March 11, 2025 • 8 mins
Forget the internet "gurus" who claim email is dead—it's very much alive and remains one of the most powerful marketing tools for creators, including podcasters like you.
A strong email list does more than just deliver updates—it keeps your audience engaged, nurtures loyal listeners, and makes it easy for fans to share your show with others. Think of it as your direct line to your biggest supporters, free from the ever-changing algorithms of social media.
In this episode of Pod Tips Weekly, host Ryan Tillotson, CEO of Straw Hut Media, breaks down why email newsletters consistently outperform social media when it comes to actual podcast downloads.Why Emails Matter
A strong email list does more than just deliver updates—it keeps your audience engaged, nurtures loyal listeners, and makes it easy for fans to share your show with others. Think of it as your direct line to your biggest supporters, free from the ever-changing algorithms of social media.
In this episode of Pod Tips Weekly, host Ryan Tillotson, CEO of Straw Hut Media, breaks down why email newsletters consistently outperform social media when it comes to actual podcast downloads.Why Emails Matter
- Email newsletters drive higher conversions—typically 3-5%, compared to social media’s 0.03-1%.
- Social media alone isn’t enough—even accounts with millions of followers see low direct conversions.
- Start your email list today—it’s an easy, direct way to engage your audience and boost your downloads.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to another episode of pod Tips Weekly.
I'm your host, Ryan Tillotson. I am the CEO of
straw Hut Media, a podcasting agency, and today we're talking
about email lists. Whether you have a weekly newsletter or
a monthly update, or some kind of direct email to
your audience, having an email list can be a game
(00:29):
changer for your podcast. There's huge benefit to being able
to communicate with your audience directly without having to fight
an algorithm for visibility. Let's get into it. Okay, okay,
so these numbers aren't exact, but we typically find that
podcasters who highlight their show in an email newsletter see
(00:50):
a three to five percent conversion rate. And what do
I mean by conversion? That means three to five percent
of the people who receive that email will click on
the link in the email and listen to that podcast,
adding to your downloads. And now you might be thinking, okay,
three to five percent seems low, and it really is.
(01:11):
It's a small number. I mean, especially say you only
have an email list of about one thousand people, which
is probably the more common one thirty percent of that
is what thirty It's tiny, but compared to social media
posts and campaigns, it's significantly higher. Social media is great
for brand awareness, but we rarely see people clicking from
(01:33):
a post directly to a podcast platform. What we see
the typical conversion rate from social media is somewhere between
point zero three percent and one percent. And that's a
huge difference. And now let's keep in mind that this
isn't a one size fits all kind of situations. Some
(01:54):
audiences are much more engaged than others, and the example
I'm about to share, I actually felt that this particular
chain had a very engage audience, but I've seen channels
with even more dedicated followers who interact at a much
higher rate. That being said, even if your engagement is strong,
the math still applies. If you're working with social media
conversion rates around half percent to one percent, you need
(02:16):
to reach a huge number of people to make a
real impact on your downloads. That's why keeping up with
social media posting is super important. The more you post,
the more chances you have to hit the right people
at the right time. Not every post reaches your full audience.
Like ever, algorithms are unpredictable, and sometimes a post just
doesn't get the visibility you'd expect. So the more frequently
(02:37):
you post, the better your odds are of getting your
podcast in front of the right listeners. Okay, so I'm
going to give you an example that happened to us
with one of our favorite clients about four years ago.
I'm not going to name any names. We were launching
a podcast and this particular client had about a million
followers on Instagram and maybe three and a half million
across all social platforms, and they were convinced that promoting
(02:59):
their podcasts through social media would easily bring thirty thousand
plus downloads immediately. You know, we're creating all these assets.
We're creating posts and videos for all different types of platforms,
from Facebook to Instagram, to TikTok to LinkedIn. Launch day
arrives and the social media buzz was huge. Their post
got tons of likes, comments, and shares. We were all
(03:22):
very excited, thinking we'd see a major spike in downloads,
but when we check the numbers, less than five thousand downloads.
We were so shocked. I mean, people watched the posts,
people liked it, people shared it, but it did not
immediately convert to a download, which is what we were
(03:44):
telling advertisers sponsors all of this that we were going
to be getting thirty plus thousand downloads an episode, and
you know what, we didn't do it right away. We
only had about five thousand. It was crazy. So that's
when we looked into ways of trying to grow this.
