Ep 85: Are You Killing Your Podcast's Growth?

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Hello everybody and welcome

back to another episode of the

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Lazy Girl's Guide to Podcasting.

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I have a different setup

going on at the moment.

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I am currently, and I am not exaggerating

at all here, I am currently in the

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corner of my bedroom Everything,

including me, is sat on the floor.

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My microphone is balanced on my knee.

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The reason for this is, where I was

recording in this spare room, which I

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was using as a little podcast studio,

has now been turned into a bedroom for

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Dear Daughter 2, which is wonderful.

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Don't get me wrong, I'm

just very happy with it.

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And we had a great weekend as a family

designing it, putting it all together.

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But, um, But it means that the

podcasting studio, and I'm very much

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saying that in adverse commas, is now

corner of my bedroom and my husband's

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bedroom, whilst we now figure out how

we are going to make that go forward.

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But actually, I've already been

testing out the sound on GarageBand.

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I'm now recording in Descript and

I'll come onto that in a little bit,

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but I was recording in GarageBand

just to, just to play around with it.

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And actually, I feel that the audio

is actually a little bit better

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because it's carpeted in here.

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I'm talking into like a bit

more of a corner, so I feel

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like the audio is a bit better.

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I'd be interested to know

what, what you all think.

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As I said, I am recording

in D script at the moment.

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I have for been recording in Riverside.

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You all know, but I'm a huge,

huge advocate for Riverside.

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But I just found that, I dunno, I just

feel like it's been kind of glitchy

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over the last few months or so.

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So I don't know, it could just be me,

but I decided that I was going to take

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the opportunity canceled my subscription.

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This isn't hating on them.

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I was just finding that, I don't

know, maybe it's my bandwidth.

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I don't know.

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But I've cancelled my subscription

to Riverside and I'm now

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taking the opportunity to try

out a few different things.

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So, I was playing around with GarageBand

but then I decided, actually, I

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have a free account on Descript.

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Why don't I trip over to Descript again?

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I used it at the beginning of the

Lazy Girls Guide to Podcasting.

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So, I'm going to try it again.

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So, here we are.

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But we're not talking about

any of that for this episode.

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What we're talking about for

this particular episode is, are

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you killing your podcast growth?

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And you're probably thinking, no,

I'm doing absolutely everything

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I can to make my podcast grow at

an amazing rate just no verity.

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What are you chatting about?

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But I think you could possibly be

killing your podcast's own growth

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without even realizing that.

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And I'm going to explain that to

you and then stick around until the

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end of the show where I'm actually

going to give you three top tips

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that you can implement today.

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To make sure that you are actually growing

your podcast at a rate that you want to

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be seeing results from and getting your

podcast to whatever that point is that you

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define as your podcast being successful.

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So do stick around for those

top tips for how to grow your

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podcast at the end of the show.

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Let's unpick this Are you

killing your podcast growth?

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And it's that idea.

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I feel of Podcasters just being scared

to make changes, you know, we start with

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a certain status quo You know, we stick

with the same software the same tech

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the same marketing, whatever it is, we

have systems and processes in place.

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And that's great.

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But I think it's really important

to realize that people are creatures

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of habits and therefore by default,

podcasters are creatures of habits.

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And I think that there's this

massive conversation to be had around

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people being scared to change things

because we don't like major changes.

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So why would we want major

changes in our podcasting?

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And, you know, changes could be anything.

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It could be, like I've said, how I

have decided to stop using Riverside.

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temporarily, might be permanent.

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We shall see.

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And I'm experimenting with Descript

or I might even go back to GarageBand.

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That's a change that some people might

think, well, I'm not going to do that.

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But actually through one

way or another, it might.

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improve my podcast growth.

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It could be that you find that you

have this little bug at the back of

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your mind that you need to change

your podcast name or even just

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tweak your podcast name slightly.

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Maybe you want to insert some more

keywords or any keywords at all that

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people are searching for to find your

podcast into your show name, but you're

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scared to do that because, well, what if I

rebrand and I lose all of those listeners?

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Yes, but what if you rebranded and

you gain loads of visitors as well?

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And, you know, that was exactly my

experience with my first podcast.

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It was originally called

bloggers creating courses.

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I was really, really worried when I

changed it to the confident CEO that I was

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just going to lose all those listeners.

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But actually what I did was I.

