The Podcast Launch Strategy I’d Use Starting From Zero

Most podcast launch advice focuses on hitting publish. Almost none of it teaches you how to launch in a way that helps listeners actually find, follow, and hit play on your show.

In this rapid-fire Q & A episode, I’m answering what to do when you’re launching a podcast with zero listeners or social proof, how to design a show that attracts the listeners you actually want, and why forcing yourself outside your comfort zone too early can make podcasting harder to stick with. If you want to hear the podcast launch strategy I recommend for getting more launch-day engagement and creating a show listeners come back to week after week, hit play and let’s dive in.

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2:10 – What to Launch With When You Have Zero Listeners (And No Social Proof)

6:30 – The #1 Launch Mistake Most Hosts Make

9:35 – Why I Never Put Episode Numbers in My Titles

14:29 – The Best Way to Help Listeners Find Older Episodes

16:19 – Podcasting Advice for Introverts, From an Introvert

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Other Episodes You’ll Love: 

From 30 to 1000+ Podcast Downloads in One Day With This Simple Podcast Launch Strategy

Why Episode Numbers Don’t Belong in Your Episode Titles (and What to Do Instead)

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Special thanks to Frank Bravo of ProLegal Brief (launching soon), members of the Buzzsprout Podcasting Community, and the anonymous listener who submitted today’s questions. 

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Special thanks to Resonate Recordings, our implementation partner for PodLaunch® Accelerator. If your podcasting efforts aren't bringing you the listeners or sales you expected, book a strategy call for help to fix it.

Follow for more podcasting insights:  LinkedIn | PodLaunchHQ.com

©Ⓟ 2018–2026 by Courtney Elmer. All Rights Reserved.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

