Top 10 Podcast Promotion Strategies for 2021
Some of the best podcasts online do not get a million plus hits in a single day. It possibly would not reach the right audience without finding an appropriate strategy to promote. If you are new to the podcast industry, this article is just for you and we have curated a list of the best podcast promotion and marketing predictions for 2021. But first, we will look at what a podcast is, why podcasts are great and the optimum podcast content strategy along with reasons why you are one the right path if you are aiming to begin your own podcast or grow one.
What is a podcast and why should you start one?
A podcast is an episode or series of spoken word files that the user can simply download to a personal device for listening or they can subscribe to a streaming platform by paying a small subscription fee. Users like to listen to podcasts as it is an informational audio to learn about things they don’t know or to learn about things in detail. If you are looking to reach out to a wider audience for your product or service and increase brand awareness and enhance sales then podcasts are a great option.
Podcast Promotion & Marketing Guide
We understand that podcast marketing is not a linear approach and hence what can work for someone may not work for you. Still, there are certain podcast promotion strategy that we have included as a base for you to work around. We have included these strategies after taking into account the promotional predictions by industry leaders. Moreover, you should try to follow this approach after keeping the audience in mind.
1. Your “Why” Is Important:-
Before proceeding with a new podcast or a new episode on an existing podcast, you need to figure out the reason for that particular podcast. You need to determine what knowledge you are sharing with the audience, how it will impact their lives and how you will measure the usefulness of the podcast. So, before you begin, take some time to understand what will make your podcast engaging and knowledgeable to the listeners.
2. Create Insightful Content for Podcast Promotion:-
There are around 1 million podcasts in the world and with this growing competition, you will have to work hard to stand out. How to create great content? Firstly, you will need proper equipment including a microphone, editing software and voice recording software. Secondly, you will need stories as stories will create a psychological effect on the listeners and will be easy to remember. Lastly, you will need a powerful CTA (Call-to-Action) to make them move in your marketing funnel. These three steps will get you started with a decent podcast and you can learn on the go to create better podcasts based on your listener feedback.
3. Engaging Titles and Descriptions:-
The podcast titles and descriptions will be the first things listeners will see and decide if they want to listen to you or not. The podcast title should briefly explain what to expect from the podcast and the description should give a little background on the type of content they will be served. If you have multiple episodes on a podcast, it is advisable to add a separate title and description for each episode.
4. Launch With a Few Episodes:-
It is best to launch your podcast with at least a few episodes (at least 5) because if you have a single episode, there is a chance that listeners will not get hooked to your podcast and won’t subscribe. If you have more episodes than listeners can binge listen and determine if they want to subscribe to your podcast at the same time making you look professional.
5. Start a Website or Update If Needed:-
It is highly recommended that you have a website before you start a podcast. If you still haven’t then now is the time to do that. It is easy to share content from a website or a blog and it will attract a new audience for your podcast. This means, you will be able to reach more people who use your website and vice versa. On the website, you can add descriptive pages explaining who you are, what you do and how you aim to solve a particular problem. This will attract more audience to your website and ultimately impact your podcast promotion significantly.
6. SEO Optimization:-
It is important that your podcast titles/descriptions and your website are optimized for the search engines. A simple way to do this is to include relevant keywords in your podcast titles and descriptions, the keywords that your target audience is likely to use when searching for information that you are offering. In the end, we would say that Podcast SEO is similar to Facebook SEO or YouTube SEO and you can learn to include relevant keywords by doing more research about your audience.
7. Publish New Episodes At The Right Time:-
The way it is important to publish content at a suitable time is the same with podcast episodes too. If you are just starting a podcast, you can look at your competitor’s day and time of publishing to know when your target audience is most active and likely to participate. Once you have more data, in future you can use the day and time to publish accordingly.
8. Engage Your Audience:-
A Podcast is a one-way street but that doesn’t mean that you do not worry about engagement. It is crucial to engage your audience if you want to have a successful podcast. This can be done by including Call-to-Actions for your listeners so that you have an idea what action they are taking after the podcast. For instance, you can ask your listeners to subscribe to your podcast or leave feedback for you. Also, there should be enough motivation for your listeners to subscribe to your podcast, because there are no free lunches in the world and you have to offer something substantial for them to subscribe.
9. Podcast Submission:-
An easy way to market your podcast is by including it to various podcast directories like:
- Google Play
- Apple Podcasts
- Spotify
- SoundCloud
- TuneIn
These are some of the most popular directories for your submission and this can open your path to a new audience.
10. Guests On Podcast:-
Even if your listeners love listening to you speak, there is always room for something more. If it is relevant, you can invite other guest speakers to your podcast or appear on other podcasts. In a way, this builds trust and social proof among the listeners and you can tap into your guest’s audience too and vice versa. Once you gain more subscribers, you will be able to invite more established guests to your podcast.
Future of Podcast Promotion & Marketing
When we talk about the future of Podcast, we must take into consideration the opinions of industry leaders for their predictions based on factors like industry growth, novel content strategies, tech innovation in content, ads and distribution along with changing diversity. According to Shreya Sharma, Inside Podcasting Newsletter, Spotify will either overtake or have equal listeners as Apple. Now, who would have thought about Spotify getting close or even beating Apple in terms of subscribers.
In the coming years, we are going to witness a range of media giants focusing only on their traditional business. Other smart companies have already started taking a leap into new content and distribution when COVID-19 has changed the face of traditional media. For companies looking to diversify their offering, we have seen in 2020-21 that diversification has enabled some of the major companies to thrive and even get bigger and stronger in the face of calamity. Now, as we have discussed podcast marketing strategies above, it will be interesting to see what changes are induced in podcast marketing with changing industry trends in 2021 and beyond.
Wrapping Up
We hope this podcast promotional strategy gives you a clear insight into some of the best podcast marketing plan. It is crucial to understand that podcast promotion is an evolving process and there will always be a lot of learning along the way. You can also keep this guide as a base to begin your podcast and make changes as and when required. Before you know, you will have a thriving subscriber base on your podcast and you will be able to share your secrets here. If you are looking for any more podcast promotion strategies, then you must contact Nimblechapps, a Professional SEO services company to build and grow your podcast.
Also read – Google Podcasts: Google’s Own, Standalone Podcast App
Dhruvil is a Writer & Marketeer for Nimblechapps, joining December 2014, based out of Sydney, Australia. He has worked briefly as a Branding and Digital Marketing Manager before moving to Australia. At Nimblechapps, he worked on Social Media Marketing, Branding, Email Marketing and Blogging. Dhruvil studies Business at University of Western Sydney, and also handles Operations for the company in Australia.