How do I grow my podcast audience?
Welcome to the softer cast, a podcast for small business owners and creatives who want tender podcast advice without any tech or bullshit. I'm Amelia Hruby, and I'm the founder of softer sounds, a feminist podcast studio for women and non binary entrepreneurs. On this show, I answer your questions about podcasting. Things like, should I put my show on YouTube? Can I just record it on Zoom?
Amelia Hruby:How much do editors really cost? And how many downloads should my podcast be getting? Yeah, I'll even answer that question. Every episode of the softer cast is really practical, a little magical, and less than 10 minutes long. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the show and share it with your podcast bestie.
Amelia Hruby:Then head to the show notes to check out our free resources. No matter where you're at in your podcasting journey, we're here to support you. Join us on the softer side of podcasting. Hello, and welcome to the softer cast, a show where you can get tender podcast advice for small business owners and creatives. I'm your host, Emilia Frooby.
Amelia Hruby:I am the founder of Softer Sounds Podcast Studio. And on this show, I answer your questions about podcasting with my signature gentle, no nonsense approach. I always like to say that softer sounds is where the tender meets the technical, and I think that podcasting really needs that because it's easy to get wrapped up in the technical sides of audio equipment, editing software, what even is a LUF or a waveform or any of these sort of tech spec words. And when we do that, we forget that what actually makes podcasts great in the first place is the human aspect, the conversation, the voice, what's being shared. All of those softer skills are what make us love the shows we love, and then, hopefully, they sound great as well.
Amelia Hruby:This spring at the studio, I have been fielding a lot of questions about podcast growth. And so in this episode, I am going to answer the question, how do I grow my podcast audience? If you've got a show or you're launching a show and you wanna make sure that it attracts and gathers the people that you wanna hear it, keep listening because you're gonna love this quick practical episode. Okay, my softer casters. Today's question is, how do I grow my podcast audience?
Amelia Hruby:I think there are 2 parts to growing a podcast audience. There's the softer skills, and then there's the sharing skills. So what I mean by that is growing your podcast audience starts with having a really strong show. If you're not creating a show that people really want to listen to, it doesn't actually matter how much traffic you drive to it because those people might not stick around. The way our podcast audience is gonna grow is that we bring people in, and then they stick around.
Amelia Hruby:So, again, the first part of this is you need a strong show. We're gonna talk about some ways to make sure your show is strong in a moment. The second part of this is the sharing part. So, that is marketing your show. So often when we think of podcast audience growth, we start immediately thinking about marketing because marketing is about sharing.
Amelia Hruby:It's about getting those people there, driving that traffic, as I just said. It's about bringing them in. So while our goal is to bring people in so they stick around, when we're working on growing our show, we actually need to work in the opposite direction. We need to have a stick aroundable show and then work on bringing people in. So in this episode, I'm gonna offer you 3 things to work on to make sure you have that stick aroundable show as I just called it, and then I'm gonna share a couple of ideas for podcast marketing.
Amelia Hruby:So let's talk about how to make sure you have a strong show. On the softer sounds free resource page, I've written this great post that's called how to create a podcast that always attracts new listeners, and that post includes what I think are the 3 essential elements that consistently attract and retain engaged podcast listeners. This is what our show needs to be really strong and stick aroundable as I've been saying in this episode. So those three elements are clarity of concept, consistency of publishing, and power of personality. Let me break that down a little bit for you.
Amelia Hruby:The first step to attracting your engaged audience to having that stick aroundable show is having a clear concept for your podcast. Your concept is the foundation of your show. It should clearly communicate what it's about, who it's for, and what makes it unique. I think that many of the most popular podcasts have really strong concepts. So I'm thinking about shows like song exploder, where a musician unpacks every element of a song that they've made, or shows like normal gossip, where we get these gossipy stories from our everyday lives, from people's everyday lives that are then shaped for anyone to listen to.
