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Kait and JJ pull back the curtain to expose what podcasting is really like behind the scenes.
Introduction
How We Prep for the Show
How We Select Guests for the Show
Things We Try to Avoid on Our Podcast / Things That Kill Podcasts in General
How Much it Costs to Run a Podcast/ Can You Make Money From a Podcast
Dreams for Patreon and this Podcast & A Breakdown of the Tiers
Hey fammm! It’s not quite season 11 YET, but we’re coming at you with a little sneaky sneak peek at the behind the scenes of Heart of Dating Podcast!
We’re back from Europe and we’re getting back into it!
We’re LAUNCHING something today you guys!!!! It’s been a long time coming, and we are so excited to announce we are launching officially the Heart of Dating Patreon! If you don’t know what Patreon is, it’s a platform for creators, like podcasters and youtubers to really have support from their people (our HOD FAM!!!!).
As a Patron you’ll be able to see more behind the scenes and you’ll be the ONLY people who will be able to ask us questions that will be featured on the HOD podcast (this is something new we’re doing this season!).
If someone asked Kait, “hey, I want a start a podcast, what do I need to know?” her first response is, “What is your deep WHY?” You have to have this! It’s really hard to get discovered in the podcast world because the market is soooo saturated right now. You really have to have a unique why! The next question is, who is your audience? If you don’t already have a following somewhere else like Instagram, TikTok, or an email list then it is SO hard to get discovered. This is NOT to discourage people, it’s just that a lot of people don’t understand that. The first 90 days of your podcast is the most important so you’ve got to have a really good strategy!
We do a LOT of prep work for every episode. We listen to YOU guys so much because we want to bring content that is going to serve YOU and that you WANT! We monitor our DM’s and our private Facebook group (make sure you go join, Heart of Dating Christian Singles), where you guys ask amazing questions, to see what’s coming up a lot. We see through polls and even through Q&A’s we do on Instagram what is coming up a lot, what themes we’re seeing to best serve you. We never just create an episode because we think it’s going to be cool and fun and we just want to do it, we really think through what’s going to serve you guys. We do a tonn of research to make sure we are prepared especially when it comes Biblical truths and scripture. We talk to trusted mentors and see if they have any guidance for certain topics we’re going to discuss. Sooo, when you guys are participating in any polls or votes we’re doing, when you DM us and ask questions, when you’re asking questions in the Facebook group, it’s actually SO helpful!! With our new Patreon family we’re going to be giving you guys priority to ask us questions to be featured on the podcast but also to give us ideas for future episodes!
What an author releases a book, the publishing house sends out basically the same email to all these podcasters saying, “will you interview this person?” What ends up happening is that so many podcasters are like yeah that sounds good and they interview that person. Usually the publishing house gives you a list of questions to ask that interviewee about the book. Sooo you end up with a lot of the same podcast episode on different shows. Kait doesn’t want to do this and hasn’t really had that many people releasing a book come on the show. However, when she does she usually trashes the questions the publishing house sends over, and pulls out a couple themes from the book that we can then relate back to singleness and serve you guys in that way.
Truly though, Kait researches the topics she wants to cover for YOU, then she thinks through, prays, and researches who the best person would be to come on and talk about that subject. We first come up with the topic and then decide on guests.
The first thing would be to not have the same guest that everyone else is having all the time, or asking all the same questions.
Not doing an episode just because. We want every episode to have a purpose and meaning, and serve you guys.
If people are boring, monotone, or not funny (OR if people think they’re funnier than they are).
Bad quality audio.
When people aren’t engaging interviewers. When they listen to your answer and then just say okay and move on to the next question that can feel yucky!
Going off on tangents and things that aren’t at all relevant.
This varies, the podcast costs more now than it did when Kait first started it. You have to measure it in two ways, HARD cost (actual money), and TIME cost. Hard cost would be things like equipment, and time cost is the time going into making the podcast. There can be a misconception that it doesn’t take a lot of time, however for a quality podcast, it takes a significant amount of time. You have to schedule the guests, set up the room, post the episode, edit it, promote the episode, there’s so much that goes into it.
For the Heart of Dating Podcast it costs about $2,500/month in hard costs. This is not including time cost for our team. If you have a good podcast that is not losing money you are in really great shape. You do NOT run a podcast to make money.
