There are numerous podcast goals that you might want to set yourself when starting a podcast, or looking for your next podcasting steps for 2025. One of these could be becoming one of the biggest podcasts in the world. It is a dream for many. However, is it a realistic dream for your podcast? Is there a better goal? And if it is a realistic goal, how do you get there?
Is Becoming One of the Biggest Podcasts in the World Realistic?
When setting podcast goals you must consider the realism of the goal. And becoming one of the biggest podcasts in the world might not be that effective. Numerous podcasts in the world have large audiences.
The Joe Rogan Experience is the most listened-to podcast in the world, with about 11 million listeners per episode. The next is the Crime Junkie, which has just under six million listeners per episode.
These are great audience numbers, but they’re the exception compared to the realism. The average podcast gets 421 downloads per month per episode. For a weekly podcast, that is about 1425 downloads per month.
If you’re new to podcasting, then you can expect significantly smaller numbers. For instance, some podcasts might only reach 27 people within the first seven days. However, those who can get into the top 1% of podcasts can expect to have 3,200 listeners per episode. In addition, none of the top 15 podcasts are in the business niche. Most are in the entertainment, comedy, or crime niche. And this can be relatively easy.
Therefore, it might be more effective to think about how to become one of the biggest podcasts in your niche. And if you stick to that goal, it might be more manageable and effective. So what are the tips for this goal?
Define the Goal
When people come to setting goals they can look at different KPIs. You might, for instance, be interested in looking at the number of listeners, downloads, or revenue from sponsors. These metrics are your goals.
And different hosts have differing goals. Some prefer to look at the bigger picture for their brand. Their podcast is one element to bring on new clients and build a profitable service business.
Therefore, they look at how the podcast is contributing to their lead funnel. If they see that the number of leads has grown over the past few months, they will be happy. It doesn’t matter if their listener numbers have barely increased, but they’ve met their goals.
Other podcast hosts might be more interested in transformational accolades, like winning industry awards. These might not have much impact on listening numbers or sponsorship revenues short term (though a few awards are likely to bring in an audience), but it might help you to improve brand recognition.
Then some want to reach a wider audience. Those who want to increase listener numbers because these can be used to improve sponsorship package valuations or support other areas of the business.
Setting goals is important. It is important to remember that all goals have to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Related, and Timely). If you can define a way that a goal meets these elements, then it needs to be reworked or discarded and a new goal developed.
Defining a goal can be very challenging, which is why speaking to those who help you produce your podcast might be beneficial. For instance, your account manager at Produce Your Podcast can provide you with realistic expectations and industry trends to help you define what you want to do next with your podcast brand.
Define Your Audience
Defining your audience is probably one of the most critical elements of any podcast-promoting process. You need to look at who you’re going to promote your podcast to, which means you need to know who your core audience is. While some people might think that they know their audience, there can be some surprises in demographic analysis of audiences.
For example, you need to build an effective profile of your audience. This can include numerous aspects of them including their gender, age, occupation, income level, hobbies, and more. You will also need to know why they would want to listen to your show. Is it because they want to catch up on industry news, and entertainment, educate themselves, spark ideas, or unwind?
You will also want to know their daily media consumption. Are they listening to lots of podcasts, just a few, are they on social media lots, what channels do they use? What magazines are they reading?
These elements can be used for not just knowing where to place an advert, but when and the language used to attract the audience. If you’ve got someone who’s looking to unwind, then you might want to use less formal language. However, if you’ve got an audience that wants to be educated, using proper terms for the industry is going to be fundamental.
It can also affect the language used in any call-to-action. Call-to-actions are what inspire audiences to move from one step in the process to the other. When you want an audience that is interested in catching up with the latest news, then you need to have a call-to-action to match.
In contrast, those who want to be entertained will need a more light-hearted and probably funny call to action. But without knowing your audience, you can’t make those decisions and market to them correctly.
Refine Your Niche
Another critical element to consider is what your niche is. A niche is not just a simple subject. For example, you could say you’re a business podcast. But that could be anything from business news to business start-up advice. Who specifically are you going to be talking to?
It can be hard when you’re starting to be releasing content on just about anything. Instead, you want to have a niche that becomes part of your identity. So you might have a niche where you’re offering advice to business start-ups that want to go global. Or you might want to talk about local businesses.
