How to Attract, Convert, and Retain Podcast Listeners: Strategies from Stephanie Arakelian of Impact Theory

About the Episode:
Stephanie is the Podcast Marketing and Audience Development Specialist for Impact Theory — a podcast hosted by Tom Bilyue that currently has 4.2 million subscribers on YouTube — and the Marketing Advisor for Great Pods.

Before working on Impact Theory she was the: Marketing Director for Innovations 4 Health, President and Founder of a social media marketing agency called Dimont Media, and VP of Marketing and Audience Development for the podcast network CurtCo Media.

In this episode, Stephanie Arakelian shares her insights on podcast marketing and audience development, drawing from her experience of over 5 years in the podcast industry. From effective content repurposing to creating a podcast that converts, Stephanie breaks down key strategies for achieving success in the evolving podcast landscape.

Today, we'll cover:
- The contrast between YouTube and audio podcasts and how to cater to each audience
- The importance of community building and focusing on one platform at a time
- How to effectively repurpose old content using AI for business growth
- The importance of understanding your "why" when creating content

What You'll Learn
1. Content Creation and Goal Setting
2 Podcast Platform Specialization
3. Podcast Content Repurposing
4. Building a Podcast Community
5. Podcast Monetization
6. Audience Understanding and Content Analysis
7. Podcast Advertising and Listener Experience
8. Podcast Production Process
9. Podcast Industry Growth and Challenges
10. Funnel Strategy for Audience Engagement

Timestamps
01:31 Podcast marketing for startup and established networks
02:53 What Impact Theory is all about
04:11 The importance of treating YouTube audience separately from audio audience
07:33 How podcasts grew, analyzing podcast data, how to make a podcast stand out
10:56 Podcast analytics, how and what to measure, adjusting strategy based on data
13:18 Turning podcast listeners into fans, fans into evangelists
16:29 Strategies for placing ads on podcasts
19:45 Impact Theory’s podcast workflow, from guest selection to publishing
23:27 Repurposing podcast content — replays, mashups, special clips
27:11 Impact Theory University as a hub of growth mindset
29:20 Content strategy for Impact Theory podcast and university
31:14 Stephanie’s growth tips for emerging podcast creators

Understanding Different Podcast Audiences: "And then what was really interesting when we dove into the podcast side of it is breaking out their YouTube audience versus their audio audience, because they are separate. And that's one of the things that I'm trying to implement into the industry, is to show people, as podcasts are moving into the YouTube space, that you have to treat them separately because your audiences are not going to be the same. YouTube is still the number one most-played listening platform for podcasts, but it's a completely separate audience." — Stephanie Arakelian [00:04:10 - 00:04:37]

Maximizing Listener Retention: "So anything over about an hour and a half, hour 45. We will split into two episodes to make that a better listening experience so that people feel like they're getting, you know, a decent amount in the chung, enough information in there, and then when they come back, they get another part of the conversation, and that's good for listener retention, listen rates, ad sales, everything. And so we've seen a huge spike in our downloads because of that." — Stephanie Arakelian [00:17:59 → 00:18:23]

Why New Podcasters Should Rethink YouTube: "I think that confusing content creators right now, if you do, are not already familiar with YouTube, and this is an unpopular opinion, I say that new creators should not try and push their podcast on YouTube unless you have no expectations for it, because it's a whole other ballgame, right?" — Stephanie Arakelian [00:32:16 → 00:33:25]

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