People make decisions based on the information they have available to them. When it comes to podcast discover, that information almost always consists of just two elements: Your show title and cover art.

These two elements, then, are the first and more impactful listener filter. Get them wrong, and you’ll miss out on a constant stream of your ideal listeners who are passing the show over because they don’t realize it’s relevant or aligned with their taste.

But what does the “wrong” title or cover art even look like? And more importantly, what does the “right” packaging for your show look like (if it even exists).

In this episode, we break down the data from the 2024 Podcast Marketing Trends Report to identify what high-growth shows do differently when it comes to crafting their packaging—and how you can borrow those lessons to help increase your show's growth potential.

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Topics Covered

00:00 Why packaging matters 
00:42 Behind the scenes of our cover art development 
07:33 Attributes of memorable podcast titles 
20:51 Why artwork matters more than most people realize 
24:48 Analyzing podcast cover art effectiveness 
27:02 Host photos on cover art 
33:05 Designing distinctive visual elements 
34:24 Your artwork's primary job 
38:06 Developing taste for good artwork & titles 
44:52 Investing in professional help 
46:05 Our favorite podcast titles 
50:23 Our favorite podcast cover art 
56:25 Perfect pairings of titles and cover art 
01:01:32 Final thoughts and listener requests

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

Resource
Hello, My Name is Awesome by Alexandra Watkins
Stand the Fck Out* by Louis Grenier
Holly Arnett
The Dipby Seth Godin
Purple Cow by Seth Godin
Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin
Crypto Confidential by Nat Eliason 

Additional Resources

Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained

Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2024 Report

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Podcast Packaging
You’ve probably heard that content is king. The problem is that no one—literally not one single listener—will consume your content without first passing through the gatekeeper that is your show’s “Packaging”—including your show title, cover art, episode titles, and descriptions.

While these elements are often afterthoughts to the podcast content itself, they have the power to single-handedly attract or repel would-be listeners, making them an unignorable aspect of podcast marketing strategy

About Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Podcast Marketing Trends Explained is a podcast about data-driven podcast marketing, growth, and monetization. In every episode, we take a peek under the hood of one data point from the Podcast Marketing Trends Report and dig into what it can tell us about how to market our shows better, and grow them faster.

On the show, we'll explore podcast marketing strategies, growth tactics, podcast listener psychology, how to create a better podcast, how to use a podcast to market your products and services and grow your business, and broader marketing trends to help you grow your audience and stay ahead of the competition.

The show is hosted by Jeremy Enns from Podcast Marketing Academy and the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter, and Justin Jackson from podcast hosting platform Transistor.fm.

Why do people listen to podcasts? And why do they listen to YOUR podcast (or one like yours)? It turns out, the answers to these questions can be found in a nerdy, obscure marketing concept called Jobs to Be Done Theory.

Jobs to Be Done Theory origins date back to the 1930s, but was more fully developed by Harvard Business School researched Clayton Christiansen—primarily through an iconic case study about milkshakes… and how people don’t buy milkshakes for the obvious reasons you might think.

But JTBD applies to much more than milkshakes. In fact, it applies to every product, service, piece of content—including podcasts—that any of us spend time, money, or attention to consume.

In this episode, we’ll break down how to apply JTBD theory to boost the effectiveness of your marketing by aligning your content, messaging, and packaging with the job your listeners are seeking out a show to do.

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Topics Covered

00:00 Case Study: How Justin “Hires” Different Shows 
02:31 An Introduction to Jobs to Be Done Theory 
08:24 The Importance of Emotional Resonance in Podcasts 
13:06 Assessing Podcast Growth by “Job” 
21:19 Understanding Listener Psychology 
26:12 Understanding Trigger Events 
30:39 Examples of Trigger Events 
35:50 Challenges and Opportunities for Problem Solver Shows 
41:36 Challenges and Opportunities for Pleasure Giver Shows 
45:04 Leveraging Listener Behavior for Show Growth 
51:50 Practical Examples of Podcast Jobs to Be Done

⭐️ Take our 2-minute podcast marketing audit to instantly identify the marketing problems keeping you from growth: https://go.podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit-pmte-sn ⭐️

Resources Mentioned
Clayton Christensen

Ezra Klein
Freakonomics

Ramit Sethi
Dave Ramsey 

Mel Robbins

Joe Rogan

LeVar Burton Reads 

Additional Resources

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

Podcast Listener Psychology
Understanding why people listen to podcasts—and why they stop—is an essential aspect of improving the efficiency of your marketing—ie. more growth with less effort.

