Podcasting is one of the most popular content delivery channels today. Much of its popularity is attributed to the convenience it offers its listeners and content creators.
Once your podcast is ready, the main challenge is spreading the word about it. Unlike social media posts, marketing your podcast requires a different approach. We tell you all about how to advertise your podcast here!
A Few Numbers:
- There are 4.3 million podcasts worldwide as of January 2025.
- 504.9 million people are estimated to listen to podcasts in 2025.
Experts advise that you put 50% of your efforts into creating a high-quality podcast while the other 50% should be devoted to marketing such podcast.
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These statistics should be reason enough for any business owner to join! Besides, you can find a comprehensive step-by-step guide to starting a podcast, which will take you through all you need to have a piece of this market.
1. Use Analytics to Understand Your Audience
To better understand your audience and adapt to them, it’s important that you constantly evaluate your podcast performance data. This will help you to also target a more specific audience.
2. Use Innovation & AI to Your Favor!
Discovering new podcasts is easier now thanks to improved metadata, automated transcriptions, and AI tools that help listeners find what they’re looking for.
AI podcasting tools are lowering the barrier making super easy for anyone to start their own podcast with easy video editing tools.
A great AI tool to use is for transcriptions! And on this note keep in mind best SEO, practices they do matter for discoverability!
3. Send a Newsletter
Send insights to your audience on a regular basis and connect with them through email blasts!. Let them know when a new episode is to be released, and what’s coming.
Include your episode’s title, a hook or teaser, a brief description, a guest’s name (only in case you have one), and a link of course.
4. Make Merch for Your Fan Base
You can offer merch for your fan base! This increases your listener’s loyalty and helps your brand connect with its audience.
5. Content Collaboration
Partnering up with another podcaster, influencer, content creator, professional in the field, etc is beneficial for both your audiences! You can cross-promote.
Featuring on Other Podcasts
Apart from having guests join your show, you should also attend other podcasts. Being a guest in someone else’s podcast will expose you to their audience.
Leverage Your Guests’ Audience
In some cases, you will have to feature guests in your podcast and interview them on various topics, especially their areas of expertise. If these guests are famous or professionals with many fans and followers, you should leverage them. Make their audience your own.
Once you feature an influencer on your podcast, other influencers might follow, and you’ll have the chance to leverage their followers, too. Most of these industry leaders have a vast following, and once you publish an episode that features them, they’ll most likely share it. This exposes your podcast to a larger crowd, bringing you more listeners.
6. Create & Optimize Your Website
Having a dedicated website for your podcast offers many advantages, enhancing your podcast’s visibility, credibility, and reach.
- Central Hub for Your Content – Your website serves as a one-stop destination where listeners can find all your episodes, show notes, and related materials without relying on third-party platforms.
- Improved Discoverability – A website optimized for search engines (SEO) can help new listeners discover your podcast through organic searches. You can target specific keywords related to your niche or topics discussed in your episodes.
- Monetization Opportunities – A website provides space for ads, affiliate marketing links, or merchandise sales. You can also set up a subscription model or premium content access directly on your site.
- Brand Building – A dedicated website strengthens your podcast’s brand identity. You can use your logo, colors, and other branding elements to create a cohesive image that resonates with your audience.
- Email List Building – A website makes it easy to collect email addresses for newsletters or updates.
7. Encourage Reviews
Positive reviews (and organic) are a powerful promotion tool! They are social proof that your podcast is interesting.
8. Create a Podcast Trailer
This is an essential piece for promoting your podcast.
A trailer is often the first piece of content new listeners encounter. It sets the tone for your podcast, offering a concise snapshot of what to expect.
A trailer conveys the essence of your podcast: its theme, topics, and why it’s worth listening to, so it helps listeners quickly determine if your content aligns with their interests.
A short, engaging trailer is a perfect promotional tool for sharing on social media, blogs, and other platforms.
Key Elements of a Great Podcast Trailer:
- Introduction: Briefly introduce yourself and your podcast.
- Value Proposition: Explain what makes your podcast unique and why listeners should tune in.
- Tone and Personality: Let your trailer reflect your style and vibe.
- Call-to-Action: Encourage listeners to subscribe, follow, or share your podcast.
9. Invest in Paid Ads
Ads are the fastest way to get your audience growing. This doesn’t mean that you should neglect organic promotion BUT paid ads are definitely a very effective way of marketing.
You can send traffic to your landing page or website, or you can experiment with ads sending to specific episodes. You can target specific audience for an specific episode.
- Advertise on social media
- Advertise on podcasts apps
- Google Ads
Choosing the right platform for your definitely depends on your niche and budget.
🔥 Check out more ideas on how to make money on YouTube.
10. Publish at the Right Time
Just as in social media, publishing your episode at the right time can really change the destiny of its viewership. What is the right time? This is something you need to find for yourself by constantly analysing your data.
