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Hey Reader! I'm feeling very behind the times this week as I've been laid up with an illness that rhymes with shmovid for the last week. It's like so 2021... But my podcast, Generally Spooky History, is back with new episodes! Anyway, on to today's newsletter.

Fixing a Mistake and Got Me 300 Downloads in 6 Weeks

New listeners don’t flood to your show. They come in drip by dip.

And it is your job as the head honcho of your own marketing department to set up as many of these drips as possible.

So today, I’m going to share with you an easy fix I made that has started dripping new listeners to my podcast.

The Betrayal of Pocket Casts

In a fit of rage or frustration, I decided to give up on Spotify for podcast listening. Look, it’s fine as a podcast player. But its ability to handle listening to lots of shows at once is pretty dismal.

So, my bright idea was to switch to Pocket Casts. Only when I was searching for my favorite podcasts, a couple of them didn't appear. “How strange,” I thought to myself as I looked up my own podcast, Generally Spooky History.

Nothing.

When I started my podcast, I read all the advice about submitting to podcast directories and followed it diligently to ensure that we could be found on all podcast players, Including Pocket Casts.

But something went wrong because although we were a “Claimed Podcast,” we didn’t appear in teh search results. So I resubmitted. I checked back a couple of days later, and there we were. Easy.

This happened about 6 weeks ago, and since then, 315 downloads have come from Pocket Casts!

Obviously, this is great news. But how long has that been a problem? How many listeners haven’t found my show because of a technical error on my part?

The 80/20 Rule of Podcast Players

Kieran MacRae @KieranMacRae Apple and Spotify are the two biggest podcast listening apps. But you need to be available everywhere. Check your podcast can be found on these 5 apps: 1. Castbox 2. Podcast Addict 3. Overcast 4. Pocket Casts 5. Amazon Music 10:5 AM • Apr 28, 2024 3 Retweets 33 Likes Read 15 replies

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“I’ve submitted my podcast to Apple and the rest are automatic”

I tweeted out with the top 5 podcast players and got the above reply. And while it’s mostly true, it pays to be thorough. If I hadn’t manually checked, then I would still be leaking listeners who tried to listen and weren’t able to.

That’s why I suggest you at least check teh top 6 players after Spotify and Apple:

1. Castbox
2. Podcast Addict
3. Overcast
4. Pocket Casts
5. Amazon Music
6. I Heart Media

Either download each app or go to each website and search for your podcast. If you come up, great. If you don’t, then resubmit your podcast.

And if you’d like to be thorough, Podnews has a full list of directories you can submit your podcast too.

Do It Once = Rewards Forever

The great thing about this is that it can be a one-and-done situation. I think my problem came from changing our podcast name from Generally Spooky to Generally Spooky History.

So you can check once, and then if you change names, podcast artwork, or description, you can check the top 6 players again to make sure everything is hunky dory.

Podcasts don’t go viral. They build up drip by drip into an unstoppable force of growth. You speed up growth by eliminating places where you lose listeners, like this, and finding new places to bring in listeners.

I hope you’ve learned from my mistake. Go check out these podcast players for yourself.

P.S. This is a check that I would do for you as part of my Growth Machine Podcast Audit. Currently 80% off.
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Community Wins

Fantastic work everyone! If you have a win you want to share, hit reply!

How I Can Help You

1) The Template Vault - Learn how to grow your podcast on autopilot. Get fill-in-the-blank templates to set up your podcast's foundation for growth, success, and making money.

2) Work with me 1:1 - Book a chat with me today, and we can discuss how we can work together to grow your podcast!

3) Recommended Tools​ - These are the tools I use to grow my podcast. I focus on tools that improve quality and save time.