The real way to grow a podcast in 2024 | Podcast tips 2024

when I launched my podcast a year ago I really really struggled to get more than a 100 downloads per episode fast forward a year later I have now accumulated over 880,000 downloads and I've gained majority of those downloads within the last 6 months or so so how did I do it well there were five things that I put into place which massively changed the trajectory of my podcast and I'm going to break down each of those five changes in today's video this video is brought to you by Des script's new remote recording feature more on them later okay so let's kick off with the first change that I made and this one's going to come with the harsh truth so buckle up buckle up the harsh truth is that it's not enough just to create an Instagram account or a Tik Tok account or whatever type of social media account you want to create to promote your podcast and then just sit back and wait for the downloads to pour in it just doesn't quite work like that right and that was very much my marketing strategy for the first six months of my podcast so when I decided actually I was going to step it up again it meant that I had to review my marketing strategy and actually decide to do something a bit different so instead of relying on the odd post promoting my podcast on my social media channels I decided to approach things a bit differently the first thing that I did is I launched a multi- channel strategy which basically means I didn't just rely on my Instagram channel for example I also relied on the other marketing channels that I had at my disposal now because I had spent a few years building an email list which is essentially a list of emails of your subscribers and your followers so that you could email them directly it meant that I had an entire email list that I could utilize to promote my prodcast and for context at the time of filming I have just over 16,000 subscribers on this email list and if you want to know how I did that I will link to a video up here so that you could learn how so when it came to promoting my podcast on my email list I decided to do a few different things I do these end of month wrap-ups where I share the lowdown on all of the podcast episodes that went live in the previous month including direct links for people to listen to them also if I have a particularly interesting thought-provoking episode which obviously I try for all of them to be that interesting but you know some end up being a lot more interesting than others I will create a dedicated email or I should flag I don't write the email my very talented marketing manager will write it for me but she will write a dedicated email to my 16,000 subscribers breaking down the key learnings from that podcast episode so that people could get value from the email by itself but they could also find out more by listening to the actual full episode in addition to this another thing I did which was very tactical but led to a huge jump in full account for my podcast is host events so I actually host events for creators and entrepreneurs as part of my media company called The Creator project which my podcast also sits under so when I was planning these events I realized that actually this is a really great un for me to promote this podcast so what I would do is I would include a popup on the screen for everyone who was watching the event during the breaks which just said if you want to continue learning after this event then why not check out the podcast and this done wonders for my numbers okay so let's move on to the second change that I installed so in order for me to explain this I need to give you some context when I first launched my podcast it looked a lot different to how it looks now it even had a different name and previously my podcast was full of solo episodes where I would dive into a specific topic and to be honest they weren't that different from my YouTube content content this changed when I decided to do the Rebrand and the refresh and make all of these changes which led to its growth and in addition to a new name and a new spin on my solo episodes which are now more like my hot takes I also added in a new type of content and this type of content were industry interviews now I kind of did this for slightly selfish reasons because I've always wanted to do this and I did find myself in a situation where I was like I've met a lot of cool people and I know my audience would get so much value from hearing from what these cool industry figures have to say what also ended up happening though was I was able to gain access to a whole new audience because every time I interviewed someone they would share that podcast Interview With Their audience which would give me exposure to Their audience and don't get me wrong I'm not saying this only works if you're interviewing celebrities or really big influencers obviously it works absolute wonders in that case CU they have big audiences obviously but they aren't the only people who could help spread the word about your podcast as long as you are interviewing or featuring people who are directly related to who your podcast audience are then you may be unlocking the potential that this guest is going to get you in front of the right people cuz that's more important it's more important for my guest speakers to give me access to creators and entrepreneurs than it is for a guest speaker to give me access to millions of people who don't care about content creation or marketing right the targeted is that a word I don't know let's run with it the targeted of my guest episodes is what really helped me grow so consider doing this for your podcast too Pro tip and this one's going to cost a bit money that's why I'm just going to throw it in there as a pro tip and not a necessity if you can interview these people face to face and video These interviews not only does it make for incredible YouTube content but it also gives you the ability to create short form vertical videos that you can share on Instagram on Tik Tok to really help get the word out about your podcast let's talk about the Third change I made cuz this is a really important one this change involves my decision to use squadcast by descript to do all of my remote recording episodes so these are essentially when I'm interviewing someone remotely so we're not face to face or if I'm recording myself remotely I'm going to be real with you as someone who has their own podcast but also listens to a Copus is that the right word if you're on new to my channel you might not know that I have this habit of using words for the first time when I'm on camera and not knowing if I'm using them correctly so let's just run with whatever I say I've listened to a lot of podcasts and the quickest way to put someone off of your podcast is to have poor quality audio we've all been there we found a podcast which has a really engaging title and seems super up a street really interesting in we press play and our ears like recoil because the audio quality is just so poor which is why I now use squadcast by descript to record my remote episodes when you use squadcast by descript you can record anywhere while still ensuring studio quality