Dos and Don’ts of Promoting Your Podcast – PCI 354

Speaker 0 00:00:00 The reason why they like to listen to podcasts is cuz they'll go do something else. They'll go to the gym, they'll clean the house, you know, all these things that we've been saying for years. And they're like, what is Gen Z doing when they're listening to this podcast that they're actually watching? Trends are changing. I

Speaker 1 00:00:15 Don't think they're necessarily watching actively. Yes. You know, I think that they're haphazardly watching and because if you think about it, your time to listen is still much, much greater than your time to watch.

Speaker 2 00:00:29 You are listening to Podcast Insider hosted by Mike Dell, Todd Cochran, and McKenzie Bennett from the Blueberry team, bringing you weekly insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks to help you start, grow and thrive through podcasting. With all the support of your team here at Blueberry Podcasting, welcome. Let's dive in.

Speaker 1 00:00:52 This is Todd Cochran, c e o and co-founder of Blueberry Podcasting.

Speaker 0 00:00:55 And I'm Mackenzie, marketing specialist here at Blueberry.

Speaker 1 00:00:58 Today we're sharing some dos and don'ts when it comes to promoting your podcast and really promoting your podcast can be a fun and engaging way to connect with your audience. Of course, each show is different, but that is part of the experimentation. Luckily, there are a number of ways that we can promote our shows. And today we're gonna talk about, again, these overall dos and don'ts. So McKenzie, why don't you kick us off with, with a do

Speaker 0 00:01:29 . Okay. , the most glaring one is you have to promote your show. There's no getting around that . There's, you can create a show, but if you don't promote it in some sense, no one's gonna hear about it. So first thing I would do is define your audience. This might take a little bit of time, but you should have one in mind, especially when you're creating the show for, you know, content wise. But you also have to have a target in mind for who you're going to be promoting this to in general, like online,

Speaker 1 00:02:03 You know, and you can also, if you don't know who your audience is, you have to maybe start asking and by asking, maybe I ask them to do the audience survey that we provide. So if you don't know exactly who your audience is, you know, and I think most podcasters have a pretty good idea, but even I've been surprised a few times when I first started doing my show, it was early days and it was so heavily male dominated that I was really kind of just addressing the guys all the time. And when I ran my first kinda rudimentary survey, um, I found out that there was about 10% of the audience was actually ladies that were listening. And I was kind of blown away and I'd been ignoring them. So again, uh, really have to know who your audience is that you're talking to, especially when you're reaching out on social.

Speaker 0 00:02:54 Yeah, I really think you should define it before you start recording the content, but I think there's that surprise element that you maybe should look out for. So next one is measuring your efforts. And you just mentioned the audience survey that we do and that is a really great way to get those responses to, you know, see actual data feedback that people are providing. You know, is the show, are they enjoying it? Do they have something else that they want to hear about? Have a goal,

Speaker 1 00:03:27 You know, and I often say it can be kinda lonely as a content creator cuz you'll, you'll say something to the fact of like, did this resonate with you? Or did you like what I said about that? Or was I off base and gimme feedback? And sometimes it's crickets, you know, it's like chirp, chirp, chirp and you're like, oh my God, I'm not getting any feedback. And I think what we really have to do is sometimes you just gotta press a little bit and by pressing I mean, you know, maybe, maybe play devil's advocate, see if you can get a reaction. Again, you really gotta get a

Speaker 0 00:04:07 Toe that line a little bit to see if you can, if you can drag something outta someone else.

Speaker 1 00:04:13 Yeah, absolutely. But of course, you know, as you're building your show and promoting your podcast, you gotta have that branding and you gotta have that name the same. It's gotta be the same. It's gotta be represented the same on every platform.

Speaker 0 00:04:26 Yeah, this is simple just for people to be able to recognize you wherever they are.

Speaker 1 00:04:31 It is easy. And it really even goes into the album art. You know, the album art has to be consistent across the forms. It usually is, but you know, I think that's important as well. But probably the most important thing in promoting your show is really staying active. And you know, we have seen a lot of evidence over the years that shows that are producing every week are more inclined to be successful and grow than those that are publishing, you know, maybe once every two weeks or once a month. And really there's a, there's a reason for it. A regular listener will essentially build you into their schedule. Like there are certain, certain shows, like I know today there's a show being recorded if I don't listen to it live, which is a live show, I know it's recorded today by about three 30 or four this afternoon.

