How to grow a podcast: 2 levers you control
A podcast can be many things, since a podcast (like a blog post, a video, a speech, a book) is just a container. What’s inside is what determines everything, from who you attract and serve to how often it’s shared to whether or not it performs the way you’d like for your business. So let’s start by making a subtle shift from wondering how to grow a podcast to learning how to grow something more powerful to our cause: a SHOW.
The difference between the two? There’s no objective definition, so here’s my attempt to explain: a podcast is a collection of downloadable audio episodes you can listen to on-demand, while a SHOW is an exploration of a focused concept audiences adore and can’t wait to share.
To develop a show, you start by developing IP — the intellectual property, the premise that you intend to explore over time. Your IP should be uniquely identifiable and uniquely your own. Yet Another Business Success Show is not IP. It’s a commodity. By developing your IP, you speak to the soul of your audience, and you stand out from the noise. That’s step one in how to grow a podcast — erm, excuse me, a SHOW. Articulate the aspiration for the show. Develop the premise. Create IP.
We all want a show that grows. Rarely if ever do we proactively build something growable.
So how do we do that? I go into greater detail in my new collection of essays, The Creator’s Compass. It starts and ends with one simple notion: make their favorite show.
“Favorite” is personal. “Favorite” is irrational. “Favorite” is emotional. When we declare something our favorite, we are declaring something about ourselves. To describe YOUR show as THEIR favorite, they are self-expressing. It says something about their identity. So, your job is to speak to the personal, emotional reason they care about … what? What are you exploring? And more importantly, how are you exploring it?
That’s your premise. That’s your IP. Your topics plus your hook. WHAT you explore and HOW. This gives the audience a reason why they’d care.
(Here is an end-to-end guide to premise development, should you be at this stage.)
But once you develop that IP, that premise, it’s time to grow the show. And while I believe the best way to grow a show is to give it to a few passionate fans and let word-of-mouth take over, I’m also realistic: you’re under pressure. You have deadlines, goals, peer pressure, social pressure, self-inflicted pressure. You want to control the growth more than relying on word-of-mouth. I get it, and while I don’t like it, I think I have a solution that still focuses us on the right things — namely, developing a show that makes a difference, not simply blasting the world with links to our shows.
If and only if you’ve developed actual IP for your show, here are the two growth levers you can pull — one that we often use, and one that we overlook.
Merchandise
IP Extensions
Merchandise is repurposed and reused bits of the first project where your IP shows up in the world. If you have a podcast, then merchandise for the podcast includes things like social media graphics with quotes pulled from the show. If you’re Marvel, then the way you merchandize the IP known as Iron Man is to sell action figures, or shirts with Iron Man’s helmet depicted.
In marketing parlance, this is sometimes called “atomization” of the content. You made a core asset. Chunk that asset into tiny bits. Distribute the bits away from the show. Often, this is restricted to micro-content. Sometimes, we create actual “merch” — posters, shirts, mugs, hats, notebooks, and so forth.
To merchandize something is trade little bits of the IP for another good, like attention or even money. You become a merchant for the IP.
This is where we usually stop our attempts to grow the content. And why? Because we’re trying to make a podcast. But when you try to make a SHOW, you think more deeply about the IP, the premise, the big idea driving it all. When you think like that, you think about growing not the podcast but the idea, the movement, and the community. You’re growing your overall platform and your ability to lead.
THAT is how you in turn grow the podcast.
And the way to do all of this seemingly lofty stuff is to look harder at a very practical approach that we often fail to recognize as an opportunity in the first place: IP extensions.
Your IP has value beyond the first place you explore it and manifest it (i.e. your podcast). Your original idea should naturally lead to “IP extensions” (the newsletter, the book, the video series spinning off from the podcast – or the second podcast – and so forth). IP extensions help you further explore the ideas by extending the original IP to new projects.
If you’re Marvel, an IP extension is Iron Man the movie, extending that character’s value and your exploration of the IP from the comics to film. Iron Man 2 was another IP extension. A videogame or podcast featuring the character would also be considered an extension.
For your show, consider how the premise can support other projects. Yes, you should merchandize the podcast, but you should also continue to explore the concepts in the show.
By inviting your audience to do so with you, you grow the show. The movement builds. The idea gains momentum and prominence in the minds of the right people, and those passionate fans tell their friends.
Extensions explore the IP in new and different or deeper ways, while merchandizing extend the value of the original project where the IP was found. Can your ideas support multiple projects, or are you taking one project and chunking it into lots of little bits of that original show?
Extensions versus merchandizing. Both can be valuable, but most of us don’t develop actual IP at all, so we can’t even begin to develop extensions, and all those social media quotes and audiograms and blog posts based on our shows are just taking a mediocre idea and blasting it to more places.
We need to get better at IP extensions – or really, developing IP in the first place. Without doing so, we can’t begin to grow the audience.
Don’t make a podcast. Don’t make a commodity.
Make a show.
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Ready to develop your show and your IP? Consider my course, Growable Shows. This course is not for those who want to hide behind some videos rather than ship anything.
Dan Sanchez is a course customer and director of audience growth at a podcast agency responsible for 30+ shows. Here’s what he emailed me, unprompted:
“I’ve been through 100+ digital courses (Ramit Sethi, MasterClass.com, Lynda.com, Udemy, Skillshare, and many others) in addition to earning two degrees online, and I have to say that your course was probably the best blend of substance and humor that I’ve seen so far.”
Growable Shows is available on-demand and features dozens of real-world examples, dissected, plus a handful of reusable mental models, frameworks, templates, and most importantly, exercises you will implement to do real work on your real show. Explore more here.