Growing your podcast is easier said than done. As with any business, this requires significant investment in time.
Grow Your Mailing List
Mailchimp is quickly becoming one of the most widely used email service providers. Mailchimp has a ton of features and is comparatively cheap. There’s a free tier for up to 2000 contacts which means you get to explore all of its features for none the cost.
In order to capture names for your newsletter the first order of business is having enough opt-in boxes to fuel lead generation. Have pop up forms that ask visitors to subscribe to mailing list. Tell them that they can stay updated on the latest happenings in and around your blog.
You can trigger a popup when people click play on a podcast episode. Sure its intrusive, but is a great way to collect plenty of leads.
But, the biggest and most effective way is also the oldest. Get your people to join the mailing list by giving away a lead magnet for free.
Here are a few things you can give for free.
* Special report
* E-book
* Special audio segment
* One-year free trial to your product
* Free consultation
YOu will want to describe and tease your lead magnet while on a podcast so that more people are encouraged to sign up for it. People do take action after listening about something on a podcast according to research.
Tell the audience why something is valuable and how they can take charge of the offer.
What can you say
Hi Peeps, thanks for listening in. You might like to know how I make money with these podcasts. In fact I sold $50k worth of stuff on a single episode. To know my secrets which I wrote in detail in an ebook all you have to do is go to this site and sign up. You will get the book in your email. It’s a quick real full of actionable strategies you can use right away.
YOu can attract tens of thousands of subscribers to sign up wth this nifty little campaign.
6. Interview Guests
Again utilize the clout of the guests you’re interviewing. You may be getting several high clout guests for your podcast. Let them do the marketing for you.
Sometimes these guests are people with a large following or people have a big clout in a particular industry. When you launch your podcast, make sure the guests you invite are big names who can help you take your podcast to places.
This has the additional benefit of getting your brand featured on What’s hot and New and Noteworthy. The podcast has to be propped up on its ability of going viral.
iTunes is a great place to search for and find relatedpodcasts. Invite those hosts to be guests on your show. They might end up sharing your link and there’s a pretty good chance of your show going viral after that happens.
There’s also the possibility of this host asking you to be a guest on their show.
7. Send Guests Links to Their Episodes
Once the podcasts are published send links to guests. They will publish it on social media, email friends and near and dear ones about it and get it going.
This is what you want for to happen.
Podcast guests can tweet about your creation or email their list. This will decidedly drive a lot of traffic to your site. Some convert to leads and listeners who can’t get more of your brand.
There’s the additional opportunity for you to get a reference to other guests and getting free stuff from the guest.
Don’t hesitate to reach out to them on LinkedIn and other social media sites and forge a budding relationship with these guys as you progress.
The guest can do a lot for you in the future and it’s a potential business partner.
8. Convert Audio Podcasts into Print Content to Improve SEO and Shareability
Transcribe your podcasts.
For one, search engines can’t really read your podcasts the way they understand and assimilate text content. Pick segments from the podcast and turn them into blog posts or as a transcribed note at the end of the podcast.
The audio version of the podcast sits on iTunes. The summarized copy is something you can spread far and wide through social media blog posts and lead magnets. This helps it go viral.
Transcriptions are hugely important because of the marvelous SEO value they bring to the table.
9. Incorporate Youtube and Social Media into Your Marketing Strategy
Social media is part and parcel of growing any business these days. Build a following through social media by posting your content all over the place say Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
You want to:
Post updates
Respond to public and private messages
Read feedback on-air
As you post more and more updates social media traffic and conversions will grow by leaps and bounds.
YouTube is one of my favorite places because you can share tons of quality content on the platform. Create a channel and upload all podcasts to this channel.
Just fill a still photo and you can still upload purely audio files.
People listen, they comment and you use the massively popular platform to grow your business.
It grows your podcasts business viability. It opens doors for you and multiplies odds of making it go viral.
In Summary
Grow your email list to grow your podcast. They go hand in hand. Partner with illustrious guests to fuel your growth even further.