“Insanity,” an oft-quoted phrase tells us, “is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
It’s easy to recognize the absurdity of this approach in that friend who’s stuck in a perpetual cycle of breaking up with their partner… only to get back together with them a few months later.
It’s harder to recognize the absurdity, however, when it comes to ourselves.
Specifically, when it comes to how we create and market our podcasts.
Despite failing to see the results they’re hoping for, so many podcast creators continue to produce and market their shows the exact same way, every single week, sometimes for years at a time.
Are these creators insane?
Overly optimistic?
Delusional?
It’s true that podcasts are a slow-growth medium. You need patience, a solid runway, and a significant investment of time and effort in order to start seeing success.
But patience with something that clearly isn’t working is only going to get you more of what you already have: stagnation and frustration.
Reaching a plateau in audience growth is the clearest sign you’ll get that it’s time to change up what you’re doing and start experimenting. Fiddle with each of your show’s inputs and measure the corresponding outputs.
What happens if you cut the episode length in half? What if you double it?
What if you started marketing it in different communities? Or via different mediums or channels?
What if you shifted the content to open it up to a broader audience? What if you narrowed it down to apply more acutely to a smaller audience?
There are a near-endless number of variables to tweak when it comes to your podcast, so when growth stalls, rather than doubling down on what’s clearly no longer working, it’s time to pull out your lab coat, fire up your Bunson Burner and start experimenting.
