Table of Contents
- Everything You Need to Know About Podcasts
- What is Podcast Marketing?
- How to Build Podcast Marketing Strategies
- Things to Avoid in Podcast Marketing Strategies
- Key Takeaways
- Conclusion
- FAQs
Growing a podcast takes time. Podcasting, specifically podcast marketing, is a long-term bet. Don’t expect to be on the top of the charts with thousands of listeners pouring in and sales skyrocketing the first week. It takes commitment, patience, and podcast marketing strategies to learn how to grow a podcast. You can use numerous strategies to expand your series, and we’ve laid out some of them to get you started.
Everything You Need to Know About Podcasts
First of all, what is a podcast?
A podcast is a story-driven set of digital audio files that can be downloaded to a personal device and listened to later. Streaming apps and podcasting services make maintaining a private consumption queue across multiple podcast source materials and playback devices easy. There are also podcast search engines that assist users in finding and sharing podcast episodes.
A podcast series generally comprises one or more regularly occurring hosts engaging in a conversation about a specific topic or recent event. A podcast’s discussion and content can range from meticulously rehearsed to completely improvised.
Many podcast series has a website that provides references and displays notes to introduce guests to the show, biographies, transcriptions, additional resources, commentary, and a community forum to discuss the show’s content.
The consumer pays little, with many podcasts available for free download. Some are underwritten or sponsored by corporations, with commercial advertisements included. In other cases, a podcast may be a commercial venture supported by a mixture of a premium subscription model, advertising, or product delivered after purchase. Because podcast content is frequently free, podcasting is commonly regarded as a disruptive medium, threatening the viability of traditional revenue.
What is Podcast Marketing?
Podcast marketing involves developing a strategy and implementing tactics to increase your audience’s awareness. Too often, people expect incredible results right away, and when they don’t see them, their desire to keep going wanes.
Before we get into our top promotional strategies, let’s take a step back and evaluate a podcast’s foundation. We’ll start with the two most important aspects of podcasting: quality content and time.
How to Build Podcast Marketing Strategies
Since you have now understood podcasting, certain podcast marketing strategies can help you promote your podcast.
1. Leverage your guest’s audience
Starting to grow your audience is a challenging task that most podcasters can identify with. Choose your guest based on your topic. Once you know what potential guests are likely to be attracted to, you can use that to attract them. They can then be part of your program. Once you do that, use your guest’s network to expand your reach. And finally, give the guest all possible exposure for participating in your podcast. Most guests are eager to help you promote their episode if you make it simple, like preparing the promotional material or content for them to just post on their networks.
2. Promote on social media
Making promotional content is an excellent way to increase your and your guests’ exposure. It is a podcast marketing best practice that also serves as a token of appreciation for your guests and encourages them to share their thoughts on your podcast. This can generate new guest referrals and increase the likelihood of securing a highly desired guest.
3. Release at least three episodes on launch day
If you haven’t yet launched your podcast, make at least three episodes before you do. If you don’t have a few episodes for new listeners to explore, chances are they won’t become invested and will forget about you.
4. Convert the audio into a YouTube video
Converting a podcast into a YouTube video can attract more people’s attention as many people surf through YouTube and search for everything on the Internet or YouTube nowadays. Moreover, people prefer videos to podcasts.
Nevertheless, it is considered one of the important methods to attract listeners or viewers to your channel.
Converting your audio into a YouTube video can be considered one of the easiest and simplest ways to post it on YouTube. In this, you can also add your personalized video or add images and links about that to look worth watching.
This new audience can watch these videos, form an opinion about your podcast and decide to listen to your podcasts. This will automatically help you gain more listeners.
5. Transcribe the audio
Transcribing can take longer, especially if your episodes are longer than an hour. Adding more people to the mix only adds to the nightmare. Save yourself the trouble by automatically transcribing podcasts and repurposing existing content to reach new listeners. Transcriptions increase your podcast’s searchability and allow search engines to index it for better ranking in search results.
By repurposing existing content in this manner, you can accomplish more with less. Articles, show notes, and social posts improve your chances of appearing in search results. Furthermore, content is more accessible to those with hearing impairments. Transcribe podcasts into text automatically for a better way to get more out of your content and reach new listeners.
6. Run a giveaway contest
Giveaways and contests can help strengthen the community, increase participation, and even reinforce loyalty. This is a great podcast marketing best practice that makes your audience feel important, which is why you should organize a giveaway for your podcast listeners.
The good news is that organizing a podcast giveaway isn’t as difficult as it may appear. Social media channels for brands, professionals, and content creators are frequently active and popular. This is where they promote new episodes, interact with their audience, and often receive feedback from online users. This is why they use social media to organize giveaways and promotions for their listeners.
7. Find partners to mention you
If you mention a person or a brand on your show, contact them after the episode is published. Take out the quote where you mentioned their product and ask them if they’d be willing to share your show on social media. This usually only works if you say something positive.
Things to Avoid in Podcast Marketing Strategies
Every podcaster will make mistakes at some point in their career. So the best way to avoid such errors is to be aware of them. This way, you can ensure that you do everything possible to avoid making these mistakes.
To help you avoid these blunders, we’ve outlined six common mistakes to avoid during your podcasting journey, as well as what you can do to overcome them easily.
1. Not following a plan
Whenever it does come to your podcast, one big mistake you should avoid is a lack of consistency. As a result, having a detailed plan in place before launching your podcast will ensure that you will always have continuous uploads with enough content.
