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The 7 Finest Podcast Promotion Methods (And The right way to Use Them)
With over 1 in Three People now having listened to a podcast, it’s getting simpler and extra engaging to start out and develop your personal podcast.
The rise of podcasts is, in some ways, just like the rise of blogs. Blogs grew increasingly more well-liked as a means for folks to create their very own newspapers, magazines, and periodicals, and now podcasts are persevering with to develop in reputation as a means for anybody to make their very own radio reveals.
And simply because it’s straightforward to write down a weblog, however onerous to make it well-liked, it’s comparatively straightforward to get began podcasting, however not really easy to advertise successfully when you do.
Since so many podcasters use Patreon to earn assist for his or her work, we reached out to them, and different podcasting execs, to get recommendation on the best methods to advertise your podcast, whether or not you’re simply beginning out or have already got an viewers and need to take it to the following stage.
We took their recommendation and categorized it into these seven methods that anybody can use to advertise their podcast, with loads of examples and techniques included to get probably the most out of them.
Prepared to start out selling your podcast to 1000’s of latest listeners? Then let’s get began with…
1. Create Excessive-Worth Present Notes for web optimization, Hyperlinks, and Sharing
After you’re executed recording an episode and on the brink of launch it, it’s time to place your present notes collectively. The present notes are that little description your listener will see subsequent to your episode once they’re deciding in the event that they need to hear or not. And so they’re crucial for getting listeners to hit play.
If writing makes you groan, don’t fear. In the event you promote your present on social media or in your weblog, you’re already heading in the right direction.
These present notes can take quite a lot of types. You would preserve them concise and targeted on directing folks to the episode, or you may record out additional assets and associated hyperlinks talked about from the episodes.
For instance, the Sleep With Me podcast retains it pretty minimal and offers a fast synopsis of the episode, a hyperlink to their Patreon web page, and a pair different related hyperlinks with the power to play the episode instantly from the submit:
Then there are the extra complete present notes pages, like how they do it at The Minimalists. For his or her most up-to-date episode (on the time of writing) on Litter, they included the high-level subjects they lined, their solutions to some “lightning spherical questions,” and hyperlinks to each single factor talked about within the episode:
Nevertheless you determine to do it, making your present notes worthwhile makes it simpler for folks to find your podcast.
Utilizing Present Notes to Rank on Google
One solution to leverage your present notes is thru doing a little bit of SEO on them, in order that they’re extra more likely to present up in Google.
It’s so simple as taking just a few of the primary subjects from the episode, then crafting a headline round these subjects and the visitor’s title, so that you could rank for searches associated to what was mentioned in that episode.
For instance, take a look at how Dan Shure from the Evolving web optimization Podcast does his titles. Dan is an web optimization professional, so he is aware of that for every episode, he can use the present notes to achieve an excellent bigger viewers.
Try the title he utilized in this episode with Aleyda Solis:
That’s the title he’s utilizing on his web site and for Fb shares, but when we dig a bit deeper, you may see that he really crafted a separate title for Google:
By setting a barely totally different “Meta Title” for the article, he can place it to rank for “worldwide web optimization steps” or “ do worldwide web optimization.”
There are just a few methods you are able to do this to your personal podcast episodes:
If in case you have a high-profile visitor on, use their title within the title together with what they had been interviewed about. E.g. “Mark Zuckerberg Interview on Dropping Out of Faculty, Studying to Lead, and Extra.” This fashion you may rank for folks trying to find their title.
If the visitor doesn’t have as a lot of an current viewers, then you may give attention to what folks discovered within the episode. If not many individuals knew who Zuckerberg was, we may as an alternative title it “The right way to Drop Out of Faculty and Work on a Startup (safely).”
If the visitor doesn’t have a lot of an viewers otherwise you’re doing a solo recording, merely use probably the most fascinating matter or two that you simply talked about because the title.
In the event you’re utilizing WordPress and are uncertain about change the meta title of your posts, the best means is to put in an web optimization instrument like Yoast. It will add a widget to every article the place you may change the web optimization title and outline.
One final thing on episode titles: preserve the vital data (visitor names, subjects mentioned) near the start of the title. Don’t let your episode quantity or podcast title take up prime actual property over the information that pulls folks in to hear
Make Your Present Notes Extremely Shareable
On prime of optimizing your present notes for web optimization, it’s also possible to tailor them to be very shareable on social media.
There are two elements to this: structuring the notes so that they share properly and creating calls to motion inside them.
To construction them in order that they share properly, you need to be sure to have a compelling title explaining what the episode is about, a “meta description” that goes beneath the title to supply extra particulars, and a powerful picture to accompany the notes. Usually, Fb, Twitter, and different social networks will function the primary picture in your article except you set a particular “og:picture” in your web optimization instrument. To maintain issues easy, have an fascinating picture come first in your present notes so it will get featured on social media when the present notes are shared.
