7 WAYS TO GROW YOUR PODCAST

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for hitting download. I have been chatting recently to a lot of my clients around long form content and around expanding their platforms and visibility. And one of the things I'm noticing at the moment is a lot of people starting podcasts, which I'm so excited for. I think that if you are any way shape or form an expert in your field and you know that you have value to add, then starting a podcast is a really great way to develop your authority and to build credibility and in your eyes and to nurture like, honestly, it's such a great nurture for your ideal client. I've had so many clients that have listened to my podcast after being introduced to me, whether it's been on another podcast or whether it's been at an event that I've spoken at, or whether we've connected at a networking event and they find out that I have a podcast and they jump, jump on and they listen and then eventually they reach out and want to work with me. And that's so exciting. I know that it's such a great way to build such great relationships with your clients because there is something about this connection that you have when you listen to a podcast. Like you feel like you're in their life, you feel like you're getting to know them, feel like we're friends on a level. And I feel like that with the people that I listen to on podcasts. So if you have a podcast and you want to grow it, I thought I would share with you a couple of strategies that I've been sharing with my clients in, in. In order to help them grow their platforms, in order, in order for them to increase their downloads, in order for them to expand what they're doing with their platform with their podcast. Because when you're taking the time to create content in this way, and I would call call this long form content, this is where it's not just a social media post. It's actually diving into a deeper topic and helping them develop a level of connection with you and getting own thought, your own thought leadership. Developing a platform like this is so worthwhile, right? One of the things I always let clients know is that when you do create a podcast, is that it is still something you need to market and it's not something that just markets itself. So when you think about a podcast, right, you create an audio file, you upload it to the platforms, whether it's be Spotify, whether it be itunes, wherever it is. I put mine on YouTube now as well, you want to think like if you're putting all that time, energy and effort into creating a piece of content, you want to utilize it effectively. So we either play top down, so we think, what is the main topic I want to share on this week and what can I really dive into in depth so that I can use that as the hero piece of content that then I can then weave down into social media content and email content and whatever else is it is that you do with your content. Right. So we want to think about as hero content. And so I thought I'd share with you seven strategies on how to increase your downloads and how to expand your platform and get more people listening to you. You. It is honestly, if you're going to put all the effort and energy in creating a podcast, because it does take a lot of time to develop one and then be consistent with, then it is worth marketing and is worth expanding. And why. Sorry, one thing I was going to say earlier is I always say to my clients too, like, don't start a podcast unless you're going to be consistent with it because consistency is so incredibly important and you're going to have to market it because by just putting an audio file up onto the podcast platforms does not push it out to your people. All right? It's not like they just go hear everyone listen to it unless those people have the notifications turned on to tell them, right? Unless they've hit follow, subscribe, they're not getting notifications. And even then, some people don't even have the notifications on. I don't, I don't get any notifications. I just always, in one hour I listen to a podcast. I'm like, oh, I've got some time today. I want to dive in and listen to a podcast. Right? I'm not. And I go to the people that I usually follow. And so it's not something that is the platform's not helping you market it. And I think that's one of the things that people get really stuck on, is that they go, oh, I'm going to create a podcast that's going to get so much reach. Well, no, because if your social media doesn't get reach and you're not telling people about the podcast, people aren't actively going and searching for it unless you are you causing them to. Right. And so it's one of the things that people often start podcasts and then they get really disheartened because it doesn't really go anywhere or it doesn't generate the results that they wanted it to straight away. And so I'm going to have another guest also come on and talk a little bit about this because it's something that, you know, if you're wanting to launch a podcast, amazing, go and do it. Especially if you have some type of thought leadership that you want to share and you know that you can share your expertise in this way. But please do it from a place of wanting to build consistency. Because that's one thing with regards to the podcast platforms is that when you are more consistent, they do push it to the top of the list, right? They're going to be pushing out the most recent episodes because there are so many freaking podcasts, so many podcasts, which is not a reason to not start one. But I'm just saying there are so many podcasts and a lot of people don't get past the 10 to 12 episodes. And Tina Tower actually spoke about this at my event and it was really interesting because people were asking questions about like, how many episodes do you have to do and how often should you be doing episodes? And she was saying like, if you want it just to be a nurture, do one episode a week, but if you want it to sell, do two. If you want it to be a top rating podcast, do three a week a week. And people