The key to growing a podcast is getting as much of your audience into the “listener flywheel.” The listener flywheel is an adapted process that moves listeners through a process of attraction, engagement, and delight. The listener flywheel’s objective is to retain current listeners while organically attracting new ones.

Key Vision/Shared Beliefs

1. That media can support and sustain a lifestyle and/or business

2. The best way to grow individually is for us to grow collectively

3. We each have a genius that’s waiting to be unlocked in the show

How the Listener Flywheel Works

1. Attract

1. On-Platform

1. Cross-Promos

2. Episode Swaps

2. Off-Platform

1. Social Media

2. Engage/Retain

1. CTAs

2. Social

3. Meetups

4. Live Recordings

3. Delight

1. Contests

2. Memorable Shows

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YP fam.

What's going on.

My name is Hector Sanwan and I am your host, and I get way too geeked up about

creating amazing podcasts that can fuel your lifestyle and your business.

And I've been producing and promoting podcasts for almost a half decade now, and

this show is to help you learn the things that do and do not work when it comes to

marketing and monetizing your podcast.

And today's episode is all about the secret to sustaining

and growing a podcast.

and that's the listener fly.

Now, some of you might be familiar with the customer growth.

Flywheel is a concept that's been popularized in business by a lot of

people, but I think that the same concept can actually apply to podcasts as well.

Before I get into that, I wanna share a couple of things that

I believe about podcasts that I think makes this whole thing run.

And the first is, is that I do believe that media and content can support and

sustain your lifestyle or business.

and I saw a TikTok video or reel the other day that was kind of

complaining about the fact that businesses have to create content.

And it was something to the effect of I'm a business owner

and I have to create content.

So here's this video and it's always, this woe is me, this poor

me, this helpless kind of thing.

And I think that that marketing is just so.

I don't know.

I, I just, I don't like pity marketing

. For me though.

It also could be the fact that I believe so strongly and I am so grateful for the

fact that we get to be in a place where we have the ability to create content.

We have the distribution to be able to create content.

And then we also have the fact that

It can actually be something that drives our business.

It can actually be something that funds our lifestyle.

It can actually be something that.

Constructive and productive in our life.

it's not just creating podcasts or creating talks or creating whatever,

whatever people think that we do all day.

It's not, it's not that.

I mean, I think if you see that it's a little bit more, it can help

you to understand the depth and the power that podcasts really create.

The second thing that I also believe is that the best way that we, as

podcasts can grow individually is for us to grow collectively.

and I mean that for a lot of reasons, and I, this reminds me of that proverb that

says, if you want to go fast, go alone.

And if you want to go far go together and Apparently it's misattributed to as like

an African proverb, but apparently it's not, I don't know who knows go look it up.

The point is, is that that wisdom holds the same and more

so than ever in podcasts, because

We don't have a YouTube to lean on or rely on.

We don't have a TikTok algorithm to rely on.

We don't have something that is going out and actively finding our shows

and connecting it with our listeners.

The closest thing to that is Spotify.

And they've become like this big, bad Wolf in the podcasting industry, but they're

the closest thing to helping podcasters with this whole discoverability thing

outside of that, outside of some entity, some central entity being the answer and

solution to our discoverability and our marketing and our promotion problems.

Well, the alternative to that is actually each other.

And the great thing.

What we do is that they've found that an average podcast listener listens to

about seven different podcasts in a week.

And so that means that you've got seven slots for a person.

And so that means that you can, your, the chances of you filling all seven

spots is almost unlikely, right?

There's very.

It's almost impossible to have seven different shows to start off

with, And even if you are a larger network or you have, you know, you're

an ESPN or a Bleacher reporter, a wonder, or some of these, you

know, really, really big networks of blue wire, something like that.

Those are the ones that come to mind.

Even if you are those there's still room for . Other shows.

And so with that knowledge understanding and knowing that somebody is going

to assemble their own feed, right?

I think that Cable channels, TV channels, they got a lot of benefit from cross

promoting other shows because they knew that someone was watching right now.

They could promote their show.

That was gonna be on a little bit later, and that would help

to grow their listenership for.

their later show and they could do it vice versa, right.

but they would always have commercials and have promotions for their other

shows on the network, because that grew the listenership for those, those shows

and by growing the listenership for those shows helped all of the benefits

and all the KPIs for that as well, add slots, downloads, web revenue,

whatever it is that comes along with it.

Even networks today, networks, podcast networks don't have the luxury of being

able to put together someone's own feet.

I mean, that's something that the podcasts apps are doing is putting.

Listeners feed together.

And so if we can team up with the people that we're going

to be paired up with, right.

If we can team up with the other people that might occupy

those other seven slots, right?

If you think about who are those other six people or who would be the ideal, other

six people That I could partner with.

That's really where we're going to find the most benefit.

And the second reason which I think is even bigger is that there's so

many people who haven't found podcasts yet, who don't listen to podcasts

regularly enough, or still haven't found their groove with podcasting.

That I think that it's.

Medium that we all collectively can grow together.

And so again, I'll say it the best way to grow individually as a podcast is

for us to grow collectively as podcast.

And the last thing.

I've talked about this a little bit, but I think it's worth reiterating

is that I do believe that each of you have a genius, that's waiting

for you to be unlocked in your show.

I'm really fortunate.

And maybe it's just the hosts that we work with, but I'm really

fortunate to work with some really incredibly smart and talented people.

