Creating better episode titles is one of the most important steps to ensure your podcast episodes are discoverable, will stand out and get listens as well as new subscribers for your podcast. But creating compelling episode titles can be hard. And in this episode we will highlight our favorite tool for crafting great podcast episode titles.
But first, a quick reminder about what we are doing in this series of episodes of the Podcasting Strategy Show: We are covering business podcasting from a strategic angle: Specifically, why show notes play such an outsized role for podcasting as a content strategy. And so episode titles should not only be compelling to your listeners, but also work towards a business ROI, meaning SEO presence and discoverability for your podcast.
And while we take on this subject from our perspective as a podcast marketing and production agency and what we do for our clients, the intent here is to be "open Kimono". This means we are sharing our agency methods here, in part to inspire Indie and DIY business podcasters to adopt some of what we cover. And for our clients, these methods account for 65% of their listener growth.
Last time we started to talk about the many tools in our agency workflow that save us a ton of time and allow us to scale podcast SEO show notes syndication. I'm progressing this series by talking through the various workflow phases involved in scalable show notes production from an agency point of view. In the last episode we talked about the crucial role that pre-season and pre-episode SEO research plays, and we also covered some logistics tools. And once you’ve decided on the keyword for optimizing your episode, it is then time to incorporate this into your podcast episode title. And that’s what we are covering today.
The Outsized Importance of Episode Titles
Photographer: Nick Fewings | Source: Unsplash
First I'd like to highlight the outsized importance of episode titles, and how they contribute to discoverability and growing a listener base.
Some of you might be skeptic about when I make a statement like "outsized importance of show notes" for business podcasting. OK. But don't just take it from me. A little later-on I have some case studies from industry thought leaders at PodNews.net and elsewhere to share, which that basically amplify, if not prove my point.
Why Are Podcast Episode Titles Important?
Three quick answers we as podcasters already know:
In App Search — How can your show be found by people who are already on a listening app, and looking for new podcasts?
Web Search — Many podcasters and brands under-estimate the importance of this, as we have pointed out before. Podcast Episode titles for show notes are an important part for web discoverability.
Click-Worthiness, not to be confused with click-baitiness. There are a lot of scenarios where people only listen or visit after a glance at the episode title.
In App Search vs Web Search — A Case Study
Photographer: Marvin Meyer | Source: Unsplash
A lot of us assume that a major way of having our podcast content found is on podcast listening apps like Apple Podcasts, Spotify and so on. But in order for this to work, people have to search inside those apps.
Technically, this depends on how content is made searchable inside listening apps. In other words, which parts of a podcast are indexed for search.
So I came across a case study and cool, if dorky experiment: Mark Steadman teamed up with James Cridland, the editor of Podnews, to experiment with nonsense words in the name of science.
The idea was to pick a different nonsense word for each relevant podcast-related tag in our RSS feeds, and to see which apps picked up which words.
Here are some of their findings
So here are some of the findings from this experiment, I really want to give Kudos to Mark and James here, since doing this must have been quite labor intensive.
Now James and Mark did not limit their research to just Apple Podcasts, they also looked at Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, CastBox, GoodPods, Google Podcasts, IVoox, Listen Notes, Overcast, Player FM, Pocket Casts, The Podcast Index website, PodcastAddict, Spotify, Stitcher. This list then represents the most common listening apps, and from my perspective a large enough data set to draw some conclusions from.
#1 Apple Podcasts only searches your podcast name, episode titles, and author tags
So no matter how great a podcast description you have crafted for your show, or for each episode, in Apple Podcasts people cannot find your podcast or any episode based on that content.
#2 Apps heavily weight podcast-level data over episode-level data.
What this means is that search for your podcast title or words in your podcast description will likely show up in most apps. But your episodes are much less visible via in-app search, since ONLY the titles of the episodes are indexed for search.
This is precisely why at Polymash we focus on podcast web SEO, because on the web your episodes WILL show up, if optimized correctly.
#3 The in-app podcast search landscape is badly in need of attention.
Hopefully this will at some point get addressed. I am not quite sure why no-one has taken up the challenge of indexing episode descriptions yet. Is it that podcast app makers thing that in-app search is not important?
Imagine if in-app search reliably showed not only new podcasts to listen to (as is currently the case), but also had episode level suggestions to offer to app users. I would think this would be beneficial for listeners, app creators and podcast hosts alike.
#4 Podcast App SEO is not a viable podcast growth strategy.
Let me just comment here on the term "Podcast SEO", vs "Podcast App SEO". Most people don't consider that there is a difference. There is a common misconception that all Podcast SEO has to do with being found inside listening apps.
And what James and Mark mean here is about "Podcast App SEO": Trying to have optimize your podcast to be found inside apps is severely limited.
Of you've listened to any of our content before, you will know that we focus on Podcast Website SEO as a way of growing a show, especially for business podcasters.
Their Conclusion From This Case Study
To Mark and James these findings highlight the need for good podcast websites. Compelling titles, rich and meaningful show notes, useful links, host and guest bios; all of these are useful for placement within Google and other web search engines because they’re useful to humans.
If you have a guest, put their name in your episode title, especially if they’re the kind of name people will search podcast apps for.
That said, episode titles aren’t universally indexed.
Don’t rely on podcast app search for discoverability.
I think it’s unwise to put too many eggs in the podcast-app search basket. Search is just not evolved enough within these apps to be meaningful.
Formulas And Generators For Podcast Episode Titles
Let's consider the structure of how podcast titles are often set up. There are common patterns for episode titles any business podcasters will likely have seen on other podcasts they listen to. For example, listicles are a format, like “The Top 10 Tips to do XYZ”. Or Question-based titles, which often present provocative propositions. Or how-tos that offer tutorials and tips.
There are tons more formulas and formats, and if you'd like to see a fun and insane way to generate a ton of title ideas, here is a title generator to create tons of title suggestions based on a keyword you enter: https://www.title-generator.com/
I did this for this episode, and I’ve put an image of 12 out of 100s in the show notes:
These formulas only go so far, and skew on the "click-bait feel" side of things. So we recommend staying clear of them, other than to generate ideas if you're really stuck.
Questions To Ask When You Craft Episode Titles
Instead, here are some questions to ask as you are crafting podcast episode titles:
1. Does it match expectations? Does the content deliver on it? Is it a Clickbait?
Consider your own behavior when listening to podcasts, does the title of the episode matter? I would argue in many cases yes, depending on the nature of the show. If I'm listening to a news podcast, perhaps the title will not matter. But for most of my areas of interest, if the title is boring or irrelevant to me, I might choose to skip it. On the other hand, if a title promises something super interesting and then the content does not deliver, count me out.
2. Is it Clear? Or Clever?
Personally I prefer clear over something clever or mysterious, and I also think that this is easier to SEO optimize.
My personal preference: “clarity” beats “being cute” every time.
3. It really grabs your attention? Is it ordinary?
Why does something grab your attention in the first place?
4. Is it to the Point?
When I’m browsing through podcast episodes on my devices, I prefer short descriptive titles that make it clear what I’m about to listen to.
5. Does it highlight a Benefit?
A title that makes the benefit of listening obvious is very compelling. Thought personally I find this is pretty hard to fit into a few words.
6. Is it too short, long or just right?
The right episode title length is a subject for discussion. My advice is to err on the side of too long rather than too short. It is challenging though, I think factors like SEO title length, fitting on a mobile screen, covering all the other points on this list and still having enough room for your guest name make it so.
7. Can I create a good title and ALSO have my keyword present in it?
Personally I often find myself coming up with creative episode titles, but then realize my keyword is not present in the title, which from an SEO perspective is a “must have”
Some Dos and Don’ts In Crafting Episode Titles
I do not like to think of titles in terms of "dos and don’ts". But here are 3 considerations I would offer:
1. The Right Length
I would ensure the optimal length for SEO presence. Too short is bad, too long is bad as well. The tool we will review later offers guidance on this.
2. Including Your Guest Name
Including your guest's name in the episode title is a matter of preference.
Do include your guest name in the title if they are well known, famous, or at least well known in your industry.
Some businesses might even optimize the entire show notes article for Google search based on the guest name.
If your guest is a business relationship of some sort, then consider if there is a benefit: If the guest google themselves and your episode shows up in the search results, is that important to you, or to the guest?
We often do quick google search or use our keyword research tool we covered in the Podcasting Strategy Show Episode 6 called KWFinder. This way you can see if your guest name is searched for a lot.
3. Including Episode Numbers
Including episode numbers in the title is another matter of opinion with many business podcast experts.
The only "rule" I would suggest following here is to never place the episode number at the front. I recently saw an example of this where the beginning of each episode title started with "Episode 1, Part 2:" For podcast consumers, It wastes 18 characters of space on small screen, often obscuring what the actual title was like. I've included a picture of this in the show note.
But perhaps the more important aspects here is that this dilutes SEO: Google places the most importance on the beginning of your title, so starting this with "Episode 1, Part 2:" lowers SEO potential.
The Power Of Language In Podcast Episode Titles
So I hope that up to this point I’ve managed to convince you that episode titles are important, and also not that easy to create. Which brings us to the tool I want to review in this episode, called “Headline Studio” by a company called CoSchedule. This system delves into some of the science, psychology and language behind what makes titles compelling. It performs analysis of titles based on:
Emotional Words
Power Words
Ordinary Words
Length, structure and format
And it offers word banks, SEO analysis and a whole lot of additional features.
Introducing Headline Studio — What does it do?
Headline studio gives you data-backed suggestions and a roadmap for improving headlines or episode titles you initially think of. It offers suggestions for effective words your title should include, and provides a headline score based on CoSchedule’s criteria on what makes a good title.
What are elements of a compelling podcast episode title?
The right word and character length
Clarity about the episode content for the listener or reader
Click-worthiness through the use of uncommon, emotional or power words, which CoSchedule Headline Studio helps you find
Use of patterns where possible that have proven successful like listicles and how-tos
How do Headline Studio’s features help?
Headline studio also have the following features to make your experience in using the tool much more convenient.
Word Balance Analyzer
Headline Studio shows you exactly how many common, uncommon, emotional and power words your title contains and shows you the best possible way to balance out the words your title should contain. Their recommendations are based on word usage and title patterns proven to be successful on social media.
Word Bank
Headline Studio provides you with their built in thesaurus to find words for each of their categories. Browse through their word bank and discover fitting words and their synonyms to create the ideal word balance.
Headline Score Breakdown
The tool also provides short breakdowns of what your title contains which includes :
Word Count – The amount of words your title contains and a bar to show you how many words are recommended.
Character count – The amount of characters your title contains. Also has the same bar as the wordcount breakdown.
Type – Shows you what type of title you have, its description and ways you could improve it.
Reading grade level – The difficulty of the words you used in your headline/title.
Sentiment – What sort of sentiment your title conveys.
Clarity – Checks if your title gets right to the point.
Skimmability – Shows you how skimmable your headline/title is and displays where the topic of your headline/title and where to place it.
SEO Score Breakdown
Headl
Headline Studio also includes information on how your headline/title would fair SEO wise. It includes the following features :
Search Preview – Shows you exactly how your title would look like in search results.
Competition – A breakdown on where your headline/title stands among other headlines.
Your Top Competition in Search Results – Displays the top competitors in search results for your headline/title. This also might give you ideas on how to structure your own headline/title to give you a competitive edge.
Keyword Variations – Shows you keywords similar or related to your headline/title which you may include to rank higher in search results.
Related Questions – Displays related topics your audience also searches for which you may include to reach a wider audience and rank higher in search results.
How do you use it?
Headline Studio is simple and easy to use, go to their site, insert your headline/title and click analyze. It will then display the information which we listed above to help you craft a better title. We suggest trying at least 5-7 versions of an episode title you had in mind, it’s not just the tool, but the practice of creating these variations that makes you better at this.
Web App Version
To use the CoSchedule Headline Studio web app, just visit their website here.
Create a free account, and beyond the free version you will also get a trial for several premium features and headlines as well.
Personally we use this tool and its older counterpart, Headline Analyzer, to improve the title of each piece of content we create, get a clear understanding what our titles are missing and to learn how to craft amazing titles.
Chrome Plugin
I should mention that if you are using a Chrome browser, there is also a useful extension available, you can find it here.
Final Thoughts On Improving Your Episode Titles
I can virtually guarantee that your episode titles will improve through a tool like this.
The reason I'm so confident is not just because it is a great tool: It’s the iterations that count
It is the practice and discipline of iterating — when you create 7 variations of a title, which Headline Studio practically makes you do, you’re bound to improve. It makes you think about your listener, your SEO, your episode topic in a new way. And the end result of choosing one of 5-7 variations will predictably create more interesting episode titles and gain you more listeners.
In conclusion, Headline Studio is a great tool for creating new titles and improving your old ones. It works for your blog and for your podcast episode titles. It provides you with a fair measure on how your title would do and provides you details steps on what to do to increase your own score, which certainly beats figuring out why your titles are not doing well through trial and error.
Disclosure: This paragraph above contains an affiliate link, and we may earn a small commission if you make a purchase, at no extra cost to you.
Conclusion, Links and Resources
This was the second of a multi-part series highlighting the workflow tools we use as an agency to produce high impact show notes for our podcast clients. We have seen the success of this approach last and build through several years, as podcasting has become ever more competitive and celebrity driven.
It does not have to be this way, and podcast show notes are the key to ever-green discoverability for any podcast that has a business content strategy intent. And, as we covered in this episode, better podcast titles are key.
Here is our own "sad" case study – but with a happy ending! We presented some of this at SEO Saturdays.com last week, but I wanted to follow up with the case study here: I have a “hero” episode / blog post that was on page one of the search results for a long time – before dropping off. In this post I want to tell how we “rescued” that piece of content during our last SEO Saturdays livestream, and how we used an app called “Topic” for generating SEO content briefs and content grading. Such content optimization tools can have a massive impact on your podcast website traffic, website rank, and of course subscribers who discover your show by searching no the web.
I will also share how I increased my traffic by 351% in one week. Implications for podcasters with their own websites:
More impactful episode content = happy listeners
Easier interview planning and guest preparation
A data driven approach to dominating a topic in a single episode
Transforming a back-catalog of episodes into a traffic generating machine
Grateful guests who will love to share and link to your episode article
Increased amount of backlinks to your episode article
An increased amount of social shares
So the gist of how all this started is this:
My post “How To Promote A Podcast” was on page 1 of the search results for a year. But lately, new players have been “eating my lunch”, and I slipped to page 2.
This can have a drastic effect on traffic, especially if you have podcast episodes or blog posts that rank for multiple keywords, and then drop. In my case it was over 1,000 visits a month.
It had ranked on page 1 of Google for months, then slipped to page 2.
Our Research Into Content Grading and Content Brief Tools
Sure, it happens, posts can fluctuate between pages 1 and 2 or 100. However, not satisfied – we aim to practice what we preach. On our last livestream we presented some findings from research done by Brian Dean of Backlinko. His updated article called “We Analyzed 11.8 Million Google Search Results – Here’s What We Learned About SEO” led us to a number of insights and possible areas of exploration. As Brian Dean points out in his post:
Comprehensive content with a high “Content Grade” significantly outperformed content that didn’t cover a topic in-depth.