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Saw exponential growth with that change

with that name change because it was

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much more specific I was using keywords

that people were searching for and I

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carried those through to my show notes

through to my episode descriptions

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through to the podcast description as

well And I think that's another key point

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as well is looking at your show notes.

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Are you somebody who's maybe just

used a couple of lines before?

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And actually you could be writing show

notes that are much more in depth.

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And if you're thinking verity, I

don't have the time to do that.

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You could use a free

tool such as chat GPT.

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You could use paid for systems

such as summarize or cap show.

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And those tools will really help

to flesh out your show notes.

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Get those keywords in there and it could

be that you change the format of your

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episode slightly That again could be huge.

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So I had so many people, when I

got rid of the introduction for

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Lazy Girl's Guide to Podcasting,

being like, oh, what are you doing?

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But everyone said you need a podcast

intro, and all these kind of things.

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And I just think, you know what, if

you want a podcast intro, like, you

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know, a formalised one with music and

stuff, fine, and I'm not saying I'll

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never go back to that, but what I am

saying is that it seemed like a scary

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change to implement, and not have a

kind of, you know, traditional, quote

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unquote, Intro for my show, but actually

I found that it's been really, really

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great at retention for the podcast.

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And it's given people the opportunity

to message me in DM, particularly

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on Twitter and say things like,

Oh, it's actually given me the

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confidence to, to do this myself.

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So what I mean when I say, are

you killing your podcast growth?

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I think a lot of it is podcasters

kill their podcast growth by sticking

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with a status quo and sticking with

strategies that just aren't working.

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And I think sometimes we need to be

really critical with ourselves and

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look at our show and if we're not

growing in the way that we want, and

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that growth by the way, can look awful.

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So many different ways.

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It could be growth in

terms of download growth.

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It could be growth in terms

of audience retention.

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So having your audience listen

to your episodes for longer.

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That growth is going to look

different for every single podcaster.

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And we need to be out of the

mindset that growth doesn't exist.

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Always equates to more downloads,

but I do honestly think that a lot

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of people get in the way of their

own podcast's growth because they're

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not willing to try new things.

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So that then brings me on to these three

tips, which I promised you that I would

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give you about how to grow your podcast

and you can implement these today.

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So the first thing is to tell

everybody about your podcast.

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The number one way of getting new

listeners and new ears on your podcast is.

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to tell people about it.

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Word of mouth referral is the top

way for people to discover podcasts.

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So tell people about your podcasts.

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And if you want more information about

that, clink the link in the show notes

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where I've got a five day email challenge,

which focuses on those easy wins, those

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strategies to help you grow your podcast

and make sure you signed up to that.

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The second way to grow your podcast is

play around with different keywords in

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your podcast title, and in your podcast

show description, really consider not

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what you think your audience are searching

for in the keywords, but talk to your

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audience and find out what kind of

keywords are they typing into the podcast.

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Apple podcast, Spotify, et cetera,

and utilize that knowledge and utilize

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those keywords because that is going

to help you rank in search results.

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And finally, experiment with different

podcast podcast to be listed in.

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So if you're in an education

category for your podcast, that's

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not really working too well for you.

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Well, maybe switch it up a little bit and.

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Are you better suited in business or

equally if you've got a podcast in the

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business category, but you're finding

it's not ranking too well and your

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goal is to get in the charts, well

actually have you got a tech based

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business podcast and you could put

yourself in the technology category?

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You might find it doesn't work

and you want to put yourself back

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in the business category again,

but experiment with these things.

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Try yourself out in different

categories and see if that

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helps with your podcast growth.

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Consider to yourself when my audience

is searching for a podcast like mine,

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which categories are they going to?

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It's not the categories you think

they're going to or you want to rank in.

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It's thinking about where people are

going in Apple podcasts, in Spotify,

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which charts, which categories are

they clicking through and scrolling

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through to find shows like yours.

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So those are my top three tips.

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Tell everyone about your podcast,

play around with different

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keywords and experiment with

your podcast in different ways.

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different categories.

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Do you think that you're actually

guilty of killing your podcast's growth?

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Jump on over to Twitter, send me a DM.

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And if you have got a podcast friend

who you think could benefit from this

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episode, I would love it if you could

share the link with them and see how

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these strategies can also help them.

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Otherwise, thank you so much for

spending another episode with

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me and I will see you next time.