Ignore the False Claims: Here’s How to Actually Grow Your Podcast
You know what you can always expect from me? The truth! So, I’m going to get a little spicy and controversial today, but know that it’s coming from a place of caring because I don’t want to see you taken advantage of. I’m on my soapbox to tell you that the exaggerated, and even false, claims about podcast growth in the online marketing world have to stop. It’s so misleading and all it does is waste people’s time and money and leave them feeling defeated.
I get that we all want a quick fix to our issues and we’re willing to buy that magic tool or product or system that will help get us there. But honestly, if it sounds like it’s too easy, it probably is. Taking the time to grow your podcast the right way, strategically, is what works.
Today, I’m sharing why I’m so sick of seeing these false podcast growth claims online, what will actually grow your podcast, and why it’s so important to know the purpose of your podcast as it relates to your business. But what I mainly want to emphasize is that podcast growth takes time and these magic beans solutions people are selling are not the answer.
Exaggerated and false claims about podcast growth are running rampant in the online marketing world and it makes me angry
If you’ve spent any time online, I know you’ve seen these ads: “I helped a client do X because they bought my product Y.” And I get it, it’s exciting to find a solution to a need in your business. I’ve bought things for the same reason. But the problem is, as soon as I’ve bought the download, the course, the tool, whatever it is, I realize that there’s still so much more that I need to do in order to get the desired result. It’s frustrating and misleading, to say the least.
I saw a Facebook ad that inspired today’s post because it really fired me up. It said that by using their checklist, you’d get 10,000 downloads for your podcast. From a checklist?! HA! It’s not going to happen. So many other factors went into the growth of that podcast, not just one checklist. But if someone saw it who is struggling with growing their podcast audience, it would be attractive, right? They’d probably buy it. And that’s the aim of these false claims, to get you to buy, not necessarily to help you.
I just want you to be aware as you're looking at these ads that pop up in your feeds and as you're looking for help with things from coaches and business consultants, what are they promising? Does it feel like an overpromise? Does it feel like they're trying to give you a magic beans solution or are they trying to actually give you things that you can use and apply to your situation? Taking the time to do that gut check will help break the spell of these over-promising ads.
Here’s what will actually grow your podcast
I promise it’s not all negative. There are ways to grow your podcast, but just know that they are not quick fixes and growth will not happen overnight. These are things you have to work at and be willing to tweak and be patient.
Your podcast content has to be good.
Content is king. Nothing else matters if you can’t keep people engaged in your podcast. Your content has to speak to your ideal client. It has to be aligned with your business and offerings. Experimentation is great, but you can’t always wing it.
So, how do you know if your content’s good? Ask yourself these questions: 1) Are people coming back week after week, episode after episode? 2) Are your downloads increasing or decreasing? These questions will help you gauge what’s working and what’s not. You should also think about what you want to be known for and adjust your messaging accordingly. This will bring the right people to you.
You have to be visible out there in the world.
No one will find you and your podcast if they don’t know about it. It is so much harder to find the podcasts that you want and the podcast episodes you want in the apps than it used to be. And so you have to get your podcast in front of people who will be your ideal clients and people who will want to listen to your podcast.
So, get out there. Get seen. Get found. Be a guest on other podcasts. Do collaborations. Network and find your people. I promise they’re out there. Growing your podcast by using visibility, connections, and networking is such an impactful way to do it. Because then when people come to your podcast, they are not cold leads. These are people who are really ready to hear more, who want to be in your world, who want to listen to your podcast, who want to take the next step with you.
Before everything else, know your podcast’s purpose for your business
We can sit here and talk about podcast growth all day, but if you don’t understand how your podcast is working in your business, then none of this is going to work for you. Is your podcast part of your funnel? Have you set it up to drive leads to your business? What is the endgame for your listeners? What do you want them to do next?
Also, you have to understand that there is no magic bean. Podcasting is a long game. Even if you create a podcast and you get 10,000 downloads, you still have to develop that know, like and trust factor with people before they buy from you.
