Michael Jordan, Simone Biles, Wayne Gretzky. Every so often, someone comes along who is playing the game at a whole different level. And when it comes to podcasting, we've got two of them.

Jay Clouse and Chris Hutchins each host hugely successful shows. And this special episode, we're getting inside the minds of these two creators to understand the thought process, experiments, and personalities behind the downloads (not to mention some serious revenue).

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Resource

Listen & Subscribe to Sound Judgment

Creator Science Podcast
Creator Science
All the Hacks Podcast
Tim Ferriss Episode w/ Chris Hutchins

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Plus, we need your help to decide what to make next.

We spend the majority of our time thinking about podcast marketing & growth. But that doesn’t mean we have it all figured out.

In this final episode of Season 1 of Podcast Marketing Trends Explained, we break down our stats from the season along with our mistakes and missed opportunities, lessons learned… and the surprising insights we’ve gained along the way.

Plus, we brainstorm three new show concept ideas to keep us busy between seasons… and ask your feedback on which one we should pursue.

Cast your vote for which show we should make next

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Topics Covered
00:00 Intro
00:49 How many downloads we expected to get going into this season
02:35 Breaking down our Season 1 stats
03:22 Is YouTube worthwhile for the average podcaster?
08:34 Engagement time and consumption rates
12:44 The metric we care about more than analytics
20:26 Assessing Season 1: What we did well
23:02 How experimentation led us to find our structure
28:21 A big mistake we made with Season 1
32:05 Mistakes and missed opportunities in Season 1
36:18 Help us decide which show we should create next
40:57 Concept idea 1: “Make it Big”
45:03 Concept idea 2: “Why It Works”
49:48 Concept idea 3: “Podcast Riffs”
54:35 Listener feedback and what to expect from Season 2

⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️

Resource

Jay Clouse from Creator Science
Josh Spector
Bumper articles on measuring listen time
Growth In Reverse
Arvid Kahl  
LinkFire
Chartable
The Futur
Unthinkable w/ Jay Acunzo 

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 A magnetic show concept gives you an unfair advantage over every other show on your topic, even in the most crowded spaces.

In the crowded world of book reviews and author interviews, This Queer Book Saved My Life stands out both through its combination of narrow niche and unique & compelling concept.

In this roast, we dissect what makes this show work from a packaging perspective, as well as some of the improvements the Host, J.P. Der Boghossian could make to increase the show’s discovery and listener acquisition.

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Topics Covered

00:00 Intro
00:12 Introducing the roastee 
00:58 First impressions: Title and artwork analysis 
01:37 Deep dive into the show's concept and title 
04:32 How we’d tweak the show description 
09:07 Episode title and description teardown 
09:15 Pros & cons of cross-posting different shows on one feed 
10:29 Leveraging book titles for discoverability 
12:31 Some of the best episode descriptions we’ve seen 
14:21 Addressing negative reviews and trolls 
15:25 Custom episode artwork opportunities 
18:47 One major potential opportunity for improvement 
20:22 The value of a podcast website

⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️

Resource

Subscribe to JP Der Boghossian's Podcast This Queer Book Saved My Life
Krista Tippett's podcast On Being
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

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Less than 5% of your potential audience is listening to your show. Here’s why, in their own words.

Even small shows with just a few hundred (or few dozen) downloads an episode have usually been listened to—at one point or another—by thousands of people.

A small number of those people are your regular listeners and superfans.

A larger number are casual listeners and samplers, people who don’t listen to every episode, but rather based on their interest in a specific episode topic or guest.

And then there are the people who listened to one episode or less… and never came back. While the data is hard to measure, chances are, less than 5% of the people who are both aware of your show and interested in your topic are regular listeners.

Which begs two questions:

1. Why aren’t they listening?
2. Is there anything you can do to change that?

To get to the bottom of this frustrating phenomenon, we ran a survey to our larger audience to find out—in their own words—what kept them listening more regularly… or at all.

The good news?

They didn’t hold back.

And in this episode, we break down their feedback, which—while aimed at our show—likely applies to your show as well.

