You’ve read it right! My podcast has been downloaded 7,500+ times (according to Libsyn) and the month isn’t over yet. Now, am I saying that to brag? No. Well, a little haha! Mainly, I’d just like to share some things I’ve learned thus far on my journey.
1. Pinpoint your goal.
Traffic, downloads, or pageviews for the sake of numbers that you can show off are meaningless! The real question that you need to answer is: What is your goal. Why are you podcasting?
Is it to make money from ads or products? To attract clients? Have fun? Get well known for a talent? Develop a relationship with your audience? Educate about a topic?
Typically, a podcast will fall into the entertainment, information/news, or learning/education category. My goal with my podcast is to:
- Educate existing and new readers of my blog.
- Develop a relationship with readers/listeners.
- Have great content in audio form that I can reference.
Although the podcast does have an advertiser (outlined how to get one here), my goal is not to make a bunch of money from advertising sales. It’s just to support some of the costs of the podcast.
Seeing as the traffic has grown and is relatively steady now, I’m beginning to meet the first two goals and with regards to the third, I now have 34 episodes of great content that I can direct individuals to who want to learn more about my blog’s niche in an audio format. I’ve referenced these through conversations, emails, blog posts, and more, which contributed to the growth of the podcast.
If my goal was to make a bunch of money from ads, I think that I would need a larger niche/audience. The Smart Passive Income Podcast gives you an idea of the kinds of numbers that you need to start making serious money. I’ve pasted their traffic chart below.
December Sponsorship Sales: $5,630.60
2014 Sponsorship Sales: $46,170.57
2014 Downloads: 5.7 million
From a pure download sense, it seems like hoping that your podcast will be big enough that you can live off the advertising revenue is kind of a long shot, but using that podcast as a way to develop a relationship with listeners so that they will be more comfortable buying products you genuinely recommend or your own products is more realistic.
Then again, I feel like the advertising on the Smart Passive Income podcast is an ancillary income stream and that he could be making more money if he stuffed the podcast with more ads, mainly because Entrepreneur on Fire is making $60k a month from sponsorship income with 850,000 monthly downloads.
2. Don’t rely on iTunes, Stitcher, or any marketplace
The big guys might get tons of new listeners from the iTunes marketplace because they are ranking so well in a competitive category, but if you have a niche or very specific podcast category, then the benefits of ranking well in iTunes for key terms that a listener might use to discover your podcast are slim.
I’m in the top 10 for several key terms that listeners might use to find my podcast, but I don’t think it’s very beneficial because the marketplace is too small. If I was to rank well in a larger general iTunes category, then I would definitely see some benefits, but I knew that just starting out, it would be unlikely that I’d have the audio or podcasting skills to do that.
Therefore, I knew that I would have to rely on my own website, social media feeds, and email list to drive traffic.
Rankings in iTunes or another marketplace are always changing and you don’t want to rely on one external source to connect with new listeners. I’d highly recommend setting up a website for your podcast with good content and an email-capture form so that you can begin to start building an audience on your own platform.
Tools to Build a Website:
- SquareSpace
- Wix
- WordPress + BlueHost (What I use).
- Others
Tools to Build an Email List:
Tools to Automate Social Media:
3. Combine positive emotions and useful content.
This point really depends on the type of podcast that you have. However, I’ve noticed that educational podcast episodes that come from more of an infotainment perspective tend to be received better than those that are simply pure entertainment or purely informational.
What do I mean by that? Rather than droning on or asking an interview guest dull questions, spice it up! Bring some emotion and personality to the experience.
I wrote about this more in this post regarding some of the mistakes I’ve made with my podcast, but here are a few ways that you can bring more personality to your podcast episodes:
- Vary your tone and pitch
- Memorize relevant engaging stories that you can tell
- Joke about pop culture or common industry knowledge
- Share a personal fact that relates to the podcast
- Draw interesting analogies to make it easier to understand a topic
- Sound excited and passionate!
I wouldn’t overdo it, but adding a bit of personality will make your podcast more interesting and the listener will come away feeling like they’ve gotten a lot of good informational content and that they’ve had a blast.
Don’t forget!
Tiny changes can make a huge difference in results. I don’t know how this podcast will progress over time, but I think it will be interesting to see how some of these changes I’ve begun to implement will affect future downloads. Let me know what your podcast is about in a comment below!
