Promoting your podcast is one of the key aspects of growing your audience and getting them on board to turn your podcast into a success. Now, these promotions can vary based on what kind of podcast you are hosting, but one goal remains constant for all creators: to build an audience. But how do you promote podcasts as a beginner and build your audience from scratch?
In this guide, let’s explore some of the most effective ways to promote your podcast as a beginner and ensure your content reaches the right audience.
Creating a Podcast Script and Understanding Your Target Audience
Before we dive into promoting our podcasts, one of the crucial aspects is to understand your audience and craft a podcast script that matches it. Once you know your audience, it gets a lot easier to create content around it and promote it accordingly.
The first task is to define the niche. This helps you create focused content specific to a topic or theme and market your podcast to the specific listening group who are interested in engaging with the same or similar niche.
After defining the niche, the next big thing to do is learn your audience. Who are they, where do they come from (demographics), which platform are they most active on (social media), and what kind of content do they prefer: long-form or quick bits? Such questions help you create a listener profile that will help you promote your podcast effectively.
Your Audience is Yawning
Two things can make your audience sleepy while listening to your podcast. One is a boring script, and the second is poor audio.
Here are my favorite ten best microphones for podcasters that will make you sound sick professional. It is also budget-friendly for beginners and professionals.
8 Ways to Promote Your Podcasts as a Beginner: Social Media, SEO, and More
There are several ways to promote your podcasts as a beginner; social media is often the most common approach. However, there are also methods, like SEO, that can bring authority to your podcast from the root levels. Let’s look at 8 easy ways for podcasters to promote their podcasts as a beginner.
1. SEO: Enhance your Podcasts Visibility
If your podcast is not discoverable to your audience, it is likely not to be able to reach a lot of audiences, no matter how good the podcast script is. Discoverability helps your audience to find your podcast episode or show with the least effort, but for that, you will have to incorporate the right SEO practices.
SEO: Search Engine Optimization is broadly a concept for blogs, videos, and websites. However, it is also applicable to podcasts and music. Here, one of the most important factors is the primary keyword and other relevant keywords. These keywords are the ones that users are most likely to look up in the search to find niche-specific podcasts. For example, if your podcast niche is about Fitness and the episode is about nutrition and workout, relevant keywords can be “workout tips,” “nutritional advice,” and more.
Now, incorporating such keywords in the podcast title, meta description, and notes is necessary to show niche relevancy. So, ensure you do it rightly. It is also important to find the right keywords to incorporate; these keywords can be picked with helpful tools like Google Keyword Planner.
To boost more visibility, you can also offer transcriptions for your episodes and shows, which is a simple yet powerful way to make your podcast more discoverable. Transcriptions make your content accessible to a broader audience and also allow search engines to index your content more effectively.
Also Read: Apple Podcasts vs Spotify for Podcasters: Creator’s Review
2. Submit Your Podcast to Podcast Directories
Let’s assume we have a podcast on a certain niche topic with 10,000 listeners. Now, most likely, all these 10,000 listeners are not from the same podcast platform, like Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Users might prefer a platform of their choice, and in such situations, it is necessary that your podcast is available on the major platforms for it to be accessible to a larger audience base.
You can make your podcast available to other platforms by submitting the RSS feed to it. The RSS feed reflects your podcast library and all the changes to the desired platform. In this case, you don’t have to host or upload your podcast again on this platform; just submit the feed, and the platform will automatically extract your podcast library.
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Some of the popular podcast directories are Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, PodBean, and more. These podcast directories have a huge audience base and also offer additional features such as monetization through ads or creating private podcasts with a paywall. Our podcast guide is a perfect place to know all the details.
3. Leveraging Social Media Platforms
Today’s internet is full of social media, and young teens and adults can often be found glued to platforms like Instagram, TikTok, X, and Facebook. So, if you want to find an audience, these are some of the best places you should be digging in.
However, social media promotions are not very complicated if you use them in the right manner. Just look up the trends; anyone, basically anyone with or without talent, is becoming a social media star. This is because people are consuming a lot of content, and these trends are either foolish clicks or right marketing.
In our case, let’s stick with the right marketing method that can help us leverage social media platforms to promote our podcasts.
The first and foremost thing to do is select the right social media platform to create content. Not all social media platforms align the same; for instance, users on X (formerly Twitter) might engage well with content which are quick updates or tech-savvy, while users on Instagram or YouTube prefer visually driven content such as a short video or teaser for your podcast.
Once your platform is decided, it is important to have a good content strategy. Use a mix of audiograms (short, shareable audio clips), episode snippets, and behind-the-scenes content to keep your audience interested. Alongside, the use of trending audio and hashtags are some of the best ways to get your content noticed.
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4. Build a Website or a Blog
A website or a blog is one of the best ways to show your online presence as it turns into a central hub for your audience to find all your podcasts, episodes, notes, life updates, and all other additional resources. In addition, a blog or a website also offers credibility to your podcast and makes it easier for potential listeners to find your podcast through search engines across the globe.
SEO plays one of the major roles in this scenario, and when done right, it can help you drive more traffic to your podcast and website.
Your website is more than just a podcast hosting as you can here offer blog posts, episode recaps, behind the scenes, create your shop, and also build an email listing to collect your listeners’ emails and use them in an email drip to send new notifications right to their inbox. Include a sign-up form and offer freebies such as downloadable files, access to exclusive episodes, and offers on merchandise to make it effective.
