039 6 Questions to Ask Yourself as to Why Your Listeners Might Not Be Coming Back to Your Podcast

1. What is the quality of your audio?

A podcast is a really powerful vehicle to bring and attract and retain your audience, you don’t want them switching off due to poor audio quality. I want you to go back and listen to your podcast as though you are a listener unknown to you. What are those first impressions? If you think your quality is poor as a result of your microphone, read my previous blog here on my personal microphone recommendations.

2. Are you getting straight to the topic?

Is there clarity of message as to why someone should listen to your podcast episode? If there isn’t, then why would they choose to listen to your episode over your competitors? That comes down to, within each episode, how quickly are you getting down to the topic? For many people, it’s a huge turnoff when they come into an episode and are greeted by endless amount of irrelevant conversation. Make sure you are actually driving to the important topic that you’ve promised you’re going to be talking about. If you’re going to lose someone from listening, it’s going to be within that first five minutes. So if in that first five minutes, you’re not demonstrating that you’re going to be giving value, then what are you doing to get to the point quicker.

3. How much show promotion are you doing?

Remember, there is a lot of competition in this space. So if you’re not wising up to better ways and testing different ways to promote your podcast, then you’re missing a trick. This space has become noisier and the people who are testing and evaluating how they’re promoting their podcast are the ones who are winning. Have you fallen into that trap of just promoting your episode in exactly the same way every single week? Is it actually driving any engagement or discussion anyway? I want you to think about how can you do things differently.

4. Are you over-selling?

I think that sponsored ads can be a great thing for the right show and, I believe, promoting your own products and services as an entrepreneur is even more important. However, you have to deliver value first! No listener wants to feel like they’re just being sold to. So how can you demonstrate what your products, services and offers are, coming from a place of sharing and giving value rather than overly selling and overly promoting? I encourage you to try lean into finding a balance where the value that you’re bringing weaves very seamlessly into talking about your products and services. Rather than feeling that you are using your podcast only as a sales mechanism.

5. Is your content exciting?

This is where you have to be honest with yourself. Have you got a little bit lazy with your content? Has it become a bit boring? Is your content actually interesting enough for people to want to tune in? Only you can know that. Ask yourself would this topic inspire and engage me. You’ll probably find that the audio quality, the promise the delivery of the message, the promo and marketing all contribute to people’s responses as to whether your show is interesting enough.

6. How much are you including your listeners?

Are you making your listener feel as though they’re part of your show? This is something we’re going to see across the board with podcasts more and more, particularly in the entrepreneurship and business space. There is the need to interact with your listeners above and beyond just creating a podcast episode for them.

I think it’s good practice periodically to go back and binge listen to some of your own content, pen in hand. Go back and ask yourself these 6 questions. Love your show and love those listeners!

Want to know even more about how to grow your podcast?