The top 5 ways to promote your podcast

My podcast is live!! YAY!

Uummm… Now what?

It’s one of the most common questions we get here at EntrepreneurOnFire from our podcasting community, and that’s exactly why I decided to write this post: so I can answer it!

Up to this point, you’ve heard all these amazing things about what happens once you launch your podcast, like:

• Making it into the magical New & Noteworthy section of iTunes and reading through all of your stellar ratings & reviews from fans of your podcast.

• Receiving emails from your fans thanking you for producing such amazing content – they can’t get enough!

• Engaging with an active community across all of your social media platforms.

• Spending your nights checking on the hundreds and hundreds of downloads you received that day.

• Learning the ropes of Mailchimp or AWeber so you can create your very first email nurture campaign to stay in touch with all of your email subscribers…

If these are all of the amazing things people talk about leading up to your launch – after all those months of sweat and hard work you’ve put into your website and podcast – then how come none of these things are happening for you?

If any of the points above sound familiar to you, then I’m glad you’re here, because I’m about to share with you:

1. How you can make sure you’re doing everything in your power to reach your target audience, and

2. The top 5 ways to promote your podcast after you’ve launched.

Reaching your target audience

Every single point listed above about all the amazing things that will happen once you launch your podcast are each directly tied to whether or not you’re actually reaching your target audience. So if some or all of these things aren’t happening within a month of your launch, then I can tell you this: you’re not reaching your target audience.

There could be several reasons why like perhaps you don’t really know who your target audience is. Or maybe you’re trying to cover a topic that is too massive, which causes potential listeners to question whether or not your content is really for them. Or maybe people simply don’t know you and your podcast exist.

How to reach your target audience

Identify Your Avatar

If you don’t know who your avatar is, then how can you be questioning why no one is listening to your podcast?

Just creating something and publishing it for the world to consume – no matter how good it is – isn’t going to cut it if you don’t have an audience who wants and needs whatever it is you’re providing.

You need to understand who the one person is who will want (and need) what you have to offer by way of your podcast. Until you know who that person is, you’re going to be talking to no one through your podcast.

Define your niche

Finding your niche is also an important step in the process of identifying who your audience is. If you’re not focused and very specific about the content you’re offering, then how will your avatar ever find you?

Produce the best quality podcast with the best quality content

Only you know whether or not you’re producing the best quality podcast with the best quality content. So seriously ask yourself: “Am I really spending the time and putting forth the effort that my podcast (and my audience) deserve?“

If your honest answer to yourself is “No”, then figure out what needs to happen in order for you to take the quality and the content of your podcast to next level. Is your frequency killing you? Are you really passionate and knowledgable about the content you’re presenting?

Promote your podcast

I remember being SO nervous about launching my first website. I was so paranoid about every single little detail – every color, every word, every image. I kept thinking to myself, “Once I launch, hundreds of people are going to be visiting my site, right?!”

I quickly realized the reality post-launch: if you don’t already have a following or an online presence, then no one is going to be able to find you out of thin air.

What does this mean?

YOU have to be your biggest advocate – especially in the beginning.

Emailing your family and friends to tell them about your podcast is a GREAT start, but what about the rest of the world?

If you don’t have a following yet, or you have zero online presence, then the first thing you should do to set yourself up is join an online community (preferably before you launch your podcast). The community you join should be a place where your avatar is hanging out, or that is at least focused on or related to your niche.

Start off by adding as much value as you possibly can to that community, and then (and only then) share with the members what your mission is with your podcast and what content you’re going to provide.

After you share, listen. What feedback are you getting from the community, and how can you leverage that feedback to make your content more targeted, or more desirable for your target audience?

Be an active member of that community – like your life depends on it – and remember, people need to know why they should listen to your podcast; blasting the name of your podcast and the tagline is not enough. Just because you’ve been obsessing over it for the past few months doesn’t mean that everything about it is obvious to other people.

If I could say this better myself, then I would:

“If you help enough people get what they want, you will get what you want.” – Zig Ziglar

Always be looking for ways to provide value to your community and to your audience.

