Bad Podcast Pitches

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I received a pitch via LinkedIn promising massive Apple Podcasts downloads, top chart rankings, and hundreds of five-star reviews. It seemed too good to be true, so I decided to reply to see what was going on.

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I inquired about how keyword research and "IPs" could foster real, long-term growth but received vague responses, which made me worry about possible chart manipulation and fake downloads. I explain why I'm protective of my shows and the risks of being removed from directories.

Here’s the twist: I’m planning to accept a three-day free trial to test their claims—no payment and full monitoring—so we can all see what happens. I outline my hypothesis, what success looks like, and how I will report on whether this approach leads to lasting impact or only temporary spikes.

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(00:00) Opening: Bad Podcast Pitches and todays setup

(01:17) I replied and received a response

(01:44) Will this really grow an audience?

(05:13) Protecting shows from chart-gaming schemes

(06:14) The twist: agreeing to a three-day trial

(07:04) Coordinating with hosting and safeguarding stats

[00:00:00] Bryan Entzminger:

I am a professional and expert Apple Podcast promote.   This pitch comes to us from LinkedIn.   This is Bad Podcast Pitches. I'm Bryan Entzminger. This is a show where we look at some of the bad pitches   that podcasters,   podcast editors, podcast producers,   people involved in this space receive. We're gonna take a look at them. This is not a name and shame show, so I'm not gonna share with you who sent this pitch. But we are gonna take a look through at at the pitch. And then I have a little bit of a twist for you at the end.   So this one starts out with, I am a professional and experts   Apple Podcasts promote.  

Then it goes on, valuable Apple valuable Apple Podcasts promotion service.   600,000   plus   Apple podcast episode download monthly.   I want to help your podcast get Apple all category top chat rank,   one through 10 all category chat rank all of the time.   300 plus review ratings, five star monthly.   Please ask me questions to learn more about my services.   So that's the pitch that I received. If you've listened to some of the previous episodes, you know some of the things that stand out to me that are problematic. So I'm not necessarily gonna go through those here because I did something   here that I think is gonna be interesting.  

I replied and I got a response.   So my reply back to this person was,   tell me more about what you do and how I can know it'll make a long term impact for my show.   Because as a podcaster,   what we want to know is that if we're gonna put some money and some effort into marketing   or promoting our show, that it's not only gonna give us a benefit right now, but that that benefit has the potential to be a long term impact.   So the response I received back was, I will promote your podcast by doing keyword research across many social media and websites.   As a result, the pop the popularity of your podcast will increase.  

And then this person sent a couple of links to some Google sites to take a look at some screenshotted,   conversations,   which I did. I took a look at those links because I wanted to find out a little bit more. But then also this message continued.   I have promoted podcasts for many clients in the past, and they have been very happy with my work. I hope you will be happy with my work too. Let's start working together. If you have any questions about my work, be sure to ask me. I am always ready to answer your questions.   So I responded to that because I read through that and I said, okay. Well,   in my mind, if I'm the podcaster, how is this gonna help me? So my response was,   can you share how keyword research will grow my show? It seems like there has to be more than just research.  

And then the response to that was, I do keyword research, ad marketing, and share your podcast very on various media. As a real result, you are very good. I am ready to work on your podcast free trial for three days. If you are happy with my results, please give me a monthly contract.   And then as I was looking through some of the threads that he sent, I noticed something that stood out. So then I asked a question.   I said,   in one of the message threads on your website, there was a reference to money needed to add some IPs.   What are the IPs all about? Now in my mind, I'm thinking IP addresses. Right? But I don't know. So I I thought I would ask. And the response was,   IP refers to different individuals,   like different people listening to and downloading your podcast.  

And so I responded, so paying per individual.   And the response was no.   So then that didn't help much. So I responded back and said, if there's a cost for more IPs, individuals, it sounds like there's some kind of payment per person. Can you help me clear up what I've misunderstood?   And then the response was   click   where did it go?   It's disappeared.   He sent a couple of images. There we go. And he sent the conversation I was asking about, and it was something about a person named Mick. I have no idea who that is.   And I I guess the name's probably relevant but irrelevant. But I didn't know who that person was, and I didn't know anything about the show. So,   he said he responded back and said, no different costs for each IP. I would put this person in the top rank of all categories.  

And I responded,   maybe I assumed incorrectly that IP equals individual   listeners.   Is it something else?   And he responded, yes. I said, okay. I'm interested in knowing more because I might have misunderstood.   And then he said, IP   refers to different audiences, people who will listen to and download your podcast. So I'm gonna pause here for just a minute.   Maybe there's a language issue here, but it seems to me like there's not a lot of   reality behind this. If IP is a different person   or a different audience, I don't know. And then this is not apparently a paper download type thing. I I don't understand.   But I said you know, I responded and said, yeah.  

Okay. And they cost different amounts of money. That was my question. And the response back was, I've been working with him for a long time.   And then   the response to my question was, no. They don't cause some fallout. And it talked again about putting this person in the top. I said, okay. This isn't making sense. Here's the deal. And this is kind of the crux of my   conversation here. I'm very protective of my shows because I know I know there were people getting kicked out of Apple Podcasts and others over the years   because they or someone else on their behalf   were gaming the charts using download schemes. I'm trying to make sure that this isn't that, and my confidence is pretty low right now.  

He responded back and said, I've been working with many clients for a long time. My work results are very good. I always provide my clients with real and organic results, so no client I I work with has a problem with podcasts. And then he sends a bunch of links and screenshots again, which is fine. And then continuing, I work for many clients,   which show is in the two links above. All of my clients are very happy working with me. I hope that you'll be happy with the results of my work. And I should point out that these screenshots are,   some pretty big name shows. I'm not gonna name them. I don't know if this is for real or not.  

So I I don't wanna put those names out there. But this is   he he's asking for the opportunity to do this. And so this is where the twist comes in. I'm gonna go ahead and publish this episode, but I'm gonna I'm not gonna tie a bow on it. Because my plan is to reach back out and allow for that three day trial because I wanna see. I wanna see what it does, and I wanna see if it's gonna give me a long term impact.   I have my   expectations sort of thinking about the scientific method. I have a hypothesis of what I think is going on and what I think will happen.   But now I wanna test it. I'm gonna sort of put my, well, my mouth where his money is because I'm not gonna pay for something. This would be a free trial only. But if you're interested in finding out more about this, make sure that you subscribe to the show at bad cause at badpodcastpitches.com   so that when that next episode comes out and I have sort of a debrief of what happened, assuming I can get him to go through with this, then you'll understand what I was talking about. And we'll see if I was right, see if I was wrong, see what we can learn from this. And I should also mention that I have reached out to the the media hosting company that I'm working with, Podholm, to ask them to let me know if they see anything that looks really, really weird in my stats so that I can understand if it if this has the potential to create an issue for me in some of the, well, in Apple, really.  

For this show, I'm not super worried about if bad podcast pitches get gets kicked out of Apple Podcasts because this is not intended to be a big show. But if you're thinking about this,   I wanna make sure that I give you the information so that you don't get your show kicked out. And I just wanna test it. So that's where we are. I'm Bryan Entzminger. This is Bad Podcast Pitches. If you like this show, I'd ask you to share it with somebody else. If you found it valuable or you know somebody who's considering this, maybe send them this specific episode. Just send it to them as a text message or an email or something like that, however they would best get it. And then that way, when I finish my test, they have a chance to see if they might wanna be interested. With that, I'm signing off. This is Bryan Entzminger. Bad podcast pitches.