Don’t fall for the false claims. Also, don’t use false claims in your own business because it won’t work. Be yourself. Be authentic. Remember that podcast growth takes work and takes time, but it is possible. Show your audience how you can help them in an authentic way, and the growth will come.
LINKS:
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The Transcript for Podcast Your Business:
140: Ignore the False Claims: Here’s How to Actually Grow Your Podcast
[00:00:00] Caroline Hull I am so tired of seeing advertisements from online business owners and podcast coaches claiming big giant returns if you buy this magic thing or that magic thing, not even taking into consideration that podcast success is absolutely dependent on so many factors. A checklist isn't going to grow your podcast. Growing a podcast takes work, amazing content and a strategy. And I'm going to share more about this in this episode.
[00:00:37] Hi there, and welcome to Share, Strategize and Shine. I'm your host, Caroline Hull, a podcast strategist and CEO of Wild Home Podcasting. I've built my entire career through podcasts by sharing my experience using strategic systems and shining a light on the power of podcasting. If you are looking to cultivate leads for your membership, group program or consulting services, I'm here to help you create a holistic and integrative podcast strategy that will let your business thrive. Let's dive in.
[00:01:16] Hello and welcome back to Share, Strategize and Shine. I was not planning on recording today. I am exhausted. It's been a busy couple of weeks, but sometimes something just strikes you and you need to sit down and record. And that's what I'm going to be talking about today in this episode is something that I came across that just absolutely forced me. That was like, I need to get this out. So we're going to talk about it.
[00:01:47] But first, a problem that we solved this week. And you know, I love giving you real world advice and issues and things that you can use. And so I have been trying out some new tools for recording for my podcast. You know, when we started recording years ago, all of these online recording softwares, which is like Zencaster, Riverside didn't even exist when we started, but Zencaster was one of the ones that was there, and they were super unreliable, in my opinion. And so we moved to recommending that most of our clients record with Zoom when they do interviews, and we became experts in how to make Zoom audio sound pretty good. And there's more to that. It wasn't just Zoom. We would also have them record locally. But anyways, so now that so much has shifted in the industry and we're seeing a lot more tools coming out that are actually really helpful and useful. And so I really wanted to try one and I decided to try Squad Cast because it is set up to work with Descript now, and I was using Squadcast the other day for an interview. I was so excited about this interview. It was going to be really great and the person I was interviewing, they had a lot of background noise and a lot of echo, and it was really neat because I was able to very quickly open up the sidebar that would showed me the audio click echo cancellation and it was like a night and day sounding experience. It was so cool to hear the difference in real time from how she sounded before I clicked that button to how she sounded after. And what I loved is it did not require me to be an expert in audio. It did not require her to have an expert set up like we were able to just kind of troubleshoot in the moment, click a button, record the episode and like didn't even linger on it. And when we were done recording, she actually mentioned she was like, Oh my gosh, I hope I didn't hear the sound that happened during the recording. And I was like, Yeah, actually I did not hear at all because Squad cast corrected it. So I'm not one to usually talk about specific tools because I feel like you have to really find what works for you. And in my membership we definitely dive into specific tools and I make tutorials for my members and things like that. But you know, this is one that I've only used a few times and so I haven't decided if I really love it or not. And this was one of those moments when I mean to say like, yes, maybe we should start trying these tools more. So I highly recommend that feature in Squad cast. It works really great in this situation and I'm just excited to hear how the interview sounds after it's been edited by my editors because I think that it's going to end up sounding really great and it was such a good interview and I didn't have to worry about noise or headphones or anything. And so I just cannot highly recommend and you know, I love it when we can solve a good problem on the spot.
