The Podcast Discoveries Series

by Case Lane

Podcasts are the next big thing that’s already here. 

Many individuals have one, so do companies, organizations, and your next door neighbor. Everyone is interested in what this rising medium means for their work, industry, knowledge, and entertainment, and everyone wants to know where it’s all going.

The numbers are impressive.  One million podcasts…and growing! 

But what does that really mean?

If you read my previous posts in this inadvertent podcast research series on How to Get a Guest Interview on a podcast, you may have noted some of the ‘behind the scenes’ issues that come up in this young and rapidly-growing industry.

To be clear, there are two types of podcasters.  The big names backed by big money (and big publicity)…and everyone else.

This article is for everyone else… 

The #101 to #1,000,000 ranked podcasters who are trying to determine how best be discovered in this new media world.

In an industry with zero barriers to entry, zero rules, zero formal structures or established reference sources, hundreds of providers, limitless locations, and money to be made, what exactly is going on with podcasting?

After setting out to find podcasts that may have me on as a guest while promoting my latest book release, I was surprised to be swept up into a much more intensive investigatory process around the entire podcast industry.

To my surprise, podcasting may not be the floating in its own competition filled airwaves, but it’s not a bastion of narcissistic hear-me activity either. There are issues in structure, reference, research and consistency, but that’s also what makes the medium an opportunity for so many…

…Until you try and exercise the niche franchise podcasting is said to have created.

Then you are back in high school, where the popular earn all the spoils, and the undiscovered scrape at the door in search of entry.

The irony is the undiscovered operate in niches that would absolutely welcome them…if only they could find them.

The current challenges for both potential podcast guests and listeners who are searching for specific categories of podcasts are:

The Directories

The Land of the Living Dead

The Definitions of Descriptions, Categories and Keywords

Hidden Contact Information

Overlapping Show Names

Inefficient Search Options

The Directories

To find a podcast, you search a podcast directory, in an app or online…or not…

Listeners find podcasts through word of mouth.  I personally had never heard of Joe Rogan until Elon Musk smoking pot on his show became international news.  That is both the joy and frustration of podcasts.

Podcast creators can thrive in their own communities – of millions of listeners – outside pop culture, the mainstream, regulators, an established industry or any barriers to entry, or limitations to growth.

But podcast listeners must wade through this labyrinth in search of news, knowledge, entertainment or information for their ears that is often more intimate, compelling and informative than any other medium.

The existing podcast directories have none of the product suggestion sophistication of Amazon, or algorithmic memory of Google.  They have broad sweeping categories, selected by the producers, and sorted by relevancy based on popularity.

And most directories limit search results to only the top podcasts.  Even a podcast searched by an exact name may not come out ahead of more popular offerings that use the same word (as the name) in a description or episode title.

The definition of ‘popular’ lies with the directories who are responding to ‘mass’ audience appeal, for a medium that thrives on niche content. This presents the top podcasts with unlimited search results real estate, and all the rest lost behind their wind.

My Inadvertent Podcast Research Project

When I set out to promote my new book Recast, through a global virtual podcasting tour, I had no idea I would end up spending months researching hundreds of podcasts. 

Much to my surprise, I also discovered much more about the podcast industry than I expected…and I’m a podcaster! I have attended two podcast conferences in the past year, listened to many of the top gurus, and talked to dozens of podcasters, and never had I heard what I actually discovered on my quest to obtain a guest interview.

For the new podcaster hoping for an opportunity, rest assured the industry is still wide open and available to anyone with a good idea.   

But there are also challenges.

In this unexpected podcast research blog series, I am going to let you know what I learned from my inadvertent deep research quest into what’s really going on in the podcast industry.

But first, I’ll explain my results…

The Method

You can see the details of how my research evolved in the first post How to Become a Guest on a Podcast.  But here are the highlights to understand the context for the rest of this post.

I researched 1, 117 podcasts, meaning after I found the podcast name, I went in to Google and podcast directories to learn if the podcast was relevant to my topic.

70 % of the podcasts I researched were not relevant to my topic, based on criteria I established.

The rest were sent an interview request (either an e-mail or communication through their own website form)

Of those who were sent an interview request, 25 % replied – that’s double the rate quoted in most how-to articles.

Of those who replied:

Almost half said ‘yes’ and those interviews have taken place or have been scheduled.  Another one-third said ‘maybe’ usually due to scheduling issues. The rest were a ‘no.’

On purpose, 100% of the podcasters I approached, I had never heard of before.  The podcasters I have heard of are some of the biggest names in the business, the top 100.  I immediately put them on my dream list to be approached some day in the future.

I wanted to find all the shows in the 99.99% that are speaking to the audience I wanted to reach.

And here’s what I discovered…

Many Podcasts are in the Land of the Living Dead

Somewhere in the oft-stated existence of 1,000,000 podcasts is my new question: How many of them are active?

