#009: 3 Reasons Your Podcast Audience Isn’t Growing
Apr 29, 2024Season 1Episode 9
Morgan Franklin Media
Having a podcast is hard work. Why does everyone always conveniently forget to mention that part?
Podcasting is hard. It's even harder when you aren't growing, or getting closer to the goals you set in the beginning. This episode is dedicated to diagnosing and addressing 3 of the most common reasons podcast aren't growing.
In this episode: (1:38) Why your audience is slowly losing interest in your podcast. 😢 (3:21) How to engage and keep your listener’s attention with every episode. (4:58) What you aren’t doing, but you MUST do to get new listeners. (8:52) The biggest hurdle most podcasters are facing when it comes to consistent growth.
Having a podcast is hard work. Why does everyone always conveniently forget to mention that part?
Podcasting is hard. It's even harder when you aren't growing, or getting closer to the goals you set in the beginning. This episode is dedicated to diagnosing and addressing 3 of the most common reasons podcast aren't growing.
In this episode: (1:38) Why your audience is slowly losing interest in your podcast. 😢 (3:21) How to engage and keep your listener’s attention with every episode. (4:58) What you aren’t doing, but you MUST do to get new listeners. (8:52) The biggest hurdle most podcasters are facing when it comes to consistent growth.
Having a podcast is hard work. It feels like that part gets conveniently left out by digital marketing gurus and podcast strategists like me. But podcasting is really hard work. On top of that, it feels like it's never ending, right? You want to give yourself a big pat on the back for batching a whole month worth of episodes only to realize now you have to start figuring out next month's episodes. But you know what's even harder than putting in all the work it takes to have a podcast? Putting in all that work, and no one listening to it, putting in all that work and not getting the payoffs you were expecting? To be very transparent with you. I've had this conversation with a lot of podcasters, both people who are working with me and people who aren't. What do you do when your audience isn't growing? What do you do when you feel like your podcast is stuck and you just don't know where to go from here. In this episode, we're going to be talking about three reasons your podcast audience isn't growing, and what you can do to re energize your show and start working towards the goals that inspired you to start this podcast in the first place. Hello, and welcome to podcast for profit. My name is Morgan Franklin. I'm a podcast producer, strategist, and educator. This podcast will help you create and grow a podcast that cuts through the noise of social media and speaks directly to your target audience. If you're ready to create a podcast that will align you with the experts in your industry, position yourself as a trusted leader and create another source of revenue for your business, you're in the right place. Your first problem is no one knows what to expect from you. I know, I know, you know, you need to be consistent as far as putting out content like so for example, you're going to put out an episode every Monday at 2am Central time. But that's not really what I'm talking about here. What I'm talking about is what your listener is expecting from the experience of listening to your podcast. What are they going to get out of this podcast every week? Is your podcast relevant and consistent. A couple of weeks ago, I did an audit for a podcaster that's targeting women in business. But her numbers were very inconsistent and falling. The first thing I noticed is I had no idea what was going on. I say this with love. But every week she was posting something completely different. And I as a listener was very confused. So let's say one week, she has like a 12 minute long rant Style Advice solo episode with just her kind of talking about a random opinion on business that she had. So that'd be one week. And some weeks it would be, let's say an hour long interview with a friend of hers about making friends in business. And the next week, it'd be a more buttoned up 30 minute interview with a peer that she'd met at a conference about giving social media advice. This is what I mean, as a woman in business, I did not connect with this content, I did not see the value in it. Because even though I am a woman in business, to me, this was a whole bunch of random content that didn't have any purpose to me as the listener just didn't know what to expect. Your listeners time and attention is so valuable. That's why as a podcaster, you need to be laser focused on If this content is relevant to your target audience, and consistently delivering that value and quality content in both pre production and post production. No one has to listen to your podcast, no one has to keep listening to your podcast. If you are struggling in this area, you have to focus on your audience. Every move you make need to be focused on what does your audience want to hear. Too many podcasters are thinking about everything except the audience and what they want to hear. The best advice I can give you is to outline who you see as the perfect listener of your show. I know we talked about this on every other episode practically, but it's that important. At the least you need to know what your ideal listeners age, occupation interests, what kind of podcasts they listened to, and why they are listening to yours. Really, that's just the beginning. But that will get you pretty far. From there. You have to go through all of your old episodes and ask yourself, really ask yourself, Does this episode serve that person? And if it doesn't, get rid of it, delete it. If your audience wouldn't want it, neither do you. When you're making new content, pull out this description and ask yourself, will this help this person? And if the answer is no better, keep ongoing. The second thing is If you aren't advertising your podcast, nobody wants to hear this. I don't want to say it. I don't want to hear it. Me, Morgan, I don't want to hear it. But most podcasters aren't advertising their podcast like they need to be. At a minimum, somewhere on the internet, you should be posting about your podcast every day, every day, it takes most buyers eight to 12 