Are You Focusing On The Best Podcast Growth Strategies?

We dive into surprising data from PodMatch about how 9,000 podcasters market their shows, revealing a disconnect between the most popular tactics and those that actually drive growth. 

Check out our Reddit thread for unique marketing ideas for your podcast!

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Top Podcast Marketing Tactics Survey Results

Jordan 0:00

Okay , so something I wanted to talk about today is a post that Alex Sanfilippo from Podmatch had posted recently . He shared data based on responses in his host quiz from over 9,000 podcast hosts about how they market their shows to grow listenership . What was really interesting about this and this is what Alex pointed out is that what he considers to be the top marketing tactics were not remotely in the top bracket . So the things that podcasters were saying that they used the most were naturally talking about their podcast with friends and family , which I feel like that's really the stage that my husband's in with his podcast .

Kevin 0:41

He's talking to you a lot about it . It comes up in every conversation . Way too much .

Jordan 0:48

Asking guests to share episodes asking listeners to share , which I actually like . That one , creating still image announcements , not audiograms for social media , and turning episodes into short form video were the top five .

Kevin 1:03

That one is like audiograms . I mean or if you have a video component of the show , cutting it up for social . Okay , that's kind of what I'm thinking .

Jordan 1:10

Yeah , that's kind of what I think , but , yeah , maybe autograms , maybe talking head videos , things like that . I really agree with Alex that the top like tactics to really move the needle on your podcast growth are not listed in there . I really feel like being a guest on a podcast should be number one .

Kevin 1:26

Right , but just to clarify the question . I think , if I'm reading this correctly , the question is what are the tactics that you use , not necessarily which ones are the most effective for you right ? So let's clarify that point right off the bat , and then I think it starts to make a little bit more sense , because the ones that are showing up at the top of the list are the ones that are a little bit easier .

Alban 1:47

Yeah .

Kevin 1:47

Yeah , it hasn't always been super easy to create still image announcements and post them to social media , or even audiogram type things or talking head videos . But there's more and more tools coming out that are making those things easier and easier , and so I think people are jumping onto those tools and using them and doing some of that stuff . Asking listeners to share that's super easy . Asking guests to share that's super easy . Talking to your friends and family about your podcast that's sometimes annoyingly easy .

Alban 2:17

Yeah , I'm looking at the question , Kevin . How do you market your podcast to grow listenership Check ? All that apply Market your podcast to grow listenership Check all that apply .

Alban 2:24

And so if I was going down this list , I would not say that the most effective things that we've done for Buzzcast has been talking to friends and family , but I've done it , so I would click that one . And it's not the most effective thing that we ask listeners to share this podcast , but we've done that , so I'd check that one , and so I do think I would check a lot of the ones that are near the top , because we've tried them , we do them , you almost do them , naturally , yeah , cause they're almost free , right , right . What's interesting is I mean , I've got a few takes on this , but what is interesting is Alex is pointing out he's saying the three that move the needle the most for him are one-on-one outreach to his ideal listeners , being a guest on other podcasts and creating a blog for each episode , and those are the three things that have made the biggest impact for him . I don't think I find it surprising the order that stuff comes in on this question , just because you can check everything .

Jordan 3:22

Yeah .

Alban 3:22

But I guess we should always remember there's three different things here . There's what do you do ? What do you find to be effective ? And then there's this total , random third thing what do random influencers in your space tell you to do ? That is totally unrelated to any sort of evidence .

Jordan 3:39

Yeah , yeah . And what works for one person is not going to work for another . So I guess if you do hear a lot of like regurgitation of the same tips over and over again , you're going to be like , oh well , that's what these people did . I mean , it's like , oh gosh , who did you have Jordan Harbinger on Buzzsprout Conversations episode and he spent like so much money in advertising , in podcast advertising , and that's how he grew a show . But that's not going to work for like just the average person , I think .

Alban 4:07

Well . So this is good . Just this is you're just touching on a really good marketing point . Yeah , and a lot of times people say , oh , what should I do for marketing ? And what they want to know is , what channel should I use ? And you know they hope that you'll say Facebook ads , you turn it on . And you just basically turn it on and all of a sudden you get customers with big wallets falling out and you're like , oh , this worked . Or they want to get sponsored newsletters , and then you send them the list of newsletters and boom , they turned on . It works .

Alban 4:36

But the truth is that the channels that work for one business often do not work for other businesses . The business types can be different , the target market is different , the brand positioning is different , and so what I try to get people to consider is , first , who are you trying to reach ? Who are these people ? And some podcasters ? When you talk to them , who is the ideal listener ? They don't even know . Yeah , they can't articulate why someone would listen to the show . If you can't articulate why someone would listen to the show and who they are , it doesn't really matter if you're spending Jordan Harbinger levels of money on growing your podcast because there's no one out there who really hears it and goes . That's for me .

