Converting Email Subscribers & Social Media Followers Into Podcast Listeners [Organic Growth Series] [ep. 83]
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Here’s what to expect from this episode:
Ever wonder why more of your email subscribers or Instagram followers aren't converting into podcast listeners?
Welcome to the 6th and final episode in our Organic Growth Series! Like a big puzzle, every piece we've talked about matters, and your podcast growth puzzle will not be complete without all of them. But there's one last puzzle piece that we need to talk about today.
Tune in to hear a recap of this Organic Growth Series, a reminder that your email list and IG audience aren't the same as your podcast listeners, getting to the why behind it all, and actionable steps you can take to complete your puzzle.
TOPICS COVERED:
Recapping our Organic Growth Series (AKA your podcast growth puzzle)
A reminder that your email list and IG audience aren't the same as your podcast listeners
3 reasons why you're existing audience isn't converting to podcast listeners
How you can better understand the why with a survey
Other actionable things you can do to complete your puzzle
Resources mentioned:
TODAY'S FEATURED PODCASTER:
Kelly Hogan is a classroom teacher turned STEAM Specialist, a self-described Math struggler-turned Math Enthusiast, and the host of The Mathematically Enthused Podcast, where she helps upper elementary teachers with classroom management, student engagement, and all things math.
If you're looking for a podcast guest, she'd love to talk about financial literacy, math in the media, or even neuroplasticity and math mindset.
You can connect with Kelly on Instagram @mathematicallyenthused.
Connect with Sara:
Related episodes:
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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
Hello, hello. Welcome back to podcasting for educators. This marks our sixth and final episode in a series all about organic podcast growth. If you haven't caught the first five parts of this series, you don't have to do anything crazy, like pause and go back first. But I would definitely check them out when you are done with this one. Let me give you a quick run through of this series so far. In episode 78. We talked about holistic SEO for personal brands with Nina Gibson. In Episode 79, I gave you five visibility strategies to get more podcast listeners. In episode 80. I talked to Kate all about what to know about your Pinterest marketing in 2023. Episode 81 talked about the role that listener retention plays in your podcast success. And in Episode 82. I talked with Jeremy ends about what an effective podcast marketing strategy looks like. This series has talked a lot about organic ways to not only grow your podcast audience, but grow your audience as a whole, and how you can get in front of new people and build awareness around your brand. And then of course, we also looked at how to nurture your current podcast audience and actually keep them around week to week. Just like a big puzzle, every piece that we've talked about matters and your podcast puzzle will not be totally complete without all of them. But at the same time, this is like one of those really big puzzles that you don't put together in one day, you kind of chip away at it day after day a little bit at a time, you find a good starting point for you and you work in the other pieces as you go. No one says that you have to start at the top corner of the puzzle or you have to start with a specific piece. You might have a different way of putting your puzzle together than somebody else does. Maybe you utilize Tik Tok instead of Pinterest or Facebook instead of Instagram. Maybe you're a DIY podcaster. And you haven't had the time to put into SEO yet. But your listener retention rate is through the roof. Everyone will go about implementing these strategies on their own time. But when you do, you're all going to come to the same result which is consistent growth. Now there's one last puzzle piece that we need to talk about today. But before we do that, I just want to take a moment to read a recent podcast review that someone has left for this show on Apple podcasts. And this is from teaching mind, body and soul. She says I first began listening to Sarah's podcast after hearing her present in an online summit and immediately got hooked. After learning actionable strategies for podcasting. I knew I needed to join the prep school, and I binge the course so I could create my own podcast. Now I have launched my own podcast, I'm helping and creating a community of other educators while growing to over 10k downloads in just six months. If you're considering starting your podcast, Sara is your go to girl. Thank you so much. And I know that teaching mind, body and soul on Instagram is Brittany who is the host of the resilient Teacher Podcast. So a shout out to Brittany, I love to hear that your podcast is going so well. You're doing amazing things. So thank you so much for your review. And as I'm reading this review, I'm realizing that this is actually perfect for this organic growth series. Brittany started out her review saying that she first heard about this show after hearing me speak at an online Summit. And if you listened to Episode 79, where I talked about those visibility strategies, being a speaker at a virtual Summit is one of those strategies that I talked about. So there you go, there is living proof that it does work. Okay, so back to this idea of that last piece that you just can't find. You've checked the box a million times, but it is still nowhere to be found. The rest of the puzzle fits together perfectly and it's beautiful, but dammit, it's still missing that one piece and it's really starting to bug you. From a podcast perspective. You are consistent with your recording you feel great about the content you're creating. You're doing your keyword research and you're writing those SEO friendly show notes. You're putting yourself out there getting in front of new people through