Which podcast to guest in? Listen Notes is a useful tool for finding podcasts that can help you or your client get noticed
By Jim James, Founder EASTWEST PR and Host of The UnNoticed Entrepreneur.
Today, I’m going to ask you: How would you know which podcast to pitch to?
This is a topic that’s been coming up more and more in the public relations or PR world because podcasts are taking over more and more space for clients to get noticed. Some publishers have podcasts and many companies are now thinking to launch podcasts. And so could you because as I’m finding, it’s a very low-cost and engaging way to get your message out. But it does have some work to be done.
In the latest episode of The UnNoticed Entrepreneur, I talked about a tool called Listen Notes. It’s a great platform where you can do research into podcasts and, also, where you can post and list your own podcast. During the episode, I discussed how you can find out which podcast platform you should be on.
Listen Notes’ Key Metrics
Listen Notes was started by Wenbin Fang in America. It has listed over 124 million episodes as of writing and it’s for listeners, podcasters, and businesses.
Image from Listen Notes (Data as of January 17, 2022)
If you’re a listener, the platform gives you the ability to curate a list. The podcasts there are listed by category. Normally, if you look at Spotify or Apple podcasts, you can get the basic level of information. But on Listen Notes, you can search the whole directory. It’s much quicker and efficient than doing it on the said apps on your phone or desktop.
The platform also gives you a couple of metrics and this is where it gets exciting.
The two key metrics are the listener score and the global rank. The listener score is a metric that shows the estimated popularity of a podcast compared to other Really Simple Syndication (RSS)-based public podcasts. On a scale of 1 to 100, it will tell you which one is going to be most popular, with 1 being the least popular and 100 being the most.
The global rank, on the other hand, shows you how a podcast is positioned out of all the podcasts worldwide. Listen Notes currently has 2.756 million podcast shows out there and the global rank metric ranks these.
These metrics are important because if you’re a podcaster yourself as I am, you can see where you’re ranked. My podcast, The UnNoticed Entrepreneur, has a listener score of 32 and a global ranking in the top 5% and I’m quite happy with that.
If you’re also looking at doing PR for you or for a client, you can also go into the listener score and find out which among these podcasts that you like are going to be the most relevant and have the greatest reach.
How I Used Listen Notes for a Telecom Client
I’ve recently done this for a telecommunications client and I found the Top 100 telco podcasts. One of the things that I discovered was that almost all of them come from America, one from the UK. There are also some Spanish-language podcasts from Spain and a Portuguese one.
I found over a hundred podcasts and when I applied filters (i.e. anybody that has had a podcast episode in the last month, has over 10 episodes, and has been publishing podcasts for more than 12 months), the number went down to about 40. I chose the Top 25 becuase I want to pitch just the best of telco podcasts.
Image from Unsplash
Looking at that list, WIRED, the podcast in the top rank has a global ranking of 3% and a listener score of 36. It has some 291 episodes.
There’s also a podcast called Andy & John Talk Telecom, which is in the top 5% and has a listener score of 32 like mine. While I’ve already issued some 400 episodes, that podcast has only 30 episodes. Telecoms.com, which is publishing out of London, has a 5% global rank and listener score of 34 with about 219 episodes.
This list shows a couple of things. WIRED is highly ranked (they have a good listener score and a good episode count), but it’s not strictly speaking about telecommunications. So you can write that out of the equation because they’re dealing with all things tech and culture. But if I look for Telecoms.com, for instance, which is published by Informa, it has 219 episodes, a listener score of 34, and a ranking of top 5%. Based on that, it’s going to be one of the podcasts that I want my client to go for.
In the list, there’s also a podcast called Coffee with Craig and James. It’s in the top 5% and has a listener score of 32 and 110 episodes. Telecom Reseller is in the global 10% with 444 episodes but the listening score is 28.
Keep in mind that there’s no direct correlation between global ranking, listener score, and episode count. So you’d want to be looking at these lists, deciding which criteria are the most important.
Exporting Data from Listen Notes
For my client, I exported the Top 25 telco shows in the last 12 months that have done over 10 episodes and shared in the last 30 days. It has given me a really good way of shortlisting the podcasts that I want my telco client to be talking in.
It’s free to sign up to Listen Notes. But if you want to export data that you found, you can pay according to the dataset. In order to pay, what you need to do is to pay for a membership fee (there’s a two-day membership that you can have which is about $10 a day). If you become a member for that two days, you can export the dataset that you need. I’ve exported both the Top 25 and Top100 telco podcasts and downloaded those.
When you go to data fields, you can choose basic fields about the podcast such as title, publisher, and description. You can also start to pay for value-added fields such as email, Twitter, Facebook, and Spotify. Then, you’ll have more data and ID fields.
But why is this important? Trying to rank these podcasts is one thing. However, you’d also want to be able to follow them and reach out to them.
I spent $15 in addition to the $10-a-day membership to purchase the Top 25 telco podcasts dataset that contains their email addresses. I can also see Twitter and Facebook handles and if they’re on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Spotify, I can also find them.
Image from Unsplash
This is very useful because now, in effect, I got myself a media list.
As I’ve mentioned, Listen Notes literally has millions of podcasts online. You can search by category, by region, by language, by the total number of podcast episodes, by hosting service, or by the latest episode publishing date. You can sort those in no particular order, by the latest publishing dates, by the number of total episodes, or by the listener score.
One of the aspects that I really like about this is that if you buy one dataset and download it, you can have the same data criteria searched in the platform and exclude the podcasts that you’ve already downloaded so you don’t get charged twice. It’s a very nice and considerate feature of Listen Notes.
You can also create a playlist and export it. You can choose to export them through to IDS like the iTunes ID.
One of the Best Directories for Searching Podcasts
The great thing about Listen Notes is that it’s enabling people like you and me to find very quick and profiled data of over 2.756 million podcasts, including the data fields that they import when they load and distribute podcasts like mine.
From a practical point of view, this is going to be really helpful. I can tell you because I’m already using it.
When I exported my data, I was charged between $10 to $40. The platform tells you, in real-time, how much you’re going to be charged when you make a dataset and choose the fields. You’ll also then get a CSV file that you can download from your browser or you can upload from your email.
I consider Listen Notes as one of the best directories for finding podcasts that you want to listen to, or in my case, to look for podcasts for clients or for my upcoming book.
I really recommend this tool because it’s very quick, easy, and flexible. For example, you can subscribe for two days, get the data that you need, then unsubscribe. It even has an auto date set so you won’t have to worry about finding how to unsubscribe.
I also appreciate how their team has managed the ease of use and the way that you can load and download your information. Wenbin, who’s the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Listen Notes, even has some guidance for anyone who’s a podcaster on how to improve their positioning.
If you’re looking at podcasting for your own business, using Listen Notes to do some research is something that you should absolutely think about. If you’re looking at it for a client, it’s also a good resource for you to find the information that you need. Download it, import that to your customer relations management (CRM) tool, then direct mail all of those podcasters at once or one at a time.
Through The UnNoticed Entrepreneur podcast, I love to find tools and tips that you can use to get noticed. In the case of my recent episode, it’s a podcast-focused one.
This article is based on a transcript from my podcast The UnNoticed Entrepreneur, you can listen here.
Cover image by ConvertKit on Unsplash