How to Promote Your Podcast: 25 Tips & Tricks for Businesses

Podcasting is one of the most effective content marketing strategies to promote your business to the targeted audience.

Not to mention how highly impactful it is on building a relationship with your audience at a much deeper level.

The only challenge, and the most difficult one for sure, is to get listeners!

You might have already started your podcast for your small business. So you are more certainly past creating and launching your podcast episode.

All now boils down to promoting your podcast and increasing your reach to a larger targeted audience.

The very first thing you notice after uploading a few podcast episodes is not getting many listeners coming your way.

And that can be really disastrous! But not to worry, as all you have to learn are these promotional tips and strategies to scale your podcast reach.

Contents

Launch Your Podcast With A Bang

How you launch your podcast matters a lot in the success of a brand-driven podcast.

You need to launch your small business podcast strongly enough to create an impression amongst your target audience.

With so much competition and content overload, it becomes evident to do something extraordinary, impactful, or strong enough to bring attention.

This can also make the first impression of your podcast and eventually you and your business as well.

Launching strongly also means putting in the continuous and consistent effort at the very beginning of the podcast journey.

Put as much content as you can upload; however, make sure it has a consistent quality and must be interesting.

Your goal is to attract podcast listeners on Google Play Music, Spotify, and iTunes.

Do encourage your listeners to give your podcast ratings, especially on iTunes, as it is more dominant in the podcast space.

You have to think of this podcast launch as an event for your business where you need to create maximum buzz.

Pro Tips For Launching Your Podcast

Create social media pages for your podcast
Develop branding and marketing materials such as logos, graphics, etc.
Pre-release the first look or announcement of your podcast
Keep sharing podcast-related stuff
Increase your engagement with the audience double-fold for that period
Share the story behind starting this podcast
Send podcast launch information to all your subscribers to the email list.
Don’t hesitate to use Facebook Ads or Google Ads to promote the launch.

Focus A Lot On Doing Great On iTunes

Your top goal should be doing as great as possible on iTunes, as it is responsible for around 70% of podcast listens and downloads.

According to Nieman Lab, 70 percent of all podcast listening comes from iTunes or other iOS podcast apps.

This is enough to drive your focus on acting on iTunes.

Scott Britton even said that SoundCloud and Youtube are pretty insignificant compared to iTunes.

Now, what does that tell you?

It ultimately sets your priorities in terms of promotional strategies for your business podcast.

Partner Up With Other Podcasts

Whether you have been running your podcast for a while or have started just now, this can help you reach a more relevant audience.

At a point, you should partner up with another relevant podcast to gain new listeners. But make sure the podcasts you collaborate with are extremely relevant to your business.

In fact, the end game here is that their listeners should be your potential buyers for your product.

The aim of the podcast is to connect and communicate with relevant potential buyers for your product to grow your business.

You can also agree to mention each other’s podcasts to the respective listeners as a collaboration. Another way to do it is to invite the other podcaster as a guest on your podcast.

Feature Guest Stars On Your Podcast

One of the best ways to promote your podcast with potentially rapid growth is by inviting guest stars to talk on the podcast.

Interviewing guests have an inherent advantage; you also get their followers to discover and listen to your podcast.

This can be a great promotional strategy for your business, especially when you’re bringing really credible and famous personalities to your show.

However, make sure you also give them high-quality and engaging content to love it more.

You can make announcements regarding the upcoming podcast with the guests. It can help you spread the word to a larger audience.

Even just a single social media post from a guest star can bring hundreds of potential listeners and downloads to your podcast.

It is important to create multiple formats of content to promote your podcast on social media.

You can create social media posts with different formats, such as soundbites, media, images, videos, graphics, etc.

Here are some multiple content promotion ideas :

Create promotional graphics featuring information regarding your upcoming episodes
Use short clips from your podcast with some text for reference and share them on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
You can create 15-second soundbite clips and upload them on Soundcloud, and further share them on Twitter.
Share the teaser of the upcoming episode before 24 hours of the release.

Keep sharing your podcast episode multiple times on social media at different times and days.
Share behind-the-scenes of your podcast, the making of the podcast, and another gossip regarding it.
Promote your upcoming episode teaser or announcement on the Guest’s social media accounts.
Create multiple video clips from your podcasts and share them on different youtube channels that must be only about your podcast clips.

Distribute Your Podcast On Multiple Platforms

It is true that iTunes and Google Play are the most popular podcast distribution channels or podcast directories.

