School of Podcasting - Plan, Launch, Grow and Monetize Your Podcast: Get in Line to Grow Your Podcasting Audience

Get in Line to Grow Your Podcasting Audience

Jul 6, 2015

Podcast Rewind:

Spreaker Live show with Rob Greenlee - My Appearance

Darren Rowse from ProBlogger (now a podcast) on the New Rainmaker - Dareen started getting new listeners to his content less than 24 hours of launching his podcast.

Startup Podcast stated that 50% of customers at Dating Ring (the company they spotlighted this season) came from the Podcast

Serial Brought 341,000 New Listeners to Podcasting

6:00 Serial posted a report on their effect on podcasting

Serial had a 4.6 % of their audience respond to a survey

23% of their subscribers said this was their first podcast.

90% changed their viewpoint of podcasting.

137,000 Newsletter Subscribers

According to CNN (and these numbers are probably bigger by now) 3.4 million is the average number of downloads per episode (as of 12/2214)

If we take the percentages from the survey results and apply it to the download numbers you get this

23% (782,00) Serial was their first podcast

90% (703,800) said it changed the way they viewed podcasting.

89% (695980) of the first time listeners tried out more podcasts.

49% (341,030) of those who tried out more podcasts are listening on a weekly basis.

FULL REPORT

Free Subscribe By Email Service

12:18 Blubrry Launches Subscribe By Email service. This is a free way your audience to be notified (by email) of your latest episode. So if your audience is not super tech savvy, you can give them an option (for free) to subscribe and be notified when a new episode is available. It doesn't cost you or your audience any more and there are no ads in the emails to your customer. If you are looking for a free service that will always be free, this might be an option for you.

For me, if a listener of mine is giving out their e-mail that should go to ME. I can get an email list for free with a service like Mail Chimp. Eventually if you get a large list you do eventually have to pay for it.

Here is what it looks like

or you can just have a text link that reads Subscribe by Email

Finding Your (Captive) Target Audience

16:55 Promoting your podcast is simple, but not easy.

Here are the steps:

1. Identify who your audience is.

2. Make content that impacts and inspires them.

3. Go to where they are.

4. Make friends and build relationships with them.

5. Tell them about your podcast.

When you make content that impacts and/or inspires your audience they will talk about your podcast

I am working on an article for Podertainment Magazine about growing your audience. This month's article will be based on some stories in the book Fizz: Harness the Power of Word of Mouth Marketing to Drive Brand Growth in the book he mentions how the Bissell swepper company had a sweeper that was quiet (no motor ) and powerful (able to suck up small toys). They needed to get this in front of their target audience (Moms with small children).

They went to the mall and through pine tree needles on the group and swept them up - right in front of the line for Santa where their target audience was. The great thing is the kids got involved and took turns using the sweeper. Mom's took pictures and shared them. They told their friends about it and word of mouth marketing boosted sales by 15% the first year and 25% the second.

Musicians Playing Laundromats

Back in 2008 Dave interviewed a musician who had started playing gigs in Laundromats. The idea was the audience couldn't leave. He built a rapport with them, sold CDs, and eventually the audience started coming to gigs the musician did with his band.

Demo CD

Dave used the service Kunaki.com to make sample CDs. This was filled with small clips of audio that secured credibility of the show, and gave great tips that would impact the audience. Dave delivered these to the local Gutiar Center (where his target audience - independent musicians shopped). Not the best use of this idea. The audience is not captive, and there is no way of tracking it (if I ever do this in the future, I will have a special address like schoolofpodcasting.com/cd to track the effectiveness).

If you make a demo CD be sure to start off by telling people what to expect, and how they will benefit.

Catermind Sold Out - Waiting List Open

Last week Dave announced a new "group coaching" class called "Castermind" where people who already have launched a podcast could get personalized coaching at a discontented rate (three people in a group). We will meet once a month and get access to a private group on slack.com If you missed it, you can sign up for the waiting list at www.castermind.com