iTunes is a big platform where you can promote your podcasts. Turns out 70% of iTunes is responsible for as much as 70% of a podcast’s listens and downloads
Here are the strategies to try when promoting your podcasts on iTunes.
Podcasts have come a long way from 2012.
Here’s the big list of podcast promotion strategies we’re keen to try.
- Leverage your guest’s audience
When you invite a guest to the podcast make sure that you take advantage of the audience available at his end.
Your podcast can be in an interview format where you interview up and coming stars of different industries.
That means they have access to big audiences both on their blog annd Twitter channels.
Make it easy for guests to share promote podcast episodes and send them note on the day that the podcast episode goes live.
This gives them cue to promote your content.
Make it easy for guests to share your podcast episodes. Also prepare in advance way ahead of time for each podcast episode that you want to showcase.
This can be done by including different things like
Pull quotes
Images around your podcasts
Links to the episode
Prewritten social media messages and updates for ensuing weeks.
For podcasts it might seem that the more number of epsidoes you put out the more successful you’re going to be. That’s not true.
The quality of your content trumps quantity every single time.
Solve problems with podcaass
Provide insights
Hustle.
Make use of the guest’s big audience
- Promote on social media … in a dozen different ways
Share a number of things that are highly shareable on social media. Thinks like images, rich media and evergreen content that form a staple of social media content.
You can be creative with social media posting and generate clicks for each time you leverage postings creatively.
Send your episode tweet or as a Facebook post. This should feature iTunes URLs as well
Create quote based images on Canva.
- Release at least 3 episodes on launch day
When you’re doing something online such as podcasting it’s bound to get negative reviews.
From Pat flynn“I actually received negative reviews from people who had listened to the first episode and were upset that there was only one.”
You wouldn’t really believe that a man such as Pat Flynn with his own podcast player would hear something like that.
Your best bet to avoid risk is by publishing 3 to 5 different episodes when launching.
The minimum number is 3 it gives people a bench of options to go through before committing and deciding if they stay with the podcast.
The launch strategy is key to hitting the new and noteworthy section and get huge traffic from iTues.
Convert the podcast to videos for YouTube
When it comes to YouTube, seo is more important than ever. So you need to name the video with appropriate keywords preferably the name of the person being interviewed.
The podcast gets more mileage and views if you repurpose it in many different ways. You can post it as a video on Facebook as well.
The biggest thing you can do is convert the audio and add it to the YouTube channel to generate thousands of views.
When you make the video YouTube automatically generates closed captions and transcripts for the video.
If you’re too lazy to transcribe this is a fantastic option with AI.
Video especially ones from youtube regularly grace the top pages on Google driving lots and lots of traffic. Google values it more.
A youtube version is great for rankings.
When converting use a canvas size that is 2560 pixels by 1440 pixels width. Make the viewing resolution up to 2k.
5. Submit your podcast to directories aggregators
The first thing is these directories and podcast aggregators are great for the SEO of your podcast and get you more views and much more traffic.
There’s the iOS podcatcher and there are at least 20 other apps that collect and play podcasts. There are also tons of directories.
To give you an idea here’s a list.
Overcast
Stitcher
Podcast Addict
Podcast subreddit
PodcastLand
TuneIn
Bello Collective
Castro
Podcast Republic
Downcast
PodcastLand has a featured podcast of the month,
These services are all useful.
Transcribe the audio
For a very low monthly price or on fiverr you can outsource the transcription of your podcasts fully.
Most successful shows share the full transcription of their podcasts on their blog posts.
You can choose highlight and choose only certain parts of the show should you wish to go that route.
It’s up to whether you want the full transcript or just the highlights.
The full transcript is great for SEO and is a handy place for you to collect leads.
Run a giveaway contest
The next tip to get more listeners for your podcasts is to run a giveaway or a contest.
The rules of participation should mandate that people need to leave a review to participate.
Asking for review on itunes should be set as the minimum criteria to enter. This would give them enough motivation to enter and also increase the reviews on your iTunes podcasts.
All the below ideas are good ideas as prizes
Gift cards
Stickers
T shirts and so on.
A 5 minute guest spot on the podcast is another viable giveaway you can include.
mentioning it on the show. Ask people to leave an iTunes review in order to enter.
Usernames are generally the same names that can be found as their social media handles and that’s how you reach out to the winners.
Find partners to mention you
Mentioning other brands and podcast hosts and getting mentioned by them in return is a big way to grow your show.
The strategy works because it showcases a reciprocal effect.
When you mention a brand that’s an opportunity for them to reach back out to you.
Be a guest on other people’s podcasts
There are lots of successfully running podcasts. If they’re not inviting you, reach out to them and invite yourself. Make guest appearances on as many shows as can sponsor you.
Do this on a weekly basis and let your voice be heard on several channels.
This is a lot of great advice you can use.