You started a podcast. Now you’re wondering how you’re supposed to promote it. How do you grow your podcast, gain more followers and become podcast famous? Well, I can’t guarantee you will be a famous podcaster right away, but including these tactics into your marketing strategy will help you get there.
I’m getting ahead of myself. Before you jump right into the idea of being “famous”, you need to create the building blocks of your foundation. In this case, your “building blocks” are the different ways that you should be promoting your platform.
Let’s step back even further. Before you even begin marketing your podcast, you should first evaluate the product that you are trying to “sell” to your audience. The two most important things about a podcast are time and quality content. The quality of your podcast is so much more important than you think. Marketing a bad product will do nothing for you except waste your time. You need to make sure that your current product is something worth promoting!
You will know that you have a good product when you are producing valuable, attention-grabbing, and unique content. The most important piece of this is value. You will have a much easier time promoting a podcast that provides value to your audience. This is because you will be giving your viewers an incentive to listen! While you are creating this content, keep in mind that it takes time and patience for a podcast to grow. A city isn’t built in a day, right? Don’t get discouraged if your podcast doesn’t grow as quickly as you hoped it would. Growing an audience takes time, work and dedication. Focus on creating valuable content. When you are creating the right content with added value, the audience will follow. Just give it some time!
When you’re confident that you are producing high-quality content, then you can focus on the ways that you will market your podcast. While cruising the Internet for the perfect podcast marketing strategies, you may have noticed that there are tons of different websites offering their own version of advice. All of the options available may leave you wondering what you should do! Among the chaos of options, keep your eyes focused on your audience. Your podcast will not be for everyone. You have niched down your podcast enough to where your audience is a specific group of people. You should first learn about your audience and then cater your marketing strategies around those people. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different marketing strategies to test what will work! Again, this process will take time. Be patient with yourself and the process.
Most podcasters use basic techniques to promote their podcast. Remember to pay attention to your audience and build your marketing strategy based on that.
1. Encourage your listeners to take action
This should be a no-brainer, but you should be encouraging your audience to subscribe, share, and leave feedback on your content. If you are not asking your audience to do the very thing you need them to do to grow your podcast, then what are you doing? Use the spare time you have at the beginning and end of each episode to promote your podcast! Don’t be afraid to be genuine about it either. Explain that their feedback and support will give you the foundation to produce better content for them to enjoy.
2. Strategize your publishing
If you are a brand new podcaster, you may not know that it is crucial that you publish your podcast at the right time. If you already knew that, great! Start paying more attention to it! The time in which you post your content may decide your success. If you are not sure where to start, look at other podcasts similar to yours and see if there is a trend. Look at when they post their content and how much success they have had with posting at that time. If you notice a trend in posting, consider that for your own podcast. You may also consider experimenting when you post your episodes. From there, you will gain valuable analytics that will help you figure out the best time to post in the future.
3. Submit your podcast
You will want to make sure that you submit your podcast to apps that play podcasts, most commonly known as a podcatcher or an aggregator. Having your podcast listed on several different apps will expand your audience and help you become more visible! Create accounts in places like Google Play, Spotify, Tunein, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, Podbay, Podtail, and many more. Once you’ve created accounts, submit your RSS feed to every podcast directory so that your podcasts will automatically upload every week.
4. Network with podcasters
Another way that you can get your podcast out there is by joining a group of other podcasters. In addition to making some new friends, you may also find yourself learning a thing or two that will help grow your podcast. That community of podcasters may offer support, help you with podcast troubles, or give you new ideas for content. Joining a group of podcasters may be one of the best decisions you could make for the future of your podcast. If anything, it might be nice to just have a community who understands your challenges.
5. Use the Word-of-Mouth Method
What an old tactic, right? You may be surprised to hear that this old tactic can actually do some good for your podcast. It’s actually one of the most effective marketing strategies known today. The first step is spreading the word in the right place. Find conferences, local events, or a group that has an interest in the topic of your podcast and spread the word as much as you can! Don’t be afraid to really market yourself and your niche. If you find a group of people who are already interested in your podcast topic, it won’t be hard to reel them in. Networking will be a huge asset to your podcast. You could even encourage your friends and family to spread the word to their friends and family.
While I’ve only provided five ways that you can promote your podcast, they are a great place to start. I previously mentioned that first focusing on the content that you’re creating is the most important thing that you can do. Focus on creating valuable content and pinpointing your audience so that you have a better idea of your marketing strategy. In the meantime, consider starting a website for your podcast!