7 Steps To Grow Your Podcast Audience
Arguably, the most asked question in the podcast world is "how do I grow my audience?” Building your podcast audience is not a particularly easy task; it often requires a lot of perseverance and hard work. In this article are steps on how to do that - if you have a podcast and want to increase your number of listeners, check out the steps below.
Get to know your audience
When starting a podcast, it is very tempting to go straight ahead into making content without planning. This is great if you doing it for fun and maybe you want to keep an online journal. But if you want to make your podcast into something more than that – you would quickly come to realise that you started on the wrong foot.
Therefore, before starting it is better to dig deep into every available data on your chosen niche. Ask yourself important questions such as -Are my listeners online? Would they want to listen to me talk about this topic for an hour or 30 minutes? What other podcasts do they listen to? Also, important to know where listeners are existing online, join their communities – slack groups, Facebook groups, and subreddits - get to know the current trends.
Create great content
Content is king and it is the bedrock of every podcast. You might be able to attract listeners with proper advertising and marketing but you won't be able to keep them for long if you don't produce awesome content. Moreover, there is a saying, which goes "great content speaks for itself", so content advertises itself. Usually having great content involves using the best possible equipment and putting in the hours for well-researched topics.
Invite a guest
As most podcasters will tell you, this is one of the best ways to grow your audience. It has so many benefits, one of which is that the invited expert is most likely going to be an expert in your chosen niche, thereby improving your content for that week. Secondly, guests are also going to introduce their audience to your podcast, many of which will stick around for more. And finally, you get a bit of personal happiness having to had the opportunity to talk to one of your favourites and improving your network.
Photo by The Teens Network Daytime Show Studios from Pexels
Always remember to keep tabs on your past guest. By congratulating them publicly on their big and little wins – you can always use that as an avenue to share your episode with them on social media and possibly invite them again.
Hold contest or giveaways
Everyone loves a little competition and the feeling of winning is unmatched. If executed properly this can be the landmine that could blow up your podcast. Examples of well-thought-out contests or giveaways include having your listeners leave a review of your podcast or asking them to invite a friend on social media, this gives you free advert placement and also the possibility of getting more listeners.
Very important to make sure you share these contests and giveaways on social media as well, you might even run a social media campaign or two to broaden its reach.
Network
In any field or venture, you decide to explore, one sure means of getting to the top at a faster rate is by Networking. Reach out to other podcasters both inside and outside your niche, ask for advice, seek out collaborations, and if possible have a mentor.
Also, attend community events, send out emails or contact them on social media accounts, you might not get the answer you want all the time-- but as you will come to discover most people are also looking to network with you.
However, while networking be more interested in the people rather than force selling your podcast, if you network properly the latter will come more naturally.
Ask and listen to feedback
A lot of podcasters, skip this stage but it very important to ask your audience for feedback on what they feel can make the podcast better. Always read your reviews and the reviews of other podcasters in and out of your niche. Use the information acquired to make your podcast better. However, be careful while taking in feedback, because not all are valuable to your brand.
Make yourself discoverable
Making yourself discoverable is very important; you cannot get listeners if they cannot find you. It generally involves several processes but some of the most important ones include:
- 1) Choosing the right hosting platform
- 2) Advertising (both on the internet or locally)
- 3) Optimizing your notes with proper SEO
- 4) Selecting a less populated niche (optional).
- 5) Have a blog or website
Waking up with a podcast on iOS
Podcast Alarm is a fully featured podcast player and alarm. You can set up queues of your favourite episodes and listen to them whenever you like. Why not subscribe to your favourite podcast and have the latest episode wake you up every weekday morning. There are lots of screenshots and videos in our "How to set a podcast as an alarm on iphone?" blog post.
