How many of your website visitors want to sit and read written content for hours? Not many these days if you ask me. That’s why podcasts are a welcome development for your website visitors. Thus, it’s no surprise that the number of podcast listeners has been increasing steadily over the years.
According to a survey by Edison Research and Triton Digital, 37% of Americans listen to podcasts every month.
That’s 104 million people!
However, this massive number of listeners doesn’t guarantee your podcast’s success.
You still need to acquire leads for your podcast to improve your chances.
Luckily, I’ll show you 7 ways to generate consistent leads for your podcast in this post.
Let’s dive in.
1. Interview Industry Influencers
While many people can come on your show and deliver insights, people prefer to listen to influencers who have been there and done that.
After all, industry influencers are people your audience already knows.
Beyond that, your potential leads trust their achievements and are curious to know the “secret” of their achievement.
So, featuring such guests regularly will attract leads who will become loyal listeners.
For example, one such popular show is the Ed Mylett show.
From visitors such as John Maxwell to billionaire David Rubenstein to The Undertaker, many guests will attract leads to this podcast.
But beyond the popular influencers, there are lesser-known experts in your industry that are doing amazing things and have innovative ideas.
You can bring them on the show to offer their unique insights.
Apart from the podcast guests, the interviewer (you) has a vital role in making the show. Often, the quality of questions determines the quality of answers.
Therefore, prepare questions that will provoke the kind of answers your listeners want to receive.
Furthermore, you need to learn how to engage your guests.
To learn this, the easy way is to study popular podcasters and those in your industry.
By featuring industry influencers and experts on your show, you’ll attract more leads.
And as your guests promote episodes in which they feature, some of their followers can turn into leads and loyal listeners for your podcast.
2. Create a website for your podcast
Having a website is one of the best ways of promoting your podcast to potential listeners.
That’s because you can provide the basic details about your podcast such as its overall theme, the host, past guests, and more.
Beyond that, it’s easy to provide links to your podcast on popular listening platforms.
For example, here’s Duncan Trussell’s podcast website:
At the top of the page, you’ll see the latest episode and a few details about the guest. When you scroll further down, there are past episodes and other pieces of information.
Unfortunately, in some cases, it may be impossible to create a website for some podcasts.
For example, if you already have an established brand associated with your podcast, it makes sense to create a podcast page on your existing brand website.
Here’s an example from Tim Ferriss:
At the top, Tim uses social proof, which can convince a visitor to sign up to his email list that already contains over 1.5 million subscribers. You can also see the podcast’s latest episode.
Scrolling down the page, you’ll find the podcast’s “About” and past episodes. There are also buttons to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Overcast.
With podcasts, current customers and website visitors will have access to another content format on your website.
Beyond this, you can create blog posts for your podcast episodes.
In these posts, you’ll publish transcripts of your podcasts.
Here, visitors will have access to the written format and your embedded episode if they want to listen.
This can provide SEO benefits for your website. Often, when searchers search for influencers, their interview can come up as one of the results.
For instance, when you search for Brad Smith, the founder of Codeless, here are two results on the first page:
If you scroll further down the page, you’ll find another result from a podcast.
Beyond this, Google now features podcasts on the search results page, especially if your podcast is on Google Podcast.
Here’s an example from Duncan Trussell Family Hour:
Moreover, you have a chance of showing up when people search for your topic of discussion. Another way to capture leads is to have popups on these blog pages for potential listeners.
Among the landing pages on your website, one of them can promote your podcast and encourage visitors to sign up for updates about your new episodes.
People who get to know your podcast through these pages are all leads that can become subscribers and long-term listeners.
3. Connect with your audience on social media
With 3.8 billion social media users online, your leads are likely on social media.
But while you want to capture leads, you have to remember that the first unwritten rule of social media is to be social.
Social media users go on these channels to interact with their friends and brands they follow. Likewise, you need to interact with your followers, provide value, and acquire more followers.
Source: We Are Social
At the same time, you have to consider the social media channels to focus on. After all, your ideal leads use some social media channels more than others.
For instance, if your podcast is for entrepreneurs and business executives, then LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter may be great options.
On the other hand, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook may be good options if your podcast is about food.
Once you pick the right social media channels, you can share your podcast episodes on your account pages.
Here’s an example from EarthMovers Media on Instagram:
The caption introduces the guest and explains the topic of discussion.
Furthermore, the caption makes a promise that will attract people interested in pipeline construction. In the post image, there are pipelines and machinery which fit the topic.
See another example from Parents:
Here, they feature a clip from their podcast. This short clip can encourage many of their followers to listen to the episode.
Furthermore, you can use podcast hashtags while sharing your podcasts or posts related to your podcast.
Some of these hashtags could be industry, podcast, and branded hashtags.
As a general rule, ensure you use hashtags your ideal leads are likely to use or search for.
To engage your audience, share educating posts about your industry and ask for their feedback.
Ensure you reply to comments to increase engagement.
Although it requires time and commitments to monitor and respond to comments.
However, using social media scheduling tools like Buffer, HootSuite or SocialPilot will help keep an eye on the comments and organize conversations from one dashboard.