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5. Network and Collaboration
Networking and collaboration are powerful ways to grow your podcast audience, and there are a few workarounds that can make this possible.
The first and foremost thing to do here is to look for podcasts that offer similar niches and themes. You do this by connecting with creators on social platforms, like podcast communities on Reddit, Facebook groups, creator summits, forums, LinkedIn communities, and more. Such events and pages help you learn what extraordinary other creators are doing to enhance their podcast’s performance and get to know creators from similar domains.
Once you connect with creators from similar domains, look for mutual collaborations, such as guest appearances, sponsorships, and other cross-promotions. The guest appearance is one of the easiest ways to show your credibility on the topic and share valuable insights or stories to hook the audience.
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6. Paid Advertising
If you have a budget to spare, paid advertising is one of the effective ways to increase your podcast’s visibility. These days, most social platforms also offer paid advertising options that help users reach newer audiences with one click. You can also run ads to target your podcast website or direct users to check out your products through different channels.
For instance, we have Google Ads that help you to promote your podcast website on the search engine for a particular keyword. Let’s take an example: If you have a podcast on nutrition and an episode on how to incorporate good nutrition into your everyday meals, Here, the topic is quite common, and as a new podcaster, we don’t really have the authority to rank top on this keyword. So, you can instead run an ad and promote your podcast library at the top of the search results so you can get more clicks and worry less about other top-ranking search results.
Likewise, you can create video teasers and clip ads for social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook and then use their ad service to promote your podcast clip and get the audience to notice you. These are social media ads.
If you are promoting your podcast through Facebook groups, LinkedIn Communities, or subreddits, they offer their own ad services, and you can pick an appropriate one based on budgeting, domain, and audience base.
You can also connect with podcast advertisers that promote your podcasts on relevant podcast episodes and domains. There are several paid advertising options, and you can use them as per your flexibility to increase your audience base.
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7. Engaging with your Audience
Letting your audience take action encourages a sense of community around them. Action alone is capable of turning your listeners into your loyal fans, and such engagements are crucial when you are building a community or audience base.
You can ask your listeners to leave a comment or a review or take feedback from them through polls. These are some of the simple actions that leave a sense of being a part of the community.
Otherwise, you can also ask listeners to join your community on social platforms such as Discord or subreddits. Offer them value while doing so, for instance, access to exclusive content or discount coupons on your merchandise.
To engage much more, you can also host a contest where users can participate in exchange for some freebies. Such contests create a buzz in your domain that attracts new listeners to your podcast.
Also Read: How to Create a Paid Podcast Subscription on Spotify
8. Analyzing Your Promotional Efforts
Promoting your podcast cannot be a one-time thing; it is a long process that involves continuous learning and iterations based on past results.
So, if you are using any of the above promotional methods, it is always good to collect historical performances and tune your strategy accordingly. Now, this may not sound like a promotional method, but if you aren’t doing this, you are not spending your time, effort, and money. This is because the internet is dynamic, and what worked ten months ago might not work today. Also, if you are using ad networks, it is important to look at how they performed and what changes could have enhanced it to more audiences and get more listeners.
Look at granular data, how listeners are reacting to your promotional strategies, and if you need to make any changes or redesign your entire strategy.
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Most Frequently Asked Questions [FAQs]
Begin by understanding your audience and defining your niche. Tailor your content to match their interests and use SEO, social media, and podcast directories to make your podcast discoverable.
SEO enhances your podcast’s visibility, making it easier for potential listeners to find your episodes. By incorporating relevant keywords into titles, descriptions, and notes, you increase the chances of appearing in search results.
The best platform depends on your audience. For quick updates, use X (formerly Twitter). Instagram and YouTube are ideal for visually driven content like teasers and audiograms. Choose platforms where your target audience is most active.
Yes, a website serves as a central hub for all your episodes and additional content. It also helps with SEO, making it easier for potential listeners to discover your podcast through search engines.
Connect with other podcasters in your niche through social platforms and communities. Collaborate on guest appearances or cross-promotions to reach a wider audience.
Paid advertising can boost your podcast’s visibility quickly. Use platforms like Google Ads or social media ads to target specific audiences and drive traffic to your podcast.
Engage your audience by encouraging feedback, hosting contests, and creating a community around your podcast. Offer exclusive content or discounts to reward loyal listeners.
Regularly analyze your promotional efforts to see what’s working and what’s not. The internet is dynamic, so adapting and tweaking your strategy based on data is essential for ongoing success.
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Wrapping up: How and Where to Promote your Podcasts
This pretty much sums up our guide on how and where to promote your podcast episodes. There are some effective root methods, such as podcast SEO, that are much more important for your podcast’s discoverability. You can focus on creating an audience base by using other promotional methods, such as collecting newsletter emails on your website, asking users to join your community, or promoting on social media through organic and inorganic marketing.
The most important thing to remember is to have quality podcasts that convert your podcast listeners into an audience. You can bring a horse to the pond but can’t force it to drink the water. Likewise, promotional strategies will bring listeners to your podcast, but only quality podcasts can convert them into an audience. It is also important for creators to keep tweaking their promotional methods and adapt to newer trends with continuous learning to make effective calls.
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