Each month we spend a shed load of energy getting client podcasts to the launch stage:
- Strategy
- Defining guest personas
- Finding those guests
- Design
- Audio production and editing
- Coaching the host
The list goes on...
Then we launch. And it's fun, everyone loves launching as the numbers go up.
Post launch blues set in during week two or three when the download spike seems like the distant past... how do we keep the party going?
The long answer is through various different promotion channels, improved and iterated over time. The short answer is paid promotion.
This post shares the paid podcast promotion strategies we have tested/are soon to test with client podcasts to date... so you can also test!
Let's jump into these 7 "soon to be" proven paid podcast strategies that are sure to blow up your show.
Google Ads
This is possibly the simplest strategy...
You advertise to people that are searching for keywords related to your show.
Unless your domain has massive authority, you are probably not going to rank for big keywords related to your podcast from day one, you can speed up this process by paying to hit the top spot in Google.
To do this, you first need to list out the core keywords that someone who would love your show (and hopefully) product will be searching for.
Here are the keywords we would bid on for our podcast, Confessions Of A B2B Marketer:
- b2b marketing
- saas marketing
- b2b marketing strategies
- b2b saas marketing
If you have designed your podcast strategy effectively then the people that would be searching for these keywords and interested in your show would also be interested in your product/service. this stands true for us here as anyone searching for those keywords would also be possibly be interested in either becoming a client of Fame or a customer of bCast.
In this sense... you can think of paid Google Ads for your podcast as a very top of the funnel introduction to your way of thinking, your content and then ultimately your product or service.
Facebook Ads
Facebook's targeting is the best out of all the other strategies here (except maybe Quora!), we now venture into another type of targeting: interests/demographics.
To advertise effectively with this type of targeting, instead of knowing the keywords your ideal listener/customer is searching for, you need to know exactly who your ideal listener/customer is.
Let's take one of our client podcasts, Mobile Growth & Pancakes:
- Ideal customer - user acquisition, or App Store optimisation specialist in a US games company
Using Facebook's targeting options we can attempt to reach this type of person:
We first target people interested in podcasts, and then narrow this by interests relevant to the show... and their business!
We also take this one step further and JUST target people that are on iOS devices:
This is because the link we are sending people too: https://podcasts.bcast.fm/mobile-growth-pancakes has the Apple Smart Banner installed:
This banner will show a deep link into the Apple Podcasts application on their iOS to reduce friction from them subscribing to the show. Details on how you can set this up on your website/landing page are here.
And the creative?
Super simple:
This generated 59,160 impressions and 413 clicks from a $104.95 investment:
Testing continues...
Twitter Ads
Next up: Twitter.
Again, interest targeting... but it is a little more limited that Facebook.
So again:
- Who is the perfect listener for your show?
- Are they also a good prospect for your product or service?
And then see if you can hook this type of person using Twitter's targeting strategies.
Here's an ad we ran recently for Confessions Of A B2B Marketer:
Now this on is a little unconventional... but my goal here was to intrigue, generate a little awareness for Fame and our sister business bCast AND then drive subscriptions for our podcast.
Again, the URL linked to from the ad has the Apple Smart Banner, so we targeted JUST people using iOS and also these interests:
This generated 10,277 impressions and 16 clicks for $35:
Testing continues...
Quora Ads
And next Quora... another type of targeting ;)
With Quora you can select specific questions in which to place your advert against!
So now we don't need to understand what people search or their interests... we simply need to know what questions they may want the answers too. Fascinating.
Let's take a client podcast, the eCom Ops Podcast:
The ideal listener (and customer of the client) is an eCom founder or operations person, so we targeted relevant questions:
Again, Quora allow device targeting to again, we choose just iOS:
And the ad looked like this:
Castro Ads
Our next two types of paid podcast promotion focus on podcast directotories themselves...
A podcast directory is a database of podcasts, combined with a mobile or desktop application with a user interface that allows listeners to subscribe to and sometimes review podcasts.
Some of these directories will give you more exposure to their listeners through native advertising in their platform:
Castro is one example... here is their pricing:
Depending on your budget, it may be worth quickly testing the "7 Day Promo" for $99 USD, link here.
The real question is though...
Do you think you can generate a significant ROI from their estimated 15-50 new podcast subscribers?
To be confident about this, you would need to ensure a smooth process for generating leads from listeners, but that is a different blog post ;)
Overcast Ads
Another podcast directory that enables you to run ads to their users is Overcast:
Overcast charge different amounts for different sectors:
And is priced slightly higher than Castro, but also estimates the number of new subscriptions you can expect from the investment... so the question from the last strategies persists - do you think you can get an ROI?
We are yep to test Castro or Overcast for any of our podcasts but I will update this post when we do...
Other Podcasts
Another strategy that I know can generate results but have not yet tested is paying other podcasts to advertise your podcast.
One example of this type of ad running right now is The Jordan Harbinger Show running ads on The Real Vision Podcast.
If investing in this type of advertising... you a simply looking for an overlap between your listeners and the listeners of your target show. The best way to determine this?
You simply need to survey your current listeners and ask them: What other podcasts are you subscribed to?
This should give you a target list of podcasts that you should potentially buy adverts from. I would then advise going straight to those podcasts to negotiate rates for audio ads within their show.
OK there we go...
You know have roughly the same knowledge that our internal team does after nearly two years of testing these strategies.
All that we ask is that if you do reach some kind of breakthrough with a paid podcast promotion strategy that you ping us an email on team@fame.so to share the love.
Thanks for reading :)