We've reached the end of Season two, but are by no means slowing down. Here's what we're going to be up to over the next few months between seasons.
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One in ten music albums makes its money back. The same is true for startups and movies. But what about podcasts?
Is it possible for any of us to create a successful show? Or are the odds always going to be stacked against us, with only a tiny fraction of shows breaking through to the mainstream?
In this episode, we break down the odds behind creating both a successful show and a successful career as a creator, and explore exactly what you can do to stack the deck in your favour.
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Topics Covered
00:00 The odds of success as a creator
04:59 The data behind exceptionally successful podcasts
13:21 Why you should quit more projects (and podcasts)
21:19 The traits of exceptional podcasts
31:56 Increasing your luck surface area
37:42 The traits of exceptional creators
47:47 Tapping into your unique personal genius
⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️
Resources
Brandon Sanderson Lecture Series
Nathan Barry
Seth Godin
Shaan Puri
Jason Roberts
Ozan Varol
Awaken Your Genius
The Tim Ferriss Show
Acquired
My First Million
Podcast Movement Conference
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Over the past year, median podcast growth rates were nearly flat. In other words, the typical show experienced almost zero growth over the previous 12 months.
If you’ve been in podcasting for a while, this might correspond with your feeling that it is harder to grow today than it once was. And yet… while growth may have slowed for the typical show, there are others that are unlocking more and faster growth than ever before.
So what’s going on here? And what do we as creators need to do to tap into the potential for growth that exists?
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Topics Covered
00:00 Is It Harder To Grow Now?
01:56 Growing in 2008 vs 2025
03:49 What the data says about growth rates
08:33 Two reasons it might be harder to grow now
13:14 The two types of competition today
15:56 Keeping up with changing tastes and expectations
21:38 Diagnosing your growth problem
24:55 A tried and true way to differentiate
28:35 Opportunities to grow a podcast today
33:49 A sneaky approach to testing big changes
35:16 The worst thing that can happen to your show
38:43 The opportunities of podcasting for your business
⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️
Resources
Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
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Video is changing podcasting, probably forever and probably in ways we can’t predict.
But while conversations and debates about the risks and upsides to creators as well as the industry as a whole are inescapable right now, they all seem to be missing the key point: That this isn’t a conversation about different consumption mediums and file delivery formats.
It’s a conversation about YouTube as a platform, and the power, influence, and magnetism it exerts on every person on the internet.
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Topics Covered
00:00 Is video podcasting a threat or opportunity?
04:21 Video’s impact on podcast discovery
07:49 YouTube's dominance over content consumption
10:26 Leveraging YouTube for podcast growth
18:03 The future of podcasting on YouTube
34:16 The opportunities pitfalls of short-form content
37:28 YouTube vs. podcast content
42:41 The long-term value of “slow content”
45:06 Case study: Jay Clouse’s YouTube strategy
51:45 Case study: Chris Stone's YouTube strategy
56:08 What is a podcast anymore, anyways?
⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️
Resource
Tom Webster
Philip Pape of Wits and Weights
April Dunford's book, "Obviously Awesome"
Additional Resources
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Podcast Strategy
The difference between an effective show—one that does the job you created it to do—and one that is an endless drain on your time, energy and bank account comes down to your strategy… or lack thereof.
Strategy is an oft-misunderstood term that encompasses, guides, and grounds the intentional decisions around every aspect of your show and marketing, including your show concept, positioning, format, content strategy, packaging, monetization strategy, promotion, and more.
In short, the answers to any marketing question are based in your strategy. Which means without a clearly defined strategy, you’re shooting in the dark, and unlikely to ever get the results you’re looking for from your podcast, whether that’s audience growth, customer acquisition, or both.
About Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Podcast Marketing Trends Explained is a podcast about data-driven podcast marketing, growth, and monetization. In every episode, we take a peek under the hood of one data point from the Podcast Marketing Trends Report and dig into what it can tell us about how to market our shows better, and grow them faster.
