Podcast Marketing Strategies to Dominate the Market
So, you finally decided to start your podcast. Nothing can beat that feeling, right? You're very excited, and at the same time, have huge expectations from it. And why wouldn't you? Your hard work in researching, interviewing experts, promoting brands, and gathering actionable tips must cultivate a great response.
However, you noticed that things slowed down after your initial launch, and you’ve watched your numbers fall. Now, you’re in a slump and probably thinking that starting your podcast in the first place was a mistake. You probably believe you did everything possible to set off your podcast growth, it just hasn’t taken off. Yes, you did everything (I believe you), but you're probably missing one crucial thing on your to-do list:
Your podcast marketing strategy.
This is when you go from starting a podcast to running and learning how to grow a podcast. Promoting and marketing your podcast is integral to growing your podcast audience!
“Create, and they will come” no longer works. What works today is: to create, market, and grow. Now that you have a podcast, now is time to invest in your podcast marketing strategy to grow and broaden your listeners' reach. Implementing the right podcast marketing strategy is hard work, but it’s also fun, especially after seeing those listener numbers grow.
I’ve put together different podcast marketing tactics, so you can choose what makes sense for you.
Podcast Marketing Strategy 1: Get to Know Your Audience
Any marketer worth their salt will advise you that you'll only get far if you clearly understand your target audience.
Before committing to any specific podcasting marketing strategy, try to narrow down your target audience. If you're thinking, “My podcast is for everyone!” remember that finding your zone of genius is the key to increasing your listenership.
Rather than casting a wide net and attempting to appeal to as many individuals as possible, focus on your podcast's unique value and consider the audience most likely to listen to your show.
The narrower your topic, the easier it'll be to identify and appeal to your ideal audience. If your show alternates between themes, genres, and tones, you should tighten your focus to attract repeat listeners.
You need to research your target audience. What are their interests? What other podcasts are they listening to?
Go as deep as you can to put yourself in your audience's shoes and discover where they frequently appear online. Do they engage in social media? Do they use specific hashtags or subreddits?
Finding where your target audience already hangs out will help you figure out where and how to approach them.
When you know your audience, and what they want, it's easy to put yourself in their shoes. You may establish a picture of your audience by analyzing demographics, gender, location, and time spent online, which will help you decide what content to create.
However, if you still need to figure it out, ask your audience if they'd be willing to join you on a call. Determine why people listen to you in the first place so you can create more of what they'll be interested in listening to.
Podcast Marketing Strategy 2: Master Your Podcast's SEO (Search Engine Monetization)
Podcast SEO, or search engine optimization, creates high-quality content easily accessible to search engines. Given Google is the most popular search engine, understanding Google's SEO criteria is an excellent place to start.
However, as a podcaster, you'll also need to learn how to navigate Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and any other platforms where your podcast is available to gain listeners, as each will have a search option.
The foundation of any search engine begins with you optimizing your content so that it flags the right audiences and informs them of your existence.
Using the right keywords, descriptions, titles, and content for your podcast is the greatest method to improve your podcast marketing strategy. This should correspond to what your target audience searches for online.
Keywords are crucial because they connect what people want to the content you're giving to meet that demand. Your goal should be to drive organic traffic to your podcast from search engine results pages.
Every episode you publish should include important keywords in the title and description to ensure it reaches your audience and ranks high in search engine results. You have to combine your content with the most effective SEO technique. When you publish a new podcast episode on various listening applications, follow up with valuable information on your website.
The right content should have:
- SEO-friendly page title
- Headings (H1, H2, H3) and subheadings
- ALT attribute of images
- Meta description
- Relevant keywords distributed throughout the article
- Podcast blog posts should be a minimum of around 500 words, but more is always better. For best results, anything between 1,000 and 1,500 words is great. If this isn’t feasible, a 500 word minimum is the goal. Tools like ChatGPT are great for this.
Understanding and mastering podcast SEO means discoverability (more listeners for your show) ⎯ effective podcast marketing strategy. People who have never heard of your podcast can accidentally find it on Google.
Podcast Marketing Strategy 3: Leverage Your Website
Your listeners will discover and enjoy your podcast via their preferred podcast listening app – but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have an excellent podcast website.
A solid website can help you build your podcast audience by serving as a hub for your marketing efforts.
Having your podcast website allows you to provide additional information about your show while making it easy for people to find and subscribe to it. In contrast, your podcast website is something you own and ultimately control.
