11 Make or Break Secrets You Must Know About Podcast Marketing

Podcasts are excellent marketing tools and incredible sources of income, traffic & brand authority for “some” people.

44% of Americans have, at some point, listened to a podcast. 80% of those podcast listeners are ready to tune in to at least 7 podcasts weekly. This is growing!

The stats related to podcasts are genuinely incredible. However, the fact remains that listeners only have enough room to listen to a handful of podcasts. 

So if you’re not first, your last!

So, how do you get your podcast into the ears of those listeners? How can you get more people to discover your podcast and your brand?

Our list of 11 expert podcast marketing strategies will allow you to drive your podcast to success fast!

Podcast Marketing Secrets

Podcasts have been around for some time now, but have become increasingly popular of late.

If you can get it right, then your podcast alone can generate a ton of income!

Because of this, the podcast space has become an increasingly competitive market. The Apple Podcasts platform has over 500k podcasts!

The JRE podcast is probably the most popular podcast on any podcasting network. Joe Rogan recently signed a $100 million deal with Spotify to exclusively host his podcast on their platform.

If this deal works out for both parties, we could see similar deals being made for other podcasts in the future. Jack breaks down Joe Rogan’s Spotify deal below:

So, getting your podcast noticed in a massive marketplace of impressive podcasts can be challenging. 

Lucky for you, we have 11 expert strategies (with case studies) that can help your podcast get noticed fast!

1. Social Media
2. Reddit
3. Email
4. Blog Posts
5. Upload Your Podcast to YouTube
6. Submit Your Podcast to Podcatchers
7. Host a Giveaway
8. Be a Guest on Other Podcasts
9. Target Your Guest’s Audience
10. Get Featured on a Sponsor’s Website
11. Team up with an Influencer

1. Social Media

Promote your podcast with a post on your social media channels. 

If you have already established a decent following, then a social media post can inform fans of upcoming and recently aired episodes.

You can create a post with a:

• Link – A link to the website that’s hosting the podcast.
• Image – The cover image of your podcast or podcast episode.
• Video – If you film your podcast, then you can use an interesting 1-minute snippet taken from the show. Alternatively, you can create a short video clip using an audio snippet from the podcast. 

Joe Rogan candidly (and expertly) promotes his upcoming podcast episodes on his Instagram profile. 

Joe uses comedic photoshopped images of himself and guests to let users know what to expect in his next podcast episode. He also uploads pictures of guests at his studio before their episode goes live.

These types of images are ideal for platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Uploading these before an episode airs is perfect in building anticipation and interest towards your podcast.

Case Study 01: Podcast Media – SaaS Marketing Superstars

Jack from VYPER was a featured guest on Aaron Zakowski’s popular marketing podcast, SaaS Marketing Superstars (Episode 3). 

Let’s look at the different kinds of media that Aaron created to promote this episode of the podcast.

1. Feature Image 

Aaron creates feature images specifically for each podcast episode. The feature image for episode 3 of the podcast features Jack (see below).

Aaron also features the company logo of the podcast guest in the bottom left corner. 

A feature image like this is ideal for social media and blog posts. It’s perfect for YouTube Thumbnails. 

2. Long-Form Video

YouTube is an excellent platform to promote your podcast. It has 2 billion active users and is an ideal platform for long-form video content.

Aaron films his podcasts and live streams. This allows him to upload long-form visual media to platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

3. Video Snippet

Aaron creates short videos with an interesting excerpt from the podcast episode. The video is optimized for social media feeds. 

A square (1:1 ratio) video that’s under 1 min is ideal for social media. For this podcast episode, Aaron posted a 42-second video on his Twitter feed.

There are plenty of tools out there that allow you to create short, engaging videos for social media. All you need to start is audio.

Wavve is one dedicated service that allows podcasters to create animated videos from the audio taken out of podcast episodes.

2. Reddit

Reddit is a fun, exciting, and weird platform. It’s seen some serious growth in terms of users in the last few years.

However, marketing your brand on Reddit is in no way as conventional as standard social media marketing.

There has to be some form of demand for your brand or niche for any chance of success.

Podcasts, however, seem to have a decent amount of interest on Reddit. All the top comedy podcasts have their own subreddits.

Comedians like Bill Burr can grow a like-minded community around their podcast on Reddit.

Users can use his subreddit for more in-depth discussions on previous episodes, share memes, and look back at old funny content from the comedian.

Now, the question is, should you start a subreddit for your new podcast?

Case Study 02: A Dedicated Profile – Waveform Podcast

Famous comedians like Bill Burr, Joe Rogan, and Duncan Trussel all have thriving subreddits focused on their podcast. 

