PWH 18. How to Get Your First 100 Downloads: The 4-Step Marketing Framework

In order for your your podcast to be successful, it needs TRAFFIC. In this episode, we kick off the Marketing Series by breaking down exactly how to grow your podcast audience with a 4 step framework, heavily focusing on ATTRACT as your first step to growth.

💡 You’ll learn:

• Why your podcast is like a lemonade stand (and what to do when no one's stopping by)
• The 4-step framework for marketing your podcast: Attract, Nurture, Convert, Expand
• Quick-win action steps to boost traffic immediately
• The mindset shift every woman podcaster needs to own her visibility and attract attention without feeling cringe
• Social media strategies across LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok & Instagram

✨ If you’ve been struggling with growth, this episode will give you the roadmap AND the motivation to put yourself out there.

CONTACT & MORE RESOURCES

Project Start Your Podcast Workbook

Let’s Connect!
Tag me on your latest podcast episode on Instagram or LinkedIn – I’d love to cheer you on!

Podcast Inspo:

Financial Feminist by Tori Dunlap

All In with Allie

Always Supporting:

Planned Parenthood

© 2025 Whistler Media LLC. All rights reserved. No content may be reused without written consent.

Transcript

0:00  
Have you ever set up a lemonade stand as a kid and felt like you were going to make a million dollars off of those 25 cent cups of lemonade, and then it turns out that you weren't on a busy enough Street, the traffic isn't going by, or maybe just that people didn't want lemonade, and that's a little bit how setting up a podcast can feel. You're excited about what you have to offer, but you don't have the traffic. So the month of May, we are going to dive into marketing, and we're gonna get you that traffic. So let's get into the first episode of marketing. Welcome to podcast with her, where we publish value driven podcast episodes every week together, and we have fun and learn so much while we do it. Hi, I'm Lexi, and my mission is to teach women how to create an impactful podcast and establish authority in their professional fields. That is what podcast with her is here to help you do, speak confidently, publish consistently, and create value with your voice. So consider this your accountability. Check. Where are you on this podcast journey? If you're right in the beginning. That's great. The first three episodes are here to help you get started already making episodes perfect. The rest is to keep you motivated to keep going.

