School of Podcasting: Expert Tips for Launching and Growing Your Podcast

AI Can Now Delete Your Podcast Ads. Here's Your Plan B.
What if your listeners could tell an AI to cut every ad out of your podcast and get back a clean file a few minutes later? That's not a hypothetical anymore. Adam Curry, the co-inventor of podcasting, just did it on the Podcasting 2.0 show, and the episode he tested turned out to be roughly half ads. If any part of your income depends on advertising, this one's for you. I walk through what happened, why Bill Burr's "terrible" ad reads actually sold more product, the real math on what Captivate, Buzzsprout, Supercast, and Patreon take from your premium subscriptions, and the soul-crushing (but honest) numbers from my own paid newsletter. And at the end, I ask you a question about AI that has nothing to do with your podcast and everything to do with your life.
AI Just Stripped the Ads Out of a Podcast
On Podcasting 2.0, Adam Curry connected his AI tool to Podcast Index using something called Model Context Protocol (MCP), which is a fancy way of saying "a way to plug AI into other systems." Then he asked it to grab the latest episode of Ed Zitron's Better Offline and strip out the ads at the beginning.
Eight minutes later, it was done. The raw file was 12 minutes and 36 seconds. The actual episode was 6 minutes and 38 seconds. The AI removed a 2 minute and 54 second pre-roll block, verified the new file started right on Ed's "hello," and then offered to trim the three minutes of ads at the end too.
His co-host Dave Jones said what we were all thinking: it's over for ads. And honestly, when half your content is ads, can you blame people for wanting them gone?
Adam's Real Point: Discoverability
The following week, Adam came back and said we were all missing the point. He's excited about discoverability. If an AI can go fetch an episode and clean it up, it can also go "find me a show about blank," which is basically building your own search engine. His bot even offered to go get the next episode.
(For the record, when someone says "there's no discoverability in podcasting," what they usually mean is "nobody's discovered my podcast." Word of mouth works just like an algorithm, and it doesn't change the rules every month.)
I also got pitched by a company that wanted me to promote their ad-cutting app. I'm not naming them. As much as I dislike bloated ad loads, if you're selling an advertiser on getting in front of thousands of people and a chunk of them never hear the ad, that starts to look like fraud.
Want People to Listen to Your Ads? Make Better Ads
A theme I heard during the business days at Podcast Movement: if you want people to hear your ads, make them better. Exhibit A is comedian Bill Burr, who sold out Madison Square Garden. Back in 2013, he did a now-famous read for Shari's Berries where he read the company's instructions out loud and roasted the copy. The company called and asked him to take it down. He didn't. People ordered the berries anyway, partly because he said he'd get in trouble, it turned out they were delicious, and sales went up. Younger brands figured out that people were actually listening to him.
The catch today: brand-safety robots now scan transcripts, and in a lot of cases "brand safe" means "boring (IMHO)." They don't always understand slang. Tell a bot "that's the bomb" and see what happens.
Programmatic Ads vs. Selling Your Own Stuff
Programmatic ads (the Geicos and Progressives that aren't host-read) pay somewhere between $1 and $7 per thousand downloads, depending on who you ask. That's why so many shows stuff their episodes full of them.
Only 8.6% of podcast listeners say they could tolerate a few more ads if it keeps a podcast free, according to The Podcast Study 2026.
Meanwhile, 54.8% already say podcasts carry too many ads. see more
I've always said the most profitable way to make money with your podcast is to sell your own product or service. If you buy my book, Profit from Your Podcast, I make about $12. At a $5 CPM, I'd need 2,400 downloads to make the same $12.
Which is easier: 2,400 downloads, or selling one book to an audience you're specifically trying to attract?
The PBS Method: Premium Podcasts and Crowdfunding
No product? Try the PBS method: give people a great show, then ask them to support it. Here's what the big premium podcast platforms take (in USD, including card processing):
Captivate: 12% plus processing, about 14.9% + 30¢ per transaction
Buzzsprout: a flat 15%, fees included
Supercast: 59¢ per subscriber per month, plus about 3.6% + 30¢
Patreon (standard plan): about 12% + 30¢

