How to Grow Your Podcast on Zero Budget: Real Tips That Work

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:01

Welcome to the Circle Sessions featuring the Circle of Experts. Each week, one of the Circle of Experts joins me to talk about critical aspects of growing your podcast. The Circle of Experts are Yasmine Robles and Izzy Dadosky from Rebel Marketing, Tonnisha English Amamoo of TJE Communications, and Don The Idea Guy. I'm Brett Johnson, My Podcast Guy from Circle 270 Media Podcast Consultants. This week, Tonnisha is here. Tonnisha's on a mission to help small businesses level the playing field through her digital marketing solutions. Tonnisha, thanks for joining me again today.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:00:35

Yes. Thanks for having me as always. So glad to

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:37

hear you. You've got a great idea for this episode, and a lot of podcasters walk into this Mhmm. That they just have no budget Yeah. To do a podcast. Mhmm. And meaning the budget as in okay. Yes. There's a little you've gotta pay for some hosting.

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:54

You gotta buy microphones and stuff like that. You can send yes. It's a budget item, but it's a onetime deal, I guess you could say, other than hosting's ongoing, but that's kind of a necessity. We're talking about budgeting for bigger things, whether it's the marketing promotion, whatever it might be. So what what are what are some thoughts in regards to what can you do on the on the free side?

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:01:16

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I know we have had an episode recently where we talked about building a brand and how a lot of these big podcasts have grown so big because they have teams. But, you know, when you're first starting out, that may not be the case. It may just be you and a friend or sometimes even just you. And so one of the first things I would suggest to people is if you are starting a podcast and you don't have a budget for a team and to get the podcast going is to just start with what you have. And most of us have a phone, and most of us have a smartphone. And if you have a laptop, even better.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:01:56

And so using what you can as far as, like, free editing tools, or at least somewhat free editing tools even like a Canva. Or if you have a MacBook, it probably came with iMovie or some sort of editing tool for you to be able to edit the audio and create podcast episodes and then uploading them to, like, a YouTube, which is free for everyone to use. So, starting with what you have, but keeping in mind about okay. If you're gonna be using your, computer or your phone microphone solely, think about your background. So for me, this is probably a terrible example, but you can probably hear, Gracie's Corner and some nursery rhymes because my little two year old is standing right next to me, and she also has the TV on. So this would not be ideal for for your podcast setup is to have too many things going on in the background if you're not gonna be using the proper mics and noise cancellation things. Not that you can't, still do that. Right? Because, honestly, a part of my brand is the fact that I'm a mompreneur.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:03:09

And so people know that if you see me out, I may or may not have at least one kid with me at all times doing stuff. So depending on what you're doing, it may you know, the background may or may not make sense. So that'll be my first thing is to start with what you have. Secondly, I would think about ways to grow organically. So not necessarily spending money on ads. Maybe you choose to do that, you know, every so often. But if we're talking about zero budget, you can grow your podcast organically. One of the first things you should do, which we talked about, a few weeks ago about LinkedIn, but, like, if you interview someone to make sure that when you post that interview, you're tagging that person.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:04:00

Something that I've done is on Instagram is inviting people to collaborate on a post. They may or may not accept it, and that's okay. But at least if you invite them to collaborate on, you know, the episode that that they just did, that's great. You know, actually, one of my clients, her brother is a huge podcaster, and he just interviewed Michelle Obama. Nice. And so imagine, you know, him making a post with the episode. He invites Michelle Obama to collaborate on it. I mean, now you're completely exposed to her huge audience.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:04:40

I mean, he has a huge audience too, but that cross promotion, I mean, that alone is just great to to get the word out. Essentially, it's like a a word-of-mouth kinda thing at that point. Right? So I love collaborating on posts, making sure you're tagging people, and then also making sure you're kinda, making your guests feel good too. You know? Sharing insights that they've shared, you know, making sure that you're thanking them for being on the podcast and, even giving them a heads up when the episode is coming out. I know we've talked about that before too so that they know, hey. Your episode's dropping on this day just to give you a heads up so they can also be prepared to share those episodes too.

