This article has been contributed by Parichehr Parsi.

So, you’ve started your podcast and you’ve got the planning and recording of each episode down pat. Great!

After all, one of the best ways to grow your business is podcast marketing, especially during the current pandemic, when more people are listening to podcasts.

But establishing and maintaining a successful podcast is not as easy as it may look. In the competitive world of podcasts, you absolutely must have something to share that others find interesting or informative. And regardless of content, it’s the way you grow your listener base that will determine the success of your podcast.

Here are 5 key ways to promote your podcasts and boost subscribers.

1. Craft Captivating Titles

A captivating title will make your podcast appealing and will peak more people’s interest. If you don’t invest time and effort into coming up with a good title, there is a high chance that you’ll miss out on gaining valuable new listeners, no matter how perfect your podcast content is.

In addition to being captivating, your podcast titles need to be relevant to each episode’s content and should also include proper keywords. This will boost chances of the podcast appearing in organic searches by relevant users, and thus securing listeners and possibly subscribers.

The right title will also help you rank well on other platforms. From iTunes to Google Play, your podcast’s position in search results is based on how well your title can attract an audience and meet their needs.

To choose the right keyword for your podcast title, there are a few things you’ll need to do.

• Use only one focus keyword. If there is more than one relevant keyword or key phrase, add them in the description of the podcast.
• Try to choose a short keyword instead of a key phrase.
• Always consider the language and culture of your target audience. If you are targeting English people living in London, your choice of keywords should be particularly English and not American or Scottish for instance.
• Search to see other results that rank well for possible keyword. This well tell you about the intent of people who search the keyword (i.e. what they are looking for), and what sort of content successfully meets their needs.

2. Choose Different Keywords for Each Episode

Do not use the same keyword for the topic of multiple episodes. Even if there are several podcasts around the same subject, try to use different keywords for each one. This will decrease internal competition for the same keyword and help each episode rank for different searches.

Targeting a different keyword with each episode will also help to bring different audiences, looking for slightly different information, to your podcast.

3. Promote Your Podcast on Social Media

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are great for promoting podcasts. There are 2.7 billion monthly active users on Facebook, about 1 billion on Instagram, and 330 million on Twitter. With audience numbers like these, you’d be remiss not to try to leverage them for access to new listeners.

Spread the word about your podcast via all your existing social media accounts. Announce the podcast release well in advance. Create buzz and excitement and count down the days or hours until the next episode with your followers.

Also be sure to create social media accounts specifically for your podcast, and link to them from your brand account on each platform.

Promoting your podcast on social media not only increases your social media engagement but also can grow traffic to the webpage where you share your podcasts. As a result, promoting your podcasts may lead to higher website rankings on Google, due to the extra web visits you’re generating.

Social media also has the power of creating conversations between you and your audience. You can learn what they think about your podcasts via comments or direct messages. Accordingly, you can consider their preferences for your future podcasts so that they satisfy more listeners.

Tips to Get Podcast Listeners Using Social Media

a. Take Care of Your Profile and Bio

It might seem simple and even obvious, but an appealing social media profile and strong bio make a huge difference when it comes to attracting new followers.

Try to pick an eye-catching profile photo of the hosts or an image related to the brand. But your bio is much more important; it says who you are and what you do.

You want to make the most of the allowed characters and write a concise but gripping description. Some platforms allow you to add one clickable external link to your bio, which will obviously be your podcast address. (There are tools like aischedul that allow you to include multiple links in your Instagram bio.) Try to evoke your visitors’ curiosity and invite them to subscribe to your podcast by clicking on it.

Take a look at the Instagram bio of @goaldiggerpodcast, hosted by bestselling author @jennakutcher.

Tip: Try to use the word “podcast” in your username, display name, and bio. This way, your page will pop up more quickly for those who search for podcasts.

b. Use Social Media Manager Apps to Grow Your Fan Base

Let’s face it, social media is too jam-packed to promote your podcast without any help. There are many other podcasters just like you trying to promote their brands on these platforms too. So, using a social media automation tool or social media manager app is a must.

One of the advantages of using social media automation tools when you have just created your social media account is that they get you off to a strong start. Some provide you with free followers from the get-go. Unlike using bots, Instagram manager apps only get you real followers, which will boost your engagement and eventually, your podcast subscribers.

c. Add Audio to Your Posts

A great way to promote your podcast on social media is by uploading exciting parts of your podcast for your followers to quickly hear. You can use apps to add audio to pictures and share them via social media channels.

An even better way is to make a video to share on social media. This method is especially useful as users tend to engage with videos more than images.

d. Share Behind the Scenes Content

People love to see behind the scenes stuff! Share images and videos of the production process, bloopers, and anything interesting that happens while you are recording the podcast. These posts will give your social media account a fresh feel and show your followers the real you.

e. Use Podcast Influencer Marketing

Partnering with an influencer who is a successful podcaster can promote your episodes to a whole new audience on social media and attract thousands of new subscribers.

