Podcast Marketing Trends Explained: Data-Driven Podcast Growth Strategies

Look closely at the data behind almost anything—from podcast growth, to Google search results, to Amazon product sales, and more—and you'll notice a trend.

In almost every case, the bulk of the rewards (downloads, clicks, sales) go to just a tiny percentage of the available options.

This pattern shows up everywhere, and it's known as the Power Law.

In this episode, we're breaking down the math behind the power curve a...

Imagine if you could interview 500 podcasters, separate out the ones that doubled their audience over the previous year, and ask them point blank what they did to get that result.

Well, that's exactly what we did, and in this episode, we're sharing what we found.

Specifically, we looked into the Podcast Marketing Survey submissions of the 15 highest-growth shows, shows that had grown anywhere from 100%–400% over the previou...

What everyone gets wrong about using social media to grow your podcast, and what you should be doing instead.

There might be no more common question in podcasting than: “How do I get more listeners”. And there might be no more common answer than, “Be active on social media.”

The result is that social media is by far the most popular marketing channel used by podcasters to (at least try to) get more listeners and grow their...

Everyone loves to talk about podcasting's so-called "Discoverability Problem". But does it actually exist?

And if not, what are the marketing channels you as a creator can tap into to get your show in front of more of your ideal listeners?

In this episode, we break down three types of listener acquisition channels and how you can leverage them to grow your show... without social media and without a discovery algorithm.

📊 ...

How to get the best ROI on your podcast production and marketing budget to maximize growth… whether it’s $100 or $10,000 per month.

You’re probably pretty confident that if you had more money to spend on your podcast, you’d be able to grow it faster.

But have you ever stopped to think about how you would spend it to get the greatest ROI?

Should you buy ads? Invest in better gear? Hire an editor or assistant?

In this episod...

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 yo...

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 struct...

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...

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.

📊 What did you think of this episode? Click to cast...

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 ra...

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, ...

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 t...

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 listene...

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 somethin...

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...

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 down...

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 deci...

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...

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 h...