Podcast Swaps Grew My Show by 21%

What you just heard is a podcast promo that's part of a podcast promo swap. I'm doing with Jeff and Tricia over at shifting schools now full disclosure, they are coaching clients of mine, but I thought that this would be a fun experiment because we're both in the education category on apple podcasts and other areas. So we're probably kind of showing up in similar searches. Anyway, the main difference is that I'm teaching people how to make money with their podcast and Jeff and Tricia used their show to help people in. In the K-12 space. If you're in the K-12 space, I strongly recommend it. But this podcast swap and that promo. Are also illustrative. I think that's a word. Of what I want to talk about today, which is how I grew my main podcast, how I built 21% over the last month or so by doing podcasts swaps. So that's what we're going to talk about today. I'll talk about different approaches, how you can do them and then how you can find podcasts to swap Oh and if you want to see the receipts for that growth i just mentioned you can find that and more over in the show notes over at make money pod.com/ 2 1 2. Here on make money podcasting. All right, let's get into it. Hey, everybody. I hope you're doing well today. I'm really excited to share these results because they kind of hit me in the face. Like I didn't realize it. Until I looked back at the data and I saw these three pretty significant increases in downloads. Um, just for comparison sake. Uh, again, I'll include this graph in the show notes, but looking at chartable, if we look at August 1st, which looks like it was a release day, but maybe it wasn't, maybe we should look at, uh, August 7th. Um, I had about 3,600 downloads on that day. And that was a release day and that's pretty par for the course I usually get between twenty eight hundred and thirty six hundred downloads. Overall. Right. Not just the main, not just the first episode. Uh, on. On download days. Now, if we look further at that data, um, I actually saw a pretty good decrease. On launch days from that point. So. Uh, again from like, uh, August 8th, I had, I'm looking at the actual numbers now. Uh, August 8th, I had 3,396 downloads. On launch day. If we go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, the following launch day, I had nearly a thousand fewer downloads. So maybe it's just like a summer slump. Maybe it was people traveling, maybe people just weren't that interested. In. The podcast episodes. But from there I had on launch days, I had 2,500. I had 2,800, I had 3000. And then on September 5th, which was the first day of kind of three weeks in a row of me doing podcast swaps with other podcasts, I had. 3,967 downloads. That A considerable bump from the previous week. Andy. About 300 more downloads from the last highest date in this The following week, I had 4,510 downloads. And the F the week after that, I had 5,398 downloads, which is quite considerable, uh, and over double. From my lowest point in this period on August 15th. Uh, lowest launch day point. If we look at. Those episodes over a. Uh, seven day download period. Uh, so August 29th. If we look at that episode, that. That was a solo show that had 1600 downloads. In seventies. And then I saw it go up from there. But the one from last week that had the highest launch day. Downloads in a while. Uh, it was downloaded over 2000 times in a seven day download period, which is more, but the week before that it was pretty close as well. So. Good growth. Good growth over that period for me, for my show. And what led to that growth. Was those podcast swaps. So. I want to share with you kind of a few ways to do podcasts swaps. How you should approach them. And how to find podcasts to swap with. So. Those are results. Getting your podcast in front of other people's audiences. Is definitely the best way to grow your podcast because. People are listening to a podcast at that point. So if they hear about a podcast that might be interesting to It's easy for them to subscribe. And they. It's free. Like, it's not going to cost them any money. So they're already listening. They're already in an app it's free. So it's a really easy move. It's it's like the equivalent of like the gum upsell. At, uh, when you're in checkout. At a grocery So there are three ways. Now there are, there are more ways, but there are three main ways to kind of do a podcast. The first is a promo swap. This is similar to what you heard at the top of the show with Jeff and shifting schools. Either. The podcasters can read their own promo and swap them, or generally what I've done and what I think this probably works a little bit better. Each host reads a promo for the other show. So if I'm doing a podcast swap with you. I will write out a script or talking points. And then you read that at the top of your show. Pre-roll. Uh, according to some statistics, I've read all again. I'll include these show notes over and make money. pod.com/ 2 1 2. Pre-roll podcast promos. Do incredibly well and a pre-roll is the best place to have them because they're not interrupting the flow. And when people start listening, they hear your voice and, and. They're kind of they've just started, right. So they're actively looking at their app probably. So. Pre-roll podcast, promo swaps. Are the first way to do this. The second is a feed swap or feed drop. That's where each hosts. Each host drops an episode. From the other show in their feed. In an off day and this is really important, right? So I publish on Mondays. I publish this show on Thursdays. And so if I were to do a feed drop for how I built it, I'd probably do that on a Thursday. If I was doing a feed job for make money pod, I'd probably do that on a Monday or a Tuesday. That way there's kind of enough space. Between the main episode and then the feed job. So what I would do is I would get the