Ever wonder why more of your email subscribers or Instagram followers aren't converting into podcast listeners? 

Welcome to the 6th and final episode in our Organic Growth Series! Like a big puzzle, every piece we've talked about matters, and your podcast growth puzzle will not be complete without all of them. But there's one last puzzle piece that we need to talk about today.

Tune in to hear a recap of this Organic Growth Series, a reminder that your email list and IG audience aren't the same as your podcast listeners, getting to the why behind it all, and actionable steps you can take to complete your puzzle.

Show Notes: https://podcastingforeducators.com/episode83

Connect with Kelly Hogan on Instagram @mathematicallyenthused.

Join the Podcasting for Educators Prep-School: https://podcastingforeducators.com/prepschool

Follow along on Instagram @podcastingforeducators

Your Podcast is a powerful tool that serves your audience and your business. But how do you manage it all bring in new listeners, and convert those listeners into customers. That's what this show is all about. Welcome to podcasting for educators. I'm Sara Whitaker, classroom teacher turn podcast manager, and I'm here to help you get the most out of your show, all while making an impact on other educators.

Okay, so maybe they don't know you have a podcast, maybe they don't know what the heck a podcast is, or how to listen to one. This next one, it's going to hurt a little bit.

They might see every single week in your email that you have a podcast, they might know exactly how to find your podcast, but they just might not be interested in podcasts. I know, stings a little bit. But everybody has their preferences. Just like you a lot of your podcast listeners, they're not going to be interested in your emails, no matter how often or not often you send them that's me, I'm, I would much rather listen to you every week on a podcast, then open your weekly email. I'm not a huge fan of having million emails in my inbox. But that's not everybody. But it is a reality that everybody has these preferences. So that's why it's so very important to be in more than one place online. That's how you grow your business into levels that you never even thought were possible to be able to make sure that you are appealing to all of these different people who have all of these different preferences. Okay, so those are some reasons why people might not be converting from email subscriber to podcast listener. And even though there might be some weirdos out there who don't like podcasts, I'm totally kidding here. Many people do, we just need to understand why they are on your email list. But they haven't become a listener yet. My very first piece of advice that I would give to you if this is your reality, is to do a survey. And I've talked about surveys on here before but this is a different kind of survey. We are usually I talked about doing a podcast listener survey. So you're sending this out to people who are podcast listeners. But in this case, we're trying to figure out why more people aren't podcast listeners. So your goal for this survey would be to get information about where people are in terms of podcasting, whether or not they know what a podcast is. Are they a podcast listener? Do they have Apple podcasts? Do they have Spotify? Do they listen on their computer? Do they listen on their phone? Do they need help? Understanding how to actually find your show on their device? Do they listen to your podcast already? And if so, how often? Are they listening every week? Or are they kind of just tuning in every now and then? Do they need more reminders? Why aren't they listening every single week? These are the kinds of questions that you really want to get to the bottom of and the only way you're going to get this kind of information is if you directly ask, I would send this out to your email list. If you have a Facebook community. That would be another great place to post this. But when you send this out to your email list, do not embed this with a million other CTAs in your email, make this its own separate email, make it the only CTA in that email. That's going to be the best way that you're going to get more people to fill it out and get you some answers and some insight about your specific audience. Some other suggestions as far as how to get more of your subscribers to be podcast listeners. First of all I would look at are you sending out consistent, ideally weekly emails about your podcast? If you currently have a weekly newsletter that you're sending out? Are you putting like dumping everything in there is it like a bunch of information about your TV He products and just all these different things where your podcast is kind of getting lost in your email. And maybe that's one reason that people aren't seeing it or aren't paying attention to it, especially if maybe you're talking about your podcast at the beginning of the email. And then by the time they get to the end of the email, they've forgotten about it, or vice versa, maybe you're only putting it at the end of your email. And then people aren't actually making it to the end of your email. And so they don't see it, are you putting something that makes it stand out, that makes it clear that people can actually click on it and listen, and listen on an app that works for them, please do not just be linking to Apple podcasts. And I know that it's really hard to highlight your podcast if you've got a bunch of other things that you also need to be talking about with your audience every single week. So if that's the case for you, I would consider having a podcast specific weekly email that goes out on a different day of the week, and is just about your podcast, because that's really going to help it stand out among your other content. And if you're worried about like, oh, I don't want to be sending too many emails to people, I don't want to be overloading their inbox, you could set up a little thing at the bottom of your email so that they have an option to opt out of just those