In addition, you’ll have a specific niche to focus your topics on. Many podcasters, however, do not take the time to prepare already when they begin recording.
2. Too many ads
Another blunder to not make is when podcasters include too many advertisements in their podcasts. As a result, they eventually sell their listeners’ attention to advertisers. Paid advertisements, when posted correctly, can benefit listeners, hosts, and advertisers.
However, if you use a lot of ads or if the ads aren’t relevant to the audience, you risk annoying your fans. As a result, they may no longer respond to your show in the future.
3. Not making your podcast easy to find
The problem isn’t always that the podcast isn’t good; sometimes, people just can’t find it. To avoid this, make sure your podcast is easily accessible through directories such as Google Play Music, iTunes, and Stitcher.
In addition, your podcast should have an appealing description, design, and even reviews. Remember to encourage your viewers to leave feedback on how much they enjoyed your episodes. This is significant because listeners frequently use them to find new music.
Fortunately, there are numerous resources available to assist you in avoiding any initial issues. It’s worth noting that most of these blunders can serve as valuable learning opportunities for new podcasters. They can also make your first episode sound better.
4. Using poor sound quality
Many people will stop watching a show if the sound quality is poor. It could be a little hazy, too loud, or the background noise overpowers the episode. As a result, you must invest in a high-quality microphone, and you won’t have to spend a lot of money on it.
Note: If you can record good audio, you could assist your guests and podcasters who have just launched their shows by sharing such knowledge via email or calling them before the show begins.
5. Failing to collect subscriber emails
As a podcaster, collecting subscriber emails can be extremely beneficial. Emails are a critical point of contact between you and your listeners. You can use this tool to solicit feedback, provide updates, and so forth. Collect emails as you launch your podcast website to build your email list.
It is important to note that collecting emails has numerous advantages. In addition, failing to collect people’s (listeners’) emails means you aren’t making the most of this advertising and business resource. So consider starting an email collection to help change and expand your future opportunities.
6. Not knowing your listeners
One major blunder that podcasters end up making is failing to understand their audience. You should segment your show’s listeners into niches so that the content, posting frequency, and guest characteristics can be geared accordingly.
Following the identification of the target audience, podcasters can now focus on niche topics that meet the audience’s needs. As a result, ensure that you can share the episode. And this is preferable to covering a wide range of topics that may be of interest to some listeners.
Key Takeaways
- A podcast is a story-driven set of digital audio files that can be downloaded to a personal device and listened to later. Streaming apps and podcasting services make maintaining a private consumption queue across multiple podcast source materials and playback devices easy. There are also podcast search engines that assist users in finding and sharing podcast episodes.
- Podcast marketing involves developing a strategy and implementing tactics to increase your audience’s awareness.
- Providing value is the most effective long-term strategy for promoting a podcast. Shortcuts and gimmicks may work in the short term, but they will not last. Rather than following the latest marketing trend, concentrate on creating value through strong relationships and high-quality content.
- Using your guests’ networks is among the most efficient ways to expand your reach.
- Making promotional media is an excellent way to increase your and your guests’ exposure. It also serves as a token of appreciation for your guests and encourages them to share their thoughts on your podcast. This can generate new guest referrals and increase the likelihood of securing a highly desired guest.
- If you haven’t yet launched your podcast, make at least three episodes before you do. If you don’t have a few episodes for new listeners to explore, chances are they won’t become invested and will forget about you.
Conclusion
A promising podcast needs endless efforts, patience, and perseverance to keep the momentum going and gain loyal listeners. You must strategize your marketing strategy; we’re here to help you get started!
Keeping going with patience is one of the important aspects required in every marketing field. There is no specific strategy that would give 100% assurance that it can make you go viral, but what we’ve listed down for you are tried and tested strategies to help you formulate your promotional techniques. This will help you search for new listeners and also help them to explore more with you.
Here are some quick tips to help you strategize your podcast marketing and promote your podcast:
- Create an email list or engagement list before launching your podcast.
- Before you launch, record 3-5 podcast episodes.
- Pick a launch date.
- Send a message to your mailing list asking people to listen and review.
- Continue to release new episodes regularly.
FAQs
The first step is to find the right place to spread your message. Word-of-mouth advertising is potentially the most effective podcast marketing strategy. Your target audience naturally gravitates to specific locations in the real world, so it would be your job to find them and join them.
Discuss topics that interest you and your target audience
Concentrate on your intended audience.
Tell a lot of stories.
Assist your audience in taking the next step.
Pose questions to your audience and report back on their responses.
Stay on topic and don’t stray too far.
Invite one-of-a-kind experts to your show.
Find your target audience and pick your platforms wisely.
Make use of hashtags.
To make images, use pull quotes.
Make use of sound bites.
Create a video.
Make use of social media to grow your community.
Use social media to communicate with influencers.
Promote your previous episodes.
Your podcast should have strong content that will keep your target audience listening. Furthermore, it should not be too long or too short. The ideal length for your podcast is 20 – 22 minutes, with strong and interactive content.
Yes, podcasts require a viable marketing strategy to reach their target audience and grow and promote the podcast.
Podcast marketing falls under content marketing. Content marketing is simply the creation of information that increases your company’s authority and trust in the eyes of potential customers.
Many social media sites cater to this feature to promote podcasts, brands, or anything else you want. Top social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, among others, would be of great assistance and prove to be one of the most effective podcast marketing strategies.
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