Can Only Promoting Apple Podcasts Grow Your Show? Let’s Find Out Together!

Intro: Real quick before we get started, I want to tell you about a free email course I have called Five Fast Fixes to grow your podcast.

If you’re wondering why your podcast growth is stagnating or non-existent, you likely just need to make a few small tweaks to see growth. This free email course will go over what they are, why they work, and how you can implement them. To get this totally free email course, you can head over to [makemoneypod.com/fixes]. That’s [makemoneypod.com/fixes] F-I-X-E-S for Five Fast Fixes to grow your podcast. That’s [makemoneypod.com/fixes]

As you’ll find out later in the episode, I am conducting a little bit of an experiment. So today, I am going to ask you, if you are enjoying this podcast, to leave me a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. That’s right. It’s the call to action that I’ve always avoided as long as I’ve been podcasting. But today, I’m gonna ask you to do it. I’ll even put a link explicitly to Apple Podcasts in the show notes, which you’ll be able to find over at [makemoneypod.com/210]. Switching up the linking to include the season number as well. That’s 2-1-0.

Okay. One of the most common calls to action is to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I’ve long railed against this call to action stating that you’re alienating a large portion of your audience. Some statistics show as little as 30% of listeners use Apple Podcasts. It’s probably closer to half, but still, let’s assume half or slightly more than half. You are alienating half of your audience by saying, leave us a rating in review on Apple Podcast. So I’ve avoided it. I’ve actively advised against it. But what if this is the wrong approach?

After all Convertkit’s winning strategy for growth was targeting specific niches at first, building an audience there, and then moving to a different one. So what if leaving us a rating and a review on Apple Podcast is actually a good call to action? That’s what we are going to explore In today’s episode of Make Money Podcasting.

Hello! And welcome to Make Money Podcasting, where I teach you how to make your first $10,000 with your podcast. On this show, you’ll learn tried and true methods to increase your revenue and turn your podcast from a money pit into a money maker.

Hi! I’m your host, Joe Casabona. And my podcasts have been making money from day one without a lot of downloads. I’ll share everything I know with you here on Make Money Podcasting presented by Podcast Liftoff and Nexcess.

Joe Casabona: So the Convertkit strategy. What if in the beginning, (at least I just focus on growing on Apple Podcasts) Apple Podcasts are still wildly popular? Apple’s actually putting more effort into it. And though charts are a vanity metric, there is social proof associated with a podcast with good Apple Podcast ratings, with good reviews on Apple Podcasts, and one that shows up in the charts. In fact, I think I could attribute a good bit of my own growth with my first podcast, How I Built It. Really my second podcast, but my first real podcast, How I built it to grow because it charted at the top on technology for a while, which is incredible. I don’t know how it happened, but it happened over a couple of weeks. And the show has maintained a good audience size since then. So again, maybe I’m taking the wrong approach here. 

And I’ve had coaching clients recently ask me specifically about Apple Podcasts, descriptions, categories, titles, and how it all works. And so that got me wondering what if I spent more time on Apple Podcasts? And then something somewhat serendipitous happened? Tanner Campbell, let’s say a controversial, somewhat controversial podcast figure, he does a lot of good work. He’s a little bit bombastic and histrionic, but it’s working for him. So I’m not gonna criticize. I follow him and I subscribe to his subs stack after all.  But he recently published an article that said, “I hit the Apple Podcast Top 100 in Three days For $30 and with 24 followers”. And so this got me thinking, he’s gonna report on it again at the end of the month with a greater ad spend and things like that. 

But his initial observations are that charting definitely grows your podcast. And he actually wrote a follow-up post called do podcast charts matter in which he believes they do because it increases visibility. The two reasons he gives is you gain visibility. And then in order to maintain visibility, your show must continue to grow and gain subscribers.