Choose a niche carefully. Not only will it affect the topics you will cover, but also the potential sponsors, your audience targeting, marketing copy/language, social media channels, marketing options, guests on your show, and more.
But also be loyal to your niche. As you get established, your niche becomes a psychological contract between you and your audience. They’ll expect you to talk every week about this topic and the various mini-conversations there are. If you stray from the topic, you can sometimes annoy your audience and this can damage your reputation and lose your audience.
There are times when you might want to adjust the niche. Or add something new, but this has to be done carefully and slowly, so you don’t annoy your existing fans.
Choose the Marketing Channels
While there is some argument for setting up numerous marketing channels and ensuring that your name is everywhere, the best tactic is to be more restrictive on your marketing and focus on a few core, high-performing marketing channels.
For example, while there are hundreds of social media channels, selecting between three and five channels can have a bigger impact on your success rather than just posting to fifteen channels.
By focusing your efforts on just a few channels, you can spend more time cultivating the audience, engaging with top fans and followers, and building that engagement that can make a difference. It also means that you aren’t spreading yourself too thin.
You should also think about SEO, email marketing, and reaching out to other podcasts. These channels can have some of the best results. Email marketing, for example, can return $36 to $40 for every $1 spent. And there are numerous ways that you can use emails to improve your podcasting revenues and successes.
You could use emails for:
- Advertising sponsors to audiences, increasing the value of sponsorship packages.
- Updating audiences when new episodes are released.
- Sell products, services, or other opportunities.
- Build a line of communication with your audience.
Emails are one of the most lucrative options you have, but you need to grow your marketing list to help build a strong connection with audiences. It can also help you to learn more about your audience. Using simple data like open rates, click-through rates, and user engagement, you can see what audiences are interested in and therefore improve your marketing campaigns.
It can also be critical for long-term growth. Email marketing is seen as a way to build retention. With online audiences, about 70% of them will never return to your website or podcast if you don’t subscribe to them. And sometimes, platforms won’t make it clear when new episodes or content has been released to audiences.
Facebook, for instance, won’t tell 100% of your followers that you’ve published new content. It will only display the content to about 5-17% of your audience. So podcast show pages with 1000 followers will only get between 50 and 170 individuals to organically see their content. When some of those are likely to be the owners of the page, it can reduce the effectiveness of campaigns.
It is only through engagement and perseverance that you can improve the reach of your content. But while some use this as an example of why you should spread your content out, it is a reason why you should focus your efforts. Using a smaller number of platforms allows you to focus on building engaging content that helps you make more impressions and get more clicks to your website.
And you can use these channels to feed into your email marketing channels, which help you build long-term contacts and prospects.
Invest in the Right Equipment
Another key element that you might want to consider is whether you have the equipment and studio to appear professional. If there is anything that can sometimes make your episodes look amateur, then you’re not going to attract the audiences or sponsors that you are targeting.
There are numerous ways that you can ensure that you have the right equipment. Doing checks on the podcast episode quality after recording is one way, but getting a sound and equipment check by a professional company is another option.
And be sure that your recording studio is also premium. A good recording studio allows you to have clear sound, and no distractions and improves your podcast’s professionalism. At the same time, it can help you improve your engagement and intimacy with the audience, something that will keep them coming back for more.
Utilize Other Podcasts
If there is one platform that you know podcast listeners are going to be on, it is listening to other podcasts. Podcast audiences are some of the most loyal audiences across media. On average, a podcast listener will listen to eight different shows per week, with female podcast listeners often consuming up to 10 episodes.
In addition, most audience members have six shows that they’re subscribed to and will listen to every week with 80% of them listening to the episodes from start to finish.
And more than one-fifth of podcast fans (22%) will listen to more than 22 hours of podcasts per week, the equivalent of a part-time job.
So, if you want to reach your audience, try to think about how you can get yourself on other shows to promote your episodes and reach. You can be a guest or sponsor other shows to demonstrate your authority on a subject.
Being a guest can be a significant way to promote your show. It allows you to reach the audience that is going to be most interested in your show in a medium that they’re going to be attentive to.
By appearing as a guest, you’re going to be able to demonstrate your authority on a subject and also emotionally connect with your audience. It can be very time-consuming, but it is like giving a free trial to audiences and those who enjoy listening to what you have to say on one show will likely look for you and your show. They might also become your new fans.