Listener psychology encompasses everything from understanding attention spans and content preferences to parasocial relationships and listening habits. Most podcast creators focus exclusively on content without considering the baked-in psychology that is hard-wired into their listeners.

The result is unwittingly marketing your show on hard mode. Learn to understand the cognitive biases, emotional triggers, and decision-making patterns that influence how all humans (including me, you, and all your listeners) discover, consume, and share podcast content, you can create shows that not only attract listeners but turn them into dedicated fans who recommend your podcast to others.

About Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Podcast Marketing Trends Explained is a podcast about data-driven podcast marketing, growth, and monetization. In every episode, we take a peek under the hood of one data point from the Podcast Marketing Trends Report and dig into what it can tell us about how to market our shows better, and grow them faster.

On the show, we'll explore podcast marketing strategies, growth tactics, podcast listener psychology, how to create a better podcast, how to use a podcast to market your products and services and grow your business, and broader marketing trends to help you grow your audience and stay ahead of the competition.

The show is hosted by Jeremy Enns from Podcast Marketing Academy and the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter, and Justin Jackson from podcast hosting platform Transistor.fm.

Its easy to imagine that if you just had a budget to put toward paid podcast advertising, all your marketing problems would be solved. But is that really true? Anyone who’s ever done any advertising will quickly tell you its one of the most gruelling, creatively challenging marketing practices on the planet—one where you have to be ok with burning a large amount of cash up front to figure out what (if anything works). That said if you approach it with a bit of savvy… paid advertising can be a sneaky smart way to grow.

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Topics Covered

00:00 Does advertising actually work? 
01:39 Our personal experience with advertising 
08:35 Understanding advertising metrics 
11:24 Podcast advertising platforms & methods 
22:22 Real vs fake listeners 
25:00 Advertising pitfalls to watch out for 
25:39 Best practices for podcast ads 
25:56 Crafting effective ads 
29:16 Retargeting strategies 
32:33 Multi-touchpoint ad campaings 
34:37 Advanced advertising techniques 
44:21 How we’d allocate a $10k budget

⭐️ Take our 2-minute podcast marketing audit to instantly identify the marketing problems keeping you from growth: https://go.podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit-pmte-sn ⭐️

Resources Mentioned
Jay Clouse's The Lab
Corey Haines and SwipeFiles
Kattie Laur and Pod the North
Terry O'Reilly and the podcast "Under the Influence"

Additional Resources

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

About Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Podcast Marketing Trends Explained is a podcast about data-driven podcast marketing, growth, and monetization. In every episode, we take a peek under the hood of one data point from the Podcast Marketing Trends Report and dig into what it can tell us about how to market our shows better, and grow them faster.

On the show, we'll explore podcast marketing strategies, growth tactics, podcast listener psychology, how to create a better podcast, how to use a podcast to market your products and services and grow your business, and broader marketing trends to help you grow your audience and stay ahead of the competition.

The show is hosted by Jeremy Enns from Podcast Marketing Academy and the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter, and Justin Jackson from podcast hosting platform Transistor.fm.

Beneath the surface of every creative medium is a hidden code. Like DNA, this code dictates the constraints and possibilities of what’s possible within that platform. Like any platform, podcasting has its own code. The problem is most creators don’t understand the unique platform dynamics, constraints, and psychology baked into the medium… which makes it hard—if not impossible—to grow. Fortunately, once you’re able to decipher the code—of podcasting or any other platform—you unlock your potential for growth and ROI.

Topics Covered

00:00 Understanding podcast’s platform dynamics
01:58 Listener bandwidth
05:57 The data on podcast consumption
08:29 Platform constraints & listener psychology
15:37 The pros & cons of podcasting’s built-in intertia
22:13 Host-led vs concept-led growth
25:46 What do listeners expect from podcasting?
35:22 Are long podcasts actually better?
45:03 Our picks for best “podcasts”

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⭐️ Take our 2-minute podcast marketing audit to instantly identify the marketing problems keeping you from growth: https://go.podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit-pmte-sn ⭐️

Resources Mentioned
Pocket Casts
Money for Couples Podcast by Ramit Sethi
Jay Clouse and his Creator Science Show
Conversations with Tyler by Tyler Cowen
Professor G Podcast by Scott Galloway
Three Books Podcast
Ologies Podcast
Good One: A Podcast About Jokes
How I Write by David Perell
Making Sense by Sam Harris

Additional Resources

Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained

Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2024 Report

Subscribe to the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter

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

About Podcast Analytics
While podcast analytics might appear to be stuck in the stone age compared to platforms like YouTube, Google Analytics, and many social media platforms, there's a lot creators can learn about how to improve their shows and their marketing... if you know where to look.

