The Two Biggest Podcast Growth Strategies
That most *don't* do
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On Friday, I tweeted…
Almost 100 different podcasters responded to this. And I individually looked over more than half of these.
It was surprisingly rare to find a show that…
Followed a consistent posting schedule
Published clips regularly
Why don’t more people do it? Probably because it’s hard. It requires a bunch of time, skills, and commitment.
For (1) it doesn’t have to be three episodes per week. It literally could just be once per week. Obviously, you’re not going to grow as fast as someone doing it three or five times per week. But at least you’re showing up. For (2) it doesn’t have to be 50+ clips per week. It could just be one per day.
Personally, I enjoy taking violent action. And the momentum of it leads me to do more. But figure out what works for you.
If you do these two things, I would have a hard time believing you won’t build your show into something greater in six months.
There are many more factors that go into growing a show than just those two. But the two above are the basics. They are the table stakes. And you shouldn’t expect your show to grow if you don’t do them.
And I don’t say that in a patronizing way. I’ve been there myself. I’ve taken weeks off the podcast to recharge and recuperate. There have been periods in the last two years when I knew I should post clips, I knew I should post regularly… and I didn’t. But that’s okay.
(It’s also helpful to realize you can take time off and come back. Any day can be the moment you start your consistency. Previous inconsistency does not mean future inconsistency. You have a choice at this moment to be different.)
I also heard Gary Vaynerchuk say once…
“I don’t try to grow anything until I’ve been doing it for at least two years.”
Another way to frame this for a podcaster is…
“Don’t try to grow it until you’ve posted 100 episodes.”
100 is a great number because (1) you’re infinitely better than you were from where you started, (2) you’re probably good (but not great), and (3) you have enough data to figure out what people like.
Seth Godin has some thoughts on this with a blog post titled The 100 hour asset, too:
We’re all so busy doing our work that sometimes we fail to build a skill worth owning. If you invest 100 hours in a rare skill, you’re likely to acquire it.
…
There’s huge pressure to fit in, and plenty of benefits if you invest the time and stand out instead. Twenty hours a week for a year and you can know something that puts you in a new category. Access to knowledge isn’t nearly as difficult as the desire to learn.
Want to grow your podcast?
It’s either about time or volume.
And that my friends, is why I’m publishing three podcasts, five newsletters, and 50 clips per week. (By the way, I’ll discuss in another newsletter how I’ve slowly built up to that point. Hit reply or comment below if you’d like to see that.)
Doing more work does not guarantee success. But it does give you the best odds to accomplish what you want.
Let me be clear: if you’re having fun podcasting and don’t care about growing it, publish whenever the hell you want to! Take a month off. Take a year off. Do it when it’s fun for you. But if you want to build a following, grow your media arm, and turn your podcast into a career, you have to show up regularly.
This is true for not just podcasting but almost everything you want to accomplish in life.
I published a new episode with Joe Foster — the founder of Reebok. He built the company from $0 to over $1 billion. Insane. We recorded this four months ago but just getting around to publishing it today. We dove into so many different parts of his journey — and it got better the longer we went:
Living during World War II
The early days of the business
Breakthrough moments
His thoughts on Nike founder Phil Knight
Curiosity about the future
Watch it on YouTube or listen to it on your favorite podcast player.
Very inspiring! It's been neat to see you get your foothold when it comes to uploading clips and hear your thoughts on that. It definitely works and is a great growth strategy, but like you said it takes time and patience. Trying to start in an all-out sprint isn't very sustainable, but when you work up to it it becomes more natural and weird not to keep up,. Thanks for sharing man!
Someone needed to put some respect on this post. A++ 🫡