The biggest shock in my research was the discovery of hundreds of dead podcasts that continue to occupy the world’s most important search results real estate – the first page of a Google search. 

They also continue to feature in directories, coming up for categories and keywords before other shows that are still recording.

In my research, one-third of the podcasts I looked for had not had an episode in the past six months.

This is not actually a problem for podcasting. The episodes can live forever as long as someone pays the hosting fees. Great interviews, stories and dramatizations can be referred by others for years to come.

Dead podcasts are also not an issue for podcasters. There are no rules. Shows are not canceled (unless you belong in a network that does in fact cancel you). Anyone can start and end the podcast at will. A podcaster can take a year long break, and then just start talking again. There is no allotted timeslot to fill as in radio or television.  Podcasters may even put all their episodes in an archive on their website.

But dead podcasts are definitely a problem for anyone hoping to guest on a show.  Dead podcasts do not do interviews. My number one piece of advice when researching podcasts for interview is to check the last episode post date – before reading the description.

The possibility of a movement towards platform exclusivity will eventually end the relevancy of this rule. A podcast currently appearing in all directories will look ‘dead’ unless you know for sure that it is exclusive to one platform. However for now, this issue only applies to the biggest names, and checking first for the podcast’s active existence is the first rule of relevancy.

In all cases – regardless of the reason the show has no recent episodes – their online presence remains in place. The last post date of a podcast does not apply to relevancy for the show.   You search for podcasts by name.  And the name will continue to come up, until it is forced out of results by another. This effectively puts the show in the search results, and forces the researcher to look further.

If a podcast has a similar name to another, you may get both results, and have to research each possibility to find the one that could still be a good fit.

Even more frustrating for new podcasters is when Google appears to be serving up aggregated results on the first page of search – but some of the podcasts are dead.

For example if you search, Side Hustle podcast , you get this result on the first page. Looks like a great list until…

… you research each podcast and you find out that almost half are already dead!

This is an observation about how Google search works, not a commentary on the podcasts or podcasters. The podcasts marked with an X either could not be found by that name, or had a last episode date more than six months ago.

The actual recording status of the podcast is not known to this author. The only point is that these podcasts do not appear available as potential interview opportunities even though they come up on the first page of Google search results – in a curated list!

Similar results were often discovered for other ‘curated’ search result lists when multiple podcasts have a similar name. If you have a podcast with that name…and you don’t make this prominently placed list…my guess is you are cringing.

Would a deeper filtered search have generated more relevant results? Not likely.  Everyone wants to see everything that is possibly available on page one, especially when you know after a few hundred searches that the process is going to take awhile.

The reality is, if you are looking for podcasts by name, and only want active shows to appear in search results, you are probably out of luck.

The Definition of Description

Podcasting is audio, all about talking – comments, observations, interviews, jokes, discussions, anecdotes – as presented by hosts.

To understand the content of a show, you can look at the title, description and episodes.

Podcasters write their own show descriptions.  Some are detailed and specific, others are vague and limited.  When researching the podcast, the description becomes paramount to determining if the podcast is the right fit.  But it is no guarantee that you’ll find what you are looking for.

You can also look at descriptions for the actual recorded episodes, but those are as likely to be inconsistent.  Some podcasters do not include descriptions for the episodes, or they write short or repetitive lines.

If a researcher is absolutely committed to finding out more, the next option is to listen to two or three random episodes with different subject titles to try and decide if the content can be confirmed.

Even if directories use descriptions to scrape for keywords, the podcaster’s intention may still not be recognized, and the podcast would be undiscovered.

Categories, Keywords and Vague Ideas Dominate Search

Podcasters typically select their categories from an existing list.  Podcasters put their show wherever they see fit. Searchers have to determine if the selection matches their own definition of the same keyword.

For example: searching:  ‘entrepreneur,’ ‘entrepreneurship,’ ‘business,’ and ‘success,’ led to ‘startup,’ ‘side hustle,’ ‘action,’ ‘boss,’ and all variations of ‘boss lady.’ But the descriptions behind these terms varied widely.

The descriptions can also stray into territory you may not want to cover like politics, religion, life stories, mental health and struggle issues, specific industries or careers, or spirituality. Even listening to a few episodes does not always make it clear why the words are included in the description.

A researcher has no idea how to apply correct criteria for accepting or ignoring a podcast.  At that point, the best option is to make a guess.

In the Welcoming Host post in this blog series, I suggest podcasters hoping to attract guests state in the description that the podcast will include guest interviews.

Deciding on the podcast relevancy becomes a gamble for the guest who is trying to target specific types of podcasts.  This is a dilemma that is unlikely to end anytime soon, as the individuality of podcasting is what makes the platform so unique. 