The best choice depends on your price. On a $5 monthly tier, Buzzsprout leaves you the most, about $4.25. At $10, Supercast pulls ahead because its per-subscriber fee is flat: you keep about $8.75, versus $8.50 at Buzzsprout and $8.21 at Captivate. We're talking pennies per person, but multiply that by a few hundred supporters and it adds up.
My Paid Newsletter: Here's the Soul-Crushing Part
My newsletter, Podcasting Observations, lives on Substack and costs $4 a month. It has 2,407 subscribers. Sounds impressive, right? Eight of them pay. That's 0.3%, a tenth of the 3% I usually tell people to expect. Annualized revenue is up 73%, from $227 to $393. (So again, it takes time).
I won't blink at $400. Thank you to everyone who supports it. But that's what I call a "garden hose in the pool," not a fire hose. And the newsletter still pays off as a lead magnet, because some of those readers join the School of Podcasting.
Chapo Trap House: The Long Game
Want to see what the fire hose looks like? Go to Graphtreon, use Advanced Filtering, and show only podcasts. Chapo Trap House has about 46,000 paying supporters averaging $4.21 a month, which works out to roughly $194,769 a month. The catch everyone skips: they started in May 2016. They release free episodes and paywalled ones, and they've had a decade to build. It's not "which one way should I make money with my podcast?" Do them all.
Affiliate Income and Donate Buttons
Amazon affiliates: I've made $129 in 2026 from around 134 orders, roughly a dollar an order, mostly microphones. Set it up once with things your audience actually wants. Every so often someone buys a $2,000 TV with their mic.
Watch Amazon's rules. You can get booted for saying something like "shop with my link, it supports the show." It happened to comedian Jay Mohr. I use Genius Link, which also shows me what people click (right now it's Tom Webster's The Audience Is Listening and Storyworthy).
PodPage has an affiliate program, and it pays nicely.
Donate buttons: I like Buy Me a Coffee because it makes recurring support easy. It may take a little more in fees, but it's simpler for the listener. PayPal, Buy Me a Coffee, Supercast, and

Stop Researching, Start Doing (This Time I Brought Receipts)
Be honest: how many podcast growth videos have you watched this month, and how many of those ideas have you actually tried? I get it. I have courses I've bought and never opened. But a few weeks ago I challenged you to quit swinging for the grand slam and just make solid contact, and this time I'm back with proof.
My buddy Mark actually did the work, and his downloads jumped 17% in five weeks. I also share the free, 42-second habit that's sending people to my website every week, the five-minute move that got me mentioned on another podcast without even asking, and some surprising data on what happened to shows that added video in Apple Podcasts.
If you've been stuck in research mode, this is your nudge to press play and then go do something.
Mark Did It: 17% Growth in Five Weeks
Over the last several weeks, we've been running growth masterminds inside the School of Podcasting, talking strictly about strategies to grow your show. Plenty of people listened. Mark Lawley from Practical Prepping actually put them to work. Buzzsprout sends him a weekly download count, and over five weeks his numbers grew about 17%, with a lot of people going back into his back catalog. I'll take that all day.
Find, Click, Act
To grow your reach, remember the order things happen in:
They have to find you first. That means a good episode title that's a promise of what's inside, not clickbait, and show notes full of helpful words (preferably ones that came out of your mouth, not AI's). People find you through word of mouth, paid promotion, or organic search, and Google loves good words.
Then they have to click. Once they land on your website, don't make them dig for episodes.
Then they have to act. Tell a friend, buy your product, visit your sponsor, whatever your "why" is.

My Social Media Experiment
You can't manage what you don't track. I knew some people wouldn't want to pay for a tool (I LOVE Switchy and it's only $39 for a lifetime deal), so I used Short.io, which gives you 100 trackable links for free and takes about 42 seconds per link.
I expected next to nothing from social. Instead, posting once to three times a week, I was getting around 40 clicks a week. That's roughly 160 a month and about 1,920 a year, from less than five minutes per post across Bluesky, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
Clicks aren't downloads, and nobody's told me yet that they found the show on social. But before I tried this, I had zero clicks to my website. If what you're doing now isn't growing your audience, try something. Stop waiting for the perfect opportunity while week after week goes by.
Are You Afraid of Success?
Sometimes it's not fear of failure holding you back. You already launched. It might be fear of success. Here's what I hear, and my answer to each:
"If I get popular, people will criticize me." People in line behind you at Walmart are already judging you.
"Who am I to be listened to?" You've done hard things before. You have life experience worth sharing.
"What if I disappoint people?" You already do, on a regular basis. That's life.
"What if my hobby turns into a job?" It's your show. You decide.
"Then I'll have to monetize." No, you won't. If you don't want sponsors, don't have sponsors.
"What if I try everything and it still doesn't grow?" You've already started to grow. We just want to throw some gasoline on it.