On the show, we'll explore podcast marketing strategies, growth tactics, podcast listener psychology, how to create a better podcast, how to use a podcast to market your products and services and grow your business, and broader marketing trends to help you grow your audience and stay ahead of the competition.
The show is hosted by Jeremy Enns from Podcast Marketing Academy and the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter, and Justin Jackson from podcast hosting platform Transistor.fm.
There’s no shortage of advice to be found on how to grow your audience. But how closely does that advice align with how podcast listeners say they actually find, choose (and abandon) the shows they listen to?
It turns out, there are a number of surveys that have asked listeners to share their discovery and consumption habits. And while the data can sometimes contradict itself, it offers us as creators a peek behind the curtain into podcast listeners’ hidden psychology, so that we can better meet them where they’re at with our marketing and our shows.
What’s more, this data offers us a blueprint for the questions to ask (and avoid) when conducting our own listener research.
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Topics Covered
00:00 Should you listen to your listeners feedback?
05:42 The Mom Test
08:23 How listeners discover podcasts: Active vs. passive
16:07 Understanding the broader context behind audience behaviour
26:33 Discovery doesn't matter without distinctiveness
31:02 Why listeners stop listening
39:13 Doing your own audience research
⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️
Resource
The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
Write Useful Books by Rob Fitzpatrick
Atomic Habits by James Clear.
Life Profitability by Adii Pienaar.
Tom Webster
Additional Resources
Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
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Podcast Packaging
You’ve probably heard that content is king. The problem is that no one—literally not one single listener—will consume your content without first passing through the gatekeeper that is your show’s “Packaging”—including your show title, cover art, episode titles, and descriptions.
While these elements are often afterthoughts to the podcast content itself, they have the power to single-handedly attract or repel would-be listeners, making them an unignorable aspect of podcast marketing strategy
About Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Podcast Marketing Trends Explained is a podcast about data-driven podcast marketing, growth, and monetization. In every episode, we take a peek under the hood of one data point from the Podcast Marketing Trends Report and dig into what it can tell us about how to market our shows better, and grow them faster.
On the show, we'll explore podcast marketing strategies, growth tactics, podcast listener psychology, how to create a better podcast, how to use a podcast to market your products and services and grow your business, and broader marketing trends to help you grow your audience and stay ahead of the competition.
The show is hosted by Jeremy Enns from Podcast Marketing Academy and the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter, and Justin Jackson from podcast hosting platform Transistor.fm.
People make decisions based on the information they have available to them. When it comes to podcast discover, that information almost always consists of just two elements: Your show title and cover art.
These two elements, then, are the first and more impactful listener filter. Get them wrong, and you’ll miss out on a constant stream of your ideal listeners who are passing the show over because they don’t realize it’s relevant or aligned with their taste.
But what does the “wrong” title or cover art even look like? And more importantly, what does the “right” packaging for your show look like (if it even exists).
In this episode, we break down the data from the 2024 Podcast Marketing Trends Report to identify what high-growth shows do differently when it comes to crafting their packaging—and how you can borrow those lessons to help increase your show's growth potential.
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Topics Covered
00:00 Why packaging matters
00:42 Behind the scenes of our cover art development
07:33 Attributes of memorable podcast titles
20:51 Why artwork matters more than most people realize
24:48 Analyzing podcast cover art effectiveness
27:02 Host photos on cover art
33:05 Designing distinctive visual elements
34:24 Your artwork's primary job
38:06 Developing taste for good artwork & titles
44:52 Investing in professional help
46:05 Our favorite podcast titles
50:23 Our favorite podcast cover art
56:25 Perfect pairings of titles and cover art
01:01:32 Final thoughts and listener requests
⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️
Resource
Hello, My Name is Awesome by Alexandra Watkins
Stand the Fck Out* by Louis Grenier
Holly Arnett
The Dipby Seth Godin
Purple Cow by Seth Godin
Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin
Crypto Confidential by Nat Eliason
Additional Resources
Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2024 Report
Subscribe to the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter
Try Transistor.fm for free for 14 days
✍️ Leave your feedback for the show: http://podcastmarketingtrends.com/feedback
Podcast Packaging
You’ve probably heard that content is king. The problem is that no one—literally not one single listener—will consume your content without first passing through the gatekeeper that is your show’s “Packaging”—including your show title, cover art, episode titles, and descriptions.
