You have launched your podcast but there are very few listeners subscribed to it. How can you change that? How can you grow your podcast audience? Let’s look at eight steps to getting the right attention for your podcast.
STEP 1: Identify where your audience hangs out
As with most areas of business, understanding who your audience is and where they hang out online and offline is critical to successfully promoting your podcast. You can’t invest in Facebook ads if your ideal audience is on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter or any other social networking platform. Therefore, identifying where your audience is online will assist you a lot in getting the word out about your podcast.
STEP 2: Ensure you post content consistently
Successful podcasts post consistently, create good content, and are well-timed. These three areas will help you to gain traction on your podcast. If you want your audience to subscribe to your podcast you need to post content that appeals to them and which they can listen to on a road trip or during their lunch break. When you launch your podcast, ensure you have three or more podcasts pre-recorded so that you can release episodes consistently according to your podcast schedule. If you are not sure what content your listeners will want to hear, you can create a survey where they can share their opinions with you.
STEP 3: Create a website
If your podcast is part of your business, you can create a page dedicated to your podcast otherwise create a standalone website for your podcast. This page or website should tell people what your podcast is about. Your listeners should be able to access your podcast easily with links on your page to where the podcasts are hosted. Try to make the headings of your episodes informative so people will know what they can expect to hear if they listen to that podcast. Next, you should ensure that there are social media icons attached to the episode which make sharing it easy.
Another aspect that should be present on your podcast page is a media kit that can be used by the media to promote your podcast to their audience.
STEP 4: Suggest a call-to-action
When you finish your podcast, you can create a call-to-action to ask your audience to share your podcast or their favourite part of the podcast with a friend and tag you in the shared link. If they do this, you can thank them on your channel. People like to have a bit of fame. Another option is to ask your audience to send in a voice message with a question which you will feature on your show.
STEP 5: Use audiograms
Audiograms are sound bites of your podcast made into short videos which encourage people to listen to your podcast. These can be made using programs like Audiogram, Headliner and Wavve.
STEP 6: Feature your podcast in an email newsletter
If you have an email list, you can feature your podcast as part of the newsletter. You can also ask brands or companies who are in line with your podcast to feature your podcast in their newsletters. Another area of the email where you can feature your podcast is as part of your signature.
STEP 7: Have a guest
Invite a guest to your podcast if it works for your podcast type. By featuring a guest, they have access to your audience, and you will get heard by the guest’s audience. When the podcast has been done, you can send a thank-you email with promotion collateral to ask the guest to kindly spread the news about their appearance in your podcast.
STEP 8: Collaborate with other podcasters
Many times, there are various podcasts around a similar topic, ask some of your favourite podcasters if they would like to collaborate on an episode. When the episode is created you can both release it on your respective channels and get some attention from different audiences.
Growing an audience takes time and patience but by diligently posting good content on your podcast regularly and featuring it on targeted promotion channels, you should see good returns on your investment of time and money.
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