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Topics Covered

00:00 Intro
00:49 9k email subscribers… 350 downloads
02:41 How listeners choose what content to engage
04:50 The role of 'Jobs to Be Done' in podcasting
11:32 Why our audiences are tuning us out experiment
15:30 Understanding your Total Addressable Market
18:32 Strategies for retaining podcast listeners
21:24 Earning the right to long term listeners
26:28 Breaking down our casual listeners repsonse data
29:01 The challenges of creating career-adjacent content
30:16 Creative ideas to engage more listeners
33:36 What listeners like about our titles and descriptions
37:13 Using feedback to guide your content strategy
41:50 Why non-listeners choose not to listen
44:06 How to break through to non-listeners
49:43 How we’re incorporating this feedback

⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️

Resources

Check out our full audience survey data
Walkthrough: How to replicate this survey for your show

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Tim Ferriss has inspired countless podcasters to create shows interviewing “top performers”… but can any of them succeed? And if so, what’s the blueprint? 

In this episode of Podcast Marketing Trends Explained, we roast DSTLLD's podcast's packaging.

We break down what's working, what's not, and what you can learn to improve your podcast cover art, title, show description, SEO, and episode titles to improve your podcast discoverability and get more listeners.

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Topics Covered

00:00 Intro
00:57 Roasting the DSTLLD Podcast: First Impressions
01:38 The importance of clear, searchable naming
06:52 Cover art teardown
09:05 Podcast description teardown & ideation
10:39 How to compete with established shows by finding your unique angle
18:07 Packaging individual episodes
22:27: How to become the next Tim Ferriss or Jordan Harbinger
30:06 Final thoughts and recommendations for growth

⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️

Resource

Subscribe to Blake Bottrill's DSTLLD podcast
Jordan Harbinger Show
Tim Ferriss
"3 Books" by Neil Pasricha

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They’re not always obvious, but the elements of storytelling are at the heart of every great episode. This is as true for interview and solo shows as it is for narrative. For comedy & fiction as it is for business.

And in this episode, with the help of a special guest, we’re breaking down the core principles of storytelling and how to incorporate them into your show.

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Topics Covered

0:00 A new podcast growth experiment
3:21 Introducing Sound Judgment
6:24 Crafting your show’s Sound Vision
16:06 Structuring your episodes for impact & retention
18:54 Thinking in scenes
23:20 Surprise: The unexpected emotion behind all great podcast episodes
35:42 Why specifics are the key to unlocking memorability and emotion
40:20 Our analysis of the Sound Judgment episode
42:17 Digging deeper into defining your sound vision
47:35 How we use scenes to structure this show
51:33 How to incorporate surprise & suspense into your episodes
58:47 How to be a more specific (and thus, better) interviewer
1:01:52 The elements of a fantastic cross-promotion pitch

⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️

Resource

Listen & Subscribe to Sound Judgment

The Story Grid
YouTube: Brandon McNulty
On Being
Wild Boys
Famous & Gravy

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Advantages (& pitfalls) of serialized shows, leveraging Apple Podcasts “Channels”, SEO opportunities, standing out by aiming narrow, and the power of a well-defined Jobs to be Done. 

In this episode of Podcast Marketing Trends Explained, we roast History of the Germans podcast's packaging.

We break down what's working, what's not, and what you can learn to improve your podcast cover art, title, show description, SEO, and episode titles to improve your podcast discoverability and get more listeners.

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Topics Covered

00:00 Intro
00:46 First impressions of History of the Germans 
01:04 Episodic vs. serial podcasts pros & cons 
02:18 Exploring Apple Podcast channels 
05:59 Cover art and first impressions 
07:58 The power of a well-defined Job to be Done 
11:32 Title and description breakdown 
14:36 Dissecting the episode titles 
17:02 A major pitfall of long-running serialized shows (and how to fix it) 
22:48 A big opportunity to stand out in any niche 
25:48 Leveraging SEO and website optimization 
36:03 Final critiques and suggestions 

⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️

Resource

Subscribe to History of the German's Podcast
Mark Manson

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We all know success doesn’t happen overnight. But what does the data say about how long it takes to reach 1k… or 10k downloads per episode? 

