Podcasting Q&A

Free Podcast Marketing Strategies that Work

• Jordan Blair

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You've spent all this time creating a podcast, but now you want to make sure your show is being listened to.

In this episode of Podcasting Q&A, we discuss 5 ways to grow your podcast that don't cost money.

Resources from the episode:

Have a question? Upload your podcasting question at Speakpipe.com/Buzzsprout to be featured on a future episode.

Jordan:

Okay, so you've spent all this time creating a podcast. But now you want to make sure your show is being listened to. I'm Jordan Blair, host of Podcasting Q&A, where we answer your questions about how to start, grow and monetize your podcast. In this episode of podcasts and q&a, I'm talking to Alban Brooke, the head of marketing at Buzzsprout. About five ways to grow your podcast, that doesn't cost money. Hi, Albin, thank you so much for jumping in on this episode,

Alban:

Jordan, thanks for having me.

Jordan:

So before we get into the five different ways that you can grow your show, we need to start with the fact that you need to make sure that your podcast content is good enough to keep people if they start listening.

Alban:

I think about this a lot from a marketing perspective that you can be bringing people into the podcast. But if you're constantly losing them, as soon as they start listening, then now you just doubled your work. So I think the first thing to start is, you know, think of it as a bucket. And if we're pouring water in the top, we want to plug all the holes at the bottom of the bucket before we really focus on filling that bucket up. So first, let's start making sure that the content is good enough that if people are listening, that they're actually going to stick around.

Jordan:

That's exactly right. Because there's no point in putting all of your effort into marketing your show, if it's not something that people want to listen to. So what do you think is one of the first things that a person should do to make sure that their show is getting to everybody?

Alban:

Well, starting just with the basics, let's make sure that your podcast is in all the top directories, podcast directories, if you're new to podcasting, our the way that most people find shows this is Apple podcasts and Spotify, Google podcasts, they're places that people are going to look for new shows. And if they hear about yours, and they're using one of those apps, they expect you to already be listed there. So let's go and make sure your show is listed in all those directories at the beginning.

Jordan:

Yeah, there's some other directories too that are not necessarily in the top five that could be really beneficial to your show. One of the ones that comes to mind is pod chaser, because listeners can put your podcast episodes into playlists.

Alban:

One that I recommend a lot is the podcast index. The podcast index isn't really a directory in the typical sense that people are actually looking to the podcasts index for new shows. But what they are is a open list of all the podcasts that are available that any podcast can pull from. So whenever we go to conferences like Podcast Movement, or pod fest, or something, people will come up and say, Hey, I have a new podcast app that I'm launching. And they're trying to think of how to get all the podcasters to submit their shows to them. Now I can say go to the podcast index or go to Apple podcasts. And they will allow you to download a full list of all the shows that they have. So getting your podcast listed and Apple podcast and podcast index are two great ways to make sure your show shows up in almost every one of the smaller indie apps.

Jordan:

So there has been a lot of talk about YouTube getting into the podcasting space, do you think that that's another platform that maybe someone should be looking into?

Alban:

Yeah, distribution is really wide on YouTube. So I think YouTube is a great way to get your podcast out to the world. Right now. Like as we're recording this in April 2022. YouTube doesn't have an official YouTube podcasts app or you know, platform. But what they do have are lots of podcasts, they upload video versions of their shows to YouTube. And we've seen lots of really big podcasts get way bigger, because they're utilizing YouTube's distribution platform. So think about some places that may not be typical directories, at least not yet. And make sure that your shows available there. And they put you to belong with maybe Facebook, if they ever get Facebook podcasts together. Or if other major platforms launch a podcasting component like Twitter, or Tiktok, or something. Those are great ways to get your show out to the world. So kind of keep your ear to the ground and see anything comes along. That's brand new, to make sure you get your show listed. Because all of these in total should only take you like an afternoon. This isn't some massive ongoing process. Once you get listed in each of these directories, your set, and your show will automatically populate with new episodes as you continue to release them on Buzzsprout.

