Have you ever listened to a podcast, downloaded a freebie, or signed up for someone’s course and wondered what they are actually using to make all this work?
I have. All the time. I’ll be halfway through an episode from someone I love learning from, and part of my brain wonders how they built their site, where their emails come from, and how many tools they’re managing to make it all happen.
So here’s a look at the scaffolding behind my own work. If you’ve listened to More Than a Song for a while, you know what’s out front: a song you’re hearing on Christian radio, a passage of Scripture, and a Bible study tool you can take home and use yourself. This post is about what’s behind it: where the Episode Guides live, how your email gets to me, and why I finally stopped juggling a handful of tools that didn’t talk to each other.
The Mess Before
I have a WordPress site. It’s still here (you’re reading on it now), and it does its job. But as the podcast (and everything that went with it) grew, it stopped being enough.
I had one service for email marketing. My website was somewhere else. Then I started building Bible study courses and realized I’d need yet another tool to host those. I was looking at three logins, three bills, and three systems I’d have to duct-tape together at midnight, hoping nothing broke between them.
I didn’t need more tools. I needed better scaffolding.
I’m a marketer by education. I know how this is supposed to work. I also know that every tool I add is one more thing pulling me away from what God actually put in front of me: getting people into His Word.
So I moved my email list, my downloads, and my courses into one place: Podia.
The Episode Guide: Where the Conversation Keeps Going
Every episode of More Than a Song (since April of 2024) comes with a free Episode Guide. It walks you step by step through the exact Bible study tools I used in that episode, so you can practice them on your own. The podcast lasts about 25 minutes, and you’re probably listening in carpool, at the sink, or on the drive to work. The guide is how the study goes home with you.
Every guide lives on Podia. When you download one, you give me your email address.
I don’t take that lightly.
I know all the tricks: countdown timers, “only three spots left,” manufactured urgency. I don’t use them. When you trust me with your inbox, you’re letting me into a pretty personal space, right next to emails from your kids’ school, your doctor, and your mom. I want to earn that spot. When I show up there, I bring something worth your time: the next episode, the next guide, the next way into Scripture. If I ever stop being useful, unsubscribe. I won’t take it personally.
Now that my guides, my list, and my emails all live in the same place, nothing falls through the cracks. Someone downloads a guide, they’re on my list, and I can reach them simply and personally.
The Tool I Didn’t Have to Buy
Remember that third tool I was about to need for courses? I never bought it.
Podia hosts my Bible study course, Story Sessions: Nanette’s Bible Interaction Roadmap. It’s the companion study to my first novel, A Seat at the Table, and Podia is also the hub for marketing the book.
Fiction and Bible study might seem like strange roommates, but they come from the same place in me: I love a good story. So did Jesus. Some of His most powerful teaching came wrapped in a parable.
Wives in Prayer: The Newest Room in the House
Most recently, my co-founder Liz and I launched Wives in Prayer. It’s a discipleship ministry built on the Titus 2 model, where older women walk alongside younger wives as they learn to pray Scripture over their husbands and marriages.
We needed a landing page and a way for women to enroll. And we needed both without hiring a developer or learning code at 11 p.m.
I built it on Podia. The landing page tells our story, the enrollment gets women signed up, and it all connects to the email system and community spaces within Podia that I already use. What could have been a months-long tech project became something I could do myself. That meant Liz and I could spend our energy on what matters: the women and the prayers.
My Honest Take
So if you’ve ever wondered what’s holding it all up for someone like me, now you know. And if you’re the one trying to hold it all together, here’s what I’d tell you over coffee…the tools should get out of the way of the work.
My website still has its place. But Podia is where the real connection happens. It’s where my guides, my course, my book, my newest ministry, and the email list that ties them together all live under one roof. One login, and a lot less midnight duct tape.
If that sounds like what you need, take a look at Podia.
And if you’re one of the people who’ve trusted me with your email address: thank you. I don’t take it for granted. See you in the Word.
— Michelle