in the room like, oh God. Which I know it takes a lot of energy and effort to create. And I do two episodes a week, but I also then break them down as well. So I do a five minute episode and then I do a longer episode. So I think that my clients really like the 5 minute episodes. Please tell me if you don't. They love, like to, if they don't really have a lot of time, they can still jump in and get a little bit of a butt kicking, a little bit of tough love, a little bit of support, and I can talk about it one specific topic in five minutes pretty quickly. And so the first suggestion as I'm diving in here with the podcast is firstly look at your consistency. Because I, when I started my podcast, I was like, I'm not starting it unless I am ready and willing to be consistent. And that didn't mean constant. But I was like, every Monday an episode is going to go out without fail. And there were some times where I was like, on a Sunday afternoon or a Sunday evening recording that episode, being like, oh God, I've got to get an episode out tomorrow. Because I was willing to uphold and honor that commitment with myself and with my audience. So if you're not willing to honor That I would say maybe podcasting is not the thing for you. Okay, so build the consistency first. We want to start to think about your hero content being the real core messages that you want to get across to your people. And it's a beautiful way for you to share your story as well. So podcasting is amazing. I will love it every single day of the week. I love that you listen. I love that you download. I love that you feel connected to the episodes that I put out. So first things first. Your consistency. Build out your consistency based on what you feel like you can commit to. So even if it's just one episode a week, just start there, and then you can always build on it from there. But I find that if you. If you're brand new and you're like three episodes, that's gonna be really hard. You're not gonna be able to maintain it. Then don't. Because you don't wanna build distrust with your audience. So my clients know that every Monday and every Thursday, there's gonna be a new episode. And so you want to think about how you're building trust with your consistency and reliability. Okay. Number two is, do you have guest interviews? Because if you don't and you're really wanting to build, you want to think about whether that's the right strategy for you. Because if you are an unknown, then you're going to have to build a lot of consistency and you're going to have to use an incredible marketing channel. As in, like, you're going to have to be really consistent with marketing that podcast in order for you to get the audience following. Okay. And to get in front of new audiences. So you really have to think about your marketing strategy and whether you want to have guests or not. Having guests is an incredible opportunity for you to add extra value to your audience. But secondly, be able to leverage another guest audience. Like, if you honestly want to keep expanding and getting more downloads, you need more incredible people on your podcast. And one of the things I will say to you is, don't be scared to pitch way above what you believe people will say yes to. The amount of times that I have pitched to people and made it a really genuine pitch, people have always said yes, and I always get blown away by it. Right. And we obviously always can't rely on just guest interviews. But if they're bloody great interviews and you are great interviewee interviewer, it is so worth it. Like, so worth it. I love doing my guest interviews. I learned so much through my guest interviews. But one thing I will say is that you want to make sure that you're setting up the expectation from the get go that you expect them to or you invite them to share. You want to make it so easy for them to share. So you want to think about ahead of time, what can I interview them about? That's going to be really click worthy. That's going to be something that people really truly want to listen to. What is something that I want them to share that maybe I haven't heard before? So you really just think about your interview questions really effectively. Okay. Because at the end of the day, if you are creating an episode with a guest and you haven't asked really great questions in order to get them to share something unique, they're most likely not going to share it, right? And so we can't rely on them to share it just out of the goodness of their heart. You want to make it so incredibly shareable. So then you also want to make it extremely easy for them to share. So what I mean by that is that you create all the shareable content, you send them an email with all the breakdown of the links you get them, give all them the short clips that they can use for reels, you upload them across all platforms and you tag them in them, you let them know ahead of time that you're going to be tagging them. And when the episode comes out so they can plan for it, you ask them to share it with your email. With their email list, you ask them to share a review on the podcast as well. Right. As a guest I was like say in my email wrap up and I always ask them if you feel so kind, I would love you if you could leave a review. It's so beautiful for other people to see their review on your podcast and it builds trust and credibility. So leverage your guests audience as much as you possibly can. And this is one of the things that I need to get better at, but also that I've done really well in the past, but other times that I've kind of like dropped the ball because I actually need a new team member. That's actually the real reason. And it's another whole channel that I've got to manage. Right? So one of the things you need to consider is like, how can I make it so easy for guests to share it? Because otherwise they're just not going to share it just randomly, right. Or as effectively as you really truly want them to. So if you want to leverage their audience, make sure that you make it super shareable and easy