Arielle Nissenblatt: Mastering the Art of Podcast Marketing

0:00 Introduction
0:25 How Arielle got started in podcasts
0:50 Founding Earbuds
1:54 Why is marketing important for podcasters?
3:32 Identifying your podcast's audience
  - What We Talk About When We Talk About Podcasts by Tom Webster: https://soundsprofitable.com/guide-and-article/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-podcasts/
5:45 What makes a show recommendable?
7:30 How do you hook new listeners?
  - Jordan Harbinger Starter Packs: https://www.jordanharbinger.com/starterpacks/
10:01 How to grow your podcast
13:18 Getting featured in podcasting apps
  - Counter Programming: https://shiraandarielle.buzzsprout.com/
  - Get featured on Apple Podcasts: https://www.buzzsprout.com/blog/how-to-get-your-podcast-featured-in-itunes-new-and-noteworthy
  - Get featured on Spotify: https://airtable.com/shrd0oasoTLijGglG
18:14 Benefits of having a podcast trailer
  - Trailer Park: The Podcast Trailer Podcast https://pod.link/1663965044
20:41 How to make a great podcast trailer
  - Buzzsprout Ads: https://www.buzzsprout.com/ads
22:16 Podcast Ratings & Reviews
24:59 Why Arielle loves Podcast Newsletters
27:32 Platform Risk
  - Enshitification of the Web: https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
30:13 Promoting a podcast with social media
36:00 "I have a closing remark"
  - Adopt a Listener: https://tinkmedia.co/adopt

Subscribe to Buzzsprout Conversations on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Do you know somebody we should interview on Buzzzsprout Conversations? Reach out on Twitter.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Alright, today I'm here with Ariel Nissenbaw. Ariel is the head of community and contest squadcast. She's the founder of Earbuds podcast network and she hosts the Sounds Profitable podcast, and Radio Prague once called her a podcast marketing expert. Ariel, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:22

I love that you pulled that. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: 0:25

So today we're going to talk a lot about podcast marketing and how people should be growing their shows. But before we get into that, how did you get started in podcasts?

Speaker 2: 0:34

I was a listener first. I started listening in 2014 and by 2016 I wanted to listen to more podcasts, but didn't know how to find more podcasts because I was listening to the same five or six every week.

Speaker 2: 0:47

I was commuting, I was living in Los Angeles and my whole thing was I feel like I'm missing out on content. I feel like I'm missing out on beautiful podcasts that could blow my mind, change my point of view, introduce me to new people. How do I possibly find those new shows? So I said what if I started a podcast recommendation newsletter that had a theme and each week is curated by a different person, and that person could bring their five favorite podcasts from anywhere in the world, any sorts of podcasts? And so I started that newsletter, and that newsletter first of all introduced me to new podcasts, introduced me to creators, introduced me to podcast lovers and then, over time, introduced me to the podcast industry and got me jobs.

Speaker 1: 1:25

That's awesome. So 2014 was your first podcast listening to Serial.

Speaker 2: 1:29

It was right. Before Serial it was like Radio Lab, the Memory Palace 99% Invisible. This American Life, and then Serial.

Speaker 1: 1:37

I think we all have the same gateway drugs. Those are a lot of my first podcasts too. That's great. So one of the things I always watch from a distance and always see you doing is you do these funny experiments where you're like I'm going to see if I can grow a podcast in this different way, and so we can kind of go through all sorts of these different experiments. But one thing I thought would be good to kind of set the tone is why is marketing even important? To begin with, I think that, like you have this whole thing you talk to people about, you can start creating a show. But there's also this second component.

Speaker 2: 2:07

Yeah, a lot of people forget that you actually do have to do a little bit of self promotion. And there's a fine line between self promotion, getting you know, being an advocate for your own work, and then dropping random links on the internet, being like, listen to my show now, that doesn't do anything. You have to have, you have to make a concerted effort to find out why your show is going to be impactful for a certain segment of the population and then figure out how to get it to that segment of the population. And a lot of people focus on the creative, which is very important.

Speaker 2: 2:35

It's really really important to make high quality content, but then it is, I think, equally as important to spend time getting that high quality content to the right people. And once it gets to the right people and if it is indeed high quality content, it will grow. It will. It will continue to find an audience. I mean, not every show is meant to reach tens of thousands of people. It is okay for your show to reach 5,000 people. It's okay for your show to reach 500 people. It's okay for your show to reach 100 of the perfect people to listen to your show, but you need to spend the time doing some audience research and figuring out who those people are.

