Marketing Happy Hour - Where your Podcast Fits in Your Marketing Strategy | Kylee Chandler, Podcast Strategist
Episode Date: May 20, 2025Is your podcast pulling its weight in your overall marketing strategy? In this episode, I sit down with podcast growth strategist Kylee Chandler, who’s helped industry giants like Amy Porterfield an...d Cathy Heller scale their shows into million-download machines. We talk about how to position your podcast as a key part of your brand's marketing ecosystem, the power of quizzes for list-building, and the often-overlooked episode strategies that turn passive listeners into super fans. Key Takeaways:// Why treating your podcast like a business asset (not just a passion project) is the key to long-term growth.// The one thing every podcaster should be doing to consistently grow their audience.// How to position your podcast at the top of your funnel—and use it to drive real conversions.// Simple titling and description tips that can boost your discoverability.// Why quizzes are a wildly effective tool for growing your email list—and how podcasters can use them.// Kylee’s advice for corporate marketers who want to go out on their own.Connect with Kylee: LinkedInListen to Kylee's Podcast: My Episode Here!____Say hi! DM me on Instagram and let us know what content you want to hear on the show - I can't wait to hear from you! Please also consider rating the show and leaving a review, as that helps us tremendously as we move forward in this Marketing Happy Hour journey and create more content for all of you. Join our FREE Open Jobs group on LinkedIn: Join nowGet the latest from MHH, straight to your inbox: Join our email list!Follow MHH on Social: Instagram | LinkedIn | TikTok | Facebook
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I love to use the podcast as like top of funnel because people are listening to podcasts already.
You end up in their pocket on their walk every Tuesday, every Wednesday, you become part
of their routine.
And that is such a unique vantage point that we have to nurture and be part of that person's
world.
And so positioning it as the top of your funnel and then getting those people onto your email
list is the next step.
Welcome to Marketing Happy Hour. I'm Cassie, consultant, podcaster, and your host. Every Thursday, you'll hear episodes packed with insights from brand leaders on an array of topics,
from crafting effective marketing strategies and hitting career goals, to building leadership
skills and launching your own business. Inspired by those unfiltered happy hour combos with peers,
this show is all about practical, empowering chats
to support your professional journey.
So grab your favorite drink and let's get to the episode.
I'm so excited to have Kylie Chandler here today.
Kylie has worked with some of the biggest names
in online marketing and just now running her own business,
passing along that knowledge to her clients and just sharing the podcast love out there.
So we'll of course talk podcasting. We're going to talk lead generation with podcasting
as well. And of course we'll touch on career too. But Kylie, welcome to the show. So stoked
to have you.
Thank you so much for having me, Cassie. We've been doing some podcast swap interviews over here and it's been a really fun last hour that we've been hanging out together.
Yes. And we're going to continue it today, which is such a blast. Definitely check out
Kylie's show. We'll have that linked below and we'll talk more about that here shortly.
But Kylie, I got to ask you what's been in your glass lately and true marketing happy
hour fashion. So something not as exciting or spicy, but I have a sick family.
So I am trying to avoid it through electrolytes and broth.
Lots of it.
Gosh.
I love it.
Yeah.
Got to do what you got to do, right?
I just have water.
So kind of boring too, but that's okay.
There's a time and place for all of that.
But Kylie, so as I mentioned, you worked with some pretty big names out there, Amy Porterfield
being one of them.
If you have heard of Amy, if not, definitely check her out.
But how did you transition now to running your own business and why did you do that?
What was kind of the inspiration and catalyst for going out on your own?
So it's kind of a leapfrog thing that happened. And so I was with Amy for five years.
And in those five years, I went from being
like a content coordinator
to a senior content marketing manager
and took her podcast, grew it by 234%
and generated over 20,000 leads from a podcast-centric quiz.
So had a lot of success with these very
organic type marketing strategies. And so I always feel like my time with Amy, it
was so fun and wonderful and it was kind of like me developing my skills. And
then I went and supported Kathy Heller as her chief growth officer and that
really gave me the confidence to know that like my strategies
work and I'm good at executing them. And then actually after Cathy, I went and hung out with
Boss Babe for a little bit and supported them with audience growth and that almost helped me
to figure out my systems. And so all of a sudden I was like, okay, I have the skills, I have the
confidence, now I have the systems. I was like, I'm a mama and I'm ready to go on my own.
