So, your branded-internal podcast is running, but no one listens? Or some employees are, but not as much as expected? That’s frustrating! But before you kill the whole podcast project, let us tell you: It takes time to build an audience.

There are a few things that you can experiment with besides giving it more time. This article lists five tips on how to get more employees to open and listen to episodes and turn the internal podcats into a company-wide success.

What is a good engagement rate for your internal podcast? It depends on the company size, company culture, and tool stack. But consider reaching 30% of your workforce a success! Don’t expect to cut through to all employees. Audio isn't everyone’s jam!

✍️ Your employee podcasts need great episode titles.

Your episode title has one job: Get people to listen to the episode. So experiment with your words. Create a title that employees can’t ignore. If you’re using “Episode 07 — Interview with the CEO” or “ACME Corp’s January Episode” or similar, don’t expect your listeners to jump up and down and be highly engaged. Try something like “The day I almost messed up” or “An overnight success ten years in the making”. Curious to read more about picking the right podcast name ? We got you.

🤩 Know your audience and build trust one episode at a time.

It doesn’t have to be a lot of guessing. Ask your employees for feedback. Why aren’t they listening? Are episodes too long? Where do they see value? What would they change? Get employees invested in the podcast and the content of each episode. You can also add a snippet within or at the end of each episode where you actively ask for feedback and provide them with your email address. Ultimately, it’s about creating relevant, useful, and fun audio stories that people love listening to. The other option is to start fresh. Relaunch your company-internal podcast with a new voice, a new theme, and a new host. It can help you build a better reputation with listeners and become the trusted source of inspiration you wanted from the beginning.

🍉 Make it relevant and provide real value for the time spent.

If you want people to do a thing (like listen to your podcast), you have to give them a reason to. Ask yourself: What’s in it for them? Is it relevant to all employees or just a specific team? What do they learn if they spend time listening to an episode? A podcast is conversational by nature, which is a powerful thing. But don’t go overboard with an interview. Keep it short (like 15 minutes or less). Optimize your employees’ time. If you recorded a wall of blah blah about a topic no one cares about, no one would want to invest their precious time. And if a conversation has to be longer, consider breaking it up into content blocks, adding chapters, and providing employees with timestamps to navigate through the chat.

⏰ Build a routine and drop new episodes regularly.

Humans love routines. Plan a bit to implement a corporate-internal podcast as a new channel. Think in seasons, bundle recordings, and polish a few episodes simultaneously so that you can announce and communicate your podcast with a publication frequency. Let’s say, “Join us bi-weekly,” or “New episodes drop every second Thursday.” Help your listeners build a habit of listening to your podcast. After a while, they will implement it into their routine and know when to expect a new episode. For example, Mette Thesbjerg Klint shared episodes every Friday. For some of Dansk Retursystem’s employees, the podcast became the pre-weekend snack. And it’s the same with your favorite public podcasts. You usually know when to listen to a new episode, right?

📣 Create internal marketing material to share for each episode.

Creating your employee podcast is one thing; doing internal marketing for it is another. Like in a consumer advertising campaign, surprise and charm your audience. It’s a task of persuasion, not information. So whatever channel(s) you will use to build a loyal listenership, be the signal, not the noise. Besides a Slack message or intranet post announcing a new episode, send snail mail, use a town hall event, include it in internal newsletters, or talk about it in meetings. And it’s always a good idea to write catchy copy, create compelling audiograms, invest in a bold podcast cover artwork , and share quotes or outtakes from an episode that nudge employees into clicking, opening, and listening to your internal company podcast.

Do you track your podcast at all? If not, we’re happy to show you how. Switch to Pager, and get the data needed to improve your private podcast. Here’s a quick breakdown of what you can measure using Pager :

▶️ Number of starts and streams

✔️ Completion rate

☀️ Starts by time of day

📱 Device data

📍 Countries

💻 Browsers

Try Pager for free , or contact our co-founder Simon for a personalized demo of Pager today.