Every podcaster I have ever talked to always has the same complaint. They are not happy with the amount of downloads their show gets each month, and they want more. In this episode, I’ll tell you the only 2 ways to grow your show and how you can take advantage of them. 

When it comes to podcast growth, it’s a conversation that every podcaster wants to have. It’s probably the most asked question in any podcasting Facebook group and I have found that it doesn’t matter whether your show gets 100 downloads a month or a million downloads a month, we always want more!

So guess what? Today I am going to simplify podcast growth for you.

In my viewpoint, when you boil everything down to its most foundational elements, there are only 2 ways to grow your podcast. 

1. You have to tell someone about it.
2. Someone else has to tell someone about it.

Literally, that’s it!

I’m not trying to oversimplify the growth problem, but these are the 2 frames I want to view podcast growth through because truth be told, there are probably improvements you can make on both sides of the growth problem.

So, let’s start with all of the ways you can tell someone about your podcast:

I’m going to break this down into Organic vs. Paid:

Let’s start with the low hanging fruit of organic ways to telling others about your podcast:

1. Put it out on all of your social media channels consistently - and yes, there is a method to doing this effectively. But let’s go for the simpler question to start - are you even putting it out everywhere each time you publish?
2. Have you asked your current listeners to subscribe to the show? Tell without a crystal ball story.
3. Send it out to your email list? It sounds so simple, but my guess is that you aren’t actually consistently letting your email list know about each episode. What’s stopping you? What’s stopping me? Well, we get so busy keeping up with producing content, that sending out to your email list gets neglected.
4. Are you publishing it to your website? I know this seems like a trick question, but you’d be surprised how many podcasters we have taken over production of their podcasts for, only to start with a stack of episodes that have only published to their RSS feed, and not published to their websites.
5. Are you publishing to every available platform? Again, not a trick question, but you would be surprised at how many people don’t understand how to get their podcast to every free distribution platform, because they only know about Spotify or Apple.
6. Do you have your podcast listed in your bio of all your social media channels? So many people overlook optimizing your social profiles to show that you have a podcast. You’ll want to take care of this one before tackling the next one. Don’t make it hard for people to find your show.
7. Are you a member of groups where your target listeners are gathering on social media? If not, go join some groups and become a valuable member. Don’t just spam the group, but get in there and answer enough questions so that people want to go to your profile and check out why you know so much. There they will see your podcast on your recently updated profile.

Mention the delayed commenting strategy and the member value shout out strategies.

8) Have you put your podcast on local bulletin boards and such at businesses in your local area? You’d be surprised at how many listeners you can get locally from this. Just create a business card for your podcast and invite people to listen.

Ok, those are the main ways for you to tell others about your podcast organically, so let’s move on to the ways you can get others to tell people about your podcast.

Again, these are all going to be organic methods, because we will save for a different conversation.

1. Guesting on other podcasts.
2. Implement the wingman strategy. Explain.
3. Asking your current listeners to share the podcast with their friends who they know may be interested in the topic? Reference Without a Crystal Ball
4. Offering your expertise to group owners who have groups of your listeners gathered? Talk about my relationship with Melvin’s group.
5. Actively look for people you can partner with to help both of your podcasts. Be each other’s resident expert. 
6. Strategically choose guests for your podcast because you want to build a relationship with them and get in front of their communities. Tell the story of Rock Your Trade Show.
7. Do something over the top to help out someone at a much higher level than you, in hopes of getting their attention and having them share what you did for them. It could be as simple as Dueting with them on social media, recording a video review of their book, course, product, etc. Write them a story, draw them a picture, (relate Russell’s story of Russian nesting dolls of his family) Help them first, so they can shout you out later.

I’ve given you 8 ways you can completely control to grow your podcast.

I’ve given you 7 things you can do to influence someone else to share your podcast.

What did I miss? What strategies have you found that have worked?

Need some help with your podcast, but don't know where to turn - a podcast audit is a great place to start. Go to https://teampodcast.com/tuneup to learn more!