True Crime/Paranormal/Comedy Podcast for all the sickos out there!

We have been best friends for several years, and we share a love for all the spooky things in life. We cover everything from true crime to paranormal-type subjects like ghosts and cryptids, all with an injection of dark humor and insight. Our listenership varies widely, with it consisting of 60% female within the 35-44 demographic. We have listeners throughout the world, but with the highest percentages of individuals in the United States, the UK, and Germany.
 

We were looking for a way to spread our love for all things spooky in a fun format. We listen to a lot of podcasts ourselves, and take a lot of inspiration from Last Podcast On The Left, Morbid, etc. We initially started our podcast as a fun hobby, but over the years it has taken its form as a business which we take very seriously. We started our podcast back in 2022 with an initial release of 3 episodes.
 

We release weekly as best as we can, though real life does take precedence sometimes. We can generally record a couple episodes during our recording days, and our producer can have the week's episode ready for distribution within a couple hours. While only one half of our duo currently works, time is easy to find as this is a passion project. The vast majority of our podcasting equipment was already owned by our producer who used to go to school for audio engineering, though we have invested some money into interfaces, pop filters, etc. The bulk of our spending goes toward marketing and advertising, with a large focus on social media apps like Facebook and TikTok. We also operate our own website and pay monthly for its usage. We fund everything ourselves, but we do receive funds from things such as a recent sponsorship and merchandise sales.
 

We absolutely do! We haven't received more than a couple dollars from it yet, but everybody has to begin somewhere! We received our first sponsorship through Facebook, and generated 10% commission off sales of the product. We had approximately 500 downloads per month when we secured this sponsorship. We try to find sponsors through Audacy Creator Lab, as well as reaching out to various out with proposals. We sit at approximately 700 monthly downloads now. We believe the podcast strongly benefits our relationship, gets us reading a lot more than we usually do, and educates us on my subject matters which we would not learn about otherwise.
 

We use an Audiobox interface and StudioOne for recording. We go against the grain just a tad and use condenser microphones as it is what we have available. We prepare each episode by doing extensive research for the topics we are covering. We also just have conversations during setup to ensure levels are where they need to be, as well as warm up to make the episode conversations more relaxed and not as rigid. We have had a few guest spots on our podcast, and we have primarily done this through Zoom or some other type of video conferencing app. We record the audio from the app and mix it into our editing software.
 

The majority of listeners find our show through Facebook, TikTok, and our website www.tooclosetohomepodcast.com. A smaller portion of our listeners come through podcast app impressions. Apple Podcasts appears to be the most popular app for listenership (at over 50%), followed by Spotify and Amazon. Social media has been our primary means of marketing, either through posting related to the podcast or newly released episodes, or advertising campaigns. Both have proven equally useful in maintaining and improving our listenership.
 

The biggest lesson we have learned is being consistent. As long as you keep releasing a quality product and have a regular schedule about it, the listenership will organically grow. Sometimes it is slow, sometimes it is fast, but it will definitely come.
 

We can be reached on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, BlueSky, and our personal website.
www.facebook.com/tooclosetohomepod
www.instagram.com/tooclosepodcast
www.tiktok.com/@tooclosetohomepodcast
@tooclosetohomepod.bsky.social
www.tooclosetohomepodcast.com
tooclosetohome@yahoo.com