Speaker 1 00:05:23 This is a Friday that we're recording. This is, I know that show will be online so that when I finish work, I know that show's gonna be there. And that consistency of being active and knowing when that show comes out, I can get it fresh off the press and if I miss it, that's okay. I know it's there for me to listen later. But I think that is so super important is people build really, truly build your show into their lives. You know, they're planning to listen at the gym or on that commute, or they have a specific activity, usually they listen to your show on

Speaker 0 00:05:56 Yeah, give them some credit, you know, keep your content available

Speaker 1 00:05:59 , you know, and, and if even if you're recording, like we record these shows now ahead of time, maybe I'm not supposed to tell PE tell you that, but we have all the content ready to go and comes out essentially about the same exact time every week. And that allows those of you to can kind of plan on listening to this content.

Speaker 0 00:06:20 One of the other things is word of mouth that kind of goes with the regular schedule there, I think of saying, you know, like a show is going to be recommended to a friend or family member or coworker or something if they say, yeah, like there's new episodes every week. They talk about this type of stuff. The host has this kind of demeanor. They have to be able to recommend or explain what it is that's in like a, you have to be reliable . So for that word of mouth, you have to be reliable.

Speaker 1 00:06:54 And I think too, it goes back to a topic Mike and I have talked about is about you've gotta give them a place to find your show. And it goes back to having the same name, the branding, talking about where your show can be found in each and every episode, even if you spend a few minutes on it so that when a listener says, Hey, you need to go listen to Podcast Insider, it's a great show about podcasting, it's over@podcastinsider.com or you, you know, or search for it on your favorite podcast app for podcast Insider, they'll be able to find it. And that word of mouth truly is king of the hill right now in that being the number one way people discover content. I, I often talk about, you know, you've heard seven, you've heard about seven degrees of separation. And I've, its we, we, although we live on a big planet, I've often found as I've been lucky enough to travel all over the world, I'll be somewhere and I'll talk to someone and they'll say, Hey, by the way, do you know, and it might be a friend of a friend of a friend, but there's often these, these seven degrees of separation happen in the most weirdest places where you are actually more interconnected than you think.

Speaker 1 00:08:10 So this word of mouth is so, so, so, so, so critical. And you have to ask your audience to spread the name about the show because you have this circle of listeners that are really kind of a couple of rings. One ring is the inner ring that's like the super fans, those are the ones that love and don't miss an episode and they're sending the emails all the time. Then there's the other next ring. They're the ones that that listen but maybe they're not engaged. And then there release that third ring of listeners that, that maybe catch up on you when they have extra time to listen. So that first ring is the ring that is going to be the ones that are gonna be telling their friends and family and people that they know and and coworkers about this great show. And matter of fact, they're gonna be maybe a little too over enthusiastic where the second ring may be more effective just from a enthusiasm standpoint. Say, Hey, you need to check this show out because of this. So once you establish this ability for your listeners to share your show, it just naturally grows because then those that tell others, tell others and tell others and tell others. And next thing you know, you're building this bigger ring of seven degrees of separation and different rings of, of influence and people that know different people. And it's, I kind of call it, it's like ultimate network marketing, ,

Speaker 0 00:09:29 , you know,

Speaker 1 00:09:31 No, or multi-level marketing because those rings expand out and it's really, you know, and it's all, they're all connected internally to you, but still it's just a fast way of, of growing the show.

Speaker 0 00:09:43 There's one last do on here and it's accessibility. So those rings are, you know, broadening the audience and that that includes, we recommend that people have transcripts and potentially some type of video for social media to go with your podcast just because video's so, so popular now for all social media promotion. The accessibility really changes the way that people can consume your content. It's just kind of, you know, I'm, I'm happy to see it being turned into like a requirement, just part of something that's like a standard of, yes, you're going to include this, I think slow and steady that is happening. But it also reminded me of this morning when I was scrolling through TikTok. There's, there's a podcast that shows up in my feet all the time that I have never actually listened to, but they were saying it was two guys and it's, you know, they were on video saying, what is Gen Z doing when they're listening to the podcast?

Speaker 0 00:10:43 Because Gen Z is very, very interested in watching the video version of a podcast because they want to see the face with whoever is speaking more so than different generations. And I, I do think that is, that is accurate just based on how much video there is in general now. But the, the two hosts were questioning like the reason why they like to listen to podcasts is cuz they'll go do something else. They'll go to the gym, they'll clean the house, you know, all these things that we've been saying for years and they're like, what is Gen Z doing when they're listening to this podcast that they're actually watching? Trends are changing. I don't think