Other things get in the way too: perfectionism that keeps you researching forever, goals that are too vague or too big, strategies that don't fit your values (that's okay, you should have values), and plain old discomfort with being visible. I once wanted to refund a client because every option I offered got "I'm not doing that."
The Five-Minute Strategy: Leave a Voicemail
If you listen to a show similar to yours, leave it a voicemail. Neal Veglio did this on the Pod News Weekly Review, and he always brought value. He made me think or laugh every time. So when I was telling people to find someone who shares their audience, I went and found Neal's show, cherry-picked episodes because his titles were so good (there's another strategy), and mentioned him on my show.
Without me asking, he returned the favor on Podmastery:Podcasting Insights. We haven't even figured out what we're doing together yet, and we've already cross-promoted. Total time: less than five minutes.
It reminded me of the Podcasters' Roundtable with Ray Ortega and Daniel J. Lewis. They're technically my competition, and also some of my favorite people on the planet.
How I Got Into the Hall of Fame
I was asked this week how I got into the Podcasting Hall of Fame. My answer is a joke that isn't a joke: I didn't quit. Others did. You can't make a dent in anyone's life if you quit.
There was a time you didn't know how to button a shirt, tie your shoes, or walk. You learned by doing it, and sometimes doing it wrong. As Zig Ziglar said, you don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. Figure out who your audience is, go where they are, make friends, and tell them about your show. That's Podcast Growth 101.
Using Podcorn? Remove Your Prefix Now
Podcorn is going away (I believe sometime in early November). If you added their tracking prefix at your media host, every one of your episodes will stop working when they shut down unless you remove it. Do it now so you don't wake up to zero downloads and a pile of "I can't download your show" emails.
Are You Even Close to Being Ready For Ads?
While you're in there: when I worked at Libsyn, I'd see shows with 317 downloads running three or four prefixes for companies that require 10,000. Every prefix is one more piece of technology that can fail and take your files down with it. Find out the minimum you need to qualify, and add the prefix when you get there.
Does Adding Video in Apple Podcasts Help?
Rob Walsh from Captivate always brings the receipts, and he makes stats fun. He looked at shows that opted into Apple's video program in May and compared their August Apple Podcasts numbers to their average for February through April:
15% went up
32% stayed flat (within plus or minus 15%)
53% went down

That's about an 85% chance your Apple numbers stay flat or drop. The theory he heard: listeners saw the show had video and went to watch it on YouTube instead. His advice, and ours from the start: if you want to do video, start on YouTube. If it doesn't add too much stress to your workflow, keep going and maybe add it to Apple. What makes me sad is people who added video, got overwhelmed, and dropped the podcast instead of the video. All of the Podcast Movement presentations, including Rob's, are on the Podcast Movement YouTube channel.
Podcasting in Six Weeks Is Starting Soon
If you want to launch a podcast in 2027, my free Podcasting in Six Weeks course starts in a couple of weeks. We'll work our way around the holidays. Sign up at podcastinginsixweeks.com.
Bonus: The Wendy's Story
Stick around after the outro for a story about a hamburger order that went wrong several times (hamburger, not cheeseburger), me losing my patience, and why I went back to the counter on my way out to apologize. Try saying you're sorry. It makes you feel better, and the other person will probably thank you.
Want to grow your show like Mark? Head to schoolofpodcasting.com, click Join, and use the coupon code LISTENER for a monthly, quarterly, or yearly subscription. You get courses, community, and one-on-one coaching, backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee. The website runs on PodPage.
Websites Mentioned
School of Podcasting (coupon code LISTENER): https://schoolofpodcasting.com
Practical Prepping (Mark Lawley): https://practicalprepping.info
P3 Media Group (Mark's editing services):

