AP 1238: How Do I Get More Downloads to My Lead Magnet?

AP 1238: How Do I Get More Downloads to My Lead Magnet?

Pat Flynn: What's up everybody Pat Flynn here and welcome to episode 1238 of AskPat 2.0. You're about to listen to a coaching call between myself and an entrepreneur just like you. And today we're speaking with Joe Casabona, who is a recovering, this is what he said, a recovering WordPress developer.

He's now switched into a completely different space and he's trying to grow his business there. And he's using a lot of amazing lead magnets, but we need more people to download these lead magnets. To get more people onto his email list and so that he can get more clients you'll hear exactly what this niche is and exactly how we're gonna grow the email list and also his business right now.

So here he is Joe Casabona.

Pat Flynn: Joe, welcome to AskPat. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Joe Casabona: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Pat Flynn: Excited to chat with you. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Joe Casabona: So I am a podcast producer and coach. I help podcasters of any size, make their first $10,000 with their podcast and I am a recovering WordPress developer.

So I'm part of my problem is I'm kind of making a huge pivot from a niche I've been in for 20 years to this kind of brand new landscape.

Pat Flynn: Oh, wow. Why did you make the decision to sort of change the landscape?

Joe Casabona: I think the most succinct way to put it is in podcasting or in the new niche I'm going after the only convincing I have to do is that I know what I'm talking about. When in the WordPress space, I have to convince people that spending money to, to have an accelerant in their business is, is something I have to do. Yeah.

Pat Flynn: That makes sense. And when you say that you were a part of the WordPress development world, like, what did that mean?

Did you have clients or did you help other people build websites? That kind of thing?

Joe Casabona: Yeah. I started freelancing in high school, so I worked with mom and pop shops and, and things like that. Eventually I got a job at an agency where I worked on fortune 100 sites. So done all sorts of WordPress development for work. And I have a few books out on the topic as well.

Pat Flynn: Cool. Where can people find that kind of work in, in your website and whatnot.

Joe Casabona: The best place for that is Casabona.org. I kinda link to all relevant resources there.

Pat Flynn: Nice, nice. So do you miss the WordPress stuff at all? Or are you excited about the sort of new venture that you're on.

Joe Casabona: I mean, between me, you and everybody listening, I still do WordPress development courses for LinkedIn learning. So I still get to do that. I don't miss the, the client work or the like really having to sell the why should I hire you when I can do it myself? Sort of thing. I don't miss that at all.

Pat Flynn: Right, right. All right. So tell me about the podcasting world that you're in now. What do you do to offer services there?

Joe Casabona: Yeah, so I have, I guess my, my product ladder is I have a, a paid workshop, that's called build a profitable podcast that helps people kind of get the, the groundwork for making money with their podcast. I have a self-paced course called podcast liftoff that shows them how to launch, but mostly shows them how to make money.

And then I have a cohort based course that I'm, I'm working on and I do one on one coaching to podcasters kind of get to the next level that way.

Pat Flynn: Fantastic. And how long have you been doing the podcasting work?

Joe Casabona: I have been fully focused on this for a few months now, but I have been podcasting for about 10 years.

The first podcast was like every guy podcast. It's like, oh, we should just a bunch of us get together and talk. But I saw success with my main show, How I Built It in 2016, it got big pretty quickly. And then it got sponsored pretty quickly and I was able to kind of systematize. All of that.

Pat Flynn: So this new venture that you have, isn't from just kind of a random choice that you made, it's from experience that you've had and the years of expertise that you've put into this that you can now offer to others, which is great.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, exactly. I people say those who can't do teach, but I think it's really important for me as a teacher to also do.

Pat Flynn: Exactly. I a hundred percent agree. So where are you at now? Like what do you wanna chat about? How can I best serve you?

Joe Casabona: Well, as we talk, I'm having a pretty good month generally, but one of the things that I'm having a lot of trouble with is, is my mailing list and growing my mailing list, I recently just emailed them all.