Podcasting is inherently a slow-growth medium. 

Without a central discovery system offering the potential for virality, growing a podcast is a long game of slow, steady, incremental growth that compounds over time. 

But while you might expect growth to be somewhat slow when you start out, how long should it take before it speeds up? 

In this episode, we’re breaking down what the data says about how long it takes the typical show to reach the 1k and 10k milestones, the factors that influence those timelines, and what you can do to accelerate the process. 

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Topics Covered

00:00 Intro
00:59 Podcast growth lessons from Warren Buffett  
05:00 When typical shows hit the 1k & 10k dl/ep milestones 
10:36 How experience affects a show’s growth rate 
15:21 What everyone gets wrong about consistency in podcasting 
26:16 The powerful compounding of relationships 
31:33 Stacking micro-improvements to your show with every episode 
35:26 Strategies for navigating (and avoiding) creative burnout 
38:28 Building your transferable skill set 
44:22 Our personal stories of creative compounding that have got us here 
56:12 The impact of mentorship and constructive critique

⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️

Resource

Mike Birbiglia’s Podcast, *Working It Out*
Build and Launch, Past Project by Justin Jackson
Mega Maker, Project by Justin Jackson 

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Creating intrigue in your description, matching your artwork to your audience, ChatGPT messaging hacks, finding audiences that are already “in motion”. 

In this episode of Podcast Marketing Trends Explained, we roast Open to Criticism's podcast's packaging.

We break down what's working, what's not, and what you can learn to improve your podcast cover art, title, show description, SEO, and episode titles to improve your podcast discoverability and get more listeners.

From leveraging resources like Chat GPT to non-designer design tips, there are easy ways to make small tweaks to make a big impact.

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Topics Covered

00:00 Intro
01:10 First impressions on Open to Criticism's podcast packaging 
01:36 Assessing the show’s cover art 
02:21 Color choices and design insights 
04:44 Breaking down the podcast description 
09:19 Advice for crafting a more compelling podcast description 
14:29 Exploring audience targeting and how it affects a show’s packaging 
16:44 A ChatGPT hack for testing your messaging 
19:22 Why you need to look for an audience that’s already “in motion” 
22:04 Optimizing episode titles and descriptions for engagement 
23:14 How to do custom artwork well 
25:52 Leveraging strong, punchy episode titles 
29:59 The complexities of creating good podcast custom episode artwork 
40:13 Final thoughts on enhancing a podcast’s overall appeal

⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️

Resource

Subscribe to Wendy Lloyd's Open to Criticism Podcast
Nat Kadlack
Chat GPT

Complete the Podcast Marketing Trends 2024 Survey

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How long should your episodes be? What’s the best format for growth? Plus... the single most important decision you can make if you want to grow. 

Before you launch a new show, you have to make a number of creative decisions that set the course of your show. 

Will you do an interview, solo, or co-hosted show? How long should your episodes be? How often will you release new episodes? And who is this actually for? 

These structural decisions tend to get made once, sometimes without much thoughts… but they cast a long shadow over the growth potential of your show forever. 

So how do you ensure you’re making decisions that align with your goals and give you the best chance at success? 

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Topics Covered

00:00 Intro

00:53 How much does a podcast's structure matter in terms of its success? 
03:26 Breaking down our recent episode length experiment
10:12  A better question than “how long should my episodes be?” 
19:03 Which show format is best for growth? 
23:48 The impact of podcast format for success and audience growth 
25:22 What makes for a great interview show? 
25:43 The art of crafting compelling interview shows 
29:45 What makes for a great solo podcast? 
33:31 What makes a great co-hosted show? 
37:01 How we would design a show to get to 50k downloads/episode

⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️

Resources

Akimbo
You're Wrong About
How I Write
Essay - Hide Your Work
Tanner Campbell - Practical Stoicism
Pod Save America podcast
All In podcast

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✍️ Leave your feedback for the show: http://podcastmarketingtrends.com/feedback