5 Ways to Leverage Your Podcast Episode Archive and Boost Downloads [Ep. 132]

 
 

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Here’s what to expect from this episode:

Many of you have hit those 50-episode, 100-episode, and beyond milestones, including my clients (and myself). And they often ask how they can take advantage of all of those previous episodes. After all, it can be exhausting recreating that content wheel every single week!

I'm right there with them, and one of my big goals for 2024 is to really leverage allll of the content I already have. So today, I'm sharing 5 ways you can leverage your past podcast episodes to increase your downloads and create even more raving fans for your show.

This is naturally the time of year when we're reflecting and thinking about what we want to focus on for the upcoming year, which is why we're just coming off of a 5-episode series all about resetting your podcast for the new year. So go back and check out episodes 127-131 if you haven't already! And leveraging your old podcast episodes could be a great next step for you and your show.

One of the great things about podcasting is that your content has a much longer shelf-life than some of those other platforms (not naming any names!). And with Netflix creating a TV series binge culture, podcast listeners like to binge episodes from the great new shows they discover. So why not help them out and point them in the direction of the old episodes you want them to listen to??

Topics covered:

  • Why you should think about the habits of a podcast listener

  • The 5 ways you can leverage old podcast episodes:

    • Refer back to them in new episodes

    • Highlight older episodes in your socials

    • Replay previous episodes (with 2 ways!)

    • Include them in your email welcome sequence

    • Make episode playlists!

    • BONUS: Ongoing ways to boost SEO

Resources Mentioned:

favorite podcasting resources:

  • Sara Whittaker 0:01

    Your Podcast is a powerful tool that serves your audience and your business. But how do you manage it all bring in new listeners, and convert those listeners into customers. That's what this show is all about. Welcome to podcasting for educators. I'm Sara Whitaker, classroom teacher turn podcast manager. And I'm here to help you get the most out of your show, all while making an impact on other educators.

