Speaker 1: 0:23

The art of keeping listeners coming back. This has been on my mind so much. Now I don't really talk about my own personal psychology, but I will for a second my podcast psychology, my psychology around podcasts. So, like I'm constantly thinking about what makes podcasts interesting, how hosts can improve their skills, how you can get better at marketing, how you can get better at being more efficient, whether it comes to setting yourself up for success in the long run of having a podcast, and whatever that success means to you, whether it's monetary, whether it's as a outlet of creative expression, whatever it is, whether it's as a outlet of creative expression, whatever it is I want you to be successful with your podcast. And one of the things that I keep coming back to time and time again in my own head of what would make a podcast successful is not just more downloads for a podcast. That's kind of a vanity metric, really. Podcast downloads are going to go up and down right, that's a podcast. That's kind of a vanity metric, really. Podcast downloads are going to go up and down right, that's a given. We know that to be true If you have a guest on who is really popular and already has a following, or maybe a guest you had previously. They get a following, whatever that episode might spike up. That's awesome. You're going to get podcast downloads. You're going to maybe grow your podcast, but maybe not.

Speaker 1: 1:49

And why would you not grow your podcast? Because people don't come back to keep listening. They tune in for one episode and then they have no reason to come back. So the analogy I keep coming to in my brain is it's very similar to money. And the analogy I keep coming to in my brain is it's very similar to money. It's not about how much you make, it's about how much you keep. If it costs you $10,000 to make $12,000, then you made what $2,000? Is that good? I don't know. If it costs you, you know, 40 hours to get 10 podcast downloads, you know, is that worth it? Probably not, because if you get 10 podcast downloads, how many of those come back and listen again and again?

Speaker 1: 2:38

So what I want to talk about in this episode are ways that you can get people to not just download your podcast episodes once. We want that, but we want to go deeper, and so the podcast download conversation really just kind of like there's so much we could talk about there and I have so much I have talked about there. But I want to talk about how to make your podcast episodes stickier so that if someone is listening for the first time, they come back. And I've shared before about how there is this like stat this restaurant. Stat John Taffer, I think his name is that's where I got the idea from. He was on Gary V's podcast, the Gary V audio experience, and he was talking about how, like 75% of people that come to a restaurant for the first time, you know they don't come back a second time, like only uh, you know a set number of people coming back, and then the second time they go back to the restaurant, only a set number of people come back for a third time. But when they come back a third time, they're more likely to come back time and time again. So you don't market to the first time someone goes to a restaurant, you don't market to the second time, you market to three, because then you're going to have a person that's a repeat patron of the establishment. And I have found the same thing to be true time and time again for podcasts it doesn't really matter if how many downloads you get, it's how many you keep coming back, right, if you're a seasonal podcast and you just do like one season, maybe it's a little different, but if you're like most podcasts that are ongoing and you want to continue growing, you need to keep people coming back. So let's talk about them.

Speaker 1: 4:22

There's a few different ways you can keep people coming back. Number one you can create a unified podcast experience. So you have your episodes. We're zooming in on those, but let's zoom out. So I've spoken about this idea before.

Speaker 1: 4:37

But when you're making a podcast, you're and I'm not referring to just an episode, I'm referring to your whole podcast You're making a library of sorts and let's just like visualize that as like a building that has shelves and every shelf is an episode. Inside the episodes you might refer to another shelf, another episode, and when you do that, you start to do that more and more. You use callbacks to previous content, you tease future episodes, you start to build more of a cohesive narrative that people, when they're listening, will go oh yeah, that's right. Like I need to go listen to that. I know for myself, I've heard that and I'll go back. You know, you think like will anyone do it? Just like anything else, people will do it If they will go back and listen if you mention it. They won't go back If you don't mention it. It's hard to quantify the ROI on this, but as you do it more and more, you'll start to see more stickiness happen throughout your episodes.

Speaker 1: 5:43

So, as a listener, one of the podcasts I like which I haven't listened to lately is is Effectively Wild. It's a baseball analytics podcast, but they would do it all the time. On episode 289, we talked about how Mike Trout you know we analyzed, like, could Mike Trout beat, you know, a team of Mike Trouts beat a team of, like the current what is it? Miami Marlins, which is interesting, right? And so I'm like oh, let me go back to episode 289 and listen to that episode because I want to hear them talk about that.

