Are you looking for some fresh ideas to promote a podcast? Podcasting has taken over audio by giving us endless topics for storytelling. However, this rapid launch has turned the place into a battleground where many creators duke it out for audience attention and a follow. Because of this, promotions have become a go-to solution for savvy podcasters who want to rise above the noise, and podcast transcription companies have also become quite useful in this arena—more on this later.
Coming up with a promotional plan that’s as unique as the show and hits all the right notes with potential listeners—without proper guidance—isn’t a walk in the park. Now, what are the best ways to do it? How can you promote a podcast from zero to hero? How do transcription services fuel a podcast’s growth?
In this article, you’ll learn:
- Some podcast genres are ultra-competitive. True crime, educational, and comedy shows need extra promotional oomph to cut through the noise.
- Social media is your best friend. Each platform has its strengths – use Instagram for visuals, TikTok for quick clips, and Twitter to spark conversations about your topics.
- Transcribe your episodes. It boosts your SEO, makes your content more accessible, and gives you text you can repurpose for blog posts, social media, and more.
Importance of Exceptional Podcast Promotion
Podcasts are everywhere these days, but the ones that really take off? They have outstanding promotions behind them. Look at “Serial” – it wasn’t just the gripping story that got over 740 million downloads. Stellar marketing is the key to making it a household name.
And let’s talk about Joe Rogan. Love him or hate him, we can’t deny his show’s insane popularity. That $250 million Spotify deal didn’t happen by accident – the result of consistent production and promotion turned his podcast into a cultural juggernaut.
Good promotion isn’t just about big numbers, though. It’s what helps podcasters find their people and build a real community. For smaller shows, solid marketing can be the difference between fizzling out and developing a die-hard fan base.
Great content is, of course, at the top of the priority list; however, it’s the marketing approach that turns a good podcast into a can’t-miss-whatever-happens sensation.
Types of Podcasts Where Promotion is Critical
Hundreds of different podcast niches are out there, and some have become too crowded. For that matter, below are the podcast niches where you badly need stellar marketing approaches.
| Podcasts | Why Promotion is Critical |
|---|---|
| True Crime | Crowded genre; needs to stand out from numerous competitors |
| Educational | Reaching target learners; establishing credibility |
| Comedy | Building a loyal fanbase; word-of-mouth marketing is essential |
| Business | Attracting high-profile guests; positioning as an industry authority |
| News/Current Events | Staying relevant; competing with traditional media outlets |
| Fiction/Storytelling | Creating buzz for new seasons; retaining listeners between episodes |
| Health/Wellness | Establishing trust; differentiating from pseudoscience content |
| Technology | Keeping up with rapid industry changes, attracting a tech-savvy audience |
| Sports | Competing with live broadcasts; building engagement during off-seasons |
Ways To Promote Your Podcast
There are over 4 million podcasts worldwide as of September 2024. Chances are, a chunk of this number is probably your competitors in a certain niche.
Now, what can you do to separate yourself from the flock? Simple: focus on promotion.
Leverage Different Social Media Platforms
Of course, social media should be the first on our list. It’s arguably the best platform to promote podcasts and even other types of businesses – except the shady ones. Each platform offers a different way to engage with audiences or attract new listeners.
For instance, Instagram’s visual-centered nature makes it perfect for sharing episode artwork or behind-the-scenes photos. TikTok’s short-form videos, on the other hand, are ideal for creating teasers or funny clips from your podcast.
As for Twitter, you can start conversations around your podcast topics and engage with listeners in real time. On the more professional side, LinkedIn is great for connecting with industry experts – You might invite business professionals (i.e. your LinkedIn connections with big audiences) as guests to your podcast episodes.
Collaborate With Other Podcasters
Another effective way to promote a podcast is by collaborating with a fellow podcaster in your niche or related fields. This helps you tap into each other’s listener bases—a win-win situation.