[00:04:56] Okay, so today's episode may get a little spicy, but I feel like this is something that needs to be talked about because, you know, I've been having conversations about this with other online business owners behind the scenes, but I don't really see a lot of people talking about it outright. And look, I get it because nobody wants to be controversial, but I'm going to be a little controversial today. False claims in marketing has become so rampant in the online business world. And when I talk about false claims, I'm talking and they may not be false. These like exaggerated claims of like, you know, I helped a client do X, I helped a client do Y. And yes, we all want monetary number analytics proof. But what I'm seeing a lot with online marketing is that it's almost becoming so exaggerated that it's hard to believe it's real. And I feel like it's just so rampant in the online business world. We see other people doing it, so we start doing it. And the thing is, is like we are all to blame because we buy when we see these big promises because we want that result. And I totally get it. Like I have bought things for the same reason because I have a problem I want solved. You're telling me that you can with this tool, this thing, this amazing thing can happen to me. And the problem with that is, as soon as I've bought the thing and I've gotten into it, I've realized that there's a lot more that I needed to do before the tool, the course, the resource, whatever the magic promised thing was before it could actually work for me. And isn't that like the truth of it, though, with all these big promises, like there's other things that go into it, I'm like totally jumping ahead of myself because this gets me so fired up.
[00:06:50] And this is one thing that I do not do in my marketing. And I honestly sometimes am so frustrated because I think because I don't do this, it hinders my business a little bit. But one thing I am learning and I'm trying to get better at is saying more of what I feel instead of trying to be like nice and the anti-bro marketer, which I still am, but I'm going to start being a little bit more loud and proud and and claiming some things a little bit more in my marketing. And you can do those things without making these big false or slightly exaggerated or really exaggerated empty promises.
[00:07:30] You know, I saw an advertisement on my Facebook feed today and it made me so mad because it claimed with a launch checklist you could get 10,000 downloads for your podcast. Seriously, a checklist. And like, here's the thing. Maybe this person had a client that got that many downloads. I do not doubt that at all. But with a checklist. No, absolutely not. Like there's so much more that probably went into that. They probably already had an established audience. They probably weren't in the podcasting business, podcasting space. There's so many ifs. We don't know what was going on before that person downloaded the checklist and launched their podcast. But if you saw that advertisement, you'd be like, Oh my gosh, this checklist is going to get me 10,000 downloads. This is the thing I've been missing. I'm going to download it right now. And look, here's the thing. I am not discrediting that there are some podcast coaches out there and they're helping clients get big returns. But I want you to understand that this is a bro marketing tactic designed to get you to buy. Yes, I want you to buy my things, but I also want you to understand that everyone's journey is different. And if we aren't looking at the whole picture of your business, nothing we are doing with your podcast strategy is going to matter. Nothing. It all has to work together.
[00:08:57] And that's the other thing too with a lot of podcast strategists and podcast coaches out there, they may be coaching podcasts completely different from yours. They may be coaching podcasts who are in the comedy space or the news space where the rate of downloads and things is so totally different. Then if you're a business owner with a podcast and I totally get it, I absolutely understand this feeling of like, I need some magic bean to help me because nothing I am doing is working. I have been feeling like that for the last six months in my business. I have been feeling like nothing I'm doing is working. And you know why nothing I was doing is working is because I wasn't and I haven't been. Well, several things, I want to dive into all these things, but I haven't been creating amazing content. I haven't been visible where I need to be visible. And I've been scared to show up as myself and say what I want to say because I don't want to ruffle any feathers. It's not going to help me grow my business. It's not going to help me grow my podcast. But I don't have to do it by making some claim that isn't necessarily true.
[00:10:10] And here's the thing. Like we celebrate our clients, we celebrate every milestone that our clients have, whether it's 50 downloads or a thousand or 10,000. We celebrate all of that because all of that is impressive, especially when you put so much time and love and energy into your podcast. When you're trying to build an audience, when you're starting out with nothing and you launch a podcast, every win is a win, and it takes time to build your audience. It takes time to figure out your messaging and your content. You know, it takes trial and error. It takes experimentation. It does not take a checklist. So I just want you to be aware, like, as you're looking at these ads that pop up in your feeds as you're looking for help with things from coaches and business consultants and things like what are they promising? Does it feel like an overpromise? Does it feel like they're trying to give you a magic beans solution or are they trying to actually give you things that you can use and apply to your situation?
