Should you’re something like me, you need extra listeners to your podcast. However, while you truly seek for data on methods to promote a podcast, it seems like everyone seems to be parroting the identical outdated recommendation.
Personally, I’ve been a little bit annoyed with similar solutions on so many web sites. So, I did what I normally do once I need legit, actionable solutions from folks working within the business — I went attempting to find actual podcasters to steer me in the appropriate course.
The best way to promote a podcast
Beneath are a number of the sensible concepts podcasting and advertising and marketing professionals despatched my means for methods to promote a podcast successfully and develop your podcast viewers:
- Deal with your podcast like a enterprise and get an internet site.
- Use honey traps and the rule of three to get extra listeners.
- Harness the ability of TikTok.
- Make a comic book about your podcast.
- Assume video first.
- Leverage lesser-known podcast directories.
- Use paid advertisements if you happen to can.
- Don’t overlook about Pinterest.
Prepared to draw extra podcast listeners? Let’s dive in!
1. Deal with your podcast like a enterprise and get an internet site
Naresh Vissa is the Founder & CEO of Krish Media & Advertising and marketing, and the writer of the guide Podcastnomics. He says the most important downside he sees in podcasters is that they don’t deal with their present sufficient like a enterprise.
He mentioned, “Should you execute your podcast correctly, and run it like a enterprise, the advertising and marketing will care for itself.”
However, what does this appear to be in observe?
Naresh says you could be an early mover in a distinct segment. Positive, it’s good to go after one thing you’re enthusiastic about, however the objective ought to be to give attention to the long-tail niches of your target market — identical to long-tail key phrases.
In different phrases, don’t give attention to finance for a podcast. As an alternative, converse on the ins and outs of a extra slender subject, akin to digital forex. The sooner you may hop right into a hyper-focused area of interest and make a reputation for your self, the higher.
However out of all of the business-like actions it is best to take to your podcast, maybe the most important is creating an internet site that captures leads and repurposes your entire podcast episodes.
Naresh mentioned far too many podcasters rely on the net hyperlink that their podcast hosts give them to advertise their present. Or they may say one thing like, “Discover my present wherever you hearken to your favourite podcasts.”
The issue is that this tactic prevents you from doing probably the most important motion — getting the title and e-mail handle of the listener!
These folks coming to your web site to search out your newest episode ought to be directed to choose into your e-mail checklist for just a few causes:
- You’ll have a direct line of communication to inform them about episode releases
- You possibly can ask for suggestions
- You may make presents
- You possibly can ask for referrals to your present
And, with an internet site, you may repurpose each episode into:
- Weblog posts
- Transcripts and present notes
- Case research (that would in the end be used to your new guide or course)
- Movies that you just additionally show in your web site
Make your web site a one-stop cross-promotion machine for all issues associated to your podcast and deal with it as a enterprise asset. As a result of if you happen to play your playing cards proper, it is going to be.
2. Use honey traps and the rule of three to get extra listeners
Jamie Kennedy – no, not the comic – runs Courageous Moon Podcasts, a manufacturing firm for podcasters. She instructed me her promotion technique for serving to her purchasers and for serving to her personal podcast get extra listens: use honey traps and the rule of three.
She mentioned, “Share your episodes and use ‘honey traps’ to encourage listeners to pay attention and subscribe: If you put up new episodes to your socials, make sure to use ‘honey traps’ to encourage listeners and ask your followers to share with their mates. Honey traps are questions or statements that entice a listener to pay attention. For instance, ‘Do you need to know the key to getting 8 hours of sleep each night time?’ or ‘You need to know these three issues about coronary heart illness.’”
Jamie went on to say, “If you put up about an episode, observe the rule of three and ensure to put up about each episode at the very least 3 times. It might really feel repetitive to you, however most of your followers might want to see one thing at the very least 3 times to click on on it.”
Suppose you’re making an attempt to get extra folks in your area of interest to hearken to your present or be a visitor in your podcast. In that case, Jamie additionally recommends taking part in related on-line communities and boards and interesting with the posts instantly associated to your episodes.
“For instance, if you happen to discover a put up asking for recommendation on the most effective workout routines for sturdy legs and you probably did a podcast episode with the highest 10 leg workout routines, then share the hyperlink to the episode within the feedback part. You’ll get the eye of the unique poster and the eye of each different particular person trying via the feedback for solutions.”
A phrase of warning, although. Watch out posting your podcast hyperlinks within the communities you’re in.
A few of them have strict “no promo insurance policies.” Others solely permit sharing your podcast hyperlinks on particular days. Backside line – all the time learn your group’s guidelines earlier than sharing hyperlinks.
3. Harness the ability of TikTok
Ehan Hunagle runs SEMDeck and hosts the SwitchCast podcast with Doug Tabbutt. Their podcast primarily makes use of TikTok together with their extremely optimized web site to advertise the present. Ethan mentioned the TikTok web page began small, however grew rapidly to greater than 67,000 followers and greater than 1,000,000 likes on their movies.
The key sauce in keeping with Ethan is to create a video for each corresponding episode. Then, he repurposes the movies on his social media channels as Instagram Reels, Fb Reels and YouTube Shorts.
The movies should be quick, quick-hit fashion content material as a result of that is probably the most helpful to market a podcast.
He additionally pressured that with no web site, you’re lacking out on prime alternatives to get your present discovered by your very best podcast listener.
To additional amplify the present’s attain, Ethan mentioned, “We publish a weblog put up each time a brand new episode is launched. We are going to embed the YouTube video in addition to the RSS feed of the podcast, add inner and exterior hyperlinks to the physique textual content of the put up, and optimize the weblog with tags, meta descriptions, web page titles, picture alt attributes, and different primary website positioning ideas.”