interactions with a seller to purchase a product. For us, that means someone has to be made aware of your podcast eight to 12 times before they'll listen to it. So if you're only making a post once a week, and somehow by the grace of Mark Zuckerberg, this same person has seen every single time you've posted, it will take them three months to listen to it. That's wild, right? That's insane to think about. Because if you need to make eight to 12 touch points with someone and you're only posting once a week, it'll take three months, when you don't have time for that no one has time for that. But I'm not just talking about social media. That's not the only way to advertise your podcast. And it shouldn't be the only way you're doing it. Tell people about your podcast, start talking about your podcasts in person and online. Something really easy that you can do is get business cards made with your podcast name on the front and get a QR code that people can scan on the back. So anytime anybody even kind of sideways brings up your podcast or you have an opportunity to talk about it. And in this cards, they can't forget what your podcast is. Join online forums where conversations are that are going to resonate with your audience. This could be a Facebook group, it could be on threads Reddit, tik, Tok, LinkedIn, the list goes on and on. But don't be afraid to plug your podcast especially specific podcast episodes, be a guest on other people's podcasts and take every opportunity to network and show value to those other people's audiences. If you aren't really sure how to get on other people's podcasts, there are 100 different ways. Personally, I just reach out I'll find a podcast that I like and reach out to them and say, Hey, I think it would be a great guest for you. But if there isn't anything that you're looking at that you think, Oh, I'd be a perfect fit for this. There are 100 different to be my guest podcast, Facebook groups, join one of those posts your one sheet, talk a little bit about yourself and say, Hey, I would love to be an expert guest on your show. If you have an existing email list, send it out to your email list or start creating one. I know this is a longer term strategy to promote your podcast. But in my experience, email marketing for your podcast is one of the highest conversion rates, and it is well worth your effort. If your budget allows for it, consider working with a digital marketing ads agency to advertise on meta, or Pinterest or LinkedIn, whatever makes the most sense for your brand. I know that technically you can do this for yourself. But ultimately, you have no idea what you're doing. When it comes to meta ads or Pinterest ads. Yes, you can boost a post. But that's practically throwing your money away. Okay? Hire a professional to do your digital marketing. Make sure that they're experienced and certified by the platform that they're using. But don't waste your time and your money running these ads for yourself. You have to be your own advocate. That's all I can say. If you aren't talking about your podcast, no one else will. And I think that that's a really big misconception with podcasters is we think people are talking about our show all the time. And we look at the numbers and we're losing listeners and we wonder why that's happening. And while simultaneously we're not putting any effort into marketing and wondering, why is this happening? The last reason your podcast audience isn't growing as you aren't doing the work. Plain and simple. You aren't listening to your own podcast, you aren't trying to improve your delivery when you speak. You aren't preparing beforehand and making notes or even a full script to stay on topic. You aren't taking the time to create topics that will speak directly into your listeners life. You're booking guests that no one cares about. You're being lazy with your editing or you're not editing at all. You aren't strategizing on content, and instead you're just doing whatever comes into your head. You're recording week to week and it's stressing you out. My best advice is to slow down. Listen to every podcast episode before and after it's released. Work on your speech and delivery. This is everything. watch YouTube videos on how to speak with emotion and competence during your local Toastmasters or another public speaking group in your area. Do your research on topics and guests for your podcast. Start a note in your phone and every time you Have an idea for a topic or a guest or anything related to your podcast, write it down so that you don't forget it. Whenever you can batch your podcast episode writing, recording and editing, and try to get this done as effectively as possible, outsource the editing the moment you can. Don't let one podcast episode a week consume your whole life. I've been a full time Podcast Producer for almost four years. And podcasting is kind of like having a goldfish in a tank. The bigger that you make the tank, the bigger the goldfish will get. And podcasting is kind of like that. The more time that you give yourself, the more time you're going to take and it will end up taking your whole week just to do one episode. Like I said in the beginning, podcasting is hard work, and having a great podcast is even harder. There is no shortcut to quality content in the shownotes. There's a free self audit checklist you can download. This is one of the things that I give podcasters when I first started working with them, and I hope that you'll download it and see what the areas you can work on in your podcast are. This is a list of simple actionable items that are exactly like the things we've talked about in this podcast. You can grow your audience, I know that you can. You can have a top ranking podcast, you can have three sponsors on every episode, but you can't do any of that without a plan and direction. Hey, thank you so much for joining me on this episode. If you enjoyed the podcast and you'd like to hear more episodes like this one, go ahead and subscribe to the show new episodes every Monday morning and if you found this episode valuable and you want to help other business owners and podcasters we leave me a five star review. It helps the show rank higher in the charts and brings more entrepreneurs the information they need to start making money on their podcast.
