Unless you are part of a non-profit, your podcast is a business. You are the CEO, CFO, CTO, and CMO of your podcast. But are you approaching your work this way? 

If you aren’t, your podcast won’t grow like a business. Everyone feels anxiety as they start their podcast. For many, it starts as a hobby or passion project, and then as the downloads start to roll in, things become more serious. 

Your podcast can be a part of your business plan AND your heart-centered message. 

While a large part of you might feel called to share knowledge and advice with your audience, you also need to make an income to be able to sustain that message, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

So how do you start working on the money-making, audience-growing business side of your podcast? You treat your podcast like it’s a startup.

Startups are near and dear to my heart. I launched my career working with one from the ground up. What’s awesome about startups is that your business could be anything, including a podcast! Business experts have shared incredible advice on launching a successful startup, and it can all be applied to your podcast.

In this blog, I’m going to share 5 smart ways to grow your podcast before you start your show and 5 things all current podcasters can do to grow their podcast like a startup.

1.Find a Need

The very first step of starting any new venture is finding a need. Most likely, the idea of creating a podcast comes to you first. But before you actually do it, you should talk to your ideal audience and see if they really want/need your podcast idea. You’ve seen this happen to businesses before. They’ll create a product and it turns out people don’t really want it or it doesn’t solve their problems how they wanted them solved. Talk to your audience about what they want to learn and how they want to learn. Then, brainstorm ways you can fill their needs.

2. Beta-Test Your Podcast

So how do you find out what your audience wants? Besides asking them personally and through Facebook groups, you can find beta-testers for your podcast. Typically, startups get beta-testers for their products. These beta-testers give feedback and sometimes testimonials. Before or after you launch, get online and find members of your audience who would be willing to listen and give you feedback. You might get some great insights! Push back your fear and do it. Worst case scenario, you’ll find ways to improve your podcast. Best case, you’ll get a brand champion. 

3. Get Listeners Before You Start

While you’re going through this process of fine-tuning your podcast, you can start grabbing the emails of potential listeners. At the moment you feel pretty solid about your idea or are in the process of recording your first interviews, put up a landing page teasing your new show. All you need on the landing page is a headline and short description that will get your audience’s attention. Add a place where they can leave their email and you’ll be able to start building your list of interested audiences. If you have the time to do this, you’ll grow a list of people excited to listen to your show from day 1 of your podcast. Imagine starting out with 100 downloads of  your first episodes. Talk about smart ways to grow your podcast!

4. Feel Free to Pivot

At any point of the launch and recording of your podcast, feel free to pivot. If you’re getting feedback from your audience about something they’d rather hear from you that you’re also interested in, do it! Just because you thought you were going to do your podcast a certain way or have been recording interviews a certain way, doesn’t mean you have to stick to it. A great example of this is the One Part Podcast with Jessica Murnane. Ever since she got a cookbook deal, she’s talked a lot more about making a cookbook. She’s even starting a separate podcast detailing her journey. While she might not have focused on talking about creating a cookbook on earlier episodes, it’s naturally become a part of her shows and reflects her own life. For entrepreneurs, the pivot is crucial. Your idea isn’t a failure if you can pivot it into something different.

5. Create a Monetization Plan

It might be pretty hard to keep your podcast going if you don’t at least have a plan of how you’ll use it to make money for your business. You don’t have to make money at the beginning of your podcast, but months later, you’ll want to have a plan. We all know a business plan is essential, but we forget that a podcast plan is essential too! Creating a monetization plan for your podcast can include deciding whether you’ll make money through sponsorships, passive income streams like ebooks and courses, or by selling your services.

6. Hire Smart

If you’re looking for smart ways to grow your podcast, you need to be hiring smart. It’s easy to outsource what you need done to the cheapest provider possible, but will they really help build momentum for your podcast? Hiring is tricky business with a startup. I recently heard on the Early Stage Founder Show that it’s important to hire smart because we might not feel like firing someone, even if they aren’t the right person for the job.

7. Focus on Your Mission

It’s easy to get side-tracked with the many responsibilities of a podcaster, but keep your mind on why you’re doing the podcast. When things start feeling overwhelming, you’ll be able to turn to the mission that’s pushing you forward. Startups that have strong missions gain loyal audience members.

