Do any podcasts have great mailing lists?
I'm thinking about creating a newsletter specifically for the Indie Hackers podcast. I'm starting from zero knowledge here, so everything is up in the air. For example…
- What kinds of extra goodies can I put inside the email to reward subscribers and incentivize others to subscribe?
- Should the email include a full transcript of the episode, or just a description, or a partial transcript, or something else?
- I should probably include links to listen to the episode via different players. Anything else obvious worth including?
- I publish two episodes a week. Should I send the newsletter immediately after each episode, or once a week?
Have any of you done this before, or seen another show that does it? If so, any ideas?
I don't have a podcast but I would appreciate a 3-4 minutes summary of the episode, written or audio depends on you, maybe both using descript.
I have a couple successful (100k+ and 200k+) websites that focus on podcast summaries so I suppose that I am not the only one who wants to understand if an episode is worth listening to before investing an hour.
I agree. I usually read transcripts because it's so much faster. I only listen to my favorites and even then, only when I'm out exercising or commuting.
Do you ever have thoughts come to you after recording an episode? If so, those would be interesting to read.
ReplyAll have a good newsletter. It's less directly related to the podcast content and more recommendations from the staff. Also Crooked Media have "What a Day" which is loosely coupled to some of their podcasts. Tim Ferriss has his 5-Bullet Friday newsletter.
I think the common thread of all of those is that they're content in addition to the podcasts that makes more sense in an email, so recommendations, interesting links, news that makes more sense in a newsletter since it doesn't need to be evergreen. I feel like the good ones make subscribers feel like "insider information" for people who want to go deeper than the average listener
What's the logic behind this?
People are already subbed to the podcast and get reminders from their podcast app.
I may be the edge case here but I listen through Spotify and they don’t give notifications for new episodes. An email alert that a new episode is live would be really useful.
Ah then that makes a lot of sense :) Spotify has invested a lot of money into podcasts you would have thought they would build a feature like that.
I am subbed to some through my Overcast podcast app, but I don't have the time to keep up. So I only listen to podcasts that are recommended via twitter.
I'm guessing it would be an opt in list? In that case it wouldn't piss of anyone so would make sense.
I think one email a week. And you write a short summary of the the podcasts which gets our mouth watering. Pull out 5 quotes from each perhaps. Just sell it personally.
"This week I had on ... I learnt about ... For anyone wanting to learn about ... it's really worth a listen"
tbh often I don't listen just because I haven't got that summary. So if I see you tweet a summary I can then decide if I want to listen or not ... So this would be a way of spreading that "summary" further and also taking the pressure off your own twitter a bit.
I think you said a lot of people find Indie Hackers via the Podcast so I think it's a good idea, especially since a lot people are starting to just listen to episodes right on the web page (based on the stats you recently shared).
Yes many will subscribe and see the new episode in their player app, but a weekly email is a good reminder and something you can schedule for an appropriate times, instead of relying on the apps to surface the episode when they feel like it.
Might be something good to add in general (ie on the episode page), but I've always wanted to see similar episodes posted somewhere. Founders at similar points in the journey, for example. This is also a good way to get more listens on the older episode in the library.
I'd stick with just the description in the email, not sure you need to have links to the different players.
@csallen woah...how often are you tweaking the IH design? I was just doing some research for my podcast landing page I'm building and checked out your podcast page for inspiration. I came to look at it again today and the newsletter capture design looks so much better today!
Love the "Stay Smart" CTA and the "what to expect" description.
I'm only going to speak to the, "What kinds of extra goodies can I put inside the email to reward subscribers and incentivize others to subscribe?" since it's related to a project I'm currently working on.
It's in its early stages, but PodSend lets you put podcast content behind an email gate, allowing you to collect listener's emails before providing them access to the content. This could provide you with a way to incentivize others to subscribe to your podcast-related mailing list in exchange for exclusive IH podcast content.
Additionally, although nothing specific is built place yet, something like this could also allow you to provide ongoing "extra goodies" as rewards to subscribers.
