How to get more listeners to your podcast (that you actually want!)
Boosting Your Podcast Listeners - Effective Growth Strategies
If you’re wrenching your hair out over your stagnating podcast audience, parked stubbornly south of the 100-listeners per episode mark....
Give me your ears!
Not literally, keep those; you’ll need them for what you're about to hear.
The pain of the plateau
I get it; the deflation hits hard when your buffer audience wouldn’t fill a dinghy, let alone that elusive cruise liner you dream of sipping Negronis on after a good hour in the hot tub.
But I'm going to share two key bits of insight with you.
1: How you need to reframe your current audience stats.
2: What you can do to increase them if you're still seeking dopamine.
By the time we’re done, you’ll have a noggin brimming with tactics tailored to your individual podcast challenges.
Because, let’s face it, moulding a prosperous podcast it’s not about rolling dice, it’s about strategy.
Want to get more of a handle on your podcast strategy so you can enjoy more new ideal listeners who are actually going to enjoy what you're putting out?
Contact me!
https://www.podmastery.co/contact/
Timestamped summary:
00:00 Recommend using one of two website platforms.
05:23 Grow podcast with targeted ad investment.
08:25 Targeted, precise traffic without any wasted efforts.
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
One of the things that surfaces from the audits that I carry out for clients
Speaker:is Neal, how do I grow my podcast's
Speaker:audience?
Speaker:Usually these people are a little bit disappointed with the numbers that they see in
Speaker:their feed, in their stats. Usually sub 100 per
Speaker:episode after 30 days. Putting aside for a moment the fact
Speaker:that actually if you've got 100 people. Listening to your episode
Speaker:within 30 days, that's pretty excellent.
Speaker:Think about it from this point of view. If you hired out a
Speaker:village hall for the day to do a talk on something you're passionate
Speaker:about, and you saw 100 people turn up
Speaker:to listen to you give this talk, wouldn't you feel quite proud of that?
Speaker:Yet, weirdly, when our podcast is
Speaker:published. Globally for a worldwide audience,
Speaker:somehow we see that as slightly less than
Speaker:putting. That thought to the side for a moment. Because it doesn't matter what I
Speaker:say. About that, you are still going to. Be wanting those dopamine hits
Speaker:of oh, I really would love to see my episode listens
Speaker:grow. Fair enough. So what we're going to talk about
Speaker:now is the challenges of growing an. Audience when it comes
Speaker:to publishing a podcast and
Speaker:some ideas that you might. Want to be looking at in order to grow that
Speaker:organic audience. If you've got a bit of budget. For marketing, we
Speaker:can cover that too. But this is predominantly going to be for those people
Speaker:that want to get the biggest bang for their lack of buck.
Speaker:So first of all, before we even. Think about growing an audience, we need to
Speaker:understand who our audience is. There's no point trying to get more.
Speaker:People listening to this thing if we don't know
Speaker:who it's for in the first place. To that end, we need to think.
Speaker:About defining our target listener. Who
Speaker:are they? What challenges do they face? How do you
Speaker:help them? What will they get from listening to your podcast?
Speaker:Are you offering transformation? Are you offering a course?
Speaker:Is your podcast something that they're going to get something from
Speaker:episode to episode? Or is it simply a guide? Is
Speaker:it a refresher of something they already know but just need you for the
Speaker:mentoring and accountability? All of these questions are very
Speaker:important. For you to ask of yourself before. You
Speaker:start thinking about growing your audience. You also want to get some
Speaker:listener. Feedback from those that you already have listening. Now, I can
Speaker:recommend surveys for this. You could offer a voucher, maybe
Speaker:for Amazon 50 pound gift voucher. Ask for feedback directly
Speaker:within the episodes themselves. If your
Speaker:podcast is hosted via its own website, which I highly recommend,
Speaker:you could stick some sort of voice note tool on there
Speaker:podcast page and podpage offer these built into their own
Speaker:systems. So if you don't have a podcast. Website, I highly
Speaker:recommend you use one of those two platforms.
Speaker:So before we go into some of the actual specific ways that you can grow
Speaker:your podcast on the cheap or for free,
Speaker:let's talk about the psychology of growth when
Speaker:it comes to anything product related. Take for
Speaker:example, a new restaurant has opened in a town.