And I said, Hey, this is like a podcast email list. Now it was probably like half that and half like WordPress or site builder world. And so I would like to take it from where it is now, which is a little bit over a thousand, probably like 700 good emails to like 15 or 1600 in the next five or six months.

Pat Flynn: Nice. So by the end of the year, what, what has been working so far to get people onto that list?

Joe Casabona: I have a couple of lead magnets that I think I've finally been able to dial in that are doing okay. One is an air table base for planning your podcast content. One of my big things is like you need to, you need to be consistent to have a profitable podcast.

So this air table base is exactly how I plan everything. And then the other that I'm, I'm rolling out as we speak is a free workshop that's kind of five small changes you can make to grow your podcast. And that's tips like, you know, don't put the episode number as like the first thing in the title and things like that.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. Cool. So those are all really helpful. Tell me about the air table base. Cuz I know that air table is a very specific tool that certain people know how to use. And many other people don't know how to use. Is there a way to potentially turn that into or convert it into a different kind of database that perhaps could give more people access to it.

Cause I can imagine you promoting this, you know, on your show and other places and immediately, some people are gonna say, oh, air table I don't use that. And then they're out. Right? So they're not able to benefit from that, but are there other other platforms that perhaps are more common that you can just kind of not like change over to it, but you know, maybe add, you know, Hey, we have an air table version, google sheets version, et cetera, kind of thing.

Joe Casabona: Yeah, I think it's definitely portable. I'm a developer by trade, but I didn't design this to be like a really complicated database. It's more or less a, a spreadsheet. The only kinda linked thing in there is, is my sponsors, but I, I might also strip that out of the free version.

Right. So yeah, I can totally make it like a notion. Well, I don't know, notion that well, I'd have to get somebody to do that for me, I think, but Google sheets and maybe just like a, a plain old PDF right. Where they can kind of see it. I can see those kind of four things to appeal to the widest audience.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. I really love that. And especially if you got people into the list and you sent them to a landing page that had, Hey, download the version. That makes sense for how you work. It's similar to podcasting. You know, this as a podcast producer, we can't force a person to listen on Spotify. We can't force a person to listen on Google podcast or whatever.

They, they have their choice for what works best for them. And we have to sort of share all the links in case it's one or the other. So I, I think that would immediately open up a lot of doors for growing your email list, because that is a very handy tool that, that you made. And to have it just an air table.

I mean, I'm new to air table. And so that scared me a little bit. Right. I'm not gonna get access to that because it's a little bit scary, but you told me it was on air table or a notion. I use notion, Ooh, now I'm imagining how it could fit into what I'm already doing. And I kind of want it right now. Kind of thing.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. That's, that's a really good point. I've been like, it's funny. I'm like scared of notion a little bit. So . Yeah, but notion is definitely a lot more popular, I think, than air table. Even if it's like just the two versions having notion would be, would behoove me.

Pat Flynn: I think, I think so. And you don't have to make it complicated.

You don't have to imagine, like, I would imagine that you might be worried that like, there's gonna be a lot of questions about people who are using the notion version. And you're like, I don't, I don't know, notion as long as it's super intuitive and easy to use and. All the instructions are there. I mean, then you'll be good to go.

And it sounds like it would be pretty easy to use. So I think that would be sort of low hanging fruit number one, to open up more people to that already existing format that you have just kind of in different programs or spaces. I love the idea of the free workshop as well. That is a great way to add sort of immediate value to a person and do the ask of the email as more of a giving thing.

Hey, I'm gonna give this to all you need is to send your address, versus what many people do is they approach it from an asking first perspective, like, Hey, I need your email address in exchange I'll give you this sort of free thing and free workshops, especially for podcasters are great. They've worked really well for us at SPI because podcasting, as you know, is pretty scary to a lot of people.

And if you can knock out a lot of those little tips and obstacles and such, that could work really well. You said you're working on that right now.

Joe Casabona: So that is out right now. Oh, okay. Yeah. Like. Last week maybe is when I really started promoting it and like added it as the pre-roll for my podcast focused podcast.

