The Key to Building an Audience - The Listener Flywheel

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YP fam.

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What's going on.

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My name is Hector Sanwan and I am your host, and I get way too geeked up about

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creating amazing podcasts that can fuel your lifestyle and your business.

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And I've been producing and promoting podcasts for almost a half decade now, and

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this show is to help you learn the things that do and do not work when it comes to

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marketing and monetizing your podcast.

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And today's episode is all about the secret to sustaining

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and growing a podcast.

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and that's the listener fly.

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Now, some of you might be familiar with the customer growth.

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Flywheel is a concept that's been popularized in business by a lot of

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people, but I think that the same concept can actually apply to podcasts as well.

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Before I get into that, I wanna share a couple of things that

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I believe about podcasts that I think makes this whole thing run.

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And the first is, is that I do believe that media and content can support and

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sustain your lifestyle or business.

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and I saw a TikTok video or reel the other day that was kind of

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complaining about the fact that businesses have to create content.

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And it was something to the effect of I'm a business owner

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and I have to create content.

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So here's this video and it's always, this woe is me, this poor

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me, this helpless kind of thing.

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And I think that that marketing is just so.

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I don't know.

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I, I just, I don't like pity marketing

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. For me though.

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It also could be the fact that I believe so strongly and I am so grateful for the

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fact that we get to be in a place where we have the ability to create content.

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We have the distribution to be able to create content.

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And then we also have the fact that

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It can actually be something that drives our business.

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It can actually be something that funds our lifestyle.

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It can actually be something that.

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Constructive and productive in our life.

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it's not just creating podcasts or creating talks or creating whatever,

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whatever people think that we do all day.

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It's not, it's not that.

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I mean, I think if you see that it's a little bit more, it can help

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you to understand the depth and the power that podcasts really create.

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The second thing that I also believe is that the best way that we, as

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podcasts can grow individually is for us to grow collectively.

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and I mean that for a lot of reasons, and I, this reminds me of that proverb that

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says, if you want to go fast, go alone.

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And if you want to go far go together and Apparently it's misattributed to as like

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an African proverb, but apparently it's not, I don't know who knows go look it up.

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The point is, is that that wisdom holds the same and more

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so than ever in podcasts, because

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We don't have a YouTube to lean on or rely on.

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We don't have a TikTok algorithm to rely on.

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We don't have something that is going out and actively finding our shows

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and connecting it with our listeners.

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The closest thing to that is Spotify.

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And they've become like this big, bad Wolf in the podcasting industry, but they're

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the closest thing to helping podcasters with this whole discoverability thing

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outside of that, outside of some entity, some central entity being the answer and

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solution to our discoverability and our marketing and our promotion problems.

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Well, the alternative to that is actually each other.

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And the great thing.

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What we do is that they've found that an average podcast listener listens to

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about seven different podcasts in a week.

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And so that means that you've got seven slots for a person.

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And so that means that you can, your, the chances of you filling all seven

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spots is almost unlikely, right?

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There's very.

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It's almost impossible to have seven different shows to start off

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with, And even if you are a larger network or you have, you know, you're

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an ESPN or a Bleacher reporter, a wonder, or some of these, you

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know, really, really big networks of blue wire, something like that.

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Those are the ones that come to mind.

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Even if you are those there's still room for . Other shows.

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And so with that knowledge understanding and knowing that somebody is going

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to assemble their own feed, right?

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I think that Cable channels, TV channels, they got a lot of benefit from cross

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promoting other shows because they knew that someone was watching right now.

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They could promote their show.

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That was gonna be on a little bit later, and that would help

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to grow their listenership for.

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their later show and they could do it vice versa, right.

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but they would always have commercials and have promotions for their other

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shows on the network, because that grew the listenership for those, those shows

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and by growing the listenership for those shows helped all of the benefits

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and all the KPIs for that as well, add slots, downloads, web revenue,

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whatever it is that comes along with it.

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Even networks today, networks, podcast networks don't have the luxury of being

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able to put together someone's own feet.

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I mean, that's something that the podcasts apps are doing is putting.

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Listeners feed together.

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And so if we can team up with the people that we're going

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to be paired up with, right.

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If we can team up with the other people that might occupy

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those other seven slots, right?

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If you think about who are those other six people or who would be the ideal, other

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six people That I could partner with.

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That's really where we're going to find the most benefit.

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And the second reason which I think is even bigger is that there's so

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many people who haven't found podcasts yet, who don't listen to podcasts

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regularly enough, or still haven't found their groove with podcasting.

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That I think that it's.

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Medium that we all collectively can grow together.

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And so again, I'll say it the best way to grow individually as a podcast is

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for us to grow collectively as podcast.

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And the last thing.

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I've talked about this a little bit, but I think it's worth reiterating

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is that I do believe that each of you have a genius, that's waiting

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for you to be unlocked in your show.

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I'm really fortunate.

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And maybe it's just the hosts that we work with, but I'm really

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fortunate to work with some really incredibly smart and talented people.

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And we get the pleasure of unlocking and bringing that genius to.

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The world.

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And I think that that is so valuable for people to know that the genius that they

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know this inside them, that they know that they're capable of can be unlocked

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through a podcast through content, you can actually share that with the world.

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So let's get into the actual topic for today, which is the listener flywheel.

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And this is I think, one of the biggest and maybe most important topics in the

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podcast industry right now, because.

