As more and more media companies and brands hop into the podcasting space, they’re turning to tried-and-true tactics to launch new shows. But podcasts live within a unique ecosystem, and podcast listeners themselves have distinct habits when it comes to consuming audio content.

If you’re planning to launch a podcast, there are five key marketing and audience development strategies you need to be thinking of, according to Christy Mirabal, an independent podcast marketing executive. She’s spent more than a decade building audiences for audio power players like Sirius XM, Sony’s Global Podcast Division, Stitcher, and HarperAudio. Here, she shares her five tips for success in podcast marketing. 

1. Get to know your listener 

“You can’t really build a marketing strategy without first knowing who you are building your podcast for,” says Mirabal. “If I had a nickel for every time somebody was like, ‘Well, this podcast is for everybody,’ I’d be rich. Because that’s not true – you know, no movie is for everybody – and that’s true for podcasts, too.”

Many podcasts are hyper-focused on a topic, so they attract specific, niche audiences. And people who market audio content need to think about how to specifically connect with that niche.  

“For example, if you’re making a music podcast that’s trying to reach someone in their mid-to-late ‘30s, you’re not gonna reach them on TikTok, But you might reach them at a music festival, right?” she says. 

Connecting with your target audience way before launching — whether in person or through online surveys – will help a media company find out if the people they’d like to target would actually want to listen to the program they’re cooking up. Knowing why the listener wants to consume a podcast will then inform how it’s marketed when it comes time to launch. 

2. Ask: What is your podcast’s end goal?

When setting key performance indicators (KPIs) for a podcast marketing plan, Mirabal recommends backing up and asking a key question: What is your company’s end goal with a podcast? That will “help establish your north star metrics,” she says.

A media company may launch a podcast with the hopes of monetizing a series through paid advertising. If that’s the case, the end goal is likely clear cut: Grow a scalable audience that’s attractive to advertisers. 

“But for a lot of brands, that’s not necessarily the end goal,” Mirabal says. “Maybe they’re looking to extend their brand and get it in front of a different audience. Maybe it’s just somebody’s passion project — like someone in the c-suite really believes in something and they want to do a podcast to get the word out there. And so the KPIs that you develop, if you are making a passion project, that’s gonna be a completely different path and a different set of KPIs than if you’re trying to monetize your work.” 

Setting clear goals as a team from the jump will help determine the answers to key questions: Should we have a paid marketing and audience acquisition budget? Should our strategy be focused on organic growth? Do we need to set an audience bar to sell to advertisers? 

3. Bring your entire company on board 

As you begin to plan your podcast’s launch date, it’s crucial to make sure there’s cross department collaboration within your organization to make sure the show’s roll out is a success. 

“Map out all of your own channels where you might promote the podcast to your audience,” Mirabal says. “With bigger media companies, sometimes these channels can be very matrixed.”

Coordinate with the team who owns newsletters, those who run a site’s content operation, and the groups who steer social. 

“Somebody who owns a newsletter channel might need completely different assets and different collateral than someone managing a homepage,” Mirabal says. 

Bringing in the art department to work with each vertical is also key. Even though podcasting is often an audio medium, launching and promoting a show requires engaging visual imagery.  

When a potential listener is searching for a podcast to listen to, they’ll come across your show’s visual identity first.

“If you’re making a show about shoes, there are probably a decent number of podcasts that also have shoe content,” Mirabal says. “So if people search ‘shoe podcast,’ and your art is not jumping off the page, people are just not ‘gonna click on it, and you’re never going to get the chance for that listen to happen.”

4. Establish a multi-channel storytelling plan

When bringing on a podcast editorial team, it’s important to communicate early on that part of their role will be to capture content that will go beyond the podcast product itself.

If the creative team shepherding the podcast is not thinking about promotional assets while they’re conducting interviews or recordings, a marketing team may be at a loss months down the line when it comes time to launch.

“A producer would tell me about this amazing interview that they had six months ago,” Mirabal says. “And I’m like, ‘Did you get anything from it — did you get any images or did you get any video?’ And they’re like, ‘No.’ And I always ask why, because I could totally do something with that. If you’re not thinking about the promotional assets while you’re actually making the podcast, it’s such a missed opportunity for fun things that your marketing team can really utilize.”

Have your podcast production team meet with your marketing and social departments when they begin to create a new show. Ahead of interviews, reporting trips, or in-studio recordings, have the creative team share their editorial plans, and discuss what assets can be created for engaging behind-the-scenes content. 

5. Work with platform partners

The vast majority of podcast listeners don’t consume content on a media company or brand’s website, They’re doing it through audio apps like Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or video-based social media platforms, like YouTube.  

“So digital service providers — like the Apples and Spotifys of the world — it’s important to work with them because you are getting in front of an audience that’s already listening to podcasting,” Mirabal says. “They’re looking for something to listen to. You’ve got a captive audience and more importantly, you’re preaching to the choir — they’re already listening to podcasting. You don’t even have to talk ’em into the medium.” 

Mirabal says it’s important to coordinate with audio platforms on your launch strategy because they can prominently feature your podcast to hungry listeners. 

“It’s a very useful way to get in front of an audience that’s literally searching for what to listen to,” she says. 

Coordinating with a platform should be done months before launch – they may require special visual assets to feature your show. 

“Apple Podcasts, for example, they’re looking for something that is like on par with [the type of marketing] you would find on like the movies or TV side of the Apple ecosystem — they want it cinematic, they want it lush, they want it to really stand out on the page so it can call people to listen,” Mirabal says. “You can’t just have one asset like the show art to try and tell that story.”