When it comes to getting more listeners for your podcast, the words “promotion” and “marketing” are often used interchangeably.
While they certainly share some commonalities, however, the activities associated with each phrase, and the goals around them are actually quite different.
So in this article, we’re going to explore the difference between podcast promotion and podcast marketing, and the role that each plays in growing your show.
What is Podcast Promotion?
Podcast promotion is the first thing many podcasters think of when they think about marketing their shows. And while promotion is certainly a part of your broader marketing strategy, very little of the rest of your marketing involves promotion.
Unlike other forms of marketing, which we’ll talk about in a minute, promotion is hyper-focused on driving traffic to specific episodes or your show as a whole. Think emailing your list or sharing links on social media to your latest episode.
Podcast promotion is essentially a form of direct-response marketing, where there is a specific end result you’re hoping to achieve, ie. click this link and listen to this episode.
While promotional posts can (and should) be enticing to your ideal listeners, there’s not generally much inherent value to promotional posts themselves. Said differently, while the podcast episode you’re promoting might be packed with value, the post promoting it doesn’t give much, if any of that value away, it merely teases it.
You can think about promotion as the final garnish, sprinkled on top of a completed episode, dressing it up and making appear as appetizing as possible.
Who Podcast Promotion Is Aimed At
While there are some exceptions, such as posting your latest episodes in relevant (ie. not podcasting-related) niche communities, most promotion is aimed at getting people who are already aware of you and your show to listen.
Whether it’s through your email list or social channels, the people who are most likely to see your promotional posts are those already within your existing network.
This is the big reason many podcasters whose only form of marketing is promotion get frustrated when their shows fail to grow. Most of the people they’re promoting to are already aware of their show, and have either already listened, or simply don’t care.
While podcast promotion isn’t a great tool for gaining exposure to new audiences, that’s not to say it doesn’t play an important role in your marketing.
The Real Role Of Promotion In Your Marketing System
Think about your own personal favourite show for a minute. You likely don’t need to be reminded when new episodes go live. In fact, if you’re a superfan you may even keep track of the days of the week by how far away you are from a new episode being released.
Any show of sufficient quality that has done the initial legwork to seed their audience will have at least a few of these types of fans who don’t rely on regular promotion to keep coming back.
Now think about your 5th favourite show.
First, you might have to actually look at your podcast app and weigh the various shows you listen to in order to determine which show that is. While you might like the show, maybe even really like the show, you probably don’t listen to it every single week as soon as the latest episode drops.
These shows are what I refer to as bubble shows. These are the podcasts we all have that we know and love and have listened to many episodes of, but which we just never seem to have enough time to keep up with.
You might even feel bad about not listening more regularly, but the fact of the matter is that while you make the time to listen to every episode of your very favourite shows, when it comes to your bubble shows, you don’t.
Unless, that is, they release an episode so juicy and compelling and perfect for you that you have to listen.
And this is where promotion becomes essential.
While every decent show has its core group of listeners who set their watches by episode release dates, even the best shows have a much larger audience who is either on the bubble or outside of the bubble.
This larger audience is interested in your topic, aware of your show, and may even be a fan of it, but must still be wooed and won over with each new episode.
The primary purpose of your podcast promotion on an episode-to-episode basis is to convince this audience that your latest episode is worth their time.
Achieve this consistently, and your podcast will move up from bubble show to must-listen.
While individual episode promotion is an essential part of moving people who are already familiar with you and your show closer to your center of gravity, as we’ve already discussed, it isn’t all that effective at reaching new people and introducing them to your content.
This, then, is where the rest of your marketing comes into play.
What Is Podcast Marketing?
If podcast promotion is all about the direct sharing of specific episodes with a defined ask to listen, your broader marketing efforts include aaaaaaall the less direct ways in which you raise awareness and build connection around your show’s big idea.
And while that description incorporates a lot of vague activities, all marketing boils down to one main objective.
At its core, effective marketing is about building connection and trust.
Where promotion is about making asks, marketing is about giving.
Good marketing is valuable to your audience in its own right. It’s generous. It’s about sharing content that is meaningful to your audience without expecting anything in return.
The best marketers, while they make regular asks of their audiences, do a whole lot more giving. Most indie podcasters, however, have the ratio flipped.
Regardless of the platform, you’re using, your goal with your marketing is to build up your audience’s trust that you and your content are worth the continued (and even greater) investment of their time.
Win Your Audience Over
Podcasters often fail to realize the investment that listening to an unproven episode is. People are all busy, and if your show is longer than 10-15 minutes, the risk of wasting their time on a show and host they don’t know presents a significant hurdle.
With so much content and so many creators that they already know, like, and trust, most people’s default reaction when presented with something new, is a hard “no”.
Your job with your marketing then, is to chip away at that armor across whatever platforms you engage with your audience. Prove to them time and time again that you’re worth their time and eventually you’ll convert many of them into listeners.
Who Your Marketing Is For
Much like promotion, most of your marketing is aimed at people who already have some awareness of who you are and what your show is about, although the form of marketing may be different depending on their relationship with you.
For your existing fans and superfans, your marketing might be engaging with them in a private community, hosting live Q&A’s, or offering workshops. Your goal with them is to deepen the connection and level of trust to the point where they start introducing new people to your content themselves.
For people who are a layer or two out from your inner circle, your marketing might include engaging with them on social media, sending out a useful weekly newsletter, or creating and offering helpful, low-time-investment content of some other kind.
Your goal with this group is move them closer into your inner circle and have them engage with more of your longer-form, trust deepening content.
And then, of course, there are all the people who’ve never heard of you, but who would be ideal members of your audience.
While there are a number of ways to market to (read: build connection and trust with) this group, the most efficient way to introduce them to you and your content is through someone they already know, like and trust.
This might be by guesting on podcasts they already love, partnering with another aligned creator to do a cross-promotion with, or, by your existing audience sharing your show via word of mouth.
Word of mouth is the number one way that podcasts grow. And while it might feel like word-of-mouth marketing is entirely outside your control, you can go a long way to encouraging it by building something worth talking about.
Find The Balance
Both marketing and promotion are essential tasks for growing your podcast, and both must be performed consistently in order to see results.
That doesn’t mean you need to spend five hours a day marketing to your audience, however. Instead you need to show up, even if that’s only 15 minutes a day, regularly for months and years at a time.
Marketing (building connection and trust) isn’t something you can ever stop doing entirely. But then again, when marketing is simply connecting with your favourite people in a meaningful way, why would you want to?
If you’re looking to create a show that’s worth your audience talking about, and develop a marketing system to grow it consistently, check out Podcast Marketing Academy.
Jeremy travels full-time, loves long-distance cycle touring, and will always look back on the day he finally saved up enough money to buy the Millennium Falcon Lego set as one of his proudest achievements. He believes that the way to grow sustainable businesses is by leading with heart, vulnerability, and helping your people be and become their best selves.
- Why Wouldn’t They Just Google It? - March 14, 2021
- Before You Can Market Your Podcast, You Need To Create A Marketable Podcast - March 11, 2021
- Podcast Promotion & Marketing Are Different (Here’s How to Use Each Effectively) - March 10, 2021
