How Mozilla’s new podcast got 1 million downloads in its first 7-episode season
Launching a podcast can be a dark art. There’s no shortage of rumours, snake oil, and just plain bad information out there about how to launch a new show.
At Pacific Content, we worked with the non-profit Mozilla to develop and launch their new podcast IRL: Because Online Life Is Real Life. It was one of the best-executed show launches we’ve ever seen, and it’s proof that brands who think like media companies have an unfair advantage in the podcast space.
Mozilla is an organization built on openness and transparency. So in that spirit, we’re sharing 10 lessons we learned by launching IRL. Because producing a great show is only the first step. Then comes distribution, promotion, and building an audience. It’s hard work, but it can make all the difference.
1. Be creatively brave
Podcast listeners are spoiled for choice. Apple lists more than 400,000 podcasts and more than 14 million episodes in their directory. New shows are added every day, and podcast discovery is widely cited as one of the industry’s largest challenges.
To cut through the clutter, noise, and mediocrity, a new podcast needs to be creatively brave. For brands, that means making audience-focused shows that people actually want to listen to and share.
Some helpful questions to check if your show passes the sniff test:
- “Honestly… is this show boring?”
- “Does it sound like a brochure?”
- “Is this podcast full of our company’s own spokespeople or in-house experts?”
- “Would I listen to this if I didn’t work here?”
Candid answers to these questions will tell you a lot about your show’s chances of gaining traction outside your own company or community.
Remember, podcasts compete for the scarcest resources available: listeners’ time and attention. High-quality, creatively brave shows have the best chance of cutting through.
2. Set a bold goal
When Mozilla decided to create their own original podcast series, IRL, they set an internal goal: 250,000 downloads by the end of the first 7-episode season.
IRL blew way past Mozilla’s original expectations with more than 1,000,000 downloads, a growing subscriber base, and glowing listener reviews.
Set bold goals at both the season and episode-levels. They’ll help you benchmark against yourself. Some things to consider when setting audience targets:
- The reach of your existing owned channels (social accounts, newsletters, etc.)
- Your marketing and promotion budget
- Host star power
If, like Mozilla, you exceed your initial goals… celebrate, then set loftier targets.
3. Find a great host
“We started thinking about hosts even before we started working on episodic content because we knew how important finding the right voice for our show was going to be,” explains Michaela Smiley, Sr. Brand Strategist and Project Lead for IRL at Mozilla.
When Pacific Content first met with Mozilla, we agreed that IRL needed a host with both credibility and the ability to translate complex technical subjects into plain English. The host search led to Veronica Belmont, an experienced podcaster, startup advisor, and product manager.
“Veronica was our top choice, being someone who is extremely knowledgeable about technology issues, and also someone who has a natural approachability factor for a consumer audience.”
Plus, Veronica brings her own large online audience, with more than 1.75 million Twitter followers, and a YouTube channel with more than a million views. Not only was Veronica an excellent choice editorially, but her built-in audience and name recognition were also big assets when pitching the show to podcast directory curators like Pocket Casts and RadioPublic.
Remember: a well-chosen host can unlock podcast promo opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t be available.
4. Clearly define your target
IRL looks at the health of the internet through a human lens, and the show is designed to reach people Mozilla calls Conscious Choosers:
Mozilla’s target consumer audience is community-minded, driven by their personal values to take action, and these values influence the products and services they use, the purchases they make and organizations they support.
IRL is designed to be an accessible means for non-technical listeners to engage in the health of the internet — an issue that impacts everyone.
“Sometimes we compare ourselves to early environmentalists in the 1960s,” explains Smiley. “People didn’t know what climate change was in the 60s, but that movement has been largely successful because citizens have been equipped with the knowledge and empowerment to join it. The Internet is at a tipping point. It could grow weaker with apathy or stronger with support. And, we can’t do it alone.”
Know who you want to reach. It’s the only way to be smart about your marketing efforts.
5. Invest in paid podcast promo
Edison Research says 24% of Americans 12+ have listened to a podcast in the last month. How can you tell those existing listeners about your new show? Buy tune-in style ads on other podcasts.
To promote IRL, Mozilla ran paid promo spots in a number of other shows, all aligned with the desired Conscious Chooser audience:
Frankly, it can be difficult to measure the effectiveness of tune-in podcast ads. Podcasts are a sonic medium, and CTAs typically sound like “listen to us on Apple Podcasts… or wherever you get you podcasts” — which makes direct attribution almost impossible.
Still, at Pacific Content, we’ve seen paid podcast promo significantly correlate with growth in both subscribers and downloads. Make paid promo part of your launch budget.