And they had a big email list. They had a
(04:05):
massive active website and had been collecting emails for a newsletter,
but they were using it. So we asked how many
emails they had. They said over three hundred thousand, so
that got our attention. Of course, we ran it through
a cleanup process and found out that, you know, only
about half of them were usable emails. So instead of
doing another big social media push, we ran with a
(04:27):
newsletter campaign featuring the podcast. And the result, well, it
was a much higher conversion rate, higher than any social
posts they had ever done. Now you can't tell how
many people liked it, you can't tell how many shares
it got, you can't see how many hearts it got
or anything like that, but what you can see is
(04:48):
the conversion. You can see how many people clicked on
the link in the email, and the number was well
somewhere between three to five percent. We were so shot,
how quickly. This helped grow the podcast. At that moment,
we realize that email lists are one of the most
underrated tools for podcasters. Social media is still super valuable
(05:13):
for brand awareness, and we definitely kept using it. We
continue to use it, but when it actually came to downloads,
nothing compared to a strong email newsletter. And again I
would say, like, don't not be active on social media.
I think it's a very important part of the podcast
of the brand awareness. You need to be present there,
(05:34):
and I do think it helps over time. Again, it's
a brand awareness campaign. You know, over time, people will
continue to see your face or your voice and you'll
hear it and they'll be like, oh, now I really
have to subscribe. I really got to listen to this.
But if you want to talk direct conversions on the day,
email email is the answer. Unlike social media, where your
(05:55):
posts disappear into an algorithm, and email lands directly into
somebody's inbox and they've already chosen to receive it. That
means they're far more likely to engage. People may scroll
right past your Instagram post without even registering what it's about,
but when they see a podcast and an email they
signed up for there's a much higher chance that they're
(06:16):
gonna actually click through and listen. So if you haven't
started an email list, now is the time. Even a
simple sign up form on your website can help you
start building a direct relationship with your audience, one that's
not controlled by a social media algorithm. And if you
want to see an example, Strah Media has a weekly newsletter,
(06:37):
maybe that's even how you found this podcast. Who knows.
We're highlighting some of our favorite podcasts that we produce
each week, and in every newsletter we talk about this podcast,
we give you this tip, but in more of a
written form. But the goal of the newsletter is to
get you to listen to this episode. So you listening
(06:57):
right now may have found the newsletter first and then
came here for a little bit more of a deep
dive into the tip. And if you don't subscribe to
our newsletter, do it. You can go to our website
at the footer and there is a little option down
there to join the newsletter and you'll get a little
bit of taste of what a simple newsletter can look like.
We're keeping it simple here. Okay. Final takeaways. Number one,
(07:21):
Email newsletters consistently outperform social media when it comes to
driving actual podcast downloads. Number two, even massive social media
followings don't guarantee high download numbers. I think over time
this may change as you continue to post the social
media brand awareness campaign will have effect. But again we're
(07:44):
talking about specific downloads on the day. And number three,
if you don't have an email list, start one today.
It's not hard. You can use built in templates from
your CRM usually or get one from a mailchimp. It's
one of the best tools that you can have as
a podcaster, trust me. All Right, that's it for today.
(08:05):
Thank you so much for listening. If you don't already
subscribe to this podcast, I don't know what you're doing.
Please do it. Wherever you're listening, find it that subscribe button,
click it. And with that said, I will see you
next week.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of pod Tips Weekly.
I'm your host, Ryan Tillotson. I am the CEO of
straw Hut Media, a podcasting agency, and today we're talking
about email lists. Whether you have a weekly newsletter or
a monthly update, or some kind of direct email to
your audience, having an email list can be a game
(00:29):
changer for your podcast. There's huge benefit to being able
to communicate with your audience directly without having to fight
an algorithm for visibility. Let's get into it. Okay, okay,
so these numbers aren't exact, but we typically find that
podcasters who highlight their show in an email newsletter see
(00:50):
a three to five percent conversion rate. And what do
I mean by conversion? That means three to five percent
of the people who receive that email will click on
the link in the email and listen to that podcast,
adding to your downloads. And now you might be thinking, okay,
three to five percent seems low, and it really is.
(01:11):
It's a small number. I mean, especially say you only
have an email list of about one thousand people, which
is probably the more common one thirty percent of that
is what thirty It's tiny, but compared to social media
posts and campaigns, it's significantly higher. Social media is great
for brand awareness, but we rarely see people clicking from
(01:33):
a post directly to a podcast platform. What we see
the typical conversion rate from social media is somewhere between
point zero three percent and one percent. And that's a
huge difference. And now let's keep in mind that this
isn't a one size fits all kind of situations. Some
(01:54):
audiences are much more engaged than others, and the example
I'm about to share, I actually felt that this particular
chain had a very engage audience, but I've seen channels
with even more dedicated followers who interact at a much
higher rate. That being said, even if your engagement is strong,
the math still applies. If you're working with social media
conversion rates around half percent to one percent, you need
(02:16):
to reach a huge number of people to make a
real impact on your downloads. That's why keeping up with
social media posting is super important. The more you post,
the more chances you have to hit the right people
at the right time. Not every post reaches your full audience.
