In case you’re something like me, you need extra listeners on your podcast. However, while you really seek for data on how one can promote a podcast, it appears like everyone seems to be parroting the identical previous recommendation.
Personally, I’ve been slightly annoyed with equivalent solutions on so many web sites. So, I did what I normally do after I need legit, actionable solutions from folks working within the business — I went trying to find actual podcasters to steer me in the appropriate course.
Tips on how to promote a podcast
Under are among the sensible concepts podcasting and advertising professionals despatched my approach for how one can promote a podcast successfully and develop your podcast viewers:
- Deal with your podcast like a enterprise and get an internet site.
- Use honey traps and the rule of three to get extra listeners.
- Harness the ability of TikTok.
- Make a comic book about your podcast.
- Suppose video first.
- Leverage lesser-known podcast directories.
- Use paid adverts for those who can.
- Don’t neglect about Pinterest.
Prepared to draw extra podcast listeners? Let’s dive in!
1. Deal with your podcast like a enterprise and get an internet site
Naresh Vissa is the Founder & CEO of Krish Media & Advertising, and the writer of the e-book Podcastnomics. He says the most important drawback he sees in podcasters is that they don’t deal with their present sufficient like a enterprise.
He mentioned, “In case you execute your podcast correctly, and run it like a enterprise, the advertising will maintain itself.”
However, what does this appear like in follow?
Naresh says it is advisable to be an early mover in a distinct segment. Certain, it’s good to go after one thing you’re obsessed with, however the aim needs to be to deal with the long-tail niches of your audience — similar to long-tail key phrases.
In different phrases, don’t deal with finance for a podcast. As an alternative, converse on the ins and outs of a extra slender matter, equivalent to digital foreign money. The sooner you’ll be able to hop right into a hyper-focused area of interest and make a reputation for your self, the higher.
However out of all of the business-like actions you need to take on your podcast, maybe the most important is creating an internet site that captures leads and repurposes your whole podcast episodes.
Naresh mentioned far too many podcasters rely on the internet hyperlink that their podcast hosts give them to advertise their present. Or they’ll say one thing like, “Discover my present wherever you take heed to your favourite podcasts.”
The issue is that this tactic prevents you from doing probably the most vital motion — getting the identify and electronic mail handle of the listener!
These folks coming to your web site to search out your newest episode needs to be directed to choose into your electronic mail listing for just a few causes:
- You’ll have a direct line of communication to inform them about episode releases
- You possibly can ask for suggestions
- You may make provides
- You possibly can ask for referrals to your present
And, with an internet site, you’ll be able to repurpose each episode into:
- Weblog posts
- Transcripts and present notes
- Case research (that would in the end be used on your new e-book or course)
- Movies that you simply additionally show in your web site
Make your web site a one-stop cross-promotion machine for all issues associated to your podcast and deal with it as a enterprise asset. As a result of for those who play your playing cards proper, it will likely be.
2. Use honey traps and the rule of three to get extra listeners
Jamie Kennedy – no, not the comic – runs Courageous Moon Podcasts, a manufacturing firm for podcasters. She instructed me her promotion technique for serving to her purchasers and for serving to her personal podcast get extra listens: use honey traps and the rule of three.
She mentioned, “Share your episodes and use ‘honey traps’ to encourage listeners to hear and subscribe: Once you publish new episodes to your socials, make sure to use ‘honey traps’ to encourage listeners and ask your followers to share with their pals. Honey traps are questions or statements that entice a listener to hear. For instance, ‘Do you wish to know the key to getting 8 hours of sleep each night time?’ or ‘You must know these three issues about coronary heart illness.’”
Jamie went on to say, “Once you publish about an episode, observe the rule of three and ensure to publish about each episode no less than thrice. It could really feel repetitive to you, however most of your followers might want to see one thing no less than thrice to click on on it.”
Suppose you’re making an attempt to get extra folks in your area of interest to take heed to your present or be a visitor in your podcast. In that case, Jamie additionally recommends taking part in related on-line communities and boards and interesting with the posts immediately associated to your episodes.
“For instance, for those who discover a publish asking for recommendation on the very best workouts for robust legs and you probably did a podcast episode with the highest 10 leg workouts, then share the hyperlink to the episode within the feedback part. You’ll get the eye of the unique poster and the eye of each different particular person trying via the feedback for solutions.”
A phrase of warning, although. Watch out posting your podcast hyperlinks within the communities you’re in.
A few of them have strict “no promo insurance policies.” Others solely permit sharing your podcast hyperlinks on particular days. Backside line – all the time learn your group’s guidelines earlier than sharing hyperlinks.
3. Harness the ability of TikTok
Ehan Hunagle runs SEMDeck and hosts the SwitchCast podcast with Doug Tabbutt. Their podcast primarily makes use of TikTok together with their extremely optimized web site to advertise the present. Ethan mentioned the TikTok web page began small, however grew rapidly to greater than 67,000 followers and greater than one million likes on their movies.
The key sauce in keeping with Ethan is to create a video for each corresponding episode. Then, he repurposes the movies on his social media channels as Instagram Reels, Fb Reels and YouTube Shorts.
The movies should be quick, quick-hit fashion content material as a result of that is probably the most useful to market a podcast.
He additionally pressured that and not using a web site, you’re lacking out on prime alternatives to get your present discovered by your supreme podcast listener.
To additional amplify the present’s attain, Ethan mentioned, “We publish a weblog publish each time a brand new episode is launched. We are going to embed the YouTube video in addition to the RSS feed of the podcast, add inner and exterior hyperlinks to the physique textual content of the publish, and optimize the weblog with tags, meta descriptions, web page titles, picture alt attributes, and different primary web optimization ideas.”