Potential Guests are on Their Own

In a world of bubbles, niches, and tribes, potential podcast guests are the proverbial outsiders tapping at the door with goods to offer, and asking to be allowed in.

Even though many podcasters claim to want to have guests, they are either finding them within their own community, or unaware that their welcome mat has become decidedly frayed.

The companion post in this series How to Become a Guest on a Podcast provides a detailed account of how to get a podcast interview.

Given the difficulty in finding relevant podcasts, a potential podcast guest has the added struggle of determining if a podcaster is even interested in what they have to say.

Putting aside public relations companies that offer podcast guest spot services, the availability of a podcaster’s contact information was the strongest indicator as to whether or not a podcaster was open to the attention of cold guest pitches.

Since there are apparently 1,000,000 podcasts, the expectation was that there would be more ‘open’ shows than not.  But the quest to find contact information indicated the opposite was true.

However, note this research does not take in to consideration podcasters who encouraged people to reach out on social media.  For the most part, these requests seem to be aimed at their potential community, not podcast guests.  However podcast guests may find social a more relevant place for communication than e-mail.

From best to worst option, contact information was discovered in: 

1. Email in the Podcast description

Rarely, but cleverly, some podcasters put their contact email in their description.  This was just joyous when this happened, ending the need to search elsewhere unless the podcaster specifically stated the e-mail was for questions and/or they had a separate direction for potential show guests.

2. Podcast Guest form on Website

This type of form, specifically aimed at prospective podcast guests, is the best indicator of a podcaster’s commitment to attracting guests. 

These forms are specific to each show’s interests and include questions as generic as: why do you want to be a guest on our show; to as esoteric as: what’s your favorite ice-cream?

Potential guests must decide how to answer these questions, and whether or not it’s even worth it to take the time.  But whether or not these forms attract or repel potential guests is an open question.

3. Standard Website Contact Form that specifically mentions podcast guests

The next best indication that the podcaster cares about having guests is to invite potential guests to apply through their standard ‘Contact Me’ form on their website.  The greeting provides potential guests with the hope that the pitch will be read, and the host is expecting to hear from people.

4. A website e-mail address

Not every website provides an e-mail.  But when they do that direct form of contact is a good alternative to having a specific form.  Any form of: info@ or support@ or hello@ generic opening indicates that somewhere on the other end a host or their team will read the request. 

5. Directory e-mail address

As of this writing, two directories – Listen Notes and TuneIn – provide a visible link or view of the show’s e-mail address.  The emails are not 100% available, but this service was indispensable.

6. RSS feed

As of this writing, Listen Notes was the only directory I found that provided access to the RSS feed, not the URL, the actual code.  If you look closely enough, you will find an email.

This information for how to use the RSS feed to obtain an email is actually in Listen Notes’ own instructions (that’s how I found out about it), so it’s available to see.

Podcasters probably used a ‘public’ email to set-up their podcast on hosting, and should not be surprised to receive an email at that address. 

For the record, so far no one asked how I got their e-mail address.

7. Website Generic contact form

Many people, although not all, do have generic website contact forms.  Although there is often some trepidation about whether or not your email will be read, the generic form is a good option, if there is no other choice.

8. None of the above

For podcasts with no website, no listing in Listen Notes or TuneIn, no word in their description, no accessible RSS feed, and no social media, the opportunity to reach out is lost.  If these podcasters expect to receive guests, they need to create a welcome mat.

Anchor podcasts

For podcasts on Anchor, and potentially other free hosting services, the RSS feed provided a cryptic e-mail address that looked something like this: podcastsnn+nnnnnnnn@anchor.fm. The ‘n’ equals a number. The destination of these emails is unknown, and none of the few tried received a reply.

The Specificity and Confusion in Show Names are a Challenge

No two podcasts appeared to have the exact same name…but search results can return dozens of overlapping possibilities.  There were many examples of this, but since I do not want to call out any one podcast name, in the example below imagine the [Podcast Name] is the same word.

The most common adaptations go like this:

[Podcast Name] [Podcast Name] with Podcast Host Name

Something! [Podcast Name] [Podcast Name] Show

[Podcast Name] Radio Show

This [Podcast Name]

That [Podcast Name]

My [Podcast Name]

The [Podcast Name]

Your [Podcast Name]

Since my method for finding podcasts was to discover a long list of names in a directory, and then search them all one-by-one afterwards, each time a [Podcast Name] was used I could go off on a tangent for an hour looking at all the variations of that one [Podcast Name].

This is bad news for any host who had the [Podcast Name] I was actually looking for.  I rarely went to page two of Google search so having an overlapping name means you are being denied discovery on page one.  This did not necessarily mean the podcast was dead, but it extended the time needed to try and find the exact podcast.

And if the exact podcast name could not be found, the search was dropped.