So if you can create enough organic lift, (he says, I’m reading right from his article here, lift to chart) you will gain visibility, right out of the gate. If your content is well produced, compelling, and resonates with the target audience, you will continue to chart and to climb the chart. And he’s using his own podcast “Sarah’s Anecdotal Evidence”. This podcast is right, more or less at the beginning of its life. I’m putting more effort into it. I’m thinking about it more. I’m scripting it a little bit more, and I’m wondering if I could leverage some of these practices and leverage Apple Podcasts to grow it. So I’m gonna take you on a journey with me as I build and experiment in public. 

And here’s why I’m doing it to Make Money Podcasting. This is why it’s a topic, right? Because as we’ve discussed in previous episodes, sponsorship is only one way to make money. There are affiliates, there are memberships, and they’re selling your own products. But all of these require you to grow.

Yes. you don’t need a lot of downloads to make money. That’s true. I say it and I believe it. But the more downloads you have, the more opportunities to make money you have. And if you can do something like leverage a single platform to boost your visibility, at least in the beginning, why not try it? Especially if it’s free. 

Now, Tanner says he is using about $10 a day on Facebook ads. Maybe I’ll try that. I’ll explain the parameters of my experiment after the sponsor break and some caveats. But I think this is something worth exploring because you put the effort into growing on Apple Podcast, increasing visibility, and then maybe you move on to other platforms.

Again, taking that Convertkit strategy, targeting a specific nature, a specific platform first before moving on to a different one. So that’s the experiment you’re gonna come along on the ride with me.  I’ll get into the parameters of the experiment. But first a word from our sponsors. 

Sponsor: This and every episode of Make Money Podcasting is brought to you by Store Builder from Nexcess.

As a podcaster, you might be wondering what’s the best way for me to implement some of the things that we talk about on this show. How can I easily make money with my own website? And when it comes to setting up an e-commerce site, you kind of have the choice between an easy but limited platform or a limitless platform that you need to manage yourself, taking precious time away from your podcast.

Until now, Store Builder is e-commerce made easy for everybody. It saves you time and delivers a storefront that lets you get to business. As someone who has set up multiple e-commerce sites, I can tell you that store builder has been a much easier experience than anything else I’ve tried. Answer a few questions, add your content, and sell. 

Store builder was created and is supported by the e-Commerce experts at Nexcess. I host all of my important sites, including the membership for my own podcast and this podcast at Nexcess. Get the speed, security, and support you need when you need it. Whether you’re selling podcast merch, offering a supplementary course, or you have a membership or subscription. 

Are you ready to monetize your podcast the way you want to? Head on over to [makemoneypod.com/storebuilder] all one word, to try it for free for 30 days. That’s [makemoneypod.com/store builder]. 

Thanks so much to Store Builder and Nexcess for sponsoring this and every episode of Make Money Podcasting. 

Joe Casabona: Okay. So let’s talk about this experiment. 

First, let me be totally transparent with the number of downloads I currently have. As of August 17th, the day I’m recording this, the latest episode of this podcast, “The Wrong Way to Make Money with your Podcast” has 32 downloads, which frankly puts it in the top 50%. My most popular episode is, “Why You Should Start a mini-podcast?” That’s at 51 downloads.

Overall in the last 30 days, I’ve had 201 downloads. 73 of those coming within the last seven days. And all time, at least since moving to Buzz Sprout, I’ve had 254 downloads. So I’ve seen growth in the month of August already. 

The other important thing to note is that I am currently at the start of this experiment about halfway through.  And I have purchased on Overcast where in the business category sometimes Make Money Podcasting will be promoted.

Now, so that you have an idea of what that looks like. The ad expires on September 3rd. It currently has gotten 66, almost 67,000 views. It’s gotten 531 taps, which is a 0.8% conversion rate. And then it’s gotten 19 subscriptions in Overcast, which is a 3.6 conversion rate. I ran an ad like this last year for How I Built It. The taps rate is right on point. The conversion, subscriber conversion rate is about half of what it was on How I Built It. 

So that’s what I’m seeing right now. Of course, taps could mean downloads. Subscriptions don’t necessarily mean downloads. And either way, 19 subscriptions is pretty negligible.