We’ve long realized that “long form” content ranks high in the Search Result Pages (SERPs). And our long form show notes for podcasts is what is driving podcast discovery and new subscribers. But the key insight for me was this:
It’s not the # of words. Comprehensive Topic Coverage results in a high “Content Grade” – and this trumps sheer length or a high number of words.
Courtesy of Brian Dean at https://backlinko.com/search-engine-ranking
So we started exploring a number of tools that help improve an podcast episodes content grade. And this led to another insight: Content Briefs allow you to design comprehensive topic coverage in the first place. And this led us to the question:
What if an podcast host was to use an SEO ”Content Brief” as a way to research his guest, and the topic they want to talk about ahead of time? What if an interview could actually be designed to covering a topic more completely – and thus result in high SEO ranking?
Meet “Topic” – More Impactful Podcasts from SEO Content Briefs and Content Grading
One of these tools that excited is called Topic. It uses sophisticated Artificial Intelligence (AI) to research a topic, and uses big data to create content briefs:
RESEARCH: Topic has a keyword research tool built in, so you can research your episode topic.
PLANNING: Topic lets you plan better for interviews or articles content. Enter a keyword, and Topic's Content Briefs will show you what you need to cover to achieve a high content grade.
EXECUTION: Topic's Content Grader allows you to quickly see what your draft episode show notes article is missing. Create a feedback loop that ensures that every episode article covers what your audience is searching for.
We tried Topic out and it worked. We ran our “sad” post through their analysis, found that I had a content grade of B+. OK not terrible, but I wanted an A++ to see what we had to do to improve the content to fill gaps and voilà!
I simply entered my article URL, and Topic made recommendations
After making some adjustments, which we demo in our video above at about 0:40, I was able to re-check my content grade, and it is now an A++.
Topic helped me to pinpoint what EXACTLY I had to change in order to rank.
Here is the article after I implemented Topic’s recommendations. A++ Content Grade
I was surprised how quickly this worked. A week later, and we’re back on page 1 of Google, in a better position than even last year. Our podcast website traffic from this one keyword has increased by 351%. Keep in mind this article ranks for multiple keywords, and they all showed a significant rise in their SERP positions.
What does this mean for podcasters? Web search is how we get our followers, and our clients attract 60% of their listeners and subscribers this way.
Here is the result only a week later, thanks to content grading we are back!Podcast Website Traffic For This Post Increase Topped 351%
Why and When You Need A Content Brief and Content Grading Tool
If you have a new podcast website, your domain authority as well as podcast website traffic will likely be low. There are 2 effective ways you can make up for this:
Make up for your low domain authority – with great content designed by an SEO informed content brief and based on a high SEO content grade
Link building. We can’t say it often enough: You need to make your guests link to your podcast articles and show notes
We are excited that Ryo Chiba, one of the founders of Topic will be joining us on our livestream as a co-host, and as usual on SEO Saturdays we will collaborate to do some live SEO for podcasters.
You can apply now for your show to be featured, and allow us to do live SEO research, and help you with content briefs and content grading for your podcast episode ideas.
https://polymash.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/SEO-Saturdays-1920x1080-layout2250-1fboe0f_305d2e3d03e4c9a392056969369dd5fa_2000.png10801920Juergen Berkesselhttps://polymash.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Polymash-Logo-2019-680px-Web2.pngJuergen Berkessel2020-05-09 16:33:512020-05-13 14:12:06Podcast Website Traffic Increased by 351% in One Week [Content Optimization Case Study]
SEO Saturdays – May 2 is our latest in our fortnightly livestream event on YouTube, Facebook and Twitch. We seek to expand and shift podcasters assumptions around traditional ways of marketing and promoting podcasts. We invite guests to join us – those working on elevating their content, and those who have potential solutions to offer. (NB – while our focus is specific to podcasting – this show is equally useful to any digital content).
Join us at seosturdays.com to have your podcast SEO optimization done live!
Click above for a replay of our SEO Saturdays – May 2 2020 Live Stream
How SEO Saturdays Works
SEO Saturdays is growing and we continue to experiment. In this latest iteration, we offer
LIVE SEO coaching to those who apply
New learnings and Insights from our research
Guest conversations via Skype
Livestreaming SEO coaching
You’re invited to our livestreaming event every second Saturday when we review content for its SEO strength. What’s the content that you want to bring more eyeballs and/or ears to? It is your website, your podcast, your individual episodes, your blog, your course, your book?
To have your content reviewed, all you have to do is apply and show up! We demonstrate how you can optimize for search with our methods using a range of valuable tools. We invite you to apply because we invest resources in advance by conducting some initial research before we go live. In that way, we can be of real service to our applicants in the moment.
Not only do our applicants receive expert advice specific to their content, they also earn valuable backlinks to their content as we feature them in our show notes, (see below and in our first and second LIVE events).
New learnings
In this SEO Saturdays – May 2 livestream, we share new insights and learning in the SEO space. It’s ever evolving and so are we. Featured in this SEO Saturday – May 2 were two key valuable reference and resources:
AI tool to help you create content that your audience wants: Topic. Read below for my excitingly successful outcome using this AI.
In our livestream we show you how Topic opened us up to possibilities inspired by Brian Dean’s post. totally had not thought about using a “content brief” and “content grading” approach for podcasts. And there are more possibilities for this than meets the eye.
How a content brief & grading tool increased my traffic 16X
Here is our own “sad”case study: a Polymash “hero” episode / blog post has been on page one of the search results for a long time. Learn what we were able to do to 16X our traffic in one single week:
In this segment our guests share a little of their business objectives and why podcasting is a key factor in their growth strategy. Before the show we do our research and then share observations and recommendations which they react to in real time. We then send them our findings after the show so they can take action.
Featured Podcasts
Not Real Art Podcast
Sorry To Hear That Podcast
OutDoor Biz Podcast
‹
›
We’re excited to have these podcasters applying to be on our SEO Saturday’s livestream. Each podcaster is unique and while you may think you’re alone with your issues, we find that with all the excellent teaching moments that surface during the livestream, we recognize we are not so alone. Learning together is truly valuable. Remember, if you missed the livestream, all of this is viewable on our You Tube channel.
Not Real Art Podcast
Not Real Art Podcast is intended for creative audiences only. Not Real Art celebrates creative culture worldwide. It contains material that is fresh, fun and inspiring but is not suitable for pretentious art snobs. Hosts – Man One and Sourdough – are long time friends, collaborators and art world insiders based in Los Angeles. Nothing is off-limits on NOT REAL ART. Sourdough and Man One bring a fresh, devil-may-care approach to discussing their mutual love — and hate — for the contemporary art scene, creative culture, and everything in between!
Sorry To Hear That Podcast
The goal of the Sorry To Hear That Podcast is to help create a community around grief. Host, CJ Williams interviews people who talk about the death of a loved one and talk about their processing of that grief. Sorry to hear that was a phrase CJ heard frequently after she lost her mother and it bothered her – so the show also is an educational resource to help those that have not lost a person to think more critically about the other persons' experience and perhaps give some options about what to say and what not to say.
OutDoor Biz Podcast
Each week on The Outdoor Biz Podcast you’ll hear genuine conversations with Outdoor Industry Insiders. Iconic founders and leaders from brands like JanSport, Eagle Creek, Fishpond, Redington; Industry Recruiters, Sales, and Marketing Executives and many more. These industry leaders talk about their careers, tell outdoor inspiring outdoor adventure stories and offer advice and direction on the path you can take to get your job in the industry and grow your Outdoor Career. Hosted by Author, Speaker, Adventurer, and industry insider Rick Saez.
Apply for your own podcast or to learn more. If you’re interested in free SEO analysis of your content, just fill out our application form there.
Access our affiliate links on this same page: e.g.content syndication platform, StoryChief. It helps distribute podcast show note articles and builds backlinks from multiple platforms as a result.
Learn about the SEO tools we use.
Next Time
Our next SEO SATURDAY is May 16. You can apply now for your show to be featured.
Our conversation is bound to propel your thinking to take action!
Remember, you earn great backlinks when we feature your show on our site. Each week our featured podcasts, as demo’d above are enjoying that benefit – and that’s just one! Join us next time to find out why this is a GREAT SEO tactic that can flip your script!
The current podcast ecosystem is a challenging one to promote your podcast in, admittedly. First: as of mid 2022, there are currently north of 2,400,000 shows that have produced over 66 million episodes. Assuming an average length of about 1 hour, it would take you 7,534 years to get through all the current episodes. It's a crowded space, for sure.
The Impact of Covid-19 on Podcast Marketing
The challenges accelerated during 2020, but forward to mid 2022, and the data now suggests that after the initial outbreak there was a slight dip, then a plateau in the number of podcast listeners. Surprisingly as the pandemic went on, People adjusted listeners increased by 57% US alone according to Statista in the and has only continued to grow ever since. Podcasts became a popular choice of entertainment for people amidst their social isolation and is projected to maintain their listeners even after the pandemic.
All of this makes it even more important to promote and market your own podcast with solid footing.
We would argue that podcast websites and creating a great web-based listening experience has only increased in importance.
How do you promote and market your podcast in 2022 and beyond?
Below are some of the tactics we cover in this article. This is a long(ish) read, so if you want a shorter more concise guide to marketing a podcast, visit our new article “How to Promote A Podcast: 10 Podcast Marketing Strategies”. In any case, here is a table of content:
The increasing role of Chinese click farms have had an outsized impact on the top 200 ranking for Apple Podcasts. The charts are gameable, hackable, and a lot of people are doing just that. The Youtube video above was put together by LimeLink, and if you're a podcaster you owe it to yourself to check it out. Careful, you might get depressed, or worse, be tempted to try the same for your podcast. Don't! This post is here to help.
Compounding that: launch algorithms have changed, and reviews don't matter as much as they once did. The older (still common to many) model of giveaways and contests won't work as well as it did even 1-2 years ago.
As a result of the overall landscape, promoting your podcast has to come from newer sources. But what exactly are those sources?
This is why I put together this (pretty exhaustive) post, and hope that it will prove useful for beginning podcasters, but also that the veterans will find some podcast promotion tips and tactics they may not have considered yet.
Oh, and there is now also an entire Podcast and Youtube Channel about this. It's called "The Podcast Growth Show", and if you find some of this material useful or have podcast promotion tactics you can share with us, I'd love it if you joined our community.
Reaching Your Target Audience
Understanding the target audience for your podcast comes first, and then reaching them comes second. Doing analysis of your target audience is a pre-requisite that should come with launching a podcast in the first place, before any podcast promotion even begins.
Try to build a solid understanding of who your podcast listeners are, the topics they like and what else they listen to
You can research the most popular podcasts in your niche on Apple Podcasts
You can use PodNews.net, which has a good search feature that delivers useful information about each show. For example, here is a search for “real estate podcasts” on podnews.net.
You can roughly gauge the popularity of each podcast by the ratings and number of episodes you find, and look through the episode topics of the most popular shows for inspiration.
Your job is to create episode content that is the most relevant for your target audience
Basic Podcast Promotion Tactics
Your First Episode, And Your Trailer Episode
Pay attention to your first episodes, and consider having a “Trailer” episode you can promote that will help people understand what your podcast is all about.
If you have a website, this trailer episode can be featured in a “New Listener” section of the podcast home page. This way your new listeners have an easy way to get oriented.
Some people record a brief trailer episode, and then expand on the concept and origins of their show in the first episode. I like this approach, and would then recommend featuring both episodes in the “New Listener” section.
Consider re-recording your trailer once you’re 10+ episodes into your podcast, usually we can think of ways to improve it and make it more relevant as we get the first few episodes under our belts. And perhaps re-recording your first episodes is even more important for veteran podcasters with a lot of episodes.
Launch With At Least 3-5 Episodes
If you have created a trailer episode, and assuming Episode 1 is about your show, then I would recommend launching with 5 episodes.
This allows your target podcast audience to binge-listen once they discover your show
Create Time To Stay Ahead Of Your Publishing Cadence
In addition to the first 3-5 episodes, it is a good idea to have 3 more episodes completely done and scheduled. It takes the pressure off during your launch cycle.
You want to create the mental space and the time to focus on promoting and marketing your show.
You don’t want to get stressed about producing your next episodes or lining up your next guests.
Invest In Basic Marketing Materials Like Business Cards For Podcast PR
Create a business card specific for your podcast so you can hand it out in conversation. If you are hiring someone on Fiver, 99 Designs or UpWork to design a podcast business card for you, don’t stop there.
Have the designer also create Facebook page headers, Website Page Headers, Twitter Page Headers and other basic social media PR material for you to use online as well as in print.
Word Of Mouth
Word of mouth is not to be under-estimated, especially when first starting out. Sure, in the age of Covid-19, socially distant ads and social media presence seems somehow both sexier and more possible. But word of mouth doesn’t only mean “in person”. Calling some old friends to tell them about your project can give you a wonderful initial boost. Depending on your podcast topic, you can also engage family, coworkers, virtual meetup and Facebook groups in your niche.
Submitting Your Shows To Podcast Directories
The place to start? Promote your podcast by submitting to podcast directories…
OK, this is basic, but also necessary, so let's start here. Ensuring your podcast can be easily discovered by listeners on existing platforms is key. It may be a passive promotion method, but still, it is worth it, especially doing during your podcast launch phase.
This is also one of the easiest marketing approaches you can take. You're looking to make sure your podcast has the most reach possible. Being in as many podcast directories as possible is a great start towards that end.
Now, I've seen some good blog posts about this topic alone, but that's why I'm including web stats for each directory: For each directory below I'm including sign-up links as well as web traffic stats from Similarweb. I'm doing this to provide a relative measure of popularity for each platform. I'm adding this research as a form of encouragement.
You can decide for yourself if the traffic to these directories is worth your submission effort. My own approach: if the platform has more than 50K visits a month, it's worth submitting. Many have 100s of million visits a month. So, let's get to work, and if you're a veteran podcaster, use the list below to double check.
Apple Podcasts (AKA iTunes)
Listing your show on Apple Podcasts is pretty obvious, and I'm just listing it here for completeness. It is the most important directory. But perhaps not for the reason you think.
Most people focus on submitting to Apple Podcasts or iTunes in order to be in the "New and Noteworthy" section. But for me the most important reason to submit to Apple Podcasts is that most mobile apps (AKA podcatchers) use the Apple Podcasts directory to list all available podcasts inside their app. This means you need to submit to Apple Podcasts if you want your podcast to be found on a majority of podcatchers out there.
Spotify is a relatively new player, but has been growing fast. Most podcast hosting services now provide integration with Spotify. In Libsyn, for example, you can define Spotify as a target publishing destination. Libsyn also provides detailed "how to" guides on setting this up in the first place.
Submissions to Spotify are handled inside your podcast hosting platform. This should be the preferred way to publish on Spotify, as I understand it "preferred partner hosts" like Libsyn integrate with Spotify so that you get analytics.
Spotify also just launched their Podcast Portal, which means you can submit your podcast manually if you are not with a preferred partner. However, your episodes will be cached on Spotify, and this means your analytics won't reflect listener credits in your hosting platform. This is why you should submit via your Spotify preferred podcast hosting platform if possible.
Web Stats: 387.77M visits a month
Stitcher
Formerly the #2 podcast promotion and listening destination. Lately I feel the platform has become somewhat ad saturated, and there a lot of other listening apps and platforms have emerged. Stitcher requires it's own submission process.
