On my walk to the coffee shop this morning, I started the research phase of the 53rd client podcast audit of 2024.
I’ve only listened to one episode so far, and I’ll listen to another four or five before putting together my notes and recording the audit, but I already know most of what I’m going to say.
In fact, I already knew 80% of what I was going to say before even listening to a single minute of the show.
How?
After auditing 52 podcasts this year (and another 20 last year), I find myself giving the same feedback to almost every host whose show I review.
These shows have ranged from educational to entertainment, business-oriented to passion project, solo to co-hosted to interview to narrative, and more, across several dozen genres and niches.
And yet, despite the breadth of differences, the core problems keeping these shows from more growth and revenue are almost always the same.
So today, I wanted to break down the most common core problems I encounter with every audit to help you identify and fix them with your own show.
A few bits of context before we dive in:
- The majority of my audit clients either run expertise-based businesses (coaches, consultants, course creators, etc) or are full-time podcasters (sponsor/advertiser-driven).
- Most have been producing their shows for at least 2-5 years and their production is generally tight and professional.
- Their starting downloads are typically in the 250–2,500 dl/ep range, though several pull in 5k–10k or more, and some begin with just a few dozen.
- Almost to a person, they’ve been “doing all the right things”—ie. promoting the show regularly, guesting on other podcasts, doing promo swaps, often even paying for ads… all with limited (if any) results.
- They generally feel as though they’ve tried everything and recognize they either need to take a radically different approach… or quit their show and save the time, effort, and money they’re pouring into it.
These are not “bad” shows by any stretch of the imagination.
Rather, I’d call them perfectly average, perhaps even above average.
But as you might know, the average podcast gets less than 200 dl/ep.
Which means average—or even slightly above average—isn’t enough to grow a meaningful audience you can build a business around.
So let’s take a look at issues that keep these shows (and perhaps yours) stuck, starting with the most outward-facing components of the show, and working our way toward the center.
Podcast “Attraction” Problems I Encounter In Almost Every Show I Audit
In order to grow, a show must first solve three specific challenges to winning over each new listener:
- Get the potential listener’s attention (often in a crowded, noisy, highly-competitive environment)
- Convince them that the show is worth taking a closer look at
- Convince them that listening to an episode of the show is going to be worth their time
Listeners make these decisions based on a mix of conscious and subconscious queues they take from a podcast’s packaging, including the title, cover art, show description, and episode titles — all of which reflect the show’s overarching concept or premise.
Developing a highly-attractive, easy-to-market show is the single hardest part of podcast growth, with perhaps 1-2% of shows ever achieving anything close to it.
And while the specific solutions to creating an attractive podcast are entirely unique to each host/show/audience combination, the problems are almost always the same:
- A show title that doesn’t immediately and subconsciously (within <1 sec) establish relevance to the ideal listener.
- Cover art that fails to immediately and subconsciously (again, within <1 sec) stand out and establish legitimacy and trust.
- A short, generic show description that talks about what the show is about rather than what it will do for listeners.
- Lack of clear, well-defined positioning and a corresponding sharp, spiky POV that sets the show apart from alternative competitor shows and rallies listeners around the purpose/mission of the show.
- Lack of a novel, refreshing show concept that creates a compelling hook for the show and makes it a singular “must listen” show in its niche or category.
- A long, muddled, unfocused, uncompelling show pitch when asked to describe what the show is, who it’s for, and why anyone should listen.
- No sense of the competitive landscape in their niche, including what other similar shows are doing, and how the host might be able to complement them through alternative formats, angles, and topic focuses.
- Dull, non-specific episode titles that lack tension, intrigue… and often, any SEO value.
These problems alone are enough to keep a show from growth, which is why I spend at least half of every audit on them.
New listener acquisition, however, is only half the battle when it comes to growing a show.
Podcast Retention Problems I Encounter In Almost Every Show I Audit
If you consistently get 500 downloads/ep, it’s logical to assume you have an audience of 500 people who listen to every episode.
If your show is typical, however, it’s likely that only 5-10% of your total audience listens to nearly every episode…
With the remaining 90–95% of people listening anywhere from semi-regularly, to just a single time (possibly for just a few minutes).
Said differently, that “audience” of 500 people is actually an audience of 5,000 people who have listened to your show before—perhaps even semi-regularly—but for whatever reason, don’t listen more often.
One of your biggest (and easiest) levers for growth then, is to get people who’ve already listened once, to listen more.
ie. Reduce churn and increase retention at both the episode and show levels.
With that in mind, here are some of the common churn-inducing issues I see in almost every show I audit:
- Uncompelling intros (often using a clip from the guest) that do nothing to establish the context, stakes, and core tension of the episode.
- Lack of “Transitional Congruence” tightly aligning and linking together the Episode Title → Intro → First Question → Primary Episode Payoff.
- Momentum-killing first questions (”Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do…”) that don’t affirm listeners’ decision to click play and pull them into the core discussion of the episode…
- Long (10-20-minute) discussions opening the episode before finally getting to the topic that was promised in the title.
- Lack of a strategic show structure designed to create attention resets, quicken the perceived pacing, and provide a reliable, repeatable, habit-forming listener experience… not to mention make the show easier to create for the host.
- Relatively low-value density — ie. they could stand to cut 20–30% of the content on each episode (especially on interview shows).
- Lack of a core Job to Be Done to guide topic and guest selection and create a potent, unified first impression for listeners scanning the episode list. The result is a show that feels unreliable to listeners because they don’t know exactly what they’re going to get—on an intellectual, emotional, and practical level—before clicking play on a new episode.
