by Lee Gibbons, Podango CEO
Continuing our quest to blog about all ten of the rules that govern Podango’s culture, this post is about Rule #6: “Get Listeners!”
We have talked to dozens of podcasters about what we might offer to be of greatest benefit to them, and with rare exception, the thing they would value most from Podango is getting more listeners. It comes well ahead of monetizing their podcasting efforts, podcasting tools, or our nifty go!Station infrastructure.
Podango has found that the best ways to get more listeners all have one thing in common: making it easy to find the podcast. We have also found that the growth of Podango go!Stations mostly comes from people who first simply wish to find out more about a given topic. They Google it, they ask their friends, and they listen to key influencers within their fields of endeavor and communities of interest. In other words, they are looking for you already. Or, at least, they are looking for what you know that can help them.
Another way to look at it is, “Getting listeners” is really a misnomer. It is 180 degrees out of phase of your real goal. Your real goal is to give to listeners. The more abundantly you achieve this goal, the more quickly your listenership will grow. Here are six steps that will lead to increasing your listening audience.
Step One: “Don’t just do something, stand there!” In other words, before jumping in and randomly praddling on about your own musings on the universe and its contents, put some thought into your podcast and figure out what you have to talk about that is sustainable, interesting, and worth invesing a consistent effort to produce. In their book Tricks of the Podcasting Masters, Rob Walch (PodCast411) and Mur Lafferty (www.geekfuactiongrip.com) suggest that you first “make sure you create a show that you would want to listen to.” Tim and Emile Borquin (The Podcast Brothers Podcast) suggest that in their podcast they simply, “Have something to say, or don’t say anything.”
Step Two: Truly connect with your audience. Again, quoting Rob and Mur, “A key reason we have heard from listeners about why they enjoy podcasting so much is the interactive nature of podcasting, Many podcasters go out of their way to communicate with their listeners, to include listeners in the show and to build a community around their show.” (Tricks of the Podcasting Masters, Chapter 12, page 199)
Step Three: Serve a Community. The reality is that a community already exists that your podcast serves. If that seems a strange notion, you might want to consider another theme for your podcast. Our most successful station owners (Station Directors) are those who come to us with very ready answers about the community they serve. Often, they have already been integral parts of their communities of interest and have simply elected to grab a Podango go!Station as a better means of serving their community of interest. So, your job is to really to tap into your community and serve them with the information you provide. Are you a fanatic pet owner? How do you normally connect with the other pet owners out there? How do you find more information about your particular breed? Who are the experts, service providers, and vendors who participate in the value network already? How are they reaching you? The same methods may be available to you. Along with that, these people and organizations make great advocates. Enlist them as sponsors, partners, and interviewees. You may be able to help them produce their own podcast, and they may have wide coat-tales you can ride on as you help them meet their unique–and probably compatible–objectives in serving your community.
Step Four: Serve the Underserved. As you think about the content for your podcast, consider the relative importance of your podcast to those whom you aim to serve. Gretchen Vogelzang and Paige Heninger created MommyCast out of their awareness that moms are an underserved market as regards their ability to communicate with other moms in a massive conversation about all things of concern and interest to moms. They recognized that moms are often on the go, with their eyes and hands busy, or waiting, perhaps for a child to finish a ballet class, and that a podcast to fulfill their need was a perfect fit for their lifestyles. Similary, Tim Borquin of Endurance Planet and TNC New Media produce programming for endurance atheletes, having recognized that these folks have a pattern of being out, running and training and are hungry for more information about increasing their performance and endurance. They have created a variety of podcasts as extensions of that need that are delivered every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Step Five: Be Easy to Find. Registering on the major podcasting directories is an obvious first step. Tools like PodSubmitter.com allow you to submit your podcast to 55 podcast directories from a single form. Additionally, providing detailed show notes and even transcriptions will drive up your natural search engine trafic. Podango employs every method we know to promote the actual content of the podcast, as well as providing blogging, forums, wikis, etc. All of these information sources are designed to get more natural search trafic to the content provided in podcasts. And while these methods are automated and convenient within the Podango infrastructure, they are by no means exclusive to Podango and can be employed by nearly anyone.
Step Six: Particpate in the conversation, wherever it is taking place. Woody Allen once said “Ninety percent of success is showing up.” On its face that sounds simple, but to really show up within your community of interest, you have to “Care, Be There, Be Aware, and Share!” meaning you have to be where the community is. Are they having weekly meetings? Do they have a common website in which they have a community forum such as the kind you can form at Yahoo Groups, or something dedicated to a particular niche such as Deviant Art? Are there leading blogs with open commenting where great information is exchanged? Your presence in these venues will lend credibility to your offering both because you will be known by key players in your community of interest and because you will have access to key information and a working knowledge of the art or science that will help you better serve the community at large.
This is not an exhaustive list of all you can do, but these are key elements of growing your listener base. What else have you found useful or helpful? Leave your comments!
Podcasts are fun to listen to, but they’d be even cooler if you could listen live and IM your feedback to the host in real time. The soon to launch service BlogTalkRadio will make that possible.