Google Podcasts is a relative newcomer, compared to Google Play, where podcasts were submitted before mid-2021. Google Play is now consider irrelevant for podcasters. When doing Google searches, ironically Google Play still comes up in the recommendations and instructions. I would ignore this, since Google Play is about to be officially retired.
Instead, you can now submit your show to Google Podcasts using the Google Podcast Manager.
TuneIn
TuneIn has been around a long time, with available apps for almost all operating systems and mobile devices.
Their process is straight forward using their submission form.
Web Stats: 9.25M visits a month
Podhound
This is an AI based podcast discovery engine. You should list your podcast there. The PodHound AI searches thousands of podcasts to find ones people enjoy. The system is relatively new, and as of mid 2020 is still in beta and is constantly learning.
To add your podcast to podhound simply register to their site.
iHeart Radio
iHeart Radio is another podcast directory that gets your podcast information from your hosting platform. In Libsyn, for example, you can define iHeart Radio as a target publishing destination. Libsyn also provides detailed "how to" guides on setting this up in the first place.
Submissions to iHeart Radio are sometimes handled inside your podcast hosting platform. For example on Libsyn.
Sharing your podcast on Bullhorn gives you access to millions of under served and rural listeners in the US who do not have access to or cannot afford expensive data plans.
Blubrry is best know as a podcast hosting platform. So if you publish your show on Libsyn or one of the other podcast hosting services, Blubrry may not be something you've considered. However, Blubrry has a very popular podcast directory not limited to only Blubrry hosted podcasts. So as part of promoting your podcast, you should consider adding your show to this directory.
If you ever need to find out who has turned up where in the podcasting scene then podchaser will surely help you on this. Podchaser is a podcast directory discovery platform that allows you to research podcasts to be a guest on, with options for contact information.
Add your podcast by making an account and filling up the details here
Web Stats: 988.72K visits a month
Spreaker
Update December 2o19: No longer available, unless via email request to rob [dot] greenlee [at] spreaker [dot] com
Like Blubrry, Spreaker is both a hosting platform as well as a podcast directory. You used to be able to submit your show even if it is not hosted there. You sign up for an account, and then supply your RSS feed there. If you are not hosted on Spreaker, see above.
Player FM is the multi-platform podcast app that helps you find shows on the topics you care about and play them at your convenience, even when you're offline.
Update December 2019: With recent podcasts launches, I have noticed that the current ACAST submission page is no longer available. I am hoping it will come back, because this was a terrific directory, but it could be that they are requiring your podcast to be hosted there now.
(Formely) a podcast hosting service with it's own app and directory. You can submit your show to be featured on their site and inside their app.
Digital podcast is a directory that will help you promote your podcast by listing it there. Their submission process is really simple, all you need to do is to create an account and then paste your podcast RSS feed URL.
Podcast search engine that claims to have audio transcripts of 542,280 podcasts. Their web stats seem to indicate a good level of activity, so I am listing it here.
Good Pods is a little different in that it is a podcast curation platform. This means you need to apply and provide a brief justification why they should promote your podcast and why it should be included in their directory.
Download their app and create a podcasters profile to get into their directory
Web Stats: Not available, may indicate the platform is no longer active
More detailed instructions?
If you would like to promote your podcast by submitting to each one of the above directories, each of the links provided are pretty intuitive. But are looking for more detailed instructions, a good start would be here.
Podcast Guesting On Other Podcasts
Guesting on other shows is a great way to promote your own podcast
Steve Olsher 's Profiting from Podcasts is a program for non-podcasters and podcasters alike to appear on other people's shows. As part of his site he gives away "lead magnet". This is a currently free directory and contact information for 670 podcasters whose show you could appear on. So that is one useful resource for this.
We also dedicated an entire episode for a deep dive into this topic, especially if you are the DIY type and want to avoid spending money on expensive programs.
In our tutorial video we show step by step how to automate a highly personalized "podcast guesting" outreach campaign.
So read on for some summary tips on this topic, but if you are interested in our deep dive and ready to explore details on how to execute podcast guesting outreach campaigns, please check out episode 2 of the Podcast Growth Show called Podcast Guesting – A Cure For Stalled Subscriber Growth [S1E02]
Here is the short version:
Work the bigger players in your space
Listen to full episodes of some of the bigger players in the space you're podcasting in. Make notes. Find their contact info and email with feedback. Be open and honest, saying something like
"I'm very interested in podcasting in this space. I particularly loved how, in Episode XXX, you talked to Guest XXX about Topic XXX and got him to admit Fact XXX. I'd love to know more about your process for guest selection, guest prep, and more. Would you have maybe 20-30 minutes for that? I'd be willing to help you out with elements of your show in return for your time."
A message like that articulates what's in it for the bigger-name show. Now you might get to work on their show, learn from them, or maybe eventually be a guest or get intros to their previous guests. You're on your way.
Steve was very gracious in making this list available, so please do not abuse it.
What do I mean by that? Do not send cold mass emails to all 670 big name podcasters! besides not getting on any of these shows, your name will be dirt in the podcasting community.
Instead, do this: Ask yourself if you're 100% ready. If you can answer "yes" to 4 out of these 5 questions, then you're good:
Have you already been a guest on at least 20 other shows?
Have you already added value to the person you're reaching out to in a meaningful way?
Do you have your own show, or a substantial online presence, and have you already connected with, or had a podcaster on my show?
Have you made your presence felt in their community?
Do you know this person, their interests, likes, dislikes and have a solid affinity for them?
Work the smaller players in your space
Steve's Olsher's "profiting from podcasts" list features some pretty big podcasters with established audiences, and that's great. However, if you are in a smaller niche, you may have an even better success rate by doing some of the initial leg work yourself.
Reaching out to other relevant podcasters in your niche is easy, and Apple Podcasts is the perfect tool to look up interesting shows in your category. Each show lists a website, and you can quickly get a sense how professionally each podcast is set up. Almost all podcast websites have a contact form or other way to get in touch, and again you can send a templated email requesting to be on their show.
You will want to listen to the show you want to appear on, and comment on something that you heard and liked about it. This gives you a much better chance of being accepted than sending what may look like a templated mass email.
The more personal you make your inquiry, the better the results.
To promote your podcast, guesting can be a crucial part of the ecosystem. When you appear, you inherently get to promote your podcast and other work (provided you're interesting, which we'll take as a given right now).
If some listeners like what you have to say, they will jump over to your own podcast and subscribe.
Using Paid Ad Strategies To Reach Your Podcast Audience
Marketing your podcast with paid ads can be very effective – especially on other podcasts
Using paid ads for promoting a podcast is not for everyone. But appropriate if you have a budget, for example for business podcasts where lead generation and email list building are part of the overall objective.
And don't just think "ads don't work" – not all platforms are alike. When it comes to promoting your podcast using paid ads, there are a few options.
It explores 3 platforms in greater detail, and also offers our simple 5 step process to better target podcast listeners with Facebook Ads:
To promote your podcast with Facebook ads, you will want this 5 step quick guide
But read on for the Cliff Notes summary of our deep dive, here's my take on 3 platforms.
Google Adwords
Generally speaking AdWords is expensive. So the question you'll want to ask yourself is this: Can I afford driving traffic to my podcast at $5-$20 per click?
My own view is that you need measurable results for this, and for most businesses this means sending traffic to a good landing page that features a gift or give-away and collects an email address. Sending ad traffic to Apple Podcasts and hoping that people subscribe is difficult to measure, and not worth it in my opinion. On AdWords you cannot even target podcast listeners easily. So we don't use it except for corporate podcasts (as we are producing several)
Facebook
Facebook is one of the most affordable paid choices for promoting a podcast. It may seem easy to simply "boost" an episode specific post on your podcast site, and then hope people listen and subscribe.
But I would not recommend this approach when first starting out. Instead, I would recommend sending traffic to a dedicated podcast landing page that features an incentive for signing up. Boosting a post is a quick solution but rarely converts as well as a carefully crafted visual and ad specifically outlining the listener benefit and value proposition of your overall podcast.
Consider combining these ads with "Share Gates" covered later in this post.
If you have not done so before, getting started properly with Facebook ads can be intimidating, so consider taking a Facebook ads course or hiring someone experienced to help you get started.
With both AdWords and Facebook you will mostly be advertising to non-podcast listeners. It is difficult to target podcast listeners only on Facebook, and next to impossible on Google.
But this is why in-podcast advertising networks are so effective. By default, your entire audience consists of podcast listeners.
One great way to get new listeners is to advertise on other existing podcasts in your niche. Most podcasters only think of podcast advertising networks as something to help them monetize their own show. But placing an ad inside one of the most popular podcasts in your niche can be super effective. According to Midroll, 61% of podcast listeners have purchased from such podcast ads.
The real benefit of this approach is the fact that you are advertising on your medium. if people are listening to your ads, that means they are podcast subscribers already. It is much easier to convince them to check out your show, than to show your Facebook or AdWords content to people who may not even listen to podcasts at all.
So how much does this cost? Here is some information from Midroll, by far the best known podcast advertising network.
All Midroll podcast ads are priced on a cost-per-thousand downloads model, or CPM. For instance, with a $25 CPM, a spot on a show with 10,000 downloads per episode costs $250; with 100,000 downloads, it’s $2500.
So let's do the math. If your ad is highly relevant to the audience of the podcast you place your ad into, and assuming 3% of listeners take action and subscribe to your show, your cost per new listener would be $0.83. If only 1% of listeners take action, then it would be $2.50 per subscriber. Either way, these numbers compare very favorably to advertising on Facebook or AdWords.
Here is a link to Midroll's metrics, demographics and pricing, everything you need to know to advertise your own show on one of the best known podcast ad networks
How To Promote Your Podcast By Leveraging Your Own Guests
Make sure your guests help you by sharing episodes they appear on
If you have an interview show, you might expect that your guest will help you promote your podcast. But make sure this is not an unspoken assumption on your part. After having launched over a dozen shows, I've found that getting your podcasts guest to share episode links with their own social networks can be like pulling teeth.
And the more connected and "famous" your guest is, the less likely they are to do this without being prompted.
Go Through Lengths To Present Your Guest In A Good Light
For example, we have an on-boarding sequence when we book guests on our shows. During this phase, we ask them to fill out a simple form, and to provide social media links, books they are promoting, short bios, profile pictures etc. This is so that we can create a great looking guest section with pictures and links to their work. In other words, you want to create great looking show notes that your guests would be proud to share and help with promoting your podcast.
Make your expectations clear from the beginning
But in our guest on-boarding sequence we already make it clear that we expect podcast guests to share the episode on their social networks, in a nice way. And we tell each guest that when the show goes live, they will receive ready made sharable links and notifications.
Create macros and scripts for sharing links
What you need to be doing here is leveraging the power and networks of your guests to promote episodes, but also promote your own episodes. Again, this needs to be done sparingly to an extent; you don't want to be seen as a self-promoter. That usually gets you silenced algorithmically on Twitter and other sites. But if you have scripts for yourself and your guests, it's an easier process.
Some Example Scripts
Use something similar for Facebook/LinkedIn and/or Google+
“I was just on the [NAME OF PODCAST] with [YOUR NAME] and talked about [WHAT YOU TALKED ABOUT]. If you’re [REASON WHY SOMEONE MIGHT BE INTERESTED], listen here: [PASTE THE LINK FROM STEP #1)
Use something similar for Twitter and include a service like ClickToTweet:
“I was just interviewed by [YOUR TWITTER HANDLE] and talked about [WHAT YOU TALKED ABOUT]. Listen here: [INSERT SHORTENED LINK FROM STEP #1]”
Automate This Process Using Text Expander Or Email Macros
Scripts are designed to make your process easier. You can even make them a Macros in your email so that deployment is just a matter of filling in the brackets.
A great tool for this on Mac is an application called Text Expander. This will allow you to enter templates like the above and recall them at the touch of a button or shortcut key. And a popup will prompt you to simply fill in the blanks with the needed information.
Beyond Guests, Make It Easy As Pie To Share Your Episodes
Ensure your podcast episodes are easily shared
This means having social share buttons on your episode landing pages that are bright, high, and prevalent. You don't want people having to dig around to share with their networks. Make it easy. We over-complicate so much in marketing (and, well, life). Why over-complicate this?
There are dozens of helper platforms out there that place attractive social share buttons next to your episodes.
Look for the type of share buttons that float on the side of your podcast. This way your social share icons are always "above the fold" and visible in the browser window.
There are some really cool tools to help design 1-click "ready to use" social share messages.
Contests and Promotions To Gather Apple Podcasts Reviews
Promote your podcast and get reviews with a contest
This used to be a very popular launch tactic. The idea was to launch a contest, and ask people to enter the contest by leaving an Apple Podcasts review, and then emailing the iTunes ID to enter the contest as proof.
iTunes and Apple Podcasts Have Changed
Since then, the algorithm to rise to the top of Apple Podcasts has changed. It is no longer driven by the number of reviews. Instead, at the time of this writing, the number of new subscribers have the most impact, followed by the number of episode downloads. Therefore the number of reviews no longer contribute to being at the top of the "New and Noteworthy" section.
Therefore the "Launch Contest" is less common now. Besides no longer being as effective, setting up a launch contest usually takes a good deal of time to set up. You need landing pages, marketing automation capability and time. But if you have the passion, time and effort to spare, a launch contest will still give your podcast launch a great boost, for some of the below reasons:
But Reviews Are Still Important
Reviews are still important and should not be ignored. They lend credibility and social proof to a podcast. Seeing that dozens of people are leaving great reviews for a podcast you might enjoy might tip the scale for you to take action and subscribe. On the other hand, seeing a podcast on Apple Podcasts with no reviews at all also tells you something.
Adding The Right Incentives
The tactic of offering some kind of incentive, give-away, or lead magnet for leaving a review still works well for getting reviews.
The selected give-aways don't have to be expensive. It is more important that they be relevant, related to the podcast topic or context. So for example, for a customer experience podcast you might have a contest to win free tickets to the biggest yearly Customer Experience conference. That beats offering an iPad as a prize, simply because your subscriber and contest participants are much more likely to actually care about your podcast and topic, instead of just trying to win an iPad.
Promoting your podcast with social contests is also the topic of our video episode 6 of the Podcast Growth Show: Podcast Marketing With Social Contests [S1E06]. We examine and recommend both free and paid platforms to do social contests right.
Leverage Email Subscribers With Social Media Share Gates
The idea is to try and promote your podcast launch to go viral.
The contest launch tactic described above has a sister. You can run this campaign as a variant of the more traditional launch contest. The difference? Much easier and less time consuming to set up.
Introducing the GoViral Tool
Bryan Harris over at GrowthTools has a great free tool called GoViral. GoViral gets you more quality traffic and shares by offering a free gift to your new subscribers in exchange for sharing your site with their friends.
GoViral automatically gets people to share your content – it’s instant word of mouth.
A Dead Simple Setup
The cool thing about GoViral is that it creates the social share landing and download pages for you behind the scenes, and this makes it dead simple to set up. So the sequence is as follows:
Susan signs up for your email list This could be on your homepage, for a webinar or in a blog post.
GoViral offers her a gift for sharing your site This could be anything from a free PDF, to a discount, to a free course.