1:38  
Welcome to the world of marketing. We have a product, and that is your podcast, and any offers that go along with your podcast, that you are promoting on your episodes, that's very important to have a product. So we have a product, and we want that product to get in front of as many eyes and ears as possible of people who would be interested in that product. So I actually pulled up the definition of marketing, because I think it's getting muddled as we think about social media marketing, and it's everywhere, so we just don't really think about what it is. But marketing is the act of satisfying and retaining customers. It was one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketing is usually conducted by the seller, typically a retailer or manufacturer, products can be marketed to other businesses or directly to consumers. Another definition the activity or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising. So you have a product, it's your podcast. It's whatever's inside your podcast, and you want to serve that beautiful package to your customers. So how do we do that? Here's a four step framework, attract, nurture, convert and expand, and that is what we are going to talk about in today's episode, starting off with attract. The key question is, how are people discovering you right now, and how can you amplify that? So I just started listening to the audiobook how to giggle, and it's by Hannah burner and Paige de sorno. I think her last name is, but they have the giggly squad podcast, and it's been so nice to listen to this audiobook how to giggle, because in it, they're so transparent about I mean, they're two beautiful women who are in comedy, and they've done live television and reality TV and all these different things, and they talk about one being delusional and putting yourself out there and just not letting the naysayers get you down, or anyone who says you're crazy for putting yourself out there, just not listening to those voices. And then number two is accepting that you want to be seen and heard, accepting that you want attention, saying it out loud that you want attention. And Hannah burner was talking about how, as a female, if you want attention, it's like, ick, like, ew, how cringe. But if a man wants attention, they're like, oh, pull out your notebook. Like, what do you have to say? So my whole goal here is for you to feel comfortable seeking attention. Feel comfortable. So wanting attention for that beautiful thing that you are creating, so that people can find you and your product starting out with attract. And there are some action steps to this, but I would challenge you to first think about where, if anywhere, you are or want to be promoting your podcast, and I have challenged myself, and maybe you want to join this challenge to get 100 downloads in the next 48 hours, because I know I can do it. I wrote in my journal last night, how would I do this if I had to get 100 downloads in the next 48 hours, or I, you know, worst case scenario, like end of the life. It's the end of the road. If I don't, if I don't get 100 downloads in the next 48 hours, life is over. If that was the case, I know exactly how much I would work hard to get those 100 downloads. I would post my episodes on LinkedIn in the format of a link to the show, a quote from the show, a framework that you would learn from the show, and then just posting over and over. It doesn't have to be a one and done. And I think that's a lot of what happens when we do social media marketing is we think that everyone saw that one thing, but that's so unrealistic that we just have to keep posting because there's so much happening on the internet. So LinkedIn, I would be on Facebook. I have, I don't know 1000 friends on Facebook if I sucked it up and was cringy, if I sucked it up and decided to be cringy and post the podcast on there. How I would do it is, I would say I have this podcast for women entrepreneurs. If you know anyone who needs it, or anyone who you think should have a podcast. Send them this episode, I would be sharing authentically with my Facebook friends about what I was up to lately. I would include like, Okay, I've been in grad school. That's really fun. I've been designing for a couple of clients, and I have this podcast as my side hustle right now and then I would share a little bit more about the podcast so it's authentic to that audience. LinkedIn feels a little bit more like these people want to learn. They want the framework. So I would give them the more of the knowledge, like what they can tangibly take away from that episode. So that's how I would treat the different audiences. And then on Facebook, it's more of like my friends and family and people who've known me forever or I grew up with, and now we're distant. So I would say, Hey, this is what I'm up to, and I have the podcast, if you know anyone who might be interested, send it their way. That's very authentic. And then I would be on Tiktok, which I just started posting again. I challenge myself to post every day in the month of May, to prove to myself and maybe some other people how showing up consistently can really impact your brand. So we're gonna see what happens for the month of May on Tiktok. But I would share education. I would share the fun behind the scenes of how to even record a podcast. Because I think that when people go on Tiktok, they want to know something that like someone else doesn't. You know, there's lots of no gatekeeping as a trend. A lot of like you didn't hear this from me, but or three things I wish I would have done earlier, for skincare, hair, care, whatever. So I you can definitely tailor this to recording the podcast and sharing what you are learning about as as you go. I actually saw someone on tick tock as well. It was another woman entrepreneur who was just starting out, and she said, I wish that there were more podcasts and more posts from women who are just starting out, who aren't successful yet, who aren't totally knowledgeable, who don't have it all figured out, and they're just taking it step by step. So I want to be that person, and I don't have I mean, I'm still climbing to 100 downloads the first check mark. The first success of podcasting is getting consistent episodes out there. And then the second one is marketing, getting those downloads and you have the episodes already existing. It doesn't mean that you post it, and if a week goes by, nobody downloads it, that the episode is. Dead. This is evergreen content that we're making. So you have the opportunity to create these as you as if you're creating a product or a digital course that lives forever, and then market it. So this is the Attract portion. So that's what I would do on tick tock is I would get really authentic with what I'm learning and the frameworks that I'm going to use to be successful in testing and just sharing how the process is going. Facebook groups. I mean, getting into Facebook groups, there's women podcasting, women entrepreneur groups, Boulder entrepreneurs, bolder artists like there are so many groups of people who are looking for that connection, especially locally, that I could tap into for sure. And then Instagram, duh. I have 1500 people on Instagram, so I would just post a story about the latest episode that came out, and I would share quotes, and I would do some takeaways in like carousel form, and then I would make a couple reels, and it would

