The Road To Half A MILLION Downloads

When I launched my podcast (then named The High-Ticket Coach Podcast) during lockdown on September 10th, 2020, I had no idea where it would take me.

I recorded 10 episodes in 2020, and although my audience was tiny (under 100 downloads per episode), I enjoyed recording the episodes when I remembered to. I had zero structure.

In 2021, I recorded another 10 episodes….and while my audience remained small without any significant growth after the initial uptake, the audience I did have were loyal, they tuned in for every episode.

In 2022, I recorded 48 episodes.

My consistency showed up, and output increased by close to 80%…….still the same number of listeners tuning in regularly. No audience growth.

In 2023, I recorded 41 episodes and discovered podcast promotion. I went from under 100 downloads per episode to between 4000 and 5000 downloads per episode. Things were getting exciting, but the expense of ongoing promotion was draining my funds rapidly…I couldn’t sustain it.

In 2024, I recorded 8 podcasts and was very happy to see that I retained my listenership…I averaged between 4000 and 5000 downloads per episode. I was actually shocked because I was dubious about the actual audience, because my sales activity hadn’t increased as I would have expected with those numbers. One of the reasons I had to pull the promo, the ROI just wasn’t there yet, and the promo was expensive ( I had hired the team that was producing millions of downloads for big-name podcasts you would know of).

Based on that sticky success, I was ready to dive back into podcast promotion.

In 2025, I recorded 50 podcasts.

I was DONE with social media and wanted to focus on the one thing that I believed allowed me to show up the most authentically and provide the greatest value…my podcast.

In 2024, I went searching for someone who could promote my podcast based on the new knowledge I had.

1: Podcasts require way more volume to produce positive sales outcomes than I had expected.

2: Podcast audiences don’t tend to gather on your socials as I had anticipated, so I took that silence as a negative when it is just the nature of it.

3: I understood the different ways podcast audiences could be built (cheap podcast audience farming etc) and that not all audiences were built equal.

3: I understood that I could direct the targeting to some extent. Age, gender, and country of origin. I also knew that my podcast name and graphics needed to do the heavy lifting in the feed. I had made these changes.

4: The recipe is volume + podcast identity + patience.

5: Loyalty takes time. Audience AND loyalty compounds over time to build trust and educate the audience.

I was still unaware that monetisation was a thing or that with monetisation came sponsorship opportunities (these can also be attracted without monetisation), I was just looking for a good quality team to deliver quality outcomes.

Along the way, an opportunity was presented to me to make ongoing podcast promotion sustainable.

Allow the team to monetise my podcast, and they would continue to promote my podcast for a share of streaming revenue and a small percentage of any sponsorship deals I take on.

I had to overcome the idea of ads on my podcast, but decided in the end that it was 100% worth it to know that every month my podcast is being promoted for zero out-of-pocket expense. I knew my money would be made via my audience, and later (once I got my head around it), sponsorships.

I became monetised last year.

In April, my podcast had close to 150K downloads.

And it didn’t cost me a cent, other than 50% of my streaming revenue.

The minute I became monetised and began splitting my streaming revenue, I knew I had to build a product around this because I KNEW how valuable it was….this is how The PODCAST Millionaire was born.

And now, our clients get to experience the same deal.

They pay for monetisation, then have access to ongoing promotion for zero out-of-pocket expense.

TPM is a dream product, and I’m obsessed with it.

Yes, the upfront cost is about the cost of your average Mastermind, but the benefits far outweigh anything else I have ever invested in, and…you pay once…that’s it.

My podcast only grew with promotion.

Consistency didn’t matter.

Quality didn’t matter.

Output didn’t matter.

Investing in the audience was what changed the game for me.

And now, I have developed (and quality tested for the last 18 months) a way for you to gain a massive audience without the ongoing costs that took me out of the game the first time around.

If you’d like to know more about TPM, please go here now:https://www.michellehext.com/the-podcast-millionaire/

M x