Are you inadvertently killing your podcast's growth by being resistant to change?

Because here's the truth - being creatures of habit, we podcasters often shy away from trying new things, even when our current approach isn't yielding the desired growth that we want to see.

In this episode, I'll encourage you to take a critical look at your podcast's performance. If you're not seeing the growth you envisioned, whether it's in downloads, audience retention, or any other metric that defines success for you, it might be time to step out of your comfort zone. Don't let the fear of losing existing listeners hold you back from rebranding, revamping your show notes, or experimenting with different episode formats.

To help you on this journey, I'll share three actionable tips with you that you can implement today.

Remember, growth often lies outside our comfort zones. Don't let the fear of change hinder your podcast's true potential. Embrace new ideas, listen to your audience, and be willing to adapt your strategies. Share this message with your fellow podcasters who might also benefit from these insights.

Highlights

• Importance of being open to change and adaptation in podcasting
• Podcasters' fear of making changes and hindering growth
• My experience of rebranding and achieving growth
• Strategies for improving podcast growth, such as optimizing show notes and using keyword research
• Defining and tracking podcast growth beyond download numbers
• Spreading the word about your podcast and leveraging word-of-mouth referrals
• Easy wins for growing your podcast audience, including content optimization and audience engagement
• Top three tips for growing your podcast audience: promoting to everyone, experimenting with keywords, and trying out different categories.

Timestamps:

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:01:07 Exploring Audio Recording Platforms
• 00:01:54 Are You Killing Your Podcast Growth?
• 00:03:07 Embracing Change in Podcasting: Overcoming the Fear of Making Changes
• 00:06:29 The Importance of Growth in Podcasting
• 00:06:57 Tips on How to Grow Your Podcast Audience
• 00:07:30 Strategies to Grow Your Podcast Audience
• 00:08:21 3 Tips for Growing Your Podcast Audience

📧 Join the 5-day email growth challenge ➡️ https://veritysangan.com/5daychallenge

Hello everybody and welcome

back to another episode of the

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Lazy Girl's Guide to Podcasting.

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I have a different setup

going on at the moment.

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I am currently, and I am not exaggerating

at all here, I am currently in the

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corner of my bedroom Everything,

including me, is sat on the floor.

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My microphone is balanced on my knee.

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The reason for this is, where I was

recording in this spare room, which I

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was using as a little podcast studio,

has now been turned into a bedroom for

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Dear Daughter 2, which is wonderful.

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Don't get me wrong, I'm

just very happy with it.

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And we had a great weekend as a family

designing it, putting it all together.

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But, um, But it means that the

podcasting studio, and I'm very much

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saying that in adverse commas, is now

corner of my bedroom and my husband's

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bedroom, whilst we now figure out how

we are going to make that go forward.

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But actually, I've already been

testing out the sound on GarageBand.

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I'm now recording in Descript and

I'll come onto that in a little bit,

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but I was recording in GarageBand

just to, just to play around with it.

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And actually, I feel that the audio

is actually a little bit better

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because it's carpeted in here.

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I'm talking into like a bit

more of a corner, so I feel

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like the audio is a bit better.

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I'd be interested to know

what, what you all think.

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As I said, I am recording

in D script at the moment.

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I have for been recording in Riverside.

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You all know, but I'm a huge,

huge advocate for Riverside.

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But I just found that, I dunno, I just

feel like it's been kind of glitchy

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over the last few months or so.

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So I don't know, it could just be me,

but I decided that I was going to take

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the opportunity canceled my subscription.

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This isn't hating on them.

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I was just finding that, I don't

know, maybe it's my bandwidth.

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I don't know.

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But I've cancelled my subscription

to Riverside and I'm now

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taking the opportunity to try

out a few different things.

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So, I was playing around with GarageBand

but then I decided, actually, I

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have a free account on Descript.

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Why don't I trip over to Descript again?

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I used it at the beginning of the

Lazy Girls Guide to Podcasting.

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So, I'm going to try it again.

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So, here we are.

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But we're not talking about

any of that for this episode.

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What we're talking about for

this particular episode is, are

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you killing your podcast growth?

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And you're probably thinking, no,

I'm doing absolutely everything

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I can to make my podcast grow at

an amazing rate just no verity.

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What are you chatting about?

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But I think you could possibly be

killing your podcast's own growth

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without even realizing that.

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And I'm going to explain that to

you and then stick around until the

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end of the show where I'm actually

going to give you three top tips

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that you can implement today.

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To make sure that you are actually growing

your podcast at a rate that you want to

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be seeing results from and getting your

podcast to whatever that point is that you

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define as your podcast being successful.

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So do stick around for those

top tips for how to grow your

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podcast at the end of the show.

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Let's unpick this Are you

killing your podcast growth?

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And it's that idea.

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I feel of Podcasters just being scared

to make changes, you know, we start with

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a certain status quo You know, we stick

with the same software the same tech

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the same marketing, whatever it is, we

have systems and processes in place.

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And that's great.

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But I think it's really important

to realize that people are creatures

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of habits and therefore by default,

podcasters are creatures of habits.

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And I think that there's this

massive conversation to be had around

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people being scared to change things

because we don't like major changes.

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So why would we want major

changes in our podcasting?

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And, you know, changes could be anything.

