Be A Better Podcaster – Motivation and Consistency are Key to Audience Growth

It’s no secret, if you want your podcast to be listened to with regularity and to grow your audience you have to publish consistently. And damned if that isn’t one of the hardest aspects of fostering an online audience.

Unlike shooting a 30 second phone video and uploading it to YouTube, or taking part in the latest Tik Tok fad, writing, recording, and publishing a podcast is actually quite a bit of work. It can be pretty disheartening to put all that effort into something, throw it out online and hear nothing but crickets chirping in a mocking tone. 

So let’s assume you know how valuable a podcast can be for your business or integral one can be in getting your message out to the masses. The question then is how are you going to start building that listener base? How are you going to know that you’re making the impact you want to make?

Consistency. And the key to publishing consistently is to keep your motivation high. Let’s take a look at the marriage between motivation and consistency that should net you positive results in your podcasting career.

Why Consistency is Important to A Successful Podcast

Right out of the gate we need to define what a successful podcast is. For the sake of this article we’re going to say that a successful podcast is one that is getting its message out to a larger and more engaged listener base over time.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t some one-off episodes that stand on their own as pillars of excellence, but rarely do they create a growing listener base. And that’s okay, but we’re concerned with our message getting out there.

A growing listenership nets you, the podcast host, quite a few benefits. Namely that listeners of podcasts are more likely to buy what it is you’re selling. To the tune of 54% of survey respondents reporting being much more likely or somewhat more likely to purchase a product mentioned on a podcast. 

Couple that with the fact that listenership of podcasts has more than doubled between 2017 and 2019, and it’s pretty damned clear that you need to be growing your podcast in just about any way possible.

We know why publishing consistently is so important to our podcasting ends, but how do we go about making sure that the publish button is being hit with some regularity?

Define Your Why

You want to get nowhere in a hurry working on just about any project? Skip over clearly defining why you’re doing what you’re doing. 

Instead we should spend a significant amount of time making sure the answer to the question “why am I doing this?” is crystal clear in our heads. If you know the answer to why you’re doing this podcast, then when you’re tired, when you’re bored, when you don’t want to put in the work for any reason, you’ll be able to maintain your motivation.

An added bonus, as Simon Sinek points out, is that people rarely buy what we sell. They buy why we do what we do. And as we know from our survey results cited above, a successful podcast is a ridiculously target rich environment for potential sales. Doesn’t matter what you’re selling. It matters why you’re selling.

So, that’s all well and good for motivation. But what about putting that motivation potential into consistent action?

A few thoughts.

Set Meaningful Expectations

Podcasting is all about building a relationship with your tribe. Just like every successful relationship, you need to set realistic expectations with your potential listeners. The impetus is to over promise in the beginning and always say “yes” even when you don’t have the bandwidth to follow through.

When you create a podcast, it’s like running a marathon as opposed to a sprint. You’re in it for the long haul, so you don’t want to burn out too early by sprinting the first few miles. 

It’s bad form to promise your friend you’re going to meet them for a drink at 6pm and then not show up until 7:30pm right? Well, promising your listener base that you’re going to post two shows a week when you only end up delivering once a week or worse, haphazardly, with no defined schedule, is exactly the same thing.

It leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth when you promise to show up in their subscription list only to be conspicuously absent.

How do you avoid this early pitfall? 

Break Up With Perfection

It’s cliche, but nobody’s perfect. And you’ve heard it a million times before you’re reading it in this article, but it needs repeating. The need to be perfect is holding you back from being consistent. 

And with a podcast that makes some sense. It’s easier to shrug off a lackluster blog post in the grand scheme of your content marketing, but a lot more time, energy, and effort goes into your weekly podcast. It stings more to put out something that you don’t feel is completely polished.

But does putting out something that isn’t completely neat and shiny tarnish your personal brand? It turns out, probably not.

In fact, being a bit rough around the edges and showing your imperfections actually makes you look more authentic. It makes you look more trustworthy. Imperfection breeds trust and trust is crucially important to establishing any healthy relationship.

I want you to write on a post it note “Today I going to be imperfect.” Stick that bad boy to your bathroom mirror and say it five times outloud before you brush your teeth. Live this.

It may seem like a little matter, but that’s exactly the point. It’s the little steps that create the biggest journeys.

Small Simple Steps

Just put one. Foot. In. Front. Of. The. Next.

Creating a podcast is a fairly involved process. I’ll grant you that. Afterall, podcasts are relatively long form content platforms. 

But, remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day. In our current climate of instant gratification, it can be difficult to feel any sense of accomplishment until the cake is completely baked.

We have to actively try to break that limiting mindset. 

Instead, reward yourself for the little victories in the podcast process. Reward yourself and feel accomplished for:

• Brainstorming show topics.
• Researching show topics.
• Researching guests.
• Writing show outlines.
• Doing podcast episode prep.
• Getting out and promoting your podcast.

The list goes on. Everyone of these steps is pretty small, digestible, and absolutely crucial to creating a podcast worth someone clicking subscribe.

Get a system that works for you when you create your shows. This can take a number of different forms, but I like a simple checklist that takes me through the process of outlining an episode all the way from the brainstorm phase through to the final acts of publishing and promotion. 

There are a ton of moving parts, so just how do you know if it’s all working? 

Measuring Your Success

In business there is the age old adage “If it can be measured, it can be managed.” This certainly applies to your podcasting success. While motivation can be a bit subjective (I mean, it’s hard to put a number on enthusiasm with any specificity) you can and should be measuring your consistency.

In addition to the aforementioned checklist for podcast creation, I also like to have the “lead generation” phase of creating a podcast mapped out. This part includes reading, prospecting for potential guests, and trying to get my message out by promoting.

Every day that you sit down to work on your podcast there should be some of the small, simple, steps that you can tick off your to-do list. You don’t need to move the whole mountain, but you need to at least move a few shovels of dirt. 

Conclusion

As content creation goes, podcasting is pretty in depth. So if you’re going to invest the time and resources into creating a podcast, you want to make sure it’s going to be a successful podcast. And that’s what we’re trying to get accomplished in our “Be a Better Podcaster” series.

Podcasting can be an extremely lucrative part of your online brand and presence. If you can grow a loyal fan base that is engaged, then you’ve got a solid chance of seeing the dollars chase your show’s growth.

Publishing consistently is a critical spoke in the wheel of your podcast’s success. If you can keep your motivation level high and your mindset focused on building an asset that will serve your message over time.

How do you maintain motivation in an increasingly frantic world vying for your attention in new and vexing ways?