Marketing and growth advice for long-form interview podcast with 40+ episodes?
I host the long-form interview podcast "Keep Talking" (https://spoti.fi/3CyKaEy).
I have some paying monthly supporters and, I think, some important content with people (John McWhorter, Glenn Loury, Anna Lembke, and Jim Hollis) about topics (psychedelic therapy, meaning in modern society, modern addictions, the trans movement, race in America) that I believe might interest a larger audience base.
My interest and focus is quality content creation with fascinating guests. I have very little experience with or knowledge about growing a podcast via modern marketing. I have tried some Facebook and YouTube paid promotions - but I also really don't know what I'm doing on there.
A friend recommended that I post on here to seek advice and help about how I might make that growth happen.
Might anyone have suggestions? I'm open to any and all ideas.
Thanks @jwalker! I've found great guests through a lot of learning and online research, following by earnest, straightforward outreach and respectful persistence. Sometimes it takes 3-6 months to get to a yes, and even then it make take months to find 90 minutes on a potential guest's calendar.
I would love to eventually figure out how to monetize the show. I have some monthly Patreon supporters, but additional revenue would certainly help. To me, I need to have an audience that merits financial support, and I'm always open to ideas.
Might you have general suggestions to how to go about that monetization? I suppose my initial instinct there is also to continue to slowly build and consistently create quality content...
Hey there! Congrats on the amazing work. Have you considered connecting with your listeners on a more personal level? I got this idea from a Reddit user:
For instance, business podcasters are domain experts and consultants in their field so what if we have them use a platform to connect with their listeners on a more personal level?
This might be a good way to create awareness to a wider demographic and leverage hosts to convert passive listeners into active clients. It would be great to bring a real impact on people's lives. What do you think?
Thanks for the kind words.
That's an interesting idea. Just so I'm clear: is your thought that it might be possible to leverage the podcast to interview business podcasters / domain experts, as a business and growth play for the show?
Thanks so much for your response. I see the 1:1 connections as an extension of the brand and audience of the podcaster's community of listeners.
I am proposing it as a way to open up a new income stream. You can offer 1:1 consultation segments between your guests and listeners or you can announce one-on-one sessions with yourself as the host(s) or the next/previous guest.
I hope that helps! I am building Geeks and Experts and was curious to see if podcasters would be interested in exploring this revenue stream. Thanks again for considering, would love to connect further :)
My pleasure. And I'm absolutely interested in exploring new potential revenue streams, especially if there's really a market there. If you think there might be, or in the future believe there is one, please feel free to reach out anytime!
Awesome! What's the best way for us to stay connected? My twitter is https://twitter.com/saigalsn
Awesome, thanks! This is me: https://twitter.com/Rileyicious
Goodluck growing the pod man! It would be cool if you could keep the community updated with how the journey is going! You mentioned fascinating guests - how have you gone about finding and booking your guests so far? Also, do you eventually plan on monetizing the pod in ways additional to monthly supporters (i.e. sponsors, affiliates, etc.)?
Love the guests! I need to give it a listen.
Really love @alexjsan thoughts.
I do think growth comes slowly and then one day it feels like it doesn't stop. I've seen that with so many different companies/teams. I think the value add for podcasts like yours is a) people get exposed to high quality thinkers and guests, talking about interesting topics or topics that they are interested in b) they get to know you as a host more intensely over a period of time
To connect these dots, I believe that podcasts like yours (and the content you cover) is ideal to build a community around. Do you have episodic discussions in discord or twitter? Tyler Cowen and the Marginal Revolution community has a forum, maybe you can create a subreddit that can act as a discussion board? Then you're already default in audio and text medium as your podcast audience grows!
If you're interested, I can chat more!
Thank you so much for this. And I'm generally putting faith on such an incremental approach to growth. And appreciate your suggestion re: Twitter and discord discussions - I had never heard of or considered that.