- Lack of a clear vision for each episode (especially interviews)—including the core tension in listeners’ lives that it revolves around—before recording it… resulting in episodes that lack direction, momentum, and value density.
The result of these issues is a show with a large amount of friction each new listener must overcome and put up with on an ongoing basis to get the value the show promises and build a listening habit.
Podcast Sales & Conversion Problems I Encounter In Almost Every Show I Audit
Whether you’re selling directly to your audience or to sponsors and advertisers, if your goal is to drive revenue from your show, you’re selling an offer to someone.
And while podcasters often think that the answer to getting more sales is growing their audience, this is rarely the case.
Just ask Heidi, Philip, or Rob, each of whom has generated tens of thousands of dollars of revenue without growing their audiences and instead tweaking their content strategy, calls to action, product marketing, and sales processes.
How?
They addressed the core sales-suffocating problems I encounter in almost every show I audit including:
- The biggest issue (one that plagues podcasting as well as content marketing in general) is an entirely misguided content strategy that—at best does nothing to prime, nurture, and systematically move listeners and audience members toward becoming customers… and at worst, actively cannibalizes their paid offerings.
- Lack of a simple, focused, sales strategy that provides a North Star that guides their CTAs, episode structure, topic selection, and more, while also being highly aligned with the host’s values (ie. not sleazy, pushy, gross, coercive, etc).
- Ineffective (or lack of) use of self-sponsorship ads to move listeners to other components of their sales system including lead magnets, newsletters, discovery calls, and sales pages.
- Lack of product awareness, usually because the host doesn’t want to come across as “too salesy”— which is a valid concern… but one that often leads them to instead never talk about their offer(s), or talk about them in such little detail that listeners have no idea what they are—if they even know they exist.
- Generic, unclear, non-specific ad copy and product messaging that makes it hard or impossible for listeners to understand the relevance and value of the host’s offers. This is a particular concern for coaching offers which present several specific sales and messaging challenges—all of which can be addressed fairly easily.
- Lack of a strategic email marketing strategy and a regular email practice designed to support the podcast and drive client/customer sales conversations and conversions.
The result of these problems is a show that will struggle to drive sales no matter how big it grows.
Sure, a trickle of clients and customers might always find their way back to your products and services, so growing the show certainly helps.
But aiming to increase sales by growing your audience without first optimizing your sales and content strategy is the most inefficient (not to mention excruciatingly slow) method to increase revenue possible.
Overarching Strategy Problems I Encounter In Almost Every Show I Audit
So far, we’ve discussed the tactical issues I cover in almost every audit.
Underpinning the tactical issues, however, are the strategic issues which are almost always grounded in a lack of understanding about:
- How podcasts grow an audience
- How podcasts grow a business
The result is hosts basing all of their creative decisions about the show on what they see other shows do (or what a “podcast launch coach” who doesn’t actually understand the brand and business strategy behind podcasting told them…).
When you consider this, it’s no wonder that the show isn’t doing what it’s supposed to in terms of both growth and conversions.
Because in order to be maximally effective, a show needs to specifically designed to play a specific role within your larger content, marketing, and business strategies.
Said differently, a podcast is a tool decided to do an ultra-specific job in your larger business.
But in order to design that tool, you first need to know what specific job you need done at the business and/or brand level and how the podcast can best achieve it.
With that in mind, here are some of the high-level brand/business strategy problems I encounter in nearly every audit:
- No clear sense of the specific purpose of the show in the larger strategy that is then translated to the specific structural and editorial decisions of the show.
- Lack of clear differentiation at the business level which then cascades down to the podcast and all other content.
- Lack of a core guiding framework or “unique mechanism” for getting their clients and customers consistent results… while also differentiating them from their competition and giving people a compelling reason to choose them (and only them).
- No overarching, clearly and compellingly articulated brand POV that rallies their audience around them and provides direction to their overarching product, messaging, marketing, and content strategies.
- Lack of a clear brand “villain” they can use to juxtapose themselves against and help their audience instantly understand the brand’s positioning and values.
Your brand and business strategy is the foundation on which everything else rests.
A lack of clarity and focus at this most basic level puts a drag on everything else you do in your business, from your product offers and sales strategy to your podcast and broader content marketing strategy.
With a tight, clear, strategy in place, however, everything else becomes remarkably straightforward, simply working to seed, reinforce, and amplify the positioning, messaging, and strategy your brand is built on.
Where To Start
I know you’re thinking it.
And you’re not wrong.
It’s a lot.
And this is just the list of near-universal issues I find and address in audits.
Beyond this, there are the issues that are unique to specific shows, hosts, markets, and business models.
But this is the list of problems that must be solved in order to grow your show and your business.
Seeing them spelled out makes it painstakingly clear why so few shows ever manage to achieve either of those objectives.
The good news is that many of the issues can be traced back to a smaller number of core strategic decisions about both the show and the brand.
Get them right and many of the problems holding your show back evaporate.
What’s more, you don’t need to solve every problem immediately to start getting results.
In just a few weeks, each of them made a small number of tweaks to their shows and sales processes that unlocked thousands of dollars per month in revenue—before then moving on to methodically improving other aspects of their show and strategy over time.
Other clients, like Sam, choose to focus on their show’s “Attraction”, before addressing their sales and revenue strategy.
In short, you can’t address everything at once.
But now that you have the roadmap, you can choose one area of your show strategy and start chipping away.
