Growing Your Podcast and
Engaging Your Audience
Joe Casabona / @jcasabona / casabona.org
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No content
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Talking to no one sucks!
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@jcasabona
How do we make sure
we’re talking to
someone?
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@jcasabona
We need to build and
engage our audience.
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@jcasabona
Good Content First
• Don’t just press Record. Plan your content
• Be consistent with publishing - make sure
listeners know what to expect
• Define your show’s mission and stay true to it
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Planning
Content
• For solo shows, script or outline your
episodes
• For interview shows, do some research on
your guests
• Define the main takeaway for your listeners
• Remember they’re probably a little distracted
- don’t throw too much at them
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Consistency
• Publish on a schedule
• Same day and time (Tuesdays, 3:00am ET)
• Same interval (Weekly, monthly, etc)
• Have a backlog of episodes ready to go so you
don’t fall behind
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@jcasabona
Your website is your
show’s best friend.
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Benefits
• More control over content and design
• If you want to change audio hosts, you can
• Add features like a shop or forum
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@jcasabona
Your Podcast Website
• Each episode should have its own page
• You should drive all traffic to those episode pages
• This allows users to browse old episodes, interact,
and subscribe using their podcast player of choice
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@jcasabona
Your website has your
episode’s canonical
URL.
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Submitting
Your Podcast
• Apple Podcasts
• Stitcher
• Spotify
• TuneIn
• Google Podcasts (requires website!)
• Pandora
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@jcasabona
Engage with Your
Audience
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@jcasabona
How to Engage
• Have Calls to Action in Your Show
• Send you users to an online community like
Facebook Groups, Slack, or forums
• Read feedback, questions, and reviews on air
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@jcasabona
Advice on Calls to Action
• Much like a landing page, don’t put a lot of action
on the listeners
• Pick 1-2 things you definitely want them to do,
and explicitly ask them do to it
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Good
Calls to Action
• Ask them to answer a question based on the
episode
• Ask for feedback on the episode
• Ask them to share the show
• Ask for a rating and review
• Ask them to join your online community
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@jcasabona
Format your show to
draw listeners in.
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Good Show
Format
• 30-60 second teaser in the beginning
• Intro
• Bulk of the show (the content/interview/etc)
• Outro with:
• Reiterating main point
• Thank Yous (to guests, listeners, sponsors)
• Call to Action
• Sign Off
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@jcasabona
Collect Listener Emails
(another good CTA)
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@jcasabona
Why Collect Emails?
• You can directly connect with listeners
• You have an audience to market to
• You can make them feel part of the process
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@jcasabona
How can you collect emails?
• Have an opt-in on your website with some
episode bonuses
• Allow them to sign up for email notifications
• Offer feedback surveys to get them involved
• Do a giveaway
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@jcasabona
Streamlining Your
Process
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@jcasabona
How to Streamline
• Document your process
• Use a social media tool like Buffer or Social Pilot
• Hire an editor and a transcriber
• Batch process episodes - schedule 3-4 at once (if
possible)
• Use Automation when you can
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@jcasabona
How I’m using
Automation
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@jcasabona
Editing
• I drop all the parts of an episode in Dropbox
• Editor gets notification
• He puts them back into Dropbox
• Transcriber get notification AND episode gets
uploaded to audio host
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@jcasabona
Content
• Calendly for scheduling
• This creates everything I need: calendar link,
Zoom call, Evernote note
• Transcriber looks for quotes and links (thanks to
an Evernote note)
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@jcasabona
Social Media
• Upload CSV to Social Pilot for each week
• Use Social Web Suite to schedule tweets when
episode is published
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Great social
media posts
• Promote episode
• Question of the week
• 1-2 quotes
• Behind the scenes post
• CTA
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Joe Casabona
Educator, Developer, Podcaster
@jcasabona
casabona.org/buffs/
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Special Offer! 50%
Off my podcasting
course
Use WPBUFFS at checkout. Go to
creatorcoureses.com/podcast