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Key marketing strategies for your podcast

Creating a great podcast is vital. But if you don’t know how to market the podcast then not many people will ever hear about it. As a medium, podcasting has its own distinct ways of promoting a podcast. In this article we will explain the key strategies for ensuring that a podcast is listened by the maximum number of relevant people. Essentially the way you setup you podcast and where you distribute it is vital. After that it is key to promote a podcast on the major social channels.

Make sure you podcast is distributed correctly

Make sure that your podcast is distributed on all the major podcasts hosts (Google, iTunes, Spotify) and all of the smaller players that are most relevant to you, such as Amazon Alexa, TuneIn or Soundcloud for example. Their relevance will depend on the type of content and audiences you are trying to reach, so it is worth thinking about this. In addition, make sure that you are found under the most appropriate categories in each of the hosts. For example iTunes has over a hundred categories through which you podcast can be found. It is key to select the right one.

Make sure your podcast stands out

How well does you podcast stand out from the crowd? Does the imagery look great? Can people read the podcast title and description text, and is it engaging and relevant? Does the image standout and is it relevant? Are the most detailed descriptions of the podcast engaging and informative.  The better you present your podcast the more likely people are to listen to it.

Find out where your audience is and engage them

Are they on Facebook or Twitter, Link, Clubhouse or Instagram for instance? Once this is established you can start to establish a communication strategy for these platforms and the audiences

An obvious first step is to write a post about your podcast on these platforms. But just as importantly, be active in conversations relevant to your podcast, share other people’s posts, get involved with trending topics and follow people, so that you and your podcast become know in relevant communities. It is also vital you present your content there. For example you can share snippets of the content on these social platforms and even create video clips to attract audiences.

Get you podcast indexed on Google

Google indexes podcasts via search and is therefore a key way for a podcast to be found. In addition, users can actually play a podcast directly in Google’s search results as their dedicated iOS and Android podcast apps. 

To get started in Google search results, first set yourself up in Google Podcasts Manager (GPM). Simply submit your podcast RSS feed and then verify you are the user.

Ensure your podcast can be accessed on all relevant marketing material

The obvious examples are your website and social media profiles;

But also, where appropriate, to you use some of the following channels:  

  • Newsletter
  • Articles and Blogs
  • Bios
  • Author bios (if you contribute to online content websites) 
  • Presentation slides in the ‘about you’ section 
  • Email signatures

The key is to find channels that are appropriate to you and use these to generate awareness of the podcast.

Maintain podcast awareness through a promotion schedule

Plan out a schedule of activities that are timed to maximum effectiveness. For instance, the first two weeks of podcasts are released are key. If there is enough take up of your podcast then iTunes and the other major hosts will actively promote new podcasts that they see gaining popularity. So the key is to raise as much awareness of your podcast in these two weeks.

The key elements of a good promotion schedule are: 

  • Key channels to help raises awareness – social, search, email etc.
  • Content required to drive awareness – podcast itself, snippets, comments on podcast subject area
  • Timing plan – activity on day of release and during the first weeks of release

Think about each new episode and who it is interesting to and why. Use that to help promote that episode and in turn the overall listenership to the podcast series.

It is also important to keep promoting after this period as audiences also grow over time, and once a podcast hits critical mass then word of mouth will become a key driver of a podcast listenership. 

Conclusion

There are a number of key elements to promoting a podcast. A number of these are distinct to podcasting so it is worth putting in the time to understand how these areas work, and developing the optimal strategy to maximise the listenership of your audience. By following these core strategies you will go a good way to growing and maintaining your podcast audience listenership.

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