audio. I would include bumpers. Like I would record. Uh, an intro saying like, Hey, this is a little different, you're going to hear a full episode of this podcast. I recommend Here's how you can subscribe. And then at the end, Hey, I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, let me know if you started listening, whatever, you know, like the sign-off. But just to let people know, Hey. This is not. My own episode, this is somebody else's episode, but I strongly recommend you. Listen. And the feed swap can be. A trailer. Or it could be. A full episode, I'll leave that up to you. Right. But a trailer job might not be bad. Right. Where, um, I send somebody, my trailer. And then they can listen or. With this show, especially it's 20 minutes. It's not very long. So, um, you know, they might be willing to drop the whole episode. If it's like a two hour interview show, right? Maybe that's not a good fit, but this is where you use your discretion. And I'll get into that a little bit soon. The third way is to do guest or interview swaps, right? So this is where you interview the, the other host on your podcast. And then the other host interviews you on their podcast. Uh, Andy. As I believe, as I've said in a previous episode, I've definitely said it in my newsletter, which you can get over at podcast, lift off.com/subscribe. Um, Getting on, going on other people's podcasts is a great way to grow your podcast. Right? Pat Flynn has said that a lot of times he gave me that advice. When I was on his show, ask pat. Um, and so going on there, just making sure your call to action is really clear, right? Hey, I also have a podcast, so check it So you could do guests or interview swaps as That one is probably a little bit trickier, right? Because you want to make sure that you have. Good fit for both of you, right? Like it's one thing to. Be similar shows and similar categories. But if I'm interviewing creators, I mean, I guess any podcast or as a creator, but if they can't offer like clear advice, Of, for my audience on how to be a better creator. It might not be a good fit. Similarly, like if, if their audience doesn't care about podcast, I wouldn't be a good fit for them. Cause that's what I talk about. So you want to make sure that's a good fit. The other thing that you can do, if your shows are similar enough, Instead of an interview swap or a guest swap, you can do a joined episode or a joint episode. Where you both kind of do a host co-host situation. And then you release that same episode on your feet. I've done this, I've done this at least once. And it was pretty fun. Like we just kind of recorded it. We didn't worry about the bumpers. We added those later. I added my advertisements in later. And, uh, it worked out pretty well. We, we got together, we recorded a piece of content. We both put it in our feeds. And then we have the calls to action to like, Hey, go check out this person. So. That's another option. If you don't want to do a straight interview swap, right. If you want to just get together once. Record an episode, right? And this works really well if you are in the same field. So if I'm interviewing somebody else on the podcast field, We can go back and forth, exchanging ideas on how to grow your podcast or ideas on how to monetize your podcast. So that's, that's something else to think about. So those are the three main ways to get in front of other people's audience. Doing these podcasts swaps, promo swaps, feed swaps, and guest slash interview swaps or joint episodes. Now. How do you find the right shows? This can be a little bit tricky. Because the. They might not always have a website. The email address might not be readily available. There are tools out there, like I think one call is called muck rack. That will do it like that will expose an email address and everything like that because, uh, at this point, Uh, apple podcasts still requires an email address to be included in your feed. That's going away next year though. So. You know, heads up Um, but you know, your, your information is still, or a podcast. There's information is still out there. Usually it's, it's pretty easy to figure out the email address. It just takes a little bit of legwork. So. What do I do for a while? I would look at apple podcasts to see what other shows they recommend under my show. So. If you go to apple podcasts, then you go to your, your podcast, page and apple podcast. Scroll to the bottom. You'll see a, you might also like section. And this is supposed to indicate, indicate. What. Listeners of your show. Are also listening to. So for me, when he pod it's ask pat smart, passive income marketing school. And the game are the four that are listed there. The show's relatively new still. So. I assume apple podcasts is gathering more information. Uh, for how I built it. It's a lot of that Weirdly big in China. And so there's a couple of Chinese language podcasts. Um, I asked apple, this is a small, uh, Aside. I did ask Apple's support about this and I'm like, am I getting like spammed? And they're like, no, this is perfectly legitimate. And I'm like, okay, great. Um, so. I don't know. It's still good though. I mean, they're not like United States is still over 50% of my audience, but just interesting. So that's what I used to do. You can do that with other podcast directories as well. You could look at Spotify. Uh, or overcast or, or just kind of do a, a category search. Uh, listen notes and good pods, actually. Good pods. I'll say. Is a good resource for this. That's kind of like a, it's like. They build themselves as good reads for podcasts. So a good pods is a good place to look. As well as pod chaser. In each of these places, you'll, you'll be able to find kind of look alike podcasts. That you can then reach out to the host. And ask if they're interested in doing this now, the other thing you want to make sure you do