Here are some reasons to convince why your show needs a website:
- Shareability – it's easier to share content in blog form on your website than it is to share links to a Google or Apple podcast.
- SEO friendliness – if you have a website, you can have a blog with material customized to your target audience.
- A larger audience – having a podcast website allows you to reach a larger audience via your podcast and blogs.
- Email marketing – you need a website to establish an emailing list.
Having a website makes it easy for your existing listeners to refer to previous episodes or find new ones without having to scour streaming platforms like Spotify or Apple Music.
Podcast Marketing Strategy 4: Have a Clear CTA
The marketing capability of your existing audience is one of the most potent tools in your arsenal. Include a clear call to action in your podcast episode.
If you include a CTA, you can ask your audience what you want them to do at the end of the episode.
It doesn't matter how much someone likes your episode because many listeners will only take the time to review it if you nudge them. CTAs are the ideal approach to get them to do this since they help you to validate them and show them how much you value their support.
You can ask listeners to subscribe and review your podcast, share it on social media, or tell a friend about it.
Of course, you don't want to come across as desperate, but there's no harm in asking your audience to do something simple if they appreciate your podcast.
To sum up, here are CTAs you can ask your audience to do for you as part of your podcast marketing strategy:
- Subscribe to, rate, and review your show on their podcast app – this helps you get discovered by other users of that app
- Tweet their questions at you – this helps with visibility on social media
- Join your show's Facebook group – this helps create a community around your show
When your audience does one of these, it helps to increase discoverability and your chances of ranking on major podcast charts.
Subscribers will notice your podcast in their feed whenever you release a new episode, increasing the likelihood that they'll listen. Ratings and reviews encourage anyone considering and watching your show to try it.
The key, however, is only to use one CTA at the end of each episode to ensure listeners understand what action to take.
Podcast Marketing Strategy 5: Incorporate Your Podcast Into Your Blog Posts
Now that you have a home for your podcast, why not boost your podcast SEO by embedding audio episodes in SEO-friendly blog posts?
While Google has attempted to add multimedia results on search — including, yes, podcasts and YouTube videos — the reality is that the majority of search query results still return blog posts and pages.
Combine your blog and podcast efforts to stay ahead of the competition. You can write a blog post based on a podcast episode. So, when you've recorded your episode, turn it into a high-value blog article that you can optimize.
However, if creating blog entries about your podcasts isn't your thing, get someone to do it for you or, even better, transform your transcripts into blogs. Then, review it for flaws and tweak it to create a quality blog. You now have content for your website as well as content for several social media updates.
Make show notes using your transcripts. They assist your readers in locating a particular point of interest to return to. Share transcription excerpts on your social media accounts to attract new listeners to your website.
Keep sharing your previous episodes as part of your podcast marketing strategy. Just because something is done and dusted doesn’t mean it’s not still relevant. That one you did a few years ago may be just what someone needs to hear now.
Podcast Marketing Strategy 6: Beef up Your Social Media
The key to effective podcast marketing is to make your show available in as many locations as possible. Social media has a lot of influence in terms of organic listenership. What is the most effective way to promote your podcast on social media?
Start by posting an update when your episode first becomes available. Make sure to include a link to your Apple Podcast in your Tweet or Facebook post.
For your social media posts, use free online design apps like Canva – you can easily build templates for quote photos or bold adverts you can then change and reuse for each episode.
And make a 15-25 second sound bite clip to post to Soundcloud and instantaneously distribute on Twitter. You can share rich media, soundbites, videos, photos, teasers, and more across your channels with a little inspiration and effort.
Pro tips that can guide you the next time you create your social media post:
- Tease your featured guests in the upcoming episode – create a short teaser trailer to get fans excited about tuning in. You could make a short video featuring your guest. Regardless of your option, make sure to name or mention your guest on social media so they can comment on and share your posts.
- Remix your show content into channel-specific pieces – podcasters frequently overlook Twitter threads and Instagram stories. Why not share your insights as a Twitter thread or an Instagram Story series if you have multiple opinions or knowledge on a specific topic?
- Share highlights of your latest episodes in short clips – this will keep the hype around your show until your latest episode is published.
Bonus Tip: People are curious about how things are created, so include behind-the-scenes content in an Instagram or Facebook story. Try to involve your listeners in these posts whenever possible.
