8 Actionable Tips, Tricks & Ideas To Promote Your Podcast In 2023

As of 2021, there are 1.75 million podcast shows out there and 43 million episodes according to Podcast Insights. And it’s no surprise that these numbers are rising daily. 

With such a huge wave of supply, how do you make sure your podcast is discovered and heard by your audience? Or if you don’t have an audience, how do you make sure you reach them? 

We went through one of the best resources out there and created a list of actionable tips & tricks that will help gather your first 1000 listeners. 

Getting Your First 1000 Listeners 

Making content for podcasts is tough and exhausting. Add to it the pressure of promoting it and it soon becomes overwhelming. So we have organized a list of tips and tricks to promote your podcasts. You can pick and choose the ones that are easiest to execute right now and get some momentum going. 

A Journey Of 1000 Listeners Begins From A Single One

Even though this is a list of 8 tips and tricks, I would recommend you to only choose the ideas that you can execute right away and leave the rest to later. Just doing it is the key. 

How to prioritise which tips to execute?

We often use the ICE Framework to decide which growth hack/idea should we execute from a list of possible growth ideas. Here are the questions you should ask yourself,  

1. Impact: If this works, how big is the impact?

2. Confidence: How likely is this to succeed?

3. Ease of implementation: How much resource (time, money, mental & physical effort) will this take? 

Now that you know how to prioritize from a list of 8 ideas, let’s begin.

Idea #1: Piggy Back On Your Guests Audience

Now this is assuming you are having at least occasional guests over on your podcasts. When guests agree to come on your podcast it is so that more people hear their message. And also their own audience gets to hear more from them. 

You would be surprised how often they are more than happy to promote your podcast with their own audience. Given that you make it easy for them to share and promote it. And how do you do it? That’s where the next idea comes in. 

Source: Buffer 

Idea #2: Repurpose Your Podcasts In Different Media Formats

Now this is something a lot of podcasters know and only a fraction of them actually act on. 

Serious players in the podcast game know, the discovery of a new podcast is a big problem right now. Since you can’t see audio, it is difficult for more people to decide whether they should invest their time in listening to a podcast. And in the case of long-form video podcasts, people generally avoid clicking just by looking at the duration of the video.

A solid way around this is to convert your long-form podcasts into short shareable content.

For example, take your audio or video podcast and turn them into videos by using specialized podcast-to-video tools like Recast Studio (shameless plug). You can also create a range of quote-based images using a tool like Canva. 

Following is a list of different types of content you can repurpose from a podcast,

Convert Your Podcast To Social Videos

Take small snippets from your long-form podcasts and trim them into small sharable video bytes. Use a 15-second vertical video for Instagram Stories, a 120-second square video for Instagram Feed & a long 5 to 10 minutes horizontal video snippet for YouTube. There are countless other platforms and formats that you can repurpose your podcasts into. 

Make sure you add audio waveform and subtitles to your videos so that you can hook your audience in the first few seconds. You can easily achieve this with our tool Recast Studio. 

Convert Your Podcast Into Blog

You can easily use the auto transcription tool in Recast Studio to convert your podcast into an article. Just transcribe the video or audio and then post it as a blog post on your website. If possible, also make sure your blog is SEO-optimised. 

Convert Your Podcast Into Image Posts

This is another way to pass on your message to more people on multiple platforms. Take out words of wisdom from your podcast and then create a square image-based quote post. 

Now that you have decided to repurpose your podcast into multiple content formats, the next idea will help you 10x the ROI of your efforts.

Idea #3: Create A Cohesive Visual Brand

With podcasts, take brand consistency seriously. Be it your podcast cover, your repurposed videos, images or even promos. A consistent visual brand combined with high-value content creates a subconscious hook for your audience. This makes sure your audience stops scrolling in their feed to see what you have to say. 

Your visual brand not only consists of your logo. But it also includes colour, shapes, layouts, typography and most importantly, the people. And that is what we are talking about in the next idea.

Idea #4: Show Your Face As A Common Element In Your Promotional Content

Human face grabs the attention of other humans. This is a known psychological fact. There is a special part in our brain that is sensitive to the human face.

Our brains are also specifically designed to recognise unique faces. That is, when people look at your photo, they won’t confuse you with anyone else. This also helps build your trust and authority. 

If you have a guest, have your & your guest's image in the thumbnail and other content where possible. 

Idea #5: Release At Least 3 Episodes On Launch

This was a mind-opening tip from Buffer. Which also came from Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income and countless other experts. Launching 3 or more episodes in advance gives your audience to invest deeper into your content. 

This is what Pat Flynn had to say about launching his podcast,

“I actually received negative reviews from people who had listened to the first episode and were upset that there was only one.”

Who knew? People would like the podcast so much that they would leave negative reviews because they cannot have more. But then, it is Pat Flynn’s content. You will always get the good stuff.

Idea #6: Submit To Podcast & Directories

This is a no-brainer. Keep this at the top of your list. Make sure your podcast is available to listen to your audience on all major platforms. 

The most popular 3 podcasting platforms are Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts & Spotify.Besides these are a dozen more where you can make your podcast available. 

• Google Play

• Spotify

• TuneIn

• iHeartRadio

• SoundCloud

• Podbay

• Podtail

You can use a 3rd party hosting tool like Anchor or Castos to help you submit your podcasts on your behalf. 

Idea #7: Be A Guest On Other People’s Podcasts

Now this is a neat little trick with many benefits. When you get on as a guest on someone else’s podcast a few things happen. First, you have an opportunity to be present in front of your audience. Second, you connect with someone in your niche who is also adding value to the ecosystem. Third, you have increased your authority by being in someone’s podcast who has already built their own authority with their audience. 

Besides, the next idea is the cherry on the cake when you use this strategy.

Idea #8: Cross-Promote Other Podcasts In the Same Niche

Once you already have a solid friendship with other podcasters in your niche, it becomes easy to cross-promote your podcasts with their audience and the other way around. That’s a great win-win situation.

Idea #9: Write catchy titles

“On average 5 times as many people read headlines as read the body copy” – David Ogilvy

And my suspicion is the data is even more skewed in the case of podcasts. The only way to make people curious about listening to your podcasts is to write catchy titles. 

You can write catchy titles by writing a question, a claim, a promise or keeping an open loop. But make sure you deliver on what you wrote. You also want people to listen to you. Not just click on the titles.

Conclusion

If you have been doing podcasts for a while, you know it is a long-term game. And getting your audience to consistently listen to your podcast comes down to quality content and reaching out to as many people as you can.

In order to help you promote your podcasts in as many video formats as possible, we have built Recast Studio. We hope you give it a try. 🙂

Over To You!