Also, don’t forget about the power of social media. Even if you don’t have a following yet, there’s no better time to start building it than right now! Set up your Twitter account, a Facebook page, and your Google+ Profile and start making some connections and sharing valuable content.

Okay, so now that we’ve covered how to reach your target audience, let’s take a look at how to promote your podcast.

Top 5 ways to promote your podcast post-launch

1. Email your guest with a reminder

This is something I see so many podcasters drop the ball on, but if you just set up a schedule and stick to it, it’s a super simple step to take that could pay of HUGE. All you have to do is email your guest and remind them the day their episode goes live, and include a direct link to their episode’s show notes page, along with a simple “click to Tweet” that they can quickly share.

If you don’t interview others on your show, then reach out to your community and ask them to help share your episode with those they think might enjoy the content. When you do ask for the share, be sure to let people know what they’ll get out of listening to your episode.

Instead of saying: “Hey! I published another episode today here: <link> I’d love it if you shared with your followers!”, try saying something like this: “Hey! I published an episode today on how to request to guest post and get accepted! <link> If you’re looking to grow your reach AND start building relationships with leaders in your industry or niche, then this episode is for you!”

2. Have a strong call to action

Your website is your home base and should be treated as such. This is the #1 place you should be driving your listeners to.

Driving people to your website to check out your show notes page will not only give them added value because of the links and resources you can provide them there, but it also gives them:

1. The opportunity to share your content (thanks to the social sharing plugin you hopefully have on your site), and

2. The opportunity to see all of the other amazing content you have on your site, including your resources page and your free email opt-in giveaway (great for helping build your email list).

3. Get social

This is where being an active member of an online community is going to be a huge benefit: by sharing your episodes with your community you’ll be offering up relevant content directly to your target audience, and because you’re an active member and always helping others out, they will want to help you out as well.

In order to automate the process of posting across several platforms, check out tools like Zapier or Hootsuite, both online social media schedulers that will help you prepare your posts in advanced.

Remember, don’t just post a link or your podcast name and tagline; make sure you include something compelling about each episode to draw people into your content. And if you do feature guests on your show, or you gave someone a shout out in one of your episodes, be sure to tag them in the post so they can help you spread the love!

4. Leverage your content across multiple mediums

Being on multiple mediums so people can find your content in several different places will broaden your reach and expand your network potential. For example, if your podcast is only available on iTunes, then you’re limiting the number of people who might find you elsewhere.

One example of leveraging your content across multiple mediums would be to take your audio file and create a YouTube video out of it.

Another idea: create a short video clip of you talking about the top 3 things someone will walk away with after listening to your episode and post it on your social media channels.

Last one: Gather up the top 10 resources from all of your podcast episodes and create a guide that you can offer visitors who subscribe to your email newsletter.

5. Ask for support

Ask those who are in your online communities, and even your friends and family, to help support you by subscribing to your podcast and leaving you a rating & review. Subscriptions and ratings & reviews are two of the most powerful pieces of the equation iTunes uses to determine your ranking amongst other podcasts.

You can use TextExpander (mac) to create an iTunes (and/or Stitcher) review request so that you’re not recreating the wheel every time you ask someone to support you and your podcast. The best way to leverage this? Don’t ask for subscriptions and ratings & reviews as your call to action on your actual podcast episode, ask on your show notes page, in your email newsletters, and in the correspondence you have with listeners and friends via email.

For example, using TextExpander you can set up a short key for an entire phrase. So just by typing out the 3 keys jjj, TextExpander will populate the following:

If you have a second, an iTunes review would be VERY appreciated!

http://www.eofire.co/KatesTake

This makes it quick and easy for me to ask others to help support Kate’s Take by leaving a rating & review. I typically use this text any time someone reaches out to us with kind words about the podcast, and 99.9% of the time people are more than happy to head over and leave a review, proving that sometimes all you have to do is ask!

Reaching your target audience

In order to experience all of those amazing things I talked about at the beginning of this post, you have to have an audience who wants and needs your content, and you have to be your biggest advocate.

After you’re sure that you’re reaching your target audience, then promote your podcast to grow that audience! Once you’re able to do this, you’ll be experiencing all of those amazing things every single day.

What’s the best way you’ve found to promote your podcast? Share with us in the comments section below!