Podcast Movement 2026 Reflections + Lessons from Two People Who Run Podcast Events
I just got back from Podcast Movement, and a lot of you have been asking whether it was still worth going now that it's under new ownership, in a new location, with a whole new format. Short answer: I'm definitely going back.
In this episode I walk through what changed, what I loved, what I'd tweak, and what Tom Webster's data says about where podcasting really stands. Then I sit down with two guys who have actually done it, Marc Ronick of Empowered Podcasting and Dr. Brad Miller of Pod Indy, to get the behind-the-scenes story of running a podcast event. If you've ever had that little voice in your head saying "maybe I should start my own meetup or conference," this one is for you.
Podcast Movement 2026: Was It Worth It?
I went down the list, old Podcast Movement versus new.
The hotel and the cost. It used to be at Gaylord hotels, which run $1,000 a night, where the burgers are $30 apiece and you never leave the building. This year was BYOH: bring your own hotel. I stayed two nights at a Holiday Inn Express for $400 a night. Still pricey, but nowhere near the Gaylord. Tickets were also much cheaper because they weren't paying for that hotel arrangement. Point to the new Podcast Movement.
The venue. Picture a small theater (think House of Blues) that had a baby with a cruise ship: three floors, and you can look down at the main stage from the top. The rooms were narrower, so the back row was farther from the stage than I was used to. I also learned I need new glasses, because the giant screen was split in two and I couldn't read the slides. Sessions ran with silent-disco-style headphones: turn the dial to yellow or green and you hear that stage. The strange part is that people talk while someone is presenting a few feet away. It went against everything in my body, but it works, and I could network the whole time. My one suggestion: turn on the house lights during networking breaks. When you have 40 minutes to meet people and can't see who's in the room, it's a problem (unless it's Rob Greenley, who is six foot six inches).
Networking and the parties. PodPage hosted a small meetup, and I walked over to the Buzzsprout meetup too. Both were places where you could actually talk, with no blaring music. I've talked to Dan Franks, who helps plan Podcast Movement, and he says they tell every sponsor that people want to talk, not have their ears bleed. Nice to see it work.
New York City. I'll miss Dallas and Chicago, but it's supposedly staying in New York to make it easier for international attendees. The food was a win, and I never felt unsafe walking around Hell's Kitchen. I ate at Cubbies and at McGee's, which I didn't realize until halfway through is tied to How I Met Your Mother.
A smarter schedule. Monday and Tuesday were geared toward the business and advertising side, and Thursday and Friday were for indie podcasters. That means indie folks can save on the hotel bill.
The talks are going online. They're putting the presentations on the Podcast Movement YouTube channel for free. I'm looking forward to catching the ones I missed, including Lou Mangiello and Rob Walch's talk about video.
What I Learned from Tom Webster
If you only see one talk at a conference, make it Tom Webster's. Here's what stuck with me:
Podcasting has gone flat. It used to grow at least 3 to 5% a year, occasionally 7%. This past year it barely moved. It's still growing, but by a very small amount.
Where people listen. In a survey of roughly 5,000 podcast consumers, the top three places were YouTube, Spotify, and Netflix. Not Apple, Pocket Casts, or Overcast.
Where I disagree. YouTube and Spotify are open to anyone, so I get why people call them podcasts. Netflix isn't open. They have to choose you, and there's no RSS feed. For me, a podcast is an RSS feed with audio or video in it.
Tom's Walmart analogy. Look at the CD section: a tiny collection of only the biggest hits (Back in Black, Rumors), nothing like a dedicated record store. His suggestion was that we should promote podcast-specific apps. My favorite is Pocket Casts: it plays audio and video, it has bookmarks (that's how I grab the clips I play on the show), and it has a web version.

Podcast Standards Project: PodRoll Is Coming
I sat in on my first Podcast Standards Project meeting. PodRoll, from the Podcasting 2.0 spec, is the modern version of a blogroll: a list of shows you personally recommend, living in your feed. Because feeds are public, anyone can see who's recommended most. That's human recommendations, not an algorithm you try to trick. Ask your media host if they support it (if not move ton one that does). The group is also looking at adding location, so you could find podcasts in your area.
Video: Do You Have To?
Some people insist you have to do video. Others said not only do you not have to, but the shows that added it didn't see much benefit beyond more work, cost, and time. In Apple's video spotlight, the shows featured were already big. I'm looking forward to Rob Walch's full presentation, because that's exactly the kind of "what's working and what's not" you go to a conference to learn.
Small Events vs. Big Ones
Podcast Movement had probably over 1,000 people. Empowered Podcasting had a little over 100 (about 150 this year), and Pod Indy will land somewhere between 50 and 100. Podfest usually draws a couple thousand. My favorite kind of event is single-track: everyone hears the same content, so when you step into the hallway you all have something to talk about.
Interview: Running a Podcast Event with Marc Ronick and Dr. Brad Miller
Why they started. Brad spent 43 years as a pastor and was a Christian concert promoter, so he'd seen the power of live events. After connecting with his local podcasting group in Indianapolis, he launched Pod Indy in 2023 (I keynoted the first one), and the fourth is coming up. Mark had been podcasting as long as I have, and didn't step into a conference until about five years ago. He felt a little out of place at the big ones, so he built a place where he'd feel comfortable.
Small is a feature. Mark went in wanting Empowered Podcasting to become the next Podcast Movement. After the first one (2024, under 100 people) he noticed magic in a smaller, more intimate room, where people were learning from each other outside the sessions. He'd cap it around 200. Brad goes deep on one track, one day.
The biggest surprises:
You can't do it alone. Mark thought he could run it almost by himself. He carried the financial and emotional load, burned out after year two, and nearly canceled three times. Jason and Rich stepped in to save it, and he made them business partners.
Ticket sales come late. In Mark's second year, only about 20 tickets sold before the final month. Brad says two-thirds of tickets arrive in the last month. This year's sales were smoother for both, and both say credibility builds over time.
Bring enough lead time. Brad's first event had only three months, and he bit off more than he could chew. He also lost money using a business center, so he moved it to his church, where he has a studio, and kept it to one day with no hotel block.
Hotel blocks. If you don't fill the rooms, you pay anyway. Mark's went fine this year because speakers and a good share of attendees needed rooms.

