If you just released your podcast, you may have a goal in mind in terms of audience and downloads. Your podcast quality and your marketing strategy will determine how successful your podcast will become. Naturally, when you have more listeners, you’ll have more earning opportunities. Knowing how to grow your podcast is easy, but it takes time.
A podcast is an audio program that functions just like radio talk shows. However, instead of listening to it on the radio, people subscribe to it using their smartphone or computer. They can also listen to and download podcasts whenever and wherever they like.
The podcast industry is booming, and more than 90 million Americans listen to it, and 197 million have heard about it. But with the popularity of podcasts also comes great competition.
Considering there are 30 million podcast episodes out there, you may be wondering how to grow your podcast and stand out in this competitive industry. Carving out your space in the podcast world is possible if you apply tried and tested tips.
What Is a Podcast?
Podcasts focus on a particular theme or topic and can be any length. Some podcasts are only as short as one minute, while some are over 3 hours long. Podcasts can also be released at any frequency, whether it’s daily, weekly, or monthly, and can follow different formats such as a solo show or multi-person host.
How to Grow Your Podcast
Here are some tips that can help you improve your podcast.
Encourage listeners to act
Telling people to listen to your show is great, but it’s not enough. What if they just listen to one episode and forget about you? There’s no way you can build a loyal customer base if that’s what happens.
If you want to organically grow your audience, you need to request three things from your listeners. First, tell them to subscribe to your show. Then, ask if they could rate it. Finally, encourage them to leave a review on your show. When listeners do all these things, you are a big step closer to learning how to grow your podcast.
When a person subscribes to your podcast, this means they will see new episodes you upload in their feed. If people rate and review your podcast, other people will see it, and this will motivate them to listen to you.
These three requests may seem small, but when taken together, it plays a huge role in how podcast platforms such as Apple and Spotify rank their up-and-coming podcasts. When you make it to this section, you can grab more listeners right away.
But how can you exactly invite people to subscribe, rate, and review your podcast? Simple! Ask them. This is referred to as a call to action. Keep in mind to make your request not seem pushy since the last thing you want is to make your listeners feel as if you are hounding them. If people love your content and if they appreciate what you are doing, they will surely take the time to subscribe, rate, and review your podcast. All of these are key steps in learning how to grow your podcast.
Create partnerships
Unless you’re a big celebrity, you can’t expect thousands of listeners to check out your podcast right after you upload it. Just like any other venture, your podcast starts with nothing, and your goal is to draw attention to it. This can be done by building genuine partnerships. The goal of partnerships is to help your podcast grow and give you more credibility. Do not be afraid to reach out to prominent brands or other podcasts and let them know that you can offer them something valuable.
But before you start partnering with people or brands, you need to have at least a small loyal listener group. Next, make a list of all successful podcasts in your niche and examine what type of brands and personalities they partner with.
In the podcasting industry, it’s very normal to invite other podcasters to guest on your podcast. If you do one successful collaboration together, they are more likely to invite you to their podcast. Another way of finding amazing partners is to join groups on Facebook.
However, be realistic. In the first few months or years of your podcasting journey, you won’t see a big return on your efforts. Not everyone you invite will say yes to your request. But if your bid is persuasive enough, it may be the magic bullet to get your name out. All guests you will have on your podcast will bring in a new audience, and with each new guest, you’re likely to see your listener count increase.
Market your podcast
Just because you release a podcast that has an impeccable script, great thought, and amazing research does not mean millions of people would flock to listen to it. Even if you release the best podcast in the world, you still need to do marketing if you want it to be successful.
Marketing is not one size fits all. It can mean a lot of things.
First, you can try marketing on social media. It may seem like an old strategy, but learning how to grow your podcast on social media will give you tons of benefits. Every great podcast has a social media strategy. For instance, always keep your Instagram page active. Making sure to tag all your guests is also a great idea since it will put you at the center of your guest’s audience. Aside from social media, you can also leverage email marketing. Once people subscribe to your show, send them an email if you release a new episode.
Don’t forget hashtags
Next, you can use hashtags. People love searching for hashtags, especially if they’re looking for fresh content. Using just one word, you can potentially reach thousands of people.
If you want to take the extra mile and leverage Instagram, YouTube, or Facebook, you can create an audiogram. Audiograms refer to posts on social media that have a video, image, or short audio clip taken from one podcast episode. Videos drive engagement on social media platforms, and although a podcast is an audio-only medium, it’s still something you need to get on board with.
And syndication
The third way to market your podcast is through syndication. There are tons of podcasting platforms, and depending on your market, you need to be on as many platforms as possible. The more places you show up on, the more potential listeners will discover your content. Some of the biggest podcast platforms include Stitcher, Soundcloud, Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Acast. If you just want to stick to one podcast host, there’s nothing wrong with that. However, make sure the host you pick is reliable.
Ask listeners to interact with you
Podcasting is one of the most personal mediums today, and if you want to foster connections with your listeners, you have to make them feel heard and feel as if they are just tuning in to a friend’s talk show.
You can ask your listeners to send questions on social media platforms or create a question and answer section on your show. This will not only strengthen your bond but also give you a more thorough understanding of what type of content your audience loves to hear. Another awesome way to inspire engagement is to make a Facebook group or community for your show. This will enable people to discuss your episodes and explore your points further.
Try blogging and SEO
If you want to become an authority figure in your niche, you need to turn up your strategy in how to grow your podcast by starting a blog and posting transcripts of your episode. For this, you may need to hire a transcriber to make sure all your transcripts are accurate.
Having a blog will allow people to find your podcast more easily on Google. This is important since search engines have more traffic compared with podcast platforms. Unless your podcast is about a niche whose market is very small, people are most likely searching about your podcast topic. When you have transcriptions and show notes on your website, Google can easily find your keywords and rank your blog for the said keywords. After Google has crawled and ranked your website, you will have more interested searchers knowing about your podcast. Since they actively searched for your topic, there’s a higher chance that they will listen to it.
Work on your podcast quality
This step in how to grow your podcast tip can be very challenging, but if you want to be successful, you have to do it. Quality is not just limited to how crisp and clear the audio is. It could mean a lot of things, including the caliber of your partnerships and guests or even your skill as a storyteller or interviewer. It may even include your background music.
The ultimate way to find out what areas you need to work on is to ask your audience. The most loyal audiences will tell you what they expect to hear from your future podcasts. If you haven’t built a large audience yet, ask your friends for recommendations. Whatever area of your podcast you want to change, keep working towards your goal.
Learning How to Grow Your Podcast Is Hard, But It’s Not Impossible
You’ve spent countless hours producing your podcast, but no matter how hard you pour your heart and soul into it, your podcast won’t get discovered by listeners if you don’t make an effort to market it well. Now that you know how to grow your podcast, you can increase your downloads. We can help you improve your podcast! Submit your project now.