GoViral gives her the gift and you get free traffic Works with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and 16 other services.
GoViral is integrated with most social media platforms, and checks behind the scenes that someone actually shared your podcast link before making the gift available.
We have used this system extensively to increase our webinar registrations by ~35%.
Here is a live example of this: You can download a PDF version of this entire Podcast Marketing Guide by sharing it on Facebook. For one thing, if you are enjoying this post, I'd appreciate it! Plus it makes a handy reference.
Help us out by sharing this post!
Just click the download button above to see the GoViral system in action.
How To Promote Your Podcast Organically With SEO
Promoting a podcast with SEO is a long term strategy
We actually have an entire dedicated SEO course on how to promote your podcast, but realize most podcasters are probably looking for quicker solutions when first launching their show. The rest of this article has been covering all sorts of other promotional approaches, but overlooking organic search is short sighted and a strategic mistake.
Getting Long Term Traffic
In the rush to launch a promote a podcast, this is often overlooked, or placed on a back-burner, and before you know it you're 25 episodes in without taking advantage of the long term benefits of SEO. Optimized episode landing pages tied to long-tail, low-competition keywords will drive valuable traffic to your site.
Consider How People Actually Find Podcasts
Have a look at the below chart from Edison Research. It makes my point: The most popular discovery for podcast is not Apple Podcasts, not Google Play or Spotify, but Internet search.
Edison Research 2019
The lesson?
Google Search Is What Really Matters
We are big fans of using SEO tools to research podcast topics, and utilizing your podcast’s website (and more importantly, episode specific articles AKA show notes) to attract traffic and interest. In fact we presented this form or promotion at the PodFest conference in early 2020, and here is a free mini-course on podcast promotion using SEO research, which outlines why and how this works.
Transcription Services Are Your Friend
Transcripts are your SEO friend, and increasingly affordable. The reason you want to use transcripts in your show notes is that Google will index this content, and attribute more rank to your episode because of the length of the episode show notes post. Machine based translation is getting more accurate, and costs around .10 a minute. 100% accuracy comes at a slightly higher cost, about $1.00 per minute. Still, considering the time it would take you to write bespoke show notes, this is an easy time saver investment. It's a nice 1-2 punch of automated services and human narrative context.
When you do this, pay attention to readability. Transcripts are almost always hard to read, and often look line dense, run-on text. And people on the internet like to "skim" content. Plus, from an SEO perspective, Google's new search algorithms values content quality, and this means readability in addition to length.
Our "best SEO practice" is to break said transcribed shows notes into readable chunks with H2/H3 headers for the main themes of the episode.
Ideally the H2 and H3 headers tell the story of the episode for someone just glancing and skimming.
Content Strategy & Patience In Promoting Your Podcast
Content marketing takes time
This is a broader content problem in marketing. Anything with content takes time to develop, but if it's tied to a business that needs to show short-term results, leaders often lack that time.
Embrace The Time It Takes
If this is a solo effort, you need to make the time and you need to embrace it.
Being passionate about your podcast is almost a pre-requisite.
For example: we know two gym owners who launched a supplement business and, at the same time, a podcast. It took about 75 episodes consistently week-to-week before their traffic started to go way up, and that was largely because one episode in the 60s-range was about the Keto Diet, drew a lot of attention, and helped them out getting noticed for other episodes. But 75 episodes weekly is about a year and a half. It will take time.
That Said: Plan For Great Content and Interesting Topics
Interesting topics can come from researching your audience
Look at BuzzSumo and similar sites to see what has interested people in your niche before. Ask people on LinkedIn. Ask people on Twitter. Ask your email list. (More on that in a second, as the email list is somewhat the holy grail of this process.) Have conversations with people.
Let's go back to that small business example again. Supposed you pose a question like "What episode topics would you like to hear?" on LinkedIn and several say they want to know how to improve hiring on a budget. Well, find a good guest for that (again it's about research), produce the episode, and when it's produced, GO BACK TO THAT THREAD and share it with those who asked for it.
They'll find value and are much more likely to share it around more. Interesting, consistent, relevant-to-core-target content is going to help any podcast launch well. It takes time, but you'll get noticed faster on that approach.
Join a podcasting community or network
Podcasting networks actively help cross promote, but can be difficult to get into
What are "Podcast Networks"?
A podcast network is a collection of podcasts that are produced, distributed or made available to advertisers through a single company, or network.
The advantage of being a member is that these networks frequently have agreements to cross-promote other podcasts on the network. Therefore the ability to attract advertisers is better for the entire group as well. Be prepared that you will be asked to promote the other participants as well, often you don't have much of a choice about who gets promoted. So joining one of the big players is a no brainer.
However, in order to join a network, the burden is on you to show that you can bring existing audience equity to the table (this audience could be from a different medium) or your product is so good, that given the megaphone, you will quickly build equity for the network (this could be in the form of a unique vantage point, expertise, or refined production skills).
Be careful about smaller podcast networks
Think twice about joining a smaller podcast network just to save time and effort, or because they promise you to build a site. And especially if they ask you to give up your feed and offer to host your show from their own feed. You will want it in writing that your podcast feed will be given back to you once you leave the network.
The ideal situation is to join a network that allows you to keep your own personal website and hosting arrangement.
Use your email list
Email is underrated
This is where we recommend you focus some energy and effort.
People opt-in to your lists because they care about some element of what you've put forth. So, now you've got a podcast (or you built the list with the podcast). Well, if they opted in, they are somewhat interested. Keep them interested. That starts with good subject lines. Use the same techniques already covered in episode title development.
Your Guests Make You More Interesting
Think of the most interesting, different-sounding point that your guest made. Figure out how to spin that into an emotional subject line. You can use Headline Analyzer Tools (CoSchedule and others have this) to see how powerful a headline is, and then use said headline as the subject line for the email about a specific episode.
Every so often, engage with your people about guests they want to see, topics they want covered, how they feel about the show in general, and more. Be human. Respond to these emails directly. Marketing automation is the bee's knees but people want to think they're having a convo with the actual creator. You might drum up some business for yourself as well in this process.
Many do email marketing wrong because they just blast out the latest thing they have with a generic subject line and limited context. That gets you low open rates and high unsubscribe rates. At that point, why even have an email list? Be interesting and different. It takes work and sitting down and thinking about the most intriguing thing said on an episode, even if it was just one tiny nugget, but it's worth a ton if you do this with every email send.
Make Your Your Podcast Homepage Design Less Egocentric
Make it more about your audience than your podcast
Most podcasters already realize that their great podcast needs a great website. If you’re unsure of all the reasons why this is important, be sure to read Spreaker’s recent post on the topic.
But as you create your podcast website, how do you design it to best engage your audience?
Make it more about them, and less about you and your show. And while you do that, you will increase conversion and list-building opportunities.
The Definitive Guide To Design Podcast Sites For Conversion & Engagement
How can you do that? Glad you asked. We have a full long-form article on how to design podcast sites for list-building optimization, where we discuss The Upside Down Podcast Homepage — and we also debate the relative merits of 1,000 Apple Podcasts subscribers vs. 100 dedicated email list subscribers. (Hint: the latter is more important.)
Even though we did not list this at the beginning, this is where almost everything marketing-and-sales-related needs to start, and it's no different with podcasts. It's just that it's time consuming. And anything time consuming often gets overlooked. But OK, let's assume you've got some time.
Let's say you want to target small business owners; that's actually a relatively common target for podcast producers in the business genre. You need to start by thinking this out loud to yourself:
Where do small business owners hang out?
Well, scaling a business is hard. Very few do it successfully. In all likelihood, then, a small business owner would be hanging out on his/her:
LinkedIn overall
Specific LinkedIn groups
Reddit
Quora
HBR and similar sites comments
Facebook groups about SMB/entrepreneurship
Reddit
Quora
Their own email looking for emails that seem helpful (this goes to a point later on)
Make a list of where your audience is or would be. Find groups connected to said audience. Join those groups.
Your Contributions Are Key
And now, this is the part many people miss. It's not about joining those groups and just blasting every episode. That won't work — and on Reddit, it might even get you shadow-banned.
What will work is this: join those groups and contribute to discussions. It's time-consuming, yes. But it's important. Add value to discussions and respond to the comments of others.
After you do this about 20 times, you can start sharing episode links — but this is a big one — ONLY share the links if they are relevant to a specific discussion.
In short, you want to make your sharing conversational and not forced. If it's part of an ongoing dialogue about, say, doing taxes as a small business and you have an episode about that, it's totally relevant and within the knowledge flow people need, they will click on it and listen. But if you just blast that episode devoid of context, it's a much steeper hill to climb.
5 Mistakes to AVOID when promoting your podcast
Podcast marketing mistakes to avoid in podcast promotion
Apple actually recently launched their own podcast marketing best practices, and since Apple is where about 500 billion hours of podcasts have been streamed, it seems like a great place to get some tips on what to do — and maybe more importantly, what not to do.
A few things Apple says to avoid include:
Mistake #1: Long Flowery Intros
Skip the vague, flowery intro and let the people know what they can expect to hear.
Mistake # 2: Non Relevant Show Notes Content
After you tell listeners what to expect, make sure they know how to find what you’re talking about. Whether it’s a specific episode or your show in general, give them a link to go to.
Mistake #3: Poor Images and Screenshots
Pick screenshots wisely. If you want to display a screenshot of your show as it appears on Apple Podcasts, capture it from the Podcasts app using a mobile device, like iPhone or iPad. (If you don't know how to take a screenshot from an Apple device, read this.)
OK, and here are some mistakes we often see
Mistake #4: Lack of Content Strategy
It is much more difficult to promote your podcast episodes without planning ahead. This means scheduling and producing episodes a couple of weeks in advance. This will allow you to dedicate more relative time towards ideas for promoting the show, thinking of good episode titles, and writing show notes.
Try not be in a rush
Plan and research your episodes ahead of time. If your show allows it, plan for content themes. This can enable you to implement a powerful SEO ranking technique called "cornerstone content", where several related episodes share links to one primary episode about the theme. We have consistently used this to SEO boost blog posts and episodes onto page one of Google search results.
Research a bunch of potential keywords for an entire season. Then you can craft your episode titles and show notes to be optimized around high value keywords. These are long tail keywords with low difficulty scores, but that still attract search volume. Use a utility like KWFinder to do the research.
Make sure your show notes are of sufficient length. If your show notes are less than 300 words, the likelihood that your content will appear in Google search result is close to zero. You will want to have show notes that are at least 700 words or longer to give your content a chance visibility.
Mistake #5: Weak Episode Titles
Don't create boring episode titles. Avoid titles that start with "This week our host XXXX talks to our guest YYYY about ZZZZ". Don't start episode titles with "Episode nnn:" Within Apple Podcasts and all podcatchers, space for your episode title is at a premium. So don't waste it with obvious, redundant or irrelevant. Podcast listeners increasingly consume podcasts on a per episode basis, by searching. So your episode titles have a fraction of a second to attract a listener.
Make sure your episode titles pop.
Write down 7-20 versions of your planned episode titles – do this every time, and I can almost guarantee that the quality and click-worthiness of your episode titles will improve. We use a tool called CoSchedule Headline Analyzer to craft our episode titles.
For examples of this, search for "podcast content strategy" – polymash shows up on page one, or google "customer experience podcast" – our client Customer Bliss shows up on page one, or "appreciative inquiry" – our client Positivity Strategist is on page one, or "podcast SEO course".
Learn a bit about SEO – think of it as an investment that will pay dividends for years to come. I offer an SEO for podcasters course, take advantage of this, or learn the basics of SEO elsewhere. The importance of titles, as well as how to create more interesting ones, is covered there in detail.
DIY or Done For You? If the concept of doing SEO yourself makes your eyes glaze over, invest in some help to make your show grow.
Conclusion – And How We Help
How do we help? Why are we writing this article, even?
Years ago, we were helping a client with her overall content strategy. If you've worked in digital at all, you know that people from previous business model generations often don't initially "get" how to market with content, and this client — while great overall — was no different.
Ultimately, we convinced her to try podcasting as a content strategy, and the results have been amazing. It has bolstered her brand within her expertise area, and allowed her to build a community through her podcasting.
Perhaps more importantly, she just loves being a well known podcaster now, and meeting all the people she gets to impact with her show. (Think about the impact of the first season of Serial and you'll probably understand what we mean.)
And our clients eventually prefer podcasting to blogging, since the content ideas and content strategy emerges much more effortlessly. Plus, they are more likely to advance to video and multi-channel content models.
All marketing is two things:
Storytelling
Effectively building a community
All great podcasting is those two things as well. It's a different landscape than it was even in 2018/19, but you can do this.
You can help us by downloading a PDF version of this post
If you'd like to have a downloadable version of this podcast marketing guide for reference, please share it on Facebook:
https://polymash.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Promote-Your-Podcast-1200_4fe51a2583ccc33aeea60921ae975883_2000.png4361200Juergen Berkesselhttps://polymash.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Polymash-Logo-2019-680px-Web2.pngJuergen Berkessel2020-02-09 06:15:062022-12-08 15:48:29How To Promote Your Podcast – Top Strategies, Tactics & Mistakes
Things are always changing, and this is especially true in content marketing. Podcast content strategy is still wide open to get your brand, message, or business out there. If you're in this field, you'd be aware that the internet runs on content. With regards to lead generation and attracting the right traffic with SEO savvy, the rules change often.
Add to this a bewildering array of potential channels for content, it's no wonder that navigating this terrain can seem difficult. With so many bright shiny objects everywhere, many of us lose our way.
I. A Podcast Content Strategy Avoids Digital Sharecropping
We've seen exhausted clients pour all of their efforts into “rented” social media platforms, posting on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Medium, Twitter, YouTube and other channels. To them, it seems like they are doing the right thing. They gravitate to where they feel their audiences' attention is.
Nothing seems wrong with that. But often there is a lack of underlying strategy. More on that in a minute.
Meanwhile, our clients' website's content often lies neglected. It is no longer at the center of their efforts or content they publish. For most clients, social media seems so much easier than blogging. The occasional viral attention gained appears more attractive than building a body of authority content – a convenient and sexy shortcut.
The issue is that social media content has a limited life span. It disappears up Facebook's or Twitter's timeline. Thus it serves no real purpose in growing a website, domain authority and SERP rank. The social posts need to refer to and drive traffic and engagement back to the central website.
The social networks fight this tooth and nail, they want ALL engagement to take place on their own platforms.
So what's the solution?
I won't pretend to have all the answers, but in the last couple of years we have discovered a self-generating content strategy that seems to works well for the “content marketing” challenged: Podcasting as a Content Strategy.
This might surprise you, or you may think of it as another content fad; but hang on for a minute and allow me to explain the often surprising benefits.
II. Podcasting Builds Relationships With Other Influencers
Podcasters are often overly obsessed with subscriber growth, metrics and statistics. Yet one of the most important and meaningful success criteria for most podcasters is hard to measure:
Podcasting establishes lasting relationships
Whenever we review podcasting programs with our clients, one of the benefits they appreciate the most is that they have connected and even become friends with influencers and people active in their field.
So how do you go about this? Reaching out to thought leaders in your field is so much easier if you have a podcast, and then invite them to talk about their passions and insights on your show. Most are happy to oblige, especially once you have an established show. After all, you are helping them promote and grow in return.