Collaboration can involve guest appearances on each other’s shows, creating special crossover episodes, or even co-hosting a limited series.
For example, if you have a marketing podcast, you might collaborate with a social media expert for a series on digital promotion strategies. These collabs provide fresh content for your listeners and expose your podcast to a new audience.
Just be sure to choose collaborators whose content aligns with your podcast’s values and, in rare instances, subscriber count – you can’t expect someone with 1M subs to willingly collaborate with a 5K…unless they are paid.
Engage With Your Audience
A surefire way to build a strong connection with your listeners is to engage with them, and it’s also one of the main ingredients of a successful podcast.
You can do this by responding to comments and messages across all platforms. Host regular Q&A sessions where listeners can ask questions or suggest topics for future episodes. You could also dedicate a session to answering listener questions or, better yet, featuring listener stories related to your podcast theme—at least once a month or a week.
Pro tip: Create a Facebook group or Discord server where your audience can interact with each other online. Then, get a moderator or virtual assistant to manage these groups. Doing so will allow you to create a hyper-engaged audience who will be keener to listen to your podcasts.
Utilize Email Marketing and Newsletter
Email remains one of the most effective ways to promote a podcast directly to your audience. Build your email list from day one through giveaways like exclusive content or early access to episodes in exchange for subscriptions.
Then, send a weekly newsletter featuring your latest episode, behind-the-scenes tidbits, teaser content for upcoming episodes, etc. You can also use email to conduct surveys or announce special events.
While you’re at it, be sure to personalize your emails as much as possible – listeners appreciate feeling like they’re getting a message from a friend rather than a generic marketing blast.
Create Video Content
Nothing beats videos in our current media space. Although podcasts are primarily audio, creating supplementary video content can significantly expand your reach – look at The Joe Rogan Experience.
You can record video versions of your podcast for YouTube, which has become a major platform for podcast discovery. On top of that, you can also create short but engaging clips from your episodes for platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, and, of course, YouTube Shorts. The bite-sized videos will serve as teasers to encourage viewers to watch the full episode.
You might also consider creating unique video content related to your podcast theme – for example, if you host a cooking podcast, you could film quick recipe videos. Creativity is key!
Participate In Podcast Directories and Award Submissions
Get your podcast listed in all major directories for discoverability. Make your show available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and other popular platforms; otherwise, you’ll miss a lot!
Each directory has its own submission process, so take the time to optimize your listings for each one. Apart from directories, submit your podcast for relevant awards. While winning isn’t guaranteed, even being nominated can bring attention to your show.
Look for industry-specific awards as well as general podcast awards. The submission process often requires you to choose your best episodes, which can be a valuable exercise in assessing your own content.
Run Targeted Ads
“But…But…Organic growth is the best, isn’t it?” Of course, organic growth is the way to go; however, strategic use of paid advertising can boost your podcast – remember the keyword strategy.
Specifically, podcast-specific ad platforms like Overcast or Pocket Casts allow you to reach listeners already interested in podcasts.
Also, social media ads on Facebook or Instagram can be highly targeted based on interests, demographics, behaviors, and other preferences – it’ll help you reach potential listeners likely to enjoy your content. And, of course, Google ads. They can see people actively searching for topics related to your podcast.
However, when running ads, focus on what makes your podcast unique and valuable to listeners. Start with a small budget to test different ad types and messages, then scale up what works best – so you won’t burn cash on something totally uncertain.
Optimize For Search Engines
Search engine optimization (SEO) is quite intimidating; however, you don’t need to be an expert to promote a podcast with this approach. You can start by choosing a catchy, keyword-rich name for your podcast.
For each episode, create titles that include relevant keywords while still sounding natural. You should also use descriptive tags in your podcast feed that accurately represent your content. Let’s say you have a podcast that focuses on teaching listeners to create a personal budget. The descriptive tag for this could be “budgeting basics”.
