It’s time for podcasters to have growth tools. Meet Refer-O-Matic.

TLDR: Glow helps podcasters build their businesses. We do that by bringing modern tools to podcasting where they don’t exist yet. We started with memberships. Now, we’re dropping a tool for referrals. You can try it out here.

Nineteen months ago, we launched Glow to help podcasters make money by getting paid by their audiences. Today, we’re proud to facilitate payments from over 15,000 listeners and put that money in podcasters’ pockets.

Along the way, we’ve spoken to over 1000 podcasters. Almost every one of them asks the same question: can you help me grow my audience?

We hated saying no. So, last month, we decided to try something different and focused a sprint around audience growth. We decided to build Refer-O-Matic, a tool for growing podcasts through word-of-mouth — in a trackable way.

It’s simple: Listeners sign up, get a unique link to share with their friends, and earn rewards when they hit milestones for referrals.

Why referrals?

When our friends recommend something, we listen. That’s why — in a world full of ads — word-of-mouth stands out as a powerful driver of growth for all types of products. Referral programs supercharge that growth. Startups like Dropbox and Airbnb famously grew by 1000s of percent through early referral programs.

Referrals work for content too. When people see or hear something they love, they tell their friends about it. We were inspired by Morning Brew’s referral program, which helped them grow 15x.

We believe referrals can be especially powerful for podcasts. Word-of-mouth is already the number one way podcasts grow — and it’s how the podcast market will continue to grow. Among people who don’t listen to podcasts, a third of them say they don’t listen because there’s so many podcasts they don’t know where to start.

Referrals can help fix that.

So, we’re making Refer-O-Matic available to podcasters who want to experiment with the power of referrals to grow their podcast.

Refer-o-Matic is a drop by Glow. Use it to build your podcast’s referral program, and get started for just $20/month. Sign up here.

Let us know what you think. And, if there are other tools you wish existed to grow or monetize your podcast business and want to see in future drops, email us at hello[at]glow.fm