Making a business podcast is only half the battle. Without good marketing, even the best content will be lost. It’s important to think about how you’re promoting the initial launch of the podcast as well as marketing activity that will happen continuously, bridging the gap between episode or season releases.
Having a podcast marketing strategy up front will help keep you on track and avoid burnout. Better yet, have fatBuzz handle your podcast marketing so you can just focus on recording the content.
Launching Your Podcast
There’s not really one sharing platform that’s best to launch on but they might have different markets. For example, Apple is more popular for podcasts in the US while Spotify is more popular in the UK. While it can be useful to be on more than one platform, make sure you’re *definitely* on the major ones for your target audience.
When it comes to getting the word out about your shiny new podcast, consider a multi-channel strategy. Here are a few ways you might want to promote your launch:
Owned Media
Your Website:
If you’re using a podcast to promote your business, be sure to have a landing page on your website that features your new podcast. You can give some background as to why the podcast was started, podcaster bios, and more.
Social Media:
Let people know your podcast is out and use relevant hashtags to make sure that your posts are easily discoverable by possible new audiences! Social media is a great way to get the word out organically to your existing followers. They’re already interested in what your business does and, therefore, are the ideal target for your podcast.
Email Newsletter:
A GDPR-compliant email list can be a powerful tool of people who have opted-in to hearing about your updates. Building up an email list if one doesn’t exist yet will be helpful in letting audiences know about new content, especially if they forget to check back at your social accounts.
Paid Media
Paid Ads:
If you don’t have an existing audience through your business or you’d like to build up that audience, paid ads are a great way to engage with new people. With specific targeting on pretty much any social platform and Google, you’ll be able to get the word out about your podcast pretty quickly.
Earned Media
Build a Buzz:
Try and get on other podcasts ahead of your launch as a guest to promote the launch of yours. Have those podcasts mention yours when promoting the episode to start building an audience.
Make sure there’s also personal buy-in from anyone who features on your podcast from the host to the interviewees. If they also share about the content to their personal channels, it helps to build the hype.
SEO for your Sharing Platforms:
Every type of search engine has search optimisation needs. Whichever platforms you use, you should be optimising for search on them to help new listeners find your podcast.
Ongoing Podcast Marketing Ideas
Use a Multi-Channel Strategy
By engaging with several different channels with a variety of media, you’ll have a better chance of catching your target audience’s eye. While old marketing wisdom says a customer must see your message 7 times before being convinced by it, the thought is that number is much higher in our current ad saturated world.
Using many channels enables you to get that message in front of someone more often. Here are a few ideas for using different channels to your advantage:
Video Podcasting:
YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world, so having a way to be discovered on that is useful. This doesn’t always need to be a complicated videography exercise – you can screen capture podcasts recorded over zoom for example. If you get some good visual content, you can also post video clips on social media to tease an upcoming podcast release.
Quote Graphics:
Have a great one-liner that you think will draw people in? Create a static graphic with that quote on it. For platforms that aren’t audio-orientated, it’s a great way to tease some of the major quotes in an episode before or after it is released.
Tweet it:
Use that same one liner as a text-only tweet if you can! Be sure to include hashtags to increase discoverability and tag the person who said it. Try to get as much mileage as possible out of one-liners by posting them in different formats before and after the episode releases.
Sound Clips:
Got a good reaction that can be used elsewhere? Make it a TikTok sound. Or consider adding a small animation to a quote graphic and the actual audio of the quote to make a video post with a sound clip.
Build Social Proof
With declining consumer trust in advertising and marketing messages, people often look for external validation of a product or service. Often, they’ll trust the masses’ opinions more than their own initial judgement, particularly when assessing an online purchase.
Create a Community:
Depending on your podcast content, it might be great to have a podcast community where you can engage with listeners, find out any questions they have, and maybe give some exclusive content too. This could be done through anything from a Facebook group, slack channel, patreon, or other platforms.
Get Reviews:
Building social proof is important – if something is highly rated people are more likely to listen. Try and push getting reviews and ratings whenever possible on any channels where you have the ability.
Cross Promotions:
If someone is a guest on your podcast, be sure to have them promote it on their channels as well. After the podcast is released, at the very least send them a link. If you’re feeling bold, send them some creative to use and make it easy for the guest to share!
Don’t Go it Alone:
If you’ve read through last week’s post about how to get started making a podcast and now, you’re looking at this post about marketing it, you might be feeling a little overwhelmed. Creating a podcast doesn’t need to be a one-person show though!
While there’s a lot covered in this blog post, we still haven’t given away our best podcast marketing strategies, so get in touch with our team to discuss how fatBuzz can help you!