Podcast Marketing can be a lot of different things, but it can always rocket launch your show to the next level. If no one knows about your podcast (let alone, listen to it), does it even exist? Without an audience, you’ll find it really hard to find motivation and keep going. You’re surely putting lots of efforts in planning, producing and recording your podcast. It’s a great idea to start investing some time in the marketing side as well and have a solid podcast marketing strategy. It’s key to make progress and grow your podcast. A long-term, sustainable marketing strategy will help you establish continuous growth and you’ll be able to expand your listener base.
Assuming you already know how to start a podcast and have your own podcast up and running, the very next step would be to distribute your podcast in all the major apps and directories. In this guide, we’ll focus on the final step of the process – how to properly use podcast marketing to grow your listener base. The ultimate guide to podcast marketing for 2023 is here!
So, what is podcast marketing anyway? Do you need to develop your own strategy around it?
The term “Podcast Marketing” is very broad – it essentially includes all the different things you can do in order to get more potential listeners or make more people aware of your podcast.
There’s no single marketing plan that would work for all podcast in the same manner. Each show is different with a different listener base and target audience. You’ll have to try, try and then try some more until you find a strategy that works consistently for your show.
Marketing is not just about sharing a link to your podcast on social media once in a while, there’s so much more to it!
You should probably think and plan a long-term podcast marketing strategy in order to eventually succeed. With that being said, it’s always good to keep being patient and continue to publish podcast episodes on a regular basis. Even if your current audience size is still small, releasing episodes constantly is always a key part of growing your show.
Creating your own podcast marketing strategy
Before you dip your toes in podcast marketing, you definitely need to develop a broad strategy. You don’t have to write a 20 pages research paper to really define it. Just ask yourself a few key questions –
- Who is my ideal listener persona?
- How many people I want to reach with the podcast?
- How am I going to reach all of those potential listeners?
- What are the goals for the podcast?
- What would be considered as a successful marketing campaign?
Let’s dive into it right now and review different approaches you can use to develop your own podcast marketing strategy. These are core concepts that can help you build a sustainable marketing plan around them:
1. Create a brand around your podcast
Building your own podcast website is one of the best moves you can use in terms of podcast marketing. You’ll have much more control over your own content, and this essentially helps you establish a brand around your podcast. You’ll have your own URL/Domain, it would instantly increase your podcast’s authority. You could also start sending people to the website directly or base marketing campaigns on that URL.
When you have your own website, you don’t need to share links to any other podcast app, bio-link (like LinkTree or alternatives), or third-party website (like Spotify or Apple Podcasts) – always share a direct link to your own URL or domain. It’ll also help your audience remember your podcast, regardless of which app they use.
This would really help with Podcast SEO as well. With a website, you can grow your organic traffic over time, and this could easily becomes your number one source of new listeners. You can even use the podcast website to monetize your podcast through ads, donations, memberships, premium content, and many other creative ideas.
2. Find marketing channels that work
When you plan your podcast marketing strategy, you’ll need to find at least 2 or 3 separate channels where you plan to promote your podcast. There are tons of marketing channels available. You can use Social Media, Organic/SEO, Influencer Marketing, Paid Marketing and more.
You’ll have to first try multiple marketing channels and track the results. Keep going and publish your content on those channels, then see which ones work best. Then you could double down and get more content released on the channels that are most relevant for your show.
3. Leverage your current social media followers
Social media is probably one of the first things that come to mind if you think about marketing. If you already use social media, get your followers involved in the process. Not only should you share the podcast content yourself, but try to get your followers actively engaged in your own posts. As soon as someone shares, retweets, comments, likes your post or anything else, you get their own followers’ attention as well. Read our “Social Media” guide to grow your podcast in order to learn more about that part.
Social media can be one of the biggest growth engines for your show, especially if your podcast is dealing with current events or can be viral for any reason. You can also share clips or shorter pieces of your podcast directly on social media, build up anticipation for future episodes etc.
4. Leverage your podcast guests
If you regularly invite guests on your podcast, you can always try to get them to share the episodes they’re featured on with their own audience. This can help you get more subscribers and grow your podcast audience. Getting some outside help with your marketing efforts is always awesome.
See how Harry Stebbings did not hesitate to ask Guy Kawasaki (1.4M twitter followers) to promote it on his social media accounts. Your guests probably do not have so many followers, but any push could help promote your podcast.
If you have a website, creating profiles for your show hosts, guests and any other participants (like Composers/Producers/Editors/etc.) can really help as well. Podcastpage includes this type of functionality by default and even let you create a Guest Intake Form so you can receive inquiries from potential guests as well. When you feature your guests on your own podcast website – it’s a win-win.
Once your guest see their episode on your website, along with their own unique profile page or image, links, bio and so on – they’ll be even more interested to share the URL and promote the episode.
5. Don’t limit yourself to one social media platform
Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, Discord, TikTok – there are so many platforms out there. Try to be active on at least two platforms and engage with different types of users. Make sure to share the content in the right format. Each platform can have its own nuances or styles.
Your website can also turn into a social hub if you encourage listeners to leave you comments or if your site has social/community features.
6. Repurpose content on a regular basis
You can repurpose your podcast to blog posts, videos, audiograms, quotes, images and much more. This can help you create more online content from the very same source, and help tremendously with your podcast marketing strategy.
This can often be automated, so you can get a better reach from the same episode without adding much work on top of that.
A lot of podcast episodes may be “time limited” and not be relevant after some time, but you can probably extract short parts of those episodes and re-post those infinitely. It’s easy to create 30 pieces of content from each episode (quotes, audiograms, screenshots etc. etc.) so go ahead and leverage your existing content.
