The Surprising & Delightful Way To Grow Your Podcast

Begging your listeners to tell others about your podcast will only get you so far. Getting more people to do it starts by understanding what people love about your podcast and why they keep listening. Today, we’re unpacking the first bullet point from a slide from Tom Webster’s excellent opening keynote at Podcast Movement 21 last week:

Know who you are for, and why they are there. (You can't give your listeners the unexpected if you don't know what they expect.) 

Now there's a lot to unpack there, so let's unravel it:

“Know who you are for...” means looking at the Venn diagram overlap between “us”—our podcast, and “them”—the listener.

“… and why they are there” encourages us to deeply understand why people listen. Some we  can infer from various data points available right now. But for maximum understanding, we need to find out. And unless you too are an expert at understanding consumer behavior, I strongly suggest you use the survey template Edison Research has made freely available to all podcasters. 

And finally, “You can't give your listeners the unexpected if you don't know what they expect.” Because if your podcast is only meeting the expectations of your audience, you can’t expect your audience to be excited about recommending your podcast.

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Links Mentioned:

• Edison Research’s Podcast Listener Survey Template https://www.edisonresearch.com/listener-survey-template • Advancing Podcasting community -  http://advancingpodcasting.xyz • Ted Lasso - https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/ted-lasso • The Three-Body Problem - https://amzn.to/3CDyz6u • My Dad Wrote A Porno - https://www.mydadwroteaporno.com/ • Tom Webster on Twitter - http://twitter.com/webby2001 • Podcast Movement 2021 - https://2021.podcastmovement.com • The Bangkok Podcast (Season 2) - https://www.bangkokpodcast.com/category/season2 • Writing Awesome Book Blurbs - https://scribl.com/books/P9B41/writing-awesome-book-blurbs-a-modern-indie-authors-guide • Evo Terra on Twitter - https://twitter.com/evoterra • Support Evo on Buy Me A Coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/evoterra

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A written-to-be-read article and a full transcript of the audio of this episode can be found at https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/the-surprising-delightful-way-to-grow-your-podcast.

Visit https://twitter.com/evoterra for more podcasting insights from Evo Terra as they come.

Buy him a virtual coffee to show your support at https://BuyMeACoffee.com/evoterra.

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit https://Simpler.Media to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Allie Press assists with the production and transcription of the show. Learn more about Allie at http://alliepress.net.

Podcast Pontifications four times a week to provide ideas and ask questions every working podcaster should be thinking about. Subscribe today at https://PodcastPontifications.com.

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