things like podcast guesting and virtual Summit. You've got your social media platform of choice, you're showing up on there and you're talking about your podcast, you're writing your weekly newsletter, the list goes on, you're doing all of the things, but maybe you've got this email list of hundreds or 1000s of people and you have a social media following that you're really proud of. But you're beginning to realize that a lot of your existing audience in places like Instagram, your email list, or even TPT, aren't converting to podcast listeners. What is that all about? This question came to me from one of my clients several months ago, we were doing a six month review of her show, and her and her numbers were looking great. She's had so much growth. And I asked her if there were any questions that she had, or anything that she really wanted to focus on an upcoming year. And she said, I have an email list of I can't remember the exact number it was like 35,000, possibly even more than that. So a great email list. And she said that a lot of those people are not converting to her podcast. She even asked a few months before this meeting that we were having she had asked her audience if they knew that she had a podcast, and some like crazy percentage, like almost half of the people said that they didn't even know that she had a podcast. And she was also realizing that she wasn't getting a lot of clicks on her podcast episodes when she was putting them into her emails. So she was asking for my advice on what she could do about this. And a couple months later, I heard the same thing from somebody else. So I know there's gotta be others of you out there who are wondering this same thing, why aren't more of my email subscribers, or my Instagram followers converting into podcast subscribers. So let's talk about what the deal is here. First things first, I've said this before, and I'll just say it again, your Instagram audience and even your email list, it could include a lot of different people than your podcast does. So I don't want you to compare those things like apples to apples, I don't want you to expect that those numbers are going to be the same. And I've seen this on both ends of the spectrum. I've seen people who have a much larger podcast listenership than email list or than Instagram followers, the two, or three or four groups of people just don't always align. And I see this question of why aren't more of my email subscribers converting into podcast listeners, I see this a lot with people who had a really healthy, established email list before they even started their podcast, versus someone like me, who didn't start their email list until I started my podcast. So my podcast was kind of like the foundation of my business, in terms of like from a marketing perspective, versus some of you who may be you already had your marketing really established before you started your show. So for me, most of my marketing comes from my podcast, I talk about my lead magnets, and my paid offers way more on my podcast than I do on Instagram. So I know for a fact that a huge percentage of my email lists are podcast listeners, and they likely came from the podcast, not likely I know that they have because I ask. So if you are the other way around. First of all, like, that's incredible that you already have this established existing audience. But a chunk of them might not be podcast listeners. So let's look at why and what what we can really do to fix this. So I'm really breaking this down as far as like the why, like, Why aren't these people converting to podcast listeners into three categories? Number one is that they might not even know that you have a podcast, because the fact of the matter is, people don't open emails, people don't see your content on Instagram, they just don't know everything that you have to offer. So while you feel like you might be talking about it a lot, you probably need to be talking about it a lot more. And we'll talk about how you can do that in a minute. So number one, they might not know that you even have a podcast in the first place. Number two, maybe they see that you have a podcast, but they don't actually know what a podcast is. Okay, this is a real thing. Buckle up because this is going to shock you. There are people in the world who don't know what a podcast is. And I say this jokingly because obviously, I'm somebody who listens to podcasts all day, every day, and likely, a lot of you are the same way. But there really truly are people out there who do not know what a podcast is. They don't know how to find a podcast on their phone. They don't know that it's free to listen to. They don't know how to listen. So you need to be the one to educate them on that. You need to be using words like free in your emails and in your copy because when people hear if you're using the word subscribe, like you're telling people to go subscribe to my podcast. People associate subscribe with paid things. So if you're talking to somebody who doesn't even really know what a podcast is in the first place, and then you're asking them to go subscribe to it, they very well might be thinking that that is something that they have to pay for. You can make videos, like just a quick screen recording on your phone of how to actually pull up and find your show on apps like Apple podcasts and Spotify, let them know that they can listen in their car, let them know that they likely already have this app on their phone. And they might not even know it. Because I think for us, as business owners, we're constantly on social media, we are in tune with things like email marketing, we are surrounded by people posting about podcasts and blogs and YouTube and Tiktok. But your average audience member is not seeing the same kind of Instagram feed that you are. So we just have to remember that we have to remember that although it feels to us like everybody in the world has a podcast and everybody listens to podcasts. That is not the case with the average audience that a lot of you all might have.
