Change Your Podcast Host Provider (Without Losing Your Audience)

0:02
If you have a podcast, you need a podcast host provider, and they’re not all created equal. The provider you start with may be exactly what you need in the beginning. But you may need to swap podcast host providers as the needs for your podcasts change. So how do you make this switch as seamless as possible? And what are some common mistakes podcasters make during this transition? Radio man? What podcast are they listening to? Podcast Your Business!

0:36
Hello, welcome to Podcast Your Business, everyone. I’m Sunny Gault. I’m a podcast coach. I’m a mentor. I’ve been podcasting for 16 years now. I’m also the founder and CEO of Independent Podcast Network. And I am here to help you create amazing podcasts specifically for your business. And we do this by mastering the Five P’s of podcasting. Pretty soon you guys are going to know these five P’s by heart. So the Five P’s of podcasting. This is something I teach in my online course, it’s called how to launch your profitable podcast in 30 days. And all of the modules are divided according to the five P’s. Let’s run through these. It’s prep, plan, produce, promote, and profit prep, should you even start a podcast? Have you done your research? Plan? What is the look and feel for your show? Produce? How do you create amazing content? Promote? How do you tell everyone about it? And profit? How do you make that money? Mr. radio man, what are we talking about today? Plan. So this falls under planning for your podcast. But if I were to add a sixth p for the piece of podcasting, it might be pivot. Because so often with your podcast, you start going in one direction, and then you’re like, Oh, I gotta pivot. Gotta go in another direction. And so today when we’re talking about how to change your podcast host provider, that insinuates that you have one to begin with. And that’s really where the planning comes in, right. And so here’s what we’re going to talk about. Today, we’re going to discuss what a podcast host provider is and what they do, we’re going to share some common reasons people switch podcast host providers, we’re going to talk about the process for switching because a lot of people get really scared about this. But it’s actually very simple process. So we’re going to demystify the process of switching podcast host providers, we’re going to share with you the do’s and don’ts when switching because we don’t want you to lose your audience. Don’t lose your audience. And then at the end, I’m going to tell you a little bit more about our preferred podcast host provider. It’s called Megaphone, and you can get some really great rates through our podcast network. And I did this blog post where I basically did a whole tutorial on how to use Megaphone and took people behind the scenes of how to use it. I have different blog posts that talk about some of the benefits and stuff. So I am going to link to that. And I will share more information with you. At the end of today’s episode. We’ll get started right after this quick break.

3:18
So the best way to change podcast host providers, I know some of you are thinking that that is a complete oxymoron. There’s no good way to change podcast host providers, you’re thinking, Okay, well, I do this all the time with podcaster. So I’ve got a lot of experience with this, I come across a lot of people who are unhappy with the original provider that they chose. And part of my job is to make sure they find the right podcast host provider. And it’s just scary. It’s scary, because they’re scared, something’s gonna go wrong. And quite frankly, a lot of people end up staying with their current provider, just because it’s comfortable. Now, if you’ve been on this planet, for any length of time, you know that just staying in your comfort zone is not usually the best thing for you how many people in their business would admit that they stayed in their comfort zone the whole time and their business just fell in their lap and they made all this money? No, your business was successful because you grew and you learn stuff. And then you apply that knowledge so that you could get better and better. It’s the same thing with changing your podcast host provider because each of these providers offer something a little bit different. So let’s go ahead and let’s just dive into this now. Do you need a podcast host provider as part of the planning process of the very beginning right? Well, this should be a no brainer. Of course you do. Now I will say some people try to use WordPress Squarespace, whatever your website host provider is. That is a big no no. Will you save some bucks? Maybe depends on which podcast host provider you go with. But it’s not going to give you the stats, and the analytics and some of the other features we’re going to talk about today. So do me a favor, and don’t do that. Plus, if you have everything on WordPress or SquareSpace, then it is much more difficult to redirect your feed. Okay, so if you want to transfer to a legit podcast host provider, at some point, I’ve had to do that as well, it is not easy, they do not make that easy for you. However, transferring from one podcast host provider to another, a legitimate, classified podcast host provider is simple. And we’re gonna talk about how to do that today.

5:44
Okay, so yes, you do need a podcast host provider, they give you your RSS feed stands for Real Simple Syndication, it is the way that Apple podcast and Spotify and all these places are able to receive your episodes. So when you create an account with these places, they’re going to ask you for some information about your podcast, the name, the description, all that good stuff, whatever categories you want to be part of. But the main thing is your RSS feed. It’s simply a link. That’s all it is, that exists on the server of your podcast host provider, but it is pulling that information. So you just make your changes and your uploads and all that good stuff to your podcast host provider. And then it goes out to all of these different sites, right. So it provides you with distribution. I mentioned this earlier, but your podcast host provider provides you with some great stats, at least most of them do. Some are better than others. But I guarantee that your website host provider is not going to give you what you need. And depending on which platform you go with, they give you some other really cool podcasting tools. Some of them help distribute your show to different locations, so you don’t have to set up separate accounts. Others offer incentives for advertising, some podcast host providers will find advertising for you kinda gotta be careful with that. We’ll do an episode on that another time. But these are some of the reasons why you need a podcast host provider.