Speaker 1 00:11:18 They're necessarily watching actively. Yes. You know, I think that they're haphazardly watching and because if you think about it, your time to listen is still much, much greater than your time to watch interactivity. My show, I often wonder why people watch the video portion of the show and because it's really, there's nothing that really changes. There's this background and maybe I put a few slides up on the screen or something, but still with the 85% that listen, um, and 15% that watch it still baffles me a little bit that people would actually watch watch. So I'm thinking maybe they're not necessarily watch watching, maybe it's just on and it's there in the background and maybe they're working or doing something else. But interesting dichotomy I guess at this point. Now at the same time on the accessibility piece, when we say accessibility, you automate think, oh uh, you know, handicap accessibility, that type of thing. But really what we're talking about now is because podcasting has truly matured is we've got the ability now for folks that are, um, hearing impaired to now get a more interactive participation with podcasts. And Chrome is about ready to update. And so those of you that put an actual pdf f linked to your transcript in your show notes, upcoming version of Chrome will actually convert that to PDF file to a text file and make it readable by Jaws and those type of screen readers. So that's

Speaker 0 00:12:51 Really, really cool.

Speaker 1 00:12:52 Yeah, because up to this point they have not been, they've had to add some extra tools so this will automatically do it now. So that's why I've always told content creators be careful on using PDF text files, always being able to be read by, of course it's not as pretty texts could always be read by accessibility tools like Jaws. So anyway, that's just, it's getting beyond promotion piece here, but, uh, I I just, I just remember that was coming out well.

Speaker 0 00:13:18 Yeah, it's, you know, the technology is always changing and evolving and that's part of the promotion. So while it might not be someone's, um, passion, it is worthwhile to keep up with for this scenario.

Speaker 1 00:13:29 There's some don'ts here too. So one thing that in the early days, and I keep going back to the early days because we were, you know, there was no Facebook, there was no Twitter, there was no LinkedIn, there wasn't all these great places to reach audiences, but I think the rules still apply. There was these forums that were all over the place and I would be hanging out on the tech forums and the conversations were, you know, just a bunch of, you know, techies talking about stuff that was coming out and what was in the news and what was happening with new releases of software. And it was just, you know, this kind of nerdy type tech talk. And one thing that I really learned early on was only interject yourself in a online form when you can do added value. So as an example, someone said something about a specific topic I'd covered a couple of weeks before on my show. Now I had to go back to my show and actually find the minute mark where that was at because I had talked about multiple things, but I added to that form, I said, Hey, on my podcast I talked about this particular topic about, you know, gave them the time hash on where I started the conversation so I wasn't wasting their time. So I interjected myself to be useful instead of saying, oh hey, I'll

Speaker 0 00:14:46 Go a tech

Speaker 1 00:14:46 Show, please listen to my podcast. You know that no one wants to hear that be useful. So don't be spammy or too aggressive in when you're interacting on social, try to be added value to the conversation. It's real easy to say, Hey, hey, hey, hey look at me over here cuz we're so, we are, we're excited about our content and we wanna share it with people, but we have to find that modicum dialogue to interact with people online. And again, interjecting useful versus, you know, being spam

Speaker 0 00:15:21 there's a very big difference. But the next one is that it's keeping it relatively simple to understand. I would say this leans more heavily into the promotion probably like if you have a very niche show that's, you know, maybe you're doing a show about like Ta Todd, your tech stuff, some of that is definitely yeah, go over my head. Like I, I have a certain level of interest and understanding in tech and while it may be a lot more than some other people, like I'm, there's a threshold there. Sure. And so it can be a little overwhelming for people or, you know, there's, there's the shows that are maybe like a true crime thing or kind of just like a group of people chatting and they're like, they don't really know how to promote it and so there's, there's too much mystery and I'm like, okay, well I don't even know what this is gonna be about so I don't care. So I like walk that line.

Speaker 1 00:16:20 Yeah. One thing that I do is, because I do a tech show is my, my genesis show is I try to break it down and sometimes I find an article that's maybe linked up as, let's say something with space.com and they're talking about some supernova that's got sucked into a black hole that's turned into a pulsing whatever. For me, I'm like, you don't understand this, you know, so what I try to do in my show at least is I try to say, yeah, this sounds cool. For those of you that are interested in this, the link will be in the show notes, you know, and you can read the full details and get into the, the nerdy stuff. But I try to kind of just do this easy overview, putting my opinion to it. And especially like you said on the text side, not get too deep.

Speaker 1 00:17:09 And especially in some industries there is a lot of industry jargon. You know, there is, there's, even in podcasting we have certain things that we talk about that really cause people's eyes to glaze over like tags and items and people are like, what is that? You know? And it's, you know, it's, it's better to talk features and opportunities versus this, this technical jargon. So this same applies in the show like you said is let's say you're doing a show on county, you know, you're trying to do personal finance or something like that. If you're starting to get talking into super, super deep, you're probably probably turning away people that don't already know that exact jargon and you might be limiting your audience. So if you wanna expand your audience, you gotta kinda, I don't say say go down to the lowest common denominator, but you do have to make sure that you're talking in a way that you're not talking over people's heads.

