184: Summer Slowdown: Why Your Podcast Downloads Dip in July (And Why It's Totally Okay)
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Well, hey there, friends. If you're ready to turn your podcast into a pure profit machine, I've got a little something super exciting for you. We are opening registration starting today for the seven-figure podcast bootcamp. Oh my gosh, I am so excited.

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What I want you to know is this. In July, your downloads are gonna plummet and that is normal. And typically what happens, our podcast hosts freak out. You tend to freak out as an entrepreneur and you tend to think it's you and it's your content. Let me go ahead and dispel the myth. It's not you boo, it's July. July, Julys and what happens is your audience goes from listening to your podcast or streaming you on YouTube,

They go to the beach. They are looking for more entertaining things. Now is the time to really take advantage of batch recording. I'm telling you to batch record with super intentionality. Lay out for the next four to six weeks what your content is going to be. Go ahead and record that content.

then do everything you need to do in order to have that go out seamlessly. Well, hey guys, and welcome back to the BeWord podcast. If you are streaming on YouTube, you may be noticing the new setup that I've got going on. I am so excited.

I finally bit the bullet and decided that this podcast was going to be a major piece of the business. When you make a decision to do something like that, sometimes you have to level things up a little bit. So gone are Zoom recordings and Riverside recordings, although we'll bring them back in when we do interviews. But one of the things that you guys have been DMing me in my Instagram is, "Jo, we want the shorty learning episodes to come back."

So I created, I took a home office. Actually, I took a spare bedroom here in my home. And we have created a full-out media studio so that I can bring back those live recorded podcast episodes just for you here in the home studio. So let me know what you guys think. I think that we need a new different chair. I'm not digging this one right now, but that's okay. It'll do for now. Let me tell you something. It has been fantastic.

quite the adventure in figuring out how to go complete video. I thought I knew what I was doing before when I was using Riverside, 'cause I had a pretty good microphone, obviously, here on my road, and I had a pretty good camera attached to my computer, but when you are talking a three-ring setup, three cameras, three ring lights, two different microphones, there are more wires on my floor than I thought was possible,

and lots and lots of YouTube learning. So don't worry, my team and I, when we have got this nailed down and we know exactly what you should do if you want to create this setup, we will do a PDF for you and we will update, press record our digital course on starting a podcast as well. But for today, what I want to do is jump right into what we're going to talk about, which is

It is July. You guys, it is July. We are officially halfway through 2024. What a wild idea that is. I know my kids, it just feels like we just finished the school year and yet I already am looking forward 30 days ahead. They will start school again in about 30 days. I'm gonna have a junior, which scares the crap out of me because he's driving now, and an eighth grader. But the thing is, in July,

What I want you to know is this: your downloads are going to plummet. It's okay. Take a second. Take a deep breath. Drink your coffee if you need to. Your downloads are gonna plummet and that is normal.

Every single year as I'm studying the industry trends, I get about five to six emails a day on podcasting, you know, industry stuff. And what we always see from Spotify and Apple and all of the big players is that in July downloads that were here go to here. And typically what happens is

our podcast host freak out. I mean, I get it, right? If you're used to be on Instagram and you've had a million followers and a hundred thousand of them are engaging every time you create a reel and suddenly only like a hundred of them are, you tend to freak out as an entrepreneur and you tend to think it's you and it's your content. Let me go ahead and dispel the myth. It's not you, boo. It's July.

July Julys and what happens is your audience goes from listening to your podcast or streaming you on YouTube they go to the beach and they go to water parks with their kids and they go on picnics and they go hiking and they start kind of having exactly what I was just saying that panic attack

but it seems like school just ended and school is about to start again and oh my gosh we've got to spend time with our family so instead of listening to the educational podcast or the content you're normally producing on instagram they are looking for more entertaining things so this is actually when the podcast who are an entertainment podcast or true crimes something along those lines your downloads are actually going to go up

But for the business-line entrepreneur, your downloads are going to come down. I want you to take note of that fact. And as you're looking ahead into your content schedule and what you're gonna be releasing, know, and now you've got some time to adjust,

Know that if you have the biggest interview of your life on your podcast, July may not be when you want to release that podcast episode. Or if you're launching a huge launch like your coaching or your book program, well, your dynamic insert may fall a little bit flat in the month of July. But that doesn't mean you get to take your foot off the gas. Oh no, my friends.

When I was running my real estate team, you guys know I had a $56 million producing real estate team. I used to tell agents the same thing because we saw the same trend in that industry.