These easy steps got here collectively to deliver that coveted viral consideration to SwitchCast that every one podcasters dream of!
4. Make a comic book about your podcast


Admittedly, this was the good response I’ve heard thus far to successfully promote a podcast. Christine Whitmarsh, higher often called Christine Ink on-line, mentioned she developed a comic book across the theme of her every day podcast for authors.
She mentioned, “The funny story follows writer Margena and her very animated mind (a hilarious character unto itself) to point out authors precisely how one can construct a writing behavior and develop into a printed writer.”
As for a way she manages the creation of those comics, she makes use of an illustrator named Beena Parikh of the P66 Company.
How enjoyable is that?!
5. Suppose video first
Earlier than he started working behind the scenes serving to creators succeed, Bredan Aw hosted the Xin eSports podcast Your Life My Dream and his personal present Participant Vs World. He mentioned of all of the techniques he sees creators utilizing to advertise a podcast proper now, video is getting probably the most consideration and success.
Brendan says you’ll be able to’t succeed with an audio-only strategy anymore. By recording your present as a video first, you give your self “an [amazing] alternative for content material syndication from only one pillar piece.”
His suggestion is to movie each episode. After that, he says to:
- Strip the audio to share as an audio-only podcast
- Share clip highlights to social media
- Edit the audio transcripts to make them extremely invaluable weblog articles, and
- Hyperlink to related episodes wherever you’ll be able to (i.e. inside different weblog posts, in press releases, on social media updates – particularly in your bio, and even in your electronic mail signature)
6. Leverage lesser-known podcast directories
Isaac Mashman isn’t any stranger to podcasting. Not solely does he have his personal podcast and helps his purchasers get featured on podcasts, however he additionally set an enormous aim for himself to be featured on 100 podcast interviews and get 100 article/media mentions in 2023.
His greatest tip for how one can market a podcast successfully is to get your present on lesser-known podcast directories.
He mentioned, “Once you first launch your present your RSS host will naturally get your podcast distributed to the bigger platforms equivalent to Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify, however there are a large number of different platforms which are both lesser recognized or not historically listed.”
Just some of the locations he recommends including your present’s RSS feed to incorporate:
He additionally recommends pondering internationally. For instance, there are streaming giants in India and throughout the globe equivalent to Gaana and JioSaavn. Podcastinc reported, “India is ranked the third in podcasting business after USA and China.”
They went on to say that round 150 million Indians are consuming audio streaming making it “an enormous alternative of development for podcasts.”
Isaac says we must always get on each podcast listing potential so you may get your identify on the market to a plethora of individuals.
Suppose it will take too lengthy? Right here’s Isaac’s reality bomb response to that mind-set: Do it anyway!
He mentioned, “Is that this time-consuming? Completely! Nevertheless, when you do it the primary time you by no means have to consider it once more.
All of those platforms function with their very own particular person algorithms, assist your web optimization, set up backlinks to your web site, and make your podcast seem as if it’s the top-charting present which it’s sure to be.”
Seek for each platform you could find so as to add your podcast to, and benefit from the choices to share your social media profiles and web site hyperlinks wherever potential.
7. Use paid adverts for those who can
James Pollard runs the Monetary Advisor Advertising Podcast that includes greater than 200 episodes. He says that paid adverts have been the sport changer his podcast was on the lookout for to make it “one of the crucial sought-after podcasts within the monetary recommendation area.”
However, he doesn’t run the adverts to his podcast host, in reality, they aren’t selling the podcast immediately in any respect. As an alternative, he’ll run the adverts to monetary advisors (his supreme listeners) to advertise a webinar or touchdown web page. In each webinar and on each touchdown web page, he introduces himself because the host of the podcast.
He mentioned, “This roundabout approach has generated tens of hundreds of downloads prior to now three months alone, and I’m going to proceed doing it for so long as it really works.”
It additionally helps that most of the questions that folks could be asking him are answered in his podcast episodes. By delivering lots of worth without cost, he’s incomes his “subscribers.”
In podcasting and in enterprise generally, giving folks a purpose to stay round, and exhibiting them you’re reliable is the one approach you’ll ever see a return on any advert spend.
8. Don’t neglect about Pinterest
She mentioned, “Whereas many might consider Pinterest particularly for recipes and craft tasks, those that don’t use it for podcasting are really lacking out on a possibility to achieve their goal purchasers on-line. It’s really a extremely highly effective search engine, and has focused advert alternatives. It might additionally assist with familiarity and the ‘Know – Like – Belief’ idea, in case your listener goes to your web site after which later sees your advert on Pinterest, too!”
Tips on how to promote a podcast — A fast recap
To shut issues out, right here’s a fast recap of the very best ideas for podcast advertising methods which are working proper now:
- Deal with your podcast like a enterprise
- Use honey traps and the rule of three
- Get on Tiktok
- Make a comic book (or no less than specifically curated photos) to advertise your podcast
- Suppose video first and use video on YouTube and all social media platforms
- Distribute your podcast to each listing you presumably can
- Make the most of paid adverts, and
- Don’t neglect about Pinterest
I personally plan on utilizing all of those concepts to advertise my very own podcast higher. Whereas visitor swapping is nice, I wish to depend on extra than simply borrowing different folks’s audiences to develop my very own. With a bit of luck, I’ll be having fun with bigger obtain numbers and monetization alternatives very quickly. Hopefully, you may be too!
New to podcasting? Try our information on how one can begin a podcast!