[00:11:27] So I'm going to get off my soapbox just a little bit. And I want to talk now for a minute about what is actually going to grow your podcast as a coach, as a service provider, as a consultant, etc.. So I have been in this journey the last few months of reviving my podcast.
[00:11:48] Are your podcast episodes set up to help you sell your membership group programs and consulting services? And I'm not talking about selling in a sleazy way. I'm talking about episodes that are engaging, create connection and highlight your expertise. To get three months of episode ideas designed to help you sell your products and services for free, head to wildhomepodcasting.com/kit.
[00:12:15] I've talked about this on another episode, so I'm not going to dive too deep into it, but my podcast was basically dead in the water and I needed to revamp it. I need to revive it. But there were a lot of other things that were dead in the water. My business a little bit. My messaging there was so much that just needed a kick in the pants, frankly. So I am actually and have been implementing these things that I'm about to tell you, and I have almost doubled my downloads. I am seeing growth. I am seeing an increase in listeners. I am seeing a consistent increase in listeners. And that's what we really, really want. So I'm not just like giving you a magic beans solution. These are things that actually work. But you do have to work at them. All right. This isn't a checklist. This isn't a magic course or tool or anything. This is stuff that only you can do. I can give you all the things. But if you don't do these things, then they're not going to work.
[00:13:20] So the first one is content. Content, content, content, content. Your content has to be good. It has to be good. Nothing else matters if you cannot keep people engaged in your podcast. And it also needs to speak to your ideal client. So how do you know if your content's good? How are you judging that? I think the first thing is are people coming back week after week, episode after episode? Again, are your downloads increasing or are they decreasing? And if they're decreasing and you're not taking a look at your content, you're missing out on the growth opportunity. And how does your content get better when you're working in a silo, when you don't have help, when you're just sitting down recording week after week? And one of the things that has helped me is listening to other podcasts, seeing what I like, seeing what I don't like. But it's also just been looking at my messaging as a whole and saying, you know, what do I want to be known for? What do I want people to associate with me? How do I want to show up for my people who are listening? Ask yourself these questions and it can help you really improve your content. And it might be something as simple as structure. It might be something as simple as I need to script out my episodes instead of winging them. But the first place you always need to start is with your content.
[00:14:42] The second thing is visibility. You know, Are you out there in the world? Do people know about you? I have not been very visible in the online business world for the last year, and I'm not going to beat myself up about it because I've had a lot going on. But I have to own that. I have to acknowledge that the fact that I have not been visible has hindered my business and my podcast growth. It just has nonstop, end of story. It is so much harder to find the podcasts that you want and the podcast episodes you want and the apps than it used to be. And so you have to get your podcast in front of other people, in front of people who you think will be your ideal clients and people who will want to listen to your podcast. And so how do you do this? Well, you have to be on other podcasts. You need to do collaborations. You have to get out and find your people. And I honestly think this is so much more effective than anything else. You know, I think growing your podcast by using visibility, by using connections, by networking is such an impactful way to do it. Because then when people come to your podcast, they are not cold leads. These are not cold people who don't know who you are, who haven't heard you before. These are people who are really ready to hear more. These are people who want to be in your world. They want to listen to your podcast. They want to take the next step with you. If there is anybody that I want to work with and they have a podcast, I will go listen to their podcast. You know, that's always a big indicator for me if I'm going to like working with them or not. And so being visible to the right people is important. And I'm not saying that you have to create a crazy PR schedule or hire a big PR team or anything like that. I'm just saying that sitting behind your desk and behind your computer isn't going to solve the problem. It didn't solve it for me. But what has solved it is being more visible, showing up, not being afraid to speak my mind, which I'm still working on and learning because that's not something that comes easy to me and showing up, showing up in different spaces, showing up more often, you know?
