Podcast Marketing Trends Explained: Data-Driven Podcast Growth Strategies
Jeremy Enns & Justin Jackson | Podcast Growth, Marketing & Promotion Experts
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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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✍️ Leave your feedback for the show: **http://podcastmarketingtrends.com/feedback**
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
- The Tim Ferriss Show
- This American Life
- Mel Robbins’ podcast
- Headliner
- Descript
- The Law of Shitty Click Throughs by Andrew Chen
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
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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
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 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
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 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.