Want podcast growth tips to take your show to 3 million plus downloads?
The best form of learning is learning from others. Avoid the mistakes they made and duplicate their best practices.
In this episode, I will share with you the learnings and the mistakes that we did in our journey with the Tastes of India Podcast.
If you want to start a successful podcast, then all you need is to listen to this episode.
We have finally hit 100 episodes and at this point, I want to thank every one of you who supported the show by tuning in every week, sharing, and recommending it to your friends and family.
The journey has been incredible and with a lot of learnings and the motivation to keep going has come from you all – the listeners.
Keep supporting the show and I will keep coming back with valuable information and tips on Podcasting.
Podcast Growth Tips from Growing The Tastes of India Podcast to 3 Million Downloads
In this 100th episode, I was planning to share learnings from our journey in podcasting, producing, and releasing 2 shows of our own and another few shows that we produced for others.
And coincidently, I find that The Tastes of India Podcast which is now about 215 episodes shows up at # 2 in All Time Bestsellers in the Food category on Apple Podcasts.
We never focused on metrics or, numbers and hence very rarely tracked these positions. But thanks to the weekly emails from Chartable, which alerted us about this.
To be featured in that position was an incredible achievement for us.
And that made me think, why not share our learnings from making The Tastes of India Podcast a best-seller podcast, with you all so that you can use some of these tips to grow your show?
And while I do that I will also share some of the mistakes we did on this incredible journey.
So here are those learnings.
Finding your ideal audience
One of the things that worked for us was the fact that we started off with some good knowledge about who our ideal audience will be.
We were running a blog that was almost 5 years old and we very well knew our audience, the demographics, their interests, etc.
This knowledge helped us when we started our podcast. We were catering to the same audience through our show and hence putting together a strategy to promote our show to that audience was not as difficult as it could be for somebody starting off afresh.
But even if you have to put in some time and effort to identify who your ideal audience will be, it is worth the effort.
This in itself can be huge for the success of your show.
Not giving up!
Don’t fall for all of that advice out there that says, “Podcasting is simple and easy. Just pick up your phone and start talking” etc.
Nothing is simple in this world. And podcasting is absolutely not as easy as it is made to look.
There is a lot of effort involved and the returns might not be satisfying in the beginning, especially so if you are not following a proven framework and strategy.
We too had our share of demotivation.
For the first 4-5 months, the podcast listenership was nothing worth even mentioning. We felt demotivated and like quitting.
We felt that the content wasn’t really resonating with the audience. And we were competing against video content because recipes were always meant for YouTube.
We relooked at our promotional strategy and felt that we weren’t probably doing enough in terms of promotions.
We redid the complete promotional strategy, especially focused on Facebook, and continued releasing episodes.
After about 6 months, one of the episodes took off and brought in listeners. And then there was no looking back.
So don’t give up. If something is not working, relook at your strategy and change things that aren’t working.
Maintaining a Content Repository
You would have heard a lot of podcast experts talking about having a content calendar and batch recording.
Since we were bloggers, we too had a content calendar in place. We had planned out episodes at least 6 weeks in advance.
But we did a mistake that cost us dearly.
We weren’t really batch recording for the show.
We would record at the most 2 episodes and that’s it.
There came a time when we had to be out for an emergency. And what followed was a COVID lockdown and we were stuck at the place for around 6 months.
We could release only around 4 episodes which were there in the repository and then we were stuck.
It was a period when Podcasts gained a lot of audiences but we lost audience because we weren’t publishing.
Keep a content repository and batch record. Record as many episodes as possible and keep a repository.
And when you are traveling, take a minimal podcasting setup with you. You never know when you will need it.
Don’t be afraid to experiment
Knowing what works can take time. It is not only in Podcasting. Social media, blogging, videos, everything is about experimenting and finding out what is working.
So don’t be afraid to experiment.
We experimented with a lot of things in The Tastes of India podcast.
Introducing a motivational story section, though we were skeptical as to how the larger audience would feel, changing the frequency from a weekly to a bi-weekly one, experimenting with the show title, artwork, and even with the content delivery. We tried all of that to see what was working the best.
And after introducing these changes we would reach out to our audience to check on how they felt about the changes.
Experiment with formats, frequency, style of discourse, etc., and find what works best. That’s the key to succeeding with your show.
Unforeseen situations and Breaks
As content creators one of the things that we need to be good at is planning.
But, in spite of all the planning that you do, there could be situations where you are forced to take a break.
The unforeseen situation, emergencies in the family, etc. are things that you really cannot plan for.
So it is ok if you have to take a forced break.
