As the founder of award-winning media company Audiochuck and creator of #1 true crime podcast Crime Junkie, Ashley Flowers built one of the most passionate audiences in podcasting. Fans who don’t just listen, but actively engage, theorize, and respond to every episode.
As her brand scales and her audience grows, maintaining that same level of connection becomes increasingly difficult.
To keep up with the expectations of a highly engaged fanbase, Ashley and her team look for ways to move beyond passive consumption and into real-time, meaningful interaction.
Challenge
Ashley Flowers and her team had built a deeply engaged audience across multiple podcasts, each with its own distinct voice and community. That level of segmentation was a strength, but it also raised the bar for how they communicated.
The team was facing a core challenge: how to create a direct, scalable line of communication that still felt personal. Traditional text platforms, built for batch-and-blast messaging, couldn’t support the kind of personalized, local, and community-driven engagement they needed and their audience expected.
They needed a platform that would segment their audience to easily tailor experiences based on their fans’ interests to deliver more relevant content and keep their community engaged.
Solution
After assessing several channel providers, Ashley and her team determined Community was best suited to drive the level of personalization needed to communicate with fans, at scale.
Community gave Ashley and her team a way to transform fan engagement into two-way conversations to make messages feel personal, timely, and relevant to their interests, creating a stronger connection with every interaction. Most importantly, it gave them the ability to personalize at scale.
Using segmentation based on location, behavior, and fan preferences, the team began crafting targeted campaigns that felt intentionally designed for specific audiences. Campaigns became less about sending messages and more about creating tailored experiences.
“The ability to segment audiences and create unique journeys was huge for us. It allows us to be more intentional with our messaging, so fans only receive content that feels relevant and personal. That not only drives engagement, but also helps avoid overmessaging and opt-outs.”
—Tori Satchwell, Marketing Coordinator at Audiochuck
Impact
The shift to Community drove measurable engagement improvements across campaigns.
Interactive campaigns significantly increased participation. Their 2026 Valentine’s Day campaign saw a 17.6% response rate, well above the 1-2% typically seen with traditional text marketing campaigns.
A personalized follow-up text proved just as impactful, driving an 89% click-through rate, dramatically outperforming traditional channels like email, which typically see just 2% CTR. By targeting only the most engaged fans, the team not only maximized performance but also reduced unnecessary spend.
The team also uses interactive surveys to drive engagement and inform follow-ups. In one “True Crime Trivia” campaign, fans were asked to identify the meaning of FOIA, resulting in a 17.4% response rate. Based on their answers, the team sent personalized follow-ups to each group, driving nearly a 90% click-through rate to a video of Ashley explaining the concept.
Text has also emerged as a revenue driver, contributing significantly to merch sales in 2025, attributed to Community via its Shopify integration.
Beyond individual campaigns, the team gained clearer visibility into what resonates with their audience. With real-time insights, they continue to refine their strategy, test new formats, optimize automated workflows, and double down on high-performing content.
Ultimately, Community enabled Ashley Flowers to scale what made her audience so powerful to begin with. Fans who were already eager to engage, respond, and participate can now do so in real time through personalized, ongoing conversations that build deeper connection, fuel growth, and drive revenue.
