24. Podcasting Growth Strategies to Expand Your Reach

Once the excitement of launching your podcast wears off, the next task becomes growing your podcast. In this episode, I'm sharing 5 proven growth strategies to reach new listeners and keep them coming back for more!

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Transcript

Hey. Hey, and welcome back. After someone starts a podcast and the celebration dust has settled, the next natural question is, how do I grow my show? If that's you, you're going to love today's episode because I'm sharing 5 strategies for podcast growth. Let's dive right in. The first strategy is to get to know your ideal listener really well. In theory, you'll have done some ideal listener research during the process of starting your show, but you can never do too much. Your ideal listener may also grow, evolve, and change over time. It's really important to keep your finger on the pulse of what your audience needs because if you're no longer fulfilling their needs, they're going to look elsewhere, AKA go listen to someone else's podcast.

By continuing to deliver valuable content, you're going to retain your current listeners, and they're likely to help spread the word about your podcast, bringing in new listeners. A recommendation from a friend is one of the top two ways that podcast listeners discover a new show. We'll talk about the other top way in just a few minutes. So how do you get to know your ideal listener really well? If you're comfortable doing so, you can hop on a short Zoom call with people who fit your ideal listener criteria and ask them as many questions as you can. I like to make this a 30 minute call where I spend 15 minutes asking them questions about their problems, their goals, etcetera, and then spend the other 15 minutes answering their questions and providing value to them. This way, the call is a win win for both of us. So that's great if you're up for conducting the Zoom calls, but we are here at podcasting for introverts. And I know that may be outside the comfort zone for many of you.

I know I go through phases where I'm game to do them, and then I need a break for a while. So the introvert friendly way to do this is what I call the lurk and search. This is where you join Facebook groups where your ideal listener hangs out. You're probably already in some, and you lurk there reading their posts and gathering information. That sounds kinda creepy when I say it out loud, but the point is to research. It's not meant to be creepy. So you can also use the search feature within the group to look for older posts and see what questions have been frequently asked about your topic. For example, I like to go into entrepreneur groups and search for the word podcast to see what kinds of conversations have been happening about podcasting within that community.

Alright. So you know what your ideal listener wants. The second strategy is to deliver it to them consistently. Remember that we're trying to build an audience of raving fans who will share the podcast with their friends and colleagues. You want your show to become something they look forward to each week, something that's a part of their routine. In order to do this, you need to be consistent with your content and show them that you're reliable. I know that we're all busy. We have lives, and it's easy for stuff to get in the way of releasing episodes.

I struggle with this myself, and you can check out episode 18 for some planning tips for preventing last minute recording stress. I've also found that focusing on shorter episodes helps me to stay consistent, as well as incorporating interviews from time to time so it's not all on my shoulders. On to strategy number 3, using keywords to your advantage. I mentioned a few minutes ago that one of the top two ways that a listener finds a new show is through a recommendation from a friend. The other top way is by searching their podcast player. They head to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever, and they type in a word or 2. These are generally pretty broad and generic terms, like weight loss, marketing, meditation, etcetera. Then they look at the shows that come up in the search results and choose one to try, primarily based on the show name and cover art.

Whoever said that we don't judge books by their covers lied. We totally judge books and podcasts by their covers. We, as podcasters, need to first have our show appear in the search results, and then we need to attract them through the cover art and name. Focusing on the goal of appearing in the search results in the first place, we need to think about those keywords that our audience is typing into the search bar. This is a great question to ask if you're doing the Zoom calls that I mentioned in strategy number 1. I suggest picking 1 to 3 primary keywords or short phrases, and a short phrase is something like weight loss or online marketing. And you want to use these terms in your show title and or subtitle as well as over and over in your episode titles. My primary keyword is podcasting, and you'll notice that a lot of my episode titles include the word podcasting.

That's a strategic move to optimize my positioning in the search results. You can do the same thing with your keywords. Okay. Strategy number 4 is to appear as a guest on other people's podcasts. Get yourself in front of new audiences. This will grow your show. To do this, I encourage you to identify shows about complimentary topics. A complimentary topic is a topic that's related or adjacent to yours, but is not the same exact thing.

So, for example, if you're a weight loss coach who primarily focuses on nutrition, you most likely don't want to do an interview on another podcast that focuses on weight loss through the lens of nutrition. I should stop and clarify that I'm not against industry collaborations, and there are situations where that scenario would make sense. But in general, when we're talking about the purpose of growing your show and getting in front of a new audience, you want to focus on complementary topics. So for my weight loss nutrition example, they might be a good fit for a show that focuses on the fitness aspect of weight loss or balancing hormones or getting better sleep. For my topic of podcasting, I'd love to do guest interviews on shows that focus on growing a business, marketing strategies, or leadership. I'll also add that having guests on your show is a good strategy for providing additional value to your audience. Going on other people's shows is a good strategy for growth. Okay.

And finally, strategy number 5 is to run ads. You can do ads within podcast players, or you can do Facebook and or Instagram ads. This is a strategy that I haven't yet used my myself, but one that I'm learning more about and am really intrigued by. Especially as an introvert, I only have so much capacity to appear as a guest on other people's podcasts. And sometimes, I'd rather pay money and save my energy. So I'll cover this strategy more in the future once I have more information and personal experience for you, but I did want to go ahead and mention it as an option in case you'd like to look into it yourself. I hope that these growth strategies sparked some ideas for you. I'm still relatively new to the world of growing a podcast myself.

My passion really lies in helping the brand new beginner get started with a podcast, and I feel like I have the formula down for launching. And while that is still my biggest passion, I am stretching myself and learning more about growing a podcast. I've recently joined a mastermind for podcast service providers, and I'm in the process of becoming a certified podcast growth coach. I have learned a lot in the program so far, and I've included some of them here in this episode. And I can't wait to bring you even more content about growing your podcast. I'll talk to you again next week. Until then, happy podcasting.