The days of radio listening are numbered, and podcasting is on the rise in its place. Over 67 million Americans listen to podcasts at least once a month. That number is expected to grow by double digits each year for the foreseeable future. At the same time, marketers are increasingly turning to podcasts as an effective marketing channel. They can be a great way to reach your target audience and attract new customers.
However, podcast marketing is still a relatively new concept. There aren’t any firm rules or best practices in email or social media marketing. So you have to rely mostly on trial and error to determine what works best for your audience. But you don’t have to start from scratch — there are plenty of tried-and-true strategies you can start using right away.
Here are ten tips to help you with your podcast marketing efforts:
Why Start a Podcast?
Now is a great time to start a podcast for business. Here are some reasons why.
Podcasts are Everywhere
With so many podcasts available, you can find a show that fits your niche and target your content to the right people.
Podcasts are easy to consume
People listen to podcasts while working out at the gym, driving in their cars, or doing household chores. It’s convenient to get information while doing other things, making it easier for people to take in your message.
Podcasts Build Valuable Relationships
Podcasts can help you build valuable relationships with customers, too. Unlike most forms of content marketing, podcasts allow brands to have an intimate conversation with their audience. Hosting a podcast lets you connect with your audience in their language and share your brand’s story more personal.
Plus, creating a podcast is easier than ever. You don’t need expensive software, fancy recording equipment, or free time. Instead, with the right tools and some planning, you can create an engaging podcast that draws new customers to your business.
Podcast Marketing Strategies for 2022
Understand Your Why & Your Audience
When creating content, you need to know how to measure your success. For example, when you start a podcast, there are two things that you need to figure out:
1) who is my audience, and
2) why are they listening?
Once you’ve established the “who” and “why,” it’s essential to figure out how you want to measure the success of your podcast. Do you care about downloads? Subscriptions? Backlinks? Affiliate sales? If so, how many of each do you want?
Once you’ve created your goals, it will be easier to create a consistent message and target that audience.
Answering these questions before starting a podcast or creating a new podcast episode will help ensure that your podcast is focused and cohesive.
Launch With a Few Episodes
Some podcasters recommend releasing three episodes the first week, two the second week, and one the third week. So if someone finds your show during that first three weeks, they will always have something new to listen to when they come back for more.
There are also benefits if you plan and record several interviews or shows before launching your podcast. For example, I record my interviews a couple of months ahead of time and schedule them in my Feedburner account, so they go out automatically.
One mistake new podcasters make is that once they’ve recorded their show or interview, it’s too late to promote it any further, so there’s no point in publicizing.
Well, you’re mistaken. I would recommend you to promote it even after it is published.
Include transcripts
Including a transcript of every episode on your website will also boost your SEO efforts because it gives Google more text-based content to crawl through and index in search results. This gives people another way of finding you in search that doesn’t require them to visit iTunes or Google Play Music or even load the embedded audio player on your site.
Transcripts are also significant because they make it easy to copy quotes from the show and share them on social media when sharing an entire episode might not be appropriate.
Optimize for SEO
Podcast search rankings are similar to Google search rankings, and there are several things you can do to help optimize your podcast for search. And the best thing about podcast marketing is that most people don’t know how to do it well, so it’s an opportunity for those who know what they’re doing!
You can also optimize each episode of your podcast by including keywords in both the title and description. This will help people find episodes they’re interested in more quickly because they’ll show up higher on search results pages when someone searches for those terms on Google Play Music or iTunes Store app store categories like “Podcasts.”
Start an Email Newsletter
Once you have a growing email list, it’s time to use it for podcast marketing. Here are some of our favorite ways to use email newsletters for podcast marketing:
- First, feature new and popular episodes.
- Include an image and text description of each episode in your newsletter.
- Encourage readers and subscribers to listen and subscribe right from your newsletter links (I recommend using a link shortener like Bitly).
- Share short audio clips or snippets from popular episodes.
- Offer freebies, discounts, or other bonuses only available to those who have subscribed to your newsletter (a great way to increase signups).
- Ask your subscribers what they’d like to hear more of in future podcasts.
Finally, use podcast interviews to reach new audiences.
Reach out to other podcasters and see if they’d be willing to have you on their show. You can do the same thing for them or offer to do an episode together. Again, this is a win-win because you’re getting exposure to a new audience.
Promote your show inside your content.
If you’re publishing any content online, be sure that you always include links back to your podcast episodes in them. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a blog post, a video, or a social media update; add links to your episodes so that people know where they can go if they want more information about the topic you’re discussing.
Do guest posts on other blogs in your niche.
Guest posting is one of the best marketing strategies because it gets you in front of new audiences who are highly targeted and may have never heard of you before. It also helps establish authority by positioning you as an expert in your niche or industry.
Publish New Episodes at the Right Time
As with any content you create, the best time to publish your podcast episodes depends on your audience. As a general rule of thumb, you’ll want to publish your new episodes on the same day and at the same time each week. Again, this will help you build an audience of dedicated listeners.
Share Audiograms
There are lots of reasons why you might want to use audiograms. The most important one is that they’re engaging for your audience.
In fact, in our experience, audiograms get more shares on social media than plain text content does. You’ve probably seen how well video performs on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram compared to plain text or image posts. Video generates way more engagement, and that’s because people like watching videos better than reading text or looking at images online.
Submit to podcast aggregators and directories
Podcast marketing is vital because you want to ensure that all of your episodes are available when people find your show. This means you need to be on every podcast listening platform possible, including:
- iTunes
- Google Play Music
- Stitcher
- Spotify
- TuneIn Radio
- Podbean
Parting Thoughts
Podcasts are one of the most popular mediums for content marketing — but they’re often overlooked. That’s because podcasting can be a little intimidating at first glance.
People aren’t sure how to promote a business, get more subscribers, or gain a larger audience. But if you’re willing to put in just a little work, podcasts can be a great way to boost your brand and grow your business.
As an entrepreneur, it’s crucial to take advantage of every opportunity you can find to market your business online. Podcasts offer entrepreneurs a chance to engage with current and potential customers while educating them about their products and services.
At this point, you might be thinking, “This sounds too good to be true! How do I get started?”
Don’t worry — it isn’t all that hard! Through this post, you’ll have all the essential tactics that you need to market your podcast.
Once you’re ready to set up your podcast, here’s a list of podcast recording apps to help you create user-friendly podcasts.