Without the need of having to juggle between platforms.
Apart from these, build anticipation for your podcast episodes by announcing your guest before publishing the episodes.
Equally important, you can state some interesting questions your guest answered in the episode.
To increase reach, you’ll find podcasting groups you can join. By participating in the discussions, you can attract people who already love podcasts to check yours out.
Through effective use of social media, you can build a community among your listeners and even attract more leads.
4. Collaborate with other podcast shows and influencers
Even though you want as many podcast downloads as possible, you don’t have to compete with other podcasters.
After all, podcast statistics have it that a typical podcast listener subscribes to an average of 7 different podcast shows.
Again, it’s easier to capture people who already listen to podcasts as leads for your show.
Therefore, it’s a no-brainer to collaborate with other podcast shows and influencers.
How do you achieve that?
First, identify influencers in your industry who are fans of podcasts and feature on podcasts. Then, you can send past episodes of your podcasts to them and invite them to feature as a guest.
After they feature on your podcast, it’s easier to encourage them to share the episode on their social media accounts and to their email list. Even without asking, many of them will do that.
As a result of this, your podcast will gain more exposure to potential leads.
In fact, many of your guests’ followers will check your podcast and subscribe.
Another way to collaborate with other podcasters is to feature on their podcast. These features increase your reach to an audience that already listens to podcasts.
Moreso, your interviewer will mention your podcast while introducing you. Consequently, some listeners can check your podcast out. To get fully involved, you should promote other podcasts too.
To build better relationships with influencers, you need to keep tabs on them even after their podcast appearance.
For instance, you can congratulate them when they attain new achievements.
Beyond featuring on podcasts, you also have the opportunity to connect with influencers during physical events such as trade shows.
In a nutshell, collaboration opens your podcast up to an audience that already listens to shows similar to yours.
5. Involve your audience in your podcast show
There’s no podcast without its audience, and one of the best ways to engage your audience is to involve them.
First, let your audience suggest guests to feature on the show.
Doing this will provide a long list of potential guests for your show.
As a matter of fact, you’ll be surprised by the great suggestions your audience will provide. Another way is to feature one of your listeners on your show.
To execute this, you can create a contest among your listeners. Then, the winner of this contest gets to feature as a guest on one of your episodes.
When inviting a guest to your show, what questions do you want to ask them? Let your audience send questions for your guest.
In addition, popups on Apple Podcasts encourage listeners to subscribe, rate, and review your podcast.
Considering this is a popular platform, high subscription numbers, and good ratings and reviews can help acquire more leads for your show.
Overall, these steps can get your listeners hooked to your podcast.
And luckily, 96% of super listeners recommend podcasts to their friends.
Source: AdWeek
Which do you think is more effective? Working tirelessly to capture leads or letting your listeners do the job for you?
6. Submit podcast to podcatchers and directories
If you want to acquire leads, then few things beat showing up on platforms they already visit. After all, people who visit podcasting platforms need little convincing to listen to your podcast.
There are some popular podcast directories your podcast should appear in.
They include:
- Apple Podcasts
- Spotify
- Google Podcasts
- TuneIn
- Stitcher
- Spreaker
- iHeartRadio
Source: Castos
You’ll find even more podcasting platforms with time. And if you use some podcasting software, they allow you to connect to these platforms and publish to them automatically.
Apart from submitting your podcast, you have to ensure it’s in the correct category.
Then, you need to optimize your podcast title, artwork, and episode titles to increase the chance of attracting listeners.
7. Use robust podcasting software
While having a quality microphone and other sound equipment is great, you also need robust podcasting hosting software.
Otherwise, you’ll create great episodes but find it tough to reach your ideal audience.
With podcasting software, it becomes easier to manage your show episodes effectively. Apart from organizing your episodes as you publish them and into seasons, it helps with promotion too.
As there are many podcast listening platforms, it will take a lot of time and effort to publish on each platform.
Thanks to your software, you can automatically publish to popular platforms such as Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and more.
Beyond publishing, you also have access to your podcast analytics.
Some metrics available on your here include:
- Downloads
- Listeners
- Likes
- Geolocation
- Demographics
- Sources
- Devices
These metrics provide insights into your podcast audience and performance.
For instance, where are the majority of your listeners? Can you capture more leads from that location? Can you feature influencers from that location?
There are even more insights you can uncover to acquire more listeners for your show. Some examples of podcasting software are Spreaker, Audacity, Buzzsprout, Adobe Audition, Wavve, and more.
Conclusion
While there’s a bigger audience pool for podcasts today, leads won’t automatically navigate to your podcast show.
You need to take steps to attract leads that can turn into active listeners. In this post, I’ve provided 7 effective ways to generate consistent leads for your podcast.
Have I missed out on anything? Is there a strategy that has worked well for you? Tell me in the comments!
Khris Steven is a content marketer and the founder of Khrisdigital. He blogs about marketing tools, trends, side hustles, and how small business owners can make more from their business by serving and impacting lives using the cheapest funnel builders in the market. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Podcast stock photo by JuShoot/Shutterstock