Speaker 1: 6:21

Now, the same thing is true for your audience and what you're talking about on your episodes. There's likely something that you could call back to in a previous episode in a natural way. That fits Very similar if you're familiar with, like SEO and linking blogs together, where you know you start like oh, I can include this same idea. This is also why it's really important to have a organized structure for your podcast, whether you're using Notion or whatever. So, as you're starting to outline the episode that you're working on, you can proactively think ahead of where might I be able to call out to and mention this episode, because that's going to be the key to making your podcast stickier. But what this does to psychology wise, right, you're starting to foster a sense of continuity in your listeners.

Speaker 1: 7:13

If you're so focused on, like, just that one moment, it's almost like going on a date with somebody. Maybe it's your first date with somebody, but then, like, you never talk about the second date, you're just so focused on that one. You're like, I mean, you probably won't be a second. You know like, and that's how some people, a lot of people, are doing their podcasts at first, or they don't even consider it. They're like, yeah, I'm just so focused on this one episode. So, whether it is like a little banter, you add in just like personality cues, that's also like cues. You start making them bingeable, right, and let's talk about more of that.

Speaker 1: 7:50

So ways that you can make your podcast episodes more bingeable starts at the title level, which is the first place people see. Right, they'll see your episode artwork, your show name, things like that, but when they see your titles, it needs to be able to clearly effectively communicate what's in the episodes for two reasons. One for you as a host, so you're like what was in this episode and it's easy for you when you're like planning your current episodes, to look back and go oh yeah, I want to include a callback to this episode. It's harder if your titles are not doing that job right. And then for your listeners well, when they are going back on old episodes, because podcast episodes we naturally listen to them different than other types of media or social media content way different. Obviously, youtube videos are probably the closest thing, right, if you're going to go like, scroll back. But with podcasts, I think, because it doesn't show like the upload date typically, sometimes it does actually Feels like people are more forgiving of like and will willingly listen to an older episode sometimes than they might for a YouTube video. But as I say that I realize like people will also revisit older YouTube videos. They pop up on my feed all the time. If it's relevant, I'm going to dive in, right, and so continuing conversations off podcast this is also how you're going to start to say streamline, but thread the needle through the continuity of your episodes.

Speaker 1: 9:27

Making it more bingeable is just reminding people you know, reminding listeners about new episodes, building a community around your content. It's more than just a podcast. You choose one or two platforms to like, really show up on and you start just showcasing your personality. And by showcasing your personality I mean being yourself, your authentic self online. Naturally, people will be like, interested in you, know a part of yourself. Naturally that starts to help build the community, because people will see themselves and you know what you're sharing and they can start to relate with you.

Speaker 1: 10:16

Another way you can start making your content for your podcast more bingeable is through like multi-episode arcs. If you encourage listeners to explore past episodes, you could make it easier for them by making playlists. I like to call them like tracks. You have like listening tracks. So if you had all around like a certain topic, just make a Spotify playlist, add those tracks in and then it gives the playlist like you can make it public, and then it gives the playlist like you can make it public and then you can share that with your listeners. It will take you less than five minutes and is a powerful way to start making your content more bingeable. And then what else we got here? So, yeah, really, as you start to do more of these things is when you'll start to see the effect.

Speaker 1: 11:08

It's not like something that happens overnight. It's something that you have to get better at as a host, and this is a challenge to you. If you haven't been doing this stuff, or if you feel like, yeah, I've been doing it, but I could be doing it better, like this is the things that you should be focusing on, because these will the things that, like will again keep you more listeners sticking around, rather than one episode, so that when you're like, when you're ready, you don't have to get ready, right, you stay ready. So when you have a host on sorry, a guest on that has an audience, and you know you're doing the things that you're already normally doing, maybe then you add in this to it. It starts compounding, right, and then over time, you have people that are like I'm addicted to your podcast, I can't stop listening.

Speaker 1: 11:57

I went back and I started from the beginning or whatever, right, and I had people say that about this podcast very early on, and then also like around 100 something episodes in and I was like, really Like, that's a lot of episodes to listen to. I almost felt like that's a lot, but there's been a few people that have been determined to like make it through all of them. So I know I'm that way too, like a completist. Right, I want to listen to maybe the beginning of something, but not everyone is like that way. And if you have a lot of episodes, you can make it much easier for someone if you just give them the right direction calling out specific episodes, making tracks or playlists where you can guide them to, and then talking off your podcast, just sharing yourself and then also just reminding them hey, a new episode is here Because people go in seasons too.

Speaker 1: 12:49

Right, we fit podcasts into our lives. So you know, if someone is used to commuting, they might listen to a certain podcast and then maybe for a couple weeks they aren't commuting, so they don't listen to that podcast, you, you know. So you're going to see fluctuation, but this is how you get more of what you you keep more of what you get. Simple as that. Hope that helps.