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Hey Reader! - Summer fun as I came in from the garden, washed my hands, and noticed there was a bee sitting on my shoulder... Good luck? Bad luck? I can't decide.
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P.S. I've changed my website domain from Platform Podcasting to Podcast Marketing Puzzle, so next week you should receieve emails from that domain instead :)

Your Downloads Drop In Summer - That's Okay

The long hot summer is here. Or if you live in Scotland like I do, the long grey summer is here.

But no matter where you live, one thing happens every single summer.

People spend less time online.

Ever since I started my first online business nine years ago, I have been disappointed every single summer as traffic, sales, and morale dropped.

Then I entered the podcast world. Our show launched in April, and we saw steady growth for the next year. Then, by the second summer, I entered the pit of despair, as August had fewer downloads than July, which had fewer downloads than June.

Then came the next summer, and it happened again. But by this point, I’d figured out the pattern.

Downloads Drop in Summer

You haven’t done anything wrong, your podcast isn’t suddenly failing, you are just sitting in the summer slump.

People are out of their routines, they’re on holiday and not commuting, and if they don’t live in Scotland, they’re out enjoying the sunshine. This all comes together in a predictable drop of downloads across all podcasts each summer.

With less downloads also comes less advertising revenue, plus companies tend to reduce their ad spending in summer in preparation for Black Friday and Christmas.

Accept the Rhythm of Seasonality

The rise and fall of your listeners might follow other patterns. My own podcast is about Spooky History so it of course gets more listeners in October than any other month. If you talk about snowboarding you’ll see a jump in winter.

These patterns are totally normal and a part of podcasting. The more you can zoom out and recognize the patterns affecting your podcast, the more stable you will feel, and the more you can commit to the work in front of you.

Make Sure You’re Playing Long Term Games

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Naval @naval “Play long-term games with long-term people. All returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest.” https://startupboy.com/2019/03/19/long-term/ 6:30 AM • Mar 24, 2019 1046 Retweets 3880 Likes Read 38 replies

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I’ve day traded my happiness with weekly analytics before. It’s a fast track to burnout. Opening up analytics every single day, my mood wildly swinging depending on how many downloads I got vs last week. It feels awful and takes away from doing actual useful work that will grow your podcast.

But if you zoom out and see how far you’ve come from 3 years ago, you’ll see that the dips were smaller than they felt. And you might feel proud at how far you’ve come and all you’ve achieved.

Just as Naval Ravikant says, play long-term games with long-term people. Focus on quality. Care about your audience. And don’t get bogged down that numbers have dipped just because it’s summer.

Relax, you’re doing great.

All the best from your podcast marketing pal,

Kieran MacRae

Community Wins

Great work everyone! Some awesome achievements this week. 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​ – 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.

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