Yesterday a Spotify R&D team posted recent research into “how less-streamed podcasts can reach their potential.” The overall goal was to identify the shows that can benefit the most from a recommendation boost, first by understanding their potential audiences. One study involved more than five million recommendations.
A high-quality, niche podcast that “has a hard time building an audience ‘naturally’” justifies more strategic audience matching — but only if chances of success are high. Figuring out those chances has much to do with a listener’s taste, which is based on the hosts, topics, guests, and publishers of shows they already enjoy.
The results spell good news for every podcaster that studies their competition. While you can’t X-ray listeners’ brains like Spotify, you’ll benefit from knowing the ‘keyword’ details about shows in your podcast’s neighborhood. Tools like Rephonic’s discovery engine and podcast audience graph can help.
Thinking about swapping promotions with another show? (See ‘podcast neighborhoods’ above.) Proper labeling is key, says Andrew Davies of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Audio Studios team. “The last thing you want to do is confuse listeners into thinking the episode is something it’s not.”
Even if your show and its counterpart feel like a perfect fit, listeners don’t appreciate an unexpected drop-in. “If you release a bonus or partial episode, be really clear with your listeners ― in the title and episode description ― that it’s not a regular episode,” he writes. “Reinforce in the episode description why you’re doing the swap.”
The article links to well-executed swaps, like one between Radiolab and NPR’s Rough Translation. Afterward, the most important part is measure success by isolating the campaign’s impact. Davis explains which factors to watch and how, along with a warning to think about each opportunity long and hard.
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