Jordan:

So let's talk about networking and connecting with people in your community. What are some great ways to do that?

Alban:

Well, the first thing I would say is be very explicit about who your community is. You know if I'm starting a show about motocross or something, my community is other people interested in motocross. When you start a podcast, most people start getting involved in a different community and that's the community of podcasters and you start connecting with others. People who are working on shows or hosts of shows, editors. And I see often that people are getting these two communities confused. You know, they're marketing their show about motocross, to a bunch of editors who are working on totally different shows, you know, somebody's working on a show about the bachelor, they don't want to listen to your bike show. So when you're thinking about a community, let's think about who would be interested in listening to this specific show. And then try to network with that community. So when you're getting into podcasting, it's quite likely that you're going to be working in two communities simultaneously, one where you're talking to other people interested in the podcasting industry, but you'll also be working in the topic area that you've picked for your show. And that's where you want to spend most of your time.

Jordan:

Yeah, I agree with that. Our Facebook moderator, Jonathan had a really great statement that he said, he said that the podcasting groups are about growing as a podcaster not growing your podcast. And I think that's such a great way to put it.

Alban:

I think that that's exactly right. I mean, how often do we see people come into our Facebook group, or into other podcasts and communities and they say, Hey, everybody, I just launched, check out my mental health podcast. And I'm thinking, you know, I'm not actually someone who's looking for a mental health podcast right now. But I am very excited for you that you just launched. And I want to support you and give you words of affirmation, and maybe give mic technique tips, or whatever you may be looking for on the podcasting side. But often podcasters have way too many shows already. They don't need to discover new podcasts, they need to find ways to probably limit the number of podcasts that they've already learned about

Jordan:

And those podcasts groups are really like also a great way to connect with other podcasters in your niche. And you can kind of form a little bit of a community with that niche through those groups and connecting outside of that group. That's what I found, you just kind of all start following each other on Instagram, or, you know, things like that. And you find yourself having like video chats with them, or long messages and reaching out about like feed exchanges and things like that.

Alban:

Yeah, it's much better to find a few people go to the bigger groups and find like three or four people that are in the exact same space as you made the motocross joke, but like, if that was your podcast, find other people who were in motorsport. So you know, maybe someone's doing a NASCAR f1 podcast. And they're not exactly competitive, but they're similar. So you could talk about what strategies you used or how you grew your own show. And now you've got a little bit of people who you can bounce ideas off of, and learn what's working for them, because that's likely going to work for you. And then one last point on community, if you end up finding out, I'm launching a brand new podcast about vertical farming, and nobody has a good community for it yet. Well, that's a great opportunity for you to become the source, the main community. So consider actually starting that community, if your podcast is in a niche that hasn't already grown, organically grown like its own community group.

Jordan:

And if you're in a niche that already has communities, I think it's really wise to be intentional about how you interact with people in that community. So when somebody is asking for tips on co sleeping, when you have an infant, don't go in there and just say, listen to my podcast, maybe share your tips about it and say, I go into this further with my podcast, but make sure that you're bringing them value without just dropping a link for your podcast, because I think that tends to turn people off a little bit.

Alban:

Yeah, it's definitely a turn off. I mean, think about if you're at a restaurant, and when everyone's about the order, and you kind of asking like, what looks good to you, what do you think you're gonna order? Imagine if someone just heard you rolled their eyes and handed you Yelp reviews or something and said, well, here you go. All the information was already posted in my Yelp review. Okay, yeah, I know about Yelp. I know that there's other ways to get answers to this, that I specifically just asked, and that's not helpful to say you could find it somewhere else. And so imagine you're in a group you are looking for information. If someone says take 45 minutes to go listen to my podcast, they're not going to engage with that. But if instead you answer with a really thoughtful, well thought out answer that you've probably put together from making this podcast that you say and if you want to go deeper than these two paragraphs I just wrote, I actually talked to a sleep expert for 45 minutes on this episode, and I'd love it if you check it out. You know, that's so much more human and real and it provides enough value that people go oh, Oh, this actually would be a great episode for me to listen to.