Amelia Hruby:These are things that we love, that we hold on to, even a show like death, sex, and money. Death, sex, and money, just the name, is a great concept. So, again, it's that clarity of concept. The second part of a strong show, that stick aroundable show, is consistency of publishing. So when we are trying to build an engaged podcast audience, we need to give them a clear, sustainable rhythm or publishing schedule that they can expect from us.
Amelia Hruby:Now I'm not saying that you have to publish your show every single week, but I am saying that it's helpful if you can ensure your listeners that you've got new episodes the 1st Tuesday of every month, you know, that your episodes are coming out the same day of the week, the same time of the day, and a consistent schedule. So, again, I encourage you to be flexible with what consistency means to you, but to really cultivate that consistency in your own definition with your show, because that's what's gonna turn your podcast listeners into loyal fans, and that type of loyal fan base is what really grows your audience over time. And then the 3rd part of making sure you have that strong stick aroundable show is power of personality. Your podcast is more than just the topics you cover. It's also about the way you talk about them.
Amelia Hruby:Your tone, cadence, and style are what make your podcast unique and memorable. So you want to make sure that you, as the podcaster, are shining through. Infuse your show with humor, empathy. That's gonna help you connect with your audience on a deeper level and just make it a more enjoyable listen. So, again, our three things for making sure that you have a strong stick aroundable show are clarity of concept, consistency of publishing, and power of personality.
Amelia Hruby:I've linked that blog post that I wrote about this below because there are some great reflection questions for each of those elements that can help you dive into this even deeper. Now once you have that strong stick aroundable show, now we're ready to really be driving traffic to your feed. So what I mean by that is your show is ready for people to hear it and love it, and now we just have to get as many people as possible, as many aligned listeners as possible onto your feed pressing play. That's what I mean by driving traffic there. So to do that, this is where we turn to our podcast marketing techniques.
Amelia Hruby:And I think that there are a few core techniques that are popular in podcasting. I tend to think of them as swaps, drops, and apps, which reminds me of, like, apps and zerks from Parks and Rec, if you're a fan of that show. So with swaps, you could do promo swaps with other podcasts promoting each other's shows on air. You can do guest swaps where you're a guest on someone's podcast and they're a guest on yours. With drops, you can work with people to have a whole episode of your show drop onto their feed and have like Apple, Spotify, Castos, Pocket Casts.
Amelia Hruby:They all have different arrangements for this. There are also some tried and true business marketing techniques that we can bring in here, using a lead magnet to gather email addresses from your listeners, doing paid ads on social media platforms, or in newsletters. There are many, many different podcast marketing techniques, and I think that the most important part about growing your podcast is, again, starting with that strong show and then choosing a few really strategic marketing channels and strategies that you want to use. Now I need way more than this, like, short, softer cast episode to really walk you through the many, many It's gonna go much more into depth about those marketing strategies I just mentioned, and it's actually gonna walk you through, like, the differences between marketing and promotion, how to market like a podcaster, how to market like a business owner, and if you want this, how to develop a monetization plan for your show. So that course is called DIY podcast marketing and monetization, and it's only $66 for the whole thing.
Amelia Hruby:But I've also created a discount code exclusively for softer cast listeners. So you can use the code softer cast 10, that's softer cast 10, to take $10 off the course purchase anytime. So if you enjoyed this episode, if you feel like you've got that strong show and you're ready to really build a marketing plan for it and really get clear about how you're growing your audience, then head to the show notes, grab the course, take your $10 off. I can't wait to hear how it all goes. Thank you again for tuning into the Softercast.
Amelia Hruby:I can't wait to listen to your podcast and watch it grow. And until next time, I will see you on the softer side of podcasting. Thanks so much for listening to the softer cast. If you enjoyed this episode, please send it to your podcast bestie. And after you do that, go ahead and drop us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Amelia Hruby:If you'd like to submit a question, head to speakpipe.com/softercast to record a message, or email us at high at softer sounds dot studio. And last but not least, we made some awesome free things for you. Head to the show notes to download our free podcast launch toolkit or our 3 step podcast audit. No matter where you're at in your podcasting journey, we're here to support you. Thanks again for tuning in and joining us on the softer side of podcasting.