Speaker 1: 3:06

Yeah, there's this spectrum from. I think a lot of people start out in this group very uncomfortable with promoting your show at all. It all feels like self promotion. And then there's the people who truly just drop links on any like Instagram post they can find and they say listen to this podcast. But there is actually a healthy medium which for most people, is uncomfortable because it does feel like self promotion when in reality it's just marketing.

Speaker 2: 3:31

A lot of people, and this is okay. A lot of people come up with an idea and they want to make that show, and that's okay. But if you want to make a show that has an audience, you have to think about who that audience is and then gear your content around what that audience actually wants. And after you make your show for some time, you identify your audience. You can actually ask questions of that audience. You can say how long should my episodes be? What episodes do you really love? Which guests do you love hearing from? Who should I have on the show? You can ask these questions of them and make the show for them.

Speaker 2: 3:59

And of course, there's a balance. You want to make sure that you're making the show that you want to make, but also the show that your listeners, who might be the ones bringing in the money that's important to you. Then you got to consider all of those things. Tom Webster had a really great article in Sounds Profitable a few weeks ago about five questions that you should ask your audience specific questions, and it's not just like what do you like about my show, it is five specific questions that I have been sharing with the world and I don't remember all of them off the top of my head, but one of them is what specific element of my show do you love so much so that, if this show were to go away, if it were to never be produced again.

Speaker 2: 4:33

What would you miss, If anything? I think that's a really important thing, because if you hear of something specific, if people answer you and they tell you something specific, that's great. If they have nothing to say, you have your answer.

Speaker 1: 4:42

A lot of businesses and you definitely see this in digital marketing. We have something called a net promoter score where you say, on a score of zero to 10, how much do you love this thing? And only if something's a nine or 10 does it count as a positive. Anything below that is neutral or negative. That question is often what you use to kind of gauge net promoter score. If this thing went away, how upset would you be? Because it's not people who are like this is fine, who are going to drive a show or make a business succeed. You know there's lots of restaurants that you're fine with, but you don't pick to go to them. It's the restaurants, it's the products, it's the podcasts, it's the shows that you're like I want this, this is my favorite thing, and you have to find at least some people that will say this is one of my favorite things.

Speaker 2: 5:26

Yes, yeah, and that person needs to then go tell people about it. I sort of alluded to this before. Once your show is, once the content is solid and you've found a few listeners who love you and your show offers them something unique, they are going to tell other people about it. And once your show gets to the point where it can be recommended word of mouth to other people, you're golden. What makes your show recommendable? I think that's a good question to ask yourself.

Speaker 1: 5:48

There needs to be like a specific thing that somebody could say when they were recommending your show and these general shows, that kind of talk about anything and everything. And I get around with my buddies and we have a beer, we talk about what's popular. Well, that show doesn't have like a definitive. You must listen to the show because and there needs to be a completion to that sentence oh, I know that you're really into new fashion in this, of this type. There's a show about that. I know that you love sci-fi movies. There's this podcast. All they do is they talk about the new sci-fi movies and then they go back to the best ones that you probably missed, and they talk about this too. It would be perfect for you. It's like things are only recommendable when they're specific. When they're general, it becomes like so hard to even imagine what.

Speaker 2: 6:36

The end of that sentence would be oh, you'd love this podcast about stories about humanity. It's like what I or could.

Speaker 1: 6:42

I just read a book about it.

Speaker 2: 6:43

Or could I just read a one-off story? Or what's interesting is? It also depends on if you're recommending a podcast to somebody who has never listened to podcasts before, or if they are a seasoned podcast listener and they're looking for something specific. If you want somebody to become a podcast listener, tom Webster again gonna bring him up. He says, don't be cute about it. If your aunt really loves knitting and you really want your aunt to become a podcast listener even though she really loves knitting, I would not recommend for her a knitting podcast, because it's not gonna be the cream of the crop. It's a specific podcast. I would recommend to her the moth. I would recommend to her a show that she can listen to while she's knitting. I think it's important to think about the activity that somebody is partaking in as they're listening, and making sure that when they're listening, they're doing something that they love, so that they associate podcasts with this thing that they love.

Speaker 1: 7:27

So another thing that we should be thinking about when we start talking about marketing for podcasts is this idea of retention and being able to hook listeners. If you're bringing in new listeners, how do we make sure that the people actually get hooked and then stick around?

