Here’s to Audience Growth!

Hey there,

My name is Robert and I’m the cofounder of Amaze Media Labs and Trailergram.co

If you’re reading this, it’s because you’ve connected with me or possibly one of my colleagues in the past, either at a podcasting conference like Podcast Movement or through email, and indicated that you care about growing podcast audiences and discoverability for your shows and really for our industry as a whole.

Getting more downloads, reaching more listeners, and being at the cutting edge of online audience growth.

That’s why we’re officially launching the Audience Lift newsletter. 🚀

Once a month we’ll keep you up-to-date with what the biggest brands and agencies are doing to build organic and paid audiences for their podcasts. We will break it down so you can use those same strategies for your own content.

I believe right now audience growth and discoverability in podcasting is the biggest challenge we face in podcasting.

Together we can make sure that we continue to grow the entire podcast industry.

If you’re not interested in staying up to date on audience growth strategies you can click the giant “Not Interested in Growing My Audience” button below and we’ll take you off of our list…

But if you are interested, keep reading to learn how to increase the “click through rate”

Why aren’t people listening to your podcast?

Building a podcast audience is one of the hardest parts of being an audio-first creator…

You have to find the right people online, introduce your content in a “non-salesy” way, and then hope they will find it and listen to it.

But what happens when they actually do click the link to check out your podcast? 

How can you ensure they’ll listen to an episode and then convert into a subscriber?

Here are three easy tweaks you can make to improve the “click through rate” on your podcast that every big podcast not named Joe Rogan uses today.

1. Invest in professional artwork

As much as people don’t like to admit it, we all judge books by their cover…

It’s a simple filter that protects you from wasting your time on a book you won’t enjoy reading.

The same is true with podcasts…

Your potential listener clicks the link in the Facebook group or the email that you send them and the first thing they see is your podcast’s artwork.

You have exactly 3 seconds to convince them to spend 30 minutes (or longer) with you.

And if your podcast artwork looks like a poorly modified Canva template or something you hired your cousin to make for $5 using Microsoft paint…

They’re not going to listen.

So do yourself a favor and make sure your podcast artwork stacks up against the big boys by investing in a professionally designed graphic.

Platforms like UpWork and 99designs are good places to start if you haven’t worked with a graphic designer before.

Check out this LinkedIn article by Carey Green with some excellent tips on how to improve your artwork design.

2. Be precise with the name of your podcast

Unless you are Oprah or Elon Musk, your podcast should not be called “First and Last Name’s Podcast.”

That doesn’t tell anyone anything about why they should listen to you instead of the newest offering from NPR or Wondery.

Instead, be very precise and specific with what the podcast is about.

Is your podcast about marketing? Include the word marketing in the podcast name.

Is your podcast for homeschool moms? Include the word homeschool in the podcast name.

It’s not rocket science, and it’s one of the most effective podcast SEO and discovery strategies you can implement to help new listeners find your content.

3. Write clear episode titles

Once someone new stumbles onto your podcast, sees that your podcast artwork has been professionally designed, and understands what your podcast is about…

They are going to choose an episode to “sample.”

It’s very important that they find something they’re currently interested in listening to.

If your episode titles are written as inside jokes, only list the name of the guest, or start with “Season 4, Episode 27” they will quickly lose interest and move on with their day.

People are picky with how they spend their time (especially if they can be scrolling through funny dance videos on TikTok instead), so you want to make it as easy as humanly possible to find an episode they will enjoy listening to.

Use questions or statements that mirror the things they want to learn:

• How to start a podcast for your business

• 12 ways to use AI to build a professional website

• 3 mistakes most homesteaders make when canning for the first time

• Why the super bowl is so popular for brands and advertisers

Put these three tips together, and any marketing strategy you put in place will be more successful.

Happy hunting!

PS. Did you get all the way to the bottom of this email and decide the content was pretty blah?

No worries…

Just click the button below and you won’t receive any more of these newsletters from me.