Podcast marketing can help you grow your business by reaching larger audiences and generating new leads. You probably know this already and you’re set on starting a new podcast. But do you know how to attract listeners? We’ve shared some marketing tips that will steer you towards success.
Podcasting Marketing – Raising Awareness in Your Podcast
When you create an engaging podcast, you open the door to raising brand awareness. Podcasts have enormous potential to attract new clients and increase your brand visibility. You know how important it is to get your brand known and build trust with your customers.
But how will you advertise your podcast? Well, there are tons of ways for that, the most important one being cooperation with the people in the podcast business who will help you with your podcasting marketing. Look for podcasters and experts in your industry to suggest working together. You can:
- Be a guest on different podcasts. You’ll help another podcaster make an interesting episode and the host will promote you and your business in return. When you’re a guest at another podcast, remember that you’re not there to make a sales pitch. Mention your business at the beginning, then talk about relevant topics and share your expertise. If the listeners like what you’re saying, they’ll quickly look you up.
- Interview experts for your podcast. Find interesting people and make an amazing episode with them. The guests will be happy to promote your podcast because they’ll also get exposure from the episode. Feel free to give them a gentle reminder of how important sharing the episode would be for you.
- Get a shout out from other podcasters. If you find podcast hosts who address a similar target audience as you, ask them for a promotion. You could pay them for a mention or exchange favors.
- Join podcasts communities. You can find different forums and groups where people share their ideas. Engage in discussions frequently and make your podcast known. Check out Reddit, one of the best platforms for internet discussion. Don’t create spam comments and try to really engage in discussion giving valuable insights. People will respond if you’re being genuine in your approach. They’ll probably check out your podcasts and give you a shout out after they see how interesting your insights are.
Finding Your Podcast’s Audience
Once you make an engaging podcast, you need a marketing strategy to build your audience. Identify the needs and problems of your target audience and make sure your podcast is the solution. Keep in mind how your ideal customers look like and what they think about, but make sure to create broad descriptions. Then focus on one part of the customer persona, such as interests and hobbies.
You should also build authority for your podcast. Your podcast has to be a reliable source of information for your listeners. Creating helpful and relevant content is the first step for establishing your credibility and a quality marketing campaign is the second.
Don’t overly promote your podcast. Instead, focus on presenting yourself as someone who knows a lot on a particular topic and needs to learn more. Share valuable insights you already have with your audience and be open to learning new things. This will allow you to grow together with your audience and earn their trust.
Build a Community
You might have already built a community around your blog and social media. If you already have an audience, make sure your podcast addresses those people exactly. For example, talk about the topic they are interested in. Find out what their ideal duration of the podcast is. Ask for their opinion about the podcast’s format and experiment a bit. You get a lot more responses when people actively participate in discussions on social media.
Promote the podcast on your blog too. It’s much easier to drive listeners to your podcast if they’re already loyal readers. Utilize your blog and social media following as much as you can. Every platform plays a role in raising your brand awareness!
Don’t forget about email marketing. Create interesting and personalized content only for email subscribers. Invite them to join you on your podcast journey and ask them for feedback (with surveys, polls, etc). In the following episodes, you can answer questions your subscribers raised. This will strengthen your bond with your audience and build more trust in your brand.
As your following grows, use available analytic tools to track down demographic data and better understand the needs of your listeners, so you can better adapt your podcasting marketing strategy to your audience. Personalized content will get you very far! But don’t forget about the podcast format. For example, if most people who are listening to your podcast are commuting to work, you might want to create shorter 20-minute episodes.
Platforms and Directories
When you find out what your audience wants, you need to know where it is. What websites do your listeners use the most? Research the platforms your target audience uses to find the best ones to promote your podcast. Instead of waiting for people to discover you, reach your audience by coming to them!
Your podcast should be available on different online directories. While iTunes is the most popular platform for podcasts, don’t hesitate to explore others. If you cast a net wide enough, you’ll increase your chance of reaching new listeners. Make sure to use relevant tags, interesting titles, and informative descriptions. That’s something new listeners immediately notice when browsing podcast directories.
Choosing a Podcast Service Agency
As you can see, podcasting marketing includes so many things but you don’t have to go through the process alone. You can outsource your marketing strategy to a podcast service agency and ease your workload.
Benefits of Hiring a Podcast Agency
Launching, editing, producing, promoting, leveraging a podcast is a lot of work and there are a lot of moving pieces. These systems, strategies and steps may seem overwhelming or a lot, or maybe you can’t or don’t want to do this alone, or figure it all out yourself. Hey I get that! Podcasting can be a lot for one person to take on, especially while trying to grow their business in other avenues as well!
Here are some reasons why you may want to defer to a podcast consulting service to help you along the way….
- You’d rather focus on revenue generating tasks.
- You’d rather focus on your passion (your coaching/practice/clients etc.)
- It makes more financial sense to hire someone to set up and co-ordinate this for you, while you make more profits doing what you do best.
- You don’t want to take the time to figure out some of these elements.
- You don’t like the technical elements.
- You don’t have any support staff or someone on your team that you feel can take this on.
- You don’t want to waste precious time – and just want to get started NOW.
- You want less stress and peace of mind it’s just ‘taken care of’.
Having a podcasting partner allows you to focus on other areas of your business while having experts handle the production and promotion of your podcast. One more benefit of getting an outreach partner is that you’ll get an objective and unique point of view. A podcasting marketing agency will help you amplify your strengths and improve your weaknesses. There’s nothing better for business growth than a critical eye!
Choosing the Podcasting Marketing Agency
So, how can you choose the best agency? It’s quite straightforward. You need to define your needs and seek a company that can fulfill them. To make a decision, try to list all pros and cons of a podcasting marketing agency’s offer and see what works best for your business model.
While some companies might be affordable, they provide loads of outreach but not secure bookings on the popular podcasts. On the other hand, agencies that guarantee bookings as part of your podcasting marketing strategy are on the expensive side.
You should also seek companies that have worked with professionals in your industry. Understanding your industry and your target audience is crucial for delivering results for a podcasting marketing campaign. When a particular podcasting marketing agency catches your eye, ask to see the previous work. You can also read reviews and testimonials from past clients. This will help you realize if you should keep looking or this agency has everything you need.
A successful podcast needs quality content and a top-notch marketing strategy. How can someone fall in love with your podcast if they don’t know about it?
So how can you tell what a great podcasting marketing agency is? Well, everything depends on your needs, of course, but an excellent agency will:
- help with podcasting marketing.
- know where your avatar ‘hangs out’ – where best to distribute
- create LinkedIn articles
- create audio snippets to share on IG stories/ IG and IGTV
- leverage your podcast further – create quote graphics from tips you share on the podcast – super shareable.
Not only do they have the expertise to create the content and moving pieces but you’ll get SO MUCH MORE content from one episode (less work for you) and take much of the podcasting marketing efforts off your plate.
Find someone who knows their stuff, or simply book a call to chat about how we can help your podcast be heard.