Speaker 2: 7:42

You probably make your show, whether it's week after week or month after month, or however often you're putting out your episodes, you probably get stuck in the sauce a little bit. So I think every once in a while, it's important to have somebody listen to it, who you're close with, who will give you genuine feedback on whether or not this show is accessible to a new person. So, are you using inside jokes that you don't explain? Are you, do you have segments that you don't explain? Do you maybe back up and say for the folks who are new here, I think it's important to have some of those phrases thrown in every once in a while. I also think it is important to acknowledge your new listeners. So, for example, I always recommend that if you do a campaign on Cast Box, if you pay to be featured on Cast Box, you're going to get a whole bunch of new listeners from Cast Box. Something that I would recommend is calling them out specifically hello to my new listeners from Cast Box.

Speaker 2: 8:25

So think about things like that. If you know that you have gotten a bunch of traffic from a newsletter that you were just featured in, shout out that newsletter. Not only is it a way to acknowledge those people who have come to you from that, but it's also a way to acknowledge the newsletter and to say thank you. Another thing you can do is you probably have your long episodes. Maybe your episodes are 45 minutes, maybe they're 30 minutes, maybe they're even 15 minutes. I would also have short episodes every once in a while that give people a taste of who you are as a host, the types of guests that you have on. Maybe that means just having a trailer marked so that when you're listening on Apple or Pocket Cast or Spotify or wherever there is a trailer to listen to that's short, that people can sort of test the waters before they go in and listen to a full 45 minute episode.

Speaker 1: 9:05

I've seen this a few places. Substack has a really nice thing where you can pin a couple of your stories that you've written to the top. So if somebody came in and they're like I want to learn about this author, it's like hey, start with these hits. Jordan Harbinger I've seen on his podcast. He on his website is like here's where you should start. If you never listened, here are some celebrities that you probably know, but I'm going to tell you a different story when I interview them. So there needs to be some kind of on ramp to the podcast, because a lot of times you're right. Lots of inside jokes, lots of kind of assumed knowledge.

Speaker 2: 9:39

It's the same reason people pin posts on Twitter. It's the same reason people pin videos on TikTok. So that here is the best representation of me, or here's at least a representation of me. Here is how I am choosing for you to see me, if you decide to check me out.

Speaker 1: 9:53

Jordan Harbinger. Yeah, I think that's a great way of putting it, now that we've thought about all right, we can get them, we can retain them. We're making good content. We know who our audience is. How do we find them?

Speaker 2: 10:02

Jordan Harbinger. Ah, the question, I don't know, it's so hard. Growing podcast is really, really hard.

Speaker 1: 10:08

Jordan Harbinger. I think that is kind of like the first point for a lot of people. I think we imagine when we start a show, the editing is going to be the hard part, picking up the mic is the hard part, and now, okay, recording, now it's all done, but now the people are just going to flood in.

Speaker 2: 10:22

The number one question I get is I work so hard on my show, I promote it, I spend money on it. Why am I not growing? I really think it's great, I really think the content is there. Why am I not growing? Why am I not finding new audiences? And it is so understandable that you would be pissed off about that or that you would be disheartened about that.

Speaker 2: 10:39

I do a lot of consulting with people on their shows and I do it with Lauren Pacell and we call it podcast therapy, because often it turns into a therapy session because we're like your show is really great, you deserve listeners, and sometimes people cry and that's okay because they deserve listeners and so some of the tactics that we tell them about. Of course, getting featured in a podcast listening app is really great. Getting interviewed on other shows is really great. Getting editorial coverage is really great, whether it's in podcast newsletters or in newsletters in your general topic area. But the thing that we recommend to everybody that I think can benefit everybody to a certain extent is collaborating meaningfully with other podcasts in your topic area, because the way podcasts grow is borrowing audiences from each other.

Speaker 2: 11:22

Let's get my show in front of your audience, your existing audience and let's get your show in front of my audience. That might be very small at this point, but it will grow if I'm able to get my show in front of the right people. So, establishing these connections, finding the podcast that makes sense for you to be collaborating with, and then figuring out what types of collaborations you should be doing, whether that is something like cross promos or being a guest on each other's show, or having like a dedicated monthly segment where I come and be a correspondent on your show and vice versa. There are lots of ways to trade back and forth to figure out how to get me in front of your people, how to get you in front of my people.

Speaker 1: 11:58

Yeah, that reminds me of listening to ads inside of podcasts. The ones that are really powerful are where the host is actually giving like a genuine recommendation for a product. They actually received it. It's maybe something they're actually using and so they know the talking points, but they're not just saying, like this soap is 40% more going to get a grease out. It's just like, yeah, this is what I use. It works really well. I really like it, you'll like it too. The marketing language is actually toned down, but because it's genuine, it's much more effective.

