Promoting your Podcast
- Why promote your podcast?
- How do you get people to find your podcast?
- How to get free publicity?
- 1. Be original in your pilot/ first episode
- 2. Have a specific and clear topic
- 3. Don't make promises you can't keep
- 4. Make your podcast look professional
- Talk to people!
- Pull a stunt
- How to get into directories?
- How to get a high ranking in directories?
- Hold on to your audience!
Why promote your podcast?
You obviously want as many listeners as possible, either sporadic listeners or subscribers, because of all the time, effort, and money you spent on your podcast. You may even have the goal to make podcasts for a dayjob! Either way, promoting is always a good idea. You can make the perfect show, for the perfect audience, without anyone listening to it. That would be a waste of your time, effort, and money!
Free publicity is crucial to create the large audience you wanted! The number of downloads and subscriptions will be of great interest of advertisers too of course. These numbers are the only things to tell you how popular your podcast really is. So take some effort in promoting your podcast!
How do you get people to find your podcast?
After your first episode is published, people aren't going to download your podcast automatically without you guiding them. First submit your podcast to the most important directories, like iTunes, Yahoo, Podcast Alley, iPodder.org, and Podcastpickle so people can actually find you! And put your podcasts on your website to be downloaded! Perhaps you get podcast newbies hooked!
How to get free publicity
Make sure your first episode or preview is talked about. The easiest way to do this is to get your show reviewed at known podcast-reviewers in either podcasts (like Adam Curry's Podfinder) or websites (for example on certain forums), and media-related magazines. To make sure you will get this free publicity by being discussed in these media, here's some useful tips:
You need to be different from the rest. Make sure you stand out from all the other podcasts out there! Let the reviewer hear why your pilot is worth talking about! How to do that is extendedly explained in the Creating a format section.
You have to be able to explain the contents and goal of your podcast in three sentences at the most. It could be useful to think of your podcast's 'slogan', even if you are not going to share that with your audience.
If you make a promise, don't break it! Otherwise part of your audience will unsubscribe as soon as your podcast was different from what was expected.
This consists of having a representative logo, a clear title, and specific keywords. Make sure your ID3-tags (IDentify an mp3) and show notes give extra information about your episode and website or email-adress. (These are related text and/or graphical information that come with your audio file or podcast.). Make sure people find YOUR podcast if they are looking for information about your subject: Use the right keywords! Always check the spelling of your show notes! This could make a huge difference if people try to find you, of course!
These tips for promoting your pilot/ first episode will be of use in all the 'Pod-reviewers' out there, but don't forget internet forums, communities, and e-zines. They can all give you great (and less great) useful feedback on your episode. Take the feedback in and act on them. Instead of making the same mistakes over and over again, improve your podcast!
Talk to people!
Just like in any other business it is very useful to know people in the business. Make sure you get in contact with interesting people in the business like podcasters, podlisteners, and interactive media-related businesses. Shake some hands, introduce yourself, and spread a lot of business cards!
Pull a stunt
If you want to get a lot of exposure on your podcast, try to pull a stunt. For instance, create a very funny piece of audio about the topic of your podcast and make sure you email it to all the people you know (with your URL printed underneath of course). This way, others will spread your commercial FOR you! Doesn't that sound great? Perhaps this gave you a great idea for another stunt. Be creative!
How to get into directories?
Getting high rankings in podcast directories is crucial for your success as a podcaster! Invest time in making it to the top, using the right keywords in your show notes and accurate ID3 tags. The only thing you have to do is submit to the (most important) directories. Some of the most important directories are iTunes, Yahoo, Podcast Alley, iPodder.org, and Podcastpickle.
How to get a high ranking in directories
Every directory has its own way of ranking their podcasts. You will see that different podcasts come out on top in different directories. Podcasts are often ranked by the amount of click activity that they receive at popular podcast directories. That means that visitors only have to click on them to be counted. So most directories don't measure actual downloads of a podcast, because accurate data on downloads aren't available for all podcasts!
Another way to rank podcasts is by the voting of the audience or reviews. iTunes actually has a team that checks the content of podcasts randomly. So make sure your content is really good! You're doing really well if your podcast is on top of the rankings in iTunes with your own keywords!
If you are trying to get at the top, it is HIGHLY suggested to look at the most important directories regularly, to check on your rankings. Use keywords you would use if you were looking for your own podcast and see if you end up with your own podcast as a result!
Hold on to your audience!
Just as important as getting an audience is keeping your audience! Here are some things that will help you keep your audience:
Try to improve your podcast by every episode. Regularly evaluate your published podcasts: check if the audio quality is good enough, if it is not too long to listen to, if the volume level is always the same, if your information is useful, and so on.
Ask your listeners to email you with feedback on your shows. Your listeners are objective to your shows, so hear them out. They took time to tell you what you are doing wrong, or could be done better: Appreciate their help and thank them for that!
If you really want to keep your current subscribers, make sure you don't break your promises. For instance, if you said you would publish an episode every week: Do so!
Get your audience hooked! Do something that people can look forward to in every episode. Think about creating an entertaining aspect in your show or very interesting content from an interview for instance! After this, people will talk about your great podcast they just subcribed to! Mouth-to-mouth advertising is great (free!) publicity for your podcasts!