I've been experimenting with the new Q ⁇ A format here on the podcast that I have been loving. I find it really fun. I hope you find it fun too. Where I don't take just one of your questions, but I take as many of your questions as I possibly can and answer them in 20 minutes or less. And let me tell you, I have got some great questions here today, including the big mistake that I see shows making when launching a podcast that you should avoid at all costs, plus a question that I have seen asked nine different times recently in a podcasting group that I belong to, and why the advice that most people are giving on this topic is completely wrong. And I've got a guest cameo from someone really, really special that you're not gonna want to miss. And I've got all the answers you need to see measurable growth on your show coming up right here next. Welcome to Insider's Secrets to a Top 100 podcast. I'm your host, Courtney Elmer. Let's make your podcast binge-worthy. Wherever you are listening today, I would really appreciate it if you would take a second, hit follow, leave a review, leave a comment. What this does is it helps me by letting others know that the content that I share here with you is really valuable for you, which of course I deeply appreciate. But you're also helping me by keeping me showing up to the mic every week and every week for the last six plus years, which absolutely blows my mind because you're the reason why I do this podcast in the first place. And if you are just joining us for the very first time ever, you've just stumbled across this show. I want you to know how glad I am and how happy I am that you are here. I also want to give a big thank you to our sponsor who makes this podcast possible, Resonate Recordings. They're here to help you get out from behind your computer screen the night before an episode needs to air and take podcast editing and production off your plate so you can focus on the areas of your show that you need to focus on, like marketing and growing your audience. This show is also brought to you by the Pod Launch Accelerator that we have just opened up exclusively through Resonate for more creators to access. And you can find more info on both of those in the show notes below. All right, question number one. This comes from Frank Bravo on behalf of a new podcast about to launch called The Pro Legal Brief. And he asks, with zero listeners and no social proof yet, what is the minimum viable launch package that you would ship in the first two to four weeks? Specifically a trailer versus a full episode, how many episodes should we have in the bank? Release cadence, what do you put in the title, the subtitle, the show notes so people can self-select inside of Apple and Spotify? And what is the one mistake that you see professional or B2B shows making at launch that we should avoid? The audience is lawyers and law firm leaders. Whew! Nothing like a loaded question right out of the gate. First of all, thank you for this question. This is a fantastic question. I love how specific it is. And what I would say as far as getting your launch package together, you want to ship a minimum of one trailer and four launch episodes. More is better. The reason is if your goal is to rank your podcast on the traditional podcast charts, I'm not talking about ranking in search, I'm talking about ranking on the categorical charts that we are familiar with inside of Apple, primarily, although Spotify has theirs too. Then the more volume and the more followers and engagement that you can get with your podcast on the day that you launch, the greater your chances are gonna be of ranking. Now, ranking is highly dependent on the category that you are launching in. But what we want to do on launch day is drive as much traffic to the podcast as possible and specifically get people to hit the follow button. So I always recommend, and if you and I were working together, this is literally what I would tell you. You want to have a trailer that's no more than two minutes long, and you want to have four launch episodes published and ready for listeners to consume. This will help increase listens on launch day, which helps with the engagement of the show. And more importantly, it helps your listeners get a sense of what your podcast is about, what they can expect from your show going forward. Now, I know that that's a lot to have in place. We've had some clients launch with 10 episodes, we've had others do two because that was the most that they could get out. So this number may depend somewhat on your bandwidth. But best case scenario, you have a minimum month. One trailer, four launch episodes, and two episodes in the bank. Why? Because when you launch, there's a lot of adrenaline, there's a lot of excitement, there's a lot of effort and heart that goes into getting the show launched, getting it live, getting it going. And when that happens, after it happens, once the launch desk settles, you kind of want to take a breather and you kind of want to take a breath. And before you know it, a week has gone by. And if you don't have that content in the hopper, well, now we've missed a week and we're messing up our cadence. So speaking of cadence, release cadence, I always recommend. First and foremost, pick what you can keep up with. This is really important. However, once a week minimum is going to be ideal. This matters on some players more than others, but