I think I finally found something that is working to get myself higher listenership.

I'm posting this because I know that a lot of people in here are at a complete and total loss for how to increase their listenership numbers, and this is just an idea that has worked for me so far. I'm not trying to sell anything. I tried this with my first podcast, but that was somewhere around Feb 2020, and the pandemic finished off that project before I could get the pends out to people, so I never got to see how well it would work.

I spent about $200 on 750 pens with nothing printed on them except my podcast's website. I wanted to make something people would actually want to keep and use instead of just throwing away a flyer or business card. Since the website is simply the podcast name with www. and .com, it's easy to see and remember.

I've mostly been giving them to front counters at music shops, theaters, and other creative spaces where pens are already needed. People are generally excited to get a free pen, so I'm not really asking them to take an advertisement as much as they're just getting something useful that happens to have my podcast's website on it.

I've only distributed a small number so far, but I've already noticed a significant increase in listens. I can't say for certain that the pens caused it, but the timing was interesting enough that I'm definitely going to keep experimenting with them. The biggest problem now is figuring out how to distribute 750 pens.

I never really cared about my numbers before, but I've had a lot of really amazing guests lately, and I want to keep getting new good ones, but I really feel bad about inviting them onto a show with such poor numbers, and each of my previous guests have seen an increase in their episode numbers since I started doing this.

Has anyone else tried anything like this and had success? If so, can you share your strategy and experience?