You don’t need to sweat in such situations.
But what is more important is to come back and get started. The usual tendency after a break is to extend that break because you are not in that groove when you come back.
So get started right away, once you are back.
Building an Email list
Our experience with blogging has helped us a lot in Podcasting. And this is where it helped us the most.
An email list was non-compromisable for us. We were already building it using our blog and all we had to do was continue to build it by additionally driving traffic from our podcast.
Which is what we did from the very beginning.
We built an email list and ensured that we are sending them regular emails when we released a new episode.
This helped us bring in a repeat audience which in turn helped us grow the show.
The email list also helped us get feedback from our audience which is something we used to continuously improve the show.
Surveying your audience and taking feedback
One of the things that, we podcasters often miss out on is taking feedback from our listeners.
Responses to simple questions like “Are you liking the content” or, “What else would you like to listen to on the show” can be extremely valuable in improving your show.
We regularly surveyed our audience using emails. And some of the feedback and responses we received were eye-opening for us.
We incorporated a lot of those feedback like including a section of motivational stories or, tips on lifestyle, etc. into the show which helped us grow even further.
So, ensure that you are talking to your audience and taking their feedback.
Constantly Improving
Things change at the speed of light, on the internet. Even before you realize it, something that was in trend falls off fashion, and something else picks up.
So it is important to stay up-to-date with the changes and constantly improve.
Using newer technologies to simplify a process, adapting to changing audience requirements, and changing to keep up with the competition are all important if you want to survive.
So, stay up-to-date and keep improving.
Investing in a Website and SEO
This is another non-negotiable piece and something that we had a sort of advantage on because we were already blogging.
Almost 38% of our traffic/new audience comes from search engines. A lot of our blog posts rank on the first page of Google, thanks to the effort we put in to optimize our posts.
The first thing that this audience sees when they come to our website is the podcast player and they are compelled to press the play button and listen to the episode.
That’s a new listener for our show.
The 2 things that you show spend money on at the least are – a good microphone and a good website.
If you want to build an audience, focus on putting together a website for your show.
Do it only if you enjoy it
The best tip is for the last.
Content creation, irrespective of what form it is, isn’t easy. It can be extremely taxing on you and if you don’t plan well and don’t plan things keeping in mind your resources, then you will soon burn out and quit.
To succeed in content creation, it is important that you enjoy it.
You need to enjoy the process.
If you don’t then you will be pushing yourself every week to create and one day you will eventually quit because you just don’t have the fuel to keep pushing anymore.
If at any point you feel like your podcast is a chore and that you are pushing yourself to record and release an episode, then stop.
Take a step back and ask yourself, if it is really something you want to keep doing.
And if the response is even a 10% NO, then look for other things that you really enjoy doing.
There is no harm in quitting something that you are not really enjoying.
Conclusion:
I hope those podcast growth tips will help you grow your podcast. These are simple tips that sound very obvious but need conscious efforts to implement.
Remember that growing a podcast is all about carefully studying the market and doing what is working. You will find that most of these podcast growth tips that we discussed today are based on that concept.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.
Thank You for Joining
Thank you all for joining me on the show today.
If you enjoyed this episode then I am sure you will love some of the previous episodes as well. Pick your favorite ones and give it a listen.
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APPLE PODCASTS: https://thepodcastinguniversity.com/itunes
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HUBHOPPER: https://thepodcastinguniversity.com/hubhopper
AMAZON PRIME: https://thepodcastinguniversity.com/prime
Recommended Resources for Podcasting
Here are some of the recommended resources for Podcasting. These are the ones that I personally use and am satisfied with and hence am recommending them.
- Acast Podcast hosting – Acast is my favorite podcast hosting company. They have excellent customer support, have a pocket-friendly plan, and even have a free option with no limits.
- Behringer Audio Interface – You will need an audio interface if you are using an XLR microphone. This is my recommended audio interface.
- Zencastr – Zencastr is the easiest option to record interviews, both audio-only and audio+video. This is a must for an interview podcast. Go to zencastr.com/pricing and use my code “thepodu” You’ll get 30 percent off your first three months of Zencastr professional.
- Audacity – This is the best and the most feature-rich free audio editing software. It gives you a lot of options while editing your interviews.
- Blue Yeti USB Microphone – My recommended microphone
- Tidycal – My recommended calendar and booking solutions
- Fusebox – Embeddable Podcast Player
- Descript – Audio Editing, Transcription and Video editing software
- Zlappo – Twitter scheduling tool
AMAZON DISCLOSURE: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. The Podcasting University is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
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