However, after searching for popular marketing, SaaS, tech, and even music podcasts on Reddit, the searches came up empty.

It shows that Reddit might not be the first place for you to market your podcast. However, you can still try to promote your new podcast on the Podcasts subreddit. 

Or you can start a discussion on (or promote) your podcast on an active subreddit. Similar to what MKBHD does. 

YouTube tech influencer, MKBHD (Marques Brownlee), has a fantastic subreddit with over 52k Redditors. It’s a great place to focus on topics related to him. Especially his podcast.

However, Marques didn’t just promote his Waveform podcast on his already established social media profiles.

Instead, he created a dedicated Twitter profile just for the podcast.

Marques realized that he is going to put out a lot of content to promote his podcast. 

Because he didn’t want to do this on his already established profiles, it made sense to create a dedicated Twitter profile for his podcast. 

People can potentially unfollow you if you keep promoting your podcast on your socials.

Marques also realized that he could jeopardize his subreddit by using it solely to promote his podcast. So it was the right move to start a separate profile for his podcast on the best-suited platform.

FAQ – Creating New Marketing Channels

Question: Should you promote your podcast on your personal/brand’s social media channel or should you create new profiles for your podcast?

Your current social media followers may not want to see you promoting a podcast. And your podcast followers may not want to see content unrelated to the podcast. For these reasons, you should create separate social media profiles for your podcast. Especially if your goal is to promote your podcast on social media heavily.

If you intend to make your podcast a significant part of your brand, you can promote it on your own socials. Joe Rogan promotes his podcast on his personal Instagram profile.

3. Email

Send out an email to your subscribers with a link to your latest episode. 

Sure, it’s as simple as that. However, it would be best if you were cautious as some subscribers might not like the idea of you pushing your podcast onto them. 

If you feel that an email promoting your latest podcast episode might cause you to lose email subscribers, you should not chance it. 

If you regularly send out newsletters and other emails of value to the reader, then perhaps you can give one email a try.

Case Study 03: Podcast Email Copy – Hotjar Podcast

Behavior analytics firm, Hotjar, sends out emails to promote episodes from their ‘The Humans Strike Back’ podcast. 

Below is an excellent example of how to craft out a superb email copy for your podcast.

The first thing a user will see at the top of the mail is an intriguing quote from the podcast’s guest.

Hotjar is a brand that regularly sends out useful emails filled with tips and resources. The email format above is similar to the other emails, so it does not go against what their subscribers expect from Hotjar.

Hotjar strategically placed a clear call-to-action at the bottom of the copy. Once their subscriber is finished reading the copy, they will be compelled to “listen to Episode #009.”

If you feel your subscribers are not ready to receive emails related to your podcast, then perhaps you can start small. Insert a link to your podcast into your email signature.

4. Blog

If you already have an existing blog, then it’s a no brainer to create dedicated blog posts for each podcast episode. 

Especially if you are a SaaS brand or a brand that has an online store.

Podcast blog posts can make for great content and can help with SEO too!

So, what should you include in your blog post?

To answer that question, we should go back and look at the SaaS Marketing Superstars podcast. 

Case Study 04: Website Posts – SaaS Marketing Superstars

Aaron has an active blog section on his website. He could have chosen to create new blog posts that featured each podcast episode. 

Instead, Aaron created a “podcast’ section on his website so that website visitors can easily locate his podcast and each new episode.

Every episode of the podcast has its own page on Aaron’s website. Each podcast post is made up of the following content:

• Feature Image
• YouTube Video
• iTunes and Spotify podcast links
• Guest bio
• Show notes
• Twitter post
• The audio-only version of the podcast

Aaron does a great job using his blog post to highlight the important topics of the episode. He also ensures that he includes the bio of his guest to provide readers with background information.

It’s crucial to display as much information as possible to maintain good SEO practices. 

If a person searches “how to create content that converts,” it’s possible that this post can turn up in search results.

Case Study 05: Transcribe Your Podcast – The Verge

There are plenty of podcasts that feature fully transcribed versions of each episode. This gives people the option to skim/search through text instead of listening to an entire episode.

You could feature a full transcript of each podcast episode within a dedicated blog post. Or, you can only use crucial sections from the transcript, like The Verge.

The Verge uses parts of their transcript (lightly edited) and adds background info to support the podcast episode.

This makes for excellent blog content, which is crucial for SEO.

Services like Rev can efficiently convert audio into text. You can also hire a freelancer from Upwork or Fiverr to transcribe your podcast episodes too. 

5. YouTube

We touched on the subject of YouTube Promotion in a previous section. 