emails. So maybe there's somebody who's like, I get it, I know you have a podcast, and I'm not gonna listen, because I'm not a podcast listener, they will have the option to opt out of that sequence of emails. And then they'll still stay on your email list for other alerts. Hopefully, that makes sense. But you should have that option inside of your email marketing provider. Another thing as far as emails go is, if right now, you're also just saying like new episode out, and that's all you're saying about your podcast, in your email, you might try some storytelling in your email to really hook people in and embed that into whatever your podcast topic is for that week. So just think about how you might be able to make your emails a little bit more engaging. So that it's not just something that people are skimming over, I would also make sure that your podcast link is in your email signature, both inside your email marketing platform and in your Gmail signature. And I talked to a second ago about like making sure that you're linking to places other than just Apple podcasts, because we don't want to isolate anybody who's not an apple podcast listener. So I always love using the site pod dot link, because that will allow people to listen on any platform that they want. So that's an option. And then I kind of alternate between that and linking to the show notes on my website. And then on my show notes, I have links where they can also go and listen on a different app if they prefer. And then as far as social media goes, if you do not have your podcast on your Instagram bio, please go do that right now. Like stop this episode, and go do that. Because anytime that if somebody were to like, share your content, like share one of your reels, or your carousels or whatever, or recommend your Instagram to somebody, and somebody sees your profile being shared, and they click on your profile. I know for me, again, I'm a super podcast listener. But the first thing I do if I see that somebody has shared content, and I think it's like really funny, or educational, or whatever, and I want to click on that profile and check this person out. The very first thing that I look for, is does this person have a podcast? Because for me, that's how I connect with people. That's how I want to get to know people. I don't want to sit and get to know you, through your Instagram reels, I want to get to know you through your podcast. So a lot of times, if somebody doesn't have a podcast, I'm not going to follow them. Because I know that I'm not going to come back and find their Instagram, unless it's like somebody that I'm interested in working with, or, or something like that. But as far as like somebody that I want to learn from, or be inspired by, I know that I'm looking for a podcast. So if your podcast name is not on your Instagram bio, it really, really should be if you want your podcast to really be a core piece of your brand. So to kind of start wrapping things up here. If this is you, if you are somebody who's like Man, I've worked really hard to build this big email list or this big Instagram following. And I have these people here, they're in my space. Why aren't they A podcast listeners, why are these numbers not converting? The first thing I want you to do is figure out why you need to talk to these people, and figure out what the reason is so that you can take your next steps and hopefully, get some of these people get more of these people to convert over to your podcast. And ultimately, this is why all of these things that I've been talking about through this organic growth series are so important, SEO, intentional podcast, marketing, visibility, these are all really important because they're not only focusing on your existing audience, but they're also focusing on bringing new people in everywhere in your business, to your podcast, to your email list, everything. So I hope that this has given you some insight and given you some ideas on next steps that you can take if this topic resonated with you today. And I also hoped that this whole series has just been super helpful for you if it has been I would love to hear from you. I would love for you to send me an email or shoot me a message on Instagram and let me know which of the episodes in this series was your favorite. And I will be sure to link all of those episodes in today's show notes which you can find at podcasting for educators.com/episode 83.

Be sure to come back here next week. I've got a great episode for you. I've got a guest on and we are talking a little bit more on this topic of email subscribers. We are going to be kind of talking about the opposite thing. We're going to be looking at how you can turn your podcast listeners into email subscribers with some out of the box lead magnets. Before we sign off, let's check out this week's shout out. Each week I'm sharing a voice message from a fellow podcaster and they could be your next podcast guest after listening if you'd like to collaborate with them. You can reach out using the information in the show notes from today's episode. If you're interested in being featured head to podcasting for educators.com/voice Happy collaborating

Hey, my name is Kelly Hogan and my podcast is the mathematically enthused podcast where I help upper elementary teachers with classroom management, student engagement and all things math. If you're looking for a podcast guest I'd love to come on to talk about financial literacy, math in the media, or even neuroplasticity and math mindset. You can reach me on Instagram at mathematically enthused, you can also grab my info in Sara's show notes.

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. To keep this conversation going connect with me on Instagram at podcasting for educators. I'm always looking for an excuse to talk about podcasting. If you're looking for support and launching, managing or growing your podcast, check out my online course the podcasting for educators prep school at podcasting for educators.com/prep school. I'll see you here next time.