Beyond podcast downloads, metrics like listen time, consumption rate, Spotify's podcast discovery dashboard, and more give us clues about the issues facing your show—and often tell you exactly how to navigate them. Which mean understanding your podcast analytics & metrics, and how they compare to industry benchmarks is an essential skill for marketing and growing your podcast.

About Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Podcast Marketing Trends Explained is a podcast about data-driven podcast marketing, growth, and monetization. In every episode, we take a peek under the hood of one data point from the Podcast Marketing Trends Report and dig into what it can tell us about how to market our shows better, and grow them faster.

On the show, we'll explore podcast marketing strategies, growth tactics, podcast listener psychology, how to create a better podcast, how to use a podcast to market your products and services and grow your business, and broader marketing trends to help you grow your audience and stay ahead of the competition.

The show is hosted by Jeremy Enns from Podcast Marketing Academy and the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter, and Justin Jackson from podcast hosting platform Transistor.fm.

For 74% of podcasters, downloads are the primary metric used to measure success. But should they be?

For years, downloads were one of the only ways creators could measure the reach and impact of their show. But over the past few years, we’ve been getting a slow but steady stream of new analytics tools and data points… many of which provide much more useful information about
whether what we’re doing is working than downloads alone.

Topics Covered

00:00 Why do so many people care about downloads?
06:06 The case in favour of downloads
08:13 The shortcomings of downloads as a metric
09:02 How paid podcast promotion campaigns can ruin your analytics
10:22 Is listen time a better metric than downloads?
13:26 Alternative hard podcast metrics to track
17:36 Soft podcast metrics to track
28:17 Understanding leading & lagging indicators
38:21 How we combine metrics to measure success
42:36 One final obscure metric for you to track

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⭐️ Take our 2-minute podcast marketing audit to instantly identify the marketing problems keeping you from growth: https://go.podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit-pmte-sn ⭐️

Resources Mentioned
7 Obscure Podcast Metrics to Track
Bumper
Anne Handley
Podcast Movement
PodScan 
Podchaser
Open Podcast Prefix Project

Additional Resources

Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained

Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2024 Report

Subscribe to the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter

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

More on Podcast Analytics
While podcast analytics might appear to be stuck in the stone age compared to platforms like YouTube, Google Analytics, and many social media platforms, there's a lot creators can learn about how to improve their shows and their marketing... if you know where to look.

Beyond podcast downloads, metrics like listen time, consumption rate, Spotify's podcast discovery dashboard, and more give us clues about the issues facing your show—and often tell you exactly how to navigate them. Which mean understanding your podcast analytics & metrics, and how they compare to industry benchmarks is an essential skill for marketing and growing your podcast.

About Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Podcast Marketing Trends Explained is a podcast about data-driven podcast marketing, growth, and monetization. In every episode, we take a peek under the hood of one data point from the Podcast Marketing Trends Report and dig into what it can tell us about how to market our shows better, and grow them faster.

On the show, we'll explore podcast marketing strategies, growth tactics, podcast listener psychology, how to create a better podcast, how to use a podcast to market your products and services and grow your business, and broader marketing trends to help you grow your audience and stay ahead of the competition.

The show is hosted by Jeremy Enns from Podcast Marketing Academy and the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter, and Justin Jackson from podcast hosting platform Transistor.fm.

A podcast listener's decision to click play boils down to a small number of touchpoints.

Most prominent are your show title, artwork, and episode titles. But while these (and other) touchpoints have always had a significant impact on listener acquisition, we've never had a way to track it.

Until now.

In 2024, Spotify rolled out a new discovery dashboard, giving us as creators a new set of metrics to understand how listeners flow through our listener acquisition funnel.

The best part is that if you know how to interpret the data this dashboard provides, it gives you a map of exactly what you need to do you improve your listener acquisition and grow your show.