I think I'm ready to do this.
I have what I need.
And so I took the leap in January and it has been amazing in the best way.
I'm loving it.
I love my clients.
I love seeing them implement these strategies and get excited about them. And as you know, the pod podcast is such a personal thing that you do within your business.
And so to take it and elevate it and make sure that it's getting used to the full extent
that it can is so rewarding, not only for me, but for my clients.
And so I'm just, I'm on fire about it.
Yeah.
Yeah. And to your point too, with your journey, it was kind of one thing after another,
right? I love that that's kind of how it works with a lot of now entrepreneurs. Like for
me, for example, I didn't expect to do this, we kind of talked about that on your show.
And it's just, I started to have realization after realization, I just kind of fell into it.
But there are a lot of people who do set out to do that. They say, I do want to launch my own business one day. A lot of corporate marketers listening to the show who are like, I'm going to
launch a side hustle, or I want to eventually like launch this full blown business that I'm doing
full time. What advice or inspiration do you have to those people saying that's the leap I want
to take eventually but gearing up to take that? Like what do I do or what's kind of the mindset I
should have in order to prepare myself? That's such a good question. I think I kind of said it in the
steps right? If you're getting the skills when you're in a corporate job, use that to your benefit
and gather the skills, gather the knowledge.
If they allow, if they pay for you to go
and gain some new knowledge, use it.
Ask the questions you need to do.
Pay attention to everything you possibly can.
If it's a company that's run well, what are the SOPs?
And then see, really start to also pay attention
to the numbers so that you have
some clout or you have something to use to build your business.
You have data points or something that you can say, Hey, I did this.
These are the numbers I have that I can prove.
And then really when it comes to mindset, I think it comes to just knowing that like
entrepreneurship is going to be a roller coaster.
Set yourself up for it.
Don't just don't just dive in unless you're really ready to financially because it's going
to cause so much stress.
But like find the way that you can leapfrog your way into it so that it feels really good.
And the other thing I'll say is I so so firmly believe in finding mentors, paying for mentors. If somebody
has done what you want to do, pay for it. Like if you don't wade your way through the
muck, like let somebody guide you to get there so much faster. That's why we have programs
out there to support you from going A to B quickly. I'm such an advocate for like paying to get results.
So did that answer your question?
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, paying for coaches or mastermind,
like there's so many different resources out there
no matter which industry or what level of your career
you're in or where you're at.
And to your point too, that financial security
starting out is so huge.
So I tell people all the time,
I'm like, start it on the side of your full time.
Like, see if you actually like it.
Like sometimes people start it and they're like,
actually, I don't think this is for me.
Like I'm good, I thought I would like it.
And so it's kind of that beta test almost
for preparing yourself for that bigger future too.
So yeah, great advice.
I absolutely love it.
I'm curious too, like I wanna pivot into podcast strategy.
So one question I get all the time,
and again, we talked about this on your show,
but growth, like how do I grow my podcast?
And I know this is kind of a nuanced question,
but I'm curious if you were to give a new podcaster
or even an existing podcaster,
one piece of you need to be doing this, X, Y, Z,
in order to grow your show, quote unquote,
what advice would you give them?
Again, I know it depends on what space they're in
or whatever, but is there kind of like a tried and true,
you should be doing this strategy
that every podcaster should implement. It is difficult to
answer but in a good way. I truly believe that yes you want to be
consistently getting new listeners but the real magic happens when you figure
out how to bring the existing people who are showing up every single week even if
it's a hundred people that are showing up to listen every single week, to get
them on your email list. Because that is where you get direct touch to them
consistently. That is where you can nurture them and then you can bring them
into your world, you can pitch them into a product, into a consulting package, into a digital offer,
into a freebie, like to continue to support them.
And so I don't love to get caught up in like, how many downloads are my getting?
Because you can pay for downloads, like whatever, you can do that now.
And the quality is, you know, questionable.
