37: How to Grow Your Podcast Audience

Written By Britany Felix
 
37 Podcasting for Coaches Britany Felix.png
What's this episode about_ (1).png
 

If you spend any amount of time in a podcasting group or community (and you should), you'll quickly notice that one of the most commonly asked questions is how someone can increase their downloads ... aka, how do they grow their audience?

In this episode, I'm explaining the mindset you need to have about podcasting and provide my top tips for growing your audience.

Special Note: In this episode, I mention a Facebook group for this podcast. That group no longer exists and you can instead connect with me on Instagram or via email at britany@podcastingforcoaches.com.

Blog Post Headings.png
 

Transcript

welcome to podcasting for coaches i'm Britany Felix and i'm a podcast launch consultant who specializes in helping coaches and consultants utilize the power of podcasting as a way to build brand awareness and generate new leads for their business i realize not every new coach or consultant can afford to hire someone to help launch their show so i created this podcast as a way to guide you through the process of launching and utilizing your very own podcast to help you grow your business and reach a new audience of adoring followers and potential clients if you're ready to get your voice and podcast out into the world head over to podcasting for coaches.com to learn more welcome to episode 37 of podcasting for coaches so i want to get something out of the way right here at the start of the episode some of you noticed that my audio sounded a little bit different last week than it sounded in all of my previous episodes and that's because i actually changed my microphone i meant to say something about it last week and completely spaced up everything prior to episode 36 was recorded with an audio technica atr 2500 microphone that is a condenser microphone which means it picks up a little bit more background noise than a dynamic microphone i originally started podcasting with the audio technica atr 2100 which is what you will see recommended time and time again in every podcast community and article about getting started with the podcast and it's actually the one that i recommend to all of my clients when the cord died out on that microphone because i am terrible with audio equipment and with how i treat things i decided i need a little bit of an upgrade and i thought the audio technica 2500 would be that i just thought it looked a little bit cooler it would make me seem more like a legit podcaster it was a condenser microphone which for some reason just made me feel like i was upping my game but the crazy thing is i did not like it actually so i spent this money on a new microphone and a new boom arm so i can have it off my desk and it was amazing and then i actually didn't really like the sound all that much but i found that i needed to just stick with it because i had spent so much money on it however we recently redid a room in our house to become an office for my husband and i and that's the room i normally record in prior to renovating this room we use it as storage which means there were a lot of things in here and it absorbed a lot of the sound when i would talk now we have hardly anything in this room besides our desks and the things on it and the walls are bare because i have yet to do anything as far as that goes so i finally decided to break down and just buy a new cord for my original microphone the atr 2100 i always like the way it sound even better and it would have less of a reverb with my new office setup so what you are hearing right now is the atr 2100 this is the microphone that i actually recommend all podcasts are start off with because it is much more forgiving of ambient noise and it's a pretty good price and it's pretty easy to use so here's your chance to do a little sound comparison and decide what you like better this is a dynamic microphone everything prior to episode 36 is a condenser microphone now granted different types of dynamics and condenser microphones are going to sound different but this will give you a good idea so that you know where to start okay so now on to the actual content for this episode which i am sure you're dying to get to because this is one of the most asked questions in every podcast community i have ever been a part of and that is how do i get more downloads which really means how do i grow my audience that's the more important question if you're not sure what i mean by that go back and take a listen to episode 34 where i talked about your podcast stats and went into why you should not be focusing on your specific download number so the thing that i want to mention right here at the beginning before we really dive into this is that there is no secret sauce there's no one hack for growing your audience there's no one trick there's no one amazing strategy that if you just implement this your audience is going to explode and your downloads are gonna triple overnight this is the real world it doesn't work like that and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is trying to sell you something i promise podcast is a long game it is very rare yes it's possible but it's very rare that your podcast will be an instant success that you will just see a huge audience from day one or even on day 30 or day 60 or day 90 or even day 365 let me say this one more time podcasting is a long game so with that in mind your growth strategies are not going to be instant these are things you're going to have to implement Constantly over time, and you should see steady gradual growth. The number one way that you can increase your podcast audience, aka downloads, if you want to look at it that way, is unfortunately by word of mouth. That is the number one way that people hear about new podcast. Their friends recommended to them their family, somebody shares something on Facebook that they found amazing. Word of mouth is key. This is just one reason why I say that having an engaged community means so much more to you than a ton of downloads from an audience you never hear from an audience you never hear from doesn't truly care about your show. They don't care about your success. They don't care about connecting with you. Not on a deep and meaningful level, not on a level that's going to have them shouting praises for your podcast from the rooftops. There's a particular podcast that I absolutely love called creepy. Yes, that's the actual name. If you are not familiar with me outside of this podcast, you may not be aware of the fact that I love some kind of odd things. And one of those things is creepy pasta stories. so creepy pastors are just kind of like what they sound. They're creepy stories, aka sometimes also known as horror stories. I hate horror movies. But I love creepy pastas. Creepy is a podcast where they essentially act out in audio form these creepypasta stories, the production value is amazing. The stories are always fantastic. And I just love this show overall. And I tell everyone about it every chance I get here I am talking about it on this podcast. Now. This is what you want your audience to do. You want your audience to every time somebody asks them, hey, I need some new podcasts you have any recommendations, you want your