7. Form partnerships
Partnership is a win-win situation where you collaborate with someone else and everyone gains something from the collaboration. You don’t have to stick to other podcasts as partners. It’s also possible to try working with other brands, websites, newsletters or companies that can be relevant to your podcast audience.
You can work with other podcasts to help spread the word on each other’s show, or get one of your colleagues or podcast guests to put the word out about your show.
8. Create a community around your podcast
A highly involved community is one of those things that can help make your listeners return and even pay to be part of your podcast community. You can create a private group, a sub-reddit, Slack channel, or use other platforms to get your audience more involved.
This is sometimes overlooked, but having your true fans spread the word is always a great marketing tactic.
There’s so many platforms available today for these types of things, it’d be quite easy to achieve. A community can take time to manage, so make sure you’re behind that idea before jumping in.
9. Pick a unique name for your show
With so many podcasts, newsletters, websites, and other types of content creators and brands – it can become really confusing for your audience if you give a too broad of a name for your podcast. Make sure your podcast name is unique, and can be found easily both in podcast apps and when you search for it online. Choosing a good podcast name for your show is key for success, a unique and memorable name can go far and help with your podcast growth. It’s so much harder to do marketing for a poorly chosen podcast name, so you can’t really ignore this step.
Podcast marketing plan & tactics
- Post often on social media. For each episode you’re releasing, try to create a teaser/trailer before the episode is fully available. You can also share links to each episode once it’s published (this can be automated).
- Add your podcast to podcast directories. Optimize your podcast discoverability by using the right tags in those platforms. Make it easier for potential listeners to find your podcast. Even if they do not know that it exist, by adding a good description and categories tags.
- Create a website for your podcast. A website gives your podcast so much in terms of marketing. From better branding, organic/SEO upside, and the possibility to include different types of content on top of the podcast episodes (videos, transcripts, blog posts, downloadable material, attachments and more). A website is the best investment you can make for your podcast. Your website should also include an easy way to follow your podcast, ways to connect with you, and more.
- Transcribe your episodes. While creating transcripts can be a tedious process (or an expensive one, if you hire someone), it can really help with podcast SEO. Transcribing your podcast makes it more accessible.
- Create a blog. If a blog makes sense for your podcast – it could be a great marketing tool. Blogs can eventually get a lot of organic traffic from search engines. It’d also give your audience something extra besides the audio-based episodes. Thankfully, Podcastpage has a built-in blog feature that could help you get started in no time.
- Create contests and giveaways. If you have the resources, running a contest or a giveaway can help you gain a nice bump in followers. You can also be creative and provide premium content or services instead of a real “prize”.
Marketing services and tools for podcasters
Here are the podcast marketing tools you should know about if you are just starting to promote your podcast on your own:
The best podcast marketing tools:
- Podcastpage.io – Create a complete podcast website in just a few clicks. Your episodes will by updated automatically and each one will get a page on the website. Add subscribe buttons and social media links – have a main online hub for your podcast.
- Wavve / Headliner – Create audiograms for your podcast episodes. These are short video clips that often include a short bit of audio from your show, along with animated soundwaves. You can also add subtitles. The audiograms are often shared on social media and are known to help podcasters gain more attention there.
- Duplikit – Convert podcasts and videos into blog posts. Transcribe, edit and add stock photos from their platform.
- Repurpose – Automatically convert podcasts to videos – then publish those on social media platforms (YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter).
- Canva – Design posts for social media. Canva lets you create great designs easily for a post/story or other creative idea you might have. You can also connect your social media accounts and publish straight from the Canva platform.
- Descript – An audio/video editor for your podcast. You can transcribe, add speaker labels, and more. More importantly, you can edit your podcast audio by editing the text.
- Bannerbear – Automate your visual marketing. Bannerbear helps you auto-generate social media visuals and podcast videos.
- Buffer – Social media scheduled posting tool. You can use it to plan your posting schedule and set it up in advance.
- Discord / Slack / Circle – Community building tools. The first two are chat enablers. Circle is a complete community building platform that comes with discussions, membership, and more.
Podcast marketing services
If it all sounds too much for you, you can always hire a professional marketer. There are also great resources, and even podcasts that discuss marketing in general. You can check out the Learn Growth Marketing podcast or the Today In Digital Marketing podcast if you want to learn more about marketing.
Paid marketing is also a popular channel. If you have the budget to create PPC (pay per click) campaigns for your podcasts, it can also help bring additional listeners. There are many platforms where you can use PPC for podcast marketing – Google AdWords, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other platforms all offer PPC options which you can use to promote your podcast.
There are several pro podcasting agencies you could explore if you really want someone to plan, build, launch and promote your podcast. Many business podcasts are produced via agencies, and they can really help your business with their know-how and experience.
Conclusion – Podcast Marketing Strategy
Building a decent marketing plan for your podcast is a must. You can pick almost any podcast marketing strategy mentioned in this article and succeed with it. We highly recommend to try at least two or three different methods, and marketing tools go with them.
Don’t expect a marketing effort to be a half-day adventure. Plan to make it a long-term goal and work with that in mind. Publishing quality content on a regular basis will be the key for your marketing campaign. When we say “quality content”, it doesn’t have to be just your podcast episodes – it can also include your social posts, blog posts, video content, and much more.
A podcast website is one of the most important tools for promoting your podcast and gaining new listeners. Podcast SEO has a high ceiling if you can be patient and invest in creating content for your podcast website. It’s one of the first steps in your podcast marketing journey, and once you have a proper website in place – the sky is the limit for your show.
