{"id":172,"date":"2022-09-26T12:15:48","date_gmt":"2022-09-26T19:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sidehustleera.com\/?p=172"},"modified":"2022-09-26T12:15:48","modified_gmt":"2022-09-26T05:15:48","slug":"how-to-get-a-podcast-to-the-top-of-itunes-in-8-weeks-with-no-audience-or-celebrity-guests-case-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sidehustleera.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/26\/how-to-get-a-podcast-to-the-top-of-itunes-in-8-weeks-with-no-audience-or-celebrity-guests-case-study\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Get a Podcast to the Top of iTunes in 8 Weeks \u2014 With No Audience or \u201cCelebrity\u201d Guests [Case Study]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"514\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sidehustleera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00663-IC.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-173\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sidehustleera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00663-IC.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.sidehustleera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00663-IC-300x193.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.sidehustleera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00663-IC-768x493.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.sidehustleera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/00663-IC-650x418.jpg 650w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Podcast Week rolls on!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>See also:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>How Much Does it Cost to Start a Podcast?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>How to Launch and Monetize a Podcast, with John Dumas<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Today I\u2019m going to share the exact strategies and steps I took to get The Side Hustle Show to the top of the iTunes New and Noteworthy charts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why Should You Care?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Apple gives new podcasts an&nbsp;<strong>8-week<\/strong>&nbsp;takeoff period in which they have an easy-to-capitalize-on opportunity to gain listeners. They call it \u201cNew and Noteworthy,\u201d and it is aggressively positioned inside the iTunes interface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When launching a new show, the New and Noteworthy section for your category is absolutely the most important place to be, and your best chance at reaching a&nbsp;<strong>massive audience of new listeners<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Apple positions this ABOVE even the \u201cWhat\u2019s Hot\u201d podcasts, giving the new shows priority placement and valuable screen real estate. It\u2019s an amazing opportunity for big-time exposure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oh, and did I mention it\u2019s&nbsp;<strong>FREE<\/strong>?<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sidehustlenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/number-1-in-business-new-and-noteworthy-with-arrow1.png\" alt=\"number 1 in business new and noteworthy with arrow\" class=\"wp-image-5348\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Check me out, enjoying my 15 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What About Android Users?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The whole world isn\u2019t made up of Apple users! What about the rest of us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What about them. They\u2019ll still be there when your limited window of &nbsp;iTunes time is up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Note: I did launch on Stitcher as well, which has an excellent Android app, but to my knowledge they don\u2019t offer up such prime real estate to newbies so I opted not to spend any time promoting there.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Hold Back, and then Release<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I purposely waited until I had 4 episodes recorded, edited, and published before submitting my podcast feed to iTunes. Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because their ranking algorithm uses the number of downloads as a factor. If I only had two episodes available for download at launch, I\u2019d have cut my download potential in half right out of the gate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now obviously there\u2019s a sweet spot on how long you should hold back, depending on how often you plan on publishing and the size of your existing audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The more episodes you launch with, the fewer people you\u2019ll have to reach to attain a certain volume of downloads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because of this, the smaller your existing audience, the more episodes you\u2019ll want to have ready to go when you submit to iTunes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Work the Network<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s address the audience question. I think Chris Ducker put together an\u00a0<em>excellent<\/em>\u00a0post on\u00a0launching a podcast\u00a0earlier this year. In fact, prior to reading that I didn\u2019t realize there was any strategy to it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But my major issue with Chris\u2019 post is he had a sizeable online following already (35,000 twitter followers), and launched with some pretty big-name online \u201ccelebrity\u201d guests. In fact, his first 3 guests have more than 130,000 twitter followers combined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My first 3 guests? About 860.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Disclaimer: I have a lot of love for ALL my guests for taking time out of their busy schedules to share their entrepreneurial wisdom. I\u2019m merely using twitter followers here to make a point about \u201creach.\u201d Probably not a perfect metric, but let\u2019s just go with it for a minute.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When I launched, I literally had 11 people on my email list.