6. Engage your social channels
“Mozilla is a non-profit, and because of this, our fanbase is quite passionate,” Smiley says. This passionate fanbase has helped to spread the word about IRL.
“In addition to social network followers, we also have a community of social media champions all over the world who we work with regularly,” she explains. “We have about 1,000 employees at Mozilla, and about 10,000 volunteers. These volunteers not only contribute code to Firefox, but also participate in our advocacy and marketing initiatives — including social media campaigns — which has really benefited our IRL podcast.”
Much has been made of the idea that audio doesn’t go viral. But Mozilla works hard to reduce friction for the sharing podcast episodes by fans.
“We make it really easy to share episode content from our website. Beyond a clean UX, IRLPodcast.org has uncomplicated metadata — from pre-populated images to titles to descriptions — so that when listeners share episodes on their social platforms from our site, the path back to our site is intuitive for their followers.”
Podcasts are a medium based on loyalty. Make it dead simple for your most passionate fans to become word-of-mouth advocates for your show.
7. Don’t forget about the power of email
To promote IRL by email, Mozilla has two different strategies. The first is a traditional email newsletter that delivers occasional updates about the show and related content.
Mozilla’s second email strategy is a user journey.
“We’re currently experimenting with an email journey that takes subscribers through all of our episodes. And, because our episodes aren’t serialized, we are able to look at how order and email content impact engagement and listenership,” Smiley says.
This customer journey may eventually extend beyond IRL, into Mozilla’s browser product, Firefox.
“For example, could IRL actually become an introduction to Mozilla when somebody decides that they want to use our product? How would this impact product retention? These are questions we’re currently exploring.”
An email newsletter can be effective when launching a new show. And existing social channels are an important part of any launch strategy. But the biggest difference comes when you…
8. Use your superpower
Successful podcasts have unique promo superpowers.
Mozilla’s superpower is the front page of Firefox.
Mozilla uses an in-product communications system called Snippets to communicate with Firefox users.
Leading up to the series launch, and for each new episode release, Mozilla used the Firefox front page to tell people about IRL. On desktop, these links point directly to the IRL website. On mobile, link traffic is spit between the IRL site and RadioPublic, a cross-platform podcast app built on the open web.
An episode-focused Snippet can drive tens of thousands of clicks.
For Mozilla, it’s about using all the tools in their toolbelt. Smiley says, “We are utilizing one of our greatest resources as a product-making company… which is Firefox.”
At Pacific Content, we’ve seen several examples of brands promoting their podcast within their own product. Shopify used its product dashboard to promote TGIM. Tinder built deep integration between their iOS app and DTR’s listing in Apple Podcasts.
Some brands are reluctant to use their product to promote their podcast. Have the courage to use your superpower.
Remember: a high-quality branded series is designed to be loved. There’s no shame in shouting about it from the rooftops.
9. Don’t stop at launch
Many podcasts focus all their promotional energy at launch, then hope the resulting momentum will carry them forward.
Smart podcasters realize that each new episode is a brand new opportunity to create a tailored marketing campaign.
IRL episodes each focus on a different topic, and therefore, each episode can stand alone. According to Smiley, that’s an advantage:
“Each episode brings unique value, so we’ve been able to be super thoughtful about the audiences that might be interested in a security-related episode versus a digital inclusion-related episode. We’ve customized marketing strategies and approaches to reach new audiences in different ways based on each episode’s content.”
Once the episode is recorded, mixed, and published, the job becomes telling the world about it.
The IRL team in Mozilla’s Marketing orgnization has taken a page from their software developer colleagues, and they’ve applied it to producing and distributing the IRL podcast.
“We at Mozilla operate with Agile principles. A part of Agile is experimentation, seeing what’s working, cutting what’s not, and doing more of what is. With this, each podcast episode gives us a new opportunity to be iterative for growth.”
Successful podcasts experiment, measure, learn, and change in production and marketing approaches. Do more of what works, and less of what doesn’t.
10. Develop a new mindset
For Mozilla, making a podcast means re-thinking how audiences engage with their brand.
At their best, original podcasts from brands don’t sound or feel like marketing at all. They’re authentic, engaging, and over time, help build a sense of loyalty.
This requires a new approach. Think audience-first, much like a traditional media company would.
“This is content, not content marketing,” Smiley says of IRL. “This is a show, not a blog post.”
Mozilla’s launch of IRL was one of the best-executed podcast debuts we’ve ever seen at Pacific Content. Working together, we continue to learn and iterate.
What other podcast launch tactics have you seen? How else can brands and organizations build their own podcast audiences, rather than renting others’?
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