11 Steps To 12 Million Downloads: The Nathan Latka Podcast

It's December 2016 and I'm nervous.

I'm sat in a bedroom in my parents house nervously sipping my coffee waiting for 9pm to arrive.

Because at 9pm, I'm going face to face with online marketing's most controversial player: Nathan Latka.

Yes, me... the very early stage entrepreneur had managed to hustle an interview spot on Latka's relatively new podcast: The Top (read on to find out how this happened).

9pm comes.

And twenty minutes later, after a very unconvincing performance, it's over and my episode moves through The Top's highly tuned podcast producing machine to be spit out onto his RSS feed two months later.

Nathan has since gone on to leverage that very podcast into one of the biggest media brands in the SaaS space:

• 12m downloads
• $1.5m in revenue last year (just on the podcast)
• 25k email addresses
• 10k physical magasine customers

How?

This post explains...

Step 1 - Niche Down

Nathan picked SaaS as a niche before SaaS was big.

He had expertise here from his previous business and then rode the wave Water wave

Even Google knows Nathan as "the saas guy"

Step 2 - SEO Optimised Name

Nathan didn't start: The SaaS Podcast

Nathan started: The Top Podcast

Why?

Because it had more search volume...

Step 3 - Leverage Assets

Step 3 - Leverage Assets

I somehow got chatting to Nathan back in 2016, I shared that we had some success growing Instagram profiles.

He suggested that I grow his Instagram profile for a number of weeks in exchange for appearing on his podcast.

Step 4 - Systemise

Nathan is known for extreme systemisation.

Nathan blocks out chunks of his calendar with podcast interviews, so he can go back to back, often on Saturdays:

More systems = more time to spend on growth

Step 5 - Build A Backlog

The #1 predictor of podcast success is: consistency.

It's a hell of a lot easier to generate a 1,000 downloads per day if you have a backlog of 1,000 episodes.

Consistency is 🗝

Step 6 - Results Based Advertising

Nathan will beat CPA of other ad channels by giving extra exposure at the end of a campaign.

I'm not sure if you've ever tried asking your Facebook Ad rep to ask them about giving you more clicks if your CPA is too high: it won't work.

Step 7 - Collect & Monetise Data

Whether you know it or not, when you interview people for your podcast: you're collecting data.

And if that data is well-structured, high value and can give someone an edge... then it has monetisation potential:

Step 8 - Syndicate Data

Each twenty-minute interview with a SaaS CEO is leveraged into the following media assets:

👉 Podcast interview
👉 YouTube video
👉 Blog articles
👉 Magasine articles (paid)
👉 Database entries in GetLatka (paid)

Step 9 - Monetise Guests

As we learnt in Step 6, Nathan will go back to his complete guest backlog to offer them advertising slots...

Now he also sells them money: Founder Path

Step 10 - Convert Listeners To Leads

Nathan recently has placed an audio ad at the start of each episode directing people to an ad free version...

You can get this for free in exchange for... you guessed it: your email address 🥰

Step 11 - The Trump Strategy

Nathan is playing the long game.

He's investing in impressions for the Latka brand.

When will we see the first Latka real estate licensing deal? 🤪

Thanks for reading... the full post is here if anyone wants more detail on these steps.

I hope this helps anyone looking for podcast growth tips or inspiration 📈