Search Options are Limited in Efficiency, not Numbers

One could expect that the best place to find podcasts would be inside a podcast directory.  But the number one challenge with directories is that it appears that none offer a full listing of all 1,000,000 podcasts – dead or alive.  Even if you wanted to find every ‘entrepreneur’ podcast in the world, you could not.

This is a shame because listeners are looking to niche down to their type of information or conversation, and are constantly hoping to find podcasts that appeal directly to them.

For example, I want to know who is talking about life between personal development and success.  You know when you’ve done all your Tony Robbins exercises, but have not yet achieved your Tony Robbins life.  (If you know a podcast covering that gap, email me). 

There are so many potential discussions in every category.  Yet the ability to niche down your search through search does not appear to exist.  With loose description writing, no opportunity to declare sub-categories, and the lack of robustness with search engines, the capping of results means you are only seeing a fraction of the listings.

Even knowing exactly which show you are searching for does not give exact results. Searching Apple podcasts by a specific name (on iTunes desktop), does not put that podcast at the top of the list. My podcast, Ready Entrepreneur had to yield the first nine slots to others who happened to use the word ‘ready’ in their description.

This left Google Search as the place to start when looking for a particular ‘category’ podcast.  But even that had its limitations.  As noted above, Google does not know when a podcast is dead.

Google Images was also a good option as results displayed rows and rows of podcast art for the category.  But Images does not know when the art referred to a show, an episode, or even a course with the word podcast in the title.

In Search of a Searching Directory

Certain directories provide access to longer lists of search results. Listen Notes and TunedIn both go a few hundred deep, before capping results.

Directory suggestions when looking for another podcast such as “iTunes Listeners also subscribed to” and ” Listen Notes recommendations” were also helpful.  But those suggestions have no descriptions, and still require further search.

Social media has millions of podcast-related posts.  Searching by hashtag produced a wide variety of results that rarely led to actual shows.  Like all social media, the option to spend the time to thoroughly search is available, but hardly efficient.

Host websites sometimes listed the host’s appearances on other shows, which provided a trail to similar shows or themes.

Podcast Networks group shows together, but there was surprisingly only a few of these that provided relevant options. The reason is likely that the top shows are in the top networks, and therefore not accessible to the 99.99%.

Conclusion

The podcast industry is not formal, structured or regulated, and that’s what makes it fabulous.

For a rising podcaster, researcher or listener, the challenge is to understand the vagaries and adjust accordingly.  Given the information in this post, you can make your podcast accessible.  You can also learn from others and model best practices.

Established podcasters who want to champion efficiencies in the industry can also stay on top of these challenges, and set an example with descriptions, art and categories that provide listeners with the best information for finding the show they want.

For all podcasters, the common effort will be in ensuring the viability of the industry by highlighting best practices, and eliminating negative ones, to create the best overall experience for all.

More Information

The best part about researching 1,117 podcasts was being accepted as a guest on so many awesome shows!  You can find links to all of those fabulous podcasts here.

The second best part was my new found insight into the podcast industry.

This research was so eye-opening that this post is one of five about what I learned about the podcast industry from researching 1,117 podcasts. 

Here are the links to all of the posts in the Podcast Discoveries Series:

Introduction to the Podcast Discoveries Series

How to Become A Guest on a Podcast

How to be a Welcoming Podcast Interview Host:  The Best and Worst Practices

How to be a Valued Podcast Interview Guest:  The Best and Worst Practices

Maximize Your Podcast Listening: Use Interviews to learn from Virtual Mentors

Additional Resources

Research Checklist: Podcast Guests: If you would like a free checklist for how to research and find the right podcast for you. Click here to download.

Podcast Directories: If you would like to get your own copy of the podcast directory listing and instructions based on my research click here (coming soon)

Podcast Guest Interview Blueprint Package (the ultimate course for podcast guests): Podcast Guests: If you would like the comprehensive guide to finding and contacting podcasts that are right for you, including as bonuses the Interview Checklist and the Directories List. Click here for this special offer.

Podcast Discoveries Book: Readers: If you would like the entire story of this epic research journey to discover and contact podcasts for guest interviews. Click here to download at Amazon.com. NOTE: the book is also available at Apple Bookstore, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and other popular sites where ebooks are sold.

Research Report: To purchase, the entire research report click here (coming soon)

Podcast Discoveries on the Ready Entrepreneur Podcast: This information will be explained in upcoming episodes of The Ready Entrepreneur Podcast. Subscribe at Apple Podcasts to stay up to date.

Podcast Discoveries on YouTube: To watch videos explaining the Podcast Discoveries process for finding your new favorite podcasts, click here (coming soon)

Disclosure: Links to Amazon.com and related companies are affiliate links that earn for eligible purchases at no additional cost to you.