Advertising a podcast, podcast ads, audience growth, SEO tips, Voice Boost 2 for Overcast, the recipe for earning $1000 per fan, and more.

Here are the most interesting news articles and tutorials for the first week of February, 2020.

Thanks to Kato, Alexander, and Norman for supporting the show.

1

Advertising a Podcast, Part 1

From producer Sean Howard on podnews.net:

Our industry struggles with discoverability. The days of just hit publish and wait for fame are over, if they ever existed at all. The field is too crowded. And listeners have no idea how to find the next podcast that they will enjoy.

The answer is right in front of us; advertise our podcasts.

In part one of this series, I am going to be exploring a number of ways to do just that. I begin with a long list of free, near-free and paid methods which can help each of us reach our audience and grow our podcasts.

In part two, I’m going to share what happened when we used paid online advertising to promote one of our podcasts.

And in part three, I’m going to look at cross-promotion activities such as episode drops and promo swaps.

Most podcasters want to grow their audience and get more listeners, but many don't know where to start. In this article, Sean makes a compelling case for advertising a show and shares a huge list of things to do to reach a broader audience.

I love this section:

Marketing Your Podcast in Three Steps

1. Get super clear on who listens and what else they are listening to and watching. Who has their attention? Where are they active online?
2. What matters to them? What issues, memes or topics excite them?
3. Brainstorm ways to become visible where they are and in ways that will resonate.

The three steps above help put us into the frame of mind needed to target our advertising efforts where it is going to do the most good.

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2

“Jobs to be done” for podcasts

From Dan Misener on Pacific Content's blog:

Professor Clayton Christensen died last month. Many knew him for his theory of disruptive innovation, his classes at Harvard Business School, or his influential book The Innovator’s Dilemma.

I never got the chance to meet Professor Christensen, but his ideas have informed much of the work we do at Pacific Content.

Among the most influential of Christensen’s theories is what he calls “jobs to be done.” The gist: we hire products to do things for us.

We all have many jobs to be done in our lives. Some are little (pass the time while waiting in line); some are big (find a more fulfilling career). Some surface unpredictably (dress for an out-of-town business meeting after the airline lost my suitcase); some regularly (pack a healthful lunch for my daughter to take to school).

When we buy a product, we essentially “hire” it to help us do a job. If it does the job well, the next time we’re confronted with the same job, we tend to hire that product again. And if it does a crummy job, we “fire” it and look for an alternative.

What does this have to do with podcasts? Podcasts are a product. If your goal is to build an amazing show for a specific audience, it’s crucial to understand your listeners’ motivations.

Have you ever thought about your podcast in terms of the job it does for your listeners?

Ask yourself, “What job does my show do for my audiences? Why would they "hire" and listen to my show instead of a different show?”

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3

Introducing Voice Boost 2: Remaster your podcasts

From Marco Arment on marco.org:

Voice Boost 2 is an all-new audio engine that includes professional-grade, mastering-quality loudness normalization.

When I first introduced Overcast in 2014, Voice Boost was one of its headlining features:

Voice Boost is a combination of dynamic compression and equalization that can make many shows more listenable and normalize volume across all shows. This makes amateur-produced podcasts (including many of my favorites) more listenable in loud environments, like cars, where you’d otherwise need to crank the volume so loudly to hear the quiet parts that you’d blow your ears out when the loudest person spoke.

Voice Boost 2 achieves the same goal as the original Voice Boost, but with dramatically more sophisticated methods, leading to more consistent results and much better sound quality.

Audio mastering is something that everyone needs but few people know how to do well. Bravo to Marco for solving a real problem for podcasters and podcast listeners. This is yet another reason to use Overcast for podcast listening.

I hope podcast hosting platforms and other podcast apps are paying attention. Automatic mastering and loudness normalization is a truly useful feature that is worth implementing.

I would love it if Marco added the VoiceBoost 2 functionality to Forecast. Take my money!

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4

Do you skip ads?

Interested discussion on Reddit about podcast ads:

Hi everyone, I was thinking about doing my dissertation around podcast advertising and went into it thinking that most people skipped the ads. However, after searching the topic I found that only a very low percentage of people (around 30%) do, in fact, skip the ads, which I find pretty hard to believe.

