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Hey Reader! - I officially put down a deposit to get a summer house builtin my garden. It will be my official office/studio or as my wife calls it the Pod-Pod. And when I start recording my podcasting podcast, it can be the Pod-Pod-Pod.

Hook Them In or Growth Will Suffer

Podcasting is wonderful because you don’t have to play games with algorithms to get your podcast heard.

But you do have to play games with people. And there are a bunch of physiological principles that govern people and the way they think. But one of my favorites is curiosity.

People are naturally curious. If you can open up a train of thought in a person’s brain they will naturally want to close it again. That’s where hooks come in. They open up these curiosity loops and draw people into your episode.

Understand hooks and your podcast can become a powerhouse of growth.

The Cycle of New Listeners

Podcasts are very organic when it comes to growth. You listen for a few months, love what you hear, and you tell someone else to listen. But without proper use of hooks, the growth stops there.

If someone then lands on your podcast profile and doesn’t see anything interesting, they’ll simply click away.

Only by aligning these can you experience organic growth of your podcast. Look at Call Her Daddy:

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How can you not want to know more?

I have specific guides and fill-in-the-blank Templates for doing this inside the Template Vault for those interested. $10 off for email subscribers.

How To Think About Hooks

I thought about opening this newsletter with the sentence:

This newsletter will change the way you think about podcasts forever.

While an effective hook, that statement isn’t one I could follow up on with any real benefit. Clickbait is when you make a promise but don’t see it through.

Clickbait is saying “12 secrets your doctor doesn’t want you to know. You’ll never believe number 7!” And then you read number 7 and it says eating vegetables is good for you.

You don’t build an audience for a podcast with this. Because you leave everyone who listens disappointed and so they don’t listen to more episodes.

But, in the words of YouTuber Ali Abdaal, “you have to make your titles just click baity enough.” That is you have to create enough curiosity for your potential listener that they want to find out more. But then you must deliver on the promise.

Create tension.

Make a promise.

Deliver on that promise.

Where To Use Hooks

Your podcast has plenty of opportunity to use hooks. Here are the main ones where you can write a great hook:

• Podcast description
• Episode title
• Episode description
• Introduction and show hook
• Episode tease

Your artwork and episode artwork are also places for hooks, but I’m sticking to writing hooks for now.

If you align all of these hooks together you will have the chance to massively increase the number of people you convert from browsers into listeners. It’s not spam. It’s psychology. Create curiosity in your listener's mind, and they’ll enjoy it more when you answer that curiosity.

If you want an outside opinion on the effectiveness of your hooks, check out my Podcast Audit. I can help you out.

Community Wins

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

How I Can Help You

1) ​​How to get your first 100,000 downloads ebook – Learn what it takes to grow a podcast and make sense of podcast marketing.

2) ​​Work with me 1:1​ – I am an experienced podcast coach, and I want to help you master your podcast marketing. Check out my full list of services and discover how we can work together.

3) Growth Machine Podcast Audits are now available. Don't be blind to the mistakes holding your podcast back from the growth it deserves. Get an experienced and critical eye to give you feedback on everything from show notes to podcast quality and delivery.

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

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