5 Must-Try Methods for Smart Growth

In accordance with information from our latest Podcast Discovery Survey, an honest chunk of listeners discover new exhibits primarily based on suggestions from podcasts they already get pleasure from.

It’s no secret that for podcasting to develop, podcasters have to advertise one another’s exhibits. And audiences need podcaster suggestions. Within the following paragraphs, I’ll present you some time-tested podcast cross-promotion methods and case research to encourage you. 

I requested totally different podcasters what sort of podcast cross-promotion techniques they’d used and the way they’d labored out. One podcaster advised me a protracted, detailed story about selling his personal present. After I requested the query once more, he advised me the identical story in better element. Clearly, I ought to have used totally different terminology. 

Podcast cross-promotion is whenever you discover a podcast in your area of interest (or a distinct segment that enhances your podcast) and make a deal the place you publicize their podcast to your viewers. In trade, they share your podcast with their viewers. 

Our Discovery Survey requested, “While you need to discover a new podcast, what do you do first?” The second hottest selection was “Hear for suggestions on the podcasts I already get pleasure from.” And, after we requested, “How did you uncover the podcast you listened to most just lately?” the highest decisions included a suggestion on one other present or the creator was interviewed on one other podcast. 

Audiences need your suggestions. This isn’t competitors. Podcast cross-promotion is like an additional reward for audiences. They get pleasure from your concepts and conversations, so why not present them the broader world with exhibits which might be like yours? 

5 Tried and True Strategies

Whereas these aren’t the one methods podcasters can work collectively for cross-promotion, these are 5 tried and true strategies which have labored for podcasters since time immemorial. Or, at any charge, since podcasts have existed. For those who haven’t tried not less than one among these promotion strategies, you’re ignoring a very good alternative proper in entrance of you. 

1. Trailer Swap or Hosted Advert Learn

The best cross-promotion methodology is to swap trailers. First, be sure to have a great podcast trailer, with a transparent name to motion. Embody a brief hyperlink or a PrettyLink to get folks to your web site’s “pay attention now” web page. Not solely is that this simpler for the viewers to recollect, however a PrettyLink can embrace monitoring information. Edit their trailer into your podcast, wherever it suits greatest, and ask them to do the identical. 

Hosted advert reads work equally. Write a couple of speaking factors for the opposite podcaster to cowl, together with your podcast title and outline. Preserve it temporary and informal. Ask the podcaster you cross-promote with to jot down the identical factor so that you can learn in your podcast. For those who can, embrace hyperlinks within the present notes in your trailer swap or hosted advert learn swap. It may be so simple as “For those who loved this, you’ll like [XYZ.]” If your podcast’s title is tough to pronounce, this helps.

2. Interview Swaps

In case your podcast is an interview present, you’re in all probability all the time cross-promoting. While you find podcast guests, you’re selling authors with a ebook to promote, yoga academics with a category to promote, and so forth. Swapping interviews with one other podcaster is just about the identical factor. The distinction is the way you every deal with the identical total subject or area of interest. 

Be taught what makes your exhibits related and totally different. Then, focus on how your views on the identical challenge complement one another. Make this about elevating your present’s subject. Possibly you’ve every bought a present about fly fishing, however yours focuses on Montana, and the opposite podcaster focuses on Iceland. What can your audiences study from one another’s exhibits? 

3. Podcaster Cross-Promotion Occasions

As podcasting matures, cross-promotion occasions mature and stabilize. Some began as a request to submit on social media with celebratory hashtags. Now, there are alternatives for training, fundraising, and extra. For instance: 

• International Podcast Day celebrates “the ability of podcasts” with live-streamed webinars, branded social media photographs and movies, and awards. It is a nice time to publish a particular episode, reminiscent of a montage, panel dialogue, or interview swaps.
• Podcasthon is “the world’s largest podcast charity initiative, bringing collectively podcasters globally to boost consciousness for charitable causes.” All you need to do is register and produce a podcast episode that raises funds for the charity of your selection. Publish it throughout the week of Podcasthon, and the organizers will share your episode. You get to be a part of a motion, increase funds for a charity that issues to you and your viewers, and get free promotion. What’s to not love?

4. Co-Hosted Dwell Occasions

Whether or not streamed or in-person, reside occasions seize consideration and really feel extra pressing than something pre-recorded. Ever discover how whenever you watch Saturday Evening Dwell, even a day or week after the published, the viewers’s presence and the shared second make the occasion really feel extra essential? Listed below are some methods you possibly can cross-promote podcasts, reside: 

• Live-stream an episode with different podcasters, whether or not co-hosted or a panel dialogue, specializing in a subject of shared curiosity. 
• Share a booth at a convention associated to your present’s subject. You may share the associated fee, and take turns being in control of the sales space when the opposite must take a stretch break. You may work collectively to get folks to join a mailing record, give out enterprise playing cards or stickers with QR codes, and chat with folks in your area of interest. Plus, you’ll study extra concerning the subject of your present from folks on the convention. 
• Co-host a meetup or occasion. Is there an area enterprise that you just and a podcaster in your area of interest can work with? How about an occasion house? Your yoga podcast can sponsor a category at an area studio, or your beer podcast can host a tasting at an area brewery. Use your creativity, hold it easy and have enjoyable. 

