3 Keys to Growing a Successful Podcast in 2021

digital resources Apr 08, 2021

 

Podcasting is such a massive and growing trend. I have been a podcaster for about six years now and learned a ton, made a lot of mistakes. I want to help you avoid some of the mistakes I learned and continue to learn a lot as I now manage close to a dozen podcasts. And there are some real key practical lessons that I think you can learn that are going to help you on top of the 7 Steps to Launching Your Podcast and building your podcast audience.

 

Create Great Content

 

Now, the first thing, it's pretty simple. It's to create great content. At the end of the day, great content wins. It doesn't matter how much you promote your podcast if it's not good. It doesn't matter how great your podcast art is and how creative it is, and eye-catching it is if your podcast isn't good, because once they listen, they're going to stop listening. So you've got to start with great content. This sounds like a no-brainer and like, you know, great content.

 

Make Sure Your Content is Worth Promoting

But I think the bottom line is, podcasts will often get themselves out there when they're great. No, I think there's some other tips and things that you need to do, but make sure your content is good. I'm a marketer by nature. And so I often go straight into how do I promote this before I even create it. If you're wired like me then you need to sometimes step back and make sure, is the content I'm creating worth promoting, worth getting out there?

 

Find Your Voice

Because sometimes you start a podcast and you need to find your voice. And then once you find your voice, you can feel confident in the product itself and then you start promoting it. Now, other people have a great product and they're just nervous to promote it and they want to wait till it's perfect to start promoting it. Sometimes you gotta get it out there and so don't wait till it's perfect. But make sure you're creating great content that's worth promoting before you promote it.

 

Podcast Art

The second thing is also kind of a no-brainer, but it gets little attention from many podcast creators. And that's your podcast ART. This is the one visual aspect of a podcast if it's all audio. And so when you're looking for podcasts and you're searching that feed, there's only one piece of art. There's only one thing that's going to catch people's attention. And that's the podcast art. And so you want to create podcast art that captures people's attention. You want to create podcast art that's clear as to what it is.

 

Your Podcast Art Reflects Your Topic

And when they see that image, will they know what this podcast is about? Will it resonate with what they might be looking for? You know, I think about a podcast that's become one of the most popular, that's Joe Rogan. His podcast art is weird if you've ever looked at it. But you can't not see it when you scroll through, it catches your attention. This might just be an addition to the 4 Things to Learn From Joe Rogan’s Digital Strategy. And one of the things that have proven to work really well in a lot of podcasts is an up-close face.

 

It Gives The First Impression

And so if it's a podcast where it’s just one primary personality, getting an image of that face is often a really good image to capture people's attention and in many ways communicates what it is. It's that person that you’ve maybe seen on YouTube, you’ve maybe seen on something else, and there's a personal connection already there. But finding and putting creative attention into that podcast art is key to the long-term success of your podcasts. Those people are looking for your podcasts then they see it then they click on it then subscribe and listen to it.

 

Build Your Email and SMS List

Now, the third thing in promoting your podcast and growing your podcast audience is to build your email and SMS list, your text messaging list. The reality of podcasts is it's often that people can get lost in and there are other podcasts that they're subscribed to and they don't find you. And if you can get them on your email list and email them every time a new episode comes out, you're not dependent on Spotify or Apple Podcast whatever the platform is to alert them to your podcast or get lost in their feed of podcasts. You're making sure that on top of those alerts that they hopefully are getting from the podcast provider that they're using, is that they're getting your emails or your text messages.

 

Get In Your Audience’s Inbox

Text messages have a 97% open rate in the first five minutes. And so if you can get their cell phone number, that's the best because they're probably listening on their cell phone. So if you can text them and then they're one click away from signing up for your podcast. And another quick tip and trick here is use chartable. You can create this magic link that will just see which podcast app they use and automatically link to your podcast no matter which platform you're on.

And so instead of sometimes you’d see people promote things like if you wanna listen on Google Play, it's here for you to listen on. Our podcast is here. If you want to listen on Spotify, it's here. Just one link will go anywhere. Just a little tip there for you, so you need to build that email and that SMS list so that those that listen to a podcast are going to keep listening to your podcast and remain long-term subscribers forever and ever and ever.

 

So those are my tips. It's pretty simple. Create great content. Have a great podcast art to capture people's attention and build your email and SMS list so that you can communicate with your podcast community on an ongoing basis.

I hope that helps. If you have other tips that you've learned along the way in the world of podcasting to help promote and build that audience in your podcasting, for other podcasts, let us know. Comment below and let us know what those tips and tricks are and leave a link to your podcast. I'd love to go give it a listen and let others connect and listen to your podcasts as well. So there's a promotional opportunity right there in the comments.



Related Content:

My Experience Using Taplink in My Instagram Bio

My 7-Step Podcast Workflow

 


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