Guest Author
More and more businesses and individuals are trying to figure out how to promote a podcast nowadays.
In a world full of various types of content, podcasts are here to stay. In fact, podcasts are riding on the coat tails of digital advertising trends, and this can be easily noticeable.
This sector used to be dominated by indigenous content and host readings, with minimal trackability and organic — but labor-intensive — integrations. However, today’s tools enable for flexible integration of pre-recorded commercials and demographic identification.
So, let’s analyze this evergreen type of content and see how it can benefit your business!
Podcast Evolution in Numbers
In 2018, there were a little over 500,000 podcasts. In 2022, that number has increased to a whopping 2,000,000.
Considering the accelerated growth path of podcasts, you decide you want to start your own. Why? Well, the case for a podcast is evident:
- Podcasts are extremely popular in America, with over 120 million podcast listeners in 2021. (Source)
- Podcasts are equally popular internationally, with 18% weekly podcast listeners in the UK, 36% monthly podcast audience in Canada, 25% monthly podcast audience in Australia, and so on. (Source)
- The future of podcasts is optimistic, as the number of American podcast listeners is expected to surpass 160 million in 2023. (Source)
- Podcasting is the fastest-growing type of content produced in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, and China.
The case for podcasting is clear: this marketing channel has increased listenership year-over-year since 2019. It’s time for you to jump on this bandwagon!
But how do you promote your podcast? In this article, we will discuss more podcast marketing tips that will make your advertising strategy shine.
From Recording Podcast Episodes to Podcast Promotion
After being a passive listener in the podcasting community, you take the first step towards a podcast launch.
So, after months of meticulous planning, coming up with ideas and episode titles, and creating unique podcast content, you finally create a podcast.
You have it all: a podcast title, a podcast trailer, and future episodes ideas. You take a sigh of relief and tell yourself: “the hard part is over.” You start recording your podcast, episode after episode and you think you are closer to the final result more than ever.
But as you get to promote your podcast, you immediately reconsider: “no, it’s not!”
Indeed, simply planning great content isn’t enough. You need to convince people to actually tune in. This is why we need to dig deeper into podcast marketing strategies.
Of course, how many new listeners you manage to win over depends solely on how well you design your podcast marketing strategy. As you move along your podcasting journey, you’ll find that there are hundreds of creative ways in which you can promote your content to prospective listeners. So it’s time for you to start planning.
However, the following fundamental tactics will always be relevant on how to promote a podcast. Are you ready to discover them?
5 Tips on How to Promote Your Podcast
- Create a Separate Website for Your Podcasts
- Boost Your Social Media Engagement
- Make Guest Appearances on Other Podcasts
- Invite Guest Speakers And Leverage Their Existing Audience
- Help Your Listeners Find You
1. Create a Separate Website for Your Podcasts
Most people will simply publish their podcast episodes on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or any other podcast platform and assume that will be enough. And they couldn’t be more wrong.
When you publish new podcasts, you’re simply capturing new listeners. But the important part is ensuring that they stick around. Hence, dedicating a website to your podcasts is the best way to funnel new listeners and convert them into a loyal audience base. And this is the first step you need to take for podcast promotion.
The marketing benefits of having a podcast website are endless:
- It will give you more freedom to post diverse content such as behind-the-scenes and transcriptions of important interviews.
- It will allow new listeners to discover more of your content from your archive (any blog post can be very relevant for your online communities)
- Your audience can remain up-to-date about upcoming shows through a defined schedule that you can post on your website.
- You can introduce the guests that are going to appear on your show.
- Your listeners can provide feedback about what content they prefer.
- Your website can help collect listener emails which you can use for further marketing.
- You can directly engage with your audience through forum discussions.
- Your website can help build your podcast community by serving as a platform for your listeners to connect with you and each other.
As you can imagine, these are things you simply can not achieve by limiting yourself to podcast platforms such as Spotify or Apple Podcast. In fact, you’ll give yourself a lot of wiggle room in terms of posting otherwise controversial content on the aforementioned platforms.
2. Boost Your Social Media Engagement
According to Podcast Host, 15.2% of listeners inquire about new podcasts on social media. Moreover, 18.3% of podcast listeners rely on word-of-mouth marketing by asking people who share the same likes and interests as them.
Social media is the most obvious choice for podcast marketing. Unfortunately, it is also the most misused. Indeed, promoting your podcast on social media without the proper strategy can actually be counterproductive.
Take a look at how Ologies is promoting their podcast:
First, you have to be extremely careful about which platforms you use. It can be tempting to hit them all and hope that at least one lands, but try to avoid this temptation at all costs. Instead, focus all your attention on only those platforms which are most relevant to your niche.
For example, if your target audience comprises teenagers, expand your marketing efforts across YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat. On the other hand, if your content revolves around business topics that appeal to an older audience, social media pages such as Linkedin should be your go-to.
But identifying which social media platforms your target audience prefers is only half of the battle. The next, and arguably more important, step is engagement.
Many podcasters tend to forget the “social” part of social media marketing. Keep in mind that social media is all about building and maintaining relationships. To do so, you need to actively engage with various communities and show people that there is a person behind the profile.
Here are some ideas to increase your engagement on social channels:
- Join different groups and communities on platforms like Facebook and Reddit.
- Respond to posts made by other members of the community.