    Sara Whittaker 0:27

    Hey there and welcome back to another episode of podcasting for educators, we are just coming off of a five episode series all about resetting your podcast for the new year. If you missed that series, or you want to re listen to it, I've compiled all five of those episodes for you into a nice little playlist that you can find in today's show notes, you can just click the episode description inside whichever app you're listening to, or go to podcasting for educators.com/episode 132. The Playlist is totally free, you don't have to put your email in, you just click the link and you'll get that playlist that has all five of those episodes right there for you. So at the time of this recording, it is the beginning of January. And of course, this is naturally the time of year where we're doing a lot of self reflection, and thinking about what we want to focus on for the upcoming year. One of my big goals this year is to really leverage all of the content that I already have, instead of recreating the wheel every single week. And my podcast plays a big role in that right, this is our 132nd episode of this podcast. And so that's a lot of content that I've already created. And I know a lot of you who are listening, you have also hit that 50 Episode 100 Episode 200 episode, and even more than that, you've hit those milestones. And as my clients have hit those milestones, they often asked me, How can I really be taking advantage of all of my previous episodes? And it's such a great question, and that is exactly what we're going to focus on today. Now when we think about how we can really drive people back to our past episodes and how we can really leverage them, we probably first think about the word repurposing, and we've talked a lot about repurposing on this podcast before Episode 29 talked about repurposing podcast content on YouTube. Episode 59 talked about repurposing your podcast episodes on Tik Tok and episode 96 talked about easily repurposing your podcast content on Instagram. So go back and check out those episodes. If you are looking for more resources on how to repurpose your podcast episodes. Those are episodes that really talked about repurposing a specific episode, usually the week that it goes live. So you know if your episodes go live on Tuesday, how can you then repurpose that content into other platforms throughout that week? But today, we're really going to focus on how can you be consistently promoting and driving people back to episodes that have aired in the past. I want you to think for a moment about your habits as a podcast listener. I know for me, when I find a new podcast, and I'm really loving it. I want to binge I want all the episodes right then in there. So the first thing that I do, as I scroll, I scroll through the library of older episodes to see what I've missed before discovering this new podcast and what episodes are out there that I haven't listened to yet. I scroll and scroll and scroll and I read I read the titles to see which episodes really stand out as something that I want to listen to. I look for episodes that are really speaking to what I'm looking for in that exact moment or in the season that I'm in usually in business, I listen to a lot of business type of podcasts. And quick sidenote, exactly what I'm describing as what I do as a listener. This is why you really want to make sure that your titles for your episodes are both compelling to people they're hooking people in. And the titles are really clear as to what the episode is about so that people know right away if it's something that they want to listen to. And this whole idea of scrolling through and finding old content. This is one of the really, really cool things about podcasting. I'm not the only person that does this. Lots of people do this. And that means that as podcasters our previous podcast episodes are just continuing to gain traction over time, which is just fabulous news for us because the content that we're creating actually has a long shelf life, which we know isn't the case on other platforms not going to name any names. But I think we can all think of one in particular where that shelf life isn't so long. Now, not everyone will scroll back. Not everyone will see all of your past episodes, especially if you have a massive library when you hit that 200 300 episodes. Mark pets a lot of content for people to work their way through. So today, I want us to consider how we can make this even easier on our listeners, how can we make past episodes that we know people will love, even more accessible to people. And there's lots and lots of ways that we can do this. I've narrowed it down to five ways for today's episode, because these five things are things that we can do that really aren't going to take much effort on our part. And I think that's something that we can all appreciate. So here are five ways that you can leverage your past podcast episodes and in turn, increase your downloads and create even more raving fans for your show. That's what we really want to accomplish by driving new listeners and even people who maybe have been listeners for months now, but haven't listened to all of our content, we want to be bringing them back to as many episodes as possible, so that we are really given them all of our best stuff, and making sure that they are going to be listeners of our shows for the long haul. Alright, so number one, let's start out pretty simple. Number one is that you can and you should be referring back to previous episodes in your new episodes. This is such a simple thing that you can do. But I know that so many of you are not doing this on a consistent basis. And this is really something that you can easily build into your routine. If you have an episode outline template that you use to plan your episodes. Just add a section two, that template that says something like episodes that I can refer back to in this episode, and just choose one or two that you can really shout out in each of your new episodes that relate to that episode that you're currently recording. Now, the important thing to note here is that when you do this, when you're recording a new episode, and you're referring back to a previous episode, name the episode and give the episode number and add it to your show notes. I think I've said this before on a previous episode, and I have been guilty of not doing this before, but I really tried to do this. If you're going to refer back to a past episode, don't just say, Oh, I've done an episode on this before. And then expect people to scroll through and find what episode you're talking about. Make sure that you say it's episode number 50. You can say the title of it and it needs to be in the description for your episode in the show notes for your episode. Because that's the whole point of this right? We want people to actually go back and listen to that previous episode. Alright, the second way that you can leverage your past episodes is to make it a habit to highlight a previous episode each week on your social media. So this might be Facebook, it might be Instagram, Tik Tok, whatever your platform of choice is. And this could be a template that you have for Instagram stories, or it could be one post per week that you put on your Instagram feed. There's so many different ways that you can do this. But you can really easily make that a part of your weekly or your monthly content creation plan. So maybe you're gonna say okay, on Thursdays, I am going to do an Instagram post or an Instagram reel that drives people back to this past episode. Really easy way to give you more content for social media, and a pretty easy way to drive people back to those previous episodes. Okay, third thing that you can do is replay previous episodes. And I know that people have mixed feelings about this. Some people are like unsure about doing this. Some people love to do this. I don't know where you fall. But you know, when you're in that 200 Episode plus range. Again, that's a lot of content. And chances are most of your listeners haven't listened to every single one of your episodes. And even if they have, if you're on Episode 300, do you think that that person is going to remember episode 30? That you did? Maybe, but very likely not. And people re listen to episodes all the time anyway. So this is just a really simple way that you can leverage these past episodes. And you can do this in a variety of ways. So I'll touch on a couple different ways that you can do this. Number one, you could replay an episode in place of where your usually new episode would be. So if you usually put out a new episode on Mondays, maybe instead of putting out a new episode because you're sick or because you're I don't know, whatever. I can't think of any examples right now. But for whatever reason, you can't create a new episode or you don't want to create a new episode. You've got all these other episodes that you that you've already aired. So you could choose one of those and replay it in place of a new episode. And you have a few choices here. You can either tell people that it's a replay, or not even address the fact that it's a replay you can actually completely repurpose it by giving it a new title, new show notes or or you can just replay it as it is. And you can make it clear in the title that it's a replay. I have clients who have a lot of time, they'll record a new intro for it. So if they want to make it clear that it's a replay, they'll record a quick intro, you know, 30 seconds, one minute, that tells people, this is a replay of episode, blah, blah, blah. And this is why I'm replaying it for you. So you have lots and lots and lots of options. But I do think that this is something that you should definitely consider, especially as you get up there in the number of episodes that you have. And then another option is to sprinkle in replay episodes as bonus episodes. So again, let's say that you air new episodes on Mondays, maybe you begin to sprinkle in bonus episodes on Wednesdays. And you could do this once a month on a consistent basis. You could do this once a week, I think you'd have to have like hundreds of episodes to really do that. Or you can just randomly sprinkle in bonus episodes. When you feel like it, it's a really great way to get an additional boost and downloads, it's a great way to, again, take advantage of this content that you've already put out that people may not have listened to yet, or people might want to re listen to. Seasonal topics are especially good to do this with. So maybe last year you aired an episode about your favorite Thanksgiving read aloud. Well, when Thanksgiving comes around the following year, sprinkle that in as a bonus episode. By then a year has passed, and there's a good chance that you're going to have a good chunk of people who haven't listened to that episode that aired a year ago. Okay, fourth way that you can leverage past episodes. And this is one of my very favorite strategies to share with people. And that is to include some of your previous episodes in your welcome sequence in your email marketing provider. If you don't know what a welcome sequence is, or you don't have one yet, totally okay, I highly recommend checking out episode 73 of this savvy teacher seller, which is a podcast hosted by Kristen Doyle. Especially if you're a TPT. Seller, I would guess that you're probably already a listener of that podcast. If not, what are you waiting for? Definitely go check that out and make sure that you are following that podcast, lots of great episodes in there. But she did one fairly recently about welcome sequences. And in that episode, she does a really great job breaking down what a welcome sequence is, and examples of what to include in one. But to put it really simply a welcome sequence is a series of emails that someone gets when they join your email list or they sign up for a freebie. And including some of your old podcast episodes in this sequence is a great way to bring in new listeners to your podcast, because maybe somebody has joined your email list who isn't yet a podcast listener. So you're both driving people back to past episodes. And you're also making new people aware that you have a podcast so you're bringing in new listeners. And the best part about this strategy is that you can set it up once and forget it. I mean, you can definitely check in time to time and see if the episodes that you included in the welcome sequence aren't getting many listens, then you can switch them out for others and kind of experiment with that. But on overall day to day, it's pretty low energy on your part. Because once you have that setup, it's all automated within your email provider. I share a little bit more about how to really include podcast episodes in your welcome sequences. Inside of my audio course podcasts like you mean it, I'll link that in the show notes. Definitely if you are not already a part of podcasts like you mean it, check that out. It's a great resource for existing podcasters. Alright, and the fifth way that you can really leverage your past podcast episodes is using podcasts playlists. Now podcast playlists are exactly what you would think they are a collection of episodes that are grouped together that you can then share with your audience. So they all kind of center around a certain topic. It makes me think of if you grew up in the 90s, early 2000s We would always make our mixtapes and we would create them for our friends or the person we had a crush on. And it was just like a little love note in the form of songs and you can think about your podcast playlist the same way you are putting some of your greatest hits into one playlist to share with your audience. If you've never created a playlist before, you have some options, you can create them on Spotify, they're totally free and free to share with your audience. If you host on captivate you they actually have a feature just for creating playlists on Captivate, which is really cool and it's super easy to use. You can See one of my playlist examples that I mentioned at the top of this episode, the reset series. I also have an organic podcast growth playlist that I will link in the show notes as well. I'll have one playlist on Spotify and one playlist on Captivate so you can kind of see the difference there. But such a cool thing to do such an easy thing to do. And it's something that you can add to overtime, you can have multiple playlists, you can be adding to them all the time. And it's just a great way again, to be getting the most out of your old podcast episodes.