Sara Whittaker 11:16
Okay, so maybe they don't know you have a podcast, maybe they don't know what the heck a podcast is, or how to listen to one. This next one, it's going to hurt a little bit.
Sara Whittaker 11:26
They might see every single week in your email that you have a podcast, they might know exactly how to find your podcast, but they just might not be interested in podcasts. I know, stings a little bit. But everybody has their preferences. Just like you a lot of your podcast listeners, they're not going to be interested in your emails, no matter how often or not often you send them that's me, I'm, I would much rather listen to you every week on a podcast, then open your weekly email. I'm not a huge fan of having million emails in my inbox. But that's not everybody. But it is a reality that everybody has these preferences. So that's why it's so very important to be in more than one place online. That's how you grow your business into levels that you never even thought were possible to be able to make sure that you are appealing to all of these different people who have all of these different preferences. Okay, so those are some reasons why people might not be converting from email subscriber to podcast listener. And even though there might be some weirdos out there who don't like podcasts, I'm totally kidding here. Many people do, we just need to understand why they are on your email list. But they haven't become a listener yet. My very first piece of advice that I would give to you if this is your reality, is to do a survey. And I've talked about surveys on here before but this is a different kind of survey. We are usually I talked about doing a podcast listener survey. So you're sending this out to people who are podcast listeners. But in this case, we're trying to figure out why more people aren't podcast listeners. So your goal for this survey would be to get information about where people are in terms of podcasting, whether or not they know what a podcast is. Are they a podcast listener? Do they have Apple podcasts? Do they have Spotify? Do they listen on their computer? Do they listen on their phone? Do they need help? Understanding how to actually find your show on their device? Do they listen to your podcast already? And if so, how often? Are they listening every week? Or are they kind of just tuning in every now and then? Do they need more reminders? Why aren't they listening every single week? These are the kinds of questions that you really want to get to the bottom of and the only way you're going to get this kind of information is if you directly ask, I would send this out to your email list. If you have a Facebook community. That would be another great place to post this. But when you send this out to your email list, do not embed this with a million other CTAs in your email, make this its own separate email, make it the only CTA in that email. That's going to be the best way that you're going to get more people to fill it out and get you some answers and some insight about your specific audience. Some other suggestions as far as how to get more of your subscribers to be podcast listeners. First of all I would look at are you sending out consistent, ideally weekly emails about your podcast? If you currently have a weekly newsletter that you're sending out? Are you putting like dumping everything in there is it like a bunch of information about your TV He products and just all these different things where your podcast is kind of getting lost in your email. And maybe that's one reason that people aren't seeing it or aren't paying attention to it, especially if maybe you're talking about your podcast at the beginning of the email. And then by the time they get to the end of the email, they've forgotten about it, or vice versa, maybe you're only putting it at the end of your email. And then people aren't actually making it to the end of your email. And so they don't see it, are you putting something that makes it stand out, that makes it clear that people can actually click on it and listen, and listen on an app that works for them, please do not just be linking to Apple podcasts. And I know that it's really hard to highlight your podcast if you've got a bunch of other things that you also need to be talking about with your audience every single week. So if that's the case for you, I would consider having a podcast specific weekly email that goes out on a different day of the week, and is just about your podcast, because that's really going to help it stand out among your other content. And if you're worried about like, oh, I don't want to be sending too many emails to people, I don't want to be overloading their inbox, you could set up a little thing at the bottom of your email so that they have an option to opt out of just those emails. So maybe there's somebody who's like, I get it, I know you have a podcast, and I'm not gonna listen, because I'm not a podcast listener, they will have the option to opt out of that sequence of emails. And then they'll still stay on your email list for other alerts. Hopefully, that makes sense. But you should have that option inside of your email marketing provider. Another thing as far as emails go is, if right now, you're also just saying like new episode out, and that's all you're