Speaker 2: 12:31

But I'll also say that If the product is perfect and they're reading the talking points, it kind of doesn't matter. Crooked Media has a show called Hysteria. I find that every single product that they recommend or that they advertise for I'm like yep would buy, yep would buy.

Speaker 2: 12:48

I go to the website every time, because they just really hit the nail on the head with me. Whoever is doing their ad sourcing is doing just a really great job. They know me, they know the demographic that they're serving and they're doing pretty typical reading from the script and it kind of doesn't matter to me because the ad is so perfect and I think there's a balance there, right? Yes, you want a personal endorsement to a certain extent when it comes to, maybe, a podcast recommendation or a cross promo, but if it is the perfect podcast recommendation for you, at that time I'm probably going to listen, no matter what.

Speaker 1: 13:17

Earlier you said one of the things you can do is get featured inside of podcasting apps. How do you get featured in podcasting apps? We all know that Apple podcasts and Spotify are the two largest apps and they've got these sections where those podcasts have to be getting a ton of clicks. How do we get our shows featured there?

Speaker 2: 13:34

Yeah, not everybody's going to get featured but you can try. So Apple and Spotify and Stitcher have forms that you can fill out to try to get featured and if your podcast hits at the right time and the right person on the receiving end of that form reads it and they're genuinely very intrigued by what you've written, then they might just say let me give this podcast a chance and that could be a really big break for you. I got my podcast featured in July of 2020. I had a podcast with my friend Shira, hosted on Buzzsprout, called Counter Programming, and we got featured in July of 2020. We went from 2,000 downloads per episode to 18,000 downloads per episode.

Speaker 1: 14:12

It was a spike though.

Speaker 2: 14:14

You know it was a spike that came down. So if you look at our analytics on Buzzsprout, it was like boom, boom and you can see that visual people. But for the folks who can't see that, I just drew an arrow up to the ceiling and I drew it back down. Yeah, there are benefits and disadvantages of getting featured. So we did meet some new listeners who stuck with us, who still love us, who have even followed us to Instagram, have even emailed us, but then we also met some people who hated us so much that our rating went down to a 3.6. So there are lots of reasons to get featured and then reasons that you know you might not want to get featured.

Speaker 1: 14:48

Is there anything you can do when you're trying to fill out these forms? And we can link to all these forms in the description and in the show notes, but if you're trying to do it, is there anything more than just like it's a lottery ticket and I'm hoping that I land at the right moment?

Speaker 2: 15:03

Yeah, I mean think about why your show should be featured. Now that's a big question Is all of these podcast listening apps are they want to be the podcast listening app? Apple Podcasts wants people to listen on Apple Podcasts. Spotify wants people to listen on Spotify. Stitcher wants people to listen on Stitcher. How do we make those home pages Apple, spotify and Stitcher the best curated lists on the Internet? They need to be timely, they need to be diverse, they need to be exciting. So what about your show is timely? What about your show is diverse? What about your show is exciting?

Speaker 2: 15:31

Do you have an episode coming up that is that has that features, a guess that you really worked hard to get? That is telling a story that is relevant now. So I think that's the question to ask yourself. It's not to apply constantly. It's to apply when you have something to share, when you have, when you have something really exciting to share with these editorial curators at Apple, spotify and Stitcher and this I'm mentioning Apple, spotify and Stitcher, but there's also Cast Box, pocket Cast, there's good pods.

Speaker 2: 15:57

There's a lot of different places where you could potentially get featured. That might bring you new audience. They might not bring you new audience, they might just be a great way for you to say check us out, we got featured. You know Amazon, for example. You know there's, there's so many places that you could get featured and it really is a crapshoot whether or not you're going to find the right listeners who are going to see your cover art and say you know what that cover art speaks to me? Let me click play. And then they click play and then they listen to your trailer and then they like the trailers, then they listen to the first episode and then they can't wait for the next episode and then they keep going. But all there's so many places where they could potentially drop off.

Speaker 1: 16:27

One of the examples that I'm remembering I think this came from the submission guidelines for Apple podcasts is if you have a track and field podcast and you just throw that out there, it's not really timely. But then if the summer Olympic games are coming up, that's timely and that makes a lot of sense to be featured. Or we're having the Olympic games and you actually had interviewed somebody who was an Olympian. Now that's timely. And if they're all going to be creating these custom like categories or collections of podcasts, now you fit into a collection. That kind of makes sense.