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It could be, like I've said, how I

have decided to stop using Riverside.

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temporarily, might be permanent.

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We shall see.

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And I'm experimenting with Descript

or I might even go back to GarageBand.

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That's a change that some people might

think, well, I'm not going to do that.

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But actually through one

way or another, it might.

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improve my podcast growth.

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It could be that you find that you

have this little bug at the back of

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your mind that you need to change

your podcast name or even just

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tweak your podcast name slightly.

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Maybe you want to insert some more

keywords or any keywords at all that

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people are searching for to find your

podcast into your show name, but you're

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scared to do that because, well, what if I

rebrand and I lose all of those listeners?

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Yes, but what if you rebranded and

you gain loads of visitors as well?

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And, you know, that was exactly my

experience with my first podcast.

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It was originally called

bloggers creating courses.

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I was really, really worried when I

changed it to the confident CEO that I was

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just going to lose all those listeners.

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But actually what I did was I.

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Saw exponential growth with that change

with that name change because it was

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much more specific I was using keywords

that people were searching for and I

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carried those through to my show notes

through to my episode descriptions

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through to the podcast description as

well And I think that's another key point

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as well is looking at your show notes.

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Are you somebody who's maybe just

used a couple of lines before?

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And actually you could be writing show

notes that are much more in depth.

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And if you're thinking verity, I

don't have the time to do that.

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You could use a free

tool such as chat GPT.

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You could use paid for systems

such as summarize or cap show.

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And those tools will really help

to flesh out your show notes.

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Get those keywords in there and it could

be that you change the format of your

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episode slightly That again could be huge.

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So I had so many people, when I

got rid of the introduction for

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Lazy Girl's Guide to Podcasting,

being like, oh, what are you doing?

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But everyone said you need a podcast

intro, and all these kind of things.

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And I just think, you know what, if

you want a podcast intro, like, you

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know, a formalised one with music and

stuff, fine, and I'm not saying I'll

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never go back to that, but what I am

saying is that it seemed like a scary

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change to implement, and not have a

kind of, you know, traditional, quote

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unquote, Intro for my show, but actually

I found that it's been really, really

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great at retention for the podcast.

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And it's given people the opportunity

to message me in DM, particularly

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on Twitter and say things like,

Oh, it's actually given me the

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confidence to, to do this myself.

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So what I mean when I say, are

you killing your podcast growth?

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I think a lot of it is podcasters

kill their podcast growth by sticking

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with a status quo and sticking with

strategies that just aren't working.

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And I think sometimes we need to be

really critical with ourselves and

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look at our show and if we're not

growing in the way that we want, and

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that growth by the way, can look awful.

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So many different ways.

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It could be growth in

terms of download growth.

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It could be growth in terms

of audience retention.

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So having your audience listen

to your episodes for longer.

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That growth is going to look

different for every single podcaster.

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And we need to be out of the

mindset that growth doesn't exist.

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Always equates to more downloads,

but I do honestly think that a lot

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of people get in the way of their

own podcast's growth because they're

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not willing to try new things.

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So that then brings me on to these three

tips, which I promised you that I would

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give you about how to grow your podcast

and you can implement these today.

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So the first thing is to tell

everybody about your podcast.

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The number one way of getting new

listeners and new ears on your podcast is.

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to tell people about it.

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Word of mouth referral is the top

way for people to discover podcasts.

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So tell people about your podcasts.

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And if you want more information about

that, clink the link in the show notes

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where I've got a five day email challenge,

which focuses on those easy wins, those

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strategies to help you grow your podcast

and make sure you signed up to that.

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The second way to grow your podcast is

play around with different keywords in

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your podcast title, and in your podcast

show description, really consider not

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what you think your audience are searching

for in the keywords, but talk to your

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audience and find out what kind of

keywords are they typing into the podcast.

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Apple podcast, Spotify, et cetera,

and utilize that knowledge and utilize

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those keywords because that is going

to help you rank in search results.

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And finally, experiment with different

podcast podcast to be listed in.

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So if you're in an education

category for your podcast, that's

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not really working too well for you.

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Well, maybe switch it up a little bit and.

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Are you better suited in business or

equally if you've got a podcast in the

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business category, but you're finding

it's not ranking too well and your

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goal is to get in the charts, well

actually have you got a tech based

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business podcast and you could put

yourself in the technology category?

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You might find it doesn't work

and you want to put yourself back

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in the business category again,

but experiment with these things.

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Try yourself out in different

categories and see if that

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helps with your podcast growth.

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Consider to yourself when my audience

is searching for a podcast like mine,

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which categories are they going to?

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It's not the categories you think

they're going to or you want to rank in.

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It's thinking about where people are

going in Apple podcasts, in Spotify,

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which charts, which categories are

they clicking through and scrolling

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through to find shows like yours.

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So those are my top three tips.

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Tell everyone about your podcast,

play around with different

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keywords and experiment with

your podcast in different ways.

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different categories.

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Do you think that you're actually

guilty of killing your podcast's growth?

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Jump on over to Twitter, send me a DM.

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And if you have got a podcast friend

who you think could benefit from this

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episode, I would love it if you could

share the link with them and see how

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these strategies can also help them.

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Otherwise, thank you so much for

spending another episode with

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me and I will see you next time.