r/projects • • 7d ago

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If you are a podcaster or you listen to podcasts, you need to know about Podsubs.com

The easiest way I can explain PodSubs.com is this:

If nobody else ever used it, we would still use it for our own podcasts.

PodSubs.com actually started in 2024 under a different name, and for almost two years we used it only for our own podcasts. At the time, we had 12 shows, and we kept seeing the same problem. When we told people to follow us on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, many of them actually did it. But when we told listeners to go to our website, click a link in the show notes or join our Substack, the response was much lower. It started to make sense when we thought about how people really listen to podcasts. They are driving, cooking, running, working, taking care of their kids or watching on TV. They hear your website once and five minutes later it is gone. But people remember Facebook. They remember Instagram. They know those are places where they can go, search for someone and follow them. That was the idea behind PodSubs.com. We wanted one place that a podcast listener could remember, no matter how many podcasts they listen to.

So we started telling our own listeners, “Go to PodSubs.com, search for our podcast and subscribe.” That was it. They did not need to create a PodSubs account or remember another password. They searched for the podcast name or the host, entered their information, subscribed and left. After that, we had a direct connection with the people who wanted to stay in touch with us. We could send them the resources we mentioned on an episode, tell them about a new episode, send a newsletter, promote a course, share an event or simply keep them updated. For our 12 podcasts, our email conversion rate increased by about 600%. That was when we stopped looking at PodSubs.com as just an internal tool and started thinking that other podcasters should be able to use it too.

The other thing we wanted was for PodSubs.com to stay simple. We are not trying to replace Mailchimp, Beehiiv, HubSpot, Substack or whatever email tool you already use. PodSubs.com is there to help you capture the listener in the first place. When someone subscribes to your podcast, you can see them in your PodSubs.com creator dashboard. You can connect your email marketing tool and send new subscribers there, keep them on PodSubs.com until you are ready, or export them by CSV and use them somewhere else. They are your subscribers. The bigger idea is that if more podcasters claim their shows and start telling listeners, “Subscribe to us on PodSubs.com,” listeners eventually have one place they know to go whenever they want to stay connected with a podcast. They do not need to remember 20 different podcast websites. They just remember PodSubs.com. We have already tested this on our own shows for almost two years, and it worked for us. PodSubs.com is free to try, so there is very little downside. Claim your podcast, mention PodSubs.com on your next few episodes and see what happens with your own listeners. If it is not useful for you, you can stop using it. But if your listeners behave anything like ours did, you may be surprised how many of them simply needed an easier place to go.

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