Speaker 2: 17:00

Yeah, and think about what collections could exist and if they don't exist but they should exist, maybe that's something that you can pitch. So check out, for example, good pods. Check out, for example, cast Box has unique sounding collections. Apple also has a lot of unique sounding collections, but it's much harder to get to them. So what I would do for them is they tend to. For Native American and Indigenous Heritage Month, they'll do a collection. So does your podcast fit into that? For Asian American and Pacific Islander Month, they'll do something. So think about these calendar events that take place and how does your content fit into them. Earth Day, for example, is coming up. Should that be something that you can either submit an existing episode for, or can you think about maybe making content specifically for it for the sake of potentially being featured? That's a lot to ask of yourself, but it could be a gamble that you might be willing to take.

Speaker 1: 17:54

One of the things you've talked about multiple times you mentioned it are trailers, and so there's the benefit of having a trailer. That's like kind of the onboarding sequence. So if somebody listens for the first time and they like the cover art, the title is somewhat intriguing. Maybe they read that description and then they click the trailer and they listen to that. What are the benefits of a trailer? And then I've got to ask you about your project trailer park.

Speaker 2: 18:18

I love trailers. Trailers allow you as the creator. They force you to distill your content down into 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds, hopefully, not much longer than that. They force you to say here's what my show is about and here's what you're going to get out of it if you listen to it. It allows the listener a chance to get a sense of who you are and you have an advantage for creating one, because Apple and Spotify and a few of the other podcast listening apps have dedicated space on your quote unquote landing page on those apps for your trailer to be placed. So it gives listeners who are scrolling if they make it to your landing page and they see play trailer they're going to you're probably going to get a lot more listens to your trailer than to any of your other episodes, because people are going to try you out.

Speaker 1: 18:59

Yeah, it makes sense, like that trailer is never going to be the one that has inside jokes in it and it doesn't kind of assume you've listened to the last 400 episodes and you're referencing old stuff because you kind of go through that process of what is the show about, who's it for? Let me explain it, and you know it's a very intentional process.

Speaker 2: 19:17

It forces you. It forces you to say why is my show good and why should you listen to it?

Speaker 1: 19:22

So why should people listen to trailer park? And what is it?

Speaker 2: 19:25

I Started a podcast in February with my friend, tim Vegas called trailer park, the podcast, trailer podcast, and the goal was I love podcast trailers, but it was more so. There are probably so many trailers out there that either never got made into full shows or represent larger bodies of work, or were made just for creative purposes, and they're just such fun snippets of audio that I think more people could use to discover new podcasts or to learn more about the creative Craft of an audio teaser. So we started taking submissions for trailer park in about October.

Speaker 2: 19:59

We've had 200 people submit trailers and thank you to holy cow the buzz sprout newsletter for facilitating a whole bunch of those submissions we got like 50, I think, from being featured in your newsletter, thank you. And so people submit trailers to us. They tell us about their project, whether the show exists or maybe it was just made for a proof of concept, or Maybe it is still being made or whatever it is. And we chose eight trailers for season one and what we do on the show is we play those trailers and then we critique it a little bit, share what we liked about it, share what we think could have been better. But we're really not too critical and the goal really is help people find new shows and help creators learn how to make really great short audio content any tips from having gone through 200 trailers.

Speaker 1: 20:44

What are some common things you see in the ones that succeed, or at least the ones you like, and what are some Common like mistakes people make?

Speaker 2: 20:51

I happen to be a big fan of, in the trailer, at least spelling it out for people, letting me know what I'm gonna get out of the show who is the host, what is the name of the show. Some people forget that and I think the most part is what is the unique value proposition of this show? There are so many people who make a show and they think it's the most unique thing in the world. I'm sorry to say, but you had this idea and so did 50 other people and I really should probably write down like recurring themes within some of the trailers. But, yeah, make sure your show is unique and make sure you really spell it out for people why this show is unique. What are you doing differently in your show? And let people know in the trailer what not to. What I really did enjoy that somebody did is at the end of the trailer. They said please consider checking this out, and it sounded a little bit beggy. I.

Speaker 1: 21:36

Have listened to some that do not mention the name of the podcast and then somebody will pay to promote it using Busprout ads and doing paid promotions and they're like you know, I didn't get many listens from it and I always feel like you know the jerk who goes. Oh you know, like we missed the name here. Like I rec, like say, say to the beginning, say it at the end. You want to make sure people know for sure what your podcast is, who is for, what it's about and what the name is, because Some people will click the links in the show notes. A lot of people will just open up their podcast app and search for it. Yes, and if they don't hear the name, they're not gonna. It's unlikely that they're gonna be able to search for your podcast.