Many podcast influencers are willing to work with other podcasters. The good thing about these influencers is that their audience loves to listen to podcasts, and they trust what these people recommend!

4. Build a Landing Page for Your Podcast

Create a dedicated page for your podcast on your website and put all your episodes on display. In other words, create a blog for your podcast episodes, with the blog index or home page as your landing page.

This approach is particularly effective in terms of user experience. Your website visitors will be able to find all the episodes on a single page without getting lost among various other pages on your website.

Then, create a new page for each new episode. This will help your blog index page to rank, as all the related (episode) pages will enhance its strength around your focus keyword.

Keep in mind that you should add a short description for each episode on the index page, so that people can quickly and easily see what the podcast explores. You should also add a transcription to each episode page. Not only is this important for accessibility, but the transcription text will enrich the episode pages for SEO purposes. This increases the amount of content for search engines to crawl and index for relevant keywords.

Elements of a High Conversion Landing Page for Your Podcast

Here are some guidelines about the various elements that can turn your podcast landing page into a high converting one.

a. Headline

As already mentioned, podcast headlines are particularly important if you want your podcast landing page to come up in search results. Hence, it is necessary to choose relevant headlines so that people do not play your podcast in the hope of listening to a particular subject and then bounce when they do not get anything even slightly related. Relevant headlines help you gain loyal subscribers for your podcasts.

b. Content

The next element is good content for your podcast landing page. Include a description of your podcast and some background about yourself. But don’t fill the page with unnecessary visual or textual content – keep it succinct yet engaging. Include a cover image thumbnail and short description for each episode. Make sure there is plenty of white space and follow other key principles for high-conversion websites, so that visitors focus on the content that you actually want them to.

c. Cover Images

Of course, podcasts are audio files but audio cannot attract listeners by itself. There must be something like a headline or a cover image that persuades and encourages visitors to play your podcasts. As a result, not paying attention to cover images can have severe results for your podcasts.

d. Call to Action (CTA)

Whatever direction you want to take your visitors, you should add CTA buttons to lead them there. For instance, you can ask them to subscribe to your podcast, subscribe to your newsletter, etc. Generally speaking, the purpose of an efficient landing page is to convert your generated leads. As a result, including a CTA is a must.

5. Promote Your Podcast in Your Newsletter

Another way to secure more podcast subscribers is to promote it in your newsletter. Using email automation tools and techniques, the task of sending out a newsletter to a crowd is not difficult anymore.

Here are several tips that guide you on the way to promoting your podcast on your newsletter.

How To Generate Podcast Buzz Using Your Email Newsletter

a. Tease in Advance

Before the release of your podcast, you can send out teasers in your newsletter. Teasers create excitement and engagement. When you release just an enticing taste of your podcast to your audience, they will be more eager to listen to the whole podcast. So, do your best to keep your teasers as attractive as possible.

b. Announce Your New Podcast Episode

If your teaser is successful, when you announce the release of your latest episode in your newsletter, you can expect to see a flurry of activity.

Given your email signups are opt-in, your email subscribers will likely be your most loyal and engaged listeners. There is a high chance that you attract many of them to listen to your new episode through your newsletter.

Your emails regarding your new podcast episodes don’t need to be extraordinary. Just keep everything to-the-point and simple. Start with an exciting explanation and then add a CTA to where they can listen to your latest episode.

c. Create Value for Your Listeners

Be realistic. Your email subscribers won’t listen to your podcasts merely because they want to support you. They will listen to them because they get something from them and find them valuable.

If your podcasts don’t offer value to listeners, you will undoubtedly lose your audience. Think of your capabilities and expertise, and leverage them. Persuade your readers to listen to your podcast by telling them how they can benefit by spending their time to listening to your podcast.

d. Resend Multiple Times

So now you’ve spent a lot of time preparing your latest email about your podcast. But, what if your email subscribers don’t even open it? The solution is easy. Send your email again.

But don’t make the same mistake twice. Consider that your email subscribers didn’t find your subject line captivating enough. To avoid this common email marketing mistake, revise your subject line and send the email again.

There are even some handy email tracking tools that can help you discover who did not open your email among your email subscribers list. Moreover, they enable you to resend your email to those recipients with a single click.

e. Check Your Performance

Tracking and measuring your performance is critical to successful marketing in general. How do you know you are doing the best things for your brand if you don’t check your statistics? The more you postpone measuring your analytics, the greater the chance you’ll lose subscribers and never improve your performance.

Remember to always check these two metrics after sending any email:

• Open Rate – the percentage of email recipients who opened your email.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR) – the percentage of recipients who clicked on the link in your email.

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About the author: Parichehr Parsi is a freelance copywriter in the fields of travel, fashion, and Instagram marketing. She currently writes for SocialPros and online magazines in Italy.