In addition, it can be a pull to attract new sponsors to your show because it demonstrates that you have a demand beyond your podcast. Therefore, you can build more authority with brands and subjects that will help you turn your podcast into a revenue generator as well as attract audiences to your episodes.
Not only that, it can help with effective link-building for your website, podcast description, and more.
You might also be interested in talking to the hosts about them coming to your show and being a guest. One of the advantages of this is that they’re going to advertise their appearance on your show to their audience, which will generate interest in your show and get them to listen to at least one episode.
To help you achieve this, you might want to speak to them about how they’re going to promote the episode they’re going to be appearing on. Are they going to be showcasing your episodes on their social media, email marketing, and website links? These factors can help you determine how successful your partnerships can be.
Plan Topics on Trending Subjects
Want to be found by audiences? Then you need to be ahead of the curve and plan topics based on the trending topics that are currently the topic of conversation. Don’t be stuck covering the same topics that everyone else is doing either, be the first to cover new stories or ideas and bring to the conversation important topics.
There are numerous tools that you can use to help you choose and plan these topics. For instance, Google Trends is an effective tool that tells you the search performance of keywords and questions across the world. So you can see what topics are getting audiences more interested.
Or you can use other tools to help you identify the most trending and popular topics in your niche. For example, hashtag monitors, social media channels, and more can be a good way to find out what is trending at any moment.
One of the biggest challenges to this, however, is that you might be slightly behind the curve if your production process is too slow. Those who do everything themselves can be three or four weeks ahead of their schedule, so by the time an episode is published, the topic has already been and gone from the public minds.
Use a Podcast Production Agency
If you want to reach a large audience you might need some help. You might consider hiring a few freelancers to help you. But that doesn’t always mean that you get the skills and expertise that you need. Instead, looking to use a podcast production agency, like Produce Your Podcast, can be a good way to build a highly popular show by utilizing their knowledge, buyer power, and tools to help you be the best in the industry.
At PYP there are several ways that they’ve developed a process that can help you become one of the biggest podcasts in the world. For one, we’ve developed an onboarding system where your dedicated account manager will get to know you, your show, and what you want from the show.
We’ll also offer services such as sound and video diagnostic tests to determine whether your equipment needs to be upgraded or replaced. We can even help you to source and track your order to your recording studio.
Our services can help with production, editing, marketing, and sponsorship. A full-service option that streamlines the process for you, helps you to identify profitable and successful channels, and improves your chances of making your show a success.
Our team are experts, with years of experience working with the top talent in podcasting, sales, and marketing to help our clients achieve results. Our podcast clientele includes numerous shows with awards and lots of honors to their names. Plus they’re all able to get lucrative sponsorship deals to help them earn revenue from their podcast.
We have the knowledge and expertise to help take almost any podcast to the top of their niche.
FAQs
What is considered one of the biggest podcast shows in the world?
It depends on how you want to measure the size of a podcast. For some, it is the number of subscribers or listeners. However, it might also be the revenue that the show might generate.
And it also depends on the niche, some shows sit within relatively refined niches that have smaller potential audiences, but a show can do very well in these areas and be considered the biggest in that niche.
How can you retain new audiences for a podcast show?
Retention is about getting the audience to click on a button that will subscribe them to something. It could be something as simple as the subscribe button on YouTube or it could be getting them to subscribe to your mailing list. Either way, these are important actions.
When is a podcast successful?
A podcast is successful when the host is happy with the results. And every host has their requirements, for example, you might want more business leads, or to have lots of followers. It all depends on what you want, not on a standardized metric.
Final Word: How to Become One of the Biggest Podcasts in the World
If you’re looking to take your podcast to the next level, you might be setting a goal like becoming one of the biggest podcasts in the world. While this is a task many set themselves, it isn’t always realistic. But you might become a top podcast in your niche. Doing so is about identifying your niche, content, and audience and setting up your production process to ensure you have a quality show.
While some might be able to do this alone, many can’t. They don’t have the time or expertise to achieve the results that they want. Therefore, they might want to hire a podcast production company.
Produce Your Podcast is a full-service podcast production, editing, and marketing agency specializing in helping brands launch, grow, and monetize successful podcasts that impact their bottom line. With 30+ years of experience in broadcasting and business development brought to every project we work on, our team of experts is a reliable partner to help you achieve your goals with your show.
Click here to schedule a conversation with our team today, and let’s bring your show to life!