Alban 5:23

And then , once we have this ideal listener , now we have a new problem , which is how do we get in front of that ideal listener with something that convinces them to listen to the podcast or convinces them to buy your product or whatever it may be . It's why a lot of people , when I talk to them about I'm like , oh , I work in marketing be . It's why a lot of people when I talk to them about I'm like , oh , I work in marketing , they're like , okay , advertising , because their exposure to marketing is just the piece of it that's advertising . They're like , oh , I watch TV and there's lots of commercials , and so I see one of the channels is paying money to get in front of people . But there's tons of channels and they're often unique to the specific audience that you're trying to reach .

Kevin 6:06

I agree . I will say the one thing that every target audience for a podcast has in common is that they listen to podcasts . Right , it's much , much harder to convince somebody who doesn't listen to podcasts yet at all in their life . Maybe they don't even know what a podcast is . So first understand what a podcast is and then start carving out time in their life . Maybe they don't even know what a podcast is . So first understand what a podcast is and then start , you know , carving out time in their life for podcasts to exist and then figure out how to launch a podcast app on their phone and then find your podcast Like that's .

Kevin 6:34

That's this whole long journey . It's not that it's impossible . It's just that that's probably only going to happen with the closest people in your life . You're only going to be able to take them on that journey , and most of us want to grow our shows beyond just the closest people in our lives , and so that is why us and a lot of other people continue to return to this idea of guesting on other podcasts , because that whole hurdle is already out of the way . When you're promoting your show on another podcast , the only people who are hearing it are podcast listeners , people who already have this figured out for themselves . They enjoy it , and so you've already done like 90% of the hard work of finding podcast listeners , right .

Jordan 7:13

Yeah .

Kevin 7:13

And now you're trying to find what shows can I go on that I can add value to , so it makes sense for me to be on that show , and then somebody listening to that show might connect with me and want to hear my show here . What would I talk about on my show ?

Alban 7:27

Right , you've checked all three boxes . You've said does this person even know what a podcast is and listen to it ? Yes , check . Are they interested in action figures ? Well , it's an action figure podcast and I do an action figure podcast . So , yes , they are interested in the subject matter . Check , okay . Third , do I have a way of getting in front of them ? Oh , I'm on the podcast . They already listened to . Check number three . And so you've got all three checks . You've got the chance . You've actually got a big chance , because you've got like a 30 minute interview talking about your subject matter and if people think , oh , this person's interesting , they are going to be the easiest person in the world to convince to come over and listen to your podcast .

Jordan 8:07

There is something you talked about earlier , kevin , with like the amount of effort . You know , these are like the top things that basically everyone can do because it takes the least amount of effort . I actually had a conversation with Josh last night because he was telling me you know , I've been thinking about running some ads on like Instagram and I was like , why ? And he's like for the podcast , like to grow the podcast . And I was just like , okay , you don't have an Instagram account for the podcast Like , you have to do that . First , you have to take that first step of putting forth the effort to like create the content for your Instagram profile . And then I was like and second of all , you're not even guaranteed to get in front of like podcast listeners . You need to be on other podcasts .

Jordan 8:46

I'm like , if you're going to spend like ad money , do it on Buzzsprout ads At least . Then you're getting on other podcasts and you get an opportunity for people to hear your podcast . Click on the link . It's just , it's funny , because I think people do just get it in their head Like oh well , this is what people do , like they run ads on social media and then they get their listeners and that's it , and that's just not the case . Like , if you are going to be on social media , you have to put in some serious work to create content , to promote your podcast on social media .

Kevin 9:12

I think it's surprising , but oftentimes , even for people who don't have large budgets or a lot of expendable income , it doesn't make sense . But still , somehow we as humans are able to justify spending money as a lighter lift , Guesting on somebody else's show . That's not easy , and even sometimes when you do a good chunk of the work to make that happen . I've researched the shows that I want to be on . I've reached out to them , I pitched myself . They've accepted me .

Kevin 9:44

Then you don't do the last half , which is how do I become a really , really good guest ? I need to go back and listen to a whole bunch of their episodes . I need to see what other guests that they had on and which ones did great and which ones weren't so great . What made the great ones great ? What made the flat ones flat ? How am I the best guest that was ever on this episode ? How do I make it so that the person who does this podcast can't help but shout it from the rooftops about how great of an episode this is and you have to listen to it ? That is a heavy lift . It's a lot of work and sometimes , like I said , if people don't even have a lot of money , it's just easier for them still to just be like I'm still going to throw a hundred bucks in this .

Jordan 10:20

Do I have a hundred dollars of disposable income ?

Kevin 10:22

No , I don't , but it's a lot easier than you know is that Instagram will not reject you .

