Shock Through Your Podcast Growth Plateau with 3 Practical Ideas
·27 min
1. The Podcast Accelerator: How to Grow Your Podcast centers on “Shock Through Your Podcast Growth Plateau with 3 Practical Ideas.”
2. Mark Askwith hosts the episode and identifies himself as co-founder of Captivate, where he says the company helps “tens of thousands” of people grow podcasts.
3. The episode asks what independent creators should do when growth stalls and “shock the system” instead of repeating the same promo cycle.
4. Mark says there is “no single best way” to grow a podcast because time, money, and methods vary from creator to creator.
5. He argues that social posts and “Hey, new episode” promotion feel useful but usually do not move the needle.
6. He says independent creators often lack the time and mental bandwidth to do proper marketing after producing episodes.
7. Mark compares stagnant podcast growth to muscle growth and quotes the idea that doing the same thing over and over will not change results.
8. He warns that chasing $47 courses and “one simple hack” usually leads to disappointment.
9. He says growing a podcast requires learning marketing, not just learning how to publish audio.
10. He distinguishes promotion from marketing by saying promotion is transactional while marketing uses goals, channels, and campaigns.
11. Mark uses Captivate as an example of campaign thinking, including a six-month focus on “the serious independent podcast.”
12. He says creators should focus on audience growth instead of “getting more downloads per episode.”
13. For the first tactic, he recommends podcast SEO for web discovery and in-app podcast discovery.
14. He gives an Obi-Wan Kenobi example, changing a title from “will there be more Obi-Wan Kenobi?” to “Will there be Obi-Wan Kenobi season two?”
15. He says that search-focused title helped the episode earn more downloads than almost anything else on the show.
16. For the second tactic, he recommends doing something newsworthy in the niche, such as covering current developments, events, or timely industry changes.
17. He points to Ahsoka coverage and Star Wars Celebration as examples where early coverage can create search visibility and download spikes.
18. For the third tactic, he suggests in-person community building through meetups, events, and live recordings, citing a knitting podcast example in the UK.
19. The tone is direct, conversational, and instructional, with repeated examples from Star Wars, podcasting, and marketing.
20. People who want practical podcast growth tactics will likely like this episode, while listeners seeking theory-heavy branding talk may skip it.