Speaker 1: 22:16

Another thing that's kind of coming up into my mind are ratings and reviews. Talked about. Getting listed in. These directories are at least getting promoted and we've talked about you got a bunch of negative ratings and reviews. But I feel like one thing we have in common that we both have kind of been shouting for a long time is like it's really valuable To get ratings to reviews, both as the listener and as the creator. Why does that resonate so much for you?

Speaker 2: 22:39

It's all about social proof. It's all about what somebody here before me. You know, when you like, go to the top of a mountain and maybe there's like a book that you can sign in a cabin. That's like Ariel was here. It's literally that. It's. Was somebody here before me and did it. Did they enjoy their experience? It's. It means that people have been to your profile, people have been to your podcast, people have listened. It shows a potential listener, that other people have been here and that they enjoyed their. They enjoyed their time with you. You know so. Podcast ratings and reviews won't do anything for the algorithm. This has been debunked. Apple has a whole thing on it on their website, and yet I still hear Multiple times a day when I'm listening to shows. Hey, would you, would you help us out by leaving us a rating and review? It really helps us ride the algorithm.

Speaker 2: 23:21

They like say it means nothing. It means nothing. That is not what helps us ride the algorithm. What helps ride the algorithm is a lot of subscribers over a short period of time.

Speaker 1: 23:29

I think it's like so powerful, especially on the listener side. When you listen to a podcast, there's something it always feels like the show I'm listening to is massive, like they're probably getting millions of downloads per episode. They would have want nothing to do with me they would. They probably wouldn't even read the email I send. And yet I run across these constantly where pretty big shows are saying things like I do have some ratings for reviews, but I only get you know one new one a month. I don't have many people who reach out to my email, even though it is in the show notes and I hope people are listening and every once in a while they get an email and they're like this is so powerful For me that, like I'm now making the connection with a human who's saying actually I listen to this when I'm driving to work and I like Wednesday mornings because I know your podcast will always be there on Wednesday mornings.

Speaker 2: 24:18

Yeah, that's beautiful. There are so many reasons to leave a rating and review and you know I feel like on this podcast a lot of times. I'm speaking to creators, but you're hopefully our listeners too. You know, you whoever's listening to this right now. Hopefully you also listen to some podcasts, and not just because you know you want to become better at your craft, but also because you genuinely enjoy listening to these shows and hopefully you take the time to let those creators know that you love what they're doing. You know, because sometimes they're not getting paid for it and they're working really hard on it and they think they're doing something unique.

Speaker 1: 24:48

And maybe they are doing something unique and if you can call them out for that, they'll be super grateful another thing that, at least in my mind, you're associated with a lot our podcast newsletters and I see a lot of synergy between podcasts and written content, whether it be blogs on a website or Newsletters. What, what gets you excited about newsletters?

Speaker 2: 25:09

I love bullet points, I love reading in short bursts and I think that what's really important for that's me as a consumer. I like to read podcast newsletters. I like to read newsletters about the podcast space, newsletters that tell me about podcast recommendations, newsletters that help me meet new creators or introduce me to new software and services. So that's me as somebody who just like loves to be plugged into the podcast space. From the creator perspective, I'll touch on in a second, but I really do recommend that, if you are watching this, if you're listening to this and you're not subscribed to pod news, to sounds profitable, to the buzz sprout newsletter, to my newsletter ear buds podcast collective, to a bunch of other newsletters that I think are really worthwhile and people spend a lot of time on them, it is worth subscribing to those because they're just a really great way to stay plugged into what's going on in this space that you are now a part of and that maybe you have been part of for a long time but you just haven't taken the time to subscribe. You're going to get weekly updates on what's going on in the podcast space. You're going to get trending episodes. You're going to hear from. You might see a podcast be featured in a bunch of different newsletters and therefore you'll know that they're doing a pr push. Maybe you'll be introduced to shows that you should be collaborating with in some way.

Speaker 2: 26:13

I am just such a big advocate for plugging into the podcast space by way of newsletters. And then, as a creator, I think it's really important to have a place where you can Correspond with your listeners. For people who have opted in to receive correspondence from you, when people subscribe to your show on Spotify or follow you on apple or, you know, hit the plus button wherever it is they're listening to shows, maybe even on youtube, whatever you don't have their email addresses, you don't have permission to contact them. If they don't hit play on your episode, you will not be Speaking to them.

Speaker 2: 26:44

So if you can get them to opt in to receive an email from you whether that's weekly, monthly, whatever it is or even if you just take their email address and don't necessarily have a newsletter that you're going to be putting out regularly, but you can use it if you need to, that is a really great way. That's a, that's a failsafe. That means that if your podcast gets removed from the airwaves or if you know there's a big data breach at wherever, and and your podcast is gone, you can still be like hi, friends, I'm glad I have your email because my podcast is gone, but I'd still love to stay in touch with you. So I just recommend making an easy landing page for yourself Maybe it's your website dot com slash newsletter and then giving people a way to sign up, and then you can have their email addresses and you won't spam them. You will be very careful with this newfound avenue for communication that you have and you're going to use it very wisely.

