We are all looking to grow our audience. Who doesn’t want more podcast audience growth? You need a strategy and multiple ideas.

MULTIPLE STREAMS

Multiple streams of income help grow your revenue. Those streams also protect you from any one source going away. If all of your revenue comes from one source, you are at risk of losing most of your revenue if that source disappears.

The same is true with your audience growth. If all of your new listeners are coming from the same source, your growth dries up if that source goes away.

I have a free resource for you. If you would like 75 ways to drive engagement with your podcast, visit PodcastTalentCoach.com/increasedownloads.

Finding ways to get in front of new audiences is a great way to grow your show. A podcast with a similar audience is ripe for collaboration.

LARRY THE CABLE GUY

I was on a free strategy call the other night with a podcaster. We were discussing how she could use a podcast to promote her books and speaking opportunities.

A podcast is a great way to promote your services and demonstrate your authority.

As we talked, we realized she didn’t really want to do all of the work to create a podcast from scratch. She really wanted to get a jump start by partnering with an established brand.

That brought to mind Larry the Cable Guy. Back in the early 90s, Dan Whitney was getting his start in stand up before he became better known as Larry the Cable Guy.

If you check out YouTube, you can find stand up routines by Dan. His career was just like every struggling comedian until he found his unique bit and partners to help him grow it.

One of my radio buddies was friends with Dan. Chris and Dan were both coming up through the comedy circuit as Chris was getting into radio.

Dan would call into Chris’ radio show and do his “Larry the Cable Guy” bit. It was commentary on society and hilarious.

This turned into Larry doing the same bit on stations across the country. By being featured on many radio shows, Larry’s comedy career took off.

Larry didn’t need to create his own radio show. He just found established partners who could help him jump start his career.

FIND A PARTNER

As I was talking to this podcaster, and we realized she didn’t want to start from scratch, I told her the story of Larry the Cable Guy. She has a friend who would let her do a feature on his show each week. This is a perfect way to get started.

When Cliff Ravenscraft was doing the Podcast Answerman Podcast, Erik Fisher would do a technology segment on the show each week. Erik now has BeyondTheToDoList.com. Finding a podcast partner is a great way to create audience growth.

BENEFITS

There are a few benefits of using a partner for audience growth.

• Somebody else creates the bulk of the content
• No need to edit. You can just show up, record and be done
• It is a jumpstart. You start a few rungs up the ladder
• You get in front of a whole new audience

DRAWBACKS

There are also a few drawbacks of this strategy

• You don’t control the entire content of the show
• Somebody else’s platform gets the benefit of promotion
• You don’t control the promotion of the show
• You don’t control the brand and image of the show

AUDIENCE GROWTH STEPS

If you want to try this approach, three steps.

• Find someone with an audience you’d like to attract
• Determine how the main host will benefit from your feature
• Create a simple agreement in writing, including how often, how long, when you record, compensation (plug your site, etc), how the agreement ends, what happens if one party doesn’t live up to the agreement.

FREE RESOURCE

If you would like 75 ways to drive engagement with your podcast, visit PodcastTalentCoach.com/increasedownloads. These ideas will help you create audience growth for your podcast.

You can find my podcast and other tools to help you create great content at www.PodcastTalentCoach.com.

Let’s turn your information into engaging entertainment.