Speaker:Nobody knows about it yet. Most companies, when they're doing
Speaker:something like this, they want to bring new footfall into their place of
Speaker:work, into their business. They will advertise to let
Speaker:those customers know they exist. They'll buy their first
Speaker:customers. And that's largely what you have to do with the podcast. You
Speaker:have to buy your first listeners. If you've got
Speaker:to a point where you've plateaued with your organic audience and maybe you're reaching,
Speaker:I don't know, between. 70 and 120 listeners per episode,
Speaker:maybe. You need to think about how you. Can strategically
Speaker:buy a new base level of listeners. You've already got
Speaker:those 70 to 120 listeners turning up every single
Speaker:episode. That's fine, that's great, you've got those. But how are you going to
Speaker:get new listeners coming in? There are a number of ways you can do
Speaker:this. You can do the content marketing approach where
Speaker:essentially you're setting up your social. Media channels for your show and
Speaker:you're promoting. So we're talking lots of posts, different
Speaker:kinds of content, audiograms, video
Speaker:clips, quote cards, transcript
Speaker:segments, threads, you name it. There's lots of
Speaker:ways that you can use social media to promote your podcast
Speaker:episodes. Blogs are obviously a great idea as well. And
Speaker:certainly if you can get a. Blog post published on a high domain.
Speaker:Authority website, that's great traffic for your podcast
Speaker:website. You can organize to go on other podcasts and promote what
Speaker:you do on those shows. You could do a feed drop. That's
Speaker:where another podcast allows you to.
Speaker:Publish an episode in their feed. This can sometimes be a
Speaker:financial arrangement. Or it can just be a swap. One week you
Speaker:promote their podcast in. Your feed, the next week they promote. Your podcast
Speaker:in their feed. I think we need to manage your. Expectations on how
Speaker:effective this can be. You might generate a 2%
Speaker:conversion or below. In terms of that, it's probably gonna. Be a handful of
Speaker:listeners, but if. It'S something that you feel like trying,
Speaker:by all means give that a go.
Speaker:But the truth is, in order to grow your podcast, you're probably
Speaker:going to need to invest at least a little bit of money into it. One
Speaker:of my favorite methods of growing a small podcast and getting
Speaker:a slightly bigger audience each time is Facebook ads. They can be extremely
Speaker:effective to get you some extra traffic to podcast apps. Specific landing
Speaker:pages in which people listen, maybe follow your show,
Speaker:in which case. I would be thinking about a follow. Campaign where you can get
Speaker:people signed. Up to your newsletter using again, Facebook lead
Speaker:generation forms. This can be a really, really good. Method honestly for
Speaker:growing more followers more. Quickly, which can definitely help
Speaker:with the. Search ranking of your podcast within Apple Podcasts and
Speaker:Spotify LinkedIn ads. The same
Speaker:LinkedIn I find to be a little bit less effective unless you are
Speaker:literally doing a b two B. Podcast, however, great
Speaker:targeting similar strategy you. Could use in app
Speaker:podcast ads. So we're talking the likes of Acast
Speaker:or Spotify. Pocketcasts take ads as well.
Speaker:These are great because rather than having to cross a hurdle of someone scrolling
Speaker:a social media feed, then they got to take the decision to click on the
Speaker:button that will take them to your podcast within an app. Theyre already in the
Speaker:app, theyre already. In the modality of listening to
Speaker:podcasts. So the conversion rates are going to. Be much higher because youre
Speaker:asking them not to go to another app, youre. Just asking them
Speaker:to go to another podcast. That can be extremely effective
Speaker:for growing your listener traffic. Another thing you can
Speaker:try is PR. This is where you create a story
Speaker:around a specific episode and then get. That distributed
Speaker:to various different publications with the promise of
Speaker:either a link to your podcast episode or if you're really lucky,
Speaker:they might even embed a player for you. There are lots of different services
Speaker:that offer this. PR fire is one. I'm also a big fan of a
Speaker:company called Whitepress. Whitepress allows you to get targeted
Speaker:publications. That will embed your stories
Speaker:within various highly specific blogs and
Speaker:websites around the world. This could be a great way of. You getting
Speaker:slightly more affordable campaigns published for your
Speaker:podcast. If you've got a bit more budget, well, there is
Speaker:something a little bit more effective that you can try. You
Speaker:can work with podnost podcasting. We have agreements with third
Speaker:party providers where we can actually embed your podcast
Speaker:in highly relevant blogs and websites around. The world, similar to
Speaker:whitepress, but even more targeted to the point
Speaker:of actually picking the genders, the age
Speaker:and the. Earning brackets of the people visiting these
Speaker:websites. If that's something that will be of. Interest to you, then
Speaker:please do reach out to me and we could talk. About how we can help
Speaker:you to. Grow your podcast audience in a highly
Speaker:targeted and relevant way. Absolutely
Speaker:no wasted traffic. We don't use bots, you can guarantee
Speaker:where people are listening, how old they are, what gender they
Speaker:are, if you have a very gender specific product and what their earning
Speaker:bracket is. If you're offering courses, this could be a great solution for
Speaker:you. I hope that helps. And if you need any more information, you know where
Speaker:I am. Do reach out to me. The podmaster is a Podnos
Speaker:podcasting production. Find out more about us at Podnos
Speaker:Co. Uk. That's podknows
Speaker:dot co dot uk.
