How to Market a Podcast to Grow your Business?

Is Podcasting a right move for my business? If it is, how do I market a podcast in a cost effective but efficient manner to reach my target audience – you wonder!

To answer your first question, Around 155 million people in the US listened to a Podcast in 2020. These numbers are projected to increase at a year-on-year growth rate of 10.1%.

Moreover, research suggests that 27% of US podcast listeners have a 4-year college degree. 45% have household income over $75k.  48% of podcast listeners fall under the age group of 12-34.  

Given this data, podcast seems to be a great tool to reach and engage with a young, educated and affluent audience. Both B2B and B2C companies can use podcasts to reach their target audience.

To successfully market a podcast, the pre-requisite is to create interesting and useful podcasts for your target audience with a concrete plan of action.

Once you have produced a podcast, your aim should be to reach your target audience and build a loyal listenership over time.

 Consider the following to start marketing your podcasts:

• Identify your audience and make a plan to reach them
• Release 3 to 5 episodes on your launch date
• Release subsequent episodes in a consistent manner
• Share your podcast at strategic times on various platforms
• Link your current episode with a relevant previous episode to boost viewership
• Prompt your listeners to share, subscribe and comment on your podcast

These are some basic tactics that will help you get started.

How to Market your Podcast?

 In order to optimally leverage podcasts for business growth, you need to aggressively market it.

Here are the top 6 podcast marketing strategies that will help you build an audience for your podcast with better engagement in a cost-effective and efficient manner.

1.      Submit to Podcast aggregators and Directories

Apple Podcast is no longer the only Podcast aggregator. Platforms like Spotify, Google Play, Pandora and others are growing in popularity. Sharing your podcast on one platform is no longer enough. You need to share your podcast on as many platforms as possible. However, remember to try out each app to ensure that your audience has a great listening experience.

 For better audience reach, you should:

• Create accounts on as many podcast platforms/ directories as you can
• Choose the right category for your podcast. For example, if you are a doctor, you should choose Lifestyle and health. Similarly, a B2B company should choose Business and Technology and so on

•  Write a suitable title & description. The title of your podcast should attract the target audience and simultaneously tell them what they will get from it
• Submit your RSS feed to all of them so that every new episode is automatically published there

2.      Create a Podcast landing page

Your target audience needs a place where it can explore your podcasts. A landing page does that job. Consider the following while creating a landing page for your podcast:

• Create an attractive headline on the page that clearly describes the podcast
• Write a paragraph or so about your podcast and the purpose it serves
• Add positive testimonials from your listeners on the page
• Finding episodes on the page should be made easy by providing links
• Make the page mobile-friendly
• Create a post for every new episode
• Every post should have an embedded player, transcription and show notes
• Provide Subscribe buttons on the landing page to help your listeners subscribe to the podcast on all the sites where you are listed

3.      Don’t forget SEO for podcasts

To build your audience you need to optimize your podcasts as well as the landing page.

Here are a few ways you can do it.

• Choose relevant keywords for each episode
• Put the keywords in the title, description, notes as well as the content of the episode
• However, don’t stuff keywords in the content, it might prove to be counterproductive
• Transcribe all your episodes and edit them keenly. This will help Google to match the content of your podcast with a search query and increase your SERP ranking
• Use the chosen keywords in H1 headings and sub-headings, meta description, body text, alt image attribute and title tag of your podcast landing page

4.      Networking with the Community

Networking with the podcaster and listener community is a highly important strategy to market your podcast.

Following tactics can help you build a strong network.

• Email Newsletters:

Build an email list of people who listen to your podcasts. With every new episode release, send an email newsletter to your listeners and prompt them to share with their friends and family.

• Word-of-mouth:

Wherever you go, talk about your podcast, whenever you get a chance. If you are a doctor, tell the patients visiting your clinic/practice about the podcast. Encourage your friends, family, acquaintances and clients to listen to your podcasts whenever you get a chance.

