• Inside the Growth Strategies of Two of The Smartest Podcasters Alive
    Apr 30 2024

    Michael Jordan, Simone Biles, Wayne Gretzky. Every so often, someone comes along who is playing the game at a whole different level. And when it comes to podcasting, we've got two of them.

    Jay Clouse and Chris Hutchins each host hugely successful shows. And this special episode, we're getting inside the minds of these two creators to understand the thought process, experiments, and personalities behind the downloads (not to mention some serious revenue).

    📊 What did you think of this episode? Click to cast your vote:
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    ⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️


    Resource

    Listen & Subscribe to Sound Judgment

    Creator Science Podcast
    Creator Science
    All the Hacks Podcast
    Tim Ferriss Episode w/ Chris Hutchins

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    1 hr and 25 mins
  • Stupid Mistakes, Happy Accidents & Surprising Insights From Making & Marketing Our First 20 Episodes
    Apr 23 2024

    Plus, we need your help to decide what to make next.

    We spend the majority of our time thinking about podcast marketing & growth. But that doesn’t mean we have it all figured out.

    In this final episode of Season 1 of Podcast Marketing Trends Explained, we break down our stats from the season along with our mistakes and missed opportunities, lessons learned… and the surprising insights we’ve gained along the way.

    Plus, we brainstorm three new show concept ideas to keep us busy between seasons… and ask your feedback on which one we should pursue.

    Cast your vote for which show we should make next

    📊 What did you think of this episode? Click to cast your vote:
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    Topics Covered
    00:00 Intro
    00:49 How many downloads we expected to get going into this season
    02:35 Breaking down our Season 1 stats
    03:22 Is YouTube worthwhile for the average podcaster?
    08:34 Engagement time and consumption rates
    12:44 The metric we care about more than analytics
    20:26 Assessing Season 1: What we did well
    23:02 How experimentation led us to find our structure
    28:21 A big mistake we made with Season 1
    32:05 Mistakes and missed opportunities in Season 1
    36:18 Help us decide which show we should create next
    40:57 Concept idea 1: “Make it Big”
    45:03 Concept idea 2: “Why It Works”
    49:48 Concept idea 3: “Podcast Riffs”
    54:35 Listener feedback and what to expect from Season 2

    ⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️


    Resource

    Jay Clouse from Creator Science
    Josh Spector
    Bumper articles on measuring listen time
    Growth In Reverse
    Arvid Kahl
    LinkFire
    Chartable
    The Futur
    Unthinkable w/ Jay Acunzo

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    ✍️ Leave your feedback for the show: http://podcastmarketingtrends.com/feedback

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    57 mins
  • We Asked Podcast Listeners Why They Stopped Listening (And They Didn’t Hold Back)
    Apr 16 2024

    Less than 5% of your potential audience is listening to your show. Here’s why, in their own words.

    Even small shows with just a few hundred (or few dozen) downloads an episode have usually been listened to—at one point or another—by thousands of people.

    A small number of those people are your regular listeners and superfans.

    A larger number are casual listeners and samplers, people who don’t listen to every episode, but rather based on their interest in a specific episode topic or guest.

    And then there are the people who listened to one episode or less… and never came back. While the data is hard to measure, chances are, less than 5% of the people who are both aware of your show and interested in your topic are regular listeners.

    Which begs two questions:

    1. Why aren’t they listening?
    2. Is there anything you can do to change that?

    To get to the bottom of this frustrating phenomenon, we ran a survey to our larger audience to find out—in their own words—what kept them listening more regularly… or at all.

    The good news?

    They didn’t hold back.

    And in this episode, we break down their feedback, which—while aimed at our show—likely applies to your show as well.

