The first place to start is to make sure you're producing quality output, which starts with an honest appraisal of your work. This is not a cop-out. You might be attracting new listeners every week, but they’re not sticking around because there’s a mismatch between what they thought they were getting and what you’re delivering.
Now’s the time to take a dispassionate look at your work. If you can find someone you trust to give you honest, maybe even blunt feedback, this will help. It might not feel good initially, but it will help.
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Ask a busy friend who likes and supports you, but doesn't already listen to your podcast, to give an episode a try. As a busy person, they're more likely to want you to get to the point as quickly as possible, and as a supporter they're on your side so they want you to succeed.
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Consistency is not just about putting out episodes regularly, when you say you're going to. It's also about maintaining a quality level that means if someone were to do a random spot-check of your episodes, they'd come away hearing something good.
Every episode is potentially someone's first listen, so ask yourself if you're making them feel welcome. In-jokes and shared bits can bring an audience together; just try not to rely too heavily on them, or exclude newcomers.
https://share.transistor.fm/s/4923c52f
If you have a leaky bucket (ie: new listeners come in but don’t stick around), you can find where your leaks are by looking through Apple and Spotify’s listener retention info.
https://www.loom.com/share/5e51099cfccb4d12b99da20c84f3727c?sid=7448698a-be2b-4e53-8649-f73771fa8b71
There are so many apps and directories that can consume your podcast, and they all work slightly differently. Take some time to check your latest episodes are appearing in all the apps you know your listeners use (your podcast hosting provider can show you that list).
You should also regularly run your feed through the Cast Feed Validator, to see if anything scary comes up, that might prevent your podcast from appearing where it should. Apple Podcasts is quite finicky about podcast artwork, for example – most of us know about the dimension restrictions, but did you also know that artwork should be under 500kb in size?
It's not a bad idea every now and again to update your artwork. Maybe refresh it with a new season, or if it's looking stale after 12+ months.
Tools like Canva can help you put together app-compliant podcast artwork that looks great, following a template. If you don't have design chops, use 99designs or Fiverr to find someone whose work you like, who'll put together some custom art for you.
<aside> <img src="https://prod-files-secure.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/8f13231d-85e7-4f96-af01-9896f96815c6/513bbcf2-cf90-400e-b6ce-39c56236b0d6/Group.svg" alt="https://prod-files-secure.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/8f13231d-85e7-4f96-af01-9896f96815c6/513bbcf2-cf90-400e-b6ce-39c56236b0d6/Group.svg" width="40px" /> I design a lot of artwork for podcasts I develop, but I've often benefited from getting outside counsel on creating a new visual brand. Some of my favourite visual brands for products I've built or worked on has come from the gig economy.
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https://share.transistor.fm/s/0ef41e2f