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8. Love Your Audience

In business, the customer comes first. Why not with your podcast? If you’re making an effort to share your work on social media, make sure to respond to your audience whenever possible. Take time to answer their questions and comments. Create content with them in mind. How can you put your listeners first?

9. Go For a Round of Investors

Startups go through multiple rounds of looking for investors. That means, you can go through multiple rounds of finding show sponsors. Maybe you tried to get a sponsor 3 months in and nothing worked out. Try again! The amount people will ‘invest’ in you will grow as you grow. And if sponsorship isn’t your thing, create a Patreon. I’ve seen a number of podcasters recently go the way of Patreon and get more listeners involved than they expected.

10. Stay Authentic to Your Brand

We’ve all seen businesses that try too hard to be hip or simply have no brand at all and seem like faceless corporate entities. The coolest startups are the ones that stay true to themselves, even when they start gaining momentum. Don’t lose your brand trying to imitate successful podcasters. Your audience should love you for who you are. Your brand is what’s going to attract people to you. It doesn’t have to be a certain way. Just authentic.

These 10 smart ways to grow your podcast are just the beginning. Keep an eye out for startup advice and think about how it could be applied to your podcast. For that matter, think about how any content you consume could be applied to your podcast!

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Have you thought about creating a series on your podcast? You might have heard about this concept before. I think of a podcast series as being 3-6 episodes shared one after the other, all about one topic . For example, the #MerryBiz podcast is kicking off 2017 with interviews from their favorite health and wellness experts. While many of their episodes are on business, they wanted to focus on health to start the year in a good place. The Biz Women Rock Podcast is becoming known for podcast series. She’s done at least 4 different podcast series and doesn’t seem to be slowing down! 

So why should you create a series on your podcast?

1. Create BUZZ

Reason number one? A podcast series is special. When you tell your audience that you’re going to be focusing on one topic for several weeks, you’re signaling to them that it’s important. You can even take advantage of this BUZZ and pair your podcast series with a promotion. That way, the series warms up your audience. Say you’ve created a valuable e-book full of meditation techniques and tips. Create a series on your podcast all about meditation. Feature experts on meditation and the science behind it and then introduce your e-book. If your listeners are interested in your series, they’ll be interested in your e-book. The buzz of a special series will have them thinking deeply about your topic and interested in learning more. Whether or not you add a promotion to your series, you’ll signal to your audience what topics you’re really interested in and tease what they can look forward to learning.

2. Establish Authority

If you create a series on your podcast featuring a certain topic, you’ll be remembered for that topic. It takes a consistent message for people to remember what you want them to. By focusing on one topic, your audience will have a clear picture of what to see you as. If your podcast is about a general topic like entrepreneurship, wellness, or design, you might really benefit from establishing your authority on specific topics from within your general area. It’s nice to be able to interview a wide range of experts, but you won’t be remembered for everything. Decide what you want to be thought of as an expert on and create a series around that. Even if you’re not an expert and you’re learning about a particular subject, you’ll be remembered for starting the conversation and sharing the knowledge of your expert friends.

3. Set Expectations

When you share episodes every week, most of the time your audience has no idea what to expect. If your podcast is on dating, for example, they won’t know whether you’re going to talk about using dating services, first dates, making commitment, or what. By creating a series on your podcast, you set expectations for your audience. They will know what to look forward to and if it’s valuable to them. If it’s not, they might tune out for a few weeks and come back (more on how to avoid this in the free worksheet below). For your listeners who are really interested in learning more, they’ll be excited for your next episode.  

4. Form Strong Industry Relationships

Who wouldn’t be flattered if someone came to you and said, “I’m looking for experts on this topic for a special series on my podcast and thought of you.” With a podcast series, not only do you create strong relationships with topic experts, you also grow your network in one area. Even if you’re not the go-to expert on a certain topic, you’ll know who is and be able to use them as a resource. Podcast series establish your guests as thought leaders too, and that’s something that any potential guest could benefit from.

5. Share a Depth of Information

In one podcast, you can only share so much about one topic. Sometimes sharing the guest’s background and gaining other insight gets in the ways of being able to go really deep into a subject. Over 3-6 episodes, you’ll be able to share a lot of information on one subject. Depending on what you teach, this could be extremely helpful to your audience. If there are some really interesting topics you’ve just touched on in previous episodes, you can use a podcast series to share so much more. Look at what your audience asks you about or what topics you see trending in your industry. 

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