    📊 What did you think of this episode? Click to cast your vote:
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    Topics Covered

    00:00 Intro
    00:49 9k email subscribers… 350 downloads
    02:41 How listeners choose what content to engage
    04:50 The role of 'Jobs to Be Done' in podcasting
    11:32 Why our audiences are tuning us out experiment
    15:30 Understanding your Total Addressable Market
    18:32 Strategies for retaining podcast listeners
    21:24 Earning the right to long term listeners
    26:28 Breaking down our casual listeners repsonse data
    29:01 The challenges of creating career-adjacent content
    30:16 Creative ideas to engage more listeners
    33:36 What listeners like about our titles and descriptions
    37:13 Using feedback to guide your content strategy
    41:50 Why non-listeners choose not to listen
    44:06 How to break through to non-listeners
    49:43 How we’re incorporating this feedback

    ⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️

    Resources

    Check out our full audience survey data
    Walkthrough: How to replicate this survey for your show

    Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained

    Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2023 Report

    Subscribe to the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter

    Try Transistor.fm for free for 14 days

    ✍️ Leave your feedback for the show: http://podcastmarketingtrends.com/feedback

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    58 mins
  • 6 Storytelling Principles to Hook & Retain Listeners (That Apply to Every Show)
    Apr 9 2024

    They’re not always obvious, but the elements of storytelling are at the heart of every great episode. This is as true for interview and solo shows as it is for narrative. For comedy & fiction as it is for business.

    And in this episode, with the help of a special guest, we’re breaking down the core principles of storytelling and how to incorporate them into your show.

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    Topics Covered

    0:00 A new podcast growth experiment
    3:21 Introducing Sound Judgment
    6:24 Crafting your show’s Sound Vision
    16:06 Structuring your episodes for impact & retention
    18:54 Thinking in scenes
    23:20 Surprise: The unexpected emotion behind all great podcast episodes
    35:42 Why specifics are the key to unlocking memorability and emotion
    40:20 Our analysis of the Sound Judgment episode
    42:17 Digging deeper into defining your sound vision
    47:35 How we use scenes to structure this show
    51:33 How to incorporate surprise & suspense into your episodes
    58:47 How to be a more specific (and thus, better) interviewer
    1:01:52 The elements of a fantastic cross-promotion pitch

    ⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️


    Resource

    Listen & Subscribe to Sound Judgment

    The Story Grid
    YouTube: Brandon McNulty
    On Being
    Wild Boys
    Famous & Gravy

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    Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2023 Report

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    ✍️ Leave your feedback for the show: http://podcastmarketingtrends.com/feedback

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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • The 10k Timeline: How Long It Takes to Reach 10k dl/ep (& How to Accelerate the Process)
    Apr 2 2024

    We all know success doesn’t happen overnight. But what does the data say about how long it takes to reach 1k… or 10k downloads per episode?

    Podcasting is inherently a slow-growth medium.

    Without a central discovery system offering the potential for virality, growing a podcast is a long game of slow, steady, incremental growth that compounds over time.

    But while you might expect growth to be somewhat slow when you start out, how long should it take before it speeds up?

    In this episode, we’re breaking down what the data says about how long it takes the typical show to reach the 1k and 10k milestones, the factors that influence those timelines, and what you can do to accelerate the process.

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    Topics Covered

    00:00 Intro
    00:59 Podcast growth lessons from Warren Buffett
    05:00 When typical shows hit the 1k & 10k dl/ep milestones
    10:36 How experience affects a show’s growth rate
    15:21 What everyone gets wrong about consistency in podcasting
    26:16 The powerful compounding of relationships
    31:33 Stacking micro-improvements to your show with every episode
    35:26 Strategies for navigating (and avoiding) creative burnout
    38:28 Building your transferable skill set
    44:22 Our personal stories of creative compounding that have got us here
    56:12 The impact of mentorship and constructive critique

    ⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️


    Resource

    Mike Birbiglia’s Podcast, *Working It Out*
    Build and Launch, Past Project by Justin Jackson
    Mega Maker, Project by Justin Jackson

    Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained

    Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2023 Report

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    ✍️ Leave your feedback for the show: http://podcastmarketingtrends.com/feedback

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    59 mins
  • 3 Creative Decisions That Dictate Your Show's Success… or Failure
    Mar 26 2024

    How long should your episodes be? What’s the best format for growth? Plus... the single most important decision you can make if you want to grow.

    Before you launch a new show, you have to make a number of creative decisions that set the course of your show.

    Will you do an interview, solo, or co-hosted show? How long should your episodes be? How often will you release new episodes? And who is this actually for?