saying about your podcast, in your email, you might try some storytelling in your email to really hook people in and embed that into whatever your podcast topic is for that week. So just think about how you might be able to make your emails a little bit more engaging. So that it's not just something that people are skimming over, I would also make sure that your podcast link is in your email signature, both inside your email marketing platform and in your Gmail signature. And I talked to a second ago about like making sure that you're linking to places other than just Apple podcasts, because we don't want to isolate anybody who's not an apple podcast listener. So I always love using the site pod dot link, because that will allow people to listen on any platform that they want. So that's an option. And then I kind of alternate between that and linking to the show notes on my website. And then on my show notes, I have links where they can also go and listen on a different app if they prefer. And then as far as social media goes, if you do not have your podcast on your Instagram bio, please go do that right now. Like stop this episode, and go do that. Because anytime that if somebody were to like, share your content, like share one of your reels, or your carousels or whatever, or recommend your Instagram to somebody, and somebody sees your profile being shared, and they click on your profile. I know for me, again, I'm a super podcast listener. But the first thing I do if I see that somebody has shared content, and I think it's like really funny, or educational, or whatever, and I want to click on that profile and check this person out. The very first thing that I look for, is does this person have a podcast? Because for me, that's how I connect with people. That's how I want to get to know people. I don't want to sit and get to know you, through your Instagram reels, I want to get to know you through your podcast. So a lot of times, if somebody doesn't have a podcast, I'm not going to follow them. Because I know that I'm not going to come back and find their Instagram, unless it's like somebody that I'm interested in working with, or, or something like that. But as far as like somebody that I want to learn from, or be inspired by, I know that I'm looking for a podcast. So if your podcast name is not on your Instagram bio, it really, really should be if you want your podcast to really be a core piece of your brand. So to kind of start wrapping things up here. If this is you, if you are somebody who's like Man, I've worked really hard to build this big email list or this big Instagram following. And I have these people here, they're in my space. Why aren't they A podcast listeners, why are these numbers not converting? The first thing I want you to do is figure out why you need to talk to these people, and figure out what the reason is so that you can take your next steps and hopefully, get some of these people get more of these people to convert over to your podcast. And ultimately, this is why all of these things that I've been talking about through this organic growth series are so important, SEO, intentional podcast, marketing, visibility, these are all really important because they're not only focusing on your existing audience, but they're also focusing on bringing new people in everywhere in your business, to your podcast, to your email list, everything. So I hope that this has given you some insight and given you some ideas on next steps that you can take if this topic resonated with you today. And I also hoped that this whole series has just been super helpful for you if it has been I would love to hear from you. I would love for you to send me an email or shoot me a message on Instagram and let me know which of the episodes in this series was your favorite. And I will be sure to link all of those episodes in today's show notes which you can find at podcasting for educators.com/episode 83.
Sara Whittaker 21:28
Be sure to come back here next week. I've got a great episode for you. I've got a guest on and we are talking a little bit more on this topic of email subscribers. We are going to be kind of talking about the opposite thing. We're going to be looking at how you can turn your podcast listeners into email subscribers with some out of the box lead magnets. Before we sign off, let's check out this week's shout out. Each week I'm sharing a voice message from a fellow podcaster and they could be your next podcast guest after listening if you'd like to collaborate with them. You can reach out using the information in the show notes from today's episode. If you're interested in being featured head to podcasting for educators.com/voice Happy collaborating
Kelly Hogan 22:17
Hey, my name is Kelly Hogan and my podcast is the mathematically enthused podcast where I help upper elementary teachers with classroom management, student engagement and all things math. If you're looking for a podcast guest I'd love to come on to talk about financial literacy, math in the media, or even neuroplasticity and math mindset. You can reach me on Instagram at mathematically enthused, you can also grab my info in Sara's show notes.
Sara Whittaker 22:46
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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