[00:17:03] But this all brings me to another issue. Like you have to understand your podcast purpose or none of this matters. Like, we can sit here and talk about podcast growth all day and how to grow your podcast. But if you do not understand how your podcast is working in your business, then none of this is going to work for you. You know, you have to understand, is it part of your funnel? Have you set it up to drive leads to your business? You know, what is the endgame for your listeners? What do you want them to do next? And you have to understand that there is no magic bean. There is no quick fix. Podcasting is a long game. Even if you create a podcast and you get 10,000 downloads, you still have to develop that know, like and trust with those people before they buy from you. Unless, of course, you're promising a magic bean again. You know, it's this vicious circle I'm seeing in the online business world. And it makes me sad because years ago, I mean, not that long ago, let's not age me too much. But, you know, when I first started an online business, it wasn't like this at all. There was a clear difference. You always could tell there was a clear difference between the people who were using these types of marketing tactics and the genuine, authentic people who were just showing up and being themselves online. And marketing has gotten harder. It just has, especially online marketing. The world is different, the online space is different. And I get it and I have been so frustrated by it. But that does not mean you start leaning into these tactics, and it doesn't mean that you start making promises and selling magic beans. Be yourself. Be authentic. Talk about what's wrong in your industry. Talk about what's going on in your world. Call people out when they need to be called out in a kind, loving, authentic way.
[00:18:57] I posted a reel the other day that was a smidge out of my comfort zone and it wasn't too complicated. It wasn't too controversial. It just said, Hey, if your podcast isn't growing, it's because of your content. Why have I never posted anything like that on Instagram before? But I have talked about it with you know, my membership members, I've talked about it with clients, I've talked about it on this podcast, but for some reason I had never posted anything like that on my Instagram feed. And I did. And I've had a great response. You know, I've had DMs, I've had a couple of leads come in through my Instagram DMs, and it's not because I promised anything. It's not because I exaggerated a statistic, it's because I said something that was true. It's because I read this in a report. But it was something that I also knew firsthand because it happened to me, right? You know, my podcast is improving. It's growing in the direction I want it to. And it has taken work and has taken me really being intentional about the content that I'm creating. It has taken me stepping outside of my comfort zone and working on a visibility strategy. It has taken me reaching out to people that I never would have reached out to before. But like I'm tired of not owning my space. I'm tired of being looked over because I'm so timid. You know, I want to grow my business. I want to grow my podcast. This is how I'm going to do it, but not by making empty promises.
[00:20:38] So that's what I wanted to share today, because it really, I feel like has become something, just an epidemic in the online business world. And if you feel like that's what you have to do to make a sale, I really want you to think about why you started doing this in the first place. And I bet it was because you wanted to help people. And that doesn't help people. And the next time you see a really big claim from an online business owner in a Facebook ad or on their Instagram, dig a little deeper. You can usually see what results people are actually getting, if you dig a little deeper and read comments. You can usually figure it out. And there have some I've seen where it wasn't too far from the truth. Right. But not everybody is going to get the 10,000 downloads from the checklist. And that's really what I want you to get from this. You have to own your own journey. You have to be willing to put in the work and you have to understand that there is no quick answer. There's no quick magic bean solution. It's usually a group of things coming together to work for you and for your business and for your podcast. And if you need help figuring out what those ingredients are, there are genuine people out there who can help you do that, and I am one of them. We're going to sit in a strategy call, and I'm going to be honest with you about the things I've seen your business that could be hindering you as your podcast grows, you know, and figuring out where the holes are, figuring out where the gaps are, because that's what you need to do to make your podcast really work for your business. Find the holes, fill the gaps, have it all, work seamlessly together, improve your content, be excited about what you're recording. So like today, when a mood strikes you when something comes up, I was able to outline this episode and sit down and record it very passionately, I might add.
[00:22:36] So I'd love to hear your thoughts. You know, if you agree with me that this is something that you see, come over on Instagram, hang out at wildhomepodcasting. I really don't want to be a part of that problem in the online business world. I really want to authentically help people with their podcasts in a way that feels aligned, in a way that doesn't feel sleazy and in a way that helps you grow your business. And that's it. Have a great day. I'll be back soon with another episode.
[00:23:10] Thank you so much for listening to Share, Strategize and Shine. To give your own podcast some shine, download my free podcast content by heading to the link in the show notes. Be sure to leave a review and connect with me on Instagram for more podcast strategy insights. Until next week.