The biggest way to make money through a podcast is through ads. What people don’t really know or understand is that you can’t really earn money off of ads until you reach 10k downloads per episode. For us, that didn’t really start until the past couple of years. The reality is that you get paid per thousand downloads. A really good healthy rate to get paid per THOUSAND downloads is $25. Even if you spend a few years getting to 10k downloads per episode, if you did ONE AD on that episode you’d get paid $250 for that one ad on that episode.
The thing is… MANY podcasters work with a podcast network or ad agency that then takes a CUT from that total. So at the end of the day, you are usually taking home 30% at minimum LESS. So in reality you would get about $175 or less for that one ad if you get 10K downloads.
This is what would be a successful podcast…
If your new episode gets within seven days of its release:
That top 1% of podcasts may NOT actually make it to 10K downloads an episode at the lifetime of the episode… which means, those top 1% of podcasts are NOT even likely to be making $175/ episode per ad. And to even MAKE IT to that 1% of podcasts, you have to realize you are competing with 4,105,166 TOTAL podcasts that are registered, around the world.
In the month of May we had our best month ever with 225,000 downloads (including all past episodes) and we’re SO proud of this! This is so exciting! But, to be completely honest with you guys we didn’t even come out even, we lost money on the podcast. We are NOT complaining about this at all, we’re so PASSIONATE about this podcast. It is our CALLING first. We’re just being honest with you guys!
The podcast is the number one way we reach the most people but it’s also where we make the least amount of money hahahaha!
Let’s pull back the curtain even further…JJ doesn’t take a salary from HOD, and Kait takes a very small salary. Our philosophy is to do everything we can to reinvest as much as we can into Heart of Dating and keep it as lean as possible. All of this to say, this isn’t about making money, this is about how we can best serve people.
Dreams for growing it and bringing you even more.
Dreams for growing Youtube to give you more fun video content.
Dreams for investing in more resources for you on the show.
Dreams for JJ starting his own MEN’S SPECIFIC podcast.
SO… we decided to launch something to help us be able to do even MORE with this podcast for YOU guys!.
As of today we have officially launched the HOD Patreon!
Patreon is a way for creators like us to be supported by their creator families- aka YOU GUYS the HOD fam bam!
If you have been around, you’ve listened to Heart of Dating, you love this ministry and what we’re doing, Patreon is an awesome way for you to support us for literally as low as $5/month.
We have 3 main tiers
TIER 1- JUST FRIENDS-$5
You get access to...
TIER 2- DATING- $10
TIER 3- IN A RELATIONSHIP- $25
AND THEN FOR FUN we have added 2 top tiers 🙂
TIER 4- THE ONE- $50
TIER 5- True Love- $100
Goals:
If we get 300 Patreons: We'll be able to continue to execute and implement the upcoming episodes of the Heart of Dating Podcast! This includes paying for website and media hosting, email software, lead generation software, and the team that gets the podcast to YOU!
500 Patreons: PRAISE! We'd be able to continue to invest in our Heart of Dating Team. Be able to invest even more time into researching and bringing information YOU want to hear!
1,000 Patreons: Hallelujah TO JESUS! This would be crazy. We would be able to come out with even more HOD Podcast Episodes, add more members to the DREAM TEAM, and actually invest even more time into the Heart of Dating Ministry! This would be the craziest biggest blessing on the planet. #BLESS.
So stop what you're doing right now and head over to, patreon.com/heartofdating and choose the tier that works best for you! Thank you for supporting us, we can't wait to see what happens next in the HOD world!
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Kait Tomlin is a best-selling author, speaker, popular relationship coach, and the founder of Heart of Dating. She helps thousands of men and women on their journeys through the conversations on the Heart of Dating Podcast, which launched in 2018.
Through her ministry, Kait’s mission is to empower both men and women to have the courage to own their story, walk in victory, thrive with purpose, and discover clarity and vision in their life and relationships. In her new book, Thank You for Rejecting Me: Transform Pain into Purpose and Learn to Fight for Yourself, Kait vulnerably shares how she grew through her deepest, darkest rejections and offers readers the tools to heal from the past, take back their power, and walk in strength, victory, and love into their future. Kait currently lives in the Los Angeles area with her husband JJ and their pups Lovey and Teddy. She loves sunshine, walks, Jesus, and lip syncing to Celine Dion.
JJ Tomlin is a missionary kid born in Belgium, originally from Tennessee, and currently residing in the OC. He currently works in Gaming/E-Commerce, enjoys watching his Tennessee Titans on Sundays with his Goldendoodle Teddy and loves working with Christian men to raise the bar in singleness and dating.
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