[New Listener Data] Will it change how you promote your podcast?
This just might change the way you approach marketing and promoting your podcast.
Some new listener data just came out from research done with the University of York, and I have got a hot take for you on it. Here's the gist. Here's the stats from this research.
There are three things that are the most profound:
The first. The research found that most people are now listening to and most engaged with podcasts when they are listening at home on the weekday evening. They also are still listening via headphones. 71% of people are actually listening with headphones on, as opposed to 29% through speakers like an Alexa device in your house.
And even more important than these two pieces of data is how people are finding new podcasts. 71% of people are discovering podcasts by talking to family and friends. 69% are discovering new podcasts by listening to other podcasts, and 49% are coming from internet.
Here's my hot take on this. I am not saying that you need to immediately change your episode release day and time to a weekday evening , but you do need to consider that when marketing your podcast.
If you are only sending out an email, to your email list or sharing on your social media channels that a new podcast episode has dropped on the day it drops. You need to up that ante.
Remind them on a weekday during the evening that a new episode is available for them to listen to that week because you're gonna be more likely to catch them.
Also, when you are talking to your listeners in your episodes, remember that it is still very much an intimate one-to-one kind of experience because they're listening with headphones on. It's still very much you in their ear. So approach it like you're talking one-on-one to somebody instead of one to a hundred people in a room.
The third bit is because people are finding new podcasts from family and friend recommendations (over mentions on other podcasts, or even searching the internet)…
You should 150% start asking your listeners in your episodes to share the podcast.
Get specific, tell them, if you liked a specific piece of this podcast, let your friends know.
Send them a text with a link to the episode and tell them why they should listen something short and sweet, but remind your listeners to share it with someone.
This is gonna be huge for getting people to talk about your podcast. You wanna give them a reason to talk about your podcast with other people.
References:
Podnews
Article with University of York Podcast Data: The relationship between environmental context and attentional engagement in podcast listening experiences