Lessons from the Road to 20M+ Downloads 🏎
How Nick Loper grew his podcast audience to tens of millions
Hi Besties!
I’m super pumped to bring you this week’s Q&A with Nick Loper of The Side Hustle Show. He’s turned his podcast about side hustles into his main hustle — what an inspiration!
When I got an email in June that Nick had hit the 20 million lifetime downloads milestone, I had to reach out and ask him to share what he’s learned about podcast growth and monetization along the way. He kindly obliged. My biggest takeaway is the importance of building a smart digital ecosystem that includes email, SEO, and guesting on other shows to attract new listeners and keep them engaged. Enjoy…
Tell us about when you started podcasting and your show.
NL: I started The Side Hustle Show in 2013. I set out to create the show I wanted to listen to — light on the theory and heavy on the tactics. It’s weird to say, but even then, it felt like I was late to the game. There were already plenty of other “entrepreneur interview” podcasts, but something about the topic resonated with listeners.
What was the first growth milestone that made you realize this could be a business?
NL: After eight to nine months of podcasting weekly, I’d somehow grown an email list of around 700 subscribers. A friend of mine suggested putting together a paid mastermind group. I wasn’t so sure anybody would pay to hang out with me. I priced it at $99 a month for a three-month curated group, put the word out through the podcast and email list, and to my surprise, I got seven or eight applications. Outside of the occasional affiliate link to Amazon, that was the first “real” monetization for Side Hustle Nation.
A big inflection point came several months later when I finally realized the podcast was not a business but rather a content marketing channel for a business. That’s when I started creating episode-specific lead magnets, which 12x’d the size of my email list over the next 12 months. With that list growth, revenue growth quickly followed.
What’s been your biggest growth milestone to date, and what did you learn from that?
NL: The Side Hustle Show is now at 22.5 million lifetime downloads, but the metrics I pay closer attention to are the downloads per episode and the approximate total audience size.
It’s a little nerve-wracking to be speaking to a stadium full of people every time I do an episode!
The biggest lesson is actually that it’s easy to get caught up in the numbers, but behind those numbers are real people. They’re choosing to invest their limited time on this planet in YOU, and that’s a big responsibility. If you can impact their lives in some positive way, you’ll have a fan and advocate on your side.
What have been the most effective ways for you to promote your podcast?
NL: Here are four drivers I think are important for podcast hosts to consider:
Word of mouth: If the content isn’t compelling and shareable, you’re dead in the water.
Guesting on other shows: Some of my biggest jumps on the download charts have come following a guest appearance on other relevant shows.
Email marketing: Make it a priority to build your email list so you can promote your latest content and give listeners an easily forwardable message so they can do your marketing for you.
SEO: One big advantage The Side Hustle Show has over other podcasts is that the website does very well on Google. It gives me a way to introduce the show to new readers every day and hopefully get them to give it a shot.
➡️ Shameless plug: I have a full course on podcast growth at PodPlaybook.co.
What methods of podcast monetization have you explored, and what works best for your show?
NL: The two big monetization channels for The Side Hustle Show are sponsorships and affiliate partnerships.
The sponsorships are usually sold on a CPM basis (editor’s note: CPM stands for cost per mille, aka cost per 1,000 ad impressions), with deals coming in directly or through a few different ad brokerage services. I’ve gone through a few variations on how I sell the ad spots, but lately, I do up to two 60-second midrolls per episode.
On the affiliate side, the most common strategy is to interview someone about their side hustle who also has a course or digital product teaching it. I often feature student success stories of these courses as well. The one I probably hear about the most is the Loan Signing System, which teaches students how to become mobile notary loan signing agents and earn $75-150 per appointment walking new mortgage borrowers through their stack of loan documents. During the pandemic-era refinancing boom, this was huge!
But you can’t do this every week or you risk your show becoming a thinly-veiled infomercial. In my case, one out of every four or five episodes has some sort of affiliate angle to it.
➡️ Related: 12 Ways to Monetize a Podcast
You recently switched up your release schedule from weekly to twice a week? Why did you make this change, and how is it working out for you?
NL: I noticed most of the other top business podcasts were publishing multiple times a week, so I figured it would be worth a test. I added a shorter format Monday episode, and feedback was generally positive, but it was still quite a bit more work.
In the end, the overall audience size did grow, but the downloads per episode decreased. I ran the 2x per-week experiment for a little over four months and will release more short format Monday episodes or Greatest Hits from the archives down the road.
I discovered your podcast through an SEO search that brought me to your email list, and THEN I started listening to episodes. How do most of your listeners find you and how intentionally have you designed your digital ecosystem — any tips on that?
NL: Hey, my SEO is working! That’s awesome!
Podcast analytics are pretty rough, but my best guess is listeners come from:
Word of mouth — listeners recommend the show to their friends
Podcast guesting — they hear me on another show they like
SEO — they search for something side hustle-related and discover the show indirectly through the website
👀 Editor’s note: Peep SideHustleNation.com for a great example of SEO, web design, lead magnets, and email opt-ins all working together to drive new traffic to the show.
What’s your #1 piece of advice for successfully podcasting as a business?
NL: Recognize that a podcast alone does not a business make. It’s a powerful relationship-building tool and marketing channel for your broader business.
You teach people about podcasting. Tell Besties about how they can learn more.
NL: Grab the free Podcast Starter Kit here.
And the full Podcast Growth Playbook here. (Use promo code BESTIE for a special discount.)
Anything else you’d like to add?
NL: Thanks so much for the opportunity to share! It took a long time to self-identify as a podcaster, but I’m super grateful to be able to do it and be part of the creator community.
Thank you, Nick!
➡️ Check out SideHustleNation.com for more tips on how to amplify your earnings.
➡️ Listen to The Side Hustle Show on your favorite podcast app.
Sr Producer, Miniseries, Wondery (full-time) at Amazon Music | West Hollywood, CA
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