We went from having tons of buyers and sellers in the spring to having nothing in July. And then all of a sudden, mid to late August, it picked back up again. So I used to tell my agents on my team, take your vacations in July when the rest of the world does, because if your clients are not in town, you can't show them homes. So you might as well plan your vacation then as well. However, don't take your foot off the gas.

Keep lead generating. Keep getting in touch with your clients. Get in touch with them in different ways so that when they're ready in August, they're back in the car with you looking at homes. It's no different from you as a podcast host. Now is the time to really take advantage of batch recording. Now I know that that sounds obvious. Batch recording. Everyone tells you to batch record.

I'm telling you to batch record with super intentionality. I'm not talking about just sitting here in a studio and recording your episodes. I'm talking lay out for the next four to six weeks what your content is going to be. Go ahead and record that content. Then do everything you need to do in order to have that go out seamlessly. Write the blog, create the YouTube video, create the reel,

schedule the LinkedIn post. You can literally pre-schedule every single part of your production ahead of time. We will today sit here and record four to five episodes.

I will then take all of those episodes, send them to my editing team. When they come back, my internal team and I will sit down. We will pre-schedule the blog and Kajabi. We will pre-schedule the release of the video on YouTube with a specific date we want it going out. We will put the episode into Captivate, our hosting platform, and pre-schedule it when we want it to go out. We will literally have every single piece of production finished. By the end of this week,

Not so that we can take July off, but so that we can relax a little bit in the months where we know our audience isn't at its peak anyway. And we can go back into enjoying some time with our family or prepping for fourth quarter and the fall and what we want to do in the business there. So when we say batch record ahead of time, I'm talking the whole kit and caboodle. Go ahead and have your month to month and a half ready to go. Now, here's the thing.

If you record an episode now that you schedule out for six weeks from now because you're batching ahead of time and then you don't want it to release because maybe it's no longer relevant, all you have to do is unschedule it. So you've only wasted a little bit of time but you've given yourself back that peace and that vacation ability that you're looking for. Okay here's something else I love about the month of July. If your audience is gonna slightly take a hiatus

It gives you permission to have some fun, to do exactly what I'm doing right now. We are playing around in this studio. I have no idea if I'm going to enjoy doing this live in front of a camera in my home, you know, bedroom office that we've converted. I have no idea how it's going to really resonate with you as the audience, but I know that you guys ask for more shorty episodes. So this is my opportunity to bring them to you.

We have done all interviews up until now for the past couple of months, but July is gonna be my teaching month. It's gonna be when I get really personal with you and tell you how to run an online business and help you do that. Why? Because July is the play month. Here's something else you can do in the month of July that I'm going to personally try that

I'm kind of excited about, so we'll see what happens. We're actually gonna take our episodes and we're gonna stream them live on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. Now we've never done this before, and I know that as I'm doing this, I may not have the highest engagement because again, people in July are looking for entertainment less than they're looking for teaching and education.

But this gives me the opportunity to test it out with my most loyal, engaged audience because you guys are still paying attention. And it gives me an opportunity to work the kinks out and see if that's something we want to carry on through the rest of the year and into next year. Does it work? Does it not work? Do we like it? So I will encourage you to do the same thing.

If you've been creating reels that are very head front and focus only on telling your audience about your episode or doing, God forbid, audiogram reels. Actually, let's just take a second here. If you're still doing audiogram for reels to support your podcast, please DM me. Girlfriend, we need to chat. That is so 2019 at best and I encourage you to stop doing that. But

If whatever you've been doing for your Instagram Reels or your TikToks to get engagement on your podcast, maybe they aren't quite working, July is your opportunity to have a little fun with it. Maybe create some more entertaining type Reels to have people become aware of your podcast because again, I can't say it enough, July is the month where you need to think my audience wants to be entertained.

They want to be having a pina colada in the pool. They don't want to be listening to me talk on and on and on about email list building. Nope. They want to see the fun side of your business. So I give you full permission.

for the month of July to have some fun with it. Celebrate your podcast just like we're celebrating the 4th of July, just like we're celebrating summer. And then let me know what you discovered in the process. I am here for you guys as always. I'll see you at the same time, same place next week.

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We have got a free gift that we are changing every single month here on The B Word. So head on over once you've given your review, grab a screenshot of it, and then go to thebwordpodcast.com forward slash review. Upload it for me and I will send you a free gift immediately. Thanks in advance.