Pat Flynn: Nice. I was gonna ask, like, where is it? Cause it's one thing to create the lead magnet that people still have to find them. So you mentioned promoting it on your show a few times, which is great. I think doing that as sort of an ad is really smart, organically, putting it into your episodes is, is a really good thing to do.

And another thing that worked really well us as with our lead magnets sharing stories, or even inviting people on the show who use that thing. Right? Yeah. People love to see other people sort of take the first step first and then they'll kind of follow along, especially if it's not you talking about it, it's somebody else who's already used it.

It's gonna make that much more of an impact. And it, it kind sells itself, even though you're not selling it, you're promoting it. That's a great way to get people in it as well. Like examples of how this has already helped others, and then even baking that into your episodes or even into the ad. Hey, Jody downloaded this two weeks ago and look there shows up and running already.

And then we started working together and she's already made a thousand dollars from her show. So if you haven't done so yet, download this free workshop. Do you have a, like a, a good name or, or a hook for it? That's also really important in this world where it's audio. Because we need like really memorable things for people who, you know, stop listening to the show and then go take that action.

Like, what do you call it? What's the name of it?

Joe Casabona: Yeah. I don't have a good name for it right now. The paid one, right, Build a Profitable Podcast. Perfect. Yeah. I'll have to brainstorm this one, right.

Pat Flynn: Something in a like Podcast in a Weekend or something. Yeah. You know, like something that people go like, like perks their ears up.

Right. Because nobody wakes up in the morning and says, I want to download a workshop, right? Nobody says that, but they want the result. But if it has a really nice name, I think Seth Godin mentioned this, like, when things have a name, they become real, they become shareable. They become, you know, more materialized.

So maybe something to work on or experiment with, or you could even crowdsource from people who've already downloaded it. Like, Hey, which of these five names do you think best fits, which would be kind of cool. But I, I love that idea. And then as far as getting people to listen to your show, right? The more people who are new, who listen to your show are now new people who could download these things and join your email list.

How are you promoting your podcast?

Joe Casabona: Yeah. My podcast gets promoted a few ways, right? So it goes out to my email newsletter. I create a thread on Twitter. That's like, not just, Hey, like this is the episode, it's like the helpful stuff. And then learn more at this. I'm not really using Instagram, which is probably big in my mind, cuz I mentioned what I'm not doing.

And then I, I also, I've been posting more on LinkedIn and LinkedIn's been getting a weird amount of traction for me. I don't know if that's what podcasters happen to be hanging out now, but maybe I didn't expect. Those are kind of the main places. The other thing I'm thinking about doing right is like buzzsprout has that like a hundred bucks for 5,000 downloads, you know, that's a small investment and if it's really aligned, it makes a lot of sense.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. Potentially worth the experiment. For sure. I really love that they added that in to, to have podcasters helping other podcasters grow. The fact that LinkedIn is working. Like it doesn't work for us, but it, I know it's working really well for others. And I love that you sort of like you're experimenting with all these different platforms and boom, this one is hitting.

I would lean into it. Figure out why it's working so well and lean into it. I think, especially for the type of clients that you want and, and what you're helping them with with podcasts, a lot of professionals want a podcast now, I think that's a perfect spot for you, probably even better than Instagram or even Twitter, which can just be more surface level conversations and not necessarily leading into any business.

The one thing I will say is in my experience, social media is very difficult for growing a show. It's a great way to connect with the people who already know you exist. But as far as getting in front of new people, you're relying on hashtags, which can be very competitive and you're relying on people sharing or retweeting, which you need some really valuable content in order for that to happen.

So I'm glad that you're just not posting like, Hey, new episode, but you're actually putting some value in there. So, so that definitely helps with that. But when you think of things like social media, it's like people aren't there to go off platform and then go listen to a podcast, right? It's a lot of friction to, to have a person do that.

The best place to grow your show is being on other people's podcasts. And, you know, you're just so happy to be on this one right now. And people are gonna know to go to your podcast from here, but the more guest podcasting you can do, I mean, one guest spot per month is to me greater than a post a day on every social media platform.

