You’ve spent all this time creating a podcast and only your family members and a few close friends are listening. This shouldn’t be so because you have worked tirelessly in producing each episode. Your voice needs to be heard by more people.
Since I’m a podcaster, I have learned over the last 2 years, what marketing efforts work. Of course, it can be quite frustrating trying to figure it out by yourself. That’s why I’ve made it easier for you by creating the top five resources to market your podcast.
Email list
With the preeminence of social media, you might be deceived into thinking that email marketing is dead. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Email marketing is not just for those with big businesses. As a podcaster you can benefit from the relationship you’ve garnered over time.
Don’t be bashful in letting your contacts know that you have a podcast. Most people will want to support your podcast. So go ahead and share it. There are tools available such as MailChimp and Constant Contact with a free plan which makes this easy for you. There are so many benefits of using email marketing including:
- It is easy to get started,
- You can deliver targeted messages
- The ability to have instant impact.
Pinterest boards
Of all the social media platforms available, Pinterest is one of those that is still a little misunderstood. Those who swear by it however, have valid and substantiated reasons to do so. Based on “We are social – digital 2018” report by Hootsuite, there are 200 million active Pinterest users as at 27th January 2018.
You’ve heard before that a picture is worth a thousand words. And this is the case with Pinterest. You can create “boards” with images from your podcast episodes to increase the likelihood of new persons finding your podcast. The benefits include:
- Increase brand awareness
- Drive traffic to your podcast and or website
- Mushroom your reach
Audiograms
Sharing photos and videos on social media is easy. Since you have a podcast you know how painful it is to share audio content on social. Alas, Audiograms have become the answer to the podcaster’s prayer.
In short, audiograms are audio files that are converted into video. They are usually short clippings to give you noticeability. The thing with a podcast is that you know once you start getting listeners, you know they will become hooked. The trouble is usually with getting that first attention to begin with.
Audiograms are great for attention getting with its waveforms and sound animations feature. Headliner.App is a great tool. Some benefits of including audiograms in your podcast marketing efforts include:
- Increase shareability
- Identify interesting sound bite to draw attention to your podcast
- Gets people’s attention immediately
Youtube
YouTube has close to 2 billion monthly users and about 4 billion videos are viewed daily. Next to Facebook, it is the most active social media platform globally. When you consider that videos are appearing in Google searches, it is evident that the search engine considers video as important as text in providing answers to the public.
You can create snippets of your “behind the scenes” and guest interactions and upload to YouTube for audience engagement. Some of the many benefits of including YouTube as part of your podcast marketing plan include:
- Growing your audience worldwide
- Your content on YouTube is evergreen
- Ranking higher in Google searches
Website
It is not mandatory that you have a website for your podcast. However, if you are looking to grow your audience and increase your reach, it is highly recommended. Personally, I use my website as the central hub for my podcast. It makes promotion and marketing of everything I am doing way easier than if I didn’t have a website.
Most of the traffic that I get to the site is as a result of the podcast. Subsequently, visitors to the site get a fulsome picture of the products and services that I offer. Of the many benefits of having a website to help in your podcast marketing efforts, here are a few:
- Attract new listeners that can find you through search engines like Google
- Archive old episodes
- Reduce reliance on your “Really Simple Syndication” (RSS) feed
Bonus–social media quotes
Did your guest say something that you think really stand out and will bring attention to your podcast? Create simple graphics in canva and share them on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook. Or perhaps even create memes. They might even go viral.