audio through all of your episodes your guests can join a recording session from their phone or their web browsers and they don't need to create an account in order to join the sessions in addition to this your audio and your video is recorded in 4k quality and it's recorded locally this ensures that your recordings are consistently high quality even if you lose connection or your computer crashes this is incredibly useful I can't overstate how useful this is because prior to using this platform I've been in several situations where my internet has just decided to drop out and it's massively impacted the quality of my recording a few other features which I absolutely love about using this tool includes their robust editing tools which replace like single use editors so not only do you have access to the musthave editing tools but descript will even automatically transcribe your entire podcast episode for you once you're done recording with which whilst we're on the subject of marketing your podcast you could actually use and repurpose and turn into an email newsletter or maybe even a blog post the AI features allow you to do things like remove filler words like when you say M and R A lot don't worry we all do it you can also do things like remove your background noise enhance your speech and even and this part I thought was incredible you can overdub which basically means you can clone your voice and allow you to tweak parts of your recording where you misspoke without you having to re-record that section mindblowing squadcast by descript is built for your entire podcasting workflow allowing you to integrate with other tools collaborate with others leave comments on different edits and even giving you access to social clips and different templates too and all of this is available to you at no extra cost because it's included in descript if you want to check out squadcast by descript head to the link in my description okay so the fourth change that I made is I reviewed my presenting style now I'm still in the process of tweaking this and every single time I record I review how that recording went and I tweak it even further so let me break down what I mean so everyone has different presenting or hosting Styles and I think a lot of us go into podcasting naively thinking that it's the same as us just speaking to someone who's in front of us when actually when we're really serious about growing a podcast we have to take some time to consider the way in which we're presenting whatever information our podcast is about let's take interviews for example what kind of interviewer do you want to be if that's the type of content you create on your podcast are you going to be an interviewer which has a list of predetermined questions are you going to be an interviewer who does a lot of research or are you you going to be the type of interviewer who likes to ask questions they don't know answers to and then have a genuine organic reaction to them during the actual podcast episode you know what kind of interviewer do you want to be I've actually featured on a few different podcast episodes before and I've had such different experiences on the one hand I've had podcast interviews where the host has done an insane amount of research on me and my business and then we have a briefing call before the episode so I know what they're going to ask me they they know what they're going to ask me and it's very rehearsed and it creates a great piece of content but then on the opposite side of the scale I've had interviews where they haven't even sent me a brief and it's just been like hey do you want to go on my podcast we'll just have a chat and see where the conversation takes us and that's also resulted in an incredible piece of content and A really lovely filming experience so all of that to say that there's no right or wrong way to do it it's just important that you consider what style you're going to incorporate and you run with it and the same goes for your solo episodes are you going to be the type of solo podcast host who does 10 minute 20 minute bite-size episodes because you like to get your point across quickly that's very much who I am I blame YouTube for that when you're a YouTuber you're just very used to like getting things across before someone gets bored and clicks Off Your Video so that means that my solo episodes are usually only 10 to 20 minutes long or are you going to be the type of host who lets themsel really sink into a subject explore every single angle of it and talk for hours about it you know again both options create great pieces of content but you really got to stick to one and learn to refine it the fifth thing that I did and one of the most significant things that I did is I shared a a survey with my audience before I rebranded my podcast do not worry if you're not going for a Rebrand and maybe you're launching something fresh there's still an opportunity for you to survey your audience and if you don't have an audience yet for example maybe you don't have an audience on social media yet don't fret you can find Facebook groups or forums which are dedicated to talking about the same subject that your podcast is about or maybe are home to where your podcast audience tend to hang out and you can share your survey in there the point of this is that you're going to get feedback and remove the guesswork out of your podcast a lot of us don't like to do this because then we're like oh God what if someone tells us something that we don't want to hear and let me tell you they probably will they probably will but wouldn't you rather have the data and the information and the feedback from a survey which quite literally says we as your audience would prefer option A rather than option b would you not rather have that information versus continuing your plans to focus on option b and it taking months if not years for you to realize that you're actually doing something that your audience doesn't want and the type of questions I would ask in my survey is everything from what is the ideal length of a podcast episode that you enjoy if I were to interview people on my podcast what type of people would you like me to interview what type of questions would you like me to ask them etc etc okay guys that's the end of today's video I hope you found it useful if you feel like hanging around I recommend watching this video it's actually the very first podcast episode I ever uploaded it's a video podcast and I think it gives you a really great example of what I'm talking about when I spoke about how interviewing guests face to face and recording the interviews can create really engaging content if you feel like checking out squadcast by descript head to the link in my description you won't regret it thanks so much for watching guys I look forward to see you in my next video

Channel: Jade Beason

Views: 10,959

Keywords: how to podcast for beginners, how to start a podcast for beginners 2023, how to start a podcast 2023, podcast tips 2023, start a podcast 2023, podcast promotion, how to promote a podcast, podcasting tips for beginners

Id: ogkU6RbJaoM

Length: 11min 6sec (666 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 12 2023