Jordan:

So third is one of my personal favorite ways to grow your show guesting on other podcasts. So how do you even find how to guest on somebody's podcast? Where do you even start with that?

Alban:

Yeah, so the whole strategy goes back to there's already people who are listening to shows in the area that your show is in, you know, there's not just one cryptocurrency podcast, there's a lot of them. And they're all talking about the same topic, but in different ways. If you're really talking about, I don't know, the regulatory side of crypto, you may decide I'm going to try to find five other podcasts that may be talking about cryptocurrencies, but maybe they're focusing on the scams, or the funny bits of crypto or the games with NFT's or something, we'll go to a website like podmatch.com, or maybe podchaser the talked about earlier, find shows that you'd be interested in being on and then reach out to them. So a lot of these guest matching platforms like pod match are a great way to find shows that you would like to be on.

Jordan:

And I wouldn't be nervous about reaching out to a podcast that is maybe a bigger audience than your show, because podcasters love helping out other podcasters. And it's mutually beneficial. They get an opportunity to be in front of your audience. And you also get the content from that conversation or interview. And if they have a larger audience, a lot of times, they can bring over some of those audience members to your show, because they're already interested in that topic.

Alban:

And it's not unlikely that you know, they've already put out two years of content, maybe there are 100 episodes in there looking for new people, you know, maybe they've had the same people on two or three times already. And you come up as an expert, an area they haven't talked about before, the more work you can put in to making sure you find the right shows and express why you'd be a great guest, the better success rate you'll have and actually being selected to appear on all these different podcasts.

Jordan:

Another great thing about guesting on someone else's podcast is it's actually a little bit better than doing a promo swap where you record a 30 second ad talking about your podcast, why they should listen to it and then hoping that the audience from that podcast decide to go ahead and listen to your show. With guesting you get more than those 30 seconds of like a quick elevator pitch, you get the entire episode to win over their audience and say that I am somebody you want to listen to I am a personality you will enjoy. And you'll definitely want to come listen my podcast. So it gives you so much more opportunity to win the audience over.

Alban:

So this is exact contrast to our fourth point, which is a way where you kind of have to sell yourself quickly. And that's social media. So there a lot of podcasts that have grown really well by sharing their content on social.

Jordan:

I think that a misconception that a lot of podcasters run into is that you have to be on all the social platforms, I have to do it all. So what do you think about that? Albin?

Alban:

I think that's a great way to burn out. I mean, anybody who's on every platform, there's probably a full time person creating that content, really big brands have multiple people on each channel. And so you shouldn't expect the brand new podcast that's only getting six downloads per episode should have to be on every platform. Instead, go wherever you think your community already hangs out. So if you're plugged in to a group of nature, photographers on Instagram, and your podcast about nature, photography, stay there. And that's where you should connect to him. But maybe if you're talking about current events, and politics, well, Twitter might be the better space. So do a little market research, see where your audience is, and pick maybe one or two social platforms to really start with. And then also pick the social platforms that work for you personally, because you're the one who's going to be spending time here. So if you find that the open nature of Twitter has in the past led to harassment for you, and it's not, please feel comfortable, but you like a little bit more of the corporate feel of LinkedIn, then spend your time there, wherever you are most comfortable personally. And also your knowledge of that platform is the highest double down there. And focus on that one, because this is where you will be spending your time you don't want to make it a chore you'd rather make it something that you really enjoy.

Jordan:

Yeah, I love that. I when I first started my podcast, I felt like I needed to be on Twitter, because everyone's on Twitter. I need to be on Twitter. Well, I've never been on Twitter. I wouldn't even know how to use Twitter to be honest with you. And I realize I used that, I don't know how to use Twitter. So would being on Twitter really be the best use of my time, if I don't know how to use it? It's probably not.