Money, honestly. Brad started by deciding what he could afford to lose (he did lose some the first year, and calls it an investment). Mark admits he wasn't careful with money in the first two years and took on some debt. Both credit their wives, Debbie and Amy, for keeping them grounded and for believing in the vision.
Advice if you're thinking about it:
Mark: Be okay with however many people show up. Start with a few who believe in your message. If they have a good experience, they come back and become your advocates.
Brad: Build transformative relationships one on one, then a few together. Have coffee or lunch with someone, or start online, before deciding whether to do a formal event.
Both: Virtual is great, but nothing replaces being around like-minded people in person.

Choosing speakers. Mark's pet peeve is speaker submissions that are obviously written entirely by AI: "I love using AI, but that's a lazy move, and I don't know that I want a lazy speaker on one of my stages." (My favorite line on this: if you can't take the time to write it, produce it, or record it, why should I take the time to consume it?) Brad recruits speakers through personal relationships instead of an application process. Themes so far: podcasting as a business, AI, and this year taking your podcast (and your life) to the next level with keynote speaker Cliff Ravenscraft.
Pod Indy: November 7, 2026
When and where: November 7, 2026, in Whiteland, Indiana (suburban Indianapolis), 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Tickets: $37 in person, $27 live stream.
Discount: use code SOP for $5 off.
On the lineup: Cliff Ravenscraft (keynote), John Lee Dumas (video), Craig on AI, and me.

My Takeaway
If you try to start with 1,000 people, you'll burn...

A few years ago I accidentally hit a guy on the golf course. I'm not proud of it — although it did bank in almost perfectly off his calf on its way toward the hole. But the swing that caused it taught me something I haven't stopped thinking about: my brother told me to quit trying to kill the ball and just make good contact. Looking at podcasting, it turns into the best explanation I've found for why so many podcasts stop growing.
If you've ever chased a bigger download number, wondered why nobody signs up for the thing you're selling despite having a decent audience, or just felt like you're doing everything and getting nowhere, keep listening — because the fix isn't a bigger swing.
It's Not About a Big Audience. It's About the Right One.
I talk to podcasters constantly who are chasing the same fantasy: flip a switch, get 10,000 downloads overnight. I get it — I've wanted that too. But it doesn't exist unless you've got a massive budget, and even then it doesn't always work.
Quick, honest question: who won American Idol season six? They had a million people watching. Doesn't mean you remember them, and it doesn't mean they connected.
Here's the math that changed how I think about this: if you ran your show as a $30-a-month membership, you'd only need one person willing to pay to break even (assuming you're spending $30/month). But not just any listener does that — it has to be someone connected to you. So the real target was never more downloads. It's finding roughly 500 right-fit people who trust you. Downloads don't join a membership.
Connected people do.
What a Musician Taught Me About Connection
I study podcasters, but I also study musicians, authors, and YouTubers, because we're all in the same business — entertaining people with our art. One of my favorite channels right now is Mary Spender's. She's a musician, not a podcaster, but what she said recently hit me right in the chest:
"We've spent years treating streaming numbers as though they measure fandom, but perhaps they often measure familiarity instead. Millions of streams doesn't necessarily become hundreds of people willing to leave the house on a Wednesday evening. Maybe we've become incredibly good at measuring attention, but forgotten how to measure connection."
Swap "streams" for "downloads" and "tickets" for "memberships," and she's describing exactly what's happening in podcasting. Mary lost £12,000 on her last tour. Instead of giving up, she changed her approach: "Not to chase the biggest room, to chase the right room. Not to impress the most people, to matter to the people who choose to be there." Knowledge is knowing that. Wisdom is acting on it — and she is, booking her own shows again, more intentionally this time (And enjoying it more).
How to Actually Get in Front of the Right People
We've been brainstorming growth ideas in the School of Podcasting community, and the point was never to do all of them — it's to pick one, test it, and measure it. A few examples:
Guesting on other podcasts that share your audience — less friction, since that audience already knows how to listen to a podcast.
Podcast swaps, shout-outs, or a 30-second promo trade.
Speaking engagements or workshops.
Writing for a publication your audience already reads.
Your own blog and SEO — no, it's not dead.
Partnerships that go beyond sponsorship, where you actually help each other promote.
Word of mouth — which drives roughly 70% of podcast growth, and yet almost nobody deliberately asks for it. Ask your audience, specifically and simply, to share the show with one friend.
Local, unglamorous options: I used to slip a business card into a book on the page matching my age, in a genre my audience would read. Free. Slow. It worked, a little at a time.