Do you skip them?

Advertising is a popular method for monetizing a podcast, but it's also very easy to skip ads in podcast players currently using the "skip ahead 15 or 30 seconds" buttons.

After reading through the responses, it seems like a lot of people will skip ads if they can easily reach their phone, or if the ad is programmatically inserted or for something that isn't relevant or interesting to them.

As a podcast listener, I prefer host read ads that are for products or services that are relevant to me, and are shorter than 60 seconds. Respect my time and attention and I'll keep listening.

Check out this thread if you're interested in learning about how podcast listeners think and feel about ads in their podcasts.

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5

1,000 True Fans? Try 100 (The recipe for earning $1,000 per fan)

From Li Jin on the A16Z blog:

More than a decade ago, Wired editor Kevin Kelly wrote an essay called “1,000 True Fans,” predicting that the internet would allow large swaths of people to make a living off their creations, whether an artist, musician, author, or entrepreneur. Rather than pursuing widespread celebrity, he argued, creators only needed to engage a modest base of “true fans”—those who will “buy anything you produce”—to the tune of $100 per fan, per yea (for a total annual income of $100,000). By embracing online networks, he believed creators could bypass traditional gatekeepers and middlemen, get paid directly by a smaller base of fans, and live comfortably off the spoils.

Today, that idea is as salient as ever—but I propose taking it a step further. As the Passion Economy grows, more people are monetizing what they love. The global adoption of social platforms like Facebook and YouTube, the mainstreaming of the influencer model, and the rise of new creator tools has shifted the threshold for success. I believe that creators need to amass only 100 True Fans—not 1,000—paying them $1,000 a year, not $100. Today, creators can effectively make more money off fewer fans.

Podcasters want to make money too. But if you're like me, you're wondering "What can we sell for $1000?" This article addresses that question (and more).

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5

SEO Case Study - 0 to 200,000 Monthly Organic Traffic

Want to get better rankings on Google?

Can’t blame you.

When done right, SEO can be a game-changer...

• You rank for top keywords
• Leads come knocking on YOUR door (instead of the other way around)
• Sales go through the roof

Unless you have a lot of experience with SEO, though, the road to getting there can seem very uncertain…

...which is why we created this guide - a complete step-by-step SEO case study on how we took Tallyfy, a SaaS process management software, from ~8,000 monthly traffic to about 200,000 in less than 2 years.

This is a blog post about increasing traffic to a blog, but the advice can be applied to podcasts too.

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6

Radio Public: Podcast Web Strategy for Audience Growth (12 part YouTube series)

The new wave of podcast audience development is through digital strategy. This twelve-part video series teaches podcasters how to create an audience growth strategy to gain and retain listeners. Together, the videos help any podcaster grasp the basics of web strategy and begin implementing immediately.

The series can be watched in any order, though to start off right: we explain why a web strategy for podcasts is essential to long-term audience growth, then dive into any of the video about creating a strong website, email newsletters, and social media campaigns for your podcast.

Nice little series about audience growth strategies. I appreciate that they made two videos about email newsletters, since I believe email newsletters are under-utilized by podcasters.

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Podcast Episode Recommendation:

How to Create Podcast Ads that Motivate Listeners to Buy

From Sarah Mikutel on the Podcasting Step by Step podcast:

Today, you’ll learn how to create ads that people actually want to listen to, and that will motivate your listeners to buy. Because if you want to keep that sponsor you landed, you have to be able to demonstrate that you’re converting for them.

In this episode, my friend Lisa Orkin of Lisa Orkin Creative breaks down her storytelling formula for audio ads. You’ll learn how to:

• craft ads that keep people hooked
• talk about benefits
• sound engaging and not scripted

Some great tips about creating effective ads, starting about 10 minutes into the episode.

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Closing Thoughts

I've got some big personal and professional news to announce, will be sharing that very soon (most likely next week).

Have a great week, and happy podcasting!

Aaron Dowd

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This show was produced by me, Aaron Dowd.
Music and SM7B illustration by Sean McCabe.
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