These easy steps got here collectively to convey that coveted viral consideration to SwitchCast that each one podcasters dream of!
4. Make a comic book about your podcast
Admittedly, this was the best response I’ve heard thus far to successfully promote a podcast. Christine Whitmarsh, higher generally known as Christine Ink on-line, mentioned she developed a comic book across the theme of her every day podcast for authors.
She mentioned, “The funny story follows writer Margena and her very animated mind (a hilarious character unto itself) to point out authors precisely methods to construct a writing behavior and turn into a broadcast writer.”
As for the way she manages the creation of those comics, she makes use of an illustrator named Beena Parikh of the P66 Company.
How enjoyable is that?!
5. Assume video first
Earlier than he started working behind the scenes serving to creators succeed, Bredan Aw hosted the Xin eSports podcast Your Life My Dream and his personal present Participant Vs World. He mentioned of all of the ways he sees creators utilizing to advertise a podcast proper now, video is getting probably the most consideration and success.
Brendan says you may’t succeed with an audio-only method anymore. By recording your present as a video first, you give your self “an [amazing] alternative for content material syndication from only one pillar piece.”
His advice is to movie each episode. After that, he says to:
- Strip the audio to share as an audio-only podcast
- Share clip highlights to social media
- Edit the audio transcripts to make them extremely invaluable weblog articles, and
- Hyperlink to related episodes wherever you may (i.e. inside different weblog posts, in press releases, on social media updates – particularly in your bio, and even in your e-mail signature)
6. Leverage lesser-known podcast directories
Isaac Mashman isn’t any stranger to podcasting. Not solely does he have his personal podcast and helps his purchasers get featured on podcasts, however he additionally set a large objective for himself to be featured on 100 podcast interviews and get 100 article/media mentions in 2023.
His finest tip for methods to market a podcast successfully is to get your present on lesser-known podcast directories.
He mentioned, “If you first launch your present your RSS host will naturally get your podcast distributed to the bigger platforms akin to Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify, however there are a mess of different platforms which might be both lesser identified or not historically listed.”
Only a few of the locations he recommends including your present’s RSS feed to incorporate:
He additionally recommends pondering internationally. For instance, there are streaming giants in India and throughout the globe akin to Gaana and JioSaavn. Podcastinc reported, “India is ranked the third in podcasting business after USA and China.”
They went on to say that round 150 million Indians are consuming audio streaming making it “an enormous alternative of development for podcasts.”
Isaac says we should always get on each podcast listing potential so you will get your title on the market to a plethora of individuals.
Assume this may take too lengthy? Right here’s Isaac’s fact bomb response to that mind-set: Do it anyway!
He mentioned, “Is that this time-consuming? Completely! Nevertheless, when you do it the primary time you by no means have to consider it once more.
All of those platforms function with their very own particular person algorithms, assist your website positioning, set up backlinks to your web site, and make your podcast seem as if it’s the top-charting present which it’s certain to be.”
Seek for each platform yow will discover so as to add your podcast to, and make the most of the choices to share your social media profiles and web site hyperlinks wherever potential.
7. Use paid advertisements if you happen to can
James Pollard runs the Monetary Advisor Advertising and marketing Podcast that includes greater than 200 episodes. He says that paid advertisements have been the sport changer his podcast was searching for to make it “probably the most sought-after podcasts within the monetary recommendation house.”
However, he doesn’t run the advertisements to his podcast host, actually, they aren’t selling the podcast instantly in any respect. As an alternative, he’ll run the advertisements to monetary advisors (his very best listeners) to advertise a webinar or touchdown web page. In each webinar and on each touchdown web page, he introduces himself because the host of the podcast.
He mentioned, “This roundabout means has generated tens of hundreds of downloads up to now three months alone, and I’m going to proceed doing it for so long as it really works.”
It additionally helps that lots of the questions that folks could be asking him are answered in his podcast episodes. By delivering quite a lot of worth totally free, he’s incomes his “subscribers.”
In podcasting and in enterprise on the whole, giving folks a motive to stay round, and displaying them you’re reliable is the one means you’ll ever see a return on any advert spend.
8. Don’t overlook about Pinterest
Laura Rike says there aren’t sufficient podcasters utilizing Pinterest to advertise their podcasts. She extremely recommends promoted pins too as a result of these may be focused to your very best listener extra successfully and fewer expensively than Fb or Google Adverts
She mentioned, “Whereas many could consider Pinterest particularly for recipes and craft tasks, those that don’t use it for podcasting are actually lacking out on a possibility to achieve their goal purchasers on-line. It’s truly a extremely highly effective search engine, and has focused advert alternatives. It might additionally assist with familiarity and the ‘Know – Like – Belief’ idea, in case your listener goes to your web site after which later sees your advert on Pinterest, too!”
The best way to promote a podcast — A fast recap
To shut issues out, right here’s a fast recap of the most effective ideas for podcast advertising and marketing methods which might be working proper now:
- Deal with your podcast like a enterprise
- Use honey traps and the rule of three
- Get on Tiktok
- Make a comic book (or at the very least specifically curated photos) to advertise your podcast
- Assume video first and use video on YouTube and all social media platforms
- Distribute your podcast to each listing you probably can
- Make the most of paid advertisements, and
- Don’t overlook about Pinterest
I personally plan on utilizing all of those concepts to advertise my very own podcast higher. Whereas visitor swapping is nice, I need to depend on extra than simply borrowing different folks’s audiences to develop my very own. With a bit of luck, I’ll be having fun with bigger obtain numbers and monetization alternatives very quickly. Hopefully, you may be too!
New to podcasting? Take a look at our information on methods to begin a podcast!