Speaker 0 00:18:07 We mentioned this with our own content and talking to podcasters, what value are you providing? And you have to be able to actually reach the listeners. You know, you can, you can be having the best conversation with the most technical terms, but if it's not helping or being valuable to like a large group of people, then figure out a good way to get your information across.

Speaker 1 00:18:31 Now. Now if you're a neurosurgeon and all you're talking to is neurosurgeons who have been vetted, been trained or board certified, whatever those terms are for a neurosurgeons, so they're, they're medical doctor, maybe you can get down in the weeds but also understand that again, it goes back to defining your audience, knowing who your audience is in the dues so that you don't do something that's going to alienate those that you're actually trying to reach. So I guess it's kind of a do and don't

Speaker 0 00:19:07 . Yeah. Speaking of the dos and don'ts, we kind of already touched on these last two, but the, the first one is don't fall behind schedule. You know, people are integrating your show into their lives and some degree and in that word of mouth they're saying it's coming this often, this is exactly what we mean. And also part of this for new podcasters can somewhat be when you're getting your footing about like a launch, you know, there there's recommendations of launching with like three episodes right away to give people something to like actually, you know, listen to and chew on a little bit and decide if they wanna keep going. But whenever you're starting a show and you're like, oh this is, this is can be a lot of work. That's why we see people fall behind with like one episode or they get to like three or four and then it's, they kind of drop off. If you do go in with some already recorded, you know, ahead of time and then you're like, okay, cool, I'll release on this schedule that might help you.

Speaker 1 00:20:11 I, I have a very unpopular opinion and again it's Todd's opinion , but I think someone that's new that's starting a show, whatever sequence that you decide you're going to publish on if you want truly want to be successful, you have to make a major commitment and stick to that schedule for at least the first couple of years. You can't be leaving the audience in a lurch. And I'll give you an example again, I go back to my personal show. I, and I was getting ready to have episode 200 of my show. I was doing a hundred shows a year, a hundred episodes a year. And there was the day I lost my father and to an automobile accident. And the audience was expecting me that night to, we weren't doing live, it was just gonna be recorded and put out and I knew I was gonna be away for like 10 days.

Speaker 1 00:20:58 Now there wasn't the social media stuff probably could have went on Facebook or Twitter or whatever and said, Hey, you know, my dad's died, I'm not gonna be here for 10 days. There really wasn't no way to communicate to the greater audience besides maybe some that were on the newsletter email list. So I basically just grabbed the microphone and did like a short two minute explanation why there was gonna be no episode that night and see him in 10 days. And I didn't leave him in a lurch. So some folks are not subscribed to your newsletter, they're not following you on Facebook, they're not watching you on Twitter, they're not on Instagram, they're not watching you on LinkedIn cuz they got a life

Speaker 0 00:21:41 . Yeah, yeah, yeah. They

Speaker 1 00:21:42 Got alive, right? They like listen to your content and if they think it's coming Tuesday and it's not there in Tuesday,

Speaker 0 00:21:50 What the heck?

Speaker 1 00:21:51 And they're gonna replace you with somebody else.

Speaker 0 00:21:53 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 00:21:55 So this is why we continue to talk about this consistency, set the audience expectation. So if you have a do and a don't that we left out and you had your own experience, please, we want you to share them with us. And of course you can make a comment on the, on the Facebook post or on Twitter or just send us an email, that would fine too. Um, and anyone on the team, Todd and Mike or mackenzie@blueberry.com, you can let us know what, what did we miss, what's the do and don't. And when you send that stuff to us, we will put that in a little stack and we'll cover it in a later show that we record and talk about the tip we missed. Any, anything else that we got here that I missed, Mackenzie?

Speaker 0 00:22:38 Just have fun with it. Yes, exactly. You know, don't stress yourself out.

Speaker 1 00:22:42 I've always said, if I can't, sure, I, I've been, I've been fortunate, I've had a sponsor for my main show really for a long time. And I've always said, even without the sponsor, when it's, when it no longer becomes fun, that's when I'm gonna hang the microphone up. And so you gotta have fun cuz if you don't have fun, it's work and we don't wanna do work. We wanna have fun creating content.

Speaker 0 00:23:04 Yeah, challenging things can be fun and difficult, but as long as you're still happy with it, then keep doing what you're doing.

Speaker 1 00:23:12 Happy podcasting.

Speaker 2 00:23:15 Thanks for joining us. Come back next week and in the meantime, head to podcast insider.com for more information to subscribe, share, and read our show notes. To check out our latest suite of services and learn how blueberry can help you leverage your podcast. Visit blueberry.com. That's blueberry without the ease. We couldn't afford the ease.