GeriPal • Communications Planning/Support
With a loyal, dedicated following since it debuted in 2016, the GeriPal podcast is produced and hosted by Alex Smith, MD, and Eric Widera, MD, geriatricians and palliative care specialists in the Division of Geriatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. After receiving a three-year grant (2019-2021) from Archstone Foundation, Drs. Smith and Widera sought to expand listenership to broader areas of healthcare and implement a sustainability plan, with a goal of funding $30,000 of the podcast’s annual $65,000 operating budget.
Our Role
GeriPal engaged SCP to expand its national visibility and grow its listenership base. As part of this work, SCP created a more cohesive look and feel for the brand and revamped the website. In addition, SCP undertook a limited national digital advertising campaign — creating banner ads, promoting GeriPal in podcast listening apps, and on host-read ads in four episodes of Curbsiders, a national podcast geared to internal medicine physicians. SCP also transitioned the podcast from a hosting platform specializing in music to one that specializes in podcasts, which included working with GeriPal’s audio producer to upload MP3 files to the new platform and ensuring the feed updated properly across all podcast listening platforms.
Impact
The advertising campaign ran in March and May, 2021. As you can see from the graph above, GeriPal’s listenership jumped 63%, growing from 2,573 (Feb 2021) to 4,188 (Aug 2021). Such growth helped to lift GeriPal from #110 to #5 in Apple Podcasts’ medicine category. Most of the gains in monthly downloads were sustained after the advertising campaign ceased. SCP’s work to revamp the website and update the GeriPal brand created a more sophisticated and integrated look and feel. SCP supported GeriPal’s need for a sustainability plan, helping construct and launch a crowdfunding campaign that raised $30,000, with plans to relaunch the campaign annually.