But if you can really start to develop super fans by getting the people who are consistently listening into your
Into your world onto your email list. You are gonna see so much growth your podcast is gonna
Feel good as part of your business. It's not gonna feel like it's draining all your energy for what and that's the problem
I think what's chasing just vanity numbers is it gets exhausting and you don't
see the kickback. But when you bring them into your world, that's a whole different
story. You can watch the conversion, all that stuff. One thing though to get to get in front
of those people is to really be intentional with the names of your episodes, the name
of your show. Don't be cutesy. Don't be creative. Like use words that they are searching
the people that you want to reach. So those are like some quick things that you don't just throw
up a podcast title for your episode. Don't just come up with a cutesy name that nobody understands
or gets. They're not going to find you organically. So those are a couple little things I can throw at
you. Yeah, great advice. I couldn't agree more.
I think we get really creative and creative is fun,
but if it's not clear and it doesn't execute
why someone should listen or who this is for,
what the podcast is even about,
then you're not gonna get people into your world
for the first time, in the first place.
So that's so incredibly important. Thank you for sharing that.
And then I think with that too, again, people see podcasting,
I think it's very much glamorized.
Like it seems like a very fun thing to do,
but it also has a purpose in our marketing engine.
So I'm curious from your viewpoint,
like how should entrepreneurs and brands be thinking about podcasts
as a part of their bigger marketing ecosystem?
Like how do we use that to push people
to your conversion point or whatever your core offering is?
Like, what does that look like for you?
So I love to use the podcast as like top of funnel
because people are listening to podcasts already.
We know this, we know the data.
And using your podcast to, I mean, you end up in their pocket on their walk every Tuesday,
every Wednesday.
Like when they're driving to the car, they're dropping their kids off, they're waiting in
pickup line.
Like you are there, you become part of their routine.
And that is such a unique vantage point that we have to nurture and be part
of that person's world.
And so positioning it as the top of your funnel and then as we've talked about, like getting
those people onto your email list is the next step.
And there's various ways we can do that.
There's a lot of fun ways like creating a quiz that's a podcast centric quiz.
There's something as simple as just being really intentional about the ask, the CTA
of every single episode, playing around with dynamic ads.
There's so many ways we can do this.
We can get them onto the email list.
From there, you get to nurture them.
You can nurture them right into an offer.
That's the beautiful thing is just paint it out.
Where do they start?
They start at the podcast. What's the next step and then where are you leading them
and using your nurture sequence Caskey I know you're all about email marketing
copywriting using that to guide them right into an offer in your world that's
where we start to see our podcast really really make sense now a lot of people
use sponsorships and things like that, and that's great for monetizing
as well.
But if you can get people into your world and they can buy a low ticket offer, a medium
ticket offer, and then it leads into a high ticket offer, whether it's a digital course,
a consulting package, that's where the magic happens.
They're in your world.
They've already shown you that they want to invest.
They're listening to your podcast every single week This is how we create super fans. This is how we create hot leads and a podcast is a beautiful way to start that conversation
Yeah, absolutely
So one of the the ways to kind of expose your show to people is by showing up to those relevant searches
So for me, one of my favorite things is I have a question about something, name the topic, whatever it is,
and I go to my favorite podcast platform and I'm like, I type in
two, three keywords around that topic to find relevant content
around that. Or of course, I'll go back to the shows that I
already listened to and see if they have something around that
topic. But with that, in order to show up for those searches, you know,
the the keywords, the descriptions, the titling is so important. So I'm just curious, like, how are
you specifically approaching titling and descriptions? This is an area that I'm always
eager to learn about. Because for me, it's a lot of testing and trying and see what works and
different elements. But just curious what your thought process is on that
for your own show and even shows
that you work with with clients.
So, you know, what's really interesting
is literally yesterday I read this,
I don't know if it was a study or somebody leaked whatever,
that Apple, so Apple doesn't necessarily use
the episode description so much as searchability,
but it definitely uses the titles.
Whereas Spotify does use the descriptions and the titles,
but the descriptions on Spotify,
like they don't like keyword stuffing,
which nobody likes keyword stuffing.
However, we can work around it.
