How to reduce churn and STOP losing listeners

This is Week 2 of our 5-week miniseries focused on helping you grow your podcast and get more listeners.

In this episode, Travis teaches you how to reduce churn so when new people discover your podcast they become longterm listeners.

Fill out this short questionnaire to submit a question or topic for a future episode.

Need some help with your podcast? Join the Buzzsprout Podcast Community on Facebook to get the help you need from podcasters just like you.

Transcript

Travis: 0:00

Today on five minute Monday, we'll talk about how to get your podcasts listeners to stick around. Welcome to five minute Monday. We're bringing the best tips and strategies for building your podcast in five minutes or less. So if you're new here, consider subscribing. Now, today is week number two of our five week mini series focused on growing your podcast. But before you can grow your podcast, you need to make sure that they're going to stick around once they discover your show. If you have a bucket with a bunch of holes drilled into the bottom, it doesn't matter how much water you pour into it until you plug those holes up, you'll never be able to fill the bucket. And that's what we want to do with your podcast. So today I'm going to teach you how to reduce churn, which is the rate at which listeners stop listening to your podcast episodes. The first thing you need to do to reduce churn and to retain your audience is to publish consistently. Now, there's no rule saying your podcast has to publish a new episode every week. It's certainly a good rule of thumb, but it's not a requirement. And in fact that's not even the only publishing schedule or frequency. So here are some other models used by successful podcasts to give you some ideas. The first one is seasons where you have like a limited time run, a where you have seven episodes or 10 episodes and they tell a coherent story or it's a limited amount of episodes and then you take a break and you can do new episodes released every week. Or you can do a Netflix binge model and release all your episodes at once. You can also do a bi weekly publishing schedule where every other week you put out a new episode. And then you can also do the opposite of that and do twice a week often where you have one episodes that's more interview focused and another one that features the host more. So the key is not which frequency you choose or which publishing schedule you choose. It's sticking with your decision because you want to train your listeners to download your newest episodes, but that's only really possible or you'll only find success doing that if you publish consistently. So you need to choose a frequency that works for you and stick with it. The number two thing you can do to reduce churn is to incorporate your listeners, right? Make your audience feel like they are a part of your podcast and that's a great way to generate new content and make your listeners feel included simultaneously. Now there's a couple of different ways that you can accomplish this. Incorporating your listeners into your episodes. The first way, which is actually kind of self serving on your part as well, is to read reviews. Live on the air when you do that and encourages people to leave a review wherever it means the most to you, probably apple podcasts right now, that's really the main place where people leave reviews and where it matters. Um, and it's also just a great thank you as well to reinforce and encourage people that took the time to review your podcast. You can also answer questions from people, either creating a Google form or post something on social media, asking for questions, and then you can answer those listener questions during the episode. And then a third way you can incorporate your listeners into your show is to interview them. If you have an interview show, find a way to interview listeners that have compelling stories. We're an expertise that compliments what you talk about on your podcast and that's a great way to find new guests if you're looking for people to interview. Then the third thing that you need to do to reduce churn and to retain your audience is be yourself. It's easy to feel like you have to fake it until you make it and pretend to be like Joe Rogan or Guy Roz or any of these famous podcasters for people to take you seriously. But ironically, the more you can be yourself, the easier it will be to get people to stick around because you are the only thing that can't be replicated, right? People come for the content and they stay for the host. They come because of what you talk about and they stay for you. So make sure that your podcast is a reflection of who you are and what you value. And if you do those three things, publish consistently, incorporate your listeners and be yourself. Then you'll have all your bases covered. And when you do take action to grow the size of your audience, you know they're going to stick around. That is it for today. If you're new here, hit the subscribe button. If you're watching this on youtube or subscribed to the five minute Mondays podcast and your favorite app to squeeze even more podcast related content into your life, and if there's something you want me to talk about on a future episode, make sure to click the link in the show notes to submit your question. Thanks for listening. And as always, keep podcasting.