Alban:

One mistake I see a lot is that when people are on three or four platforms, what they do is they make content for one. And then they just basically post that exact content everywhere. So you know, maybe it was written for Twitter first. So they basically write a short tweet. And then they go, how can I turn this into something for Instagram, and then they do a screenshot of a tweet. And then on LinkedIn, the tweet is way too short, because LinkedIn likes longer content. And then on Facebook, their posts, you know, they're just kind of repurposing the same piece of content, and it never fits anywhere else, except for its home. And so if that's the strategy that you would end up with, let's just focus on nailing one platform. And once that works, if you decide to expand outside of the single platform, then start learning what types of content that platform likes, because that's how you'll get the biggest return on your time.

Jordan:

One of the social platforms that has really been popping up on everyone's radar is TikTok, not just for kids anymore.

Alban:

Tick tock, it's apparently for everybody. Now, it's the fastest growing social platform. What are the awesome things about tick tock is that tick tock algorithm doesn't really care who you are, you could be a brand new creator, or you could be one of the biggest creators of all time. And they're still going to give you a pretty good reach. New creators have so much more reach on tick tock than you would on any other social platform. So if tick tock looks like a place that would work for your show, and you're willing to experiment with that short form video, then it's probably a good place to check out. So go ahead and post a couple and see if you're able to get some leverage for your platform. And if you're interested in learning more, we've shared some tips. And we'll maybe link to them in the show notes on how to grow your podcast using Tiktok.

Jordan:

All right, and the final and probably the most important tip we have for growing your audience is to create a call to action in every episode to grow your show.

Alban:

One of the main things you should be thinking about when you're picking a call to action is picking one call to action. If you ever heard that people to say Tell a friend and subscribe to the show, and make sure you click the bell. And also leave me a review and you're by the third item, your eyes are glazed over, you know, you're not gonna do anything. But if somebody asks one specific thing, you're very likely to do it. And so the call to action doesn't have to be the same every episode, but really think about limiting yourself to one. So say, Hey, if you could leave an episode review on Apple podcasts, I'd really appreciate it, I read everyone and they mean the world. To me, that's so much more likely to get action than going through a list of 12 things that would be helpful to you.

Jordan:

Or some other ideas for your call to action is to ask your listeners to tell a family or friend about your show. That's a really great way just tell them, if you could just tell one person about an episode that you enjoyed that would help grow the show so much because word of mouth means a lot to people, if they get a recommendation from somebody that they trust, they're more likely to listen to your show.

Alban:

And the benefit of using these calls to action are that you can actually learn which ones are working. So if you see an uptick in your show, and maybe you're starting to get a few more listeners will look back what call to action I have in the last episode. And maybe that's the one that started to work. In the beginning, we're trying all sorts of different things. Once we start figuring out what works for our shows, well, now we can double down on that content.

Jordan:

And also be mindful of the placement of your call to action. Do you want to place it at the beginning of every episode, or maybe in the middle when you take an ad break, or at the very end? Think about the fact that a lot of listeners might dip out before the end of the episode. So maybe it's a good idea to catch them in the very beginning of the episode before it starts, or in the middle where they're invested in the story.

Alban:

So we've given you a lot of ideas. In this episode, we talked about getting your podcast into the podcast directories that are most important like Apple podcast and the podcast index and maybe some areas that you didn't think about. We talked about networking with people in your community and how to identify what that community is, how to guest in other shows and find shows that you could be a guest on we talked about social media platforms and how to pick one and at last we talked about calls to action. So we hope you found something that was really valuable in this episode to help you start growing your show and we will link to all of this down in the show notes. So be sure to go read those as well as some blog posts on how to grow your podcasts in other ways

Jordan:

and with that thanks for listening and keep podcasting