And so the way I do this with myself, my clients,
is you need to understand your top keywords,
key phrases, like just have a Google Doc and just always
be reviewing like what is my ideal customer searching so that when you come to the point
where you're going to name a title of a podcast episode or you start writing the descriptions,
like they're just top of mind.
And for instance, I was just working with one of my clients this morning and we were
looking at her title and I was like, oh, I wouldn't have done this title, but let's workshop it.
And she said, I had a really hard time making the connection between the two.
And actually she's, she's in hiring and she's in career advice for women in AEC.
And so it was all about, she said to me, you know, people usually get hired, the best hires
happen through networking.
And so this woman came on and she talked all about how to really build a network that's
going to refer you to people who are hiring.
And so we started to workshop the title and I said, what are people searching?
And they could be searching hiring within a network or something like that.
And we can use that as the as the title
not super crafty not super creative but you know what it tells the people exactly
what they're gonna hear it's gonna hit on those keywords and I always try to aim
on getting those keywords pretty close up to up to the front of those episodes
however you also want to look at episodes that have done well for you in
the past and a lot of times especially in industry, we see a lot of how tos do great, we see a lot of
revenue numbers do great, right? So if you have a case study come on and they say, you know,
Cassie helped me generate 10k in a week or something like that, then you could play around with that.
So there are different factors,
but any time that you can be as succinct and use a word that that person might be
searching, you are going to do so much better.
You're going to see a little bit of a boost in your downloads, new traffic.
And that's a thing you're going to be attracting new people because they're
going to be searching it. It's not going to be same people every single time.
And that's another great way to grow it.
Yeah. Okay. So on that too, are there certain tools that you're using to do your keyword
research? And again, I want to emphasize that this kind of research is not just for podcasting,
by the way, this is for blog articles, social media content, whatever. So what are you using
just in like your general marketing function to discover? Like what are people searching for? Obviously, like I'm sure the platforms themselves
are helpful, right? But is there anything else that you're utilizing right now?
Yeah, that's and I'm so glad you said that as well, because this keyword like bank that you have,
key phrase keyword bank is something you can use anytime. Like you can use it for social posts, you can use it for blogs, show notes,
whatever it might be, meta descriptions.
So what I like to do is I hang out with ChatGPT
and we go back and forth and you know,
right away it's not gonna spit you out a great keyword
search but you know, push it a little bit more.
Make sure that you're sharing who your ideal customer is,
what is their pain point, what are their desires,
like get into who that person is
and then go back and forth with ChatGPT.
And another beautiful thing is a lot of entrepreneurs,
Cassie, you said it yourself,
I don't even know if it was today or in the last episode,
but you said like, I am my ideal customer.
Same thing, like I have been there.
And so I know, you just inherently know some
of the things that they're searching. Right. Um, so there's that. The other thing that's
kind of fun is co-schedule.com has a podcast title tester and it's fun. I've been playing
around with it. Um, I'm not totally sold on it yet, but it gives you some good points
to be thinking about and thinking through. So that's kind of a fun platform too. I'm hoping to create my own. I just haven't gotten there yet.
Oh, please do. Please do. I love that. I will definitely be right there when you do launch that.
But yeah, chat GPT AI is a whole nother topic we could touch on, but it is your friend. So use it
wisely. Use it for that brainstorming. It's so helpful. I wanna shift gears into email list building.
So for someone, a brand, an entrepreneur, whoever it is,
they're launching their list for the first time,
looking to get those first 1000 engaged subscribers.
Again, I don't wanna focus too much on the numbers here,
but just looking to grow overall,
how would you recommend kind of approaching that
for a new list?
So when it comes to a new list, you have to identify like where your people are hanging
out.
If you're on LinkedIn, or if they're on Instagram, like be sure that you are present there as
well.
And anytime, anytime you post, it is totally okay to ask for their email.
Like give them something that, that is going to serve them.
Give them a free resource that they have to have.
And then here, here's a free resource.
I put it together.
It's XYZ.
It serves you here.
Don't be afraid to use that time and time and time again.
If you have a podcast, every single episode, you should be asking.
You should be asking them to come over onto your email list, get this free resource.
Sometimes you can just say, get on my newsletter and then give them an explanation of why they
should be there, right?
Make it juicy, make it sexy enough where they're going to go over and do that.