Like you'll grow much faster than that kind of repurposing. So I would highly recommend doing guest podcasting and especially because a lot of these podcasters are professionals who don't have your expertise of podcasting, but perhaps have audiences who would benefit from it. I mean, you could potentially even gain new clients almost immediately from the show you have both the voice of yours in front of people who already have their phone open and already have that, that. App open to now subscribe and listen to you. But you're also getting endorsed from a person who's already spent time to generate trust, right? Yeah. So you can fast forward that growth from there. And that would be sort of number one, I think, for, for growing a show.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. You know, that's so funny. I tell my students that and I like don't think to do it myself. It's so funny because I've been on a few recently and I have landed coaching clients like the host became a coaching client. So I guess I was like very focused on like selling my services or whatever, and not necessarily my podcast, but I think that's really like a really smart move.

Obviously I tell people to do that. I just need to remember, you know, just, promote the name of the show, right? The, the show I'm starting now, the Make Money Podcasting one, because that's really the one I want more people to, to go to.

Pat Flynn: That's a great one. So everybody listening Make Money Podcasting is the name of Joe's podcast.

Go and check it out. And that's how easy it is. See we're already promoting your show. the other thing that you can do to sort of take that to the next level is while you're on this show, keep in mind that, you know, you have these amazingly valuable lead magnets that are available. You could create a special landing page, for example, for listeners of that particular show. So, Hey, Ask Pat listeners, you can download this thing for free and yes, you also share it with other podcasts and yes, it's free on your website, but when people go to that landing page it's Hey, Ask Pat listeners, Joe here. Here's that thing I promised you.

And here's some other things I offer. And if you wanna work with me here is where you can contact me and we can chat and all kind of like creates this machine because these podcast episodes that you're on, unlike posts on social media, even on places like LinkedIn, you know, this episode will be here as long as, as pat exists and it's gonna be evergreen for you.

So essentially you're just planting these seed. They actually do have a chance to germinate and create something for you, whether it's a person listening today or a person listening next year, they're all opportunities to point people back to you. So that again, that's another case for guest podcasting and then taking that next level with a special landing page. If, if you have the opportunity to create something like that.

Joe Casabona: Yeah, that's great. And that's a great idea. I'll make one, it'll be like MakeMoneyPod.com/pat and people will be able to go to that probably.

Pat Flynn: Like for real, you want, you wanna point people there?

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yeah. I'll do that. Yeah, I'll do that.

Pat Flynn: Okay. So what's the URL one more time for people who are curious.

Joe Casabona: MakeMoneyPod.com/pat.

Pat Flynn: Nice. Now I'm just gonna be up front with you. You know that I have a podcasting course as well. Right. And I teach podcasting. So really important is we have to have like, a position in the space that's different from others and, and I'm not calling you out.

Like, Hey, I have a thing and you're taking my students. Like we all have something different and special to share. We just have to be pronounced with that positioning. So what is your positioning in the teaching podcasting space specifically? Like what. Can people only get from Joe that they can't get from Pat or other people perhaps.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. I struggled with this. Right. And I, I, I think I ran into you in the hall of Podcast Movement and like mentioned this to you. I don't focus on launching a podcast. Right? That's like a lot of people do that. You do it incredibly effectively. My unique offer, right is I help podcasters make their first $10,000. And have the clout to do this, cuz I've launched three podcasts that were all sponsored before they had any downloads. So like even my first podcast in 2016, like I got it sponsored before it launched. So, and like sponsorship is not the only way to make money and I, I cover that, but that's the main thing that I, I help people figure out the best way for them to make that first 10 K.

Pat Flynn: That's perfect. The fact that you have. Those case studies are huge. And that makes me think of specific skills that only you can teach people how to do, for example, how to negotiate with a company, to be able to make that happen. And those are certain things that other podcasters myself included. You know, we do teach a little bit about sponsorships, but we focus more on affiliate marketing and those kinds of things.