While these elements are often afterthoughts to the podcast content itself, they have the power to single-handedly attract or repel would-be listeners, making them an unignorable aspect of podcast marketing strategy
About Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Podcast Marketing Trends Explained is a podcast about data-driven podcast marketing, growth, and monetization. In every episode, we take a peek under the hood of one data point from the Podcast Marketing Trends Report and dig into what it can tell us about how to market our shows better, and grow them faster.
On the show, we'll explore podcast marketing strategies, growth tactics, podcast listener psychology, how to create a better podcast, how to use a podcast to market your products and services and grow your business, and broader marketing trends to help you grow your audience and stay ahead of the competition.
The show is hosted by Jeremy Enns from Podcast Marketing Academy and the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter, and Justin Jackson from podcast hosting platform Transistor.fm.
Why do people listen to podcasts? And why do they listen to YOUR podcast (or one like yours)? It turns out, the answers to these questions can be found in a nerdy, obscure marketing concept called Jobs to Be Done Theory.
Jobs to Be Done Theory origins date back to the 1930s, but was more fully developed by Harvard Business School researched Clayton Christiansen—primarily through an iconic case study about milkshakes… and how people don’t buy milkshakes for the obvious reasons you might think.
But JTBD applies to much more than milkshakes. In fact, it applies to every product, service, piece of content—including podcasts—that any of us spend time, money, or attention to consume.
In this episode, we’ll break down how to apply JTBD theory to boost the effectiveness of your marketing by aligning your content, messaging, and packaging with the job your listeners are seeking out a show to do.
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Topics Covered
00:00 Case Study: How Justin “Hires” Different Shows
02:31 An Introduction to Jobs to Be Done Theory
08:24 The Importance of Emotional Resonance in Podcasts
13:06 Assessing Podcast Growth by “Job”
21:19 Understanding Listener Psychology
26:12 Understanding Trigger Events
30:39 Examples of Trigger Events
35:50 Challenges and Opportunities for Problem Solver Shows
41:36 Challenges and Opportunities for Pleasure Giver Shows
45:04 Leveraging Listener Behavior for Show Growth
51:50 Practical Examples of Podcast Jobs to Be Done
⭐️ Take our 2-minute podcast marketing audit to instantly identify the marketing problems keeping you from growth: https://go.podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit-pmte-sn ⭐️
Resources Mentioned
Clayton Christensen
Additional Resources
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Podcast Listener Psychology
Understanding why people listen to podcasts—and why they stop—is an essential aspect of improving the efficiency of your marketing—ie. more growth with less effort.
Listener psychology encompasses everything from understanding attention spans and content preferences to parasocial relationships and listening habits. Most podcast creators focus exclusively on content without considering the baked-in psychology that is hard-wired into their listeners.
The result is unwittingly marketing your show on hard mode. Learn to understand the cognitive biases, emotional triggers, and decision-making patterns that influence how all humans (including me, you, and all your listeners) discover, consume, and share podcast content, you can create shows that not only attract listeners but turn them into dedicated fans who recommend your podcast to others.
About Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Podcast Marketing Trends Explained is a podcast about data-driven podcast marketing, growth, and monetization. In every episode, we take a peek under the hood of one data point from the Podcast Marketing Trends Report and dig into what it can tell us about how to market our shows better, and grow them faster.
On the show, we'll explore podcast marketing strategies, growth tactics, podcast listener psychology, how to create a better podcast, how to use a podcast to market your products and services and grow your business, and broader marketing trends to help you grow your audience and stay ahead of the competition.
The show is hosted by Jeremy Enns from Podcast Marketing Academy and the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter, and Justin Jackson from podcast hosting platform Transistor.fm.
