Ask around about podcast promotion strategy.
You will hear about short links, smart links, deep links, podcast visibility optimization, landing pages, videograms, audiograms, newsletters, podcast guesting, etc. You will quickly get inundated with those words and a multitude of hacks to make them work to grow your audience.
Those are hacks, tactics at best, but not strategy. Strategy is your high-level plan for achieving your objectives, the big picture, or, as I learned in business school, the “where to play.” Tactics are the specific steps and actions to get you there, the “how to win”.
Quite often, podcast marketing people jump right into tactics without taking the time and/or effort to step back and reflect on whether they are playing in the right place.
This article introduces a simple method of segmenting your podcast audience and the associated ways to reach individuals in those segments. We wanted to put the basics back into perspective to help publishers assign resources, time, budget, etc., where it will have the most significant impact.
Podcast Audience Segmentation Basics
An audience could be segmented via a simple 2×2 matrix like this one. It is simple and easy to understand, highlighting the key insights and allowing prioritization.
The two axes of the matrix answer two questions:
- Does the audience listen to podcasts? Yes or No.
- Is the audience interested in the topic of my content? Yes or No.
That’s it.
Based on the answers to those two questions, we can now segment our audience and define marketing strategies to reach them.
Segment #1: The Death Valley
This segment comprises potential listeners who are not familiar with podcasts and have no interest in your content. To attract them, you must convince them to start listening to podcasts—ideally, make it a habit—and become interested in your content.
This double-convincing will be a tough sell. Don’t waste time or effort there: this is the Death Valley.
Segment #2: The Ghosts
That segment listens or at least is familiar with podcasts but has no interest in your content.
Imagine a podcast listener not interested in a given sport, such as long-distance running. You may have the most outstanding podcasts about marathons, ultra-trail, endurance, etc., but she will not be interested in listening to them.
You may see, hear, and read about this audience, but you will have a very hard time catching anyone. Those are the Ghosts.
Back to our podcast listener above, maybe (and that’s a massive maybe) her taste will change over time, and with the help of other mediums, she may grow an interest in your content. But that’s a long-term effort and a big stretch. Don’t rely on it in terms of immediate impact.
Segment #3: The Late Adopters
This segment is interested in your content but needs to learn about podcasts.
If you read this article, you are likely active in or interested in podcasts or digital audio in general. And you very probably listen to podcasts. Well, that is not yet the case for anyone.
While studies vary from country to country, age group to age group, and survey to survey, it’s safe to say that only about two-thirds of the population has ever listened to a podcast, and only half listen regularly (at least monthly).
This segment has a lot of potential, but it requires considerable effort to get them to discover and enjoy your content. You can’t reach them directly on the listening platforms, so you must rely on off-platform promotion. This includes:
- Social Media: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, but also X or LinkedIn. While platform shifts are complicated as they require several clicks, and users may not be “in the mood” to listen, social media, either earned or paid, represents a massive promotion opportunity.
- Leveraging your own assets: If you are a radio, TV, newspaper, or magazine, you should use your own assets to promote your podcasts. Why not promote your great running podcasts at the end of your soccer talk show or in that daily sports newsletter you are sending?
- Other Media in the space: You may want to reach out to Media specialized in your vertical, such as blogs or forums.
- Offline events: people sharing common interests like to meet to exchange on their favorite topic. Being present and promoting your podcasts at such events could also have significant potential.
- Web Search: if you have a website promoting your podcast and master SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you may be visible to users searching for your content. While it doesn’t have the reach of social media, your assets, or offline events, it could bring some rewards.
Also, remember to include some educational material on the benefits of podcasts for them and, eventually, step-by-step guides on accessing and listening to podcasts.
Segment #4: The Sweet Spot
This segment is your absolute Sweet Spot, your top priority: they are both interested in your content and familiar with podcasts.
Promoting your content directly on platforms such as Spotify or Apple Podcasts is the best way to reach them. Here, the potential listeners are already on their favorite listening apps and don’t need to shift platforms, which generates significant friction and waste.
On-platform promotion consists of two main pillars:
1. Podcast Visibility Optimization.
Podcast Visibility Optimization (PVO) improves a podcast’s visibility on the listening platforms, ensuring it appears as a top result for relevant search queries. This is crucial for podcast discovery as surveys indicate that 30% to 50% of podcast downloads come from on-platform discovery. Imagine a listener typing “marathon” on the Spotify search bar and your podcast arriving at the top….
2. Cross Promotion.
Cross-promotion is a marketing strategy where podcasts are promoted on other podcasts. This is done in a variety of ways, such as mentioning the promoted podcast in the other podcasts you manage, automated ads as post-roll on some of your shows, inserting a trailer into an RSS feed, guest appearance, etc. The more podcasts you publish, the greater the possibilities.
While on-platform promotion is proven to be highly effective, you should also complement your efforts with off-platform promotion, as detailed above.
Conclusion
By segmenting your potential audience in the very simple way shown above, you can focus your efforts on what matters the most and adopt the proper marketing strategy for each segment. That should be the very first step of your podcast marketing strategy, from which everything will follow.
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