a lot of the players like to see that your show is active and they have different criteria for determining whether or not a show is active or whether or not you have an active RSS feed would be more of a technical way to put it. But this is what you want to focus on. So of course, take your bandwidth into consideration. But if you want to set yourself up for success, once a week minimum is ideal. Now, as far as your title, your description, your episode titles, these three things should be keyword rich. Note that I did not say keyword stuffed. There is a difference. You want to attract your ideal listener. I would challenge you. Lawyers and law firm leaders is vague. If we were working together, I would say get more specific on that. Go a few levels deeper than just lawyers and law firm leaders. What kind of lawyers? How long have they been practicing? What problems are keeping them up at night? What is your show designed to help them solve? How urgently are they looking to get these problems solved? How painful are these problems for them? All of this is going to matter for listener attraction and listener conversion. But the best question you can ask yourself in the meantime is how would my ideal listener, like the perfect fit listener, know that this show is for them? And more specifically, what words could I use in my episode titles, my description, and the title of my show to let them know that this show is for them? Now I know you've got a name picked out for your podcast, Pro Legal Brief. I'm not a lawyer, but by the same token, that doesn't tell me much about what this show is about. So you may want to consider updating and optimizing that name while you can, or if you're set on that name, then adding a tagline in the name field of your podcast to say exactly who it's for and exactly what they're gonna get by listening can help to differentiate you from the competition, which will be important for long-term podcast growth. Now, for your question on the biggest mistakes to avoid, the biggest mistake that any podcast can make with the launch is hitting publish and then marketing the show. You want to pre-market the show in the weeks leading up to the actual launch and drive as many people as possible to engage with that show on the day of your launch. There's a number of ways you can do this. In fact, this is exactly what we cover in phase two, section one, of the pod launch accelerator, how to build a launch runway. If you're launching a show for the first time or if you're relaunching a show, rebranding it, getting it back out into the world. We have launched more than 70 top 100 podcasts with this method. You want to be asking people in your network to engage with the podcast. Following is going to be really key. Listening, not just like sitting there and listening to the first 30 seconds, but listening to an episode, listening to a couple of episodes and asking people to rate and review it on the day that it launches. This is gonna go a long way to help you build some initial momentum and some initial interest and engagement for the show that will fare positively on platforms like Apple and Spotify, but that will give you a foundation to build on with your podcast marketing efforts over time. Okay, how'd we do? I know that was a lot, but I wanted to give you some really practical takeaways that you could literally walk away from this episode and apply to your upcoming podcast launch as well as to your future podcast marketing efforts as you go along. And niching down a little bit more is really gonna help you there. And if you're listening to this right now and you're like, oh my gosh, I would love to have Courtney answer one of my questions that I have about my podcast in such detail, then please send it to me. I would love to answer your question. The link is below in the show notes. When you scroll down, you'll see where it says, got a podcasting question, send it to me here. And you can text it to me or you can send me a voice note. And when you do that, I will actually feature that and feature you in your show here on my show. All right, question number two. This is one that I pulled from the Buzz Sprout Podcasters group online because I'm one of those silent lurker people who read stuff that most people post in the group, but I never really comment on anything. I just read stuff and take it in. And then I'm like, oh, I can do an episode on that. This is a great question. But this is a question that I have seen asked no less than nine times recently. And I'm like, do you guys not search the group to see if anyone else has answered this? But in any case, this has been asked a lot. And it's the question of should you use numbers in your episode titles? This is a big question. I have addressed this here on the podcast before. So that's possible you've heard me rant on this. The short answer is no, absolutely not. And there's a few reasons why. The first is because that initial character space, you only get about 60 characters on any given player to communicate the value of that episode. And by value, I mean payoff for your listener. Your listener needs to be able to see what this episode is about. You know who else needs to see what this episode is about? Platforms like Apple and Spotify, who are looking to see what your show is about and how to match your show with listeners who need it. This has to do with podcasts, SEO. So you want to