Am I right that this would be the spot for discord discussion?:
https://disboard.org/servers/tag/episodic
And I know Reddit is popular for podcast discussions. I assume I can simply go ahead and create my own podcast-specific subreddit and begin to post in there? (Obvi, I'm quite a newbie with so much of this stuff...)
Regardless, thank you so much for the feedback!
You're right! Never seen disboard, but you can create your own discord or slack to foster a community there! That's right, you just create a Reddit account and you can create your own subreddit. Super easy! If you want to email me, my email is in the indiehackers profile
Thanks! And just emailed you.
I can offer some ideas here! Take them or leave them. :)
#1. The name, I'd change it. When I first saw the name of it, "Keep Talking" I have no idea what the show is about. The number 2 way people are finding podcasts today are through search, so your show title, description, and episode titles and descriptions are KEY.
^ Consider a name like this: "Conversations That Improve Society and Culture" (FYI, I'm not great at names, this was just to give you an idea, it should include the words!)
#2. People share shows with nice cover art. People want to be proud of what they share, Consider simplifying the cover art (Take a look at what I did with mine, it really stands out when you're scrolling through a list of shows)
#3. Don't do any fancy marketing. Instead, talk to one person at a time, tell them about the show when it's time. If you get 1 new person to listen every day, after 2 years, you'd have one of the world's largest shows (In the top 0.5 range of all shows!)
Slow and steady wins the race in podcasting. It's all about staying consistent and focusing on continuous improvement with your show.
I hope this helps!
@alexjsan Dude thanks you so much for the detailed response - it's super kind and generous of you.
I did not know that about search - and I agree that the name of a show can be quite important. I've had a rather hard time compressing the theme of the show into a concise title. "Keep Talking" in part stems from the Pink Floyd song re: the importance of humans' to continue to talk to each other to grow and live together as a species. And I think it's still a good suggestion for our times, too.
Still, your point is well taken. I like the "Triggernometry" tag line: "Honest Conversations with Fascinating People," as well as Chris Williamson's show name: "Modern Wisdom."
Perhaps a spin off / copy of either of those - like "Modern Knowledge" or simply "Honest Conversations" might be better (although they may still be rather vague).
I'm with you on the slow and steady approach - I think that's key to generate legitimate traction and a real audience.
And thanks for the tip re: the cover art. Am I right that this is yours?:
https://creatingabrand.com/
Again wanted to say thanks for the time and the feedback. Obviously open to any additional feedback that you may have - and would be happy to stay in touch!
Happy Sunday,
Dan
Ah I see where you got the name from! That's pretty cool :)
Creating a Brand was my old show, before going under rebrand, here it is now: https://podcasting.buzzsprout.com/
Would love to stay in touch for sure! Here to help however I can.
Thanks man - and thanks again for the feedback. I like the name "Keep Talking," but I'm not quite sure it's intuitive for people who stumble across it; most, I imagine, have no clue what the show is about.
My hope is that with enough quality guests and quality content, the name won't much matter. As I'm sure you know, changing a show name is a bit painful, and I'd rather not do it unless I feel like it's existentially crucial for the show's success to do so...
Would love to stay in touch as well!
CONTENT, as you mentioned, is the most important thing. You can have the best named show, but if the content isn't good, does it matter? :) Keep it up! You're on the right track.
That's the way to do it!!! Where are you getting guests from right now?
I'm with you on that! I read quite a lot and am a bit of an information addict. If a subject / person comes up that really resonates with me (I try to let the subject sit for a day or two to ensure that it really matters to me), I'll try to find that person's contact info and send out a very straightforward email.
There are many no-responses and "not right now's" - but it's amazing what determination and long-term commitment can bring. I've been absolutely shocked at how high-quality many of the guests have been...
Love that! Keep it up. PodMatch is my company, if ever that could be of value to you - Let me know. But it seems like you've got a good strategy so far! Keep it up
Appreciate it man - and likewise!