Knowing which platforms are available and, more crucially, which platforms your target audience uses, will allow you to develop your podcasting marketing strategy that produces results.
Podcast Marketing Strategy 7: Interact With Your Audience
One of the reasons why I love doing what I do is the relationship that develops between the listener and host. Podcasting is a very personal medium — you feel like you know the host personally because each episode feels like they're just talking to you.
The true magic emerges when you, as a podcast host, build on that first connection by encouraging and cultivating listener interaction.
And social media is an excellent tool for that. You can interact directly with your listeners using one of the many available platforms.
You can ask them questions, or they can ask you questions, you can go more into episode subjects, or you can just have enjoyable discussions.
You're probably thinking, how does this qualify as a move toward obtaining new listeners? Because this interaction provides you with valuable details about who your audience is and the material they're looking for.
You may then use this insider information to reach a more significant portion of your target audience!
Podcast Marketing Strategy 8: Podcast Guest Networks
An easy way to expose your podcast to new listeners is to join other podcasts as a guest. Each guest has a following, so if they promote their appearance on your episode, their fans will discover and might like your show.
You also don't need to invite well-known celebrities or high-profile influencers. Although guests with a significant fanbase are great, anyone with a fantastic story relevant to your topic can help your podcast stand out.
Aside from being a podcast guest, you can bring in centers of influence individuals with social or other types of authority. These folks are beneficial to the success of your podcast. Ideal guests can be found on social media platforms where most of your target audience is present.
Start by responding to their posts and sharing their content on their pages. Once you've established a rapport with their brand, you can approach them and request a collaboration.
With the addition of YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn profiles, you'll see a lot of growth. Different people are drawn to different mediums. As a result, if you bring on an influential individual who isn't great at audio or video and doesn't have a social media presence, they may be unable to help you build your audience.
However, if you bring on someone who has many videos and LinkedIn followers but isn't a podcaster, they will surely bring listeners to your show.
You want to be strategic in this scenario. Getting you on podcasts and having the right guests on board is a great way to get your name out there.
Podcasting Marketing Strategy 9: Work with Podcasting Marketing Agency
As more businesses recognize podcasting as an important component of their podcast marketing strategy toolkit, they're investing more time and money in branded podcasts. But we all know that starting and maintaining a successful podcast can be challenging.
The good news is you can do it with others or discover the resources within your team. However, an agency could be beneficial if you're serious about creating and scaling a branded podcast.
Podcasting agencies are industry experts, ranging in content creation, podcast production, and guest booking to advertising, SEO, and data analysis. Most agencies will provide a variety of packages so that you can pick one that meets your objectives, budget, and schedules.
Now, what should you know before hiring a podcasting agency? How can you find the best agency for your company? It's simpler than you think. Consider looking at what they are doing to market their podcasts. You can also check out how long the agency has been in business to see if it is a good fit for you.
The longer they have been in the industry, the more experience they have in providing superior services. Consider hiring one that has been in operation for a long time.
Getting results without experience may appear unachievable, but as I said before, you don't have to do it alone. Hiring a podcast agency – experts who know what they're doing – will do wonders for your podcast marketing strategy and is essential for establishing, growing, and scaling it.
Podcast Marketing Strategy 10: Say “Yes” to Ads
Going the traditional marketing route is sometimes the quickest approach to gain more listeners. Running ads across many platforms may help you get the ball rolling and gain traction with your audience as your show gains popularity. The cool thing about modern advertising is that it can be done on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
Some podcasts opt for a podcast network, such as the Podcast Movement, which can connect you with other podcasts that highlight your show's finest aspects. Podcast ads can help you generate more buzz about your performance, attract new listeners, and keep your podcast's listeners returning for more.
Ads are most effective when the keywords to target and the type of audience you wish to attract are determined. Once you've figured out the logistics, start putting up ads.
Paid advertising on Reddit ads, Google AdWords, and Facebook Ads can be a terrific strategy to attract more listeners to your podcast once you have the right keywords. The first listeners are the most challenging to get for new podcasts, but paid ads can be a help to your podcast marketing strategy.
Bonus Tip: You may also pay for ad space on popular blogs or podcasts with a comparable demographic to yours.