I would say, especially with a podcast, like mention it at the beginning, very, very baked
in in your intro and then at the end again. But I think a lot of people do get into this like save it till the end kind of
thing and you don't want to do that. You want to throw it right up at the front
as often as possible, change it up. One thing that you can do no matter the size
of your show is create dynamic ads to insert throughout your episodes and what
I like to do is I like to bundle a handful
of episodes together.
So what are the themes that your audience is wanting
and paying attention to?
So, you know, Cassie, it might be hiring
or it might be marketing trends for you.
So put together three to five episodes
that you just happened to talk about these things on
and say, I threw together my top five episodes on marketing trends for 2025. Head here to grab them. And you know,
me as a marketer, I'm like, of course, I want to know what those are. So now you've giving
them something great. Now they're on your email list, you can nurture them. But when
you have a couple things to play with there, you can test those out. So test a dynamic
ad for two weeks, See how it performs.
Test a different one.
See how it performs because your audience is going to start
to tell you what they really like and the more it resonates
with them, obviously the more you're going to get on your
email list.
So playing around with things like that and don't also like
if you are on LinkedIn, you can put a link on your bio and
just have something
as simple as like my most recent free resource or whatever it might be like for a little
bit at the beginning of the year I did grab your 20, 25 growth trends report or something
like that.
And I was getting people in through there.
So keep it simple.
And at the end of the day, here's the other thing I think we forget is make sure that
you're keeping those subscribers happy because once they're on your list, you don't want
them falling off.
And that's another thing that I see so often.
I'll work with these people and they'll be like, oh yeah, I got 500 new people or 200
new people this week, but I lost like a thousand.
And so you need to be really thinking about, how can I keep people engaged?
What do they need?
And if they are falling off, what's my strategy?
So that's something I want to say too is, again,
we're like, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow.
Let's not forget about the people
who are in your audience who have already raised their hand
and said yes.
Yes, absolutely.
Great advice.
Nothing to add to that.
I think that's perfect.
The dynamic ads thing too is something
I definitely need to look into I think that's perfect.
The dynamic ads thing too is something I definitely need to look into myself a little bit further.
So thank you for that reminder.
Also another thing I need to look into further is quizzes for lead generation.
So I feel like we both grew up in the quiz era with Buzzfeed and quizzes were so fun to go online and take.
And it's obviously an engagement tool even still today.
So I'm just curious, like, how are you using a quiz as something to build leads, build your list?
And how are you using that within your podcast strategy?
Like, are you getting people over there as a lead magnet to take the quiz to get onto your list?
Like, what is the process looking like for you right now?
So I like quizzes are, people just love them
and have loved them for so long.
You know, they're just tried and true really.
And the other thing is if you do run ads to them,
so if you create a quiz and run ads to them,
they're significantly cheaper
than running ads to other things.
So that's something to keep in mind.
But the reason that I
love a podcast centric quiz, especially for somebody who has been podcasting for a while, like you,
Cassie, like you have, how many episodes do you have? Oh, I think over 200 now, 100%. So you have
somebody new come into your world. They're like, I don't even know where to start with these. Like
I'm very interested, but where do I start?
So the beautiful thing about creating a podcast centric quiz is you get really clear on who
are my buckets of people who are coming into my world.
And so you identify those maybe three or four buckets of people, you curate a podcast list
for them based on where they are.
And then the fun part is then you nurture them through an email
sequence that's personalized.
Like you can tweak it from the different buckets, but personalized to them on
their journey, and then it ends at some sort of an offer.
This can be more free resources.
Like if it's somebody who might not be ready to invest, might not be
ready to work with you, you can just simply support them with more free resources.
If it's somebody who seems to be an amazing,
let's just use you for an example,
somebody who could be an amazing consulting client,
then drive them to a discovery call.
Not only are we A, understanding a bunch of stuff
about our audience because we're asking these questions
and they're answering them,
we now give them a podcast playlist that's perfect for them.
So now they have an opportunity to binge the show.
Well, after they binge five to seven episodes, they're hooked.
Like they are an official super fan listener.
And then we continue to touch point them on this nurture sequence journey to the
point where, boom, I have something to take this further.