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There's so much uncertainty in where we are going.

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there's so much uncertainty of which app is gonna be the app.

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There's so much uncertainty of which ones are worth being

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on or are we gonna be around?

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The only thing that we can really control is whether or

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not our audience actually cares.

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That's the only thing that we can actually do is create real, authentic connections

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and relationships with our audience.

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The nice thing is, is that in an industry like podcasting and on a platform like

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podcasting, if you've created a good enough relationship with your listener,

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if they want to listen to you, they will be able to find you, if not on one app,

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they'll go and find you on another one.

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And so knowing that your relationship with your listener should.

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Above the platform should actually supersede and go above a platform so

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that if one gets shut down, if something goes down, if a feed gets removed,

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if something happens that you're not beholden to just this one platform for

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, your listeners, your community, your downloads, your viewership, whatever

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it is that you're trying to get.

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So I think that that's just a really important note to have

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before we kind of get into this.

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And so the listener flywheel consists of three components.

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And these are once again adapted from the customer growth flywheel, which has

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been popularized by so many authors, but the three components are attracting.

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Engaging and delighting, and they're called a variety of different things,

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but the first part is attracting,

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? And I think that attraction is so

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podcasters to realize, because listening to a podcast is such a big commitment.

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It's such a big commitment because it's really hard to switch or it's

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not hard, but oftentimes you're driving a car you're in the middle

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of dishes, you're doing something.

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And so the cost of switching is much higher than if you're just watching

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a YouTube video where all you've gotta do is just click another

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video on the side of the platform.

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And so with that, we've gotta realize that that commitment, we just gotta honor it.

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In order to honor that we've gotta do everything we can to

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make sure that we are accurately representing what our show is about.

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And I think that this also goes to show that we've got to give

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listeners a taste of what they can expect, and we've gotta do that in

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a variety of different capacities, in a variety of different ways.

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And we can attract listeners two main ways, right?

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The, the first way is what I'd call on platform, which is through other.

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Podcasts, even other podcast apps.

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And the second way is off platform, which is basically everything else.

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You know, there's what would be social media, live events, , networking

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emails, things like that, right.

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Where they're, you're pushing them from some other place

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outside of the podcast platform.

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Now once you've got them to listen, there's a whole step in

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actually getting them to stick around, actually retaining them.

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And I think that there's a couple of components of this, or maybe more,

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but at least the ones right now that we'll explore is creating a great show.

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because there have been times where I've listened to shows and I couldn't

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get through the first episode because the audio was so bad or the host was

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rambling or, I mean, there there's been times where I've turned it off three

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minutes in and never gave it another shot.

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So realize that your shows each time, I guess, you know, it's

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maybe an unfortunate part of.

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But something that holds us to a higher standard is that we are trying

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out for our listeners and we've gotta compete for their attention

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and for them wanting to not only redownload, but then also re-listen

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week after week, episode after episode.

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And so engaging and retaining your listeners is so important, but then

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there's also off episode retention.

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Asking them to engage with you outside of the podcast, whether it's on social

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at meetups, on live recordings, there's all these different ways to be able

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to actually engage your listeners so that you can get feedback from them.

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So you can create that connection.

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You can create a real relationship with them, but what it also does

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is it continues to drive this listener flywheel, where now they

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have the opportunity to be delight.

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This is the part where the magic of the, of the flywheel lies in this third

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step, which is you've done all this work to attract a Elior you've done

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even more work to keep them around and to actually get them excited.

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Well, the last step is.

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What I learned in school is to go above and beyond, right.

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Going above and beyond as a creator, as a host helps you to really get

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to this next step of delight, which takes that engagement and takes

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that retention to a next level.

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Because now they're willing to tell someone else, and you can go and look

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at a variety of different studies.

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But what they've found is that.

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the number one way that people found out the number one way that people

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found podcasts was from somebody else.

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Recommendations getting, getting referred, and realize that those recommendations

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happen in a variety of ways.

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Sometimes they happen on social.

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Sometimes they happen in person.

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So you never really know, but if you can continually delight your listeners,

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if you can continually help them, if you can continually go above and beyond

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and take it to that next level, then what you'll find is that one listener.

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Will equal two and two listeners will equal four and four will

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equal eight and so on and so forth.

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And it'll continue to build on itself.

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And that is the real magic of a podcast where what's going out actually helps

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and sustains and fuels what's coming in.

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And so it's this flywheel that builds upon itself.

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And so if you can do that right, if you can delight them with contests or

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memorable shows or fantastic guests, Live experiences, all these types of things.

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There's different ways to be able to do it.

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If you can do that, You'll start to have your listeners grow and compound,

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and you'll start to see the real benefits of having a thriving podcast.

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So thanks for sticking with me today.

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Hopefully you got some value out of it.

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I'd love to know.

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What you think of the listener flywheel?

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Does it make sense?

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Is it hogwash?

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Come find me on Twitter at Hector underscore podcast.

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Let me know.

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And.

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If you want to get some help from me specifically, if you wanna have

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me take a look at your show, go to amplify media.com/checkup.

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That's a M P L a F Y.

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And you can, and you can check the show notes for the link to that.

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And if, of course, if you know a podcaster that wants to grow their

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show and is looking for some ways to do it, please send them this link

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and we will forever be grateful for you helping grow the NYP family.

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It's great to have you guys here.