So, with that in mind, also it’s worth noting that one more thing, Buzz Sprout does tell you the most popular apps. And so right now, 33% of my listens or my downloads come from Overcast. 28% come from Apple Podcast. In the last seven days, actually, that’s been pretty consistent over the entire life of the podcast, probably because most of my downloads have come in the last 30 days. So that’s something important to remember.  33% of listens come from Overcast. 

Overcast is also the app that I use. Not that I like, not that I listen fully to my episodes, but I am subscribed to make sure that the feed is working. So all of that is in mind. I will recap all of that next time, or at least I’ll compare when the results are in from this experiment. But here’s what I’m gonna do for this experiment. 

First. I have set my category correctly. Category was something I’ve been working with. I thought I’d be smart and like avoid the business and technology categories completely because they’re pre-saturated. That didn’t work. But I also noticed that I set it to business marketing. That’s not really right either. I noticed that similar podcasts were in education, How to. So that is the primary category that I’ve set this podcast to. If that feels like I’m lowering the bar a little bit, maybe I am right. Because the business chart or the business category is very competitive. However, I think that this podcast is better aligned with that category.

So that’s why I said it that way. And the takeaway, the lesson here is that you need to make sure with your podcast, that you’re setting the appropriate category. Because people are going to be looking for that. Right? At first, I had it set to like arts or something and my podcast was amongst a bunch of spiritual podcasts. That’s not what people are looking for. Just like in the marketing category, people are looking for marketing advice. This show doesn’t offer marketing advice. This show tells you how to make money with your podcast. So that’s first.

Second. My call to action is to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. I am explicitly saying Apple Podcasts and not, or wherever you get your podcasts. I will make a small assumption here that if someone’s listening to Spotify, then they’ll leave a review on Spotify if they’re so inclined. But my call to action is going to be to leave this show a rating and review in Apple Podcasts. 

I’m also going to offer a small carrot here. My friend, Sam has a podcast and this seems to be working pretty well for her. So I am going to do a monthly drawing of a $25 gift card to anybody who reads or who leaves a review. And each week, I will read at least one review on the show. 

So, if you do leave a review, I guess I need to figure out the logistics of this, right? If you leave a review, you’ll be able to click a link in the show notes to submit a screenshot of your review and your email address so that you can be entered into the drawing. So that’s the carrot and/or the incentive.

Number four. So we’ve got setting the category correctly, the call to action, the carrot/stick carrot, and stick the incentive.

Four, I’m gonna make sure the title and description are optimized even though the description does not factor into search or search terms. I still wanna make sure that’s right because it’s going to…if people see it, it’ll entice people. And then I’m also going to check in on Apple Podcast stats pretty more regularly than I have. One of the reasons I wanna do this experiment is because I have largely ignored Apple Podcasts. I just didn’t feel like it was something I should be checking. 

But now that I’m starting a new podcast, this podcast with a relatively new audience, I’m not really leveraging the audience I have. I’m wondering if this experiment is worth it. So I’m logged into Apple Podcast connect right now. I’ve got two ratings, 5/5.

Thanks, everybody. All two of you. No reviews yet because I don’t ask for them. And I think most of my stats are probably too low to really show any appreciable difference. Looks like the show has 9 followers on Apple Podcasts. But again, the stats are pretty low here. So, this will be something that I’m keeping an eye on. Like I don’t even have, I don’t think I have enough data for trends. Yeah, I don’t. So hopefully in a month or so, maybe six weeks, I’ll have enough data for a trend. 

So that’s the experiment. Come along with me for the ride. I’ll check in a few weeks to see how it’s going. I’m also gonna keep my newsletter up to date sooner. 

So I think you probably heard a call to action for a free email course.  If you join for that right over at [makemoneypod.com/fixes],  you’ll get these updates with screenshots even more regularly.

But that is it for this episode of Make Money Podcasting.

I wanna thank you for listening. If you liked this episode, give it a rating and review it on Apple Podcasts. Every month, I’ll pick a person who left a review to win a $25 Amazon gift card. 

Thanks so much to our presenting sponsors, Nexcess and Podcast liftoff.

 And until next time. I’m Joe Casabona. And I can’t wait to see what you make.