Do you want it?
Here it is.
And we see the conversions
Do so well with these. Let's get let's get your listeners turn them into paying customers. Like that's what we should be doing here
Right. That's how we monetize a podcast like I mentioned
So that's why I love quizzes people love taking quizzes and it gives you so much it gives you information
It gives you super fans and it gives you buying customers awesome
And on that if you're willing and wanting to share what platform are you using for quiz
generation?
I'm curious about that.
So my go-to is Interact.
However, I think there's something called scorequiz.com maybe.
And I think it just depends because with Interact, it's um, like personality or archetypes or things like that.
But if you have some sort of industry where you need to give like a percentage,
like what percent are you to finishing your book or something like that?
Let's, and then it's like, they take the quiz.
They're like, Oh, I'm 20%.
I still need to do the 80%.
That could be something good for that type of business.
It just depends.
But my go-to is generally interact. I really like.
Okay, cool. Awesome. Thank you for that. Yeah, I'm definitely going to check that out. I
feel like Kylie, we could dive into email, podcasting. This is kind of like an overview
episode and we'll have to go deeper on a later episode here on marketing happy hour. But
I want to shift gears once more to talk about career for a minute.
I'm just curious, this is a loaded question, but what do you know now that you wish you knew earlier
on in your career? Gosh, this is probably going to make me sound like an asshole. I'm looking at
hiring. I'm hiring and bringing people on and it's so good to know what it's like to be in the hiring.
And I got to hire when I was with Kathy as well, which was really fun.
And I do love that, that standpoint, but being on the side where you're like
hustling, you're putting everything into your business as an entrepreneur.
Like if, if employees could understand that, like from early, early on, I think.
It just makes you a better employee. Like you appreciate the work your boss has done more. I think it allows you to treat
Your position within the company
More as an entrepreneur and I as a boss want somebody who's gonna treat that piece of my business
Like it's their own and that is one thing that you know when I was with Amy Porterfield
She very much was like I want everybody to own their piece of the the business right like the the podcast was like my
own little business within her business and I I
Treated it like that like I got you know
I had sleepless nights over so many things.
Not that that's what I want for people, but I think that's really important when it comes
to being an employee is really understanding and respecting the work that's gone into it.
Now hopefully you have a boss who's amazing and you admire and you can have this really
great relationship with, but I would say that that's what I've learned along the way.
Yeah. great advice.
And I think that just goes back to this idea of you're never
too early in your career to start building your leadership
strategies and your people skills and all that stuff.
So just remembering start today, even if you maybe
don't see yourself as a leader, if you're still figuring that
out, there's so many strategies that we can even
take into relationships personally
with people. So it's just, it's so important. That's such a great tip. Thank you for sharing
that. Kylie, I have to of course know where can we follow along with you? Where can we
get all of your resources? Where can we learn more about your offerings? Tell us all the
things about connecting with you online.
Yeah. Well, I would love to offer your audience
a free resource.
It's the email and podcast playbook.
So it's all about how to grow them in tandem together.
So grow your podcast, grow your email list as one.
And so you can find that at podcastmarketinghub.com
forward slash playbook.
And then come and hang out on my podcast,
podcast growth tools, Cassie's a guest. So you'll get to hear her speak over there as well and share her knowledge.
And then if you want to book a call with me, I do discovery calls.
You can head to PodcastMarketingHub.com forward slash call and we can hang out and just check
out your podcast, see how it's doing and see where it can go.
Amazing.
Thank you so much, Kylie, for passing along all the podcasts and email lists and lead
generation strategies to us today.
Really excited and definitely reach out to Kylie and let her know how you're implementing
this episode.
I'm sure she would love hearing that.
But Kylie, thanks again for being here today.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you for having me, Cassie.
It was a blast.
Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode.
If you enjoyed this conversation, I would love your feedback.
And if you're ready to take things to the next level,
sign up for my weekly newsletter in the show notes.
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And if you have an idea for a future Marketing Happy Hour episode,
shoot me an email.
Hello at marketinghappyhr.com.
Thank you again, and I'll see you next Thursday. episode, shoot me an email. hello at marketinghappyhr.com.
Thank you again and I'll see you next Thursday.