is, um, It is ensure it's an equitable trade, right? So I would never email pat Flynn and be like, Hey, you talk about podcasting on smart, passive income. I talk about podcasting on make money pod. Let's do a podcast swap because pat gets, I'm going to assume millions of downloads per episode. And this show at present is getting tens of downloads per episode. Um, maybe like a hundred downloads per episode. I'm very close to like a thousand lifetime downloads where lifetime is like the last four months. So pretty happy about that. Um, Either way though, that's not an equitable trade. So you also should look at. Download metrics. That's where listen notes comes in. They have like a percentage. Of podcasts that, that you sit in sometimes. Um, according to them, my main show sits in like the top one and a half percent. I don't know how accurate that number is, but that number compared to other numbers, right. They're using the same metrics across all podcasts. So you can at least see if you're kind of in the same ballpark. Because again, you do want to make it equitable. You want to make sure that you're doing a swap. Um, that makes sense for both of you. But there is another tool out there that I've been using lately. Uh, from podcast marketer, Lauren Pacelle, she's the founder of tink media. She maintains a podcast, promo swap database. In air table. I love air table. I actually made a copy of this so I could keep track of who I've reached out to. Um, but I've used this database to reach out to 20 podcasts, similar to mine. Uh, either in size or scope. Uh, and as a result, I've landed. Uh, promo swaps, feed swaps and podcast interviews, which is really exciting. That that last part is really exciting to me. Um, And. I'll bring this up so I can kind of. And again, I'll link this in the show notes, but there's a lot of really good information here. So. Uh, if you look at the database again, it's an air table base, but that might not be super relevant to you. Um, it includes the, uh, name of the show, the description. Uh, a link to the podcast or website average downloads per episode. Categories that it's listed in and then opportunities. Uh, where opportunities could be like promo ad swap. Um, open to guests. Uh, looking for interviews. So there's a lot of different opportunities here. Um, open other opportunities, social media swaps, guest interview swaps and promo ad swaps. So. Uh, you can filter this and say like, oh, I only want to do like interview swaps or I only want to do social media swaps. Right. So. There that's a really great way to, to kind of whittle down the numbers to say, okay, um, I want. Podcasts. In the, uh, Education category that is open to promo or ad swaps that have, uh, 2000 or fewer downloads. Right. Per episode. And then it also includes the host's name. Of the contact name and email address. So you don't have to go hunting for that. So I strongly recommend you sign up for this podcast, promo swap list. Uh, it's at tink media.co/pod-swaps. I will have it in the show notes over at make money. pod.com/ 2 1 2. So using that database. Uh, you should also follow Lauren on Twitter. So I'll link her Twitter as well. Uh, sort by category promo type size, and then craft a personalized email. With the type of swap your show and how you found them. The personalized email bit is important because Lauren is providing this free of charge. You should list your show in it, if you haven't, because it is free. Don't abuse it by spamming people. Right. I could have easily. Uh, because I understand air table and automations are my thing. I could have. Easily. Just set up an automation to send the same email to every podcast in that list. Or every podcast that met a certain criteria. But I didn't, I looked through, I checked out the show because this is the other thing, right? If I'm doing a promo swap or a guest swap, Or a feed drop any of these. I want to make sure that they're a good fit for my audience. Right. And so I don't swear very much. There was there's one episode. I don't swear though, uh, on, on my podcast. Right? So if there's like a profanity laced podcast, Even if we have like the same size and the same kind of mission. I'm probably not going to do a podcast, swap with them. Or if I'm offering to do an interview swap, especially right. I, I, I took a little bit of a risk by doing, by offering an interview swap sometimes. Because I want to be interviewed and I, again, I want the trade to be equitable. So, um, when I'm proposing an interview swap, I want to make sure that who I'm talking to is not. Um, it is going to make for a good interview. For my show. So, uh, my email it easily just says like, Hey, name, I found your show, show Uh, on the tink media podcast, swap database. Uh, some information about the podcast and why it jumped out at me and then when I'm proposing. So I usually propose. A podcast swap or a feed job. And I also say, if you're looking for guests or you want to do an interview swap, these are some of the things I talk about. I think they would be good for your audience. I only propose that if I think it would be good for their audience. Okay. So that's also really important, but. The tink media podcasts, swap database. Because again, getting your podcast in front of other listeners. While they're listening to a podcast, makes it super easy for them to subscribe to yours. And Lauren's database makes it super easy to connect with other podcasters. So it's a win-win and that is how I will leave it today. Thanks so much for listening to make money podcasting for all the show notes you can head over to make money. pod.com/. 2 1 2, if you like to this episode, Give me a rating and review. In apple podcasts, I will read your review on the air. If you do that, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks so much for listening and until next time i can't wait to see when you make