• Join Podcasting Communities:

Become a part of podcasting communities to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and build a relationship with other podcasters as well as listeners. Some major podcasting forums are Podcasters’ Support Group, Podcasters’ Hangout, Podcasting Technology Resource Group, Blubrry Podcasting Forum and so on. Forums like Blubrry help you connect with fellow podcasters and discuss important topics, podcast news, ideas, marketing tips, latest technology, upcoming events and much more.

• Collaborate with other Podcasters:

Invite an interesting guest on your show. For example, you are a Psychologist. You can invite an Endocrinologist on your podcast to talk about Endocrine disturbances in Depression. In addition to helping your existing listeners gain a new perspective, it will also attract new listeners. Similarly, you can feature as a guest on that Endocrinologists show and give your perspective, for example, about the relationship of hormones and mental health.

• Cross-Promotion:

The target audience of your podcast can be similar to some other podcasts. For example, the target audience of Podcasts by a Psychiatrist can be very similar to that by a Psychologist. In this case, you can choose to cross-promote your podcast and increase your listenership. It is simple. First you find out podcasts with similar target audience. Then, you reach them with the proposal. And lastly, both of you mention each other on your respective shows.

• Engage Online:

For instance, you are an IoT hardware and service provider and have a podcast related to IoT technology. Now, there can be numerous online forums like Quora or Reddit where people talk about IoT. Find those forums and become a part of that conversation. Your primary goal should be to genuinely add value to those conversations. Later on, you can also share a relevant episode during a conversation with your community.

5.      Use Social Media to Market a Podcast

Social media can prove to be a powerful tool in marketing your podcasts. You can use social media in the following manner.

• Promote your podcast on social media:

Create a short post or a blog or an image related to your podcast and share it on social media. The content should be engaging and it should contain the right keywords. Remember to customize the content for each platform for better impact. You can also create and share audiograms of your podcast episodes on social media.

• Engage with your social media followers:

Never commit the mistake of using social media just for promotions. In order for the promotions to work, it is important that you engage with your followers, Reply to their comments. Ask questions. Create and run contests. Arrange Giveaways.

• Repurpose your podcast into a YouTube video:

You can double your exposure if you share your podcast on YouTube. Convert the MP3 into MP4. Choose an image to display on the video. You can choose to display your brand logo or some other relevant images. In the description of the video, add links to your landing page and all podcast listening platforms. Don’t forget to add show notes.

• Share short video clips:

Cut the video that you have just created into small video clips. The idea is to make the clip interesting so as to leave the audience wanting for more. Then share these short clips on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms to gain maximum exposure.

6.      Paid Advertising

In order to reach more of your target audience, you should try advertising your podcast.  Here are some ways of doing it.

• Facebook Ads:

A highly effective way to reach your target audience is to purchase Facebook ads. There are two ways of doing it. Either you create one ad for the entirety of your podcast and link it to your landing page. Alternatively, you create individual ads for each episode. The latter is more complex and time-consuming though it allows narrower targeting.

• Google Ads:

Create Google Ads for your podcasts based on the relevant keywords and link the ads to your Podcast landing page. Use the targeting feature to define your specific target audience. This will make your ad more effective.

• Advertising on Podcast Apps:

Once you have listed your podcast on different aggregators, you can also use them to place your ad. Apps like Spotify and Overcast allow you to advertise your show.

• Influencer marketing:

Find an influencer whose target audience overlaps with yours and ask them to talk about your show. This influencer can be a fellow podcaster or a Youtuber, an Instagrammer or a Tiktoker. As long as you share a target audience, you can leverage their influencer status.

 Summing Up

In the last few years, Podcasts have gained a lot of traction. This has prompted many businesses to use podcasting as a marketing tool. Simply creating podcasts is not enough, what is also required is the skills to market a podcast to reach your target audience.

Outsourcing the marketing and promotion of your podcasts can prove to be an excellent move as it is comparatively cost-effective and efficient.