for them to Share secondly, your episodes. So we want to think about like your solo episodes. There's a couple of things I want to share with you on these and how to increase the downloads. Firstly, have a mix between short and long episodes. You want to consider your ideal client, how long they've already invested in you. So if you don't have really much of a following and you're still working on that following, and maybe you have reels that you've been putting out, let's say you've got an Instagram following, you've been putting reels out. You want to look at like what your current views are with your reels. And if you think about your reels being 90 seconds or maybe possibly three minutes, depending on how long you upload, you want to think about like how people are invested in you currently. Right. So it's always good to have a mix of short and long because the long obviously develops a longer relationship with you and it's where you can dive into, deeper into a topic. You can give more shareable and more valuable content and you're able to then really expand, really express your authenticity and your express your expertise. But it's really to like, if people haven't invested in you in your social media platform, then asking them to then come across to a podcast can be challenging. And so you want to create episodes that are easy for people to digest and then have longer ones for people who are willing to take it to the next level. Right? So that's why I always have a mix, because there's always going to be new people coming across going like, oh, just listen to a five minute episode and then say, love the five minutes episode. Then they'll go to the 20 minute and then maybe they'll go to the one hour. Right? And with your content as well, for it to be something that shows up on the platform. You really want to think about your ideal client and what they're thinking of, what they need help with, what they're searching. Right. So you want to think about your SEO honestly when it comes to podcasts, because that app people are jumping on and typing in topics or they're typing in a word or two. So you really want to think about what are people searching for and how can I create an episode specific around that? So then people really click on it. Right. And so the other thing I do as well is I use ChatGPT a lot for the titles of the podcast episodes because I want to make sure it's something that makes people click it because it's not, it's not easy to get people to actually listen. And when you think about the way that your you behave when you listen to people's podcasts, usually what I do is I'll go to the person that I've listened to before. I'll scroll, scroll through their most recent episodes and be like, which one resonates with me? And so you've got to create episode titles that really resonate. And this is where people don't spend enough time and they just go, oh, but it was just about this, and it's really boring title. There is so many podcast episodes out there, and if it doesn't actually resonate with your ideal client, they just won't listen. So spend the time really thinking about the titles and think about, like, how you can build in a mix of short and long episodes and then people can get a feel for you and then want to spend more time with you. Okay. And I just want to touch quickly just before what I was saying, like with the marketing, with the guest expert, please also repurpose yours. So don't get scared. Like, what I love about podcasting is that you can share a snippet from an episode a month ago, six months, and people aren't going to really know that it was from a long time ago, but it actually does build trust and credibility and it also helps them build a relationship with you when they see you speak. Right. So think about how you're repurposing those episodes and you're sharing. You know, you could even create really unique episodes where you're taking snippets from other guest episodes or some of the episodes that have done really well for me, which I need to do. Another one, I often do them around Christmas is like a guest compilation episode where I take the best bits from some of the guest episodes that I've had and I pull them together into one around a topic. I've loved listening to those for other people's podcasts and I find that they work really well for me as well. And other times I've like, just repurpose. So any of the, like, highest download episodes that I've had, I go back and look at this regularly. So every six months I will go back through the podcast and be like, which ones have been downloaded the most? And then I replicate that title. So I usually replicate the title. Sometimes it's exactly the same. Other times it's just a slight tweak because obviously resonated with enough, enough people that they downloaded it and listened to it. Right. So I do that with all my solo episodes. And then I also go back through all the guest interviews and be like, which ones were downloaded the most? And why was that? What did I do really well there that actually helped me increase the downloads. Like, I have one episode of the podcast that's from so many years ago that has so many downloads on YouTube because the beautiful couple that I had on, they put it on their website and they. They love the episode because I love the questioning that I asked. And they use it as part of. A. Part of their sales funnel, which is awesome. Right? So think about how you can help your ideal clients or even help your guests. Sorry. Think about how you can help your guests utilize it for their platform so you can like, like let them know how you can use it. And that's why I share the YouTube link and share the snippets, because there's. If people are taking the time to be a guest on your podcast, you may as well make it worth their while. And if it's been a really high downloadable episode, then you want to think about how you then utilizing that content again and again and again to get people to come back to your podcast. Because if they see a snippet with maybe an interview that