Alban 10:27

They will as long as that credit card clears , they go . Great job . I love what you're doing . We're going to get this in front of people . Proud of you Now podcast hosts . Then you pitch yourself on to be on their show and then you have to go do the work and send emails and they don't respond 90% of the time .

Alban 10:49

And then , half of them make it difficult for you to sign up and get a time . All of that hurts and it's difficult , Like it's emotionally hard and it's not fun , even though it may pay off well . But Instagram and anyone willing to take your money they make it as easy as possible to go ahead and swipe the card and start getting some people to at least view what you worked on .

Jordan 11:14

Yeah , yeah , I guess I didn't think about the fear of rejection . I think you have to be at least like a little bit delusional when you send your pitches . Just tell yourself that you're the best option for them and they would be fools to not choose you .

Kevin 11:26

Well , there's a fear on both sides too , right Like what if they say no , I'm going to feel rejected .

Kevin 11:31

What if they say yes ? Sometimes that's even more scary , like now I've got to , I've got to show up , I've got to be a good guest , I've got to do a whole bunch of work , and that can be very anxiety inducing . I remember the first time I think I've told this story before , the first time I went on smart passive income with Pat Flynn . He does hundreds of thousands of downloads on popular episodes which I didn't think anything of . That I was like great , I like Pat , pat likes me , we're going to get on and have a conversation and he's going to share it on his podcast . And then , a day before I was going on that show , keena's like oh , I've heard of that show , that's a really big show . And I was like yeah , she's like , that's like you giving a keynote in front of like an NFL size crowd . I was like , and immediately went to sleep . Yeah , I immediately went into panic mode . I'm like oh my gosh , I don't want to do this Terrible . And so that was not a helpful comment , but scary on both sides .

Alban 12:24

Whenever people talk about money , spending money on podcasting or any kind of a marketing growth , I always say , like you know , we we it like throwing gas on the fire . Okay , Throwing gas on the fire is such a good image here because if there isn't a fire yet , pouring gas on it will not start a fire . You only want to pour the gas on a actual burning fire , something that's actually working already and so like . If you want to put money into Instagram ads , you're going to have to create really good ads . You know what makes really good ads on Instagram , Very similar to what makes very good Instagram posts .

Alban 13:01

So , you're already going to need to create the organic content . Go and figure out which of my organic posts are getting a lot of traction and maybe they're short form video that highlights my podcast . That's going to become the ad and you can get all the experimentation out of the way which of these fires ever catches on at all and which of them is just really stays really small and it kind of fizzles out . Pour gas on the one . That's working on its own and it's just an accelerant for what you've done . That's already working . It's not going to be the complete strategy .

Kevin 13:36

It's not going to be the complete strategy . So the other two topics that he listed as needle movers for him are one-on-one outreach to ideal listeners , and I think I like that because it's one of those things that we talked about in our big marketing episode that we did a couple months ago . We talked about doing things , when you're small , that are not scalable , right .

Jordan 13:57

Yeah .

Kevin 13:57

If you're a Joe Rogan size podcast , does it make sense for Joe to do one-on-one outreach to ideal listeners ? No , it doesn't at all . Like you know , you're doing hundreds of thousands of downloads per episode . You're not looking for the next one or two . You know you're looking for the next batch of 10,000 , the next batch of 20,000 . But when you're just starting out and you have seven people who've downloaded your episode , you're looking for eight , you're looking for nine , you're looking for 10 . And so it is time intensive . It's not scalable , but I do think it can be effective for podcasters when they're just starting out or podcasters that have a very niche topic that is very specialized . The more specific the target audience is for your podcast , the more you should be able to identify where those people are online or in real life and connect with them and share your podcast with them .

Kevin 14:46

I don't know if you guys have anything to add to that , but the last one was a full blog post for each episode . That can also be time intensive , which , again , is probably why I feel like it's further down on the list . It's not easy to write a blog post , or it hasn't been historically . Now there's some great AI tools . There's co-host AI . If you're a Buzzsprout customer that generates a blog post for you , that with very little effort , you can copy and paste that and you can tweak it a little bit just to make it your own and publish that . That's great SEO fuel for people who are searching for stuff that you're talking about and maybe they find you , you know , through your website , through your blog posts . Then they listen to an episode . They end up being a subscriber . That is more scalable , but it's also a little bit more time intensive .

Jordan 15:25

Yeah , so if you're having trouble getting your podcast to grow or you feel like you're kind of like stuck or at a plateau , like maybe think about what methods that you're using to market your podcast . Are you just going the easiest route or are you willing to put in a little bit of time and effort for these things that like actually move the needle ? So I think that was a great conversation . Thanks , guys .

Alban 15:45

Yeah , and if anybody wants ideas , we still have a great Reddit thread where tons of people are sharing about their podcast and they're also responding . We're responding with unique marketing ideas for everybody , but you'll just see tons of ideas in there and it will probably help you come up with some experiments you can run on your show . So we'll link that in the show notes . Come over , we'd love to chat .

