234 | When to Change Your Podcast Growth Strategy (30 Day Rule)

Have you ever stared at your podcast statistics wondering, should I wait this out or should I switch things up? That uncertainty, that not knowing of whether to stay the course or make a change is one of the most frustrating parts of being a podcaster. You don't want to give up too soon, but also you're tired of the numbers not moving and you don't want to waste time stuck in a dead end. So what do you do? This is Grow the Show. The podcast that helps you grow your podcast. My name is Kev Michael. I am your podcast growth coach and today on the show, we're going to dig into a critical question, which is how do you know when to be patient and when to be inpatient? My goal for this one is to share with you the difference between strategic patients and unproductive waiting. I'm going to share how to avoid pivoting to early versus sticking with a broken system for too long. And I'm going to share the story of a recent client who thought that she was getting no reach when in actuality she had just published her most viewed episode ever. So if you're ready to stop second guessing every move and to start making smart, timely decisions or being patient when you need to be patient and stick around to this episode of Grow the Show. Okay, so this episode is inspired by a funny day that I had last week where in one day, I encountered somebody who was being too impatient and in the very same day, I encountered a different person who was being way too patient. And I was like, man, this is funny. If I could have the two of them switch, they both would be in better shape. So what were those two scenarios? What does it look like? And how do you know whether you should just be patient and keep hitting the reps or take some action, change things up so you don't continue to waste time? Well, the first person is a client that was in week three of the new Grow the Show accelerator. In the new version of the accelerator, I am helping clients grow their podcasts on YouTube. And in week three, we dive into thumbnails. Thumbnails is one of the most impactful improvements that I'm seeing podcasters make when they hop on YouTube, because a lot of us have no idea how to make great thumbnails. And most of the thumbnails that people are making without any guidance look like canva-designed event flyers that don't get any clicks. And so thumbnails are literally preventing these incredible conversations from being hurt. Nonetheless, this particular client went through week three completely revamped her thumbnails and then posted the video and got really upset because she looked and her click-through rate on her new thumbnails was zero, absolute zero. So her previous click-through rate was 0.5, which means that for every 200 people who saw the episode only one clicked on it, which is not good. A 0.5% click-through rate on your thumbnails is bad. That's like Defcon1, we need to fix that. So I shared with her the three element rule of thumbnails. Here's how you want to make them so that you actually get clicks. And she implemented it on her own with the canva templates that I give people in the accelerator. And I looked at the thumbnail and it was excellent. Like one of the better thumbnails that I saw from all the people that were in week three. And yet, she submitted her homework and was like, what the heck, I'm so frustrated, I thought this would work by now. So I said, okay, hold on. And I pull up the analytics and I look and I don't see a 0% in click-through rate. I see a 10%, 10% click-through rate, meaning one in every 10 people who saw it clicked on it. She went from one in 200 to one in 10. Do you think that her show is going to grow faster if she continues that trend? Yes. So why was she so frustrated? Well, what she didn't realize and what admittedly, I didn't make clear to her was that you don't want to look at your click-through rates on YouTube until after 24 hours after the video has published. Before that, it's liable that YouTube doesn't have any data yet so they display a 0. She didn't know this. Why would she know this? I never told her. So I don't blame her at all. And I totally get why she was frustrated because I said, make these changes and somehow the numbers looked worse. But sure enough, this was a situation where she just needed to be a little patient. She made a change. The effect hadn't come through yet. We just got to give it time. And I actually, with thumbnails, experienced a similar thing with another client several months ago where same deal. He came to me, he's got an incredible real estate show, really smart investor who is looking to grow his real estate podcast and his thumbnails were not good. So we made updates to his thumbnails and for him, his click through rate actually really improved. He went from a 1.3 to like 6.0 something percent, 6.9 I think it was. However, his views didn't increase. He was like, what the heck have I? And I thought this was going to get me more views. And I was like, it will trust me. Your click through rate has 5x. I promise you, keep doing it this way and you're going to get more views. Sure enough, three weeks later, his views had 10x from 30 to 300. This stuff freaking works. Okay, so these are examples of really sharp entrepreneurs who have high standards and were being a little too impatient and I had to slow them down. On the flip side, later that same day, I spoke with another entrepreneur who has been podcasting for five years and he's changed nothing about his show. And he's been doing it the same way for five years and for five years it hasn't grown. And I asked him