But never neglect the significance of multiple distributions for your podcast. It is often overlooked and is a primary mistake for new podcasters.

Promote your podcast on multiple channels such as Spotify, Overcast, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, Spreaker, Soundcloud, and even Youtube.

There are different listeners with their own preferences for using the platform to listen to podcasts.

You need to distribute your podcast on as many platforms as possible to get more exposure.

Even if you get a few hundred listens or downloads over time at a particular platform, it would be worth the effort.

You need to create an RSS feed for your podcast to distribute easily. You can use Podcasts connect to allow Apple to validate your podcast submissions.

Make sure you have an iTunes store account and an Apple ID with original content to share.

Every platform has its own set of rules and regulations regarding content restrictions. So it is important to explore them before uploading.

Other smart distributional and promotional decisions include sharing the podcast on Youtube and creating blog posts on your episodes. It will be discussed more in-depth further in the article.

Leveraging The Audience Of Your Guest

Bringing guests on your podcast is one thing and leveraging their audiences is another.

You should bring guests with big audiences and social media following. Here you get the chance to draw their audience’s attention toward your content.

Make it as easy as possible for your guests to share and promote the podcast easily.

The best you can do is to send them an email or note on the day when the podcast goes live.

The easier it becomes for them to share, the better your chances of gaining new audiences.

To make the best out of it, you can start promoting this before the podcast’s release.

Create posts sharing the upcoming podcast release on the guest’s social media profiles and yours.

Engage With Your Audience

Engaging with your audience always helps bridge the communication gap between the creator and the audience.

With this, it helps build a brand reputation and develop a community focussed on growing together.

Engaging is the essence of community building that strengthens you audience base, and eventually benefits you more sales.

If not anything, it helps you spread your brand message and promote your business around the world or your targeted audience.

The goal is to build a loyal audience base, for which communication is the most crucial factor.

Engage with your audience as much as possible through social media, newsletters, emails, and other platforms as well.

Respond to them, and be open to suggestions and constructive criticism. It shows how genuine and honest you’re with your brand.

Make sure you put a call-to-action to your podcast to keep them engaged. Create different platforms or ways your listeners can connect to you and each other.

It can be a Facebook Group, Discord, Youtube, Website, Forums, Email newsletters, etc.

Convert Your Podcast Audios Into Youtube Video

It is okay if you don’t want to create videos for Youtube, but still, Youtube has many benefits in terms of distributing and promotion.

So you might not be interested in shooting the video for your podcasts, or it is too much of work.

In that case, until you’re ready or anyways, the next best thing you can do to reach out to a broader audience is to convert audio into a youtube video.

The idea is to leverage Youtube to distribute your content to a larger or a different set of audiences.

Youtube videos are easy to share and have a larger audience base for a broader reach for your podcast.

You can convert .mp3 audios to video .mov or .mp4 using various tools such as iMovie.

There are many of stock footage to use to create a loop of videos featuring your podcast episode.

The least you can do is use Canva to create a still image or moving graphics as well.

Well, this might not seem like a big deal or just an obvious thing to do but is the most overlooked aspect of podcast creation.

You need to understand the power of call-to-action, especially with a format like podcasting which is quite passive.

People often, or most of the time, just forget to follow or save it.

They often like it but don’t have time to listen, but it never comes up on their iTunes because they don’t subscribe or save it.

The podcasters should remind the listeners about subscribing to them on Apple Podcasts, formerly known as iTunes.

When they subscribe, the listeners get to know about it, and it automatically gets downloaded as soon as it gets published.

Reach Out To The Right People

Don’t hesitate to reach out manually to the people that you feel might like your podcast.

You can honestly mention why you would think that they might love the podcast.

It might be a similar interest or their profession or some post they have liked similar to your podcast niche.

It is okay to manually reach out to people and share your podcast links without being invasive or spammy.

Even better if you engage with them on social media accounts or through comments.

Maybe start a conversation that can make your podcast pitch more convincing.

It is all about being honest with your approach and targeting only relevant and passionate people about your specific niche.

Connect them on various social media profiles, send them friend requests, like their images, or engage with them on their posts.

You don’t always have to send out your links or say anything much. Just engage and be there when they are ready to check your profile.

This always works like magic; surely not a very fast process but very organic and authentic for sure.

Creating An Email List For Your Listeners

One of the most intimate and powerful ways to promote your podcast directly is creating an email list for your listeners.

You need a platform or communication where you can directly connect to your listeners, especially those who are fond of your podcast.