Its easy to imagine that if you just had a budget to put toward paid podcast advertising, all your marketing problems would be solved. But is that really true? Anyone who’s ever done any advertising will quickly tell you its one of the most gruelling, creatively challenging marketing practices on the planet—one where you have to be ok with burning a large amount of cash up front to figure out what (if anything works). That said if you approach it with a bit of savvy… paid advertising can be a sneaky smart way to grow.
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Topics Covered
00:00 Does advertising actually work?
01:39 Our personal experience with advertising
08:35 Understanding advertising metrics
11:24 Podcast advertising platforms & methods
22:22 Real vs fake listeners
25:00 Advertising pitfalls to watch out for
25:39 Best practices for podcast ads
25:56 Crafting effective ads
29:16 Retargeting strategies
32:33 Multi-touchpoint ad campaings
34:37 Advanced advertising techniques
44:21 How we’d allocate a $10k budget
⭐️ Take our 2-minute podcast marketing audit to instantly identify the marketing problems keeping you from growth: https://go.podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit-pmte-sn ⭐️
Resources Mentioned
Jay Clouse's The Lab
Corey Haines and SwipeFiles
Kattie Laur and Pod the North
Terry O'Reilly and the podcast "Under the Influence"
Additional Resources
Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2024 Report
Subscribe to the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter
Try Transistor.fm for free for 14 days
✍️ Leave your feedback for the show: http://podcastmarketingtrends.com/feedback
About Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Podcast Marketing Trends Explained is a podcast about data-driven podcast marketing, growth, and monetization. In every episode, we take a peek under the hood of one data point from the Podcast Marketing Trends Report and dig into what it can tell us about how to market our shows better, and grow them faster.
On the show, we'll explore podcast marketing strategies, growth tactics, podcast listener psychology, how to create a better podcast, how to use a podcast to market your products and services and grow your business, and broader marketing trends to help you grow your audience and stay ahead of the competition.
The show is hosted by Jeremy Enns from Podcast Marketing Academy and the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter, and Justin Jackson from podcast hosting platform Transistor.fm.
Beneath the surface of every creative medium is a hidden code. Like DNA, this code dictates the constraints and possibilities of what’s possible within that platform. Like any platform, podcasting has its own code. The problem is most creators don’t understand the unique platform dynamics, constraints, and psychology baked into the medium… which makes it hard—if not impossible—to grow. Fortunately, once you’re able to decipher the code—of podcasting or any other platform—you unlock your potential for growth and ROI.
Topics Covered
00:00 Understanding podcast’s platform dynamics
01:58 Listener bandwidth
05:57 The data on podcast consumption
08:29 Platform constraints & listener psychology
15:37 The pros & cons of podcasting’s built-in intertia
22:13 Host-led vs concept-led growth
25:46 What do listeners expect from podcasting?
35:22 Are long podcasts actually better?
45:03 Our picks for best “podcasts”
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Resources Mentioned
Pocket Casts
Money for Couples Podcast by Ramit Sethi
Jay Clouse and his Creator Science Show
Conversations with Tyler by Tyler Cowen
Professor G Podcast by Scott Galloway
Three Books Podcast
Ologies Podcast
Good One: A Podcast About Jokes
How I Write by David Perell
Making Sense by Sam Harris
Additional Resources
Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
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Subscribe to the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter
Try Transistor.fm for free for 14 days
✍️ Leave your feedback for the show: http://podcastmarketingtrends.com/feedback
About Podcast Analytics
While podcast analytics might appear to be stuck in the stone age compared to platforms like YouTube, Google Analytics, and many social media platforms, there's a lot creators can learn about how to improve their shows and their marketing... if you know where to look.
Beyond podcast downloads, metrics like listen time, consumption rate, Spotify's podcast discovery dashboard, and more give us clues about the issues facing your show—and often tell you exactly how to navigate them. Which mean understanding your podcast analytics & metrics, and how they compare to industry benchmarks is an essential skill for marketing and growing your podcast.
About Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Podcast Marketing Trends Explained is a podcast about data-driven podcast marketing, growth, and monetization. In every episode, we take a peek under the hood of one data point from the Podcast Marketing Trends Report and dig into what it can tell us about how to market our shows better, and grow them faster.
On the show, we'll explore podcast marketing strategies, growth tactics, podcast listener psychology, how to create a better podcast, how to use a podcast to market your products and services and grow your business, and broader marketing trends to help you grow your audience and stay ahead of the competition.
The show is hosted by Jeremy Enns from Podcast Marketing Academy and the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter, and Justin Jackson from podcast hosting platform Transistor.fm.
Complete the 2025 Podcast Marketing Trends survey and enter to win from one of 30 podcast marketing trainings worth a total of almost $16k.
For 74% of podcasters, downloads are the primary metric used to measure success. But should they be?
For years, downloads were one of the only ways creators could measure the reach and impact of their show. But over the past few years, we’ve been getting a slow but steady stream of new analytics tools and data points… many of which provide much more useful information about
whether what we’re doing is working than downloads alone.
Topics Covered
00:00 Why do so many people care about downloads?
06:06 The case in favour of downloads
08:13 The shortcomings of downloads as a metric
09:02 How paid podcast promotion campaigns can ruin your analytics
10:22 Is listen time a better metric than downloads?
13:26 Alternative hard podcast metrics to track
17:36 Soft podcast metrics to track
28:17 Understanding leading & lagging indicators
38:21 How we combine metrics to measure success
42:36 One final obscure metric for you to track
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Resources Mentioned
7 Obscure Podcast Metrics to Track
Bumper
Anne Handley
Podcast Movement
PodScan
Podchaser
Open Podcast Prefix Project
Additional Resources
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Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2024 Report
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✍️ Leave your feedback for the show: http://podcastmarketingtrends.com/feedback
More on Podcast Analytics
While podcast analytics might appear to be stuck in the stone age compared to platforms like YouTube, Google Analytics, and many social media platforms, there's a lot creators can learn about how to improve their shows and their marketing... if you know where to look.
Beyond podcast downloads, metrics like listen time, consumption rate, Spotify's podcast discovery dashboard, and more give us clues about the issues facing your show—and often tell you exactly how to navigate them. Which mean understanding your podcast analytics & metrics, and how they compare to industry benchmarks is an essential skill for marketing and growing your podcast.
About Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Podcast Marketing Trends Explained is a podcast about data-driven podcast marketing, growth, and monetization. In every episode, we take a peek under the hood of one data point from the Podcast Marketing Trends Report and dig into what it can tell us about how to market our shows better, and grow them faster.
On the show, we'll explore podcast marketing strategies, growth tactics, podcast listener psychology, how to create a better podcast, how to use a podcast to market your products and services and grow your business, and broader marketing trends to help you grow your audience and stay ahead of the competition.
The show is hosted by Jeremy Enns from Podcast Marketing Academy and the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter, and Justin Jackson from podcast hosting platform Transistor.fm.
Complete the 2025 Podcast Marketing Trends survey and enter to win from one of 30 podcast marketing trainings worth a total of almost $16k.
A podcast listener's decision to click play boils down to a small number of touchpoints.
Most prominent are your show title, artwork, and episode titles. But while these (and other) touchpoints have always had a significant impact on listener acquisition, we've never had a way to track it.
Until now.
In 2024, Spotify rolled out a new discovery dashboard, giving us as creators a new set of metrics to understand how listeners flow through our listener acquisition funnel.
The best part is that if you know how to interpret the data this dashboard provides, it gives you a map of exactly what you need to do you improve your listener acquisition and grow your show.
Here's what you need to know.
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⭐️ Take our 2-minute podcast marketing audit to instantly identify the marketing problems keeping you from growth: https://go.podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit-pmte-sn ⭐️
Resources
Spotify Conversion Rate Benchmarks Report
How a Podcast Cover Art Redesign Helped Growth Mindset Psychology Grow 45% in One Month (+2,000 Downloads/Episode)
Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2024 Report
Subscribe to the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter
Try Transistor.fm for free for 14 days
✍️ Leave your feedback for the show: http://podcastmarketingtrends.com/feedback
More on Podcast Analytics
While podcast analytics might appear to be stuck in the stone age compared to platforms like YouTube, Google Analytics, and many social media platforms, there's a lot creators can learn about how to improve their shows and their marketing... if you know where to look.
