Podcast Marketing Strategies
Podcast marketing and promotion refers to any sort of strategies or plans marketers can act on to grow the podcast audience and increase its visibility. There are many ways one can do this and while certain strategies are often used, one can always think out of the box and market a podcast differently.
To get the ball rolling, below are some podcast marketing strategies that can change the game for brands and marketing agencies and can be used to start promoting a podcast.
Understand the ‘Why’
Before starting a podcast or creating a new podcast episode, it’s important to understand the reason behind doing so. Marketers must figure out what need they trying to fill and how they will measure the success. Deciding if the brand wants to focus on the number of downloads, backlinks, or the number of sales that are made through their affiliate marketing efforts. Taking time to figure out what needs to be achieved and how it is going to be achieved will make the podcast and podcast episodes more cohesive and targeted.
Create Great Content
As per podcast statistics, there are roughly more than 850,000 podcasts, which is a lot of competition. In such a case, creating stellar podcast content and promoting it will become a herculean task. Hence, one must consider what goes into creating great content.
- At a minimum, we recommend getting a decent microphone, editing software and call recording software (for guests).
- Stories create neurological responses in our brains, creating empathy with the storyteller. Moreover, they’re easier to remember.
- Telling the listeners what they should do next with a powerful call to action helps move them through the marketing funnel.
While there’s a lot more that goes into creating a great podcast episode, these three criteria will get brands off to a great start.
Craft Titles and Descriptions
Podcast and episode titles and descriptions are the first things that the target listeners will see that let them know if the podcast is for them or not. A podcast title should let listeners know what the podcast is about. Then, in the podcast description, one can expand on what type of content listeners can expect. It’s also important to create titles and descriptions for each episode.
Start or Update Website
Having a website and blogs is highly recommended while talking about podcasts. Website and blog content is easily shareable and attracts a different audience than a podcast alone. This means one can reach people for a podcast using blogs and vice versa. Depending on the podcast host that is being used, one can easily host podcast content on the particular website instead of using the basic website included in the podcast hosting.
Optimize for SEO
Both website and podcast titles and descriptions can be optimized for search. One of the easiest ways to do podcast SEO is by optimizing the podcast episode titles and descriptions to include the keywords that the target audience is likely to use when searching for the content being covered.
Publish New Episodes at the Right Time
Just as it’s important to find the best time to publish on social media, it’s important to publish the podcast episodes at the right time, too. If it just getting started, one can look at similar podcasts to find out when they publish their new episodes. That’s a good place to start. Once the data about when people listen to podcast episodes in place, one can aim to start posting closer to that time.
Engage Listeners
Podcasting is a one-way medium but that doesn’t mean that marketers can ignore the listeners. It is imperative for companies to engage the listeners if they want to have a successful podcast. Including calls to action for listeners so they know what action to take after listening to the podcast is a great option. This might mean asking them to subscribe to the podcast, share it, or leave a review. But this can’t be just asked. The session should be beneficial to the listener. They should have a reason to subscribe, share, or leave a review.
Learning how to promote a podcast is a trial-and-error process. Finding the right podcast marketing mix requires testing a few different strategies to see what sticks for the show. It takes creativity and diligence to consistently chip away at. Starting with top-notch content and patience are the two pillars when beginning to promote a podcast. It is mandatory to remember that no amount of money will grow an audience for a subpar product. Hence, it is wise to spend time refining a formula to produce high-quality episodes.
Also read: Advantages and Disadvantages of Podcast Marketing