Brett Johnson [: 00:05:27

Yeah. And, you know, speaking of the pre promote or staying in front of your listeners or, you know, giving them the incentive to wanna follow you Yeah. Through activations whether, you know, it's a newsletter or social media, but going to that newsletter idea, it's amazing how the, you know, the pendulum's kinda swinging back. There is these free platforms for newsletters, whether, you know, via Substack or, con which what was called ConvertKit is just now kit.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:05:56

Yeah.

Brett Johnson [: 00:05:56

There are some free options there that you get a pretty decent looking newsletter coming out or even even LinkedIn. LinkedIn has a newsletter option Yeah. On the individual level, not your business level, but individual that you can, you know, you don't control who's recipient who's receiving it, I should say.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:06:13

Right.

Brett Johnson [: 00:06:13

And you can't, download those recipients in a CSV file to move forward, but it's free. Mhmm. It's a good start at that you're getting your information out. So amazing that, you know, there's some good stuff that's low cost Right. Gives you the opportunity to talk to your people.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:06:31

Right. Right. And, I mean, even thinking about some things that we've talked about before, you know, using the opportunity to allow people to expand on a particular topic on the podcast, on social media will help just to kinda amplify the episode and get people talking. I mean, for most of these, like, bro podcasts that we see all the time on TikTok, I mean, they're using the most salacious thirty seconds to put out there to get people mad and talking. And that and it's probably completely out of context for the most part until you actually listen to the full thing, and you're like, okay. That was just, like, completely out of context. It was just a way to get you to come in and listen to the episode. That's what everyone is doing.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:07:23

So, you know, keeping track of when someone is really saying something, that you wanna make sure everybody hears. And and, I mean, I can even think of, like, the studio. Right? If you are using a podcast studio, even taking the opportunity to shout out the studio, even if you pay for it, just to kinda give that nod to the studio and tagging them. And they may share it as well. And that may help you to start to build a relationship with the studio where maybe as your podcast grows, maybe they'll give you, like, a free hour to to record and exchange for, you know, cross promotion. I mean, really thinking about what can you offer to them to where maybe you can get something out of it as well. One thing that I hate doing is editing the podcast. Yeah.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:08:25

But I can do the the marketing pieces. So maybe there is someone where it's like, okay. If you can help me if you can give me an hour of editing time, I can give you a social media audit, or I can help you with a marketing plan. I mean, I'm I'm no stranger to to bartering services when it makes sense. Of course, we don't wanna do that with everything because we wanna make sure that we're making money, and we're also helping people do do what they need to do. But, thinking about ways that you can give and get in these kind of scenarios where everybody can have the opportunity for exposure. It's always a great idea to help grow your podcast organically with no budget.

Brett Johnson [: 00:09:10

Yeah. And expand a little bit on your idea of the the pain of editing or not wanting to edit. Mhmm. You can you can you can alleviate that a little bit by really planning out what each episode is doing. Yeah. That you know, don't make eliminate as many mistakes as you possibly can. Mhmm. Also, if, you know, these viral moments Mhmm.

Brett Johnson [: 00:09:31

If you know there's gonna be a a a piece of that episode that you definitely wanna pull out as an edit point Mhmm. Put a put a put a little bit of a pause between that one thing you you know, between that segment you really want Yeah. To to to to to spotlight, and it makes it easier to edit, pull it out Mhmm. And and put your, you know, logo in front, whatever you're doing for that little short. But if you're pre planning what you're creating, post editing Yeah. Will be a lot easier. And therefore, saving you money and you're doing it for free, and you don't have to pay, for a software like Opus Clips. Yeah.

Brett Johnson [: 00:10:08

However, to do it for you, because, you know, yes, it's somewhat inexpensive, but we're talking about low to no budget here. Mhmm. If you plan what you're doing, it makes a lot easier on the back end that you don't have to have somebody else or software do it for you.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:10:21

Exactly. Especially if you're just starting out. You know? I think even for me with the Black Woman in Biz podcast, my goal was to do it on myself initially, get everything all packaged up, and then use that along with the things that I'm doing outside of the podcast to show a potential sponsor the benefits of, you know, sponsoring the overall brand, which helps to sponsor the podcast. So, you know, you kind of DIY ing things may only be temporary, as you look into resources or funding. You know, going back to the last episode that that we talked about, building a brand. You know, and you talked about bands and and, you know, obviously, a T shirt of a band is not the music, but you still buy the T shirt because

