Podcast promotion in a nutshell
What is podcast promotion? How can I promote my podcast? Why should I promote my podcast?
Podcast promotion is what successful podcasters do after all the podcast production and upload process. In this stage, you’re basically marketing and selling your podcast: Spreading the word on your podcast and convincing others to check out your show.
There are several ways you can get your podcast more visibility and gather a bigger pool of listeners; but you must first make sure that your podcast has quality content that people would actually want to listen to. Spreading information on a bad podcast is just convincing people NOT to listen to your show.
Why podcast promotion is important
Promoting your podcast is an extra step, but it is not difficult.
With a small extra effort, promoting your podcast can:
- Affect your searchability and exposure
- Impact your podcast image and branding
- Boost your podcast growth and downloads
- Increase your monetization capabilities
- Attract sponsorship and advertisement opportunities
When you promote your podcast and give others the chance to like and enjoy your show, you’re also giving your podcast a chance to gain more audiences and listeners. The more listeners your podcast gets, the more search engines and streaming services will recommend your podcast to others. And the more podcast listeners you have, the more podcast listeners you will get.
The way you promote your podcast also places a “packaging” or shapes the brand image on your show. A lot of how others see your podcast is within your control. The text, images, and way you tell others about your podcast all contribute to the face of your show.
When you promote your podcast, you’re not just promoting to your prospective listeners and fans; you’re also displaying your show in front of potential brands, sponsors, and advertisers. These people could come across your show and reach out for any partnership and opportunity that would benefit your podcast growth.
It may sound like a long shot, but it actually makes sense. These people and companies are part of the same groups and forums, looking for suitable podcasts to invest their ad money in. If you’ve had experience doing some personal or paid promotions before, they may also be studying how well you convert listeners to consumers and users.
Types of podcast promotion strategies
There are a ton of different ways for you to promote your podcast, and they shouldn’t be too difficult either. We’ll talk about the tools and platforms you can use to help promote your show. Here are just a few examples:
Distribute to all (or most) directories and aggregators. You’d want your podcast on all streaming services available: That’s like putting your product on the shelf of every grocery and convenient store, except this time, it’s for free! If you didn’t already know, you can get your podcast on most directories (including Spotify) with just a few clicks at no cost (for free). I’m pretty sure you can figure out why this is important and what you would miss out if you weren’t on their shelves.
Take care of and grow your SEO. When people search for new podcasts or resources to listen to, one common place they go to is Google. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be a massive factor for your show (or business) to be seen by your target audience. Setting up a podcast website if you don’t already have an existing website can be a powerful addition to your show’s ranking.
If you’re not sure on how to make a website for your podcast by yourself, a number of podcast hosting platforms provide free podcast webpages for every podcast. For instance, Firstory’s website comes with:
- Podcast playlists
- Tags (improves SEO)
- Links to all podcast platforms you’re on
- Social media integration
- Comment sections
- Voicemail functionalities
If you already have a personal blog or website, you can easily include your podcast onto your site by putting in a code or searching for the plugin. If you’re a Firstory user, this code is automatically provided for you on your Dashboard. You just have to copy and paste this code onto your website.
Leverage social media. Sounds cliché, I know. Yet, social networks have proven to be a fast, effective way to market products, services, and content. It’s easy enough to use, and organic growth is always an option (though paying for advertisements may also be an option for some). Make sure you’re AT LEAST on:
- Facebook groups, pages, and communities
- Following (and interacting with) Twitter hashtags and trends
- Instagram. Consider audiograms.
- Reddit and subreddit forums
- Tiktok and YouTube, if you have the time
Network and collaborate with other creators. Don’t restrict yourself to podcasters. A human being is capable of consuming more than one type of entertainment and new media; so don’t be afraid to reach out / branch out to other types of content creators. You can partner up with YouTubers, animators, graphic artists, webtoon creators, musicians, gamers, and so on.
Podcast membership and community-building. Apart from joining existing podcast communities, you may consider creating your own community. You can also establish a membership system, a subscription-based email list, a newsletter, etc. This is most effective to start when you’ve got a small group of loyal listeners, but there’s no harm in starting from small.
Host contests and giveaways. This is a very effective way to market and promote your podcast. To save on your investments, you can reach out to and partner up with smaller local companies to sponsor your prizes in exchange for ad spaces and free advertisement.
When hosting competitions and giveaways, make sure that your listeners will be able to participate easily, but also benefit your podcast’s exposure and engagement rate. An example would be to:
- Share your social media post and tag a certain number of friends
- Require participants to post an image using a certain hashtag
- Challenge your listeners to find “the answer or key” to the contest somewhere inside your podcast episode (this encourages them to listen to your whole podcast)
14 Podcast marketing and promotion strategies to try
Podcast promotion and marketing can be tricky and challenging. If you’re new to podcast promotion, we listed out 14 tried-and-tested ways you can market and promote your podcast. We’ve included 6 above, and there are 8 more you should definitely check out:
Podcast promotion tools to use
Because podcast promotion is such an integral part of every podcast, companies and platforms have developed several tools to help podcasters promote their shows.
Firstory’s Free Podcast Promotion Tools
- FLink Universal Link
- Dynamic Insertion Tool
- Cross-Platform Feedback & Voicemail
- Automatic Podcast Website
FLink is an all-in-one universal link tool you can use when sharing or promoting your show. Portals to your podcast on all major streaming services are automatically generated for you. It also integrates well with your social media accounts and voicemail inbox. You can also view your FLink stats directly from Firstory Studio.
The Dynamic Insertion Tool allows you to easily swap, add, remove, or update audio snippets for both published and unpublished episodes. You can use this to sell ad spaces and rejuvenate your archive episodes.
The cross-platform feedback and voicemail features are both integrated with the automatic podcast website that comes with every podcast hosted on Firstory. This is a good way to boost your podcast’s SEO and visibility when listeners search for potential podcasts to listen to. It also helps for Word of Mouth (WoM) marketing when you involve listeners in the co-creation of your podcasts through these audience engagement tools. These help you accumulate for organic traffic.
Non-Firstory Alternatives
A similar (but not quite the same) tool with FLink is Linktree or Link in Bio. These tools won’t automatically generate error-free podcast links for you and doesn’t look as pretty on the free, but they are proper alternatives if you’re looking for a non-Firstory solution.
There are other non-Firstory hosting platforms that also offer Dynamic Insertion capabilities; however, some platforms may charge for these functions. Moreover, it would be important to check in any audio limitations these platforms place.
If you’re running a website on WordPress, there is a newsletter plugin that allows you to create an easy mailing list, which is another good way to promote your show. The closest solutions to Firstory’s cross-platform feedback integration is social media.