But you maybe sharing scripts or how to approach a company to promote your podcast or to get sponsorships for that. That's all very unique. And you having a, that experience is, is definitely key. So great. I'm glad you nailed that already. So that's fantastic. As we're closing up here, like what else is on your mind? How else can I help you?

Joe Casabona: Your advice about getting on other podcasts, it's great. Cause if it helps me kind of see what is it, see the forest of the trees, or like see the trees in the forest, something like that. Yeah. yeah, something like that because I was super focused on like, well, I gotta do more webinars.

Right. Webinars are super important. But I mean, if I'm trying to reach podcasters, right. It sounds profitable just did that study that talked about like how many podcast consumers start a podcast. I think that advice is just so great. That's where I'm gonna put a lot of my effort and having the web development background.

It's really easy for me spin up a landing page and add that custom messaging and that custom redirect. And so I think as I build out these resources and promote the workshop in better places, maybe the last question I have is like, do I have too many lead magnets? Should I push one over the other? Is there, I, I know like you wanna be. Strategic about content, but.

Pat Flynn: I don't think you have too many, there's obviously a point at which there can be too many and it's just every episode you're sharing something different and it's kind of confusing people, I think two is perfect. And you have two different kinds of things, right? You have the tangible sort of.

Air table slash future notion slash Google sheet kind of thing. That's very tactical, very tool based. A lot of people love tools, right? People want tools because they believe that the moment they start using it, they're going to save a ton of time, which hopefully they will. But then you have this workshop, which is more information based and more application.

Right. And so I think having those two things you cover sort of wide net of people for whatever's most interesting to them. People are gonna want both and some will want just one over the other. So I really like that mixing up those call to actions, not even sharing both in the same episode, but you know, one episode you share one and another one, you share the other, and it might be interesting to over time, have some sort of tracking in place.

You can see which ones are actually getting more juice. And that way you can just go, wow, this, this one here is like, I should just focus on my effort on that, cuz this is killing it right now. So I'll just put this other one in the back burner or use it as a bonus. Hey, get my free workshop. And you also get access to my air table slash spread.

You can mix it up over time after you give it some time to see which one works best for you.

Joe Casabona: Yeah, I like that a lot. Thank you.

Pat Flynn: You're welcome. Okay, Joe, awesome stuff. I think we got a lot to work with over here. So why don't you tell everybody one more time? Where should they go? It's gonna be a redirect that you're gonna set up in just a minute, I think, but what, what is that link one more time?

Joe Casabona: Yeah, if you wanna learn more about me and get access to, let's say the workshop, I'm really proud of that one. You can head over to MakeMoneyPod.com/pat.

Pat Flynn: Thanks, Joe, appreciate you taking the time to hang out and share a bit about yourself and what you're doing today and think this is gonna help a lot of people.

Thanks so much.

Joe Casabona: Thanks, pat.

Pat Flynn: All right. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Joe. You heard that link there. I hope you enjoy that. And I love the positioning statement at the end. There that's really, really important when it comes to your business because you're likely not the only one serving that audience.

There's going to be an audience member who sees multiple different opportunities, multiple different solutions, and you need to make it clear what your solution is all about and how that transformation is gonna work out for them. If they choose to go down your route. And so I think Joe did a wonderful job there.

So go ahead and check 'em out and thank you for listening all the way through. I appreciate you. And if you haven't done so already, make sure you hit that subscribe button because we've got a lot of great content coming. And just like, I hear all the time people take away just one or two golden nuggets that could literally change our lives here on this show from the amazing guests that have come on.

So thank you to Joe. Thank you to all the other guests that have come on and all the future guests, we got a great lineup coming up. Don't miss out and look forward to serving you in the next episode. Until then cheers, peace out. And as always Team Flynn for the win. Peace.

Thanks for listening to AskPat at AskPat.com. I'm your host Pat Flynn. Our senior producer is Sarah Jane Hess. Our series producer is David Grabowski. And our executive producer is Matt Gartland. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. AskPat is a production of SPI Media.

We'll catch you in the next session.