The email subscription can be used to inform your about the new episode drop to your subscribers.

It can also be used to make new announcements, do giveaways, share other news and stuff.

Release Multiple Episodes On The Launch Day

This comes from Buffer regarding the launching of your podcast.

According to them, one of the best ways to promote your business podcast aggressively is to release at least three episodes on the launch day.

Well, this makes sense! Because the audience has a bigger bite of the kind of content you’re offering.

Also, the effect of binging makes the overall experience fun and more connecting to the audience.

Another thing is if the listener really liked your first episode, the fact there is only one episode is going to annoy them.

Having multiple episodes on the launch day also gives weightage to your overall profile for new listeners coming in.

Releasing three or four episodes gives you enough time to upload more while listening.

People love to be mentioned on social media by their favorite creators, and when they get featured in a podcast show, that’s just it!

So you can use this to boost the engagement on your Podcast show. All you have to do is the following :

Ask your listeners to tag you on social media platforms when they want to ask a question.
When you mention someone on social media platforms, they are likelier to share the episode as people like to hear their name spoken online.
And since they share the episode, their friends are more likely to have similar interests and will check out the podcast.
More and more listers would want to have their name spoken on the show and also want their answer.
Further, you need to repeat the process.

Get Partners To Mention You

Your goal is to get mentioned by credible and popular personalities on social media platforms.

The agenda here is to clearly boost your podcast or brand’s exposure to the relevant audience.

It is also important that these people on social media platforms or partners be highly relevant to your industry and niche.

So how do you make this possible?

You need to create a reciprocal effect through content marketing and high engagement.

Mention other businesses and brands in your podcast episodes; this opens a communication gateway for these brands to connect with you.

It can lead to your podcast being featured or shared by these partners, be it individuals or some media organization.

Talk about the people genuinely on your podcast and try to bring more brands and people in.

Make sure it doesn’t look forced or gimmicky in any way. It should be natural and very grounded with an honest opinion.

Have The Transcription Of The Audio

Many successful podcasters offer the full transcription of their podcast episodes. You can either do that or transcribe only the highlighted portions.

The transcription is really helpful in reaching a larger audience due to its SEO benefits.

You can create a transcription of the different important parts of the podcast or the except of it.

The same page can also be used to promote your podcast and offer subscriptions through forms.

Bring Your Podcast To Youtube

Youtube is huge today! It is not just a video-sharing platform but a search engine for people looking for content of all types.

Even if you are not very interested in videos or video podcasting, distributing your podcasts on Youtube also is essential.

The best approach here is to convert your podcast into Youtube videos, say Video podcasts with good production design.

Many people are discovering new podcasts or searching on Youtube only. In fact, Youtube has enough audience to scale your podcast dramatically.

For a lot of businesses, it becomes one of the prime reasons for their success due to rapid promotion and easy customer acquisition.

Submit Your Podcast To Aggregators And Podcatchers

There are many platforms and aggregators which feature or play different podcasts.

It helps you promote your podcast to larger and more dedicated listeners. There are lots of such applications that aggregate and play podcasts.

There are dozens of apps that aggregate and collect podcasts and help podcasts to be discovered.

A few examples of these popular podcatchers and aggregators are :

Podcast Addict
Overcast
TuneIn
Podcast Subreddit
PodcastLand
Castro
Stitcher
Podcast Republic
Downcast
Bello Creative

And many more.

Get Your Podcast Featured In Other Media

If your podcast gets mentioned or linked to a relevant media platform, it can surely bring you many views and listeners.

It is a great way to discover your podcast in the easiest way possible.

You need to find the potential media firms, publishers, or platforms to get mentioned or shared.

Don’t be afraid to approach these media houses and ask to be mentioned in any way.

Run a Giveaway Contest For Your Podcast

Contest and giveaway marketing has always been a powerful tool to promote anything, especially to kickstart it at the beginning.

The appeal of getting free stuff and discounts for people is such a strong and powerful motivator that it makes the most promising marketing technique.

All you have to do is give a call-to-action, tasks, or set of tasks to potential listeners in exchange for giveaways.

One of the simple examples is to run a giveaway contest to leave a review on your iTunes after listening to the podcast and offer them some giveaways.

What and how much you can give away depends on your promotion budget.

There are several things you offer as gifts, such as product discounts, t-shirts, some digital products based on the niche, stickers, and much more.

Apart from that, with a low or no budget, you can offer them to mention their name in the show or a shout-out.