    These structural decisions tend to get made once, sometimes without much thoughts… but they cast a long shadow over the growth potential of your show forever.

    So how do you ensure you’re making decisions that align with your goals and give you the best chance at success?

    📊 What did you think of this episode? Click to cast your vote:
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    Topics Covered

    00:00 Intro

    00:53 How much does a podcast's structure matter in terms of its success?
    03:26 Breaking down our recent episode length experiment
    10:12 A better question than “how long should my episodes be?”
    19:03 Which show format is best for growth?
    23:48 The impact of podcast format for success and audience growth
    25:22 What makes for a great interview show?
    25:43 The art of crafting compelling interview shows
    29:45 What makes for a great solo podcast?
    33:31 What makes a great co-hosted show?
    37:01 How we would design a show to get to 50k downloads/episode

    ⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️


    Resources

    Akimbo
    You're Wrong About
    How I Write
    Essay - Hide Your Work
    Tanner Campbell - Practical Stoicism
    Pod Save America podcast
    All In podcast

    Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained

    Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2023 Report

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    ✍️ Leave your feedback for the show: http://podcastmarketingtrends.com/feedback

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    49 mins
  • 80/20 Podcast Marketing: Turn Your Limited Time Into Maximum Growth
    Mar 19 2024

    Most podcasters waste their time on these tasks that will never lead to growth. Are you?

    Producing a regular podcast is one of the most grueling, time-intensive forms of content creation in existence.

    But what if 80% of the time you’re currently spending on your show isn’t actually contributing to growth?

    In other words, what if you could get the same results while spending drastically less time on your show?

    Or, what if you were to redirect that time towards higher leverage activities that actually did move the needle for growth?

    📊 What did you think of this episode? Click to cast your vote:

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    Topics Covered

    00:00 Intro
    02:13 Breaking Down the Numbers: Data on high-growth show time spends
    08:39 What stood out from the categories of growth in the data?
    11:19 Where to spend time when you’re first starting your show
    19:18 Finding opportunities to improve your show in your daily life
    20:48 Where to spend your time once your show has traction
    29:00 Time-sucking tasks to ignore or eliminate
    40:21 The ultimate amplifier of every hour you spend on your show
    42:37 How much time are you spending on your show each week?


    ⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️

    Resources

    David Perrell: How I Write Podcast
    Chat GPT
    Everyone Hates Marketers
    Ira Glass

    Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained

    Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2023 Report

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    ✍️ Leave your feedback for the show: http://podcastmarketingtrends.com/feedback


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    44 mins
  • How We'd Spend $500/$2,500/$10,000 to Grow Our Podcast (& the Lessons You Can Apply to Any Budget)
    Mar 12 2024

    How to get the best ROI on your podcast production and marketing budget to maximize growth… whether it’s $100 or $10,000 per month.

    You’re probably pretty confident that if you had more money to spend on your podcast, you’d be able to grow it faster.

    But have you ever stopped to think about how you would spend it to get the greatest ROI?

    Should you buy ads? Invest in better gear? Hire an editor or assistant?

    In this episode, we break down our takes on where your podcast budget is best spent in order to grow the fastest.

    📊 What did you think of this episode? Click to cast your vote:

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    Topics Covered

    00:00 Could we grow faster if we had more budget?
    02:47 How much the average podcast spends on production & marketing
    06:41 How much high-growth shows allocate to marketing
    08:11 How we’d spend $500/month to grow
    15:23 How we’d spend $2,500/mo to grow
    27:23 How to figure out what brought people to your show
    31:00 How we’d spend $10,000/mo to grow
    38:03 Understanding your brand
    50:24 Running retargeting ads to your podcast
    52:33 How we’d grow our podcast with zero budget


    ⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️

    Resources

    Descript
    ConvertKit
    Cast Magic
    Calendly
    Zapier
    Chartable
    Linkfire
    Figma
    Canva Pro

    Complete the Podcast Marketing Trends 2024 Survey

    Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained

    Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2023 Report

    Subscribe to the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter

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    ✍️ Leave your feedback for the show: http://podcastmarketingtrends.com/feedback


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    1 hr and 1 min