you did three months ago, and they're like, oh, that sounds good, I'm going to click across and listen to that episode, they're more likely than listen to another episode. Right. So don't be scared to repurpose because there is so much gold and so much opportunity where people can continue to listen and it increases your downloads. Okay, that brings me to the next suggestion. You need to get featured on other people's podcasts. If you want more people to download yours, you need to be known and you need to be seen as the expert. And so when you create your own podcast, there's only a certain level of expert status you create because it's. That's you creating and talking about yourself. Right? Whereas if. If you're a guest on someone else's podcast, you are seen as an expert. And then people, if they love what you have, have had to say, they're more likely to come across and listen to yours because they're a podcast listener. Okay? So thinking about how you're pitching yourself regularly to get on a line show. So you want to think about where your ideal client is hanging out and making sure that you're getting on, getting on those types of podcasts and share. Like, I always like to really think about whenever I'm a guest on someone else's podcast, I go, what can I share that is different to what I normally share on my podcast? Or how can I give them more of an insight into me that maybe, you know, I haven't shared before on my podcast? So then they can get a real beautiful insight and then they come across to the podcast and they get something different as well. Right? Because if they hear the same stories again and again, again, again, people just get bored. So really thinking about, like, how can you guess on other people's podcasts and make a habit of it? Because it absolutely increases your downloads for sure. Okay, the last one is getting people involved. One of the things that I have loved and what's worked well for my podcast is getting people involved in the process of creating your episodes. So I like to think of, like, if I've done, like, I recently for the event, right, For Unstoppable Women, I did a couple of Instagram lives and actually could have put more of them on the podcast, but I just ran out of time because I was getting prepped for the event. But there was a couple there that I was like, oh, these would be great podcast episodes. And I just downloaded the video, repurposed it into audio, and put it up on the podcast. Because if, again, it was a guest episode as well, so then that person then shared it out and it increased the downloads there. And you just. It's always an extra surprise and delight if there's an extra episode there. So sometimes I do bonus episodes. So even when I'm running a masterclass, and actually I could do with my most recent one, when I'm running a masterclass or a challenge or anything like that, I upload them. I upload them to my podcast because you just never know who's missed out on it. And they're already connected to you, so they want to learn more from you. And sometimes that gives you the opportunity to, like, stretch out your expertise even more and show a deeper depth of the level of expertise that you have. So think about if there's any other way that you can share other parts of you or anything else that's really different. So even, like, I've. I've done a guest speaking spot, I asked for the audio sometimes, and then be like, cool, I'm going to put that on my podcast with their permission. Secondly, I had. I'm going to upload an episode for the podcast with the panel from the Unstoppable Women event. So people want to hear more from you. And I think that it's really starting to think about stepping outside the box of what podcasting is and creating something really unique because people really want to be a part of all those, all those things. And another way to do this would be to ask your ideal clients to submit questions. And so you could do this with question boxes on your stories, or you can put out an anonymous one. I used to actually have a my podcast a while back. I have to think about what it was called. There's a website where you can put the link in your show notes and then people can submit a voice note with a question. And I actually really loved those and it helped people also get their voice on my podcast. But also it was so nice to be able to hear their question. And then I answered their question on the pod and that caused people to really tune in. And then I would send them a personalized email to be like, thank you so much for submitting a question. Here's your episode regarding that question. And people loved it. They were like, wow, oh my God, I can't believe I got chosen. And I can't believe that you did that for me. That's amazing. Thank you so much. So you want to think about how you're involving people because I think one of the things with podcasts that feels very one sided, whereas you wanted us create an opportunity for people to get involved. And so that then brings me to the last piece is ask people to share, ask people to get involved, ask people to leave reviews. And the more that you are creating, even like actually in Spotify now, you can respond to people's comments on the podcast. So people can leave podcast reviews, they can leave comments on podcast episodes and you can respond to those comments. So think about how you're creating a conversation and getting people involved in the podcast and you're more likely to have again, people want to tune in because they've been a part of something. So yeah, I hope that you've loved these suggestions. You probably have heard a couple of them before. But I want you to ask yourself like whether you're actually putting them into practice. Because podcasting is such an incredible channel to develop your credibility and trust and to also help you be seen as the go to person in your industry as there's so many benefits to podcasting. So if you have one, I hope that you implement some of these strategies. If you don't have one, I hope you think about possibly creating one.