    Sara Whittaker 15:31

    Alright, so to recap those five ways that you can leverage past episodes number one, refer back to previous episodes in your new episodes number to highlight a previous episode each week on your social media. Number three, replay past episode number four, include past episodes in your welcome sequence. And number five, create podcast playlists. Now I did want to touch on just these are kind of like a couple bonus things. Some things that you can really do ongoing as you're creating new episodes that it's really good to just get in the habit of and then it will kind of be automated moving forward, if you will, I don't know if automate is the right word. But one of those things is SEO. If you're utilizing SEO in places like your episode titles, and your show notes, then that's going to organically bring in new listeners to your old episodes over time. So that's something that you can be doing every time you create a new episode, and it will pay off in the long run because it will consistently be driving people to old episodes. I've done a few episodes about SEO. Two of them. I will link in the show notes, Episode 68 and episode 78. And then the other kind of bonus thing I wanted to mention is that if you're on Pinterest, Pinterest is a great platform to be using to really leverage your past podcast episodes. Because as you're going as you're creating new episodes. Similarly, like what we talked about with SEO, you can be creating pins every time you create a new episode. And then those will continue to work for you over time and drive people back to your show notes drive people back to your podcasts, or, I mean at any time, you can go back and create pins for old episodes. So I'm not I'm not a Pinterest user. But I know a lot of you are and I definitely have clients who use Pinterest and who are seeing this traffic to old episodes from pins that they are pinning on Pinterest. I hope that this gave you some really great ideas on how you could easily be doing these simple things to be driving listeners back to previous episodes, which will give you that increase in downloads over time. As I previously mentioned before, definitely check out podcasts like you mean it if you are looking for more guidance on growth strategies and repurposing podcast episodes into things like your welcome sequence and into playlists. And of course, if you enjoyed this episode, I would love for you to head to Apple podcasts and write a review for the show. If you haven't already, if you're kind of drawing a blank on what to say in your review, use this episode as a jumping off point you can tell me what you liked about this episode, Episode 132. And maybe one of the strategies that you are going to try this year to leverage past episodes. Thanks so much for being here. I'll see you next week. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. To keep this conversation going connect with me on Instagram at podcasting for educators. I'm always looking for an excuse to talk about podcasting. If you're looking for support and launching, managing or growing your podcast, check out my online course the podcasting for educators prep school at podcasting for educators.com/prep school. I'll see you here next time.

More about Podcasting for Educators:

Podcasting for Educators is the podcast for TpT authors and other online educators. It's a show that will help you get your podcast in front of those who need it most - teachers, counselors, literacy specialists, SLPs, parents, and more! Each week, Sara Whittaker and her guests will share top tips and actionable strategies that you will need in order to launch, manage, and grow your podcast. You’ll learn how to leverage your show to build long-lasting relationships with your audience and promote your TpT resources, courses, and memberships, all while providing valuable and accessible content!

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Sara Whittaker