Growing your podcast listeners? Try these 8 tips

So you’ve come up with a fantastic podcast idea and you need some tips to get up, running and heard. Or perhaps you’ve already gained your good bunch of loving listeners, the ones that will be with you through the highs, the lows and the changes in your content, but you feel the right time has come to up your podcasting game.

One thing’s for sure, a good vocal story requires good listening ears.

Growing your podcast audience is something you should do regularly, dedicating just as much time and passion as you do when crafting and recording each podcast episode of yours.
But how do you do it? Whether you’re a DIY podcast beginner or a fully fledged professional, we’re providing you with 8 handy tips to increase your podcast listeners.
Before you dig into them, here’s a must-read note for startup podcasters: make sure you really know which story you are going to tell throughout your podcast and who your ideal listeners are. No promotion can make up for bad content or no audience match.

Ready to grow your podcast audience? Let’s begin!

Getting the basics right is key to get more podcast listeners. Going that extra mile in the very beginning of your promotion strategy will pave the way to fantastic long-term benefits. Think launch event, mail contacts and social media and set a clear goal.

Tip 1 – Focus on the launch

A good launch is crucial if you want to gain engaged listeners – and a major mood boost, too 🚀

Launching goes beyond reaching as many people as possible: it’s about reaching as many people likely to find your topic relevant. That’s why relying on a previously built audience can help a lot. Think about running an official countdown on your digital channels in order to attract some of the right people before you actually launch, then make your podcast launch day a digital event, be it a Facebook live, an Instagram story or an exclusive extra episode as a gift for all those listeners who download you – get creative!

If you’ve already launched, that doesn’t mean you cannot think of some event in order to get more engagement from your audience, more shares, and eventually new podcast listeners from your listeners’ circles.

Tip 2 – Email is your friend

Email is fundamental because it’s where closer connections happen. If people allow you to their email, they’re also opening their heart to you and your podcast. It’s ideal that you start building your email list before your podcast launches: that way you can let your contacts know you’re live.

The best way to keep on collecting contacts throughout the podcast is to build an opt-in landing page, like this one. It’s a web page that explains to your current and potential podcast listeners why they should receive your news in their inbox, followed by the chance to sign up for them. Mailchimp is a great tool for no-fuss list building.

It is vital that people spontaneously give their consent, a) because you’ll know they are actually interested, b) because that gives you more, c) for purely legal reasons – you can’t spam people 💣

Give a brief and enticing summary of each episode and a preview of the upcoming one, ask politely to be rated and reviewed on Apple Podcast. While it’s quicker to go with an email template, try your best to customize your email to the receiving end.

Make sure you include the chance to share the email with friends – an extra tip to get new, engaged listeners for your podcast.

Whether or not you have an opt-in list, do email people you know personally if you know they’re interested in your podcast topic and do email pioneers and influencers asking them for advice and to share some episodes with their network  – who knows, they may be your next podcast guests!

Tip 3 – Reach listeners on social media

As tailored as emails can get, taking care of your social media can help get your podcast noticed on a larger scale, driving those much needed downloads and reviews!

Spreaker helps you massively in posting your content on social media, with a practical autoshare feature which automatically posts an update to your Facebook page and Twitter account, embedding your podcast link in a clickable Twitter card with your artwork, latest episode and previous episodes. Spreaker autoshare also works wonders with SoundCloud, Tumblr, and YouTube – the latter providing automatic transcripts, maximizing search engine friendliness and providing videos to repost on other social media.  

Another tip for getting your podcast episodes heard is to do your copywriting homework.

Each social media post should contain your unique insight into why people should listen to that episode and, ultimately, to your entire podcast.  

Create a unique hashtag for your podcast and use it consistently, while leveraging the power of topic-relevant hashtags. Never be afraid to politely ask for reviews and downloads! As for graphics, try picking some memorable quotes from your episodes and turn them into social media designs with a free tool such as Canva,  Pablo by Buffer or Adobe Spark.

We also suggest you invest a little budget in promoting your new podcast episodes with social media ads in order to increase impressions and, ultimately, podcast sessions, downloads, and subscriptions.

Tip 4 – Be where your audience is

Now that you have built your own podcasting marketing channels (yay!), it is time to think where your potential listeners spend time on and offline, such as topic-specific groups, reddits, forums or even Quora. Go beyond the wide “podcast listener” category and dig into your own topic, whether it’s tech, music or friendships. After all, as a topic pro, you will find yourself in most of these physical and digital spaces too.  

Tip 5 – Submit to podcatchers

Now here’s a low maintenance tip to get your podcast heard: the web is full of apps that play podcasts, known as podcatchers. While the iOS podcatcher is perhaps the most popular one, there are plenty more, such as and Stitcher, Overcast, Breaker, PodcastLand, the Podcast subreddit, of course, the Spreaker Podcast Radio app for iOS and Android.

Now that your podcast is everywhere it should be and you’re sure you have the tools to build a relationship with your new and old listeners, why not try to get more podcast subscribers with some tricks and initiatives that will also grow your popularity among potential partners?

Tip 6 – Transcribe your audio

Why transcribe your audio if your podcast was made for listening? Well, the reason why transcribing helps you grow your listener base is that each transcript helps your podcast’s overall ranking in search engine, making it super easy to be reached by people who are actively searching for content like yours. Fear not, there’s not need to spend hours with DIY transcribing: there are lots of tools available to do that for you, such as Transcriber.  

Tip 7 – Prepare your media kit

A podcast media kit will help people tell a story about your podcast in the most relevant and realistic way. It is pretty much THE way to really get to grips with the way you communicate yourself and your podcast, positioning you as a truly professional podcast brand.  

Make your media kit available wherever possible and send it proactively to influencers, publications, and groups that can cover your podcast story.  A complete media kit will include:

• Podcast title, headline (if you have one) and links
• Short and longer podcast descriptions available for copy/paste
• Podcast logo and other visual material
• Team bio and photos
• Podcast idea and story
• A selection of your top podcast episodes

Zengineering is an excellent example because it provides the media with easy links, customized content, brand guidelines, and audiovisual material to support spreading the word.

Tip 8 – Mention partners and invite guests  

Magic happens when your marketing is based on genuine relationships. If you mention other podcasters and businesses in your podcast episodes or invite them to be your guest you will both be able to leverage each other’s audience, which is a win-win situation to help you get new listeners. Here are a few ways to do it:

• Mention partners, tag them and email them to let them know, start a conversation for future collaborations
• When you’re mentioned, thank publicly, start a conversation for future collaborations and share the mention on your marketing channels
• Invite a podcaster or business as a guest or be a guest for them for mutual relationship building and super interesting content

Of course, this will call for an email to your database, some social media posts and stories and a communication to your media contacts!

Ready to promote your podcast?

We wish you the best in growing your podcast – you will need to put your effort into these tips for getting more listeners, but it will pay off! There are plenty of podcasting communities always available to help you grow as a podcaster, such as Facebook groups like Podcast Movement, Podcast Support Group , and She podcasts, Slack communities like #podcasters, Podcast Prompts and  Podcasting Pros, or the Apple Producing Podcasts community.

Let us know how you get on!