podcast to be the first one to come out of their mouth. You do that by creating amazing content by giving them exactly what they're looking for every single episode, by not droning on and on and on about things that they don't really need or that don't really serve them. You do this by being consistent, and gaining their trust. So don't sporadically release episodes, don't promise that you're going to deliver certain types of content and then go back on that. Don't tell them there will be resources in the show notes on your website. And then there aren't, keep their trust once you've earned it. And then you also do this by engaging with them, connect with them in some other form. Get to know your listeners on a first name basis, get them in a community, respond to them, comment them when they leave a comment on one of your posts about an episode. If they share something, thank them, create a hashtag so that you're aware of when they're sharing things. And you can comment on that and just shower them with love and appreciation. Because if you do that, I promise you, they're going to share even more. So again, word of mouth, get people talking about your show. You do that by creating an amazing show, gaining and keeping your audience's trust, and engaging with them outside of just being in their ears when they listen to an episode. The next thing that you can implement to build your podcast audience is being a guest on other podcasts. When it comes to podcast, the biggest hurdle for people is that they don't know what a podcast is. I have been over this already in Episode 31. about why it is important to educate your audience. If you're a guest on someone else's podcast, you have eliminated the major hurdle right off the bat. Because if they're hearing you on a podcast, clearly, they know how to listen to podcasts. So you've already got that out of the way, you're already in front of somebody who likes to consume content in the way that you produce it. So of course, this means being on podcasts that are relevant to your show as well. podcasts where your target audience is going to be. And you can be a guest in any number of ways just networking in Facebook communities. For example, the sheep podcast Facebook group that I talked about fairly frequently, they have a thread every Tuesday, pitch yourself Tuesday where you can post that you are looking to be a guest on their podcast and you can post on the topics that you want to talk about. And other people also post that they are looking for guest. So you go through those comments as well and say, Hey, I think I would really, really great fit for this reason. This is a fantastic place and a lot of connections are made this way. You can also apply to be a featured guest on radio guest list which I have talked about on this podcast as well. Reach out to some of your favorite podcasts that you listen to network with other coaches and consultants that you are already connected with who you know, have a podcast and just say hey, do you want to do an interview swap? Or if you don't do interviews or you don't think that they're good guests just ask them if they're looking for guests. Never ever, ever be afraid to just reach out to someone? The worst they can do is say no. So next week, I'm actually going to talk about how to be the perfect podcast guest. So maybe you want to listen to that before you start reaching out. But again guesting on podcast can be huge for your audience. So please make sure that you are doing that And the last thing that I want to talk about here is something that I already briefly touched on in Episode 33, where we talked about podcast launch promotional strategies, and that is to run a contest. Again, this really kind of plays more into the word of mouth, you're getting your audience to share your show or share a particular episode, but you're giving them something in return in the form of a prize. So this could mean sharing their favorite episode on their social media. And they get, you know, an injury into a drawing for every time that they share it, or for every platform they share it on, you could provide images for them to share audio clips for them to share, you could just ask them to share your social media posts to their own profiles and pages. And then you would just have them take screenshots or tag you, however, you want to verify that they've done this action. And then you could put them into a random number generator and pick a winner that way. Again, as I mentioned, in Episode 33, make a big deal out of this, make it something fun and engaging, something they actually want to be a part of, and explain why you're doing it. Explain that you're trying to grow your audience and that you want to put your content in front of people just like them. And then also ask them if they know somebody that they think would get something out of this particular episode of this particular content, share it with that person specifically, if one of my friends were to leave a comment on my wall and say, Hey, I heard this podcast episode. And I know that this is something you're really interested in. I think he really liked this. I'm going to listen to that episode. If one of my friends recommends it to me, I'm definitely going to follow up on that. However, if one of my friends just kind of shared a general Facebook pages that, hey, this is a really cool podcast, everyone should check it out. I probably won't check it out, because I have other things going on. So even how they're sharing this, again, in the word of mouth form, or in a contest form, however you want to do this can be really crucial and important as well. So as you're doing a contest, or as you're asking people to share, make sure that you're letting them know, the most effective way that they can share. Let them know how they can help you the most. If you have any questions about any of these strategies, and you want to connect with me, I do of course want to invite you into the Facebook group for this podcast. You can find the link to that and radio guestlist and she podcasts and any other resource mentioned in this episode in the show notes for this episode on my website by going to podcasting for coaches.com click on the podcast tab in the main menu, and then go to episode number 37. Thank you so much for joining me this week. And I will see you back here next week where we are going to talk all about how to be the perfect podcast guest and I know you do not want to miss that since you are going to start reaching out to be guests and other podcasts so you can grow your audience. Thank you again and have a fantastic week. And that wraps up another episode of podcasting for coaches. If you'd like to connect with me further, get additional free resources, receive updates on this podcast and connect with other coaches and consultants who are using a podcast for their business. I'd like to invite you to join the podcasting for coaches community on Facebook. You can either search for podcasting for coach's community on Facebook to find it, or you can use the link that's in the show notes for every single episode of this podcast on my website podcasting for coaches.com

 
Britany Felix
Previous

38: How to Be the Perfect Podcast Guest
Next

36: Should You Take a Podcast Break During the Holidays?