In addition, opportunities to be a guest on influencer podcasts yourself will also appear over time, as many influencers have podcasts themselves. But even “guesting” on other shows in your niche will establish you as a thought leader and influcener yourslef over time.
III. Podcasting is a Self Generating Content Strategy
Instead of laboring over creating blog content, our clients interview other people in their field. They love doing it, it’s fun, energizing and not as time consuming as blogging. They jump on a Skype call, hit the record button and discuss a topic they and their guest find energizing, and voilà: original content.
I’m not saying it’s easy or less work, but it’s a less intense effort for clients. They focus on recording a meaningful conversation, and we, as their podcasting partner, take care of the rest. For example, we use a transcription service and edit these conversations, and have an almost instant 5,000+ word article. We then apply both technical and other SEO optimizations – in fact the topics and episode titles are based on SEO research and low competition key phrases in the first place.
Podcasting can serve as the missing center for a multi channel strategy
Once a podcast is recorded, the show notes become the central business asset from which all multi-channel and social media efforts emanate. So yes, we still do “traditional” social media content distribution campaigns to share and boost the podcast show-notes. But that’s only the beginning.
Podcast Content Strategy as Multi Channel Content Distribution
We often produce videos from our podcast episodes. There are some automation tools that help us. These transform audio into video. Later, we publish these episodes on YouTube, DailyMotion and other social video channels.
And for a completely automated tool that converts audio into video, check out a tool called “Headliner”. It produces audiograms and even adds relevant images and slides to the videos. In our previous post, Podcast Audiogram Alternatives For Promotion and Visual Storytelling, we are excited to show how we now use the Invideo platform as our video platform of choice.
Social Content Platform Syndication:
We syndicate the content to platforms with existing engaged audiences and built-in internal search engines, for example Medium, Blogger, Facebook Stories or LinkedIn.
Snackable Videos:
Michael Seltzner’s “Social Media Examiner” team recently cancelled 3 Facebook video shows. He moved them from Facebook to YouTube. Why? Because the data shows that videos longer than 1-2 minutes penalize your Facebook page rank. So when publishing video to Facebook, the idea is to take 15-45 seconds from the podcast video episode and publish it as “teaser content“ with subtitles. I’m still working on automating this part of the process.
Syndication And Content Distribution Automation:
We use a smart and affordable content syndication and distribution platform from a Belgian company called StoryChief. The reason I like it so much is that it can publish natively to multiple platforms (like WordPress, Drupal etc.), and supports podcast player embeds.
What’s smart about it is their use “rel=canonical” tags. You get to decide where your primary content should live. For those unfamiliar with this tag, it lets search engine indexing bots know where to apply the SERP rank credit and link juice. This way, your podcast show notes will rank pointing to your site, NOT to Medium or other platforms.
Podcast directories RSS syndication:
Promoting a podcast requires submission to dozens of podcast directories. These directories will automatically link to each published episode and your primary website. This results in a valuable SEO benefit, namely, links from high domain authority sites.
IV. Podcasting as SEO Cornerstones
A lot of podcasts tackle content themes. In podcast parlance, these can be thought of as "Seasons". For example on an SEO podcast, you might focus on "Technical SEO" in Season 1, and "Link Building Techniques" in Season 2.
This is the genesis of a cornerstone strategy. You cross link this content to other important long form content pieces on your site. Such content will naturally rank higher because of the relevance of all participating articles. Furthermore, we have seen this content rank very quickly.
Podcast Guesting as a Lead Generation & SEO Link Building Initiatives
For people not interested in launching their own podcast, “Podcast Guesting” is an alternative. It results in effective link building, lead generation and launch strategy for any business. For example, this method has become a very popular book launch technique. The idea is that you find relevant podcasts in your niche and then run an outreach campaign to approach the hosts of these podcasts to invite you on as a guest.
Benefit: Intimacy With Your Ideal Audience
The first set of big benefits include getting to talk to your ideal and relevant audience when they are in a receptive mode. Think about what people are doing when listening to their favorite podcast, the one you are appearing on. They are likely commuting, working out, going for a walk. The modality is very different from interrupting an audience in the middle of browsing through their Facebook feed.
This is why Podcast Listeners are such a lucrative audience. And you get to present your core ideas to them.
Benefit: SEO Back-Links
The second big benefit is SEO related. Each podcast you appear on will create show notes that feature highly valuable back-links to your site and product or launch. SEO agencies charge a lot for high Domain Authority back-links. And the link building process can be onerous.
You can automate the outreach campaigns, or you can hire agencies to do this for you. We have a free downloadable podcast guesting outreach automation system for this, including outreach email templates and mail merge tools. To learn more how these campaigns can be automated for free, check out our podcast guesting system and templates.
Podcasting Benefits Summary
Our clients love having a podcast. It helps them re-connect with content as their own business asset. “Having a show” re-introduces a strategic purpose and promotes content discipline. Our clients keep on a weekly schedule much more easily than when they were just “blogging”.
The ROI is in lead generation and list building and SEO. A year into their podcasting journey, most our clients with medium sized shows get 65% of their traffic and leads from organic search and podcast listeners. These are for keywords they would otherwise have to pay $1,000's a month for on Google AdWords.
Spotify is well on its way to becoming the Netflix of podcasting. They single-handedly propelled the business of podcasting into the big leagues this week. Spotify announced they are planning to spend a cool budget of $500,000,000 (That's 1/2 a billion!) on podcasting acquisitions. For starters, they purchased Gimlet Media, reportedly for some $230M, as well as the Anchor podcast platform for $60M.
From the Spotify perspective, I agree with the analysis of the Wall Street Journal and others: This model means a focus on premium content and acquiring exclusive podcasts only available on Spotify. I think this theory covers both Gimlet as well as Anchor acquisitions.
Of course there are more questions than answers at this point. So what follows is speculation:
Does Netflix of Podcasting Imply Exclusive Content?
I could see that if their strategy succeeds, exclusive versions of the best and most desirable podcasts may only be available on Spotify, driving new subscribers to their overall platform.
So yes, I anticipate that Gimlet Media will produce some bespoke content for Spotify.
But I also I think there are a lot of variations on how this could play out when it comes to exclusivity – for example offering ad supported versions of exclusive podcasts outside of Spotify, meaning iTunes and elsewhere.
The Future of Podcast Monetization?
Also, I would predict that podcast hosting, ad platforms, monetization and reimbursement models will be routed through Spotify. Could they be going for a model of reimbursing premium podcasters as they currently reimburse musicians?
This could mean a democratized monetization model for mid-level podcasts, with micro payments to podcasters that are not currently commanding enough downloads to easily run ads inside their shows. I see this as a positive alternative for podcasts that don’t have any monetization options outside of Patreon.
However, the emphasis being on MICRO-payments, as in “Podcasters, don’t quit your day job”.
Symbiotic or Competitive?
I am also wondering if this is symbiotic with Apple and iTunes, or competitive when it comes to discoverability?
Will Spotify finally be able to break up Apple’s quasi monopoly in the podcast discoverability space?
Just considering my own behavior: I happen to have a Spotify music account. I NEVER search for any music on iTunes anymore. I search in Spotify directly. So just imagine a future to where Spotify would be the first place to search for interesting podcast content to listen to.
Considering Anchor
If you want to be the Netflix of podcasting, you need content. Content you develop, or acquire. My understanding is that Anchor owns the podcast content hosted on their platform, and so I am assuming that with this acquisition Spotify will acquire direct ownership of a massive amount of transitioned podcasts, leaving them to be able to decide on monetization and subscription and discoverability models.
Considering Gimlet
From the Gimlet perspective, this is the best exit their investors could expect now or in the future. In my opinion, I think there may also be an opportunistic element for Alex Blumberg to get his life back and move forward in the best possible way.
I imagine him being able to move towards more fun and meaningful opportunities within Spotify. Gimlet with its storytelling chops should be the perfect podcast content strategists. I think Alex and his team could be focused on developing interesting content – rather than Gimlet being a money making entity beholden to investors.
One of the most compelling aspects of Startup as a podcast has been the intimacy of sharing of his journey, including the stress on work life balance. Listening to the last few episodes of that, combined with the show WithoutFail, it seems like the stress levels have not lessened, so with this exit perhaps the pressure from keeping investors happy will be eased.
More acquisitions coming?
I am again speculating for now, and I think the picture will become clearer over time.
But yes, Spotify's CEO Daniel Ek's $500 million budget leaves room for additional deals. In addition to new acquisitions of podcast networks and content I would not be surprised if Spotify will also start to acquire podcast specific technology and ad platform companies. Not naming any names at this point. And rumors are afloat that Netflix might acquire all of Spotify.
So as a podcast producer, how do I feel about this all?
I think any movement within the podcasting industry that rivals Apple, or makes them move a bit faster on the innovation front, is a good thing.
https://polymash.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Spotify-Netflix-1200-Red_ac404f53f408e436bffc5c9a3a7123a5_2000.jpg5001200Juergen Berkesselhttps://polymash.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Polymash-Logo-2019-680px-Web2.pngJuergen Berkessel2019-02-08 08:30:352019-02-08 08:30:35Spotify as the Netflix of Podcasting
In this season we have occasionally touched up our own podcast workflow. For those of you who follow us, you realize that we often talk about "podcasting as a content strategy". So as we approach the end of season 1 of our Podcast Growth Show, I thought it was time to zoom out for a big picture episode.
Basically, this episode is our blueprint to go from podcast content strategy to execution.
From Podcasting Strategy to Execution Blueprint, Click for expanded detail
So I'd like to reveal our overall podcast workflow, all the way from strategy to execution. And in this episode I'll reveal all our little secret tips, tricks, tools and gear we use to save massive amount of time along the way.
Strategy Segment
For both new and existing podcasts, it is good to start with the end in mind, to have clarity about your audience, as well as confidence that the value proposition for your listeners, as well as the reason why you are doing a podcast is clear.
Planning Segment
A lot of people just want to get started and hit the record button already. But unless you already have a dozen or so episodes under your belt, you will discover that there is a lot of planning involved. Especially if podcasting as content strategy is something even remotely on your horizon. I talk to new podcasters all the time, and some get lost in the planning stage. Let's discover how having a planning framework helps us retain clarity.
Execution Segment
I'd like to go into how we approach podcast production ourselves. This is only one of many possible ways, and in no way am I suggesting you should adopt our methods. There is a lot involved, and it can sound scary. We tolerate an amount of complexity because it produces results for us. And complexity doesn't mean things can't be automated, simplified or even outsourced. Both complexity and simplicity can co-exist. For us, it's the results that count.
Promotion Segment
This entire season has been about how to promote a podcast. So we may already have covered some of the methods we use to promote each episode. I'll keep that segment short.
Season Strategy
Podcast seasons can help organize our podcast content strategy
We like the concept of seasons, as it provides some amount of flexibility when thinking about the overall goals for your podcast as business content strategy.
Advantage of Seasons
Do we have a solo show or an interview based show? Do we have a co-host? Does our podcast have a theme? Would we like to try a different episode structure? Are we afraid your audience is getting bored with our content? What if we want to change up? Or are we suffering from "podfading" and just plain tired and need a break?
All of these can be addressed by organizing our podcast into separate seasons:
They allow us to take a sabbatical from your own show if we need a break
They enable us to develop focused themes for each season
We can switch the format of the show, including who is hosting, guesting or if it's a solo show
And all of that with no surprises for our listeners, as we announce the end of the current or start of the next seasons
Each season is a good excuse for a podcast re-launch and much needed promotional activities
Value Proposition Design
I know a lot of podcasters who just barrel on producing episode after episode without ever pausing, re-thinking, changing direction or taking stock. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as the audience is with us on this.
Other podcasters plan each season carefully, and conceptualize exactly what they want to cover, who their guests will be, and most importantly what experience they want to create for their audience. Either way:
Periodically revisiting the value proposition of our podcast is an excellent habit.
But just how we do that? We have developed a process for developing a podcast's branding and value proposition. This Value Proposition Design (VPD) process is driven by over a hundred trigger questions designed to achieve clarity about our audience. To be more specific, clarity about what our listening audience is experiencing, what problems we help them solve or wrestle with, and what goals and transformation we help them achieve.
Not only that, there are also over 100 trigger questions to get us to think about how well our podcast topics match up to our audience desires, needs, tasks and expectations.
We have online forms for these trigger questions, and the answers we produce during this process are worth their weight in gold: They become a rich source of podcast themes, episode topics, SEO keywords, episode titles.
Think of your podcast as a product – with a market fit
This clarity is what you can when going through the VPD process.
Focus on Overall Goals
It is also important to keep focused on our podcast goals, and to periodically revisit these.
Perhaps we started out just wanting to have fun and get our message out to the world, but now we are finding ourselves wanting to build a list, or speak on stages, or to use your podcast as a vehicle to help promote a book. These are significant shifts in goals, and require significant adjustments to the way we utilize and market our podcast.
Strategy Planning Session 3 Month
Of course none of this has to do with the week to week podcast workflow of producing episodes in the middle of a season.
I'm just pointing all of this out as an important baseline activity that we try to do every 3 months or so. And to point out 3 things:
If you are about to launch a podcast, take the time to go through the VPD process to achieve clarity and a product market fit for your show
If you already started to podcast without any of this in mind, it's not too late to start and revisit once in a while
If you have a podcast based on seasons, revisit your goals and value proposition for each seasons
Podcast Episode SEO Research
SEO for Podcasts
Why do we do SEO research for something audio based?
SEO = Developing A Business Asset With Positive ROI
Our own podcast website gets 65% of subscribers from SEO search. 50% of my new clients come from search. Our podcast is less than 2 months old at the time of this recording, and has yielded 4 new clients and many more prospects. Not from iTunes discoverability, not referrals. So our entire podcast workflow is based on solid SEO research.
You may think that this is all overkill. And again, I will point out that this is just the process we follow because it works for us and our results speak for themselves. BTW, we have a whole course on podcast SEO.
For Our Podcast, 80% Planning and 20% Execution is Normal
Topical Research
So the assumption is that we do have clarity about our goals and value proposition for the audience. At this point, we want to identify potential SEO opportunities and turn these into topics for our season long episode plan.
The goal is to be able to rank for our show notes pages.
And there are 2 important pitfalls that we avoid by doing some quick SEO research:
If we target impossibly difficult keywords, we will never rank on page one in Google, and thus we will never get search result traffic or new listeners
If we target obscure keywords that no one ever searches for, we may rank on page one of the search results, but no one will ever visit our podcast from that.
SEO Keyword Opportunities
I myself may have a bit of an unfair advantage, because Polymash started life in part as an SEO agency. So we have access to some enterprise level SEO tools.
But the good news for podcasters is that there are affordable and even free tools out there to do the same thing.
So here is a quick demo (at 13:50 ) of how we identify high opportunity keywords using Mangool's SEO suite, particularly the KWFinder utility. This is a central part of our podcast workflow, and KWFinder is by far my favorite and simple to use SEO keyword research tool. We have coached a ton of podcasters to use it to good effect.
Disclosure: This free sign up is an affiliate link
It gets better: This keyword research tool is only on part of an entire SEO suite to quickly add the following capabilities to your podcast planning:
KWFinder: Our favorite keyword research utility for podcasters.