The main takeaway is that YouTube is a 2 billion user strong platform that enjoys long-form content.

Your hour-long podcast episodes will fit perfectly on youtube.

Yes, your goal might be to top the iTunes and Spotify charts. However, it certainly won’t hurt to get your name out onto a platform like YouTube.

YouTube comes preinstalled on Android Smartphones and is easily accessible on smart TVs and Chromecasts.

Even users with no interest in podcasts can stumble onto your podcast on YouTube, making it an excellent discovery tool. YouTube is also the second-largest search tool after Google.

Uploading to YouTube

So, how do you get started?

You can film yourself or screen capture remote conversations. Then upload your videos to your YouTube channel.

Yes, it is as easy as that. The hard part would be to build up your subscribers. But that is a topic for another post!

If you have an audio-only podcast, you can drop the audio from your podcast into a video editor and add a still image.

It will look something like the podcast below:

You can choose to use a moving image that’s continuously on a loop if that works for you. 

Case Study 06: Uploading Clips – Logan Paul

Uploading short clips taken from a podcast episode is an extremely common strategy that most YouTube podcasters use.

Part of this strategy is NOT uploading the clips to your podcast channel. Instead, you upload your clips to their own channel.

Logan Paul’s popular podcast, Impulsive, has its own dedicated channel (Impulsive Clips), where he uploads short clips taken from the original podcast.

In most cases, he uploads 5 or more 5-minute clips from each podcast.

This strategy helps with SEO. It increases your chances of being discovered. Instead of people searching for one piece of content, they now have 5 different videos related to your podcast episode.

We used Logan Paul as an example of this strategy because he executes it well. There are tons of other brands that use this approach successfully.

6. Submit Your Podcast to Podcatchers

Podcatchers (a cool name for podcast client or directory) are apps or software that allow users to stream or download podcasts. 

These podcast directories are best known as popular podcast apps on smartphones, tablets, computers, and other music listening devices.

The 3 biggest podcatchers are:

1. iTunes
2. Spotify
3. Google Podcasts

It’s important to remember that after recording a podcast, you cant upload your new episode to iTunes. You will need to use a podcast hosting service. Similar to website hosting.

More on podcast hosting here.

1. iTunes

iTunes (also known as Apple Podcasts) is the original podcast network and the most popular place to host your podcast. 

It used to be a no brainer to feature your podcast on iTunes because Apple dominated the podcast market. 

Until recently, the iTunes podcasts app was the gold standard for over a decade and managed to turn away competing podcatchers. 

Spotify and Google Podcasts are making a massive surge in the podcast space. As a result, iTunes is decreasing in popularity.

All that said, iTunes Apple Podcasts is still a great directory to be featured in.

Click here for instructions on how to upload your podcast to iTunes.

What Do Podcast Listeners Think about iTunes?

The fact remains, iTunes is the biggest and has a massive selection of podcasts.

Their app is easily integrated on all Apple devices. However, it’s not available on Android devices, and the Windows version is difficult to use.

2. Spotify

Spotify is best known as one of the largest music streaming platforms in the world. The app is available on almost every operating system and features a Free plan.

Until recently, Spotify offered a modest podcast section within its apps.

Now, Spotify is making a massive play towards being the ultimate leader in the podcast world. Their deal with Joe Rogan only verifies this further.

Soon, Spotify could potentially overtake Apple Podcasts. However, Spotify still has many restrictions, especially with music podcasts.

Click here for instructions on how to upload your podcast to Spotify.

What Do Podcast Listeners Think about Spotify?

Spotify is a great all-in-one audio entertainment experience. All you need is Spotify for music and now podcasts.

Spotify is available on multiple platforms like smart devices, computers, and even smart speakers. 

The free plan makes the service increasingly available to more listeners.

However, as mentioned earlier, Spotify tends to restrict specific podcasts, and the service isn’t available in many countries.

3. Google Podcasts

Google Podcasts is new in the game, yet they have quickly become one of the podcast leaders.

The reason being, the Google Podcast service crawls web pages for podcasts. So if a podcast is listed somewhere on the net, it will most likely appear in Google Podcasts.

What’s great about this is that you will find anything and more in Google Podcasts. The app lists everything from comedy to music.

Click here for guidelines on how to get featured on Google Podcasts.

What Do Podcast Listeners Think about Google Podcasts?

Google Podcasts is available for free on multiple platforms and features the largest podcast database. 

For years, Android was left with no decent alternative to the Apple Podcast app. Now, Google Podcasts fills in that void with an excellent app that will serve you any podcast you need.

