What's your perfect podcast marketing mix?
Grow your podcast audience by creating a tailored marketing plan.
When we get asked “What is the best way to market our podcast?”
The answer is always: “Well, that depends…”
Very unsatisfying we know! But it’s true.
For some clients the budget for splashy ads might not be on the cards, or others might have existing channels we can cross-promote - like a blog or a youtube channel. Some podcasts have a very niche audience, and others have a mass appeal. With so many factors at play, every marketing plan has to be bespoke.
So, the bad news is: there is no one size fits all solution.
The good news though: there are repeatable tactics and approaches. You just need to select the right ones for your podcast.
In this post, we’ll give you the building blocks of a podcast marketing plan that is built with purpose.
But first, let's talk choosing the building blocks that work for you.
What is a podcast marketing plan?
Having a strategic marketing plan is key to growing your podcast audience. And, to build these plans for each of our shows, we first ask:
What is your marketing resource for this project?
Who is your target audience?
And, how will you measure the success of your podcast?
With the answers to these questions in mind, we start to create a marketing mix that will help you build the audience you want, and deliver against your goals.
This is when those key ingredients we mentioned earlier come into play.
Your Perfect Podcast Marketing Mix
Whilst every podcast needs a bespoke plan, you don’t need to start from scratch for each show.
We think about a marketing mix in three channels: paid, earned and owned:
Paid is anything where you exchange money to secure promotion, namely advertising.
Earned is where you depend on someone else’s curation to gain coverage or promotion - like a feature on Apple Podcasts or a review in a newsletter. There are sometimes external costs involved with this, such as award entries.
Owned covers the activities conducted on your channels like your website or social media.
With these channels in mind, as well as the budget, audience and goals for the podcast, we then pull out different tactics from each channel to build the perfect marketing mix.
Here are all the different channels and tactics to consider:
This is by no means an exhaustive list! All podcasts will have unique real-estate they can use for promotion. Do they have an app they can promote on? A print magazine? For example, our client Buffer uses their login page to put the podcast front and centre:
These are simply the building blocks we use to create a balanced marketing mix that will allow you to grow your audience strategically. This is also an ever growing list, have we missed any key ways you grow your audience? Let us know!
Want to learn more? At Message Heard, we make podcasts that help your brand reach new audiences. Find out how we can help by getting in touch today.