Beyond podcast downloads, metrics like listen time, consumption rate, Spotify's podcast discovery dashboard, and more give us clues about the issues facing your show—and often tell you exactly how to navigate them. Which mean understanding your podcast analytics & metrics, and how they compare to industry benchmarks is an essential skill for marketing and growing your podcast.
About Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Podcast Marketing Trends Explained is a podcast about data-driven podcast marketing, growth, and monetization. In every episode, we take a peek under the hood of one data point from the Podcast Marketing Trends Report and dig into what it can tell us about how to market our shows better, and grow them faster.
On the show, we'll explore podcast marketing strategies, growth tactics, podcast listener psychology, how to create a better podcast, how to use a podcast to market your products and services and grow your business, and broader marketing trends to help you grow your audience and stay ahead of the competition.
The show is hosted by Jeremy Enns from Podcast Marketing Academy and the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter, and Justin Jackson from podcast hosting platform Transistor.fm.
Get in touch: jeremy(at)podcastmarketingacademy.com
Complete the 2025 Podcast Marketing Trends survey and enter to win from one of 30 podcast marketing trainings worth a total of almost $16k.
Will discovery algorithms actually grow your show for you?
Since the dawn of podcasting, creators have been clamoring for better discoverability. And now, thanks to YouTube & Spotfiy’s algorithms, better discovery might be here.
But will it actually be the marketing cure-all many creators hope it will be? Or might it actually make it harder to grow? Or perhaps, algorithmic discovery will change the medium into something else entirely…
One way or another, we’re about to find out. Here’s how to prepare for it.
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⭐️ Take our 2-minute podcast marketing audit to instantly identify the marketing problems keeping you from growth: https://go.podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit-pmte-sn ⭐️
Resources
Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2024 Report
Subscribe to the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter
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✍️ Leave your feedback for the show: http://podcastmarketingtrends.com/feedback
Complete the 2025 Podcast Marketing Trends survey and enter to win from one of 30 podcast marketing trainings worth a total of almost $16k.
It’s a turbulent time to be a podcaster.
YouTube and Spotify are introducing discovery algorithms that have the potential to both help and hurt creators. The rise of video podcasting is challenging the very definition of what a podcast even is. And AI… well, you already know about AI.
In short, being a podcaster today means trying to keep your head above water in the firehose of noise that is constantly flooding your listeners’ screens, feeds, and even personal recommendations.
So the question is: In the face of all of this noise, competition, and change, what are we as creators supposed to do?
Or, maybe a better question: Who are the podcast creators and marketers who are making the most of this changing podcast landscape, and what can we learn from the way they’re creating and marketing their shows, that we can apply to our own?
In Season 2 of Podcast Marketing Trends Explained, our goal is to get to the bottom of these questions, using a mix of data and personal insights and observations from our own podcasting experiments.
In every episode, we’ll take one key data point from the latest Podcast Marketing Trends Report, and break down what it means for you as a podcast creator, producer, or marketer, so you can make smarter, savvier, data-driven decisions about how to make and market your show.
You can check out the full report at podcastmarketingtrends.com and hit subscribe wherever you’re listening now to get every episode of this season.
⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://go.podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit-pmte-sn ⭐️
Resources
Subscribe to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained
Check out the Podcast Marketing Trends 2024 Report
Subscribe to the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter
Try Transistor.fm for free for 14 days
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Michael Jordan, Simone Biles, Wayne Gretzky. Every so often, someone comes along who is playing the game at a whole different level. And when it comes to podcasting, we've got two of them.
Jay Clouse and Chris Hutchins each host hugely successful shows. And this special episode, we're getting inside the minds of these two creators to understand the thought process, experiments, and personalities behind the downloads (not to mention some serious revenue).