SERP Watcher: Allows us to track progress as you start ranking for your desired keywords
SERP Checker: Provides deep insights into Google search results, and allows us to judge which keywords to target and which to stay away from
Converting Podcast SEO Keywords into Episode Ideas
So in the podcast workflow, once we have identified a list of keywords with potential, it is time to take these keywords and base our episode plan on these.
In our Google Sheets planning template we have developed a formula to address the following SEO issue:
Each site has something called Domain Authority and Alexa Rank, which indicates how likely the site's content will rank on Google. This means every site needs to target keywords that are commensurate with their Domain Authority and Alexa Rank.
For old, established and popular sites it is easier to rank for more difficult keywords.
But new site owners with low DA and Alexa rank need to choose key-phrases they can actually rank for.
The formula we have developed matches the domain authority of any site with the keyword difficulty to target on KW Finder. This is all about prioritizing high opportunity topics, from high opportunity keywords.
Google Sheets to Organize Output
We have developed a Google Sheets template to help map this out.
Episode Topic Identification
Identifying topics for each podcast season
Here is the process we follow to identify episode themes and topics based on our Podcast SEO research.
SEO Based Topics
As I mentioned earlier, we base our podcast episodes on our prior SEO research. By the time we are mid-season, we usually have a range of potential topics for a season to choose from, and hundreds of potential SEO keywords to choose from as well.
Initial Titles
Initially we develop working titles for each episode before we even incorporate relevant SEO keywords from our list. But at some point it is important to design episode titles with relevant keywords that fits the topic, and that are commensurate with the ranking power of our site as well.
Episode Title Optimization
The exact wording of our episode titles is more important than many podcasters realize. You can have a great episode, but if the title is not compelling, click worthy, interesting or thought provoking, people will never click through.
Sure, your existing subscribers may listen. But this is about attracting new listeners and subscribers. Just think about where your episode titles appear, and what role they play in your podcast workflow and the way people consume podcasts.
People may see your episode title on their iPhone or listening device of choice. Will they be interested enough to tap and listen?
People may come across your show notes and episodes as a result of a Google search. But will your episode title be compelling enough for them click through?
Your episodes titles may appear on social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Will it arouse people's curiosity?
So what makes a click-worthy episode title?
CoSchedule Headline Optimizer
There are a bunch of tools out there that help, for example the CoSchedule Headline Analyzer. CoSchedule is a well know the social media scheduling platform we use, and they have developed a wonderful tool for designing highly converting titles for blog posts as well as for podcast episodes.
The tool is free, and you can try it out here. Their recommendations are based on a ton of research, word usage and title patterns proven to be successful on social media. Their algorithm checks for the presence of unusual words, power words, emotional words and the structure and length of each title.
Of course, fair warning: Don't become a slave to such a tool.
Making Title Optimization Part of our Podcast Workflow
But my point is more about following this thinking process and formulating a range of potential titles. I guarantee you this: If you formulate only a single title for each episode, it will never be as good as if you formulate 7+ titles to choose from. So it is making this discipline part of our podcast workflow that makes all the difference.
Google Sheets to Organize Output
For us to stay organized and to collaborate on SEO research as well as podcast topic and title planning, we again use our trusty Google sheet template to stay organized.
Episode Recording Preparation
Episode Recording And Script Preparation
OK so we've finally gotten closer to actually recording an episode.
Pre Recording Notes
Our own podcast's current season is a solo recording effort.
Using StoryChief For Script Development Ahead Of Time
#Podcasting as a business content strategy is about a multi-channel approach: So when podcasters market their show, podcast directories are an incomplete solution and not enough for multi-channel podcast syndication and distribution. Here's the solution: https://t.co/6Lnk9zUJN7
But we also use StoryChief to develop our solo episode scripts. This saves us a lot of time later, after the recording process. And because this season is video based, the podcast workflow to incorporate video is by nature a bit harder.
If you are interested in giving StoryChief a try, they offer a free account:
Disclosure: This free sign up is an affiliate link, if you choose to upgrade the account later
Beyond this it's 5 stories for 10$/month, 10 stories for 20$/month, 15 for 30, 20 for 40, 25 for 50 up until 30 for 60$; and 20% discount if you pay yearly.
Episode Specific Template Google Docs
Google docs are great for collaboration with clients, and we have designed our template to work for preparing, ID3 tagging, and creating show notes.
Episode Metadata
Our episode preparation template on Google docs that works for solo, interview or co-host driven formats. We also use this for our own podcast, but that is for capturing titles, descriptions, video metadata, ID3 tag information, embed codes for the episodes once everything is done.
Episode Video Data
This season combines an audio podcast with a video tutorials, demos and more. Because we cross publish each episode to our YouTube Channel as well, it is important to formulate the YouTube tags, description and links for each episode, and again our template allows for this.
Our Podcast Workflow Process for Video + Audio Recording
Podcast production workflow containing audio as well as video
Finally, after all this planning, we are ready to record something.
ScreenFlow Video Templates For Youtube Channels
I use a somewhat unusual setup for podcast + video recording. You may have heard of desktop screen recorders like Techsmith's Camtasia and Telestream ScreenFlow? These are screen recorders that also use your webcam. Many people use them for creating courseware or evergreen webinar content. We've used both extensively here at Polymash. But for our podcast workflow a clear winner emerged:
ScreenFlow launched an innovation this year that I had been looking for a long time.
It automates the production process with the ability to configure recording templates. These templates then place your video into a template with a pre-existing intro, outro, lower thirds, resizing and repositioning the webcam image as a picture in picture on the screen.
ScreenFlow templates save us an amazing amount of time for our YouTube channel
If you click play on the video above, you can see the effect. After the initial setup of my YouTube channel, I do nothing more to produce these videos, other than to press the record button. Clever, no?
If you are relatively new to podcast, and video is not something you are considering right off the bat, here is our review of several new and highly innovative podcast recording software
VEED, A New Innovative Video Tool For Podcasters
VEED, and interesting addition to our podcast workflow
Ever since the COVID pandemic hit, a lot more work is happening virtually. And this means a lot of us are spending more time with video tools. A side-effect from this has been that video tools are increasingly becoming innovative. There is a new player on the scene that is especially interesting for podcasters.
This new platform is called VEED.IO, and here is what it does:
You can record and edit your audio or video podcast online. You can use their live streaming software to record your camera, audio, and screen then edit your recording straight away. Their video editing software features pro tools to help you make high-quality podcasts perfect for streaming on various social media and video-sharing platforms.
Lots Of Creative Video Tools:Video effects and filters, subtitles, auto-transcription, video effects, drawing, cropping, progress bars and ways to add text are only a small part of all that VEED offers.
Screencapture: VEED allows you to capture your screen with multiple layouts, including side-by-side, top-bottom and PIP (picture-in-picture) layouts.
Podcast Audiograms: You can turn your podcast into a video, add your podcast artwork and add a waveform too.
You might also have noticed that in my opening sequences I talk directly to the camera. Hopefully I come across as fluent in these videos, but what you may not realize is that I'm assisted by a mini teleprompter attached to my webcam.
My scripts live on an iPad on my desk, which I can speed up or slow down as I record. It's a strictly one man operation.
The actual teleprompting screen is driven by my iPhone, and all of this allows me to look directly into the camera as I record my episodes.
If you are curious about this setup, below is an (affiliate) link to this amazingly small and affordable teleprompting device.
Meet our unique mini teleprompter
Big part of our podcast workflow: The ability to record smooth video
We use a compact, versatile, and easy to use teleprompter that helps us quickly deliver polished show notes to our listeners. Until now, teleprompters have been clunky, expensive, and difficult to operate–and many required film studios or a production team. This teleprompter changes all of that.
It’s a simple tool that helps us nail smooth delivery using just a smartphone and our desktop computer, DSLR, or webcam.
Our video production workflow is so much easier using a mini teleprompter
Podcast Quality Audio While Recording Video
One issue with doing a video podcast, especially one where one stands or moves around, is audio quality.
While sitting I can use my microphone and arm easily, but if I'm standing or moving around I like to use a wireless mic. This is also true for general video production or conducting on-camera interviews. I really did a lot of research before investing in this piece of kit.
What we use is what I feel is the most affordable and yet high quality pair of wireless lavalier microphones on the market. I think the quality is as good as the famous Sennheisers, but the price is 1/2. The system is called the COMICA CVM-WM300(A). There is also an optional interview mic to take this setup on the road and conduct amazing mobile podcasts and or video interviews.
Again, if you'd like to check it out, below is an (affiliate) link.
Lavalier systems can be useful add ons to podcast and video recording workflows
Live Audio through Loopback and Audio Hijack
We produce our client podcasts using a professional audio editing platform called Adobe Audition.
One of my favorite things is when podcast clients comment on how amazing they sound on the podcasts we produce for them.
This is in part because as a former audio engineer and record producer I have a few tricks up my sleeve to get that professional "broadcast" sound. (Let me know in the comments if I should do a special episode on that, happy to share!)
But it is also because Adobe Audition comes with some professional and sophisticated tools to help us shape a warm and inviting sound profile for each podcast host of guest.
So far, so good. But when recording video as well as an audio podcast, things become more complicated. And time consuming.
We would have to extract the audio tracks from video to import them into Adobe Audition to achieve the same custom broadcast ready sound, and then re-import them into the video. Too much work…
Luckily, I'm both lazy and smart:
Loopback interface for routing audio on my desktop
So we've come up with a shortcut to get broadcast quality video sound, using 2 apps by a company called Rogue Amoeba:
Loopback to create virtual audio devices to take the sound from apps and audio input devices, then pass it to any audio processing software.
Audio Hijack, which functions like a real-time, virtual mixing console with EQ, compression and noise gating built in.
These 2 apps allow me to apply sound profiles in real time. Ordinarily this is done with a mixing console or in post-production, but this happens live. So the final video has that "broadcast" ready sound as it is being recorded.
Our Audio Hijack setup to produce real time optimized audio
The other advantage is that I can create profiles to attempt to make my lavaliers sound the same or similar to my Heil PR40 mic. (I can hear audiophiles groaning now). But at least I can get similar sound quality.
Audio Extraction and .mp3 Files From Video
Our podcast workflow includes several conversion tasks
So now that we have the video portion of our podcast recorded, it's time to extract the audio from the video and to export and upload it to our podcasts' .mp3 file
A swiss company called Auphonic has developed a brilliant set of audio automation tools every podcaster should check out. We use Auphonic desktop app to automate the following steps:
Establish a noise profile
Applying Noise reduction from that noise profile
Speech Volume Leveling
Industry standard loudness standards for broadcast ready files at -16LUF
Export to .mp3 formatted output file
This automation saves us at least 20 minutes per episode.
Audio Export to Libsyn
So now we finally have the .mp3 file to upload and release on our podcast hosting software Libsyn. First we apply the episodes title, descriptions and other podcast metadata to the .mp3 file. Then we upload to Libsyn and schedule the episode to go live at the desired time.
Video Export to YouTube
Remember we are using Screenflow to record our video content. It has the built in ability to export each video to our Youtube channel, including custom thumbnails, tags, descriptions and links. So the video portion of our podcast was already uploaded and scheduled on YouTube in a previous step.
Multi Channel Show Notes Syndication
Sign Up For Free, Disclosure: The above affiliate link, if you choose to upgrade the account later
I will keep this short, since syndication and distribution of show notes was the topic of an entire episode, episode 8. Suffice it to say this:
A critical step in our podcast workflow is to distribute and syndicate our show notes to as many platforms as possible.
After all, our podcast's audio files are being syndicated to be available in iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and Google Play.
Content syndication with StoryChief is to show notes what RSS feeds are to your podcast audio.
Finalize Episode Show Notes on StoryChief
Because we prepare our episode scripts in StoryChief, by the time we record our episode the show notes are 90% written already.
Embed YouTube Video Player
So all that's left is to embed the episode video into StoryChief.
Embed Libsyn Audio Player
We love StoryChief as a content syndication in part because it is podcast ready. We easily embed the Libsyn player widget into our episode to allow site visitors to choose their modality: Read, Listen or Watch.
Embed Lead Generation Widgets
Another reason we love StoryChief is that it allows for embedding various lead generation and email capture widgets. So if our episode has a "Lead Magnet" like a bonus guide, mind-map or check-list, we embedding it right in the StoryChief show notes.
Publish to 16+ Channels
At the end of the day, our show notes are scheduled to go live and to trickle out to an ever growing list of platforms, communities and blogs and "Ambassador Networks"
1/2 Year Evergreen Social Boost Campaign
Saving time in our podcast workflow involves creating evergreen social campaigns
In an upcoming episode I am planning to go into detail about how we create a 1/2 year long automated campaign to promote each episode on social media. Over the years we have tried and used a ton of different platforms for this.
The one I think is most innovative is called CoSchedule. It allows us to design a social campaign on autopilot.
I am lazy, but engagement cannot be automated
I answer every RT, question or DM related to our podcast episodes. But that does not mean I want to spend a lot of time on social media crafting individual tweets and social shares for our episodes.
CoSchedule has a clever automation concept called "social helpers". These are content snippets that help to produce a varied social feed, with different hashtags, images, messages. It shares our episode show notes content, but does not repeat the same tweet or image all the time.
Again, it's the sort of one time up-front effort that takes some time to set up initially, but then saves a ton of time for each episode. If you are interested in seeing this in more detail, let me know in the comments.
Conclusion
Again – this episode was just the process we follow because it is producing results for us. I do not recommend it to everyone, and the fact that we are producing video alongside the audio portion complicates things a bit.
If you are a new podcaster or a business considering podcasting as a content strategy, you may well think all of this is overkill.
But keep in mind that the lion share of the work goes into the initial planning, the setting up of templates and designing and implementing the various automation steps. And this is a one time only effort. And the routine production can be done by other people.
If you'd like to chat and explore possibilities for your own podcast workflow, feel free to book a time with me.
Podcast Marketing With Social Contests And Give-Aways
Promoting a newly launched podcast with a Facebook contest used to be a very popular podcast marketing tactic. The idea was to launch a contest featuring a relevant give-away and to boost it with paid Facebook ads. To enter the contest, contestants were asked to subscribe to the show, leave an iTunes review, and then to email the iTunes ID name used for the review to the podcast host as proof. The podcast host would then enter the applicant into the contest drawing.
In today's episode we examine:
The reasons why this is not as popular launch strategy anymore
But also why this podcast marketing strategy is still a good idea today
Prize selection tips and why they are key for this podcast marketing strategy
Contest Structure
We will cover some of the best paid and free contest platforms
Tips for setting up and running such contests
Need some help for your own contest launch?
iTunes Focused Launches Have Changed
Podcast marketing no longer focuses on iTunes alone
The reason this was a successful strategy a few years ago was that the "New and Noteworthy" algorithm within iTunes was driven by the number of reviews a podcast would receive in the initial weeks after launch. And contests were a great way to get lots of reviews in a short amount of time.
Since then, the algorithm to rise to the top of iTunes has changed. It is no longer driven by the number of reviews. Instead, at the time of this writing, the number of new subscribers have the most impact, followed by the number of episode downloads. Therefore the number of reviews no longer contribute to being at the top of the “New and Noteworthy” section.