11:12  
be a lot of work, but what if I got 1000 downloads in 48 hours? So that's I'm challenging myself, but those are the quick wins. So it's LinkedIn, Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram, the quick social media platforms, thinking about how I consistently want to be discovered. Definitely Instagram, and then I would name LinkedIn and Tiktok as my next two. So those are my big three. Facebook's a little bit intimidating because, you know, those people, they always have some judgments to share. But that doesn't mean that I can't share it on Facebook. I think the judgers, the haters are a part of the process, for sure. So amplifying how you're attracting people, and if you're not landing the views on videos, I would go back to the hooks and headlines episode and make sure that you know how to write a hook. You can have chat GPT help you, but it has to be something that engages your audience. It's specific, it's something that they're interested in. It gives a grounding, or maybe a little bit of interest or context into where your problems coming from and how you're solving it, so that people want to actually follow your journey. So I've been posting for will day art, that's his instagram name, and I have learned that certain videos do better, and I've consistently made this into a formula. So he has the hook. It has to be a visual and an audio hook. So he's saying something in the first like point two, five seconds. It's quick. There's not a pause in the beginning of the video. That's how quick the hook needs to be. So I cut any filler before he says the first sentence and then the visual of it. He's a painter, so I try to have a painting or some sort of an art setup in front of him. Those are the videos that do the best. But then the back end editing. I also bump up the contrast and I bump up the saturation, because when we're just filming on our phones, the quality could be better. And because we're so saturated with videos that tend to be high quality, if they're going viral, they have more color, they have more contrast, they have that interest factor for your eyes, they're sharp, they're clear. So if you're confused about why your videos aren't going viral, check out how your view is. Do an audit of your own videos and see which ones are performing the best, if you have an audio and a visual hook and just what is engaging your audience. So for sure, bump up the quality of visual and make that hook instantaneous. That will for sure help your views. Right off the bat, I think that Tiktok is a really easy place to start, because the quality of editing is a little bit lower as far as what people expect. It's more of a like you can post journal style videos almost. It doesn't have to be as polished as on Instagram. And I think that I spend more time editing videos that are going to go on Instagram. Versus Tiktok for sure. On Instagram, I always have captions on Tiktok, give or take, so there's just a side by side comparison to if you want your quality of work to be really high quality, maybe Instagram reels is the place to start for you, if you want the fast impact, and you are a good speaker already, or you're good at writing scripts and including hooks and just doing that naturally, or setting yourself up in a way that makes for a successful video that's teaching someone or entertaining, then Tiktok might be the way to go for you. Different videos will perform differently on different platforms. So once again, that question, how are people discovering you right now? And how can you amplify that if you had to get 100 new downloads in the next 48 hours, what would you do? How would you challenge yourself to show up some more action steps. Keep an eye on SEO and keywords. Make sure that your titles and descriptions have some searchable elements. So I'm talking about podcasting. I always have podcasting that specific word in whatever I'm doing, you can definitely view the headlines and hooks episodes for more on that. I love this one, guesting and collabs tap into other people's audiences. We're definitely going to go deep into this in an episode coming up, but trading audiences with other people and doing episode trades or guest trades, or even collaborating on posts on Instagram social media, it's a great way to build each other up. The goal here is to drive new eyes and ears to your show every week. So be consistent with how you show up and always try to amplify it, because what will get you to 100 new downloads will not get you to the next 1000 necessarily, you might have to bump it up, but I would play around with consistency. First, what is working, and then, if you can consistently put something out every single week, that's brilliant. Step Two of this process, after attract, is to nurture, so build connection and trust. The key question here is, once they find you, how do you deepen the relationship? So I do this by sharing different PDFs. I show up every week to do an episode. I would love to show up on lives, on Instagram and Tiktok in the future, and just sharing more about your life is a really great way to kind of round out the conversation. So I I'm not just a podcaster by any means. I also am a designer. I have two kitty cats. I live in Boulder. I love to hike and showcasing more of that makes people you know trying to be relatable isn't relatable. If you're trying to be relatable, it's not authentic. But if you share more about your life, that creates a sense of community, because then people can relate to you. So don't ask the question, How can I be relatable? Because that's very inauthentic. But asking the question, What can I share more of? What are the biggest things that make me who I am? And then tapping into those categories and sharing more of those online rounds out the conversation. I'm also in the works of starting an email list, which is definitely top priority these days, and we're going to talk all about email marketing in the next episode, so you just wait. But one of the things that I really want to do is to start a podcast Roundup, like a podcast review, and maybe once a week, I share a podcast that I listened to and what I got out of the episode, so that people who are listening to podcasts naturally want this information that I'm that I'm serving. It's like a book club, but for podcasts. So think about different ideas for your own industry that you could serve and nurture that's not just selling your stuff. You know what? I mean. It has to be a little more than just your offers, but what goes into you who makes the offer? Dollars behind the scenes and personal shares, showing the human behind the mic consistent publishing for sure, prove that you're dependable, prove that you're showing up every week, prove that you're not going anywhere, prove that you're confident in what you're creating here. And your audience will feel that confidence. The goal is to build a sense of loyalty and community around your voice, your niche, your platform, and that is how you nurture Step three is to convert turn listeners into clients and fans. The key question here is, are you making it crystal clear how they can work with you or buy from you?

