4 Ways to Keep Your Podcast Audience Coming Back for More

Many business owners, entrepreneurs, and freelancers are beginning to see the benefit of hosting regular podcasts. As a way to gain an audience, advertise a product, or simply share useful information, podcasts are growing in popularity. When you see people with headphones on walking around or on public transportation, there’s a good chance they’re listening to a podcast.

The podcast industry is absolutely huge, with shows covering topics from entertainment to politics to science in ways that make time fly for the listener. They are especially great at growing a loyal fan base or customer base. If you’re thinking about starting a podcast, here are 4 things you can do to develop a loyal audience.

 

Get Current Listeners to Subscribe for Reminders

A major part of keeping your audience coming back is making sure that they subscribe so they always know when you have updates. Encourage your current listeners to subscribe to your feed so they can be reminded of up-and-coming episodes as they come out. Explore different channels to see where your audience is. Some will prefer to have social media updates, while others may like personalized reminders like emails or peer to peer texting. Encourage your listeners to subscribe or follow you on social media after each episode. Also, try to network with other podcasters to get involved with the larger community. In addition, if you already have an audience for some other offerings, such as blog posts or social media, try to leverage this existing audience into becoming subscribers to your podcast. By using what you already have, you will be able to expand your subscriber count easily.

 

Have Great Hosts

As part of networking with other podcasters, you can try to get others to guest star on your podcast. In addition, having a distinct host for your own podcast will make a great difference. A podcast featuring only one person for the duration of an episode is going to be harder to get through than one with multiple voices. Great podcasts involve different voices being shared, whether it’s between a host or a host and their guests. People should be brought on with based on their credentials and their abilities to carry a conversation. You may need to some audition multiple hosts before settling on your lineup.

 

Give It Structure

Your podcast should have some kind of structure that lets listeners have things to look forward to with each episode. Some shows will have segments like talking about recent happenings in the news and going through mail from listeners. Doing this can help your listeners anticipate their favorite portions. This also promotes audience interaction, which is a major way to help listeners feel connected and involved in your podcast. When your audience feels in some way that they have a relationship with the hosts, they will be more likely to come back for future episodes.

 

Optimize for SEO

As with blog posts and social media, SEO can make or break your podcast reach. There are many ways to optimize your SEO. For starters, you need to have great titles for your episodes. Just like headline writers need to come up with engaging titles to draw clicks, podcast creators need to give their episodes compelling names. You might have people who tune in to every episode, but there are going to be ones who listen solely based on how interesting the episode title and description sounds. Also, use keywords in your title and description to gain SEO benefits. If you put your podcast on a larger network like iTunes, this can help you show up in specific categories. Remember: the more specifically targeted your episodes are, the easier it will be to optimize your SEO for an audience. Go over as many revisions as you can to make sure you’re using active language and clear messaging to draw in an audience.

Many of the most popular podcasts today just started with ordinary people and a great idea. You don’t need to have ample amounts of funding to get popular. All you need is to have something unique and an attitude geared towards getting the word out however you can. These are things that can help make your podcast into something of a sensation.

About the author

Brooke Chaplan is a freelance writer and blogger. She lives and works out of her home in Los Lunas, New Mexico. She loves the outdoors and spends most of her time hiking, biking, and gardening. For more information, contact Brooke via Facebook at facebook.com/brooke.chaplan or Twitter @BrookeChaplan

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