As I have said elsewhere:
I feel that podcasters needlessly obsess about getting into the "New and Noteworthy" section.
The reality is that over the last two years iTunes has become a highly competitive space, given that major popular radio stations have shifted their energies from terrestrial and satellite radio to podcasts as a way to create a digital presence.
And there has been evidence that being featured in "New and Noteworthy" typically yields only a few hundred additional subscribers.
Podcast marketing through “Launch Contest” is less common now
The main reason is that N&N is no longer as influenced my the number of reviews a podcast gets. Besides no longer being as effective, setting up a launch contest usually takes a good deal of time to set up. You need landing pages, marketing automation capability and time. Or money to spend on contest platforms.
But if you have the passion, time and effort to spare, a launch contest will still give your podcast launch a great boost, for some of the below reasons:
But iTunes Reviews Are Still Important
Reviews are still important and should not be ignored. They lend credibility and social proof to a podcast. Seeing that dozens of people are leaving great reviews for a podcast you might enjoy might tip the scale for you to take action and subscribe. On the other hand, seeing a podcast on iTunes with no reviews at all also tells you something.
Why a Launch Contest is Still A Good Idea
Getting reviews and testimonials is as hard as it ever was. We've seen this play out countless times. People are happy to offer leaving a review, but iTunes doesn't make this process very straight-forward. So when it comes down to it, even your friends and relatives somehow don't get around to it without repeat reminders.
Contest Prize Selection
Prize selection matters in podcast marketing with contests
Adding the right prizes and incentives is key. The selected giveaways don’t have to be expensive. It is more important that they be relevant, and related to the podcast topic or context.
So for example, for a customer experience podcast you might have a contest to win free tickets to the biggest yearly Customer Experience conference. That beats offering an iPad as a prize, simply because your subscriber and contest participants are much more likely to actually care about your podcast and topic, instead of just trying to win an iPad.
Another example might be a podcast about podcasting, podcast growth and promotions such as my own show. If I were to run a contest for the Podcast Growth Show, I would choose to give away a premium microphone or podcasting gear package as the grand prize.
Why Choose Multiple Prizes?
But one prize is not enough. By giving away multiple prizes, you increase the desirability and success of your contest simply because there are better odds and many more ways to win.
The most successful contests offer a single grand prize, and then a number of secondary prizes in decreasing value.
In fact, you should give away a free resource for everyone entering your contest. This could be a simple lead magnet PDF, as long as it is related to your podcast's topic and focus.
Podcast Marketing Contest Example Prizes
For the Podcast Growth Show, here is how I would plan to structure my own podcast contest. My goal would be to attract new podcasters. So my prize selection would focus on thinking about what would be relevant for new podcasters.
Pretty much every podcaster I know tried to save money during their initial studio setup. And the thing they most likely tried to save money on is their microphone boom arm. A cheap version of this can be highly frustrating to use, and a more professional model with greater reach and a more solid feel is a pleasure to use. Believe me, podcasters will appreciate the difference.
2nd Prize: A Great Dynamic Podcast XLR and USB Microphone – The Audio Technica AT2005 (a $79 value)
3rd Prize: 15 copies of our "Podcast Marketing & SEO Online Course" – (a $97 value)
9th-25 Prize: Our Podcast Marketing Bible Ebook (a $9.97 value)
Prize for all contest entrants: "How To Market Your Podcast" ebook and access to our online "Podcasting Resources Guide"
Contest Structure
There are many facets to consider when launching a podcast promotion contest
As I previously mentioned, the launch contests of yesteryear focused on getting iTunes reviews. But that should no longer be the only focus now. For me, it is much more important to attract the right listeners to join my email list and to subscribe to my podcast through email notifications.
These are multiple actions to take, and people might think this is a lot to ask just to enter a contest. And that is right, except:
Each action completed creates additional chances to win the prize
So the logic is this: You must subscribe to my email list, that part is required because otherwise I cannot communicate with you and send you the prize. But if you complete the other additional steps, each completed tasks enters you in the contest additional times, greatly increasing your chances of winning one or more prizes.
And, each action is weighed differently: For example, subscribing to my Youtube channel is worth an additional 5 entries, but leaving an iTunes review is worth 25 additional entries.
The genius of this approach for podcast reviews is that it makes it a no-brainer for a contest entrant to do the hardest thing: Leave you an iTunes review.
Later in the podcast I explore the differences between a DIY approach versus utilizing one of the contest platforms out there. This approach of multiple contest entries for multiple actions is only possible by using proper contest management platforms like.
An example of multiple actions to increase your chances
In our video we feature a great example of this in a contest currently underway. The company is Syrp, and they are giving away some photo gear. Click below to start the video at 10:44 seconds:
At 10:44 – an example of multiple ways to enter a contest
Is it necessary to validate iTunes Reviews?
Unfortunately I don't know of any platform that integrates with iTunes directly to validate if someone actually left an iTunes review. But in my mind, most people will do so if asked, because they are afraid of missing out and being found out. What if you were to ask them for the iTunes name they left a review under before sending them their prize?
Note that with the Gleam.io platform, there are several easy ways to enter a contest by answering a question or by leaving a comment – and here you can simply ask the user to enter the iTunes name under which the review was left.
Creating Contest Landing Pages
If you want to create a contest, you will want to set up a contest landing page. A contest landing page is a distraction free website or page where you can send ad traffic to, and where people can learn about and sign up for your contest.
You can build such pages manually, but you may not need to when using the contest platforms we will discuss a bit later. They handle the creation of and simplify the design of landing pages, and some even allow you to create multiple versions of these pages and conduct A/B tests to see which ones perform best.
Q: Do you need to A/B test pages? A: It depends. There are people out there that have tested their contest pages. Here are some links to these tests and their outcomes. Why not learn from their tests and model your landing page on their winners? This will save you time and effort.
Generally speaking, it seems that contest landing pages with video perform better.
The Facebook Ad Campaign
Once you have a landing page, it's time to set up a Facebook campaign to boost your contest landing page. Facebook marketing is too big a topic to tackle in this episode, but here are a few tips to make this work:
There are many easy ways in which you can create a Facebook ad. You shoot a quick video or FB live post, create one or more images about your contest, and come up with some fun language to use for a Facebook post.
We use the AIDA method when creating Facebook ads and landing pages for contests:
A =Attention – Ask a provocative question or make a statement that earns the attention of your audience
I=Interest – Expand on attention grabbing line with something that will peak their interest and explain.
D=Desire – What's in it for them to enter your contest. Duh, that's easy, right?
A=Action – This is the call to action, what you want them to do
Finding The Right Audience
The key in making Facebook ads effective and affordable is to show your contest ads to only your very best, most relevant audience. In Facebook parlance this is called "audience targeting". If you have never done Facebook ads before, this can be a bit tricky. Basically you are trying to limit the number of people who see your ads to only those interested in your primary topic.
Targeting Podcast Listeners
But that is not all: You also want to make sure the audience your Facebook ads are shown to are likely podcast listeners, and that part is much harder.
The 5 Step Process to Advertise To Podcast Listeners On Facebook
We have a 5 step process to target likely podcast listeners on Facebook. It walks you through our method on Facebook Ads manager, and you will learn how to target people generally interested in your podcast's topic, but who also are likely podcast listeners.
Free vs Paid Contest Platforms
Are paid contest marketing platforms worth it?
Should you use a paid contest platform like the ones we outlined above? Or is there a way to build this all for free?
Advantages of Paid Contest Platforms
Paid contest platforms are the way to go. For a relatively low monthly fee they offer a range of distinct advantages over a DIY approach.
They integrate with social networks. This means they validate that someone actually shared a post, liked your Facebook Page or Youtube channel. All of this before they are entered in the contest.
Most paid platforms offer pre-built contest landing pages for you. You get up and running much more quickly, and don't have to invest in fancy landing page builders.
They send out custom email reminders. This saves you from having to create your own email funnels, saving a lot of time.
Some have A/B testing built in. This means you get to test out multiple landing pages to see which perform better.
Here are some of my favorite contest platforms to consider:
Rafflecopter
Rafflecopter – One of the most affordable platforms out there. Rafflecopter offers a free plan, trials for the more advanced plans starting at $13 a month at the time of this writing. While an easy platform to start with, it is basic.
It lacks some of the more innovative features features found on higher priced platforms.
Gleam.io
Gleam.io – I really like Gleam.io. It is a smart and flexible contest platform. It rewards people to take multiple actions to promote you while entering your contest. This increases the viral potential of your podcast marketing or launch contest. After having reviewed about 10 different contest management platforms, Gleam has emerged as my favorite. It is, however, not the least expensive, the Pro plan being $45 a month.
Upviral
Upviral – a good alternative to Gleam if the expense of that platform is a hurdle. By automatically emailing reminders, setting goals and providing incentives/rewards, your contest entrants stay on track and deliver. They get rewarded, you get new subscribers and everyone’s happy! Upviral has an example case study on their site of their own podcast launch contest which resulted in 7000 contest site visitors, 450 leads and 50+ reviews on iTunes.
Contest Domination
Contest Domination – a flexible platform that offers 7 day trial and a per contest payment option for $100 for a month. The benefit of their approach is that you get access to all features, where some of the other popular platform restrict their features for the basic plans.
To summarize these contest platforms, I feel that Gleam is the most innovative platform to try, and you can expect to spend perhaps $90 for a pro plan for a 2 months campaign. The major spend for podcast launch campaigns comes from Facebook ads anyhow, I would expect to spend between $20-$50 a day for the duration of the campaign. Be sure to check out Episode 3 of our podcast on Paid Podcast Advertising – A Look Behind The Scenes [S1E03]
Free Contest Platform Options
If you want to run your podcast launch contest with absolutely no additional expense, here are some ways to do it as well as some things to keep in mind:
To save money on prizes, you can give away content and prizes that don't cost you anything, like courseware, or eBooks or other premium content you have previously developed
You can use your own email list software like Mailchimp or Constant contact or even free Gmail automation tools like YAMM (we covered YAMM for Podcast Guesting Outreach in episode XX of our podcast)
You will need to develop your own landing pages on your podcast or blogging site.
Rely on your social network for free promotion and awareness of your contest, with a big enough following you can save on promoting your contest with paid ads
You can use tools like GoViral – a free platform from Growth Tools which ensures and validates social sharing. It is great to use as an add-on for thank you pages.
Try out GiveawayTools – a new contest design platform that's currently still in beta, but is free and integrates with several social platforms.
So it can theoretically be done for free, but it will require a large investment of time on your part.
My own view is that a zero cost and DIY approach is not likely to succeed
And the question you should ask yourself is about the relationship between time spent and likely effectiveness of the contest campaign you are setting up.
Need a guide to help with your own contest launch?
I've just published a resource for folks wanting to set up their own contest. This is published in "Open PDF" format, meaning the entire guide is provided on-line with no sign-up required, but you can download it guide as an option if you want.
Podcast Marketing with Launch Contests
I also offer some ways to collaborate around setting up your own launch contest, from low cost "DIY" sanity checks all the way to "Done for you" contest setup and management.
Conclusion
Apart from getting iTunes reviews, a podcast marketing contest with the right prizes and incentives can quickly add a ton of visibility and email subscribers to your podcast.
While it may not reliably get you into the "New and Noteworthy" section of the iTunes podcast directory any more, having some great reviews still lends social proof and credibility to your podcast. And email subscribers to your show are a permanent asset.
If you decide to run a podcast marketing contest, I recommend using a paid contest platform, as this will save you a ton of time and effort.
https://polymash.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/006-Podcast-Launch-Contests_10602ba21dc40356c532a06ae5c18c5d_2000.jpg10801920Juergen Berkesselhttps://polymash.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Polymash-Logo-2019-680px-Web2.pngJuergen Berkessel2018-11-20 09:02:052021-04-26 18:05:50Podcast Marketing With Social Contests
Today's episode is a little different. We are going to talk about the importance of building a great podcast home page, and the role it plays in promoting your podcast.
Podcast Homepage Design Patterns
Let me apologize in advance: Talking about podcast homepage design patterns is a mostly visual exercise. It you are listening and not able to see the video and the show notes, I'll try my best to verbally explain the page layout elements as we go through.
But the episode features a YouTube video where you can see the visual bits explained in detail, and I'd encourage you to watch it above.
What we are talking about is a highly converting podcast homepage design pattern called “The Upside Down Podcast Home Page” – optimized to create a guided experience for your site visitors, and to encourage them to subscribe to your podcast via email. The video covers 2 versions of this – a more complete version for established podcasts with multiple seasons or topics, and a simple version for new podcast sites with a narrow niche and a focused audience.
But first I want to outline the reasons behind focusing on email list building instead of on iTunes rank and "New and Noteworthy" presence. I get asked about this a lot, especially by "podcasting purists" and "old school" podcasters who are experienced and may already have a solid audience and following. For them, understandably, the primary goal is to serve listeners on iTunes.
Why Podcast Homepage Design Should Focus On Email List Building instead of iTunes Subscribers
The holy grail of podcasting is to get iTunes Subscribers, right? And to get into the "New and Noteworthy" charts, right? And so podcast homepage design should focus on getting visitors to your site to subscribe on iTunes, right?
Well, not from my point of view. For a number of reasons: The iTunes podcast ranking algorithm as well as the "New and Noteworthy" charts are seriously broken at the time of this writing. The top 200 podcasts are being gamed and exploited, and are full of entries who are paying thousands of dollars to overseas click farms for instant presence in the top charts. This is not just my opinion, but has been extensively covered in the podcast news beats. If you want to see a comprehensive video explaining how this is the case, and what the impact on the iTunes ecosystem is, just watch this video by Lime Link.
So why design your podcast website to get people to subscribe on iTunes, when you could be getting people to subscribe to your podcast via email notifications?
I would gladly trade 1,000 iTunes subscribers for 100 podcast email notification subscribers.
Email list building sounds like such a trite concept, but even today it is still one of the most valuable assets your business can build. The fact is that you can provide your audience with more valuable context, and you get to better position your episodes through the email notifications you send. Should you still encourage your listeners to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher? Of course, but it is better to do so after they have opted in via email.
The Inbound Philosophy of the "Upside Down Podcast Homepage" Design Pattern
"Conversion Optimization" is such a crass term. Sounds vaguely exploitative, like you are somehow tricking or taking advantage of your audience.
Let me try and debunk that.
The "Upside Down Podcast Homepage" design pattern is intended to better serve your audience.
It is meant to create a better experience for them. It is based on empathy with your audience. Your podcast homepage design should be intended to help your audience discover your best and most relevant content. Content that resonates the most with their own situation and listening goals, and is also what you are most proud of.
Creating a Guided Experience
And so, the intention is to create a guided experience for your visitors. This means hiding distractions, and reducing some of the options that some visitors may be accustomed to. For example, the presence of a comprehensive menu with lots of choices at the top of the page. Or buttons to jump off to iTunes and Stitcher where they can simply subscribe. From a UX perspective, you may think these make it easier for your visitors, when in fact they can create cognitive friction, overwhelm, and too many choices.
The idea is not to make it "harder" for your visitors to find these links, but to simply guide them on a journey to better understanding your topic, how your podcast addresses their own needs, and how best to stay connected with your content.
