Thread by @lindsayagraham

I've long said that in #podcasting, the only #podcastmarketing you should entertain is on other podcasts--feed drops, in particular. Yesterday, there was some contrarian Twitter discourse. I respect that; my experience in not universal. But I want to show you a chart. 1/5

Here is the complete download record of History Daily since its launch. I'm fortunate to have Noiser and Wondery backing my efforts, the latter gifting me 1MM impressions (thanks!) across their history and business shows. We launched with confidence! But that plateau... 2/5

But I had a plan for feed drops! After a fortuitous partial drop on American History Tellers on 1/3 (look at that hockey stick!), we began coordinating with other shows we liked. History Daily dropped on their feeds 1/29, 2/7 and 2/16. You can see the results. 3/5

Sure, there's a crash after each high, but the highs are really high! Percentage-wise, that first drop yielded a 40% increase in downloads. And the lows don't get that low. There's a definite upward trend that's holding. 4/5

So, anyway: for me, in my experience here and on other podcasts, feed drops are the first and sometimes only tool for audience growth. 5/5

Addendum, pasted from a buried thread:

There's a discussion around "what else must be going on" in growth like this. I hope the chart makes clear what feed drops did for us. All during that early plateau, we had $50k worth (if purchased retail) of midroll promotions running.

But why not explore those midrolls, too? Here's 1MM that ran across Wondery shows beginning at launch, 11/1. But guess what? Look at American History Tellers.

Not surprising that a history show I host would perform well for another history show I host. But which episode did best? The Jan. 5 episode, by far. By like 2X.

But! The first five minutes of that episode is an introduction and teaser from History Daily. It's a feed drop.