Like ever, algorithms are unpredictable, and sometimes a post just
doesn't get the visibility you'd expect. So the more frequently
(02:37):
you post, the better your odds are of getting your
podcast in front of the right listeners. Okay, so I'm
going to give you an example that happened to us
with one of our favorite clients about four years ago.
I'm not going to name any names. We were launching
a podcast and this particular client had about a million
followers on Instagram and maybe three and a half million
across all social platforms, and they were convinced that promoting
(02:59):
their podcasts through social media would easily bring thirty thousand
plus downloads immediately. You know, we're creating all these assets.
We're creating posts and videos for all different types of platforms,
from Facebook to Instagram, to TikTok to LinkedIn. Launch day
arrives and the social media buzz was huge. Their post
got tons of likes, comments, and shares. We were all
(03:22):
very excited, thinking we'd see a major spike in downloads,
but when we check the numbers, less than five thousand downloads.
We were so shocked. I mean, people watched the posts,
people liked it, people shared it, but it did not
immediately convert to a download, which is what we were
(03:44):
telling advertisers sponsors all of this that we were going
to be getting thirty plus thousand downloads an episode, and
you know what, we didn't do it right away. We
only had about five thousand. It was crazy. So that's
when we looked into ways of trying to grow this.
And they had a big email list. They had a
(04:05):
massive active website and had been collecting emails for a newsletter,
but they were using it. So we asked how many
emails they had. They said over three hundred thousand, so
that got our attention. Of course, we ran it through
a cleanup process and found out that, you know, only
about half of them were usable emails. So instead of
doing another big social media push, we ran with a
(04:27):
newsletter campaign featuring the podcast. And the result, well, it
was a much higher conversion rate, higher than any social
posts they had ever done. Now you can't tell how
many people liked it, you can't tell how many shares
it got, you can't see how many hearts it got
or anything like that, but what you can see is
(04:48):
the conversion. You can see how many people clicked on
the link in the email, and the number was well
somewhere between three to five percent. We were so shot,
how quickly. This helped grow the podcast. At that moment,
we realize that email lists are one of the most
underrated tools for podcasters. Social media is still super valuable
(05:13):
for brand awareness, and we definitely kept using it. We
continue to use it, but when it actually came to downloads,
nothing compared to a strong email newsletter. And again I
would say, like, don't not be active on social media.
I think it's a very important part of the podcast
of the brand awareness. You need to be present there,
(05:34):
and I do think it helps over time. Again, it's
a brand awareness campaign. You know, over time, people will
continue to see your face or your voice and you'll
hear it and they'll be like, oh, now I really
have to subscribe. I really got to listen to this.
But if you want to talk direct conversions on the day,
email email is the answer. Unlike social media, where your
(05:55):
posts disappear into an algorithm, and email lands directly into
somebody's inbox and they've already chosen to receive it. That
means they're far more likely to engage. People may scroll
right past your Instagram post without even registering what it's about,
but when they see a podcast and an email they
signed up for there's a much higher chance that they're
(06:16):
gonna actually click through and listen. So if you haven't
started an email list, now is the time. Even a
simple sign up form on your website can help you
start building a direct relationship with your audience, one that's
not controlled by a social media algorithm. And if you
want to see an example, Strah Media has a weekly newsletter,
(06:37):
maybe that's even how you found this podcast. Who knows.
We're highlighting some of our favorite podcasts that we produce
each week, and in every newsletter we talk about this podcast,
we give you this tip, but in more of a
written form. But the goal of the newsletter is to
get you to listen to this episode. So you listening
(06:57):
right now may have found the newsletter first and then
came here for a little bit more of a deep
dive into the tip. And if you don't subscribe to
our newsletter, do it. You can go to our website
at the footer and there is a little option down
there to join the newsletter and you'll get a little
bit of taste of what a simple newsletter can look like.
We're keeping it simple here. Okay. Final takeaways. Number one,
(07:21):
Email newsletters consistently outperform social media when it comes to
driving actual podcast downloads. Number two, even massive social media
followings don't guarantee high download numbers. I think over time
this may change as you continue to post the social
media brand awareness campaign will have effect. But again we're
(07:44):
talking about specific downloads on the day. And number three,
if you don't have an email list, start one today.
It's not hard. You can use built in templates from
your CRM usually or get one from a mailchimp. It's
one of the best tools that you can have as
a podcaster, trust me. All Right, that's it for today.
(08:05):
Thank you so much for listening. If you don't already
subscribe to this podcast, I don't know what you're doing.
Please do it. Wherever you're listening, find it that subscribe button,
click it. And with that said, I will see you
next week.
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