Brett Johnson [: 00:11:13

Mhmm.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:11:13

It has your favorite band's, like, name on it or album cover or something like that. And a lot of the podcast that I listen to do offer some sort of merch, where it helps to kinda fund the podcast. And there are ways that you can set up, these online stores where things are, like, made to order. So you don't have to order, like, a thousand t shirts. It can kinda just be as someone orders, it gets made and shipped to them through a third party. So just thinking about ways that that you can kinda get some money flowing in into the podcast. I think another thing too that has helped me with, saving time and money is trying to, record as many episodes at a time. So if you are going to book a studio for a couple hours, really making sure that you can record as many episodes while you're there as possible.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:12:09

So if it's, you know, you're there for two hours, and you're gonna try to interview at least two to three people within that time, I mean, that's gonna save you a lot of money on studio time as well. And then another thing, to think about is leveraging some free communities like Facebook groups or Reddit threads, or even LinkedIn groups. There's a lot of LinkedIn groups for for podcasting, but getting strategic about the groups that you're in. So if you are if you have a podcast about I'm thinking of, like, farming and gardening lately because I've been doing, you know, trying to get my green thumb together. But I'm in a couple, farmer and gardener Facebook groups, And most of the people are posting in the group about, you know, hey. I found this, you know, thing in my garden or, hey. Can you what can you help me identify this herb? But I don't see a lot of people posting resources for those gardeners or farmers. So if that is what your podcast talks about, maybe, you know, if you're talking about farming, be in a Facebook group for farmers and share your podcast episode.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:13:28

If your podcast is about, you know, dogs and cats, be in some dog and cat, you know, Facebook group. So, not necessarily being only in groups that are for podcasters, but actually joining groups that are for your podcast topics to share those episodes out and kind of build community that way.

Brett Johnson [: 00:13:54

Yeah. Yeah. Typically, with a podcaster group, you'd you'd it's kind of a no no to promote your own episodes within those groups. It's more of a so if you like like a a dog or a gardening group, it's a support group. So they really don't wanna hear that. But but to your point of of, yeah, what a great opportunity to if you have a podcast, you're part of these groups, we'll get a hold of the court the admit admin of the group and interview them. Why'd they start this group? Yeah. All of a sudden, you know, it's it's a simple or our, you know, the main three or four people that really run that group, interview them on your podcast.

Brett Johnson [: 00:14:24

Right. I mean, talk about great promotion. Yeah. And it's they they probably have never been asked Exactly. To to talk about why did you start this? You know? What's, you know, what what's what's the future for it? Yeah. All these little things, and all of a sudden, you're gonna get promoted within this group.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:14:38

And I was gonna say that. Right? I mean, of course, they're gonna promote it because the admins are in the episode.

Brett Johnson [: 00:14:44

Exactly. Exactly. And they will probably lead you to other admins of other Facebook groups about dogs or gardenings. Gardening, I should say. It it's I I know it's happening within, I I work with an an attorney who does a a variety of different short podcasts. Mhmm. And come to find out, I again, I don't follow all this stuff, but I didn't realize there are Facebook groups dedicated to certain court cases. Kind of a true crime field to, you know, that sort of thing.

Brett Johnson [: 00:15:15

So when, you know, a court case is coming up and we're maybe doing an episode or or so of like the, you know, a famous case or something. Mhmm. There are Facebook groups around these cases. Wow. And it's that but but what's weird is the admin of the group is they probably normal know more about the cases than the attorneys do to a certain degree because they're just like a true crime podcast. They are in it. Yeah. 150.

Brett Johnson [: 00:15:40

Mhmm. And those are great people to interview as well too. So it's just that really looking at those groups differently

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:15:46

Right.

Brett Johnson [: 00:15:47

As resources that then all of a sudden they're turning around and promoting, hey. I was a part of this podcast, talking about my Facebook group or whatever it might be. So and and it serves two purposes as well. You're serving the purpose of creating content for your podcast. Mhmm. So you're

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:16:02

Exactly. It's a

Brett Johnson [: 00:16:03

it's a win on both ways. So it's it's and and all those the ask the the worst thing that can happen is the ask is, no. I'm not going to. Yeah. That's the only thing that can happen. You know? It probably will be the other way. It'll be a yes.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:16:16

Yeah. Mostly.

