Podcasts are a fantastic way to promote the growth of your brand. Out of all Americans with access to a podcast app, 41% tune into a podcast at least once a month.
The issue is that attracting listeners to your podcast can be hard. Many fantastic podcasts with great potential never get off the ground because of substandard marketing tactics. Or worse, many well-performing podcasts have fallen off a cliff because of outdated methods.
To help ensure you reach your audience, here’s some guidance on how to rethink your podcast marketing strategy to ensure podcast growth.
Podcast Growth and Your Brand
There are multiple reasons why podcasts benefit your brand and why every business, regardless of niche, is looking to launch one.
Podcasts are the best way for businesses to connect with your target audience. They’re far more accessible than blog articles and go deeper than social posts. The insights you can provide in them can make you a thought leader in your field.
Podcasts can make your audience trust you more, making them more likely to be interested in your services.
Plus, podcasts can help extend your brand reach without much additional effort. Think of podcasts as another marketing channel like social and email. Having a podcast increases your potential reach and finds an audience who may have yet to engage with your brand.
3 Reasons Why Your Health and Wellbeing Podcast May Be Failing
There can be multiple reasons why your podcast may not be working out, even if it’s a quality, well-put-together product. To help you eliminate mistakes from your process, here are some common ones:
1. Being too broad in focus
Many businesses or brands that launch podcasts suffer by trying to appeal to too many different people. Instead, your podcast needs to hone into your target audience’s interests and unique challenges.
For example, if you run a menopause clinic, your podcast would benefit if you just focused on female health. You’ll confuse your audience by talking about other things.
In the podcast game, it’s best to be as niche as possible, as listeners often seek something that connects with them specifically.
2. Only promoting on social media
Social media isn’t the only way to get attention for your podcast in 2023; there are so many other ways to get attention. For example, you can get more attention by adding a link to the podcast in an email newsletter or blog post. Even press releases can work wonders too.
Regarding the diversification of promotion, Wiltold Stawarz, CEO of Foter, said: “Social is great, but it’s not the only marketing channel you should use when promoting a podcast. Consider other ways to spread the word, like blog posts or Google ads. Speaking about your podcast in an email newsletter is another fantastic way to spread awareness, as you’ll connect with an audience already actively engaged with your brand.”
There are many ways to get eyes on your podcast, don’t make the mistake of only focusing on social.
3. A lack of supporting content
Many health and fitness podcasts fail because they don’t launch with supporting content. A podcast shouldn’t be your only product about the subject you’re talking about, and you should instead have other types of media advertising it.
It’s good to launch your podcast alongside an article or short video, as well as a social media campaign. Releasing a podcast on its own will make it feel like a drop in the ocean, but having supporting content sent directly to your existing audience will help it make a much bigger splash.
5 Areas of Focus for Podcast Growth
Here are some of the best things you can do to properly market your podcast, backed by health and fitness industry experts.
1. Post Reels/Shorts on Socials
Some of the biggest influencers in the health and wellbeing niche have massively grown their audience by posting reels and shorts on Instagram and TikTok. Be it exercises to do, foods to avoid, and more, TikTok especially is a great place to post more to build a bigger brand that you can then bring into your podcast. You can do this by adding effective links to your posts, leading users directly to your podcast.
Posting factual and accurate information while promoting your podcast can help you grow. This is something Jack Craig of Inside Bodybuilding is doing himself. He said, “There’s so much misinformation circulating on socials, particularly TikTok, within the health and wellbeing sphere. Going onto the platform to spread facts and truths will boost your brand authority, getting more people to actively trust and listen to your content. Reaction content where you critique others is often a great place to start.”
Adding factual and appropriate context like this can help your health and wellbeing brand stand out. When you do, use TikTok viral sounds to reach a wider audience.
2. Turn Podcast Clips into Bite-sized Videos for Podcast Growth
Posting clips from your podcast is a great way to give your audience a sneak peek into the podcast. Posting these short clips can allow you to share your best bits, boosting awareness.
This is something Kevin Le Gall of Climbing House is a fan of, saying, “Posting small clips of a podcast is an effective way to get it out there and seen by more people. Video content is the most consumed type of media on social. Editing your podcasts into this medium can really help it flourish and take out a new lease on life.”
Many podcasts just wouldn’t have been as successful without posting short clips online. Thankfully, it’s easy to take clips from your podcast and turn them into exciting and engaging short videos. Wavve makes the process so simple.
3. Invite Guests and Experts on Your Podcast and Feature in Others
One of the best ways to grow your podcast is to feature in others. This puts you in front of an actively engaged community and can persuade some of them to check out your content too.
If you do feature in someone else’s podcast, do your bit to create a buzz around it. The best way to do this is to share it throughout your marketing channels. John Gardner of Kickoff says, “Always share whenever you feature on someone else’s content. Crossovers into other podcasts should feel like an event, so if you appear excited, your audience will too, increasing the number of people who tune in.”
4. Transcribe Your Podcast
If you want to boost your podcasts’ SEO performance, you must transcribe them. This can help it rank higher for key search terms you mention and is generally best practice.
When talking about podcast transcription, Stephan Baldwin, Founder of Assisted Living, said, “A great way to implement written content to your episodes is to include transcripts with each episode. This can help it rank higher on certain keywords, increasing traffic to it.”
Transcription may take some time, but it’s worth the effort and can improve your podcast’s success.
5. Repurpose Old Content Into Podcasts
One of the best things you can do with old content is to rework them into podcast episodes. Reworking allows you to refresh and update the information, helping you look like an authority on the subject.
When discussing repurposing content, Coty Perry, CEO of Anglers, said, “Inaccurate content equals a negative trust signal that can ding you site-wide. Replacing it with updated content in the form of a podcast is a great way to keep all your channels current and up-to-date.”
Alternatively, you can turn old podcasts into fresh blog, email, or social content. You can also use them to create interactive newsletters that can be used to link to all your podcasts and boost engagement.
Conclusion
It takes a lot to grow a podcast and make it successful. Yet, far too many brands are hurting their chances by using poor or outdated marketing tactics. Elevate your game, and get more eyes on your podcast by using some of the above mentioned techniques.
Erika is the ideator and creator of Booklyst.net. With a Master’s Degree in English Language and Literature, she always wanted to write quality content about books and literature. She got her start online as an Instagram book blogger.