20:51  
Are you making it clear what offers you have? Here are some action steps, a clear call to action in every episode. Don't assume that they know what you do. You actually have to tell them. We were talking about the noise of social media, and we've mentioned this in other episodes, how busy people are, and you never know what they're doing when they are listening to your episode. Maybe they got distracted and they didn't hear that last the last 30 seconds. So you need to share in every episode, and maybe multiple times, wherever it feels authentic, what your offer is to them. Another thing that I love to hear as I'm listening to other podcasts and when they're serving offers, like if they have a course or if they have a coaching program or mastermind or mentorship, whatever it is, and then they tell me about their client or student who went through the program and got the success. Like I need that emotional connection in order to buy, in order to be connected to their offer. So if you're trying to convert people, make sure that you have some success stories and case studies that you can actually showcase how you've helped other people. And then the sales funnel, and this is a big one, because at the top of the funnel, the very top of the funnel where you're trying to attract people, it feels like you're shouting into a megaphone, and you have to shout into that void where a bunch of other people are shouting on social media, but you need to have your voice so crystal clear in your message so crystal clear that that person who recognizes you, who recognizes their pain point, and that you can help them with that, they start to get a little bit closer. So we have the megaphone you're shouting into that attract phase, into social media, and then they get a little bit closer, and you get to nurture them. You get to build trust. Now they're following you. You're sharing your stories, you're connecting with them. They know a little bit more about your life. What makes you tick, if you have a family, if you have pets, they can share some facts about you. And then in in the Convert phase. I'm picturing this as when you're a podcaster. This is where they're so close to your megaphone that you only have to whisper to them. You don't have to shout anymore. You're talking into their ear buds. You can leave the megaphone for the next person you're talking into their headphones, and you get to share how they can work with you, how they can get closer to you, and how they can buy from you. What offers that would you know because they're listening so closely to you, you know what offers will help them so that sales funnel? That's how I think of it is. It's more of a megaphone than a sales funnel, to me, because you have to shout and get people to hear your message first, and it can feel very daunting, but if you attract, if you think about what, what would be attractive to that audience that's on the other side, that is how you can make an impact and then nurture, convert, and finally expand, multiply your impact. The key question here is, how are you extending your reach and deepening your impact so you have these beautiful podcast episodes that you're putting out. Now it's time to repurpose that content and keep it going, and this is where the evergreen content is so important. When I say evergreen content, I mean content that never dies, because you can post something on Instagram and it. Lives for maybe 24 hours. You can post something on Pinterest and it's searchable forever. You can post a YouTube video and it's searchable forever. You can post a podcast episode and it is searchable for ever. So we want repurposed content that is evergreen. This is blog posts on your website from episodes. And this is where those keywords and the SEO really comes in. Because if someone's searching how to write headlines that convert how to write show notes that serve and sell your audience. Like how to create a course to sell to your audience, you're more likely to show up if it's something specific that they're searching and you have the specific answer blog, post, Pinterest, YouTube, your podcast, repurpose the content that is coming from all of the work that you're doing here, to write these beautiful episodes and then encourage the reviews and the shares. This is something that I have not done very well, but it's really important for podcasters to have reviews, because that's how your episodes are rated, and that helps get your episode out to more viewers. So ask your audience to be advocates for you. If they're already nurtured and they're interested in what you have to offer, they're your warm people, they're the people who root for you, then it's okay to ask them for review, because it's helping you. And someone who I've seen do this really well lately is Steven on a diary of a CEO. So every episode, he says, we're looking at our analytics, and we're really surprised that a lot of our regular viewers aren't actually subscribed. And it would be so helpful if you could do this one thing for us, and subscribe to the episode, and I will never ask you for anything else. Subscribing to the episode helps us reach more viewers. It helps make the show more successful, and it helps us to get better guests. So please do this one thing and and I think that ask is so authentic that it makes it I subscribed right away. I was like, Oh, weird. Like, I'm not subscribed. I listen to this, this show all the time. It's given me a lot of value. So of course, I'm gonna want to do something back for all of the production work that they put into this to make it so good it makes sense. So don't be afraid to mobilize your audience as advocates for your show, and then if they do share on social media, if they do share on Instagram, make sure that you repost that, and that creates more of this trust to your own audience. Oh, people are actually listening to your episodes. That's great, and it gets more eyes on your show. The goal here is to create a self sustaining, aka evergreen marketing ecosystem that grows with you. Marketing your podcast isn't about hustling harder. It's about building a funnel that works for you. It's about shouting into the void until those people really connect with you, until you can attract them, and then you can nurture those people, and then convert those people into buyers, and then you can expand those people as advocates for your show, and keep that cycle going at every stage, you're guiding your ideal listener closer to the impact and trust and action that you provide. You are here to make a transformation for your listeners. So show up like the leader that you are, and show up in a way that you know that if you have the attention on you, you can change some lives. Don't be afraid to want attention, because you have a voice that is powerful. You have a message that serves your audience well. And if you can do that, then you can sell and that serves you, and that is the ultimate goal is to have you living in your highest potential. So go get that attention, put yourself out there, let people discover you and then amplify it. I'm proud of you for all the work that you're doing. Keep it up and I will see you in the next episode. Until then, go and value your voice. Cheers. You.