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Resource
Listen & Subscribe to Sound Judgment
Creator Science Podcast
Creator Science
All the Hacks Podcast
Tim Ferriss Episode w/ Chris Hutchins
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Plus, we need your help to decide what to make next.
We spend the majority of our time thinking about podcast marketing & growth. But that doesn’t mean we have it all figured out.
In this final episode of Season 1 of Podcast Marketing Trends Explained, we break down our stats from the season along with our mistakes and missed opportunities, lessons learned… and the surprising insights we’ve gained along the way.
Plus, we brainstorm three new show concept ideas to keep us busy between seasons… and ask your feedback on which one we should pursue.
Cast your vote for which show we should make next
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Topics Covered
00:00 Intro
00:49 How many downloads we expected to get going into this season
02:35 Breaking down our Season 1 stats
03:22 Is YouTube worthwhile for the average podcaster?
08:34 Engagement time and consumption rates
12:44 The metric we care about more than analytics
20:26 Assessing Season 1: What we did well
23:02 How experimentation led us to find our structure
28:21 A big mistake we made with Season 1
32:05 Mistakes and missed opportunities in Season 1
36:18 Help us decide which show we should create next
40:57 Concept idea 1: “Make it Big”
45:03 Concept idea 2: “Why It Works”
49:48 Concept idea 3: “Podcast Riffs”
54:35 Listener feedback and what to expect from Season 2
⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️
Resource
Jay Clouse from Creator Science
Josh Spector
Bumper articles on measuring listen time
Growth In Reverse
Arvid Kahl
LinkFire
Chartable
The Futur
Unthinkable w/ Jay Acunzo
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Less than 5% of your potential audience is listening to your show. Here’s why, in their own words.
Even small shows with just a few hundred (or few dozen) downloads an episode have usually been listened to—at one point or another—by thousands of people.
A small number of those people are your regular listeners and superfans.
A larger number are casual listeners and samplers, people who don’t listen to every episode, but rather based on their interest in a specific episode topic or guest.
And then there are the people who listened to one episode or less… and never came back. While the data is hard to measure, chances are, less than 5% of the people who are both aware of your show and interested in your topic are regular listeners.
Which begs two questions:
1. Why aren’t they listening?
2. Is there anything you can do to change that?
To get to the bottom of this frustrating phenomenon, we ran a survey to our larger audience to find out—in their own words—what kept them listening more regularly… or at all.
The good news?
They didn’t hold back.
And in this episode, we break down their feedback, which—while aimed at our show—likely applies to your show as well.
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Topics Covered
00:00 Intro
00:49 9k email subscribers… 350 downloads
02:41 How listeners choose what content to engage
04:50 The role of 'Jobs to Be Done' in podcasting
11:32 Why our audiences are tuning us out experiment
15:30 Understanding your Total Addressable Market
18:32 Strategies for retaining podcast listeners
21:24 Earning the right to long term listeners
26:28 Breaking down our casual listeners repsonse data
29:01 The challenges of creating career-adjacent content
30:16 Creative ideas to engage more listeners
33:36 What listeners like about our titles and descriptions
37:13 Using feedback to guide your content strategy
41:50 Why non-listeners choose not to listen
44:06 How to break through to non-listeners
49:43 How we’re incorporating this feedback
⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️
Resources
Check out our full audience survey data
Walkthrough: How to replicate this survey for your show
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They’re not always obvious, but the elements of storytelling are at the heart of every great episode. This is as true for interview and solo shows as it is for narrative. For comedy & fiction as it is for business.
And in this episode, with the help of a special guest, we’re breaking down the core principles of storytelling and how to incorporate them into your show.