Jordan 16:08

And just a reminder we still need some responses for our sound off question or , I guess , sound off challenge , where we asked you to challenge us to do something , just so we can talk about it on the podcast . So be sure to tap the Texas show link in the show notes and until next time , keep podcasting .

Kevin 16:34

Surprise

(Surprise) Post-Show: Runnin' with the Suit

Kevin 16:35

, surprise . We're going to do a post-show on a quick cast Not so quick after all , jordan . I hope you , I , I want you to do like like a three or four seconds of like blank audio at the end of that episode . Okay , just like just an awkward amount of of dead air . Okay , so that only the people who are really committed to listening to the show .

Jordan 16:53

Get to hear the post show so for the ones that are like stuck washing their dishes and like can't dry their hands off fast enough and they're like no remember when cds used to put like hidden tracks oh , the hidden track , and it would be like five minutes of blank audio and you're like , what is this ?

Kevin 17:08

oh , I gotta , I gotta , you just like , let it keep playing , and then a new song's there , yeah yeah all right hidden track on the quick cast only because I want to know Albin , you ran this , the Gate River run , jacksonville's biggest run . It is the world . I think it's the . Is it the US World Championship for 15K ? It's a huge race in town .

Alban 17:28

I love that we have a 15K that's big , because we get to say it's like the world's largest or the nation's largest 15K .

Jordan 17:36

Wait , is it actually ?

Alban 17:37

Yeah , yes , because no one runs 15k . Oh , I think it's just an odd distance . Uh , people either run maybe 10k or they run a half marathon , marathon , yeah , and it's kind of in the middle of those two all right .

Kevin 17:50

So albin ran it last sunday . I ran it last sunday . We talked about your goal for this year being crossing the finish line with a bigger smile than you have previously . Is that true ? You ran it last time . That's what I said your goal should be .

Alban 18:06

I think I need to go see if I can find the photo from last year , because there was not a smile at the end of this one . I have a photo of me crossing the finish line and I look like I'm about to die , which is accurate . It was probably the hardest race of my life .

Jordan 18:23

Why was it different from last year ?

Alban 18:24

Oh , I ran way , way , way faster , so it's 9.3 miles . I think I'm about in the same shape I was last year and I ran it 13 minutes faster . So hour 13 versus hour 26 . Hour 13 .

Kevin 18:41

So it's just under eight minutes right Under , yeah , under eight minute miles 750 something .

Alban 18:48

And that's fast . I mean it's way fast for me , it's way faster than I thought I could run . I started out kind of near the front and my friend's there and I'm like , oh , I'm going to try to run without headphones . He goes , oh , let's run together . I'm wearing a suit , he's wearing a full suit , like as a joke . Yes , yeah , this guy , he writes all these goals and he has all these goals which he has his list of all his goals and they're all like legit , normal , very ambitious goals .

Alban 19:17

He also had run a race in a suit in that list .

Jordan 19:22

I don't see what's not ambitious about that .

Kevin 19:25

He didn't want to choose , like the one mile fun run , turkey run , to run in the suit he wanted to run the big 15K .

Alban 19:32

So , I'm like , all right , this guy's way better shaped than me , but I'm running no headphones . That's my goal . He's running suit whatever , we'll stick together for like a mile and he's running . He runs a seven minute mile in the beginning . He probably can run close to six the whole way . So we run seven together and he's getting hot and I'm getting totally burned out and I keep thinking I'm going to make it to 5K . Okay , I make it another mile . I ended up sticking with him the whole time really because I was like I can't let a person in a full suit and tie run ahead of me . I have to keep up with him . And we had a blast . It was very , very hard , but we had a really good time . We just missed top 10% of the runners , so we didn't get a hat .

Jordan 20:19

Oh man .

Alban 20:20

Maybe , maybe in the future maybe next year ?

Jordan 20:23

Did you keep your promise about , like , not having all your gadgets and gizmos all over ?

Alban 20:28

No , this is . I wore a watch so that , uh , my wife and daughter could see where I was , in case they came and saw me on the racetrack , and so they were going to try to see where I was at any given point . But no podcast , no music . Just listen to the sounds of I don't know people running the crowd .

Kevin 20:47

It is a big crowd , no matter how fast or slow you run , you're . There's a lot of people who run that race , and so it's a fun one that you're being cheered on all along the way .

Alban 20:55

Yeah , a lot of . I mean I think I saw nobody . I knew because everybody was yelling hey , the guy in the suit , the guy in the suit . So even friends who I know where they watched the race . I was like oh , I didn't see you . And they're like yeah , I didn't see you either . And I'm like did you see a guy running in a suit ? Like , oh , that guy was awesome .

Jordan 21:12

I was like yeah , I was right . Next , to him .

Kevin 21:14

That was my friend .