About The Episode:This episode is all about how to grow podcasts and the power and inner workings of podcast networks. Carly Baker, who has worked across community, creator partnerships, and audience developement for Hubspot Podcasts joins us to break down the ins and outs -- including how to grow through strategic partnerships, niche audiences, and diverse monetization paths. We uncover strategies to better leverage your podcast's potential, understanding audience behaviors, navigating the podcast SEO landscape, and provide a blueprint for emerging creators aiming to amplify their reach and impact.Today, we'll cover:- The inside track on joining a podcast network and how it can benefit emerging creators.- Crucial tips for understanding and negotiating network deals to safeguard your creative control.- How to use the 'network effect' to expand your podcast's reach and create a buzzing private membership.- Carly's professional take on what makes a podcast stand out to networks like HubSpot.- Unpacking the rise of YouTube-first podcasts and the impact of SEO on your show's visibility.What You'll Learn1. Podcast network benefits for creators2. Legal implications in network deals3. Leveraging network effects for growth4. Vetting criteria for HubSpot network5. Podcast discoverability and SEO strategies6. Evolving podcast monetization methods7. Social selling on B2B platformsTimestamps00:00 Increased focus on partnership-based growth in industry.05:53 Brands struggle with reach vs. trust, audiences.07:24 Serving diverse audiences, intentional growth, niche content.11:23 Podcasting monetization is a slow burn.15:01 HubSpot has a YouTube network and accelerator.20:02 Advocate for yourself, understand deal terms. Be cautious.21:16 Leveraging creator networks for podcast monetization strategy.27:24 Focus on audience, high production value on YouTube.28:28 Exploring video content tips for beginners.32:25 TikTok star stays authentic despite rapid fame.35:00 LinkedIn will be future platform for B2B.Partnership-Based Growth Strategies: "What I'm loving seeing now is just larger focus in general on partnership based growth. So whether it's partnering with brands, whether it's partnering with other creators, whether it's having sort of more of a holistic, comarketing approach to shows that have guests, all of these levers are really just rooted in less growth being one sided, or depending on other parties to push you forward and betting and depending more on yourself and leveraging others to help you grow."— Carly Baker [00:03:09 → 00:03:45]Content Strategy for Brands: "So I think when it comes to starting a new show, it's much harder to have a very broad audience. You should have three kind of audiences or personas that you're thinking about. So you have the core audience, which should be the audience that you want all of your content to resonate with... the secondary audience, which has some overlap with the core, but might be straying a little bit further... and then you have what we like to call the transformational audience... And those are folks where if you can serve the core and the secondary and bring those transformational people into those inner circles, that's really where you're going to see explosive growth."— Carly Baker [00:07:12 → 00:07:24]Growth Strategies in Podcasting: "So not only thinking about audiences as one person, but thinking about it as many people and trying to serve and always iterating on that, I think is going to be a really good way to continue with growth."— Carly Baker [00:07:24 → 00:07:38]The Evolution of Podcasting in Content Marketing: "We have a YouTube network. We have an entire team of people that are kind of functioning as a media company within HubSpot as a whole. And a lot of this was of course built on the acquisition of the hustle, which is what brought my first million to us. And with that acquisition and with having my first million, the conversation was, well, we should start a network, why sh