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7 Ways to Grow Your Podcast Audience
Thinking of taking your business to the next level with a podcast? That's a terrific way of entertaining your audience while also building a credible brand!
Making a podcast may be easy, but it’ll take more than a simple recording to engage listeners! It’s the little details that could transform a boring podcast into a valuable and entertaining piece of content. You want to give people infos that are worth listening to, content that’s worth subscribing to. Let’s get to know what a podcast can do for your business, how to make one, and launch a podcast channel successfully.
What is a Podcast?
A podcast is a piece of audio file that you can upload on various podcast platforms to generate subscribers. These podcast platforms are perfect for marketing different businesses because of the high user engagement.
How to Create a Podcast
To create a podcast, you’ll need to plan what kinds of topics will appeal to your target audience the most. You’d have to conduct market research to find out the age group of your target audience, if you haven’t already, and look for trending topics online.
Once you have the information you need, you have to choose the podcast format for your podcast. You can create a standalone recording or a series to teach or entertain listeners all over the world. Some of the most popular podcast formats are:
- One-on-one interview
- Monologue
- Co-hosted podcast
- Panel podcast
- Narrative/Storytelling podcast
- Repurposed content
Gather information about the topic, prepare your script, and build a recording setup for the actual recording. Unless you have the budget for it, use your mobile phone for the recording. You can invest in better equipment as your podcast takes off.
Once the recording is done, you can use different apps to edit and clean up the audio. Create your own intro and artwork for your podcast channel. Once that’s done, it’s a matter of uploading the podcast on your website and different podcast channels.
Free Podcast Hosting Platforms
Some podcast platforms offer free hosting; others do not. These are the best places to upload your podcasts:
- Buzzsprout
- Spreaker
- Podbean
- Simplecast
- Anchor
You can also submit your podcasts to these channels:
- Apple Podcasts (iTunes)
- Stitcher
- SoundCloud
- YouTube
- Spotify
- Google Play Store
7 Ways to Grow Your Viewership with Podcast
Choose the Right Channels
A podcast is a great way to connect with your current audience. But to step up your marketing efforts, you have to choose the proper channels for your podcast. That means spreading the word about your podcast in places that your current audience frequent. You'll have to look deeper into your analytics to determine where most of your website traffic comes from.
If most of your viewers are coming from IG or Twitter, then it makes sense to inform your audience about your latest podcast episodes on these channels. If it's on Facebook, write a shoutout about your podcast for all your followers to see. Be sure to spread your podcast on the trendiest platforms to attract more people.
Share and Reshare
Still on social media, don't forget to encourage your current audience to share your podcast to give your marketing effort a lot of mileage. You can give them a shoutout and ask them to share your podcast, or you could arrange a contest or giveaway to encourage more people to share and reshare your podcast. The prize doesn't have to cost a lot; a piece of content or a discount, etc., is enough to get people on board.
Connect with New Listeners
Having loyal customers as regular podcast listeners is good, but attracting new listeners will take your marketing strategy to a different level. But how do you appeal to people you've never reached out to before?
You can start by checking out all the trending topics that are relevant to your niche or industry. Check out the competition; what kind of podcast topics get a lot of traffic from people? What valuable information can you provide to new listeners?
Once you've figured out what topics to focus on to attract new listeners, create a script. Keep your branding consistent across all platforms so that new listeners would associate these with your business. Make it easier for new listeners to share and reshare your content by adding re-sharing buttons on relevant web pages. Finally, spread the word about the podcast on your social media channels and website. Welcome the new listeners warmly, and this should pique their interest.
Provide Value
Any piece of content is only good when it's providing value. If it's valuable, then it won't get much attention at all. The great thing about podcasts is that it gives plenty of opportunities to establish your expertise in ways that written content cannot replicate.
You can create an interview with market leaders to establish credibility, how-to videos to demonstrate your skills, webinars to educate people, and a monologue to show off your knowledge and, perhaps, your comedic timing. Really, there are a hundred and one ways of leveraging podcasts to market a business and establish your expertise.
Collaborate with Influencers
Whatever feelings you might have about some influencers, you cannot deny that their insights and recos have weight to specific groups of people. And you can use that to grow your business. Podcasts offer plenty of opportunities for collaborations.
Again, you can do one-on-one interviews with market leaders, cross-develop and promote a joint project/product, hold joint contests, and so much more. These strategies allow you to market your business to audiences that you haven't reached out to before. The best part, you are establishing trust among a wider audience.
Complement Your SEO Efforts
That’s right; you can grow your viewership exponentially by tying your podcast strategies with your SEO efforts. Because Google and other major search engines index audio content like podcasts, it’s crucial to optimize your podcast in SEO. This will increase the chances of your website’s searchability.
We suggest using your main keywords in the podcast introduction and episode summary. Optimize your podcast descriptions, titles, and other labels, with your target keywords. Show the notes of your podcast on your website so you can optimize these as well. Finally, the title of your podcast should be formatted the same way as you would a blog post title for a stronger online presence.
Join a Popular Podcast Community
Joining a popular podcast community will benefit your business in many ways. For starters, you can promote your podcast to other members. You can meet aspiring podcasters like yourself, get useful tips on maintaining a podcast, attract more listeners and inspirations for future episodes. Some of the most popular podcast communities are:
- Podcast Movement
- ShePodcasts
- Buzzsprout Podcast Community
- WOC Podcasters
- Podcast Growth Mastermind
As long as you are being strategic about building and maintaining a podcast, you can grow your viewership and market your business without even trying. It will take time to grow your podcast audience but keep these tips in mind, and you'll get there!
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