How New Heights Became A Top 5 Podca

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Alex, here. Came back from the lake house feeling brand new. Nothing like a little getaway. My family. The hills. A lake. I can’t ask for anything more.

Today’s case study is about Travis and Jason Kelce. The brothers behind the top sports podcast in the world. And tbh - as someone who played college football, I’ve never listened to a sports podcast. Until, New Heights.

Their growth strategy is 10/10.

Let’s break it down.

Starting in Sep 2022, the Kelce brother duo teamed up to produce New Heights - a weekly 60-90-minute show sharing their inside stories of life in the League, unique perspectives about NFL games and sports headlines, and a mix of special guest interviews.

In less than 1 year, they’ve amassed a community of fans and made “New Heights” a top 5 show.

Talk is cheap. We will show you the numbers.

Differentiated Content - “Sitcom with two brothers”

New Heights is strategically positioned in a white space in the ecosystem for competitive advantage.

According to Aaron Eanes, Travis’s manager and an executive producer of New Heights,

“When developing New Heights, ultimately what we wanted to do differently was to have a conversation between two brothers…So not only focusing on football and the X’s and O’s, but having a general conversation about life and what goes into the general day-to-day and give people a peek behind that curtain.”

This means prioritizing the brothers’ dynamic over guests, letting fans see the Kelce brothers' own viewpoints, ideas, and personalities.

Gain Awareness - Leverage Influencer Distribution Network

The growth driver for New Heights is its distribution strategy.

By signing with Wave Sports Entertainment, they were able to leverage an existing ecosystem of sports social accounts.

Breakdown:

Make Consuming Frictionless

St. Matthew-Daniel, SVP of Original Content at Wave Sports + Entertainment, which produces the podcast, said that they are committed to “making the podcast accessible via all platforms”.

Wherever New Heights can be consumed - they’re there.

Monetization: Premium Merch + Premium Ad

No generic “brand-name” merch that most brands or Youtubers create.

They partnered with Homage, a top sports team apparel company. And the New Heights merch launch was the most successful launch in Homage’s history, with six figures within a few weeks of launch.

How you can copy New Height’s playbook for your success

• Make sure your content has at least one point of differentiation from others in your category.

• Collaborate with existing relevant communities to fast-track your content growth.

• Use bite-sized clips as a growth lever across social media platforms to grow the audience, but also to retain and engage your existing community wherever they are.

• Make it easy as hell to consume wherever someone can consume it

• Create 'inside jokes’ to bring your community together - these are good content for merch as well.

• Don’t be afraid to charge multiples of industry standards for ad sponsorship, if you have strong content + audience.

• To back up your premium ad pricing, pay attention to how you deliver your ads. Can you do better than a generic pre-recorded 15s shout-out?

Collaborate with Influencers that Get. It. Done.

I’ve given up on multiple influencer campaigns because hunting for the right collabs can be an endless gauntlet.

Till’ one of my friends put me on to Upfluence.

And now influencers are a growth lever for Marketing Examined.

Upfluence helps you:

• Find creators who already love and use your brand

• Easily hire those influencers and affiliates

• Use data to find the right influencers and affiliates

• Automatically track sales and ROI

It helped our team shave hours of time (and disappointment) by partnering with Upfluence which helped us hit 100k subs.

You can talk to one of their experts here for free.