What to Do If Podcast Listeners Suddenly Drops?

We cannot ignore that the world we live in is changing. And nothing is constant over here. Podcast Listeners Competitions are rising. Also, technologies are evolving. And the tastes of people are changing as well.

If you are a podcaster, at times, you may find that your number of listeners is dropping. And you will have to take the necessary steps as fast as you can. You need to take a big step back, sort out the leaks, and come back to track soon.

So, the five ways to deal with a Sudden drop in Podcast listeners are as follows:

1. Analyze your situation

If you want to fix a sudden drop in podcast listeners, you need to accept that you have a problem. And to know if you have a problem or not, you need to take a good in-depth look into your podcast show. The pandemic gave a tough time to the podcast industry in 2020. This global pandemic is not under your control, affecting people and industries globally.

So, you need to determine if you have internal problems that you can address at the very first step. Or, you might have an external problem as well that you want to fix. Whatever you do, remember that audience retention and acquisition need priority.

2. Recheck your listener avatar

People evolve, and the audiences never stay the same. This is because the interest wanes, proclivities, and trends shift. When a true podcaster, producer, or host finds out that they are encountering a sudden drop in podcast listeners, they check in their listener avatar to figure things out. The podcasters need to make sure that their audience has a good feeling about their work.

Scott Galloway states that his audience moves the young and males. This is a good sign that Scott Galloway has a closer understanding of his fan base.

Right now, it is a good time to recheck your audiences. You may also set a calendar reminder as well to do it every six months.

3. Cultivate your listener base

Once you get an accurate idea about who your listeners are and what is causing your listeners to drop, the time has come for you to deliver content. You need to understand what are the contents that have always worked for your purpose and show. Focus on those types of content. Now, is the right time for you to open the archives, revisit the familiar contents, and check what works for you.

You may feel that it is stale to do so, but the truth is that it is good for your podcast listeners. So, you will always have to think that you were there for each of those shows to feel familiar and intimate.

It might be that a new subscriber has not listened to the original episode. Or a long-time listener may have skipped that episode because they were unavailable. So, your archives can be the right key to increasing engagement.

People say that podcasting is a lonely try. It is all about a single person creating a podcast. Or a few people have a conversation with each other while holding the record button. And then they launch that creation on the internet. But it is not the truth.

The reality is that social podcasts are the actual successful ones. A podcast is successful only when it has a conversational and interactive audience. It is not that only one person speaks. A lot of back and forth takes place as well. So, it is high time for you to boost your social engagement game.

One of the most economical or cost-effective ways is to put social media to use. And turning your wheels towards social media will increase your audience base. Although it may take some time, the advantage is that you are not starting right from the beginning.

You have already determined your audience base. Now you already have the idea of where your listeners are hanging out. Pick up the platform that is suitable and makes the most sense for your podcast show. Invite your guests and listeners so that they can engage with one another over there. If you can ease excellent networking, your show will prove to be more valuable.

4. Acquisition of listeners

You may notice that you do not have a massive audience base or a low listener base. It is time for you to focus on marketing.

Being a podcaster, your primary focus needs to be on creating episodes and podcast editing. You need to tune new Year into your podcasts. But unfortunately, not all your listeners will come to the show. All these might have worked in the earlier day when the podcast numbers were not more than thousands. But currently, the time has changed, and the podcast industry has grown. There are millions of podcasts out there, which is a lot to cut through.

Consider your podcast as a wheel, and the spokes are your marketing channel to get the new year for your show. Then you will have to focus on what is most effective and efficient.

Then, you need to consider blogging. You may not enjoy writing, but as you have already created a bulk of the content, it is easy to write. People nowadays prefer blogs, and it is super popular. If you do not want to write your blogs, you may hire experts or services. They will translate your audio into a written format.

Art of Manliness by Brett McKay introduced a blog in 2008. Brett and Kate kept on blogging for their brand. And each of their podcasts is interwoven with their blogs.

The popularity of videos remains unmatched and will continue to rise. And like blogging, it can help you out even in a better way. You can film your show to skyrocket the number of your engagement. Potential hearers may land on your show while watching YouTube.

Videos are particularly beneficial for interview podcasts. And the best part is that you can film everything right from your smartphone. Podcast editing also gives you an upper hand in fulfilling your purpose.

You may also opt for guest interviews. It is all about taking your message to the audience of someone else. Being a guest on a popular podcaster’s show is one of the best ways to reach out to potential hearers and audiences. You not only get more content over there but promotional help as well.

5. Winding-up

When you see that your listeners are decreasing, it indicates that your show is coming to an end. Remember that there are millions of podcasts. But, not all those million podcasts are making content.

While leaving, tell your audience that you are not going to create any more content for the show. And tell them what you are going to do next and how they can support what is next for you. This way, your loyal listeners will support and follow your try.

Before backing off, Ezra Kline spent a few days recording engaging intros. Most of the intros were from the archives.

You may also opt for Podfading. It is a sudden disappearing act, and it feels like the show has stopped without warning. In this way, your content lives on. It might be that someone might stumble upon your podcast after a few years and binge it back.

Conclusion

Listeners will decline at some point. And every podcaster needs to face this. Do not lose calm. Take a step to figure out what went wrong. Whatever you do, do it early so that you can fix the problem and get back on the right track no sooner. Take a look at your avatars, and podcast numbers, and make a robust plan to overcome the issue.