More Podcatchers

There’s nothing wrong with trying to get your podcast on every directory or app out there. The more exposure, the better, right?

However, if you are new to podcasting and only have the resources to focus on a few platforms at a time, then perhaps choose the top two, iTunes and Spotify.

It’s also worth noting that you should research to find out which is the best platform for your niche before you go all in.

Here’s more podcast directories for you to consider:

• TuneIn
• Stitcher
• Spreaker
• Google Play Music
• IPodder
• Podcasts.Alltop
• Blubrry

Soundcloud and Mixcloud are two music platforms that allow users to upload long-form audio content easily. 

These are great alternatives if you don’t want to get into a podcast hosting service. 

7. Host a Giveaway

You can use a giveaway prize as leverage to promote your podcast. 

How?

Create an entry method that benefits your podcast. It can be something like:

• “Subscribe to my podcast to enter.”
• “Leave a comment on iTunes to enter.”

If you really want to make the most of your giveaway, you can use VYPER’s excellent “bonus actions” feature.

With bonus actions, you can set up additional tasks for entrants to complete. Completing a task will earn them points that they can use to redeem more prizes.

For instance, you can setup bonus actions like:

• Watch this video
• Subscribe to YouTube
• Follow the podcast on Twitter
• Share the podcast on Facebook

For this example giveaway, entrants can subscribe to Joe Rogan’s podcast on iTunes and YouTube to earn points. They can also earn points by following Joe on social media.

The person that collects the most points (after completing bonus actions) wins the bonus prize. 

Click here to view a live demo of the JRE Giveaway.

8. Be a Guest on Other Podcasts

A vital part of any podcast is “featured guests.” 

The JRE Experience is all about having guests who are always ready to participate in some in-depth discussions.

So, if you have something you want to express, like promoting your new podcast, you should go on to someone else’s podcast.

This way, you get an opportunity to speak to that podcaster’s audience. 

Case Study 07: Winning Over a Target Audience – Duncan Trussell

Duncan Trussell is a regular guest on the JRE (Joe Rogan Experience Podcast). 

He’s main objective being to take part in some intense discussions about life and ordinary everyday things.

He rarely promotes himself or his ventures. Instead, he’s just himself. This makes him an interesting person that listeners would want to look up.

And once you look him up, you will find his podcast, Duncan Trussell Family Hour.

Duncan going on the JRE podcast is an excellent strategy because JRE listeners can quickly discover him and his podcast. JRE listeners are high quality leads because they listen to podcasts. 

So subscribing to Duncan’s podcast will be an easy task for JRE listeners.

Also, because Duncan is a regular on the JRE, it was easy for him to promote his latest project, The Midnight Gospel.

So, getting on other podcasts is an excellent way to promote your:

• Podcast
• Brand
• Current and future projects

9. Target Your Guest’s Audience

Now, the reverse applies. Imagine a person that only listens to Duncan Trussell’s Family Hour. 

Hard to imagine, but just play along.

So, Duncan would mention on his podcast and his socials that he’s going on (or been on) the JRE podcast. 

In other words, ask your guest to promote your podcast on their channels. 

This way, your guest gets to return the favor to you. It will also allow your podcast to become discoverable among your guest’s audience.

10. Get Featured on a Sponsor’s Website

If your podcast already has a list of sponsorships, you could try getting your podcast onto their website.

This can be as simple as them mentioning your podcast or displaying your podcast’s logo. Your sponsor can even go as far as embedding the actual audio from your podcasts on their website.

Case Study 08: Stay Close to a Sponsor – Shawn Stevenson

Four Sigmatic has an excellent partnership with Shawn Stevenson’s podcast, which is why they feature him on their website.

They even have special offers for listeners of his show. Being on a sponsor’s website can help you get discovered more often.

It also helps to build rapport and trust in your brand. Podcast listeners cant listen to every podcast. They have to be picky about who to subscribe to.

Showing them that you are legit goes a long way in building subscribers.

If you are just looking to gain exposure for your podcast, you could work on a slightly different agreement with a sponsor.

Instead of accepting a payment from them, ask your sponsor to promote your podcast. Then you will promote their brand on your podcast.

This way, your promotional efforts will double because you have a reliable brand helping you out.

11. Team Up with an Influencer 

Influencer marketing is a fantastic concept. Your brand partners up with an influencer to market your products on social media.

It doesn’t end there. Brands are using influencers to host giveaways as well.

An influencer with an audience that’s similar to your target audience can quickly get your message to their audience. 

So, it makes sense to ask an influencer to promote your podcast on their socials. Especially if they are active on the same social network, you need exposure in.