make sure that you're utilizing all of the available character space that you have to communicate the payoff for your listener. And you might not think, well, two numbers, you know, episode 27 and a colon takes up that much character space. But platforms like Apple and Spotify scan left to right. We all read left to right, players read left to right. And so they're looking to see what your content is about. And if what they see first is episode 178, episode 42, episode 83, well, it doesn't give them relevant information. So do away with the numbers. I'm gonna give you a what to do instead, so that if you're like, oh my gosh, but wait, if I have numbers on right now and Courtney, you're telling me to take them off, how are listeners gonna find episodes that I've referenced in my episode? Don't worry, I have a solution for you. But the second reason that this is something that is just a huge no in my book, we don't want to use episode numbers in your episode titles, is because it makes it so much harder for the listener's brain to process the takeaway of that episode. It's more content that's noise, it's chatter, it's filler. And when our brain has to kind of skip, and it's it's not conscious, it's not like the person sits there and reads episode 127, how to blah, blah, blah, blah. But our brain processes that information. And our brands already have enough information coming at it every single day. And if in a split second your listener is deciding whether or not they're gonna click play on that episode, we don't want to make it any harder than it needs to be for them to decide, yes, I want to click play. So from a psychology perspective, omitting it makes it easier for a listener to understand the takeaway and the payoff of that episode, the value in that episode. The other reason, and this is one that not many people think about, but when you put a number in your episode title and you continue podcasting for a period of time, six more months, a year, two years, what happens to the older episodes? I've got over 400 episodes on my podcast. Are you going back to episode 72? No. Why? Because that's an old episode. Putting numbers in your episode titles inadvertently date your episodes. And this is important. Now, whatever I said in episode 72 might still be insanely relevant. It might still address a very real problem that you have that listening to that episode would help you solve. But nobody is scrolling back that far in my catalog to look at that content. And even if that episode were to pop up in search, well, it looks old. It's dated, especially if you're familiar with my podcast. You know I've got over 400 episodes now, and then it's like episode 72, that sounds like old news. Well, it is old news if I'm telling you it's old news and communicating that through the number in my episode title. So removing that keeps your episodes more evergreen. And this is also really great for search because when someone finds your show in search, or rather your episodes in search for the first time, we're not inadvertently dating our episodes. We're not making it harder for them to process the takeaway of the episode, and we're not taking up valuable character space that might otherwise keep us from showing up in search. All right, so what do you do instead? What I always do, and you see me do this in my show notes, if I refer to another episode, and I'm like, oh, I have another episode on that, you can find it below in the show notes. I literally just link it in the section called Other Episodes You Will Love, and I will link to that episode. This is gonna save your listeners so much time because, first of all, nobody's gonna scroll back to find episode 72 if that's the episode you're telling them to go back to. And then number two, all they have to do is click it and it will open right there. Now, of course, caveat to this, it will only hyperlink if you're on a mobile device or if you're looking at the podcast on a mobile device. I don't know why Apple Podcasts, for one, does not hyperlink things on a computer. But in any case, if someone's listening on a mobile device, which most listeners are, and they were to see that episode link, they heard you mention it in the episode, they you tell them it's in the show notes, they click below and they see, oh, great, let me click on this. That's what I want to listen to next. And it takes them right to that episode. Doesn't matter if it's episode 72. Guess what? You just made that episode super relevant for them. So that's what I do, that's what I recommend. And that is the hill that I will die on, should anyone ever ask me about using episode numbers in your episode titles. All right, question number three comes from a listener who preferred to remain anonymous today, which, by the way, if you have a question that you want to sit in, you prefer for me not to know your podcast or not to know your name, or you don't want listeners to know that. That is always totally cool with us. And something really fun that we do when we get an anonymous question is to come up with a fun name to represent the person asking. So I have asked our director of podcast fun, aka, my eight-year-old, to introduce this question for us.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Hi, my name is Vinny, Vinny Garrett, and I have a question. What tips do you have for an introvert like me to step out of my comfort zone when launching a podcast?