Brett Johnson [: 00:16:17

Prepared, doing a good episode, doing an interview Mhmm. And you're golden. You know, you're the go to podcaster all of a sudden, you know, that that that they can reference too. So it's it's, it can it can be a lot of fun actually, you know, working the free. Mhmm. It's okay. You know? And and I but I also but I also you know, while we're talking about the free is I also, you know, wanna put a a warning to this is, you know, don't allow the free to really run your life, though. If there's a point where it's just overwhelming that, you know, I can't your point about the editing.

Brett Johnson [: 00:16:50

Mhmm. That's usually a pain point that I get contacted about that's because it's part of the services that I do in in total. I outsource editing, that sort of thing, but I have people that can do it. It's just because all of a sudden, they realize I can't do this anymore. I'm spending way too much time on it. I don't like doing it. Yeah. I need help, and and they realize I do wanna continue podcasting that I can't I've gotta pay somebody to do this.

Brett Johnson [: 00:17:14

Mhmm. I have to. So but so really think about don't don't allow these little, you know, the the dollar pain points to stop you from continuing on, honestly. If you got something good going on, save somebody in other rooms, but Yep. Get it off your plate because it it does be you can only have x amount of hours per day per week to dedicate to a podcast to anything. Yeah. And if you're spending way too much time on you know, if it's a twenty minute podcast and you're spending three hours editing, no.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:17:43

You know, I'm glad that that you said that because something that I, like to do when I'm even right now, which I might have mentioned this before, I track my time on everything that I'm doing. And so if I'm spending, you know, three hours editing and if I charge clients a certain amount of, you know, whatever an hour, I just lost that much money

Brett Johnson [: 00:18:09

Mhmm.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:18:09

Because I'm spending my time doing this other thing that is not my thing.

Brett Johnson [: 00:18:15

Right.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:18:16

And so instead, I could have been making that money to then invest in a person where that's their thing, and they're gonna do it, and they're actually gonna do it right the first time

Brett Johnson [: 00:18:26

Yeah.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:18:27

Because that's what they do. And so I definitely would encourage people to, track their time. A free tool that I use, is Toggl, t o g g l. It's a free tool. And I'm all about doing things free until you can't anymore or or using tools that are free until you can't anymore. And I've been using Toggle for free probably for, like, at least, you know, definitely close to ten years. And and it's and it's fine. It does its job.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:18:57

It tracks the time. But I'm able to pull reports on different things that I'm doing and seeing like, okay. I'm spending a lot of time on this thing. Could I actually invest into it and put some money behind it so that, one, it's off my plate, and it gets done right and packaged up and back to me so then I can do what I need to do with it? So I definitely encourage people to track their time and seeing what's worth it. You know? If you're able to to come up with all these ideas and execute them on top of, you know, doing outreach to, to potential guests and getting everybody scheduled. Like, if you're able to do all that on your own and it's not taking you a ton of time, then, hey, have at it. But if you really look at that and see, like, well, I'm spending a lot of time doing this. And it's not that, you know, you don't wanna actually do the podcast itself, but it may be just the other pieces that go along with it that you need to outsource.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:20:00

I definitely encourage you, to to look at that and and do what is best for you as a business owner, and making sure that we're, you know, spending our time where where it needs to be.

Brett Johnson [: 00:20:16

Right. Exactly. A lot. Yeah. It can because, you don't want it to creep into family life as well too or personal time, personal health, whatever it might be, whether it's family or not, just your your own world that you don't wanna spend, way too much time on. And I I think your your your point of tracking your time is good because we could also overestimate how much time we are putting into something. Mhmm. And but I having a clock against it, just kinda measure it for a month to see what you're doing depending on your publication frequency, that sort of thing.

Brett Johnson [: 00:20:45

But just kinda take a look at it and kinda go, okay. Can I be can I be paying myself with client time

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:20:50

Right?