5. Podcast Cross-Promotion in Spotify

Many podcast directories provide ideas for additional listening. However, in Spotify, podcasters can management the “Extra Like This” tab. Matthew exhibits you ways, on this video:

Spotify shows your decisions as “Host Suggestions,” giving the exhibits in that tab additional cachet. Get along with one other podcaster for a hyperlink swap, and put one another’s exhibits on this tab.

However keep in mind, you possibly can swap hyperlinks in your present notes whether or not you utilize Spotify or not. It’s simple to kind, “For those who loved this, you might also like…” and hyperlink to a different present in your episode’s notes.

You can begin by wanting up different exhibits in your podcast class on Apple Podcasts. Attempt to discover different impartial exhibits that hunt down the identical type of viewers that you just do. Then, slender the sphere with discovery instruments, communities, or networks.

You might discover that “massive” exhibits with 1000’s of downloads every day may not reply to your e-mail instantly (if in any respect). They might work with a publicist who’s overwhelmed. Or, they could solely be keen to work with exhibits with a sure variety of downloads. 

Podcast Discovery Instruments

A great software to pinpoint prospects is Rephonic. This web site helps folks uncover new podcasts and helps podcasters join for cross-promotion or visitor alternatives. You may search by title, subject, or writer. What’s cool (and helpful on this case) is Rephonic’s 3D graph tool. It exhibits a visible net of exhibits with related audiences, primarily based on the notion of “folks additionally subscribed to…”

Click on and drag to maneuver the net round and study which podcasts have viewers overlap. Click on on them and get extra data. Is the present lively? Are they open to visitors? If that’s the case, they could be open to different collaboration alternatives as properly. 

Podchaser has user-created lists of podcasts with shared attributes. The evaluations and credit can assist you get extra data to search out out if a specific present is an efficient match for a partnership.

Hear to a couple episodes and discover out if the tone, pursuits, and so forth match yours. For those who really feel good whereas listening to it, get their contact data from their present notes or web site, and write a easy pitch. For those who don’t be ok with it, move. Life is simply too quick to supply cross-promotion alternatives to podcasts that make you uncomfortable. 

Communities and Networks

One other solution to discover podcast cross-promotion alternatives is to hitch a podcasting neighborhood or community. 

A couple of on-line communities that assist podcasters assist one another are:

Becoming a member of a podcast network is an alternative choice, although this may be harder. Typically, buyers fund the community (reminiscent of iHeart Media) and have strict guidelines concerning inclusion to guard their ROI. Different networks are extensions of legacy media organizations (reminiscent of The New York Occasions) and use their podcasts to advertise their current enterprise.

However, a community can cross-promote your present for you, and, in some circumstances, can discover income alternatives.

I’m not saying you possibly can’t or shouldn’t be a part of a podcast community. Learn via the community’s web site and any related information tales concerning the community to find out whether or not or not they’re a very good match in your present and vice versa. Then, discover out in the event that they’re open to pitches.

Some creators use a mixture of techniques of their cross-promotion campaigns. Others stick to 1 technique, taking the “if it ain’t broke, don’t repair it” method. Listed below are a few case research that will offer you some concepts of what’s attainable in your present.

Am I Outdated But?

Flloyd Kennedy is the creator of Am I Old Yet?, a comedy a couple of girl of a sure age who all of the sudden develops mysterious superpowers. She pitched her present to the Fable and Folly Network, and joined a number of years in the past. Trailer exchanges and host-read advertisements have helped this comedy discover a wider viewers. Right here’s how she described her expertise:

Since becoming a member of Fable and Folly, they’ve organized trailer swaps for me with a spread of exhibits, and there’s a small enhance in downloads, on and off.  However after they requested Midnight Burger and Amelia Undertaking to do hostread promos, I went from 100 downloads per week to 1,000, over the four-week marketing campaign. Then they dropped again down, however to barely greater than earlier than… positively price whereas, if just for the HUGE raise to my self worth.

Quest Buddies!

Kyle Decker, creator of Quest Friends! has been a visitor on numerous exhibits in his present’s area of interest. He shared the outcomes of his present’s viewers survey with us:

“50% of my fiction podcast’s superfans got here from cross-promotional efforts or paid promos. Notably, essentially the most profitable crossover spots have been bonus fiction episodes I made for non-fiction podcasts.”

The paid promotions have been quick advertisements or feed drops of Quest Buddies. Despite the fact that these have been paid alternatives, the very fact stays that many individuals discover their subsequent present from their present favorites.

Working an audience survey is an efficient solution to find out how your present viewers finds you and present that you just care what they suppose. For those who survey your viewers, ask what exhibits apart from yours they observe. This could present attainable leads in your subsequent podcast cross-promotion.

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats

Podcasters spend a lot effort and time selling their very own exhibits that they neglect to advertise others. It’s simple to get tunnel imaginative and prescient and never attain out to different podcasters round you. However, whenever you view your fellow podcasters as friends, not opponents, you possibly can work collectively to develop your exhibits’ attain.

Typically, you see that there are quite a lot of different podcasts much like yours, and it makes you’re feeling like, “Wah. I’m a water droplet in an ocean. How will anybody ever discover me?” Typically, you see that there are a lot of different podcasts much like yours, and also you say, “Hey! I’m a water droplet in an ocean, and collectively, we make a WAVE.”

For those who’re nonetheless deciding whether or not to cross-promote with different impartial podcasters in your area of interest, go to us in The Indiepod Community. Podcasters, from rookies to specialists, get pleasure from vigorous discussions about all points of podcasting. You’ll study, giggle, and make some buddies alongside the way in which.