Don’t forget to optimize your podcast website as well — use keywords in your meta descriptions and headers. And, of course, consider creating blog posts that expand on topics from your episodes.
Bonus Tip: Transcribe Your Podcasts Episodes
For starters, search engines like Google or Bing can’t listen to audio or watch videos; however, they can read written content, and that’s how they can analyze your blog posts.
What does it mean? Publishing a full transcript of the episode gives search engines more text to analyze, aside from the title and description tags. It’s one of the best ways to promote a podcast, as it can increase your chances of appearing in relevant searches.
Also, this strategy expands your reach to those who prefer to read than listen, individuals with hearing impairments, and non-native speakers.
The best part about it is that you’re essentially creating content material that can be repurposed for social media posts, blog posts, captions, subtitles, or even compiled into an ebook.
How To Get Transcripts for Podcasts?
Let’s get straight to the point: there are three ways to transcribe podcast episodes – using AI, transcribing manually, and opting for a transcription service like Ditto.
Let’s consider the pros and cons of each.
Using AI-Powered Automatic Transcription
Automated transcription uses artificial intelligence to quickly convert audio into text–seemingly an easy shortcut for podcast episode needs. Services like Welder, Sonix, and Descript employ algorithms to churn out transcripts.
However, accuracy issues persist compared to human transcriptionists, who can better interpret context and nuance. AI transcriptions are only 86% accurate at best. On top of that, they only perform well with studio-quality audio when only one person is talking without any background noise.
If you’re happy publishing content that’s “kinda accurate,” AI might be your solution. If you need to bump up accuracy to >99%, you could always edit the AI’s output. However, that will take time – which makes you wonder, why did you use AI to begin with?
For flawless results, the human touch easily outpaces AI.
DIY Manual Transcription
Creating your podcast transcripts by hand is possible if you have the time to dedicate to it. The process starts – gather an audio player, a comfortable pair of headphones, a quality foot pedal, and a laptop or desktop computer to type into a document. Then begins the meticulous relistening, rewinding, and typing up of the podcast dialogue, bit by bit. Expect to spend at least 5-6 hours transcribing for every 1 hour of audio content.
Though manual transcription is time-consuming, the upside is full creative control, familiarity with your content, and highly accurate capture of every spoken word. As you manually carve out this transcript, you’ll likely improve your typing abilities, attention to detail, and transcription techniques with practice over time.
Bottom line: Manual transcription works well if you have lots of spare time or don’t have the budget to outsource the work to a professional service.
Outsource To Professional Transcriptionists
Paying for an experienced transcriptionist saves time while ensuring accurate, polished results. Ditto Transcripts guarantees 99%+ accuracy. This is the most practical option since transcription companies provide dedicated professionals with transcription tools and are trained in podcast transcription.
When going with this option, you’ll need to clarify your expectations upfront—provide your account manager with the audio files (via our secure upload link), formatting preferences, deadlines, and review protocols. This collaboration sets your transcriptionist up to meet your exact needs responsively.
As for Ditto Transcripts, our rates vary based on speed and audio quality. For a standard 3-5 day turnaround, expect to pay $1.75 per audio minute, while faster service runs slightly higher. Rush delivery options are also available with premium pricing. Finally, if time isn’t of the essence, you can opt for 6-10 business days turn-arounds starting at $1.50 per audio minute.
Let Us Help You Improve Your Promotion Strategy
We’ve been dealing with podcast content from different niches for some time now, and that’s how we come up with tips to promote a podcast — you can let us do the work for you.
Transcribe a podcast easily with quality transcription services to help grow your podcast and revenue. With over 14 years of experience and a great accuracy of over 99%, Ditto’s transcribers use modern tech to deliver seamless transcripts.
Ditto Transcripts is a Denver, Colorado-based transcription company that provides fast, accurate, and affordable transcription services for businesses of all sizes. Call (720) 287-3710 today for a free quote, and ask about our free five-day trial.