Even in some cases, they can get a 5-minute guest spot reserve in the podcast as well.

Be creative with giveaway ideas and ensure they are well circulated on social media to get enough exposure for higher participation.

Use Instagram to promote the giveaway campaign, tag your friends and family and encourage them to mention their friends as much as possible.

You have to understand that podcast content is lengthy and requires longer time commitments.

Also, it is not easy to convince people to listen to your podcast without giving them a taste of what you’re offering.

Promotional content cannot really work, and you need more distribution and content forms to boost your content marketing strategy.

So, the best is to create and distribute micro-content from your hour or two hours long podcasts and share it on social media.

It works like a charm! Because it is not just a social media post with information about the podcast or some promotional ad.

It is the trial of your podcast or what the listeners can expect.

Even if not, which should be the case for the approach here, it acts as individual content itself.

And this is the mantra to follow! Make it worthy of being stand-alone as an engaging and helpful piece of content.

What you can do is create graphic posts regarding the content featured in the podcast using illustrations or other visual representations.

You can also use the short clips from the podcast on a particular topic or some specific thought.

You can even post quotes from your podcast from star guests.

Focusing On Rating At The Initial Week Of Podcast Launch

iTunes is more than 70% of the podcast. The platform is too significant to recognize the optimization it requires to excel.

One of the best things you can do to get discovered more and, importantly, get a good reputation and the first impression is positive reviews.

You only have eight weeks from the day your podcast launches to make yourself seem worthy and credible.

So the first two weeks are extremely crucial for the podcast, so you need to give a rating party at this stage.

There are some more focused measures you can take at this time to make your podcast more worthy.

Throw a real party on the launching of the podcast. You can do that as an in-person event or virtually LIVE on Facebook.
Consistently publish two weeks of promotional podcast-based blog content.
Post continuous engaging podcast-based content on social media profiles and pages.
Utilize email marketing to promote the launch of your podcast by simply emailing daily to 10-20 people you know.

Run giveaways for your podcast, including exciting gifts.
If you have a star guest on your podcast, leverage their audience, especially initially, to promote your podcast.
After the release, you can use paid promotion to gain exposure rapidly.
Get your family, friends, teammates, employees, or anyone you know to share about the podcast launch and tweet about it.

Run giveaways for your podcast, including exciting gifts.
If you have a star guest on your podcast, leverage their audience, especially initially, to promote your podcast.
Just after the release, you can even use paid promotion to gain exposure rapidly.
Get your family, friends, teammates, employees, or anyone you know to share about the podcast launch and tweet about it.

Be a Guest On Other Podcast Shows

You see this all the time if you pay attention!

There are celebrities, and movie stars noticed to be popping to every popular show and platform at the time of their film release.

Then, you also see politicians do that by traveling around the country before an election.

Image Source: BigThink

The reason is the same to promote their brand, business or agenda. It is a way to promote and market the product you are involved in.

With podcasts, this works quite similarly. Be open to accepting any invitation from the relevant podcast shows as guests.

You can always connect to the people and even talk to them about your wish to participate in the podcast.

Publish Accompanied Blog Post With Podcast Episodes

Whether you already have a blog for your business or not, cross-promotion is an effective content marketing strategy to go for.

You can always publish a post accompanied by the release of your podcast episode.

The blog post features some of the highlights or acts as a preview for the full podcast episode.

It helps the readers to understand what they are going for in the podcast.

The detailed breakdown or excerpt from the podcast can convince the listeners to invest their time in the full podcast.

Apart from that, it also guides your listeners to understand what to expect from this particular podcast.

The best part is it increases your chance of being discovered organically on search engines.

If the content is SEO optimized, more and more new audiences will reach out to the blog for the content and discover the podcast.

Blog on the podcast also can be your additional monetary benefit. You can also share more about your podcasts and episodes on it. It also helps you to communicate easily with your audience.

Always Keep Experimenting & A/B Testing

One of the most contemporary and powerful tips one can give podcasters or content creators to fuel their business is to keep evolving.

No amount of strategy will help you grow if you do not evolve over time.

And, to evolve, it is necessary to understand where you need the improvements or what more and new can be done.

So, never stop experimenting with your content and marketing strategies to promote your podcast.

Be creative with your approach toward content promotion and social media strategies.

Practice and learn through your mistakes. The best thing to do is A/B testing with the content and strategies and seeing what works.

It also keeps the excitement with your brand charged up amongst your listeners and followers.