Here's what you need to know.

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⭐️ Take our 2-minute podcast marketing audit to instantly identify the marketing problems keeping you from growth: https://go.podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit-pmte-sn ⭐️

Resources

Spotify Conversion Rate Benchmarks Report
How a Podcast Cover Art Redesign Helped Growth Mindset Psychology Grow 45% in One Month (+2,000 Downloads/Episode)

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Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2024 Report

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

More on Podcast Analytics
While podcast analytics might appear to be stuck in the stone age compared to platforms like YouTube, Google Analytics, and many social media platforms, there's a lot creators can learn about how to improve their shows and their marketing... if you know where to look.

Beyond podcast downloads, metrics like listen time, consumption rate, Spotify's podcast discovery dashboard, and more give us clues about the issues facing your show—and often tell you exactly how to navigate them. Which mean understanding your podcast analytics & metrics, and how they compare to industry benchmarks is an essential skill for marketing and growing your podcast.

About Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Podcast Marketing Trends Explained is a podcast about data-driven podcast marketing, growth, and monetization. In every episode, we take a peek under the hood of one data point from the Podcast Marketing Trends Report and dig into what it can tell us about how to market our shows better, and grow them faster.

On the show, we'll explore podcast marketing strategies, growth tactics, podcast listener psychology, how to create a better podcast, how to use a podcast to market your products and services and grow your business, and broader marketing trends to help you grow your audience and stay ahead of the competition.

The show is hosted by Jeremy Enns from Podcast Marketing Academy and the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter, and Justin Jackson from podcast hosting platform Transistor.fm.

Get in touch: jeremy(at)podcastmarketingacademy.com

Will discovery algorithms actually grow your show for you?

Since the dawn of podcasting, creators have been clamoring for better discoverability. And now, thanks to YouTube & Spotfiy’s algorithms, better discovery might be here.

But will it actually be the marketing cure-all many creators hope it will be? Or might it actually make it harder to grow? Or perhaps, algorithmic discovery will change the medium into something else entirely…

One way or another, we’re about to find out. Here’s how to prepare for it.

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⭐️ Take our 2-minute podcast marketing audit to instantly identify the marketing problems keeping you from growth: https://go.podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit-pmte-sn ⭐️

Resources

Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained

Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2024 Report

Subscribe to the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter

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

About Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Podcast Marketing Trends Explained is a podcast about data-driven podcast marketing, growth, and monetization. In every episode, we take a peek under the hood of one data point from the Podcast Marketing Trends Report and dig into what it can tell us about how to market our shows better, and grow them faster.

On the show, we'll explore podcast marketing strategies, growth tactics, podcast listener psychology, how to create a better podcast, how to use a podcast to market your products and services and grow your business, and broader marketing trends to help you grow your audience and stay ahead of the competition.

The show is hosted by Jeremy Enns from Podcast Marketing Academy and the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter, and Justin Jackson from podcast hosting platform Transistor.fm.

Over $15k of podcast marketing education is up for grabs. Here's how to get it.

Complete the 2025 Podcast Marketing Trends Survey

Resources

Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained

Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2024 Report

Subscribe to the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter

Try Transistor.fm for free for 14 days

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

It’s a turbulent time to be a podcaster.

YouTube and Spotify are introducing discovery algorithms that have the potential to both help and hurt creators. The rise of video podcasting is challenging the very definition of what a podcast even is. And AI… well, you already know about AI.

In short, being a podcaster today means trying to keep your head above water in the firehose of noise that is constantly flooding your listeners’ screens, feeds, and even personal recommendations.

So the question is: In the face of all of this noise, competition, and change, what are we as creators supposed to do? 

Or, maybe a better question: Who are the podcast creators and marketers who are making the most of this changing podcast landscape, and what can we learn from the way they’re creating and marketing their shows, that we can apply to our own?

In Season 2 of Podcast Marketing Trends Explained, our goal is to get to the bottom of these questions, using a mix of data and personal insights and observations from our own podcasting experiments.

In every episode, we’ll take one key data point from the latest Podcast Marketing Trends Report, and break down what it means for you as a podcast creator, producer, or marketer, so you can make smarter, savvier, data-driven decisions about how to make and market your show.

You can check out the full report at podcastmarketingtrends.com and hit subscribe wherever you’re listening now to get every episode of this season.

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

Resources

Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained

Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2024 Report

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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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