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eleven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the New and Noteworthy section is still&nbsp;<strong>ripe for the picking<\/strong>, even if you don\u2019t have any audience to start with and aren\u2019t launching with \u201cbig name\u201d guests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what did I do? A couple things. Facebook for one, and then started working the phones. Well, working the emails would be more accurate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even without a large \u201ctribe\u201d of fans for your blog, you probably still have a decent number of Facebook friends. People who are willing to take a couple minutes out of their evening to download a few episodes of your podcast. Maybe even spread the word or leave a quick review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was thankful to have several friends share the news of the show with their friends. It was like going mini-viral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then I went through and emailed everyone I could think of who might either be interested in the show, or who I thought might be willing to spare a couple minutes to help me out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Literally what I did was I went&nbsp;<strong>letter-by-letter<\/strong>&nbsp;through the entire alphabet in my gmail address bar to see what suggestions would pop up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>a. aa. ab. ac. ad. ae. af. And all the way through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tedious? Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Effective? Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sidehustlenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/podcast-email-help.png\" alt=\"podcast email help\" class=\"wp-image-5350\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>I found most people were more than happy to help, and it was an excuse to reach out to long-lost friends as well. I probably sent 100 of these emails and I\u2019m so thankful for everyone who took action and downloaded a couple episodes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Both on Facebook and in the emails I was clear that they didn\u2019t need to&nbsp;<em>actually listen<\/em>&nbsp;to the podcast, and that simply downloading it would be really helpful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">It Doesn\u2019t Take Much<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I was surprised how few downloads it actually took to make waves in iTunes. If you can get a spike of 100 downloads in a day, I\u2019m confident you\u2019ll be on the&nbsp;<strong>first page of results<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It doesn\u2019t take much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the great news is, once you\u2019re up there, the exposure tends to<strong>&nbsp;keep you there<\/strong>&nbsp;as long as you keep publishing new episodes consistently. At least that was my experience.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sidehustlenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/podcast-growth-chart.png\" alt=\"podcast growth chart\" class=\"wp-image-5338\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>I quickly developed an unhealthy addiction to checking this download chart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Not Just Ratings, But \u201cRating Velocity\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>One final observation I had is that the \u201crating velocity\u201d \u2014 the speed at which ratings and reviews are submitted to iTunes \u2014 seems to play a big role in their ranking algorithm as well, perhaps even more than downloads.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sidehustlenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/itunes-ratings.png\" alt=\"itunes ratings\" class=\"wp-image-5352\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>To capitalize on this, you might save all your outreach emails in your Drafts folder and unleash them all at once to try and maximize both the download and rating velocity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I saw my ranking spike both on high-download days and on high-rating days, so both are important, and iTunes adjusts the rankings several times throughout the day. One risk of batching everything close together like this is that a quick spike may come at an inopportune time to capture enough eyeballs to keep you in that high position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You\u2019d hate to have used all your favors and then crash out of sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By the way, if you\u2019re reading this and haven\u2019t left a 5-star rating yet, would you mind&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sidehustlenation.com\/itunes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">helping me out<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why Bother?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>A well-orchestrated launch can mean thousands of new people being exposed to your ideas and your brand. The most rewarding thing for me has been getting emails from new listeners saying they\u2019re liking the show so far and to keep up the good work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Were you one of them? Let me know!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Podcast Week rolls on! See also: Today I\u2019m going to share the exact strategies and steps I took to get The Side Hustle Show to the top of the iTunes New and Noteworthy charts. Why Should You Care? Apple gives new podcasts an&nbsp;8-week&nbsp;takeoff period in which they have an easy-to-capitalize-on opportunity to gain listeners. They [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-online-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sidehustleera.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sidehustleera.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sidehustleera.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sidehustleera.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sidehustleera.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sidehustleera.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":174,"href":"https:\/\/www.sidehustleera.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions\/174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sidehustleera.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sidehustleera.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sidehustleera.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sidehustleera.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}