The Top 6 Tips to Grow Your Audience  

1. Know Your Audience

Before committing to a growth plan, it is essential to have a firm understanding of the kind of people you want to reach with your message. Because your podcast can’t appeal to everyone, selecting a specific audience for it is essential to growing your listenership.

Determine the audience that is most likely to listen to your podcast and think about the value that your podcast offers to the table in its own unique way. It’s possible that your format, hosts, guests, or subject emphasis are what give you an edge over the competition. Whatever it is, you should gather your team together and construct a perfect listener profile for the kind of people that will be listening to you. For instance, How I Built This by Guy Raz is going to appeal to business owners, while Super Soul Sunday by Oprah Winfrey is going to appeal to those who are looking to develop their spirituality.

When it comes to getting to know your audience, research is essential since it will assist you understand where your audience may be found online. Are there certain forms of media that they seem to favor? Which platforms do they utilize to communicate through social media? I was wondering whether they follow any particular hashtags or subreddits. It will be easier for you to understand where and how to reach your audience if you first figure out where they currently interact.

2. Create a Podcast Trailer

It is essential to produce a podcast trailer, regardless of whether your podcast is already well-known or you are just getting it started. A trailer enables you to begin cultivating an audience prior to the official launch of the first episode of your podcast by providing you with this opportunity.

Make use of the trailer as a promotional tool not just inside your company but also throughout all of the current marketing channels such as social media, newsletters, communities, and your website. In this manner, you will be able to generate anticipation for the debut of the podcast, and you may even choose to hold a contest in order to boost early involvement.

3.Use Calls to Action

Including a call-to-action, also known as a CTA, at the conclusion of each episode of your podcast is an efficient approach to urge your audience members to carry out an activity that contributes to the accomplishment of your objectives. In order to expand your audience on listening platforms, typically you will require people to accomplish the following four things:

It helps to promote discoverability and increases your chances of ranking on popular podcast charts if someone accomplishes one of these four things. If someone subscribes to your podcast, they will be notified whenever you publish a new episode via their feed. This improves the probability that they will listen to the show. Everyone who is contemplating watching your program will have an additional incentive to do so after reading ratings and reviews. Sharing it with one’s circle of friends and family is of the utmost importance since word-of-mouth recommendations are very effective.

However, the most important thing to remember is to utilize just one CTA at the conclusion of each episode. This will avoid listeners from being confused about what action they should take.

When taken collectively, these four activities have a significant impact on the way that prominent listening applications like Apple rank podcasts in the New and Noteworthy area of their respective platforms. If you’re just starting out, making an appearance there is a certain method to attract new listeners to your show or podcast.

4. Promote Your Podcast on Social Media

You need to give some thought to an active social media strategy since social media is one of the most accessible methods to advertise your podcast. Because of this, you need to give some consideration to developing a social media plan.

Your organization has two choices available: either create social media profiles that are solely devoted to advertising your podcast, or promote it using the accounts that are already established for your business. Both choices are useful; however, the one you choose will often depend on the resources you have available, such as your time and money. People will have an easier time finding your program if you maintain a presence on social media sites, and you will have a continuous avenue to advertise your material with which you may do so.

Be sure to post about every new episode, include hashtags that are relevant to the conversation (and strategic! ), tag your guests, and don’t forget to respond to comments and postings. Also, use your imagination! People are always interested in seeing photos and videos from “behind the scenes.” Therefore, have someone videotape you and a visitor doing something, and publish the video on social media.

One amusing piece of advice is to think about making audiograms. These are social postings that feature a caption, a picture or video, and a little audio clip from one of your podcasts.

5. Leverage SEO to Boost Visibility

Due to the fact that Google now displays podcast episodes in search results, having effective SEO will attract listeners who are looking for your specific niche or subject. When it comes to search engine optimization for podcasts, the three aspects of keywords, formatting, and meta tags are the most important (for web pages).

Create extensive but succinct summaries of each episode, making sure to include your most significant keywords first. Because podcast applications typically have roughly 120 visible characters in search results, being brief is of the utmost importance.

Your podcast’s show notes may also be used to improve its search engine optimization. Produce podcast show notes that are informative, readily scanned, and appropriately structured for each and every episode that you publish. The show notes that accompany your podcast episode should include links to any calls to action (CTAs) as well as any resources that you referenced while recording the program (like we mentioned above).

6. Measure your Success 

If you are unable to monitor the success of your podcast, it will be impossible for you to make adjustments or progress.

Take some time to reflect and ask yourself the following questions:

1. What does podcast success look like to you? 
2. What metrics are important to you? 

They could take a quantifiable form, such as the total number of episodes played or the number of subscribers you have. Or, maybe they are qualitative in nature, such as the percentage of active listeners or the number of five-star reviews on various podcasting sites.

Determine what your definition of success at the outset is, expand your audience with it in mind, and make sure you are aware of the main podcast metrics businesses should concentrate on.