breckon: Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Kylee, for being a guest. This, like I said, this has been a full circle moment and I absolutely loved having you.

[00:37:49] Kylee Chandler: Thank you, Calan. I love being here.

[00:37:51] Calan Breckon: Thanks for tuning in today. Don’t forget to hit that subscribe button. And if you really enjoyed today’s episode. I would love a star rating from you. The Business Gay Podcast is written, produced and edited by me, Calan Breckon. That’s it for today. Peace, love, rainbows.