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Topics Covered
0:00 A new podcast growth experiment
3:21 Introducing Sound Judgment
6:24 Crafting your show’s Sound Vision
16:06 Structuring your episodes for impact & retention
18:54 Thinking in scenes
23:20 Surprise: The unexpected emotion behind all great podcast episodes
35:42 Why specifics are the key to unlocking memorability and emotion
40:20 Our analysis of the Sound Judgment episode
42:17 Digging deeper into defining your sound vision
47:35 How we use scenes to structure this show
51:33 How to incorporate surprise & suspense into your episodes
58:47 How to be a more specific (and thus, better) interviewer
1:01:52 The elements of a fantastic cross-promotion pitch
⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️
Resource
Listen & Subscribe to Sound Judgment
The Story Grid
YouTube: Brandon McNulty
On Being
Wild Boys
Famous & Gravy
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We all know success doesn’t happen overnight. But what does the data say about how long it takes to reach 1k… or 10k downloads per episode?
Podcasting is inherently a slow-growth medium.
Without a central discovery system offering the potential for virality, growing a podcast is a long game of slow, steady, incremental growth that compounds over time.
But while you might expect growth to be somewhat slow when you start out, how long should it take before it speeds up?
In this episode, we’re breaking down what the data says about how long it takes the typical show to reach the 1k and 10k milestones, the factors that influence those timelines, and what you can do to accelerate the process.
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Topics Covered
00:00 Intro
00:59 Podcast growth lessons from Warren Buffett
05:00 When typical shows hit the 1k & 10k dl/ep milestones
10:36 How experience affects a show’s growth rate
15:21 What everyone gets wrong about consistency in podcasting
26:16 The powerful compounding of relationships
31:33 Stacking micro-improvements to your show with every episode
35:26 Strategies for navigating (and avoiding) creative burnout
38:28 Building your transferable skill set
44:22 Our personal stories of creative compounding that have got us here
56:12 The impact of mentorship and constructive critique
⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️
Resource
Mike Birbiglia’s Podcast, *Working It Out*
Build and Launch, Past Project by Justin Jackson
Mega Maker, Project by Justin Jackson
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How long should your episodes be? What’s the best format for growth? Plus... the single most important decision you can make if you want to grow.
Before you launch a new show, you have to make a number of creative decisions that set the course of your show.
Will you do an interview, solo, or co-hosted show? How long should your episodes be? How often will you release new episodes? And who is this actually for?
These structural decisions tend to get made once, sometimes without much thoughts… but they cast a long shadow over the growth potential of your show forever.
So how do you ensure you’re making decisions that align with your goals and give you the best chance at success?
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Topics Covered
00:00 Intro
00:53 How much does a podcast's structure matter in terms of its success?
03:26 Breaking down our recent episode length experiment
10:12 A better question than “how long should my episodes be?”
19:03 Which show format is best for growth?
23:48 The impact of podcast format for success and audience growth
25:22 What makes for a great interview show?
25:43 The art of crafting compelling interview shows
29:45 What makes for a great solo podcast?
33:31 What makes a great co-hosted show?
37:01 How we would design a show to get to 50k downloads/episode
⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️
Resources
Akimbo
You're Wrong About
How I Write
Essay - Hide Your Work
Tanner Campbell - Practical Stoicism
Pod Save America podcast
All In podcast
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Most podcasters waste their time on these tasks that will never lead to growth. Are you?
Producing a regular podcast is one of the most grueling, time-intensive forms of content creation in existence.
But what if 80% of the time you’re currently spending on your show isn’t actually contributing to growth?
In other words, what if you could get the same results while spending drastically less time on your show?
Or, what if you were to redirect that time towards higher leverage activities that actually did move the needle for growth?
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Topics Covered
00:00 Intro
02:13 Breaking Down the Numbers: Data on high-growth show time spends
08:39 What stood out from the categories of growth in the data?
11:19 Where to spend time when you’re first starting your show
19:18 Finding opportunities to improve your show in your daily life
20:48 Where to spend your time once your show has traction
29:00 Time-sucking tasks to ignore or eliminate
40:21 The ultimate amplifier of every hour you spend on your show
42:37 How much time are you spending on your show each week?
⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️
Resources
David Perrell: How I Write Podcast
Chat GPT
Everyone Hates Marketers
Ira Glass
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