11. Promote on Apple Podcasts
Even though you may have one of the a podcast hosting service elsewhere, having a strong presence on iTunes or other music platforms will help you reach out to a larger audience.
Let’s use iTunes as an example of how you can join these platforms. Getting started with iTunes is easy, and all that you need to do is to:
- Sign up using your Apple ID on the iTunes Podcast Connect or create one if you don’t have one yet.
- Look for a ‘+’ button and click to enter your podcast RSS feed.
- Click on the ‘validate’ button.
- A preview window appears, and you can check if everything is in order or make the necessary edits where needed.
- Click on ‘Submit,’ and you are done!
Do not fret if the feed doesn’t go live instantly. Podcasts submitted to iTunes usually go through a moderation process. It might take anywhere between a few hours and ten days for it to get approved.
Don’t miss out: How to Monetize with Awesome Podcast Merch!
12. Use Social Media the Right Way
Social media is currently the largest and most effective promotional tool in the world. With an estimated 3.6 billion users worldwide, there is no escaping it as a marketing platform for your podcast.
There are many ways you can use social media to attract more listeners to your podcast. You can share anything from videos, images, soundbites, teasers, and many others. Luckily, the most popular social media channels can support all these formats and still make it possible for your friends and followers to share your content.
While the use of social media might be a perfect tool, it won’t help you much if you don’t know how to use it wisely. Always keep in mind that you’re not promoting your social page but your podcast. Whenever you create a post, ensure to add a link that people can click on, and get redirected to your podcast page.
13. Accept Donations
You can encourage your listeners to support you. To achieve this, it is very important that you connect with your audience. You can drop in a quick call to action, add a link to your description, and more.
14. Start an Affiliate Partnership
As a podcaster, you can offer a unique link and mention for a specific product, and whenever someone buys that product, you get a commission. Affiliate marketing is a great win-win situation for both sides. It’s important here that you promote those products you actually believe in, like, and recommend so you keep loyal to your audience.
15. Leverage Word-of-Mouth Advertising
If you have great podcast content, you may as well use the minimum approach for marketing your podcast. In other words, you stand to gain a lot if you publish content that your audience will find valuable.
The word-of-mouth has been an effective marketing strategy since the time it was the only method of promoting something. In fact, according to statistics, word-of-mouth marketing has an average quality lead of 4.28 out of 5.
However, for this strategy to work, you ought to record valuable content, with attractive topics discussed in an optimal voice. Ensure that you have professional microphones and recording devices before you begin. Moreover, using the best podcast hosting services will ensure that you secure your content and still edit it whenever.
16. Record Lots of Valuable Content
Before you launch your podcast, it is prudent to have enough content to promote. Ideally, you should have at least three episodes on your podcast, as this will give your audience and potential followers a feel of your platform, helping them make a decision to stay. Remember that the first episodes ought to be interesting enough to keep them wanting more.
17. Create a Cohesive Visual Brand
Before you even start marketing your podcast, you need a visual representation of your brand. This means getting a custom image or logo to represent you on all platforms where your content will be published. Beware of the various dimension requirements for the podcast directories your show will be hosted.
2025 Podcast Trends to Look At 🔥
Multi-Channel Podcast
Use Video, Audio, and Socials! Audiences are shifting to video-first platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Spotify is pushing its own video product. Podcasters looking to scale their shows will need to produce for both audio and video, then publish to Spotify and YouTube for discovery.
Paid Podcasts
Podcasts are now moving beyonds ad revenue and are focusing on building more exclusive communities. Think subscription-based models, premium content, and interactive experiences like live Q&As, virtual meetups, and even direct messaging with hosts.
Subscriptions can create monthly support for your podcast in exchange for regular content or even exclusive content.
Patreon is a popular platform podcasters use to offer their paid membership tiers for listeners.
Hybrid Podcasts
Hybrid podcasts combines, for example, documentary and interview styles is a powerful format that allows deep storytelling while incorporating personal perspectives and expert insights. This format leverages the strengths of both styles to create an engaging, dynamic listening experience.
2025 Predictions 🔮
Brands and companies will use long-form video and audio podcasts as one of their primary communication channels. New forms of interview podcast will grow this year!
Over to You
Sharing your podcast with the rest of the world is now easier than ever, and promoting your content is as simple or as complicated as you want to make it. If you’re eyeing to become one of the top podcasters in your niche, this comprehensive guide will help you market your podcast to gain more leads and sales.
Always remember that content comes first, meaning your main focus should always be targeted at producing high-quality and valuable episodes. Once you follow these tips, you’re guaranteed success.
How to Advertise Your Podcast
We tell you all about how to advertise your podcast with the best tips! Get your episodes out there to your audience following a few simple steps!
Make a Podcast Cover Today!