I'm curious if you tend to have any leftover content from podcast recordings that could be turned into bonus segments or insider extras of some kind 🤔
Noah Kagan's OkDork.com podcast sends out emails (sometimes) - so does WPBuilds.com (with a summary/new episode too)
We just did a round-up of WP/Digital podcasts funnily enough on our blog (won't shamelessly drop it here) - but from talking to people, they usually read the show notes more than anything - an email would have to offer some additional value to not feel duplicated from the show notes I guess.
I understand why you'd want to do it, a good email list is fantastic for engagement - but on the other hand.. it is another email for people to open! ;)
What kinds of extra goodies can I put inside the email to reward subscribers and incentivize others to subscribe?
Should the email include a full transcript of the episode, or just a description, or a partial transcript, or something else?
I should probably include links to listen to the episode via different players. Anything else obvious worth including?
I publish two episodes a week. Should I send the newsletter immediately after each episode, or once a week?
I'm not a huge fan of that model, but Hustle and Flowchart is head and shoulders above anyone else I've heard doing it.
It's a pretty deeply thought out system and it's worth listening to a few of their podcasts, following their CTAs and exploring their funnel.
Thanks for the rec, their episodes look great! Will have to listen.
Why aren't you a huge fan of the model? Is (a) you personally wouldn't subscribe to another email, (b) you don't think this email should be sent to anyone, or (c) something else?
I was thinking more from the standpoint of the podcaster, so I meant (c), but (a) is definitely true. I don't have an unmet yearning for more incoming mail.
The reason I said I wasn't a huge fan was that I think it encourages metric hacking at the expense of longer-term success. It's really addictive to stare at an analytics page of $DESIRABLE_METRIC that's going up, but all the most successful podcasters and authors I know of are more focused on the what their listeners actually want (which is rarely email). Imagine an alternate world where Dan Carlin, Ira Glass or Joe Rogan were spending their mental energies on building funnels for the past decade! Counter-factuals are always a minefield, but I strongly suspect it wouldn't have been a winning move.
The reason why Hustle and Flowchart is still impressive is that they weave their entire funnel together seamlessly, it's less annoying than an adroll and (from my research as an outsider) they are able to monetize at an order of magnitude better than their direct competitors with similar audience sizes.
This is a great point. Can't say I disagree. I think all of these people do some amount of "metric hacking," or at least additional work that's not just the core of their shows. But it's minimal. I'll try to keep my podcast email minimal, too. It won't be some thing massive that prevents me from making more meaningful investments into the show.
Why?
Good question! (cc @volkandkaya who had the same question) I have a laundry list of reasons:
First, the current IH newsletter is absurdly crowded, so everything in it is shallow. I want to go deeper on the individual parts of IH via email, which requires either separate lists or absurdly massive emails. I've already started experimenting with the former.
There's now a "Today's Digest" email for what's happening on the forum and a separate "Top Milestones" email for the milestones leaderboard. Both have been doing super well. All that remains is to pull interviews and podcasts out of the newsletter into their own lists, too.
The New York Times does a great job of this if you'd like an example. I'm a fan of the personalization. If you don't care about the podcast, I don't want you seeing the podcast in your email. If you don't care about the meetups, I don't want you getting emails about the meetups. Etc. But if you do care about a topic, I want to send you the best email possible for it.
Second, email is extremely valuable as a channel of its own accord. I'd rather have a listener's email than not. All of you are on the forum and/or newsletter and are easy to reach, but most IH podcast listeners are not. Besides just the ability to go deeper into talking about the podcast, an email list would help me:
Of course the downside is it's extra work to put together. But I already produce a ton of leftover artifacts from the podcast that are just sitting around not doing anything.
If you do turn those into emails, I hope the emails are accessible somewhere (other than my inbox which currently has 15,248 unread). I really don't want regular emails about podcasts, but I probably would read through them all in batches if they're on the web.
Makes sense, I always see them the forum and the podcast together. But I have spoken to many people who just listen to podcast.
Seems podcasts listeners want to interact more with podcasters as seen by the rise of premium podcasts and patreon donations. Email list is one way it can be done.
This comment was deleted 3 years ago
This comment was deleted 4 years ago