Speaker 1: 27:32

I feel like people are starting to wake up to something I call platform risk a bit more. You know, you invest so much in trying to grow a Twitter following and then Elon Musk comes in and starts to like change you the way Twitter works and maybe you end up realizing, oh, this isn't where I want to spend all my time. Or the same thing happens on Facebook or YouTube or any platform. Podcasting is nice because it's not run by a platform. It's a direct connection between you and your audience. Newsletters are one of the only other ways that, as soon as they give you permission, you get to contact them. Where on Twitter, if somebody follows you, if it's not a good tweet in the eyes of the Twitter algorithm, which can shift, it's not going to show up to your listeners or, excuse me, to your followers.

Speaker 2: 28:15

You know, the Twitter algorithm is now public to do you. Do you see all these things?

Speaker 1: 28:19

I've seen a bunch of people reading little bits of code and then surmising what it means.

Speaker 2: 28:25

So I've seen some nice breakdowns. I'll share them in the show notes of this episode. It's sort of like A like boost it X percentage and then a comment boost it X more percentage and then whatever it is linking in your first tweet is not a good idea, but we knew all of these things. But to have it backed up by the code is very helpful.

Speaker 1: 28:41

I guess what I'm trying to say is like these things change over time and there was a point where Facebook all they did was they'd say hey, if you have a business and you get on Facebook, you're going to go a lot of reach.

Speaker 1: 28:52

It was true. There was a period where you got a ton of reach and then Facebook started saying, okay, this is getting annoying for all the people who've liked their favorite ice cream shop that they're constantly getting bombarded with ice cream posts, and so they start like tamping down on that kind of content a bit. Well then businesses realized like wait, we invested so much in this platform, it became really big for us and now we're looking around and the only way for us to even get in front of anybody is to boost our own posts. And people have seen it on, you know, instagram, where it used to be all about images and then it was about stories. Now it's about the short form content and you need to kind of be following what the platform does podcasting. If somebody subscribes, they are going to get your podcast, or if they follow you, they're going to get their pod, your podcast. Until they make the decision, I don't want to get these on my phone anymore.

Speaker 2: 29:39

Right, yeah, so podcaster. Great, but they could choose. The reason newsletters are important is because they could choose to not listen, right? So if you have a newsletter and you really want people to read it, of course, then you need to deal with open rate and click rate and your podcast, you know sorry, your open rate and click rate. And then your subject line needs to be really hooky and all the metadata surrounding that needs to be on point. But you have much more of a chance of landing in their inbox then if you were just to just put a social post out there and hope.

Speaker 1: 30:07

Yeah, exactly, exactly you look you like it when I affirm your comments, thank you. One thing I feel like we've skipped past it has been social media. I think we should skip back a little bit to social. A lot of podcasts do find success in building a little bit of a community on social media. This isn't like one post a week that's like hey, my new podcast is out, listen with a link. Those don't get any engagement. But there are ways to actually build a podcast on social. What have you got? What have you seen work?

Speaker 2: 30:37

I think it depends what your show is about. Not every podcast lends itself to a beautiful, robust community of people who appreciate the content that you put out there. So if you have a podcast, that this is where knowing your audience's user behavior is important. So if you know that your podcast is like a quote unquote commute podcast and you're asking people to do tons of calls to action and they're driving, then you're probably never going to hear from these people.

Speaker 1: 31:02

Hopefully they're not taking action driving.

Speaker 2: 31:06

Hopefully we don't advocate for that.

Speaker 2: 31:07

But if your podcast is about mental health and you are inviting connections and you're saying you know, I want my listeners to get together and I want people to have these conversations and I'm breaking down the stigma and all that kind of stuff, you are inviting people to chat with each other and if you can make it, if you can make your social media and inviting place, if you can make it so that your social media is a place where you source ideas or you source guests, you are providing value right.

Speaker 2: 31:28

And it could be that a lot of people who love social media are don't listen to your podcast, or a lot of people who love your podcast don't love your social media presence. But it's a compounding factor. It's, you know, if I were to search for you on social and what I saw on social was giving me something, it was teaching me something, it was entertaining me, it was sustaining me, it was introducing me to other creators, it was introducing me to other community members, that's awesome. You know, as long as there is some sort of reason that you are on social, I think that's an important thing to keep in mind.

