A few years ago I accidentally hit a guy on the golf course. I'm not proud of it — although it did bank in almost perfectly off his calf on its way toward the hole. But the swing that caused it taught me something I haven't stopped thinking about: my brother told me to quit trying to kill the ball and just make good contact. Looking at podcasting, it turns into the best explanation I've found for why so many podcasts stop growing.
If you've ever chased a bigger download number, wondered why nobody signs up for the thing you're selling despite having a decent audience, or just felt like you're doing everything and getting nowhere, keep listening — because the fix isn't a bigger swing.
It's Not About a Big Audience. It's About the Right One.
I talk to podcasters constantly who are chasing the same fantasy: flip a switch, get 10,000 downloads overnight. I get it — I've wanted that too. But it doesn't exist unless you've got a massive budget, and even then it doesn't always work.
Quick, honest question: who won American Idol season six? They had a million people watching. Doesn't mean you remember them, and it doesn't mean they connected.
Here's the math that changed how I think about this: if you ran your show as a $30-a-month membership, you'd only need one person willing to pay to break even (assuming you're spending $30/month). But not just any listener does that — it has to be someone connected to you. So the real target was never more downloads. It's finding roughly 500 right-fit people who trust you. Downloads don't join a membership.
Connected people do.
What a Musician Taught Me About Connection
I study podcasters, but I also study musicians, authors, and YouTubers, because we're all in the same business — entertaining people with our art. One of my favorite channels right now is Mary Spender's. She's a musician, not a podcaster, but what she said recently hit me right in the chest:
"We've spent years treating streaming numbers as though they measure fandom, but perhaps they often measure familiarity instead. Millions of streams doesn't necessarily become hundreds of people willing to leave the house on a Wednesday evening. Maybe we've become incredibly good at measuring attention, but forgotten how to measure connection."
Swap "streams" for "downloads" and "tickets" for "memberships," and she's describing exactly what's happening in podcasting. Mary lost £12,000 on her last tour. Instead of giving up, she changed her approach: "Not to chase the biggest room, to chase the right room. Not to impress the most people, to matter to the people who choose to be there." Knowledge is knowing that. Wisdom is acting on it — and she is, booking her own shows again, more intentionally this time (And enjoying it more).
How to Actually Get in Front of the Right People
We've been brainstorming growth ideas in the School of Podcasting community, and the point was never to do all of them — it's to pick one, test it, and measure it. A few examples:
- Guesting on other podcasts that share your audience — less friction, since that audience already knows how to listen to a podcast.
- Podcast swaps, shout-outs, or a 30-second promo trade.
- Speaking engagements or workshops.
- Writing for a publication your audience already reads.
- Your own blog and SEO — no, it's not dead.
- Partnerships that go beyond sponsorship, where you actually help each other promote.
- Word of mouth — which drives roughly 70% of podcast growth, and yet almost nobody deliberately asks for it. Ask your audience, specifically and simply, to share the show with one friend.
- Local, unglamorous options: I used to slip a business card into a book on the page matching my age, in a genre my audience would read. Free. Slow. It worked, a little at a time.
None of these flip a switch. They're singles, not grand slams. You build an audience one person at a time.
Would you spend 5 minutes to get 36 people to your site each week?
How I Found Out What's Actually Working: Click Trackers
Here's the part that surprised me. I started putting a click tracker (I use Switchy) on every link I post — social, LinkedIn, wherever. Takes about 41 seconds per link. What I found: my email list outperformed every social platform by double digits, while everything else stayed in single digits. One email drove 36 clicks in a week — times four weeks, that's potentially 144 people who might actually listen, follow, or tell a friend. And it cost me less than five minutes.
Would you spend 5 minutes a week to get 36 people to your site each week? Again, this is not the 10,000 switch. It's one strategy, and leaves you lots of time to try others.
The click isn't the whole story, though — a click is still just attention, the same thing Mary warned about. What matters is what happens after it: did that traffic turn into an email subscriber, a membership signup, a real connection?
Track that, and you'll quickly find out which platforms are worth your time and which ones you can quietly stop feeding. (If you want a free option instead of a paid one, Short.io does the same basic job.) So the "extra" time you spent using click trackers, you get back by identifying strategies that don't work for you.
Two People Who Grew by Showing Up Consistently, Not Loudly
In the early days of podcasting, Steve Stewart (Podcast Editors Academy) built recognition for years by simply leaving comments on other people's shows — for free. Eventually every show about podcasting seemed to mention him. Neil Veglio did something similar on Pod News Weekly Review, showing up consistently with sharp, specific insight until listeners started recognizing his name. Neither of them flipped a switch. They just kept showing up in the right rooms. I plan on doing some sort of collab with Neil in the future.
Ask Your Audience Who They Actually Are
If you're just starting out and don't have an audience yet, go find where your future audience already hangs out — YouTube comments on a similar channel's most-viewed video, or Amazon reviews for books on your topic (skip the 5-star and 1-star reviews; the 4-star ones that explain what would've made it a 5 are where the real feedback lives).
And if you already have an audience: ask them directly what they want, more than once, and explain why it helps them to tell you. Track the link to your survey the same way you track everything else — if 12 people click but only 6 finish it, that's useful data too.
The Bottom Line
Hope is not a strategy. Neither is waiting for the 10,000-download switch — I've been looking for one since 2007, and it doesn't exist. Growth doesn't come from a bigger swing: more effort, more platforms, more reach. It comes from solid contact with the right people, and you won't know what's solid contact until you measure it.
If you want help building the kind of connection that actually turns into a membership, that's exactly what I do at School of Podcasting. Head to schoolofpodcasting.com and use coupon code LISTENER for a monthly, quarterly, or yearly subscription — backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Links & Resources Mentioned
- School of Podcasting — https://schoolofpodcasting.com (coupon code: LISTENER)
- PodPage — https://podpage.com
- Switchy — Click tracker with lifetime one time payment. (aff)
- Short.io — https://short.io (free click-tracker alternative)
- Steve Stewart / Podcast Editors Academy — stevestewart.me
- Ask the Podcast Coach - Weekly live show with free podcast consulting.
Also mentioned by name on the episode, but no specific link was given on air — worth dropping in your own before publishing:
- Big Podcast Playbook (David Hooper)
- Pod Mastery (Neil Veglio)
- Buzzsprout (ad platform)
- Pocket Casts (app)
Mentioned In This Episode
Join the School of Podcasting Community
Profit From Your Podcast Book
Power of Podcasting Network
Dave's YouTube Channel
Dave's Podcasting Newsletter
Buy Dave a Coffee
Put Dave In Your Pocket
Where Will Dave Be?
Question of the Month
Mentioned in this episode:
Question of the Month: Constructive and Deconstructive Feedback
This month we are talking feefdback. What is the most constructive or deconstructive (or both) piece of feedback you've received. If you haven't asked for feedback, why not? I need your answer by September 25th (late entries won't be accepted) go to www.schoolofpodcasting.com/question and be sure to mention your show and your website address so I can link to it in the show notes.
Question of the Month
Where Will I Be?
I love meeting you when I'm out at events. Here are some of my next events:
It’s where your audience learns who you are, explores your episodes, and decides to subscribe.
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