- Never spam links to your podcasts, especially if you are new to the Facebook group/community.
- Host contests and giveaways to attract new listeners.
At the same time, it’s important to always schedule your social media posts so you have a clear calendar of what’s about to come. For this, you might want to use a social media tool.
More than 300 podcasters use SocialBee for their Social Media posting. With our tool, you can easily organize your content on social media channels based on new episodes’ launches.
SocialBee: Your AI-powered social media management tool
3. Make Guest Appearances on Other Podcasts
The average podcast listener subscribes to at least six different shows. Hence, your chances of being discovered by potential listeners increase substantially if you make guest appearances on other podcasts.
And if you are already familiar with podcast hosting, this cross-promotion tactic should not be a challenge for you.
Remember: being seen everywhere in your niche is a big part of building your brand. So, try to target both big and small players, and do it respectfully. Your email or message to them should express your interest in their work, which could look something like this:
“Hello! I recently tuned into your podcast *insert episode title here* and was fascinated by what you said about “insert specific segment here.* I would love to hear you talk more about this topic one-on-one, as I believe this is a really pertinent topic that needs more attention. Would you be interested in furthering this discussion on your platform?”
Once you manage to secure a spot as a guest speaker in another podcast, here is how you can make the most of it:
- Engage with the host on social media on the days leading up to the episode that features you. This way, their audience can get to know you better, which will increase their engagement with you.
- Keep up the engagement with your host and their audience following the publication of the episode that features you. This will help you leverage the momentum you gained through this initial exposure.
- Repurpose the content into various lengths and formats to extend your PR value. You can repurpose interview soundbites, create interview transcripts for your blog posts, use screenshots from the interview, and turn audio clips into audiograms.
- Promote your own podcast on the episode, but don’t overdo it. Overshadowing your host will come off as rude and pompous, and will make both the host and their audience dislike you.
4. Invite Guest Speakers And Leverage Their Existing Audience
Don’t rely only on making guest appearances, invite guest speakers onto your own podcasts.
Notably, the primary format of most podcasts relies on conducting interviews with guest experts. Think about popular podcasters such as Joe Rogan, H3 Podcast, Russel Brand, HBR Ideacast, etc., who routinely invite new guests to almost every episode.
On the surface level, inviting guest speakers diversifies your content and prevents it from becoming monotonous.
But the benefits are even better from a marketing perspective. Along with their knowledge and ideas, your guests will also bring along their own audience. You won’t have to fight tooth and nail to engage new listeners since your guest will have already done that for you!
If you want to make the experience enticing for prospective guests, offer them ways to promote themselves through the episode that features them. This can also kick your website’s link building efforts.
You could do this by:
- Creating shareable media that they can use on their own platforms, such as pull quotes, images, pre-written tweets.
- Sending them an email after the episode airs and including links to the episode that they can share with their audience.
5. Help Your Listeners Find You
You could produce the best podcast in the world, but if people can’t find or access your show, it doesn’t matter.
Let’s say you publish a new episode and ask people to tune in. Convinced by your stellar promoting skills, they open Spotify and search for your podcast. However, they can’t find it because you, being an avid Apple user, only published it on Apple Podcast.
Just like that, you have excluded all those prospective listeners who only use Android.
Hence, you need to ensure that you post your podcasts on as many podcast directories, websites, and platforms as possible.
The top ten to consider for uploading your audio file are:
- Apple Podcast
- Spotify
- Stitcher
- Tune in
- Google Podcast
- Audible
- Pandora
- NPR 1
- Deezer
- Podcast Addict
In fact, 40% of the people actively discover new podcasts by searching in their listening app’s directories. Moreover, 25% of podcast listening happens on Spotify, followed by Apple Podcasts (20%), Google Podcasts (16%) and Audible (10%).
Website streaming and Google searches are also of considerable importance. In fact, 13.6% of listeners resort to Google searches for finding new podcasts.
Therefore, you should leverage this fact and optimize your podcast accordingly. One way to do this is by focusing on podcast SEO. And having SEO optimized articles will surely help you.
It’s Time to Start a Successful Podcast
If you have been wanting to start your own podcast, there’s no time like the present to do it. As we discussed, podcasts are becoming increasingly popular, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. As we already said, podcasts are here to stay.
But be prepared; when it comes to podcasts, successful promotion is the name of the game. Yet, the biggest mistake you can make is jumping the gun and blindly spamming people with links to your podcast.
Remember that successful marketing relies on building and maintaining a community of listeners, which can take a long time.
But keep at it, and you’ll see those numbers rising — slowly at first, then all at once!
And Now, Let Us Teach You How to Promote a Podcast
We are here to offer you the needed support when it comes to your podcast marketing tactics.
Whether we talk about content creation, social media scheduling, or other promotional strategies, SocialBee’s goal is to make your tasks less complicated.
Begin your 14-day free trial today and start building a social media calendar for promoting your podcast!
SocialBee: Your AI-powered social media management tool
Wesley Cherisien is a speaker, trainer, entrepreneur, and tech investor who has penned hundreds of articles, books and training guides for organizations in the Fortune 500, consultants, and authors spanning across multiple industries.
Chief Editor of wesleycherisien.com, Wesley is a creative and highly innovative thinker with 10+ years of experience writing for online publications.