why he hasn't changed anything. And he said, because I'm just trying to do the reps. I'm just putting in the reps to which I was like, but you're putting in wrong reps. So that is a case where he, this entrepreneur was being far too impatient. Can you imagine going five whole years with getting no podcast growth? Maybe you can. Maybe that's why you're here. We can fix that. Here's the thing, it is really hard for us to know when to be patient and when to be impatient. AKA when to pivot. And this is a problem in entrepreneurship. It's a problem in podcasting. It's a problem in life. When to say when? And the answer is you never know for sure. But here's how I think about it. Two little patients looks like making a change and expecting to see results immediately right away. So within 24 hours. And sure, I know that I do a lot of marketing where I'm like, your show's going to start growing if you work with me. But not instantly. It's not immediately. It is fast. And it can be a lot of times faster than you think. But it's not instant. And it's never going to be instant. And honestly, when it is instant, that's actually a really bad sign. Because when something explodes like that, it tends to be too chaotic and or it doesn't last. So you actually want growth to be a little slow. I digress. Two little patients looks like making a change and wanting to pay off right away. Too much patience looks like publishing the same thing over and over and over again for years with no growth. It's saying that content takes time as an excuse and it's confusing persistence and perseverance with stagnation and stuckness. So here are the rules that I want you to keep in mind as you look to grow and monetize your podcast. Number one, any strategy adjustment that you make to try to grow your show, you have to give at least 30 days before you have a verdict. Even thumbnail changes. Even though I expect to see thumbnail changes within 24 hours, I expect to see the results. You still should give it 30 days. Because there's a lot that goes into whether or not your show grows, whether or not you're on YouTube either. If you're publishing weekly, you're only having four reps per month. And there's a lot that goes into whether or not a show succeeds. Is the topic interesting? Did you put out a good title? If you're on YouTube, does it have a good thumbnail? Sometimes even like, was Taylor Swift on the podcast for the first time ever this week? That impacts things. So you really want to give stuff 30 days before you make a decision. On the flip side, if it's been more than 30 days and you haven't seen anything, then it's worthwhile to second guess the change that you made. Now, for those of you who are too patient, here's what I need you to know. On 30 day timelines and less, you should always see your numbers moving. So if you are publishing your podcast and nothing is changing ever, you're publishing clips, you're publishing social media, your audience is not growing on social media, your downloads are not increasing, you're not getting any new engagement, you're not getting any new kinds of customers, you're not getting any new emails. If nothing is happening, something needs to change, especially if you're on audio only. But even if you're on YouTube, because nothing is going to keep happening until you change what you are doing, you will keep getting the same outputs until you change your inputs. So the magic number here is 30 days. And yes, if you've launched a podcast, I want you to start to see growth within 30 days or something needs to be fixed. So there you have it. The magic number is 30 days. Within 30 days, give it some time. After 30 days, if you see nothing, if there is no perceptible advantage to the change that you made, try something else. And if you're one of those podcasters who has been doing the same thing for more than 30 days and you have literally nothing to show for it, then you're being too patient and something needs to change. So that's going to do it for this episode of Grow the Show. My hope is that this helps either nudge you to chill the F out, let the changes do its thing or get the F going and make some adjustments so that you don't keep wasting so much time on a podcast that isn't growing. My name is Kevin Michael. I'm your podcast growth coach and I will see you in the next one. If you're a podcaster trying to grow on YouTube and you're still spending hours editing or you're working with a team that just cleans up the audio and calls it a day, you need to check out podcast boutique. They've been my go to production team for over five years and now they've built something that's tailor made for YouTube first podcasters. It's called record and forget and it's exactly what it sounds like. You record your episode, send them the raw files and they take it from there. High quality audio and video editing, titles, thumbnails, descriptions, show notes, uploads, clips, everything. But here's what makes them different. They don't just polish the content. They help you script your content, cut the fluff out, shorten your episodes and increase viewer retention. They help you script your content, trim the fat, shorten your episodes and increase viewer retention, which is the number one factor in YouTube growth right now. And because they're in lockstep with me, anytime I uncover a tactic that helps podcasts grow and monetize, especially on YouTube, they implement it for their other clients too. So if you're still DIYing post production or you're not seeing results from your current team, go to podcastboutique.com and tell them that I sent you. All right, I'll see you next time.