SIMPLE PODCAST HACKS THAT CAN LEAD TO MORE LISTENERS
Every month, me and my team at Phonic Media create a short report for our clients on their podcasts.
We look at a variety of data points to see what is really working, what could do with tweaking and what elements of their show have smashed it out of the park in the last 30 days.
We don’t just do this a nice bit of ‘added-value’ client love — there are clues hidden in plain sight about their content which we can use to make their podcast, blogs, video, graphics, mailers and content marketing much more effective.
What we do is take a snapshot of stats and then look at each episode, look at downloads and stats around those particular shows and try to work out what elements have made particular episodes perform really well.
Is it the guest?
Is it the content subject?
Has it been an effective use of news-jacking?
Was it the marketing around that episode?
Above are just a couple of considerations that might have had an impact on the reach of your content and here are some elements to think about when looking at your own podcast stats so you can ‘read’ the data:
- EPISODE TITLES
None of the major podcast platforms has ever directly come out and said exactly what their algorithm looks for when ranking shows, but it makes sense that show titles (especially those that you pack with SEO-rich keywords) will perform well in search terms.
2. SHOWNOTES
Are you just saying “In this episode, I talk to XXX” and that’s it within your shownotes? If so, you are missing a trick, big time! Shownotes not only have the potential to help shows rank for certain keywords, but they also give you a great opportunity to drive a call to action. You can place a link to your products and services, encourage people to join your mailing list, push people towards your cause etc.
3. NUMERICS
From the data we look at with the dozens of client shows that we produce each week, numerics help increase downloads. For example, ‘top 5 tips to XXX’ or ‘how to increase sales by 13%’ work well. In the reports we created last month, every single podcast that used a numeric in an episode title had a higher number of downloads than was average for that show. Every single one!
4. MARKETING ASSESSMENT
If there is a show that did particularly well then you need to play the role of ‘Digitial Detective’ to have a look at what it was that drove that increased reach. What got the additional attention to your content… was it a blog you created from transcribing the show, did the guests share a series of clips you turned into a Reel, did your YouTube Shorts channel drive more traffic to the main YouTube channel, was an extended clip on LinkedIn with a link to the main show episode the cause of the spike? By the way, if you are not doing these things then you are not ‘sweating the content asset’.
All the above might sound like small adjustments — and they are — but we call these 1%ers at Phonic, essentially each element will only make a 1% difference, but the compounding effect of lots of tiny improvements leads to powerful outcomes.
So ask yourself this question; given the time, effort and energy you are putting into the creation of this show, are you sweating the asset fully?
If not, let’s talk!