SPEAKER_01 13:40

All right, I'm really liking the launch on a podcast theme we've got going on here. And first of all, I want to acknowledge you for asking this question because I know it took a lot of courage to ask that, and I thank you for that. My answer might be controversial, but to put it plainly, why don't we build in your comfort zone first before we step out of it? Podcasting is the most vulnerable thing that I've ever done. It can bring up so much stuff in us that needs inner work and inner healing for inner growth. And that is a process that we cannot rush. Literally, as I was preparing this episode, I'm hyper-focused on things that I'm doing or not doing with my voice and my delivery, and am I over-delivering it and all that we can so easily get in our heads. And I've been doing this for six plus years. This is something that I've worked on continually through the years, and I'm still working on it. And I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm an introvert. And as an introvert myself, I can tell you the number one thing we need to do here to make this sustainable for you is to protect your energy. And to do that, we need to build the concept of your podcast around something that you love, that you are obsessed with, that you could talk endlessly about so that you never grow tired of it. Then we need to clarify what it is that this podcast is gonna give you both internally and externally. Because without this piece, it's gonna be very hard to keep going. For example, my podcast, this show that you're listening to right now, it is my reason to show up and to use my voice to help others use theirs, which is something I feel very called to do. You might be like, oh, that sounds nice. You use your voice, you help others use their great, everyone has a voice. No, this is because I almost lost my voice permanently due to thyroid cancer in my 20s. And because I did not lose my voice, I see that as a gift. And it was a gift that was given back to me and is not to be wasted. And I feel deeply convicted of that. So when I say that this show is a reason for me to use my voice, which I previously stifled and undermined and in so many ways, this really matters to me. And you're gonna have that personal thing that only makes sense to you that's gonna get you to show up to the mic. This has been my personal thing that's allowed me to release an episode every single week for the last six years. And without it, that would have never, never, never, never happened. So spend some quality time identifying what that thing is for you. It's gonna be personal to you and it's not gonna speak to anyone else. It's gonna speak to you and you alone, but it's gonna get you to show up to the mic and stay consistent to give your show the time that it is going to need to grow over time. That's internal. Externally, we need to know what the show is designed to do for you. In other words, is this to generate leads? Is this a place where you share your ideas and it's it's meant to be a creative outlet for you? Is this to grow your brand or to expand your thought leadership footprint? We need to know what the show is designed to do for you so that when we build the show, we can build it to deliver those results. Because if we don't, then you're gonna be podcasting and to what end? You're gonna wake up one day and be like, why am I doing this? I'm not seeing the return that I want. And mainly it's because either A, we weren't clear on what that return is and on an external level, what do we need that show to do for you and to give you? Or B, we were clear on what that thing was, but we didn't build our podcast to give us that specific ROI. So these things are super, super important. The other thing that I'll give you here is a little bit of a bonus is to play an experiment before you commit to the podcast. I know someone who wanted to launch a podcast, but they didn't know if they could commit to it. They said, you know, I'm just gonna try it on for size. They picked a name for the podcast. They had some guests, some friends of theirs that they were like, let's just do an interview together. They recorded those interviews. And this was all with the intent of launching a podcast, but it was more of like the try it on for size moment. I later fell out of touch with this person, but recently in doing this episode, I looked up to see if this person ever launched their show and they didn't. But you know what that gave them? It gave them the clarity they needed to make that decision. And that's what we're going after here. So if you are doing a solo show, outline a couple solo episodes, record them on your phone. Get that out of your system, test it, try it on for size. If you're doing an interview show, get a couple people that you know in your sphere who could speak to that topic and let them know, hey, I'm considering launching a podcast. Would you be willing to do an interview with me and let them know this may never air, but that they'll be helping you in your work one way or another. And when you ask for help, surprisingly, most people are willing to help. And then return the favor. Be sure to return the favor for them down the line. So then we get to the part where, okay, we've done all this pre-work. Now we need to commit. And you can do that by going out and buying the mic, buying the domain name, something small, but something significant that's going to formalize that commitment that you're going to launch this thing. And then and only then do we start designing messaging and positioning and content and building a marketing workflow that protects your energy, a production workflow that protects your energy, mapping out a launch plan. All that comes after this. And you know what? By that time, it's not overwhelming because you're feeling so good about it that you didn't jump in and you didn't feel completely out of your comfort zone. In fact, the opposite, because you designed your show around what matters most to you and what feels comfortable to you. There's plenty of opportunity to expand the limits of your comfort zone from there, believe me. So I hope that helps. I genuinely thank you for this question because it's not one that many people have the courage to ask. And the fact that you did says a lot about you and your willingness to grow. All right, we are right at the 20-minute mark. So that is it for today. Huge thank you to everyone who submitted questions for today, including those in the Buzz Sprout group who didn't know they submitted a question, but who got an answer anyway, because it's a hot topic. And if they're wondering it, I figured you're wondering it too. And again, if you have a question that you want featured, scroll down in the show notes, click where it says send me a question, and then shoot me a text or leave me a voicemail so I can shout you out if you leave your name or totally fine to leave it anonymous too. And our podcasting director of fun, my son would be more than happy to come and read your question for you. Okay, he was like on cloud nine when I said, I want you to help me with the podcast. He was like, What? Really? Okay, and now he's begging me to do more questions. So I need more questions from you so we can do that. And then stay right where you are because coming up in the next episode, I am breaking down the three podcasting mistakes that you're gonna want to avoid that make listeners lose interest fast, including the guest interview habit that can turn a really great interview into a frustrating listen for your listener, and the two words that instantly make you sound less credible behind the mic. All that's coming up next to help you make your podcast benchworthy.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Hi, my name is Bob, Bob the Builder, and I have a question. Hi, my name is Cindy, Cindy Susan, and I have a question. I wanna do a funny one. Hi, my name is Piggy, Piggy Piggy Piggy, and I have a question for you, Bob the Builder. I wanna do another question.