And we get the pleasure of unlocking and bringing that genius to.

The world.

And I think that that is so valuable for people to know that the genius that they

know this inside them, that they know that they're capable of can be unlocked

through a podcast through content, you can actually share that with the world.

So let's get into the actual topic for today, which is the listener flywheel.

And this is I think, one of the biggest and maybe most important topics in the

podcast industry right now, because.

There's so much uncertainty in where we are going.

there's so much uncertainty of which app is gonna be the app.

There's so much uncertainty of which ones are worth being

on or are we gonna be around?

The only thing that we can really control is whether or

not our audience actually cares.

That's the only thing that we can actually do is create real, authentic connections

and relationships with our audience.

The nice thing is, is that in an industry like podcasting and on a platform like

podcasting, if you've created a good enough relationship with your listener,

if they want to listen to you, they will be able to find you, if not on one app,

they'll go and find you on another one.

And so knowing that your relationship with your listener should.

Above the platform should actually supersede and go above a platform so

that if one gets shut down, if something goes down, if a feed gets removed,

if something happens that you're not beholden to just this one platform for

, your listeners, your community, your downloads, your viewership, whatever

it is that you're trying to get.

So I think that that's just a really important note to have

before we kind of get into this.

And so the listener flywheel consists of three components.

And these are once again adapted from the customer growth flywheel, which has

been popularized by so many authors, but the three components are attracting.

Engaging and delighting, and they're called a variety of different things,

but the first part is attracting,

? And I think that attraction is so

podcasters to realize, because listening to a podcast is such a big commitment.

It's such a big commitment because it's really hard to switch or it's

not hard, but oftentimes you're driving a car you're in the middle

of dishes, you're doing something.

And so the cost of switching is much higher than if you're just watching

a YouTube video where all you've gotta do is just click another

video on the side of the platform.

And so with that, we've gotta realize that that commitment, we just gotta honor it.

In order to honor that we've gotta do everything we can to

make sure that we are accurately representing what our show is about.

And I think that this also goes to show that we've got to give

listeners a taste of what they can expect, and we've gotta do that in

a variety of different capacities, in a variety of different ways.

And we can attract listeners two main ways, right?

The, the first way is what I'd call on platform, which is through other.

Podcasts, even other podcast apps.

And the second way is off platform, which is basically everything else.

You know, there's what would be social media, live events, , networking

emails, things like that, right.

Where they're, you're pushing them from some other place

outside of the podcast platform.

Now once you've got them to listen, there's a whole step in

actually getting them to stick around, actually retaining them.

And I think that there's a couple of components of this, or maybe more,

but at least the ones right now that we'll explore is creating a great show.

because there have been times where I've listened to shows and I couldn't

get through the first episode because the audio was so bad or the host was

rambling or, I mean, there there's been times where I've turned it off three

minutes in and never gave it another shot.

So realize that your shows each time, I guess, you know, it's

maybe an unfortunate part of.

But something that holds us to a higher standard is that we are trying

out for our listeners and we've gotta compete for their attention

and for them wanting to not only redownload, but then also re-listen

week after week, episode after episode.

And so engaging and retaining your listeners is so important, but then

there's also off episode retention.

Asking them to engage with you outside of the podcast, whether it's on social

at meetups, on live recordings, there's all these different ways to be able

to actually engage your listeners so that you can get feedback from them.

So you can create that connection.

You can create a real relationship with them, but what it also does

is it continues to drive this listener flywheel, where now they

have the opportunity to be delight.

This is the part where the magic of the, of the flywheel lies in this third

step, which is you've done all this work to attract a Elior you've done

even more work to keep them around and to actually get them excited.

Well, the last step is.

What I learned in school is to go above and beyond, right.

Going above and beyond as a creator, as a host helps you to really get

to this next step of delight, which takes that engagement and takes

that retention to a next level.

Because now they're willing to tell someone else, and you can go and look

at a variety of different studies.

But what they've found is that.

the number one way that people found out the number one way that people

found podcasts was from somebody else.

Recommendations getting, getting referred, and realize that those recommendations

happen in a variety of ways.

Sometimes they happen on social.

Sometimes they happen in person.

So you never really know, but if you can continually delight your listeners,

if you can continually help them, if you can continually go above and beyond

and take it to that next level, then what you'll find is that one listener.

Will equal two and two listeners will equal four and four will

equal eight and so on and so forth.

And it'll continue to build on itself.

And that is the real magic of a podcast where what's going out actually helps

and sustains and fuels what's coming in.

And so it's this flywheel that builds upon itself.

And so if you can do that right, if you can delight them with contests or

memorable shows or fantastic guests, Live experiences, all these types of things.

There's different ways to be able to do it.

If you can do that, You'll start to have your listeners grow and compound,

and you'll start to see the real benefits of having a thriving podcast.

So thanks for sticking with me today.

Hopefully you got some value out of it.

I'd love to know.

What you think of the listener flywheel?

Does it make sense?

Is it hogwash?

Come find me on Twitter at Hector underscore podcast.

Let me know.

And.

If you want to get some help from me specifically, if you wanna have

me take a look at your show, go to amplify media.com/checkup.

That's a M P L a F Y.

And you can, and you can check the show notes for the link to that.

And if, of course, if you know a podcaster that wants to grow their

show and is looking for some ways to do it, please send them this link

and we will forever be grateful for you helping grow the NYP family.

It's great to have you guys here.