For the Zero to Journey podcast, Jason contains a big picture of whoever he interviewed in order that they’re featured when the submit will get shared on social media:
This places a (well-deserved!) highlight in your visitors, giving them extra publicity than simply their title. It could possibly additionally be a pleasant contact for making them need to share it with their viewers.
One other thought: on the You Are Not So Sensible Podcast, the present notes begin with a big picture that matches with the theme of the episode. Once you go to share considered one of their newest episodes on rip-off artists, the primary picture you see is auto crammed for Fb:
In the event you don’t have any picture with the present notes, then Fb, Twitter, and others will both present a boring text-only hyperlink, or pull a picture you don’t imply to share, like your web site’s favicon or writer photograph.
On prime of creating the notes look good when readers share them, it’s also possible to embrace calls to motion to share the notes throughout the notes themselves.
For instance, on the finish of your notes, you may embrace a name to motion to listeners to share the episode together with their favourite lesson from it by utilizing a Click on to Tweet, just like how I’ve executed right here:
By asking folks to have interaction with you as a number, as an alternative of simply selling the episode to their buddies and followers, you’ll get rather more observe by and construct a greater relationship along with your viewers.
Make Them Enjoyable!
In the event you can, one other straightforward solution to promote your podcast by your present notes is to make them enjoyable and fascinating to learn, resembling by including extra context that wasn’t within the episode, making a narrative across the present, sharing a bit identified truth in regards to the visitor, or the rest that might be an entertaining bonus for listeners.
That is one thing Bryan Callen does with some episodes of his podcast. For instance, on this episode referred to as “The orchestra is enjoying collectively. Come be part of within the enjoyable!” he has a extra narrative, lengthy type model of the present notes explaining the primary ideas.
They’re fascinating to learn on their very own, resembling this passage on id:
“And right here is the place it turns into vital to understand the problem we face: id. You have got been informed tales about your self. We inform tales about one another. And who we’re and the way we behave modifications typically inside minutes. We get lower off in site visitors and we get street rage. Somebody opens the door for us and we really feel all is correct with the world. We get hangry and grow to be snappy. We have now a nap and need to give everybody a hug. And all of us have our Fundamentalisms. We have now issues that set off us and make us freak out. The problem for all of us is to express regret and kiss and make up.”
Merely having enjoyable present notes like this might help you promote your podcast since folks discovering your present on-line, or getting despatched a hyperlink from a good friend, can get sucked in by your description of it even earlier than urgent play.
However your present notes are just one solution to reuse a few of your podcast content material. You may also reuse the audio itself to assist advertise.
2. Repurpose Your Episodes to Promote on Different Platforms
When you’ve recorded a podcast episode and uploaded it to your supplier, there are a selection of how you should utilize that very same audio on different platforms to assist promote your podcast.
YouTube
Google is the preferred search engine, and YouTube (not Bing, Yahoo, or others) is the second hottest. So when you’ve arrange your podcast to rank in Google by the present notes, head to YouTube.
You have got a pair choices for making your podcast YouTube pleasant. First, you may merely create a film out of your audio along with your podcasts emblem because the “video,” and add that to YouTube.
That is what the Sword and Scale podcast does with their episodes. They’ve a looping visible behind their emblem that repeats whereas the audio performs, after which hyperlink all of the episodes collectively in a playlist so you may watch them so as:
Then within the description, they embrace a hyperlink to the episode’s notes on their web site:
If you wish to get a bit fancier, you may file your episodes as you’re doing them, after which edit the video to leap forwards and backwards relying on who’s talking. That’s what Lewis Howes from The College of Greatness does along with his episodes:
Then in his episode descriptions, he contains many of the present notes and quite a few calls to motion:
An alternative choice past simply republishing is to offer some “behind the scenes” seems to be at the way you file your episodes, just like the Mind Sweet crew does.
It provides you a glimpse into how they file their present, which helps construct a more in-depth relationship with their followers.
Nevertheless you do it, by republishing your episodes on YouTube or including bonus content material, you might have the potential to achieve extra listeners by a brand new channel and get found by a unique search platform.
SoundCloud
In the event you don’t use SoundCloud to host your podcast, then republishing your episodes on a SoundCloud channel might help you attain subscribers on a brand new platform and make it simpler to share your episodes.
For The Final Podcast on the Left, they embrace a SoundCloud widget for every episode that permits you to hearken to the episode proper there on their web page. There are three advantages to this.
One, you may hearken to it proper there, which saves you time having to navigate elsewhere.
Two, you may go to their SoundCloud channel and subscribe to their podcast there. In the event you don’t desire a devoted podcasting app or need to subscribe someplace which you can hear in your pc and cellphone, that is actually handy.