Podcasting Marketing Strategy 11: Get Your Podcast on Multiple Platforms
Getting your podcast out there on multiple platforms is the key to a powerful podcast marketing strategy and reaching the most people possible – the key to a larger audience. There are numerous sites/directories where you can publish your podcast; some are easier to join than others.
You can request to be added to each podcast directory separately. Other podcast hosting platforms can help you get your podcast listed in various directories. However, this can be intimidating for both new and even veteran podcasters.
You can follow this simple guide on how to get your podcast on multiple platforms:
Step 1: Choose a podcast hosting platform – to make your podcast available to the general public, you must first select a podcast hosting platform. Your audio will be stored and served as an RSS feed by your chosen hosting site.
Step 2: Locate your RSS feed link – it's time to find your RSS feed connection. In simplest terms, this is the link that will allow various directories to serve your material to the public.
Step 3: Choose some podcast directories – you should choose directories that your listeners use the most. Directories that frequently host other podcasts in your niche and are well-liked by podcast listeners.
Step 4: Add your RSS feed link to your chosen directories – it's time to submit your podcast to a couple of (or more) directories. Start by claiming your podcast and entering all relevant details. Then, copy/paste your RSS feed link into each directory. That's all! Some directories will make your content available immediately, while others will require time for authentication.
Getting your podcast on various platforms doesn't have to be complicated! Whether or not your hosting platform includes a one-click submission form, your hosting network will probably help you refine your podcast marketing strategy and get your show on as many sites as possible.
You'll also notice that nearly all submission forms look the same and are as easy to use as copying and pasting your RSS feed. It's as simple as 1, 2, 3.
Podcast Marketing Strategy 12: Leverage the Second-Biggest Search Engine: YouTube
Since YouTube is the second most popular search engine after Google, it makes sense for you to use it as part of your podcast marketing strategy to gain greater visibility and reach. Lucky for you, since you started recording your podcast episodes for micro-videos, you have full-interview episodes to publish on YouTube.
Publishing your podcast on YouTube makes it easier for potential listeners to locate you and attracts folks who would rather watch than listen. YouTube allows you to easily embed your podcast onto websites and social media platforms.
This can help you distribute the message of your podcast even further, and increased visibility can lead to more downloads and subscribers.
Bonus Tip: YouTube videos can also be utilized as to monetize your podcast through advertisements and sponsorships, allowing you to earn extra money.
Podcast Marketing Strategy 13: Stay Consistent
By releasing new episodes at regular intervals – daily, weekly, or monthly at an expected time – it’s possible to make listening to your show a part of your audience's routine.
This helps to retain listeners and is thus critical to increasing a podcast's audience and profile. Regular episodes promote regular listening, which makes every new listener you gain more beneficial to the growth of your podcast.
The cost of releasing more frequently is a more significant workload, and podcasters must be careful not to overcommit – otherwise, episode production may be rushed, resulting in a drop in quality.
However, recording more frequently will help your team improve and be more efficient at what they do. Creating more episodes means more effort, it also implies increased productivity.
Podcast Marketing Strategy 14: Publish at Strategic Times
It's not often talked about but this is one of the most underrated podcast marketing strategy – knowing the best day to launch. The timing of an episode's release can be critical depending on your audience.
Observing when other podcasts post is one way to decide the ideal publishing timeframe. Once you observe any patterns, it may be beneficial to follow suit.
As you continue to post your episodes, you'll amass a sizable data bank. Examine the data, look for patterns in listener behavior, and experiment with release times and days based on that.
Podcast Marketing Strategy 15: Track Your Stats
Consider what success means to you and then assess it properly. What metrics are crucial to you? They could be numerical, such as your subscriber count or total episode plays.
Alternatively, they could be qualitative, such as a high rating on podcast services or an active listenership. Determine your success threshold and build your audience with that goal in mind.
If your definition of success is generating sponsorship income, you might direct your audience toward a specific Cost-per-Thousand Impression or CPM. If you're particularly interested in hearing how your show has influenced your listeners, expanding your audience may require an outreach and a powerful podcast marketing strategy.
No matter how you define success, keep in mind that continuous audience growth takes time and polishing your podcast marketing strategy. It may take some time for your podcast to take off, and that's fine.
You can start gaining new listeners with a good attitude and constant promotion. When in doubt, recall why you began in the first place. Whether you have one or a million listeners, having a show is something to be proud of.
Listen to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur
More Resources from UpMyInfluence:
How to Be An Exceptional Podcast Host