Working on a podcast can be a lot of fun and even earn you some money. However, it can be hard to do either if no one is listening. If you’ve been trying without success to build a consistent audience, you may be getting a bit discouraged.

Fortunately, there are several ways to go about cultivating a dedicated podcast audience that will be eager for your newest release. Learning who your listeners are and providing them with valuable content are key aspects of growing an audience.

In this post, we’ll explain why regular listeners are critical for any podcast. Then we’ll share four tips for building a loyal and engaged podcast audience. Let’s get started!

Why Regular Listeners Are Important for Your Podcast’s Success

Loyal audience members are your most valuable resource. Listeners who truly love your podcast are more likely to share it with others, which can encourage further audience growth. People value their time, and are more likely to listen to a podcast suggestion from someone in their network.

If one of your goals is to monetize your podcast through an affiliate program or sponsorships, you’ll want to have a fairly large number of listeners in place. You’re more likely to land better podcast advertisers if you can demonstrate that you have a robust audience to share their offer with.

There is also a powerful financial reason to have an audience that sticks around. Similar to customers in other businesses, acquiring new listeners is a lot more work-intensive and expensive than keeping existing ones. Once you’ve created a long-term audience, you’ll free up resources to keep delivering the best possible content.

4 Tips for Cultivating a Dedicated Podcast Audience

Now that you understand how crucial it is to have a reliable audience, let’s have a look at how to go about building one.

1. Post Content Consistently

It can be tough to constantly generate new content, but if you disappear your audience will too. One of the best ways to consistently meet expectations is to not over-commit. If you can only produce one podcast per month, stick to that and show up reliably.

Even if you’re not releasing a new episode every week, that doesn’t mean you can’t provide other content. Blog posts, infographics, and even the occasional mini episode can all serve to maintain your listeners’ interest. Keep this potential extra content in mind when you’re planning and recording your podcast, and be sure to hold back a little to see you through until the next episode.

It’s also smart to stay active on your social media platforms by posing topical questions to your followers and joining in on the ensuing discussions. You may even find some ideas for future programs this way. Sharing behind-the-scenes stories, photos, or videos can also help to strengthen your relationship with your audience.

2. Consult Your Website’s Analytics

Your website’s analytics can help you identify who your audience is. This is valuable information that you can use to be sure you’re delivering what they want. Google Analytics is an excellent, free tool you can use for extensive reports on your audience:

You’ll likely find the Audience reports to be the most useful. They can help you discover your audience’s basic demographics, as well as their interests and locations. You might also use the Acquisition reports to see where your visitors are coming from and what search terms they’re using to find you.

Once you know who your audience is, try and be present on the platforms they’re using. For example, if your listeners aren’t using Twitter, there’s no reason to expend a lot of effort creating content for that channel. You can also use insights from your Audience reports to tailor your content to align with your visitors’ interests.

After exploring your analytics, you may find that you’re not attracting the right audience. In that case, you may want to revisit your content marketing strategies.

3. Collaborate With Other Podcasters

Inviting a guest onto your podcast, especially one who already has an audience, can be beneficial to both parties. However, you won’t want to pick someone just for the size of their audience. Any guest you work with should be interesting to your audience and respected in your podcast’s niche.

When you pitch the guest opportunity, it’s good practice to be brief. Send an email introducing yourself and your podcast in a few sentences, and asking if they would be open to joining you for an episode.

Once you’ve booked your guest, make a plan for how you’ll promote the episode. You’ll want to do this both before and after the podcast is released. Don’t forget to tag your guest when you do this, as they’ll likely share these posts with their own audience.

You might also provide your guest with some content to share with their followers. They’ll likely appreciate you doing some of the heavy lifting, and will hopefully use those elements to craft their own posts.

4. Make It Easy to Access Your Podcast

If people have a hard time discovering and downloading your podcast, you’ll be making it that much more difficult to grow an audience. Building a website for your podcast early on can have a positive impact on your audience growth. You might try using a dedicated podcast theme for WordPress, such as Tusant:

Sharing each new episode on social media is another way to provide listeners with an easy method for downloading. You can make use of the information you found with Google Analytics to share on the platforms your audience uses most.

Finally, you might try transcribing your podcasts. This can make your work available to people in the deaf or hard of hearing community, as well as those who simply prefer to read. If you post these transcripts on your website, you may even boost your Search Engine Optimization (SEO), as you’ll be including relevant keywords effortlessly.

Conclusion

Having an audience that eagerly awaits each new episode of your podcast can make all your hard work feel worthwhile. Building an audience can have a significant impact on the long-term success of your podcast, so it’s something you’ll want to put some serious effort towards.

In this article, we shared four ways to grow a dedicated podcast audience:

1. Post content consistently.
2. Consult your website’s analytics.
3. Collaborate with other podcasters.
4. Make it easy to access your podcast.

If you need some help building an online home for your podcast, have a look at some of our tips for setting up a podcast website with WordPress!