And three, you may share their podcast episodes and folks can hearken to them instantly by Twitter. It is a fairly cool trick. Right here’s me sharing that episode on Twitter, and also you’ll discover, you may simply click on play and hearken to it instantly from SoundCloud:
If you’d like your viewers to share your podcast in a means that’s simpler for different folks to hearken to, then SoundCloud is a superb place to republish your episodes.
Fb, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and so on.
For different social networks, you may’t repurpose the episode per se, however you should utilize elements of the episode as promotion methods.
For every episode, you may take just a few quotations from it, put them over your emblem, and share these on Instagram, Fb, Pinterest, or some other social community you need to promote to.
The Artwork of Allure does this with their episodes on Instagram by taking a citation from the episode, placing it over a inventory photograph, then explaining it extra in depth within the description:
You would additionally create a less complicated graphic to share the a part of the episode, like Buffer did to advertise their podcast. They created these helpful graphics for his or her episodes which look nice on Twitter and Fb, to make the episodes extra shareable, and even give away the templates they used to make them:
There’s virtually at all times a means to make use of some a part of your episode on social media.
3. Function Company With an Viewers
One easy solution to have your podcast promote itself, assuming you’re doing interviews, is to interview individuals who have already got their very own audiences.
This may be particularly efficient within the early days of your podcast, because it offers each some preliminary publicity, and in addition some social proof of the standard of the present you’re placing on. Greater caliber visitors that listeners acknowledge are a superb signal that you simply’re going to be producing a top quality present.
To get probably the most out of getting a high-profile visitor in your present, make it as straightforward as attainable afterwards for them to share the episode with their community.
Ship them an e-mail when it launches with a hyperlink to your present notes and the episode on iTunes, and in addition give them just a few scripts they may use to let their viewers learn about it. You may give them a Click on to Tweet such as you included in your article with a pre-filled tweet in regards to the episode, or embrace a full e-mail that they may ship to their viewers.
Both means, you need to make it straightforward for them to share the episode with their following, with out being too pushy.
Grant, from Millennial Cash Minutes, mentioned they give thought to this for every visitor they’ve on:
“We’ve tried to interview visitor who’ve their very own networks in our area of interest, so when the episode goes dwell, they share us inside their community – so since we’re all within the private finance house it give us very focused publicity. It’s not a random visitor – we at all times interview visitors who at all times have a following that can align with ours.”
Andy Holloway from The Fantasy Footballers mentioned one thing related:
“Company are key to rising a small podcast as they allow you to achieve notoriety and ordinarily visitors prefer to share and proliferate their look in your present. Join with visitors in your space of experience, invite them on and make it extraordinarily straightforward for THEM to share YOUR podcast. Meaning after they’ve come on the present give them a pre-made tweet, hyperlinks to the episode, and so on for them to share.”
Discover nice visitors, give them as a lot attain as attainable by way of your present, after which make it so simple as attainable for them to share the episode with their viewers.
4. Go On Different Podcasts Your self
One other nice solution to promote your podcast is to go on different podcasts in your area of interest. Showing on different podcasts would be the finest solution to unfold your personal present, because you’re reaching people who find themselves fascinated by your matter and who’re already within the behavior of listening to podcasts.
To do that, get within the behavior of reaching out to go on podcasts repeatedly, following a method just like the one which Taylor Pearson outlines right here.
- Make a spreadsheet of all of the podcasts in your area of interest that you may go on.
- Discover their contact information.
- Every week, attain out to a couple of them with a pitch for why it’s best to go on their present.
As you construct relationships with these different podcasts, you’ll additionally doubtless discover good candidates to deliver by yourself present. It is a nice solution to preserve cross-promoting reveals with different podcasters, since many individuals will hearken to a number of reveals on related subjects.
Tom Merritt from the Each day Tech Information Present mentioned this performed an enormous function in selling his podcast to start with, each by happening podcasts as a visitor and internet hosting visitors himself:
“Have visitors and be a visitor. The youngsters lately name it “collaborating” I hear. Bringing folks in your reveals exposes your viewers to selection and sure will expose the visitor’s viewers to what you do. Guesting on different folks’s reveals in fact exposes them to you.”
5. Attain Out to Anybody Talked about in Your Present
One other profit to creating detailed present notes just like those that we confirmed from The Minimalists above, is that by linking out to folks out of your notes and mentioning them in your present, you get the chance to achieve out to them afterwards.
If it’s a person, you may go to their web site and social profiles to determine a great way to attain out to them, or just ping them on Twitter after it releases. For manufacturers or firms, yow will discover considered one of their advertising folks on LinkedIn and attain out to them, or once more, ping the corporate on Twitter as soon as it releases.