Brett Johnson [: 00:20:50

Than doing this? And I think that that measures up to, editing Mhmm. What you're doing. I think it also take a look at how much time you spend putting together social media posts Mhmm. As well. How much time that way, how much time are you spending, putting together any other pieces that help market what you're doing. Yeah. Look at it seriously, as well as if you're cohosting with someone, if you're doing majority of the work and the other person should be picking up a little bit more, that could help us look, you know, divvy up the divvy up the work. Yeah.

Brett Johnson [: 00:21:23

You may have raised your hand because you're excited about doing it, and they're more than happy to go, yeah. Please do. Mhmm. But if you're needing the help and your cohost is willing to raise their hand, do it. Right. You know? Yeah. I I I

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:21:34

Or if your cohost is willing to put put the money behind it so that, you know, you don't have to do it all.

Brett Johnson [: 00:21:41

Yeah. Yeah. I think and I think there's something to doing it yourself initially because then when or if let's say if or and or when Mhmm.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:21:50

You will

Brett Johnson [: 00:21:50

offload it to somebody to do. So you've done some audio and video editing on your own. Mhmm. You understand the concept. You don't like doing it. Now when you offload it to somebody to do it, you know what it takes to do.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:22:02

Yes. You know what they'll look at you. Do.

Brett Johnson [: 00:22:04

Yes. So it's so someone is not saying, you know, when you know that it's a twenty minute episode and it's taking you three hours to do, okay, as an extreme example. But, really, it should be about an hour's worth of time with a good editor. Especially audio. Video is a little different. Now, again, a lot of different variables, depends on how bad the recording is and this Yeah. You know, all that kind of stuff. Now I get it.

Brett Johnson [: 00:22:25

But it gives you that template of going, no. This shouldn't take this long, and I think this person is kinda taking advantage of me. Yeah. It's not a bad idea to be have your foot in the door. Yep.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:22:37

Yep. That's true. And I think it also gives you an appreciation for if someone says, you know, okay. Well, I can do it for this price. It's like, well, you were doing it, and based on how much you charge your clients, I mean, you were paying more for it, essentially. Yeah. I think it's hard to see that when you're not keeping track of how much time you're putting into it. So it's hard to, like, conceptualize that maybe you spent, like, a thousand dollars on a podcast episode

Brett Johnson [: 00:23:08

Yeah.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:23:09

That maybe should have not been anywhere near that at all Right. If you hire the right people to to

Brett Johnson [: 00:23:15

do the job. Yeah. And and that puts that puts a black eye to our industry as well too. You know, outsourcing to you for social media work or to me for a consultant or editing, whatever it might be. They want you to have that bad experience Mhmm. With somebody that really doesn't know what they're doing.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:23:32

Yeah.

Brett Johnson [: 00:23:32

And they you know, and then all of a sudden, you're gun shy. Mhmm. Anyone working with anyone else or, you know, you you're just kinda that next person has an uphill struggle to be able to be working with them sort of thing.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:23:45

So, yeah,

Brett Johnson [: 00:23:45

it's it's difficult. It's difficult. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, we we get some really great read. The the toggle resource is fantastic. It's end with if a a listener wants to get a hold of you for any other free ideas or, you know, in regards well, I shouldn't say free ideas, but ideas on free things. Yeah.

Brett Johnson [: 00:24:01

Yeah. What's the best way to contact you?

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:24:03

Yes. Go to my website, tjecommunications.com, and schedule a consultation, which is free for us to talk. And I'll give you as many free ideas and thoughts that I can, in that consultation. And, yeah, just, go to my website. You can book anytime.

Brett Johnson [: 00:24:23

Yeah. Same here. Go to mypodcastguy.com. Same way, you know, my my my initial comps, talk is free. Free ideas as well too. I mean, that's how I started as well too to build my business. I had to find as many free things as I could too and still use those free items because they're good. So it you know, just you don't you don't necessarily graduate out of them.

Brett Johnson [: 00:24:43

Right. But, yeah, we both have the years in to kind of, like, suggest alternatives. Mhmm. So, yeah, we'd love to talk with you. But thanks again for joining me. I appreciate your time.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [: 00:24:52

No problem. Thank you.