None of these flip a switch. They're singles, not grand slams. You build an audience one person at a time.
Would you spend 5 minutes to get 36 people to your site each week?
How I Found Out What's Actually Working: Click Trackers
Here's the part that surprised me. I started putting a click tracker (I use Switchy) on every link I post — social, LinkedIn, wherever. Takes about 41 seconds per link. What I found: my email list outperformed every social platform by double digits, while everything else stayed in single digits. One email drove 36 clicks in a week — times four weeks, that's potentially 144 people who might actually listen, follow, or tell a friend. And it cost me less than five minutes.
Would you spend 5 minutes a week to get 36 people to your site each week? Again, this is not the 10,000 switch. It's one strategy, and leaves you lots of time to try others.
The click isn't the whole story, though — a click is still just attention, the same thing Mary warned about. What matters is what happens after it: did that traffic turn into an email subscriber, a membership signup, a real connection?
Track that, and you'll quickly find out which platforms are worth your time and which ones you can quietly stop feeding. (If you want a free option instead of a paid one, Short.io does the same basic job.) So the "extra" time you spent using click trackers, you get back by identifying strategies that don't work for you.
Two People Who Grew by Showing Up Consistently, Not Loudly
In the early days of podcasting, Steve Stewart (Podcast Editors Academy) built recognition for years by simply leaving comments on other people's shows — for free. Eventually every show about podcasting seemed to mention him. Neil Veglio did something similar on Pod News Weekly Review, showing up consistently with sharp, specific insight until listeners started recognizing his name. Neither of them flipped a switch. They just kept showing up in the right rooms. I plan on doing some sort of collab with Neil in the future.
Ask Your Audience Who They Actually Are
If you're just starting out and don't have an audience yet, go find where your future audience already hangs out — YouTube comments on a similar channel's most-viewed video, or Amazon reviews for books on your topic (skip the 5-star and 1-star reviews; the 4-star ones that explain what would've made it a 5 are where the real feedback lives).
And if you already have an audience: ask them directly what they want, more than once, and explain why it helps them to tell you. Track the link to your survey the same way you track everything else — if 12 people click but only 6 finish it, that's useful data too.
The Bottom Line
Hope is not a strategy. Neither is waiting for the 10,000-download switch — I've been looking for one since 2007, and it doesn't exist. Growth doesn't come from a bigger swing: more effort, more platforms, more reach. It comes from solid contact with the right people, and you won't know what's solid contact until you measure it.
If you want help building the kind of connection that actually turns into a membership, that's exactly what I do at School of Podcasting. Head to schoolofpodcasting.com and use coupon code LISTENER for a monthly, quarterly, or yearly subscription — backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Links & Resources Mentioned
School of Podcasting — https://schoolofpodcasting.com (coupon code: LISTENER)
PodPage — https://podpage.com
Switchy — Click tracker with lifetime one time payment. (aff)
Short.io — https://short.io (free click-tracker alternative)
Steve Stewart / Podcast Editors Academy — stevestewart.me
Ask the Podcast Coach - Weekly live show with free podcast consulting.

Also mentioned by name on the episode, but no specific link was given on air — worth dropping in your own before publishing:
Big Podcast Playbook (David Hooper)
Pod Mastery (Neil Veglio)
Buzzsprout (ad platform)
Pocket Casts (app)

Mentioned In This Episode
Join the School of Podcasting Community
Profit From Your Podcast Book
Power of Podcasting Network
Dave's YouTube Channel