One solution to make this simpler should you’re utilizing Twitter is to phrase the tweet in a means that makes it straightforward for them to retweet it. If in case you have a tweet like:
You then may simply get a like. However should you phrase it a bit otherwise, like:
Then you might have a tweet that’s straightforward for them to retweet for you. This makes it a lot simpler to leverage the Twitter viewers of somebody you’ve talked about.
6. Submit Episodes to Aggregators and Message Boards
Along with selling every new episode you launch to your personal viewers, it’s also possible to advertise to different audiences which are open to fascinating articles, movies, podcasts, and different media.
Dan Shure, from the Consultants on the Wire podcast earlier, mentioned that this did the most for selling his podcast:
Since his podcast focuses on advertising techniques, he promotes it on well-liked advertising communities like Inbound and GrowthHackers, in addition to to the broader ProductHunt Podcasts and on LinkedIn.
A part of why this works is that these communities are related to the subjects he’s discussing. Individuals on Inbound and GrowthHackers are typically in search of extra advertising and development ideas, as are many individuals on ProductHunt.
An fascinating be aware concerning LinkedIn that Dan shared is that it’s a lot simpler for a submit to go viral on LinkedIn, since a “like” on LinkedIn shares no matter you appreciated along with your community:
“I believe LinkedIn is performing nicely as a result of each time somebody even ‘likes’ or feedback your LinkedIn submit – this really is a ‘share’ as a result of they present up of their connections feeds. After I take a look at the stats for who has seen my LinkedIn submit – it’s principally 2nd and third diploma connections. Typically within the lots of or 1000’s.”
You may also attempt posting your podcast episodes to reddit, as long as you do it rigorously. Most reddit communities hate any whiff of spam and self promotion, so it’s important to method it from a real curiosity to supply data.
Scott Britton from Life-Lengthy Learner did this by posting textual content posts that described what the episode was about and why it is perhaps worthwhile to folks:
Textual content posts like this (as an alternative of simply posting the hyperlink) are inclined to do higher on reddit for self promotion because you don’t earn any “karma” for posting it, so it appears much less such as you’re making an attempt to exploit the neighborhood.
No matter your podcast is about, attempt to discover just a few communities which you can grow to be part of the place they’ll take pleasure in your episodes and the place you may attain extra individuals who could also be fascinated by new episodes as you submit them.
7. Improve Your Rating with Critiques
The ultimate solution to promote your podcast that we’re going to cowl is making it simpler for folks to search out your podcast by way of iTunes, Stitcher, and different podcast suppliers by getting extra evaluations.
The place you present up in these hosts is a mix of what number of evaluations you might have and what number of downloads your present is getting, so whereas all the techniques up to now will assist enhance your variety of downloads, you additionally need to put some thought into getting extra evaluations.
Past simply hoping that your listeners will depart evaluations on their very own, there are just a few methods you may encourage them to take action.
Ask for Critiques
The best solution to get listeners to write down evaluations is similar solution to get them to share your podcast: ask them!
Drew Ackerman from the Sleep With Me podcast mentioned that this was the best, and in some ways simplest, solution to get extra engagement along with his present. Simply asking his viewers to share the present and assist it has helped it develop over time to a prime rated podcast with 1,700+ evaluations on iTunes.
Run a Giveaway for Critiques
One other solution to get extra evaluations to your present is to run a giveaway, the place listeners can earn rewards in return for leaving a evaluate on iTunes.
Chris Winfield of the Deconstructing Success podcast ran a evaluations giveaway proper when his present launched. He supplied over $1,200 in prizes to folks for going to iTunes, leaving a evaluate of his present, after which sending him an e-mail with their evaluate. This fashion he received an enormous spike in preliminary publicity on iTunes, doubtless ending up within the “new and noteworthy” part, and getting extra listeners from folks simply searching the iTunes retailer.
Construct an E mail Checklist to get Critiques
Usually your purpose if you promote the podcast is to have folks subscribe to it on iTunes or one other podcast supplier, however you may additionally use an e-mail record as the first driver of engagement.
That is a part of Sujan Patel’s technique with the Development Mapping Podcast. The primary name to motion on their homepage is not to hearken to the present, somewhat, to affix the e-mail record to get updates on new episodes.
This permits them to achieve their viewers extra instantly than by way of podcast episodes, and permits them to ship different updates that aren’t simply new episodes, resembling asking for evaluations or getting concepts for brand new subjects.
Your Flip
You now have the primary methods that prime hosts are utilizing to advertise their podcasts. In the event you’re gearing as much as launch your podcast, then you may take a look at beginning to bake these into your launch course of.
Or, in case your podcast is already out and rising, search for one or two of the techniques right here that will be a superb match for you and see how one can incorporate it into your efforts.
In the event you attempt one which finally ends up working for you, or discover a new technique for selling your podcast that we haven’t included right here, you’ll want to tell us within the feedback!