How I grew two podcasts past 500K downloads each.
Hey Pod Pals!
This newsletter was lovingly curated (without the use of any AI) in real time on Thursday morning at 8:50am CST.
I'm writing/sending this newsletter a day early because tomorrow morning I will be following my kids around the house picking up wrapping paper!
Real quick before we dive into this week's topic.... ⤵️
I love helping my clients develop a podcast GROWTH strategy that actually works for them.
If you feel ready to get some podcast growth help from a podcaster that has 1.2 million downloads, hop on my Podcast Profit Potential Discovery Call calendar.
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This week we are going to answer this question: What are the best ways to GROW your podcast?
I get asked this question a LOT: "Adam, how did you become so tall, funny, AND good looking?"
....oops....I meant THIS question 👉 "Adam, what is the BEST way to grow my podcast?"
And my answer is always the dreaded IT DEPENDS...😱
There are a lot of factors that play into podcast growth like:
➡️ Your content niche.
➡️ How many episodes you have released.
➡️ Your content release cadence.
➡️ The quality/impact of the content you are releasing.
➡️ Your marketing/content creation experience level.
➡️ Your marketing budget.
➡️ Whether or not you have a team or are flying solo.
➡️ Whether or not you have a coach guiding you through the process.
➡️ Whether or not you are networking with other content creators and making connections.
➡️ The yearly podcast growth cycles.
The journey to growth will be a unique path for each podcaster.
One of the achievements I'm most proud of as a content creator is the fact that I've launched and grown two different shows, with two completely different content niche topics, to over 500,000 downloads each.
I can confidently say that you will be hard-pressed to find many non-celebrity level content creators that have done this.
Today I want to break down the growth strategies I used to take each of these shows past the 500,000 downloads milestone.
First let's break down the growth strategies I used for my health podcast "The Million Pound Mission".
📈 Consistent weekly content.
I was releasing between 1-3 episodes each week and never missed a week for over 400 episodes of the show.
The math is pretty simple here: The more episodes you release the more downloads you will have.
📈 I leveraged my Strategic Podcast Guest Invite strategy.
Each week I invited top ranked podcasters onto my show. I picked them out from the Apple Podcasts Top 200 rankings for my health niche.
About 75% of the time I would get invited back onto their show as a guest. Over an 18 month span I was a guest on 50 of the top 200 shows by using this strategy.
This strategy helped me consistently boost my own show into the Top 200 rankings.
📈 I used my 72 hour promotion strategy to make sure my audience knew about each episode.
This was a LOT of work because I had to promote 2-3 episodes per week but the effort paid off as my downloads grew past 20,000+ per month.
📈 I would do a follow up Instagram Live with all of my guests on the day after their episode went live.
This helped me grow that IG account to over 10,000 and I got a TON of new podcast listeners.
🏁 This show had 550,000+ downloads when I sold the brand to the new host.
Now let's unpack the growth strategies I've used for Podcasting Business School.
📈 Consistent weekly content is still my jam!
I've released 1-2 episodes every week since 2018.
📈 I still use the 72hr promotion strategy to promote my new episodes.
It is MUCH easier now that I'm only releasing one episode per week! I'm able to easily create/utilize five unique promotional assets within the 72 hour window after each weekly episode goes live.
📈 I still use my Strategic Interview strategy but I do WAY fewer interviews on my own show.
I only invited five guests onto my show in 2025. I can see myself kicking that up to 10-12 in 2026. Regardless, the strategy still works: Add value first, THEN get invited onto their podcast.
📈 Leveraging Organic Discovery/SEO has been the biggest difference between the growth strategies of this podcast and my health show.
The name "Million Pound Mission" had ZERO organic discovery, keywords, SEO power, etc....so all of the growth was from effort based marketing.
Podcasting Business School carries tremendous power within the search bars of Apple Podcasts and Spotify because I used my Perfect Podcast Naming Formula.
Now my ideal fit listeners are finding me every single day because they search something like "Podcasting Tips" on Spotify.
📈 Another strategy that has worked extremely well for me with Podcasting Business School is paid banner ads on Overcast FM and paid ads in newsletters.
I have banner ads and newsletter ads running almost every single week of the year and they work extremely well. I WISH I knew more about these strategies when I first started!
📈 The final growth strategy that I've kicked into high gear over the last year is email list growth.
I've almost doubled the size of my subscribers for this newsletter in 2025!
This has added a new platform where people can discover my content ecosystem and then be introduced to things like my podcast and my services.
🏁 As of right now Podcasting Business School is sitting at 632,931 downloads.
So there you have it Pod Pals, two different routes past the 500,000+ download milestone.
A few reminders to close this one out:
➡️ Growing a podcast is a CHALLENGE....there is no going viral. It will take longer than you think...but the end result is worth it!
➡️ Nobody is entitled to growth, no matter how many social media posts or paid ads you do. Your content must be valuable to your audience.
➡️ You might never make it past 500,000 downloads...and that's 100% OK. You can still be extremely successful.
➡️ It's important to celebrate ALL of the mini-milestones you cross along the way. I've been celebrating since my first 100 downloads!
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🤩 Client Testimonial of the week: My client Lisa Bradshaw has a show called Tell & Sell Your Story.
Check out what she has to say about doing 1:1 coaching with me for her podcast launch:
"After hearing Adam guest on a podcast, then binging his podcast, it was a no brainer to hire him. His guidance is direct. His advice is solid, and the outcome is exactly what I was looking for. He definitely knows his stuff with so many ideas about podcast content and promotion. Thank you Adam for helping me add "podcast host" to my own visibility strategy."
Ready for some help? You can get 50% off your first month inside of my group coaching program through December 31st.
New Content for this week:
🎙️ Podcasting Business School EP 601: Podcast Growth Tips (Guest Coaching episode)
In this episode I step aside and let one of my newest Podcast Growth Coach Certification program graduates take the mic and drop some tips with a live coaching session.
Shout out to Coach Dan for delivering some awesome strategies!
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Talk to you next week!
Your Pod Pal,
Adam
⭐️ P.S. Ready for some help with your podcast launch, growth, or with getting more clients from your podcast?
Hop on my calendar for a Podcast Profit Potential Discovery Call and we can discuss how we can work together.