None of this can happen if you "make it easy" for your site visitors by placing a "Subscribe on iTunes" button on the top of your site. That just sends them straight to the iTunes store, where they will see a homogenized list of episodes with no context, no background story, no differentiation between one episode and the next.
The subscribe on iTunes links are still there, of course, but placed near the bottom of the page. This means as your visitors scroll through your podcast website, you have the chance to encourage them to discover your content and subscribe to your show via email.
And this is where "Pilot Stories" come in. But first, let's walk through the upside down podcast home page design one section at a time:
Again, apologies for the visual nature of this, but what follows will talk through a number of website design elements called "page sections". These are the building blocks of modern web design. They can be thought of as horizontal bands of grouped content. Most of us are familiar with websites that have a "Header" or "Above the Fold" or "Hero" page section. Well, there are other less prominent sections as well, and we'll talk through each one involved in the "Upside Down Podcast Homepage" pattern.
The "Above The Fold" Section
Above the fold is defined as
positioned in the upper half of a web page and visible without scrolling down the page.
The above the fold section is the first thing that creates an impression when we visit a site. It is often where we find a "Header" or "Hero Image". The top of the page should be dedicated to one thing: getting people to sign up to your podcast via email.
The Upside Down Podcast Homepage Design Pattern – Above The Fold
Look Ma, No Menu: This is what makes it an “upside down” page. Menu links are moved to the footer instead. If you must have menu items, limit them to 3-5.
Showing Face: Showing a face above the fold increases conversions, trust, engagement
Call To Action: Deliver a solid call to action above the fold, but make sure this is NOT an iTunes button.
Social Proof Section
The social proof band establishes you're not a weirdo, and if possible outlines your best reviews, or that your podcast was in the top 100, or that you've been featured elsewhere, including on TV, or even if you've appeared on other podcast shows. It is often implemented as a set of light grey logos where you might have been featured, or can include testimonials from your guests. The design reason for "greyed out" logos are that they are a more humble brag, and less likely to visually compete with the design of your site.
The Upside Down Podcast Homepage Design Pattern – Social Proof Section
In our video, notice the design treatment for this section.
The Roadmap Section
The roadmap section provides an multiple choice on-ramp to let your site visitors self-select their journey through your content. It is most often designed as a section with a set of columns or content boxes with an icon, a headline, short description and a button to find out more.
It provides an "at a glance" overview of your podcast's content, while at the same time encouraging your visitors to select what they are most interested in. Clicking on your road map section represents a sort of "micro-commitment" to further engage with your content.
The Upside Down Podcast Homepage Design Pattern – Roadmap Section
A good example of a roadmap would be for guiding your site visitors through multiple seasons of your podcast. Each season would have a title, a description, and a button to find out more about it. A click on each button triggers a smooth scroll down the page to a pilot story section, which further explains the season and offers some of its best content. This sort of self selective exploration of your content allows your visitors to find what they want as well as stay on your site.
SEO Tip: For extra credit, implement a WordPress plugin called "Reduce Bounce Rate", which communicates with Google Analytics and records scroll movements. In our tests we have observed improvement in bounce rate from the 80s to the 30s.
The Role of Pilot Stories in Podcast Homepage Design
As covered in our video, there are multiple ways in which pilot stories function within your podcast homepage design to highlight your very best best content.
The Upside Down Podcast Homepage Design Pattern – Pilot Story Section
If you have a single and focused niche you may only need a single pilot story. But if your podcast homepage design is intended to offer multiple categories of content, or multiple seasons, then you can add "Pilot Story" sections for each.
For listeners unable to see the illustrations in our show notes, the pilot story section features not only the headline and compelling description, but also a mini grid of your best episodes on the related topic. Our own design approach is to split this page section vertically, with the pilot story on one side, and a mini episode grid on the other side.
This allows you to highlight your best content, instead of hiding it deep inside your site. Use Google analytics to identify the best and most popular episodes from the past, and then feature them here.
Pilot Story Section For Seasons
For people with seasonal shows, these sections can tell the story of each season.
Having a section for each season provides you with a chance to outline the value proposition of listening to each season.
It also lets you highlight the best and most popular episodes, and allows people to jump to the show notes pages for each episode that resonates with them.
Pilot Story Section For Topic Categories
Another way to position the pilot story sections is to categorize your content. Does your podcast offer advice, or tips? If so, chances are that your episodes fall into multiple categories of advice and tips.
You can develop a "Pilot Story" for each category, and highlight the best episodes for each.
Your Pilot Story's Call To Action
One thing all pilot stories have in common is that they offer you the chance to highlight your best content. And it also provides you with the opportunity to offer your audience a call to action. What is it you want them to do?
Don't miss any new episodes…
The simplest way to implement this is to simply offer a way to subscribe to email notifications as a way to stay connected with your show.
A more advanced call to action provides additional incentives to your audience.
For an example of this, see season 2 of the Positivity Strategist Podcast.
Podcast Website Design Example of a Season And Call To Action
This podcast season talks about "Seven new literacies for living and leading in our times", and the gift being offered for people to subscribe to the show is a "7 Literacies Guide" to go along with listening to the season.
Associating your podcast homepage with strong calls to action also allows for utilizing paid ads and post boosts on Facebook and other platforms. And, make sure your podcast episode files use Facebook correctly and link to your show notes pages rather than to iTunes.
Podcast Subscription Links Section
Finally, here is the section about how to subscribe on iTunes or other podcast directories. This appears right at the top of the podcast home page in too many podcast homepage designs.
The reason for placing this further down is this: By the time that people scroll to this section, your pilot stories have had ample time to communicate the benefits of signing up via email.
The Upside Down Podcast Homepage Design Pattern – iTunes Links Section
Minor tip: If you use the icons and graphics provided by each podcast platform, consider adding text explanations under each graphic. Your readers might not recognize each graphic.
The Episode Grid Section
The Upside Down Podcast Homepage Design Pattern – Episode Grid
Like the iTunes links, your complete episode grid is purposefully moved towards the bottom of the page layout, so people are likely more likely to scroll and discover the highlighted episodes in the “Pilot Story” sections above.
The Navigation Footer
This is what makes this home page “upside-down.”
The Upside Down Podcast Homepage Design Pattern – Episode Grid
Most websites have their navigation at the very top of the page, but moving it to the bottom of the page, we have increased focus and conversions.
Conclusion and Examples
We use this design pattern on a number of pages ourselves. And this design pattern is obviously not limited to podcasting websites and homepages. Here are some examples we built for a clients in different industries:
If you are interested in a downloadable PDF version of this design pattern as featured and covered in the video with all the annotations and explanations, please click here to sign up for our podcasting resources guide, which features a PDF version of the entire design pattern with lots of implementation notes.
WordPress Ready Made Podcast Home Page Download
Also, I am creating a "Done For You" version of this design pattern, ready to install on any WordPress site, let me know if that is something you would want in the comments.
https://polymash.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/005-Podcast-Homepage-Design_8c9b8208b84be88fe35e30c7a50ad9c2_2000.jpg10801920Juergen Berkesselhttps://polymash.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Polymash-Logo-2019-680px-Web2.pngJuergen Berkessel2018-11-13 08:32:042022-02-10 13:00:25Podcast Homepage Design Patterns For Conversion And List Building
This video walk through outlines a highly converting podcast website design pattern called “The Upside Down Podcast Home Page” – optimized to create a guided experience for your site visitors, and to encourage them to subscribe to your podcast via email. The video covers 2 versions of this – a more complete version for established podcasts with multiple seasons or topics, and a simple version for new podcast sites with a narrow niche and focused audience.
A video walk-through tour of the "Upside Down Podcast Home Page" design pattern
In this post I want to outline the reasons behind focusing on email list building instead of obsessing about iTunes rank and "New and Noteworthy".
Why Podcast Website Design Should Focus On Email List Building instead of iTunes Subscribers
The holy grail of podcasting is to get iTunes Subscribers, right? And to get into the "New and Noteworthy" charts, right? And so podcast website design should focus on getting visitors to your site to subscribe on iTunes, right?
Wrong, in my opinion. The iTunes podcast ranking algorithm as well as the "New and Noteworthy" charts are seriously broken at the time of this writing. The top 200 podcasts are being gamed and exploited, and are full of entries who are paying thousands of dollars to overseas click farms for instant presence in the top charts. This is not just my opinion, but has been extensively covered in the podcast news beats. If you want to see a comprehensive video explaining how this is the case, and what the impact on the iTunes ecosystem is, just watch this video by Lime Link.
So why design your podcast website to get people to subscribe on iTunes, when you could be getting people to subscribe to your podcast via email notifications?
I would gladly trade 1,000 iTunes subscribers for 100 podcast email notification subscribers.
Email list building sounds like such a trite concept, but even today it is still one of the most valuable assets your business can build. The fact is that you can provide your audience with more valuable context, and you get to better position your episodes through the email notifications you send. Should you still encourage your listeners to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher? Of course, but it is better to do so after they have opted in via email.
The Inbound Philosophy of the "Upside Down Podcast Home Page" Design Pattern
"Conversion Optimization" is such a crass term. Sounds vaguely exploitative, like you are somehow tricking or taking advantage of your audience.
Let me try and debunk that.
The "Upside Down Podcast Homepage" design pattern is intended to better serve your audience.
It is meant to create a better experience for them. It is based on empathy with your audience. Your podcast website design should be intended for your audience to discover your best and most relevant content. Content that resonates the most with their own situation and listening goals, and also is what you are most proud of.
Creating a Guided Experience
And so, the intention is to create a guided experience for your visitors. This means hiding distractions, and reducing some of the options that some visitors may be accustomed to. For example, the presence of a comprehensive menu with lots of choices at the top of the page. Or buttons to jump off to iTunes and Stitcher where they can simply subscribe. From a UX perspective, you may think these make it easier for your visitors, when in fact they can create cognitive friction, overwhelm, and too many choices.
The idea is not to make it "harder" for your visitors to find these links, but to simply guide them on a journey to better understanding your topic, how your podcast addresses their own needs, and how best to stay connected with your content.
None of this can happen if you "make it easy" for your site visitors by placing a "Subscribe on iTunes" button on the top of your site. That just sends them straight to the iTunes store, where they will see a homogenized list of episodes with no context, no background story, no differentiation between one episode and the next.
The subscribe on iTunes links are still there, of course, but placed near the bottom of the page. This means as your visitors scroll through your podcast website, you have the chance to encourage them to discover your content and subscribe to your show via email.
And this is where "Pilot Stories" come in. But first, let's walk through the upside down podcast website design one section at a time:
Above The Fold
The top of the page is dedicated to one thing: getting people to sign up to your podcast via email.
The Upside Down Podcast Website Design Pattern – Above The Fold
Look Ma, No Menu: This is what makes it an “upside down” page. Menu links are moved to the footer instead. If you must have menu items, limit them to 3-5.
Showing Face: Showing a face above the fold increases conversions, trust, engagement
Call To Action: Deliver a solid call to action above the fold, but make sure this is NOT an iTunes button.
Social Proof
The social proof band establishes you're not a weirdo, and if possible outlines your best reviews, or that your podcast was in the top 100, or that you've been featured elsewhere, including on TV, or even if you've appeared on other podcast shows.
The Upside Down Podcast Website Design Pattern – Social Proof Section
In our video, notice the design treatment for this section.
Roadmap
The roadmap section provides an on-ramp to let your site visitors self-select their journey through your content.
The Upside Down Podcast Website Design Pattern – Roadmap Section
This could be navigating through multiple seasons or categories. Each segment or column on the road map smooth scrolls to a pilot story section further down the page. This allows your visitors to stay on your site.
SEO Tip: For extra credit, implement a WordPress plugin called "Reduce Bounce Rate", which communicates with Google Analytics and records scroll movements. In our tests we have observed improvement in bounce rate from the 80s to the 30s.
The Role of Pilot Stories in Podcast Website Design
As covered in our video, there are multiple ways in which pilot stories function within your podcast website design to highlight your very best best content.
The Upside Down Podcast Website Design Pattern – Pilot Story Section
If you have a single and focused niche you may only need a single pilot story. But if your podcast website design is intended to offer multiple categories of content, or multiple seasons, then you can add "Pilot Story" sections for each.
Pilot Story Section For Seasons
For people with seasonal shows, these sections can tell the story of each season.
Having a section for each season provides you with a chance to outline the value proposition of listening to each season.
It also lets you highlight the best and most popular episodes, and allows people to jump to the show notes pages for each episode that resonates with them.
Pilot Story Section For Topic Categories
Another way to position the pilot story sections is to categorize your content. Does your podcast offer advice, or tips? If so, chances are that your episodes fall into multiple categories of advice and tips. You can develop a "Pilot Story" for each category, and highlight the best episodes for each.
Your Pilot Story's Call To Action
One thing all pilot stories have in common is that they offer you the chance to highlight your best content. And it also provides you with the opportunity to offer your audience a call to action. What is it you want them to do?
Don't miss any new episodes…
The simplest way to implement this is to simply offer a way to subscribe to email notifications as a way to stay connected with your show.
A more advanced call to action provides additional incentives to your audience.
For an example of this, see season 2 of the Positivity Strategist Podcast.
Podcast Website Design Example of a Season And Call To Action
This podcast season talks about "Seven new literacies for living and leading in our times", and the gift being offered for people to subscribe to the show is a "7 Literacies Guide" to go along with listening to the season.
Associating your podcast homepage with strong calls to action also allows for utilizing paid ads and post boosts on Facebook and other platforms. And, make sure your podcast episode files use Facebook correctly and link to your show notes pages rather than to iTunes.
Podcast Subscription Links Section
Finally, here is the section that unfortunately appears right at the top of the podcast home page in too many podcast website designs. By the time that people scroll to this section, your pilot stories have had ample time to communicate the benefits of signing up via email as well.
The Upside Down Podcast Website Design Pattern – iTunes Links Section
If you use the icons and graphics provided by each platform, consider adding text explanations under each graphic. Your readers might not recognize each graphic.
The Episode Grid
The Upside Down Podcast Website Design Pattern – Episode Grid
Like the iTunes links, your complete episode grid is purposefully moved towards the bottom of the page layout, so people are likely more likely to scroll and discover the highlighted episodes in the “Pilot Story” sections above.
The Navigation Footer
This is what makes this home page “upside-down.”
The Upside Down Podcast Website Design Pattern – Episode Grid
Most websites have their navigation at the very top of the page, but moving it to the bottom of the page, we have increased focus and conversions.
Conclusion and Examples
We use this design pattern on a number of pages ourselves. And this design pattern is obviously not limited to podcasting websites and homepages. Here are some examples we built for a clients in different industries:
Also, if you are interested in a downloadable PDF version of this design pattern as featured and covered in the video with all the annotations and explanations, please sign up for our Podcasting Resources Guide above.
WordPress Ready Made Podcast Home Page Download
And I am creating a "Done For You" version of this design pattern using the Thrive Architect content builder, which means this will be a "ready to install" customizable page template on any WordPress site, let me know if that is something you would want in the comments.
https://polymash.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/99a955bbcb18edbaebf518e0dd802382_2000.png6931385Juergen Berkesselhttps://polymash.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Polymash-Logo-2019-680px-Web2.pngJuergen Berkessel2018-09-08 14:17:172022-02-10 13:00:23Podcast Website Design Patterns For Conversion And List Building
