Grow your podcast audience – 6 Top Tips
Growing Your Podcast Audience Can Be Difficult
Our last blog wrote about how there are no gatekeepers and how nowadays the podcasting world is open to anyone. This is the follow up that will help you to grow your audience and utilise our experience. We have managed to hit new & noteworthy / front page of iTunes with every podcast launch, and have learnt the tips, tricks & hacks that can help you grow. So here are our TOP 6 TIPS FOR GROWING YOUR PODCAST AUDIENCE. 1.) Utilise the power of the podcast directories. – I am sure you are aware of the main platforms to have your podcast on, but I am always surprised on how many people don’t get their podcast on every platform for when they launch. Whilst podcasts are still growing amongst the general public, you need to break down the barriers for entry completely and make sure your podcast is everywhere. Here are our top places to put the podcast and why: iTunes – We all know about this one right, but do we all know the power of it!? 80% of podcast listens come from iTunes on average, and we aren’t surprised as it has 525 million active users! The audience is there, so ensure you leverage them. Every month 45 million people search itunes, normally using keywords and it is this reason that they are so important. Ensure your title, subtitle and description are completely relevant and would come up if your target audience searched. For example: If your podcast is for young entrepreneurs, get those words in the title and descriptions. You can use tools such as Google’s Keyword Planner to learn how popular your search terms / keywords are across the internet. Soundcloud – Whilst we wouldn’t recommend hosting with soundcloud (we always recommend complete control of your own podcast feed), we do think that a lot of organic listens come from those searching soundcloud and therefore making sure your content is in this podcast directory is key. You can have a number of podcasts on soundcloud for free, so can either keep the latest 3-5 podcasts on there (depending on duration) or pay for a more premium subscription and keep them all live. Stitcher – Now owned by music giants Deezer, this platform is increasing its audience especially amongst android phone users. If your podcast is already live then you can most likely find your podcast already listed in their directory and claim it as yours. However if not, there is a simple form for you to submit your RSS and it will update automatically. Audioboom – This is a lesser known platform worldwide, but an important one. You can not only leverage the users of audioboom but also leverage the power of social media as the players that audioboom provide for your podcast episodes can embed in both Facebook and Twitter cards. Your audience can listen, in their social media feed, with one click of a button! 2.) Maximise New & Noteworthy – 315 million people access iTunes on their iPhone! That is 24/7 potential coverage for your podcast, brand or business. This coupled with the figures of iTunes users, it is more important than ever that you utilise the new & noteworthy or front pages of iTunes and drive up the organic listeners this has to offer. In order to break new & noteworthy you need to get your launch plan right! We have worked with many podcasts and come up with the best tips for getting listed, we call it the triangle of launch – Subscribe / Rate / Review. If you are working on your podcast launch, grab a free 10 minute consultation with us and we will tell you all about it. 3.) Don’t forget about Android – Whilst yes 80% of podcast listens do currently come from Apple devices, don’t forget about the ever increasing 20% of android listeners they are a powerful force and you may find your niche audience are more likely to have an android phone! The problem that so many have with Android, is that there a hundreds of different apps out there… Don’t worry most of them automatically pull podcasts from the iTunes database so you don’t need to submit your podcast to a hundred different places. There is a great new way to leverage your Android listeners and make it easy for them to listen to the app that they choose. Subscribeonandroid.com works in this exact way, you enter your RSS feed address and they supply you with a link, code or button to put on your site that will launch your podcast in the android app of their choosing. 4.) Leverage your guests – If you do an interview podcast or have guests on the show, even for a little while… Use them! At the end of the day, whilst you are probably hugely grateful that they have given up their time and come on the podcast, they are getting exposure out of it too. Your guests will have twitter followers of their own, if they are thought leaders or influencers they will have HUGE loway followers with mailing lists full of passionate people. Reach out to them before, on the day of launch and after to ask them to push to their followers. TOP TIP: Make their lives easy though, they are busy people, include pre-written links for twitter where they can click once and they have tweeted about your show with your pre-written tweet. They are more likely to do it! 5.) Don’t have guests, don’t worry – If you are a topic or story based podcast, don’t worry. You don’t have to have guests to be a success by any means! You can leverage the power of existing communities… Go where your audience hang out, use facebook groups, linkedin communities or even get on Meetup and find real people to go and talk to. Which leads nicely onto my final TOP TIP…. 6.) STEAL PHONES – Ok, you have to give them back after otherwise police.. cops.. prison time.. etc etc. And whilst that might give you some time to listen to the backlog of great podcasts you have, it may not be the best for your career! Joking aside, what I mean is, when you are out and about tell your friends, family, colleagues, the person at the bus stop etc about your show. And say hey, let me subscribe you so you can get it easily… “Steal” or borrow their phone, subscribe them in their app, and if you have time put them on the ratings or review page too! As mentioned we can help with any of this, and at the moment we are doing that for 10 minutes for FREE! Book in and we will give you shout on Skype or phone to help you, answering 10 minutes of your questions absolutely FREE! Claim here.“Wow, so many great tips on growing a podcast audience. Will be using these straight away!”
