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Listener experiences are dynamic.

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Coupled with the sweeping changes podcasting has seen over the last

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few years, podcasters can't afford an outdated view of what we think

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it takes to build loyal listeners.

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Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.

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In an odd twist of irony, I'm about to have a chat with Mark

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Asquith from Rebel Base Media.

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Chat title is Creating Experiences That Inspire Loyal Communities.

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He and I are doing that as a part of Phoenix Startup

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Week, PHX Startup Week, today.

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And it's going to be very hard for me, during that fireside chat that I'm having

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with Mark, not to use Apple Podcasts' botched Apple Podcasts Subscription

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rollout as a negative example.

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It's a negative example that I think very few companies can

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survive today, to be honest.

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And that means podcast companies too.

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And, more importantly, podcasters.

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Let me unpack the description that I wrote for the talk Mark and I are about to have.

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Here's what it says:

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"Now more than ever, customers are judging the experiences they have with

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companies, not just within a particular industry, but across all industries!

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Customers have discovered that switching costs are actually quite low

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and loyalty can get stretched thin.

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In this session, Mark and Evo will demonstrate how a relentless focus

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on the customer experience will build the most loyal of communities."

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So let's break some of that down individually and talk about it

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from a podcaster's perspective.

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Why are two podcasts talking about building communities?

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But more to that, let's really use that paragraph as a way

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to have a conversation today.

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So it starts with the words, I chose to start with the words "now more than ever."

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"Now more than ever."

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And that's hard for a lot of long-time podcasters to understand.

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And I am a long-time podcaster.

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What's hard to understand is that 2021 isn't like 2006, for example.

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We know that.

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I think collectively we get that, but do we also understand that it's

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also not like the beginning of 2018?

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Just three years ago when there were a few hundred thousand shows.

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Now there are millions of shows.

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The beginning of 2018 was also when low-effort podcasts started

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pouring out into the world, into apps, into directories.

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You've gotta remember that was only three years ago when all of these things

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happened and a time when podcasting was quite different prior to that.

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So, if you're thinking about things from the mid-twenties, the 2010s,

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2012, 2014, remember things are vastly different now for our listeners just

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coming into this space than they were.

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Let's switch to the idea of the cross judgmentalism that I mentioned

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there - "across all industries."

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And switch that to a podcast focus, right?

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Because people make assumptions and judgements about their

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experiences and they apply those experiences and those judgements

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they make, again, cross-industry or, in our case, across podcasting.

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Right now, when I talk about the experience, please understand I'm

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not just talking about the audio.

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Yes, it is important content.

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You should have a and provide a good listener experience.

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But also the full experience of consuming, finding, listening to,

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getting more information about, all of the pieces of podcasting that are beyond

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just what goes inside of your ears.

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Like your website.

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Like every podcaster's website.

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People make judgements of a podcaster's website, if that's how

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they discovered it, based on other podcast websites they've discovered.

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And not just other podcasts they've discovered, but other

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websites they've discovered.

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Same for social sharing, everything.

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You are judged, not by what you can do with your podcast episodes, but what

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people want you to do because they experienced things all over the place.

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They judge you by the experience of the app that you push them to.

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And they're going to blame you, by the way, podcaster.

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If you push them to an app with a rotten experience, or you somehow tie your show

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in their mind to an app or a service that gives them a rotten experience,

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they're going to blame you for that.

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Even if you recommend a series of apps to listen to and they have a bad

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experience with one, that's on you.

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Now, I suppose you could blunt at least some of that if you

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push it to a well-known service like Spotify, for example.

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No one's going to blame you for a bad Spotify experience.

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No rational person will do you, but all the other ones that

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they've never heard of, including Apple Podcasts, probably on you.

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They're also going to judge the overall experience of podcasting.

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Based on what they listened to you, they're going to make a judgment.

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This is what podcasting is.

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And this is something that has been plaguing podcasting for the longest time.

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I heard it all the way back in 2005, people saying to me, you

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know, I've listened to podcasts, how come more of them aren't better?

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So those people now have a judgment about podcasting and

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it's really hard to get over.

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If it's a negative opinion, it might take some serious convincing to

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get them to return to podcasting.

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We've had several inflection points over the years.

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Do you want to wait for another inflection point before it happens again?

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I hope not.

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You know what?

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That's a really, it's an awesome responsibility that we all have not

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to turn someone off of podcasting.

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We've got Facebook and Spotify and Apple Podcasts and everybody

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else right now, again, throwing lots of attention on podcasting.

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That's an awesome responsibility that we have collectively not to

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make them go, "Oh, they still suck."

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Last thing.

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Switching costs are really quite low, I mentioned.

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I mean, honestly, switching costs are super low, even in podcasting,

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even switching from listening to your podcast to another podcast

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that talks about the same things.

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I'm serious.

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At the risk of offending your life coach, it is unlikely that you have

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a unique take that is irreplaceable.

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Seriously.

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Search around on your topic in a directory that you can get to and see

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how other things are similar to you.

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So what do we do about this?

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Well, relentless focus on customer experience, obviously.

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And I mean the full customer experience.

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Yes, the listener experience, podcaster.

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That means the listener experience that goes into their ears, but also

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the listener experience that goes into the app that they are using to

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consume your content, the experience of visitors that come to your website,

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the experience of people who are encountering the shared content you and

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your listeners are sharing socially.

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The entire online community experience, if in fact you have one.

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And you do have one, by the way.

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Whether it's formalized or informalized, maybe just an email experience,

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is that as good as it can be?

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When you can finally, once again, go to conferences,

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people meet you at a conference.

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That's an experience they're having with you.

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You better show up with stickers.

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You know, Apple is already living through this idea of stretched-thin loyalty.

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It's going to cost them.

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But come on, they're Apple.

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They're going to survive.

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But if you take the same laissez-faire attitude, will you and your show survive?

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I think it's much better to use this current debacle as

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an example of what not to do.

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So I've had people ask me all the time, what are we gonna do about this problem?

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We can't get an Apple Podcasts Connect, Evo.

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And I was like, well, there's probably not much we can do.

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I'm not even sure my public shaming of them every day is going to

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lead to a quicker resolution, but, you know, whatever.

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But the good news is these problems aren't hitting the end user.

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So other than making a virtual gripe fest, which I know I've been involved

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with, I apologize for that, what you can do is collaborate with your

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podcasting peers, thinking about customer experience, listening to experience.

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And perhaps offer to audit each other's listener experiences.

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This is hard to do from within.

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So make a list of the people in podcasting you would like to participate

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with, send this episode to them, and see if they want to reciprocate.

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You audit them, they audit you.

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It could be kind of fun.

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And if you love that idea and all the ideas I bring to you here on Podcast

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Pontifications four days a week, please go to buymeacoffee.com/EvoTerra

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and buy me a virtual coffee.

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That's always nice.

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I shall be back tomorrow with yet another Podcast Pontifications.