Should I Move to a Different Media Host?

You've been podcasting for a while. And when you first started, you can see where you were getting new listeners, but it's kind of growing now, but kinda well, slow.

So you start to kind of panic a little bit, you're like, well, this is weird. My podcast, it's not really growing, or probably, more importantly, it's not growing as fast as you would like it to. And so what you start to look at, in some cases are things that don't need to be fixed. For example, maybe you have a good microphone, something like a Samson Q2U. You decide, hey, maybe I'm gonna get an electro voice re 320. Now, the Samsung Q2u right now is about $70. The electro voice re 320 is around 250 to $300. Now, will it sound better? Sure. But is it really going to sound that much better? And more importantly, was your audience tuning out? Because the audio quality was bad? In my answer, that is probably not if you're using a Samsung Q2U. And then the other one that I see a lot, is people will move from one media host (so this could be pod bean or captivate or Lipson or blueberry, or whoever, anchor. And in full disclosure, by the way, I worked for Libsyn), but I see people that think, okay, you know, this other website looks better. Or, you know, I hear this other person on YouTube, or whatever it is, and you think, I guess, if I move over to this media host, I will get more downloads. And the answer, for the most part, is No, you're not. When I was a little boy, I remember my mom taking me to get new shoes. And so I'm all of probably six or seven. And I remember, I would wear the shoes out of the store and run down the sidewalk. And I would start jumping and running. And I could swear that I could run faster and jump higher because I had new shoes. And in the end, you and I both know, not really, it's really based on what's in the sneakers. And it's very similar to when you move to a new media host. And that is it really boils down to the content and the amount of smart promotion that you're doing. So what I mean by that is, if there is no value to the listener, it doesn't matter how much you promote it. Most people are going to listen that and go "yuck."

And it also doesn't matter if you have the best content in the world and you don't promote it. Sure it will grow by word of mouth, but much slower than if you 

found who your target audience is 

went there to wherever they are 

you made friends and then told them about your podcast. 

So I say this because sometimes when we panic, we don't make the best decisions. And many of the podcast hosts have the exact same features. It really in many cases boils down to whose interface Do you like the best. And now I'm biased here, who has the best support, because it's many times what makes a great company, well, a great company is not how things go, when things are going great. It's how things go when there's an issue. 

I see a lot of this now where people are starting to move from one media host to the other to the other to the other. And the other thing you have to keep in mind here is there are some things that are kind of minor surgery. 

For example, if you want to rebrand your show, let's say you want to call it the Dave Jackson podcast, and you decide you want to rename it the Dave Jackson Power Hour. Okay, that's easy. You change the name of your show, you update your artwork, and you wait 24 hours, and presto, new podcast brand. That is kind of outpatient surgery in the world of podcasting. But when you move from one media host to the other, you are going to behind the scenes, redirect your audience to your new host. And that usually means that in some cases, you're going to lose a little bit of your audience, especially those people who don't listen on a regular basis. And some people go well, if they don't listen on a regular basis, then I don't really care. And I'm like, I don't know, I work pretty hard for every single listener. 

So my point here today is, (and nobody likes this and I get that) that may be the reason your podcast isn't growing is one of two things.

You haven't taken the time to get some proper feedback from your target audience to make sure that it's doing what you want it to do.

And if it is, then it's got to be you're not promoting it enough to your target audience.

A lot of times people say, Well, I'm promoting it on Instagram and on Twitter and on Facebook and all your other social sites. But those people already know you have a podcast, smart promotion is figuring out who is your target audience and going to where they are, especially if they don't know you yet.

You need to find new listeners. It's important to have those people that are listening currently keep coming back.

But it really, really matters that you find new people who don't know you yet. Who are gonna find your podcast, and they're gonna love it, and then they're gonna tell their friends.

So don't get confused sometimes, when your podcast isn't growing the way you want it to. It's probably not the audio unless you have really bad audio. It's probably not the media host. Unless you're on some sort of free service that's horrible. It may not be the artwork unless of course, you did yours with a crayon.

It often boils down to understanding who your audience is, and understanding what they want, so you can give it to them. And that's not always easy to do. And that's how I can help. If you'd like a strategy session, go out to podcastconsultant.com/schedule, and let's schedule a strategy session. And let's figure out why your podcast isn't growing as fast as you want.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai