Podcast Promotion: 4 Proven Tactics To Get More Listeners

As the world tunes into more and more podcasts, Apple announced that it had over 30 million episodes as of April 2020. This is a massive jump from the 550,000 podcasts at WWDC 2018.

However, the growth in podcast episodes doesn’t guarantee listeners if you don’t get promotion and distribution right.

Source: Pexels

Podcast promotion is an essential piece in your podcast launch strategy, if not the most important, after distribution. Thankfully, it is usually on the minds of most podcasters even before they go live with the first episode.

It’s easy to say that the best way to grow your listeners or subscribers is by consistently putting out great content. But nothing in life is that simple. Without steady and targeted promotion, your podcast will likely die a slow and painful death.

Here are a couple of proven strategies to grow your podcast audience. You can try them over time and see which works for you and what doesn’t. Let’s dive in…

#1. Take Advantage of Your Guest’s Audience

Are you planning to feature guest speakers? Will you have relevant influencers in your niche come on your podcast to discuss a trending topic now and then? Leverage their community and social capital. Take full advantage of the broad audience they bring along with them.

Give their audience a reason to come back to your pod. Also, ensure your pre-promotion is bang on with awareness. Chances are the popularity of your celebrity guest will also bring you new listeners. You will also get the added benefit of other influencers lining up to speak on your podcast. Lastly, make it easy for the speaker to share the episode featuring them with their audience.

#2. Create Customized Merchandise

You could also create custom merchandise such as custom label bottled water or custom t-shirts. An excellent example of this is Cal Fussman’s Big Questions podcast, where he shares out customized t-shirts to his guest speakers. Always ensure the merchandise is relevant or generic enough that you don’t need to print or manufacture a new one anytime you have a new guest on the podcast.

#3. Share on Social Media

Social media is an excellent platform for accelerated growth of your listener base. Primarily if you use the right platform. Each social media is unique and has its merits and demerits. An in-depth understanding of how your target audience engages with each platform is essential to getting your social media marketing strategy right.

Gary Vee is a fantastic example of using Instagram to promote a podcast. You can promote your podcast using contests and prizes. You can also do giveaways of your custom merchandise.

#4. Transcribe The Audio and Publish 

This tactic works if you have a blog. You can also pitch the published text to popular blogs in your industry. If you had a famous influencer or key opinion leader on your podcast, you have to turn the audio into an article.

Promoting your podcast using this strategy also ensures that your blog gets refreshed with a new piece of content. Remember to insert a call to action or an image promoting your blog in the article. The main reason these tactic works is because the text is much easier to index by search engines than voice. That might change in the future.

Some late adopters also prefer text to voice, and publishing the podcast on your blog would be a great way to win them over.

The Bottomline

Podcasts are growing, and almost everyone is setting up one these days. This, however, means that the battle for listeners has intensified. These four tactics are a great way to gain a leg up over your competitors.

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