7:10
Why switch? Well, most people switch because they didn’t do their homework. Most people are like, I want to save money. So I’m gonna go with the free podcast host provider out there. There’s a few I think, at least at this point, the time of this recording, let me tell you free isn’t always better. You know, have you ever taken advantage of something free for your business? Oh, free logo free this? Yeah, it’s free for a reason, right? They’re usually trying to upsell you and do something else or whatever. It’s the same thing with podcasts provider. So I’m not a big advocate of free, I would rather pay a little bit of money and know exactly what I’m getting, and not have my podcast full of ads, because that’s another thing. They try to do some of these free platforms, they’ll stuff a bunch of ads in your show, and not even ask you about it. They just kind of assumed that you’re okay with it, because they’re giving you the platform for free. So don’t mess with that stuff. All right. But these are some of the reasons that people people switches. They didn’t know this in the beginning. And then they listened to their podcast, and I’m like, why are all these ads on my show? Another reason that people switch is because your needs are going to change. You need better stats and analytics. You need IAB, which stands for Interactive Advertising Bureau. You need the podcast to be IAB compliant. Maybe you’re selling advertising. And IAB has standards for how they count a download or an impression. So in order to get a certain advertiser, they say, hey, you need to be with a podcast host provider that’s IAB certified. That’s a real thing.

8:46
So what is the process of switching podcast host providers? What has people shaking in their boots about the whole thing? Well, first of all, no reason to shaking your boots, this has become much more simplified over the years. The first thing I would say is if you’re going to switch, start 30 days in advance, don’t think you’re gonna make the switch overnight, everything’s gonna be hunky dory. So start at least 30 days in advance, and your current podcast host provider may require that I know on our network, I say I need in writing 30 days in advance because I know that it’s going to take a while for this process to complete. Not that it takes a while on my end to help podcasters switch to a different provider. But it’s just the nature of redirecting feeds. You know, it takes a while for all the little what do they call the bots and all that stuff on the internet to be like, okay, don’t go to this RSS feed, go to this one instead. That just takes a little bit of time and there’s nothing you can do about it. So start at least 30 days in advance. Also determine who your new podcast host provider is before you say anything to anyone. Do your due diligence, read tutorials, go on YouTube, watch videos, do all that kind of stuff. Because the first thing that you’re going to have to do is open up a new account with your new podcast host provider because you need them to give you a new RSS feed. Next, you are going to take your old RSS feed and import the content into your new podcast host provider through your old feed. Usually you can just copy your RSS feed and put it somewhere and your new podcast host provider somewhere in your account. And you can verify with them exactly what to do. A lot of them have step by step instructions for this now, so it’s a lot more simple than it used to be. But you put it in there. And then through that RSS feed because it has all of your episodes and your descriptions, and your titles and your artwork and everything already in it. It will migrate your show practically for you. Now, I will say sometimes I have problems transferring podcasts if the original files were not uploaded as mp3 E’s. Most podcast host providers require the files to be mp3. But this is where it’s tough. If you came from like a WordPress site, or Squarespace or something, they’ll let you upload whatever you want. And that does not play nice with other podcast host providers. That’s the process though you’re going to import through your current RSS feed, you don’t have to re upload everything all over again, I think that’s another misconception. It literally comes from your current feed, and you import it into your new podcast host provider. And then the second part of that, and this is kind of the final step in the process. But it’s super important. And by the way, you want to do all these steps very quickly. Because it’s this last step that takes the most amount of time, you need to go to wherever your old podcast host provider is you need to go on their site, you need to tell them to redirect your old feed to your new feed. So they’re going to need to know your new RSS feed with your new podcast host provider before they can complete that process for you.

12:01
And finally, let’s talk a little bit about the do’s and the don’ts. Don’t worry about your stats from your old podcast host provider because statistics do not transfer over. So I know you were really proud that that one month you got X amount of downloads, and you know you printed it off and put it on your wall. There’s nothing wrong with that, okay, but none of those stats are going to transfer over. So my recommendation is to take screenshots of anything you feel like you need anything you want to frame. Or if you just want to know how certain episodes perform, so you know what type of episodes to do in the future. Just take screenshots of all of that. But don’t worry about those stats. Because if you’re working with advertisers, which is really what you need the stats for, they’re really just looking at the last 30 to 60 days of downloads, so you don’t need everything from the very beginning. Next, do switch right after you release an episode because it allows you more time to get to know your new podcast host provider. Because once you make that final switch, where you tell your old podcast host provider to pull from your new RSS feed. From that moment on, you have to use your new podcast host provider. So you need a little bit of time, it’s like a first date, you’d need a little bit of time to get to know each other, know how to upload episodes, know how the dashboard works and all that good stuff. So do it right after you release an episode to give you more time, do swap out links and embed codes as quickly as possible. Those links and embed codes from your old podcast host provider will stay active for as long as you have that old account. However, nothing is going to be tracked unless you continuously sign into that account. But those old links those old embed codes are not going to pull from your new podcast host provider. Because all of that is tracked on the server for your old provider. So swap out those links and embed codes as quickly as possible. And finally, leave your old account open for 30 days. This gives you time to swap out the links and the embed codes and for the whole transfer process to kind of settle on the internet. It’s just a precaution just in case anything goes wrong.

14:16
If you’re looking for a new podcast host provider you should consider using Megaphone. Megaphone is our preferred podcast host provider. How many times can I say podcast host provider in a single podcast episode seriously that we love Megaphone. I’ve been using them with my own podcast for several years now. And I have a blog post I want you guys to check out it’s called Megaphone getting started with your podcast. And it’s actually multiple posts in one. It basically breaks down the different elements you’ll find inside your Megaphone dashboard and talks about how you can use all of these and how it can help grow and enhance your podcast. So check that out if you want more information and even for me to do a personal walkthrough and talk to you a little bit more about how a Megaphone could be a good fit for you reach out to me through the website for our podcast network it’s https://independentpodcast.network. Until next week, remember….. You should start a podcast!