By Ashley Fontes
Years ago, I started a children’s yoga blog. I had my blog name and a good website address. I wrote innovative content, I had my target audience, I made videos, I offered free content. Eventually, I even wrote on guest blogs. I was doing everything everyone was telling me to do to get my name out there, and still, I was not getting more than 50 hits a month.
What was I doing wrong? Why couldn’t I break into the market?
Trying a New Tactic
I couldn’t figure it out, but then last year I found this little gem that made me think: “As of this writing, there are over 500 million blogs available on the Internet. By contrast, Google claims to have indexed two million podcasts, and in 2018, Apple claimed that there were 525,000 active podcasts. Would you rather try to be noticeable in a room of 500 people, or a room with two?”
I did some more researching to see if podcasts would really make that big of a difference. Again, this is what I found:
- 75% of the US population is familiar with the term “podcasting”
- 55% (155 million) of the US population has listened to a podcast
- 16 million people in the US are “avid podcast fans”
With such a surprisingly large potential audience waiting, I had to try this out.
I rebranded everything I owned to one name. I made sure all of my social media accounts pointed to my website and blog and that I owned the simplest domain for my new brand. Then I started my podcast, Read and Yoga. Same brand, same content, same audience, just a different platform.
The Results
In two months, I had 100 downloads on my podcast. While 100 downloads in two months didn’t mean instant podcaster celebrity status for me, it came with great side effects:
- I went from 50 unique visits a month on my website to 150 unique visits to my website.
- Since there are only 15 podcasters in my genre, I don’t have as much competition to get my content noticed in that sphere.
- I have been featured as a guest on two other podcasts, with a third coming up next month. And my podcast has received a shoutout from one of the top podcasters in my genre. These opportunities have drawn new readers and listeners to my blog and podcast from those podcasters’ audiences.
- My social media page has grown faster in the last two months than in the last two years.
The steps for starting a podcast are very similar to starting a blog . . . and there is no one saying you can’t have both. My podcast allows me to reach my audience where they are in ways that my blog can’t. While my blog talks mostly to caregivers and teachers, my podcast can reach straight out to yogis.
You can find the same benefits from starting your own podcast! Reach people where they are, and don’t be afraid to change.
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Ashley Fontes graduated from Brigham Young University (Provo) with a BA in Humanities. She continued exploring her love for cultures by becoming a certified Iyengar yoga teacher, instructing both children and adults. While raising a family, writing, and teaching yoga, she has been active in the Deaf community, and in 2018 she co-founded a non-profit organization, ASL Junction.
Website: www.readandyoga.com
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Be sure to check out LDSPMA’s new podcast! You can find the first episode here.
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