Speaker 1: 31:56

Yeah, social media is one of these things. If you do it well and you're really invested, it can have really positive results. But just the hey, make sure you post something. Yeah, almost never works, yeah, and so I know it can be disheartening. I see this with businesses a lot and you can see it with creators, where they feel the need to be on LinkedIn and Instagram and Twitter and Facebook and tiktok and snapchat and by the time they've done all that, they're just totally burned out and none of the content is on social media and none of the content they put out was valuable at all and the net result is well, no one really took action on any of it and yet I put a ton of work in. The return is really low.

Speaker 2: 32:35

What I'll say is I do recommend grabbing handles on all of the social platforms so that nobody else can have your handle and then pin a post or post something that says I'm not really active here, I'm active here, and then post the place where you are active. And it could be that you are not active on any of them except for one, and that is okay. Do, first of all, be active where you like to be active. It is most important for you to make content on the places that you like to make content and to steer clear of the places where you are miserable. So if TikTok sucks your time and energy, do not go there.

Speaker 2: 33:07

And if you are making awkward videos that make you feel terrible about yourself because you think that you are not capable of doing the trends, don't do the trends. It will not be good. Do what you are comfortable with. And then the second question to ask yourself is where is my audience, where is my existing audience? And then the third question to ask yourself is where is the audience that I want to reach? And those are the considerations you should. Those are the things that you should consider when figuring out where to spend time on social yeah, where do you want to hang out?

Speaker 1: 33:34

Where are your people? These are important because if you succeed, you want it to still be a success. For me, if I built a big following on LinkedIn, that would not be a success, because I might put a lot of work into it and you may look like success somebody else. I don't want to live on LinkedIn, and so I think I don't want to live online anymore.

Speaker 2: 33:57

You've been saying that for years, though.

Speaker 1: 33:59

I know and I think that I just need to finally follow through. I'll just have like a blog like the old days and write one post every few months, but for you to build something, just because you hear, linkedin is the new thing. It's getting really big, or TikTok dances.

Speaker 2: 34:15

You said that before. With Instagram, it's like you constantly have to keep up with the new algorithm changes. That is exhausting. Spend time where you like to spend time.

Speaker 1: 34:24

Unless you enjoy it. Yeah, as soon as you enjoy it. And it's your community, well, now you can be part of it and people will be super excited about your podcast because, hey, this is our person and they're making a podcast for our community. It's really cool versus somebody who just drops in, says hey, I made another post, throws out the link and moves on with their life. No community is really going to appreciate that or get excited.

Speaker 2: 34:51

Everything is also a case by case basis, though. It's very hard to give advice for general populations, because you could find luck person listening to this. You could post something random and the algorithm gods might like you and just decide to boost that post and then you get tons of listeners and you'll be like Alvin and Ariel are idiots. But for the majority of you, I would choose a place where you like spending time. Choose a few minutes every day to spend on social. I think a lot of advice that you'll hear is like if social is overwhelming for you, spend one day a week, and if you do that, I always say this don't post in ghosts.

Speaker 2: 35:25

If you post something and then don't show up for another week, a lot of discourse is going to have happened without you there and then you come back in and you respond to something. It's gone. The moment is past. You need to, unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you see it, how the opportunity presents itself to you spend a little bit of time every day interacting with people. Interacting with not just the people who are interacting with your posts, but interacting with people in your general topic area and giving value, sometimes agreeing with people, sometimes disagreeing with people sometimes offering a counterpoint, but spending time there.

Speaker 1: 35:57

Ariel, thank you so much for talking to us about podcast growth and just getting your podcasts out to the world. Are there any closing remarks you'd like to give us or places people can follow you online?

Speaker 2: 36:05

Definitely I have a closing remark. My closing remark is April is Adopt a Listener Month. I am working with Tink Media to try to encourage people to find somebody in their lives who doesn't yet listen to a podcast, and find the perfect podcast for them so that they listen to one podcast, so that they then become obsessed, so that they then listen to another podcast, so that we can just grow listenership overall and get more creators paid. So if you want to learn more about Adopt a Listener Month, go to tinkmediaco. You can find a bunch of different resources to help you introduce podcasts to people. And if you want to find me online, I'm on Twitter, at Ari this and that you can reach me on email at arielle, at earbudsaudio, and if you Google my name, I am the only one who comes up, because I'm the only one in the world as far as I know, but would love to be proven wrong.

Speaker 1: 36:50

Thank you so much for being here, Ari.

Speaker 2: 36:52

Thank you, Alvin.