Feature your influencer as a guest on your podcast. You can do this for a few episodes to promote your podcast on your socials. They can tell their followers that they are at your studio ready to record.

Click here to view a live demo of the JRE Giveaway.

Case Study 09: Growing Your Podcast with Influencers – H3 Podcast

The H3 Podcast is an excellent example of leveraging popular influencers to grow its podcast. 

They always try to feature guests that are more popular than them. Influential people such as Ninja and Jordan Peterson have been on the H3 Podcast. 

The H3 Podcast has featured Post Malone as a guest a few times on the podcast. He’s a mega pop star with an insane following who is friends with Ethan from H3.

This is probably the best example of using an influencer to create hype around your podcast.

Podcast Giveaway Ideas

One of the fastest ways of boosting your podcast’s subscribers is by hosting a giveaway.

If you sign up with VYPER, you can use our platform to create a giveaway for your podcast with an entry method that requires people to subscribe to enter.

You can also use “bonus actions” to get people to leave comments on your podcast or refer friends to your giveaway.

Here are a few podcast giveaway ideas that you can use as inspiration for your giveaway.

Music Podcast Giveaway

Platforms like iTunes (Apple Podcasts App) and Google Podcasts feature a wide range of music podcasts.

These are podcasts that follow a similar format to music radio stations. The DJ plays the top tunes for the week and does shout outs for his fans in between songs.

The music podcast niche is especially popular among Musicians and DJs like Armin Van Buuren, Marshmello, and Tiesto.

Famous deep house DJs like Claptone can use a giveaway to promote their podcast.

They can offer one lucky person (who subscribes to their podcast) concert or music festival tickets. 

Yes, concerts and festivals are out right now (because of lockdown restrictions). However, festivals like Glastonbury and Tomorrowland are currently throwing virtual/digital festivals. 

A DJ like Claptone can offer his giveaway entrants full access to live online streams or digital festivals. 

Claptone can then use his podcast to promote new music releases and future gigs to his new subscribers that were generated from the giveaway.

Education Podcast Giveaway

All podcasts are educational in some way. We learn great life lessons from listening to the thoughts of influential comedians and marketers.

However, there is a massive world of educational podcasts dedicated to go beyond advice and teach its listeners something amazing.

Jordan Peterson is a psychology professor from the University of Toronto. He’s the author of multiple books and has his podcast.

Jordan can give away signed copies of his books to a random lucky person who subscribes to his podcast. 

Such a giveaway will draw a highly targeted audience of people interested in Jordan’s work and books.

This will help Jordan to grow a community of like-minded people or students.

Marketing Podcast Giveaway

Podcasts are proving to be excellent tools for online marketing brands and affiliate marketers. 

Long-form audio content offers multiple ways for marketers to promote their products, services, or courses.

Boosting the subscriber count of a marketing podcast can lead to a surge in sales for that brand. An efficient method of boosting podcast subscribers is with a giveaway.

Famous marketers, Neil Patel and Eric Siu, regularly team up to host their successful Marketing School Podcast.

Their podcast helped them to build a network of like-minded marketers and entrepreneurs. These are the kind of people that Neil and Eric host at their live networking events and seminars.

Seats are limited to these marketing events, which makes it difficult to gain entry.

Allowing one person to access Neil and Eric’s marketing event is the perfect prize for their podcast giveaway.

The Marketing School can host a giveaway to attract people interested in marketing and entrepreneurship. They can ask users to subscribe to the podcast to enter.

Seeing that Neil and Eric host marketing seminars and events regularly, they could host a monthly podcast giveaway. They can give away one seat to their events once a month (an evergreen campaign).

Hosting low-cost contests regularly will help you to consistently grow your business.

Want to learn more? Read the full post here.

Bonus: How Ronsley Vaz Got His Podcast to 1M Listens

Ronsley Vaz has been in podcasting since the early days and was one of the first podcasters to achieve a million listens. Ever since then, Ronsley has continued to grow his podcasting agency and work with people like Gary Vaynerchuck (Gary Vee).

We spoke to Ronsley who gave us some great insight into growing a podcast, while also talking about the future of podcasting. Full interview below:

Podcast Marketing Q&A

TL;DR

Podcasts offer brands a unique opportunity to market themselves through long-form content on multiple platforms.

A brand’s podcast content is easily accessible through computer and mobile apps on any platform. This makes podcasting a valuable discovery tool that offers brands excellent exposure.

All that said, as with anything, you still have to market the content you create correctly if you wish to get more people to see it! We hope our tips help you with promoting your podcast.

Have you started a podcast already? What are your favorite strategies for marketing your podcast? Let us know in the comments below.