How To Get More Podcast Downloads

How To Get More Podcast Downloads

If you have been asking yourself, ‘Should I start a podcast?’ Yes, you should! Podcasting is one of the fastest-growing marketing channels, with a large audience base set to outgrow other social media channels.

Your podcast download is tied directly to the number of subscribers on your list; hence, having more downloads means a growing subscriber base for your podcast channel. This makes it easy to monetize your podcast channel by attracting more advertisers and sponsors because of your high subscriber base. Hence, if you’re asking yourself, ‘Why should I start a podcast?’ remember there are numerous reasons why you should start a podcast.

In this piece, we will be providing practical tips to improve and increase your podcast downloads;

1. Create A Brand Identity For Your Podcast Channel

See your podcast channel as an entity on its own; hence, you should build a brand identity to sell your podcast. Check out tips on creating a selling brand identity for your podcast in our past podcast articles. Create social media pages for your podcast channel.

Creating websites and social media handles for your podcast channel gives you more control and tools to advertise and reach out to more worldwide audiences.

See your podcast channel as an entity on its own that needs to thrive and grow, thus translating to more traffic good for affiliate marketing and more downloads for your podcast.

2. Promote Your Podcast On Social Media

Social media is often taken for granted, but it is one of the most essential tools you need when making a list of what you need to start a podcast. Hence, it would be best if you made it a rule of thumb to share your podcasts on social media platforms before exploring other channels to increase your subscriber base.

You should have a solid social media presence on the most popular platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc., and include your podcast link in your social media bio.

Social media platforms are some of the best places that can generate huge traffic for increased podcast download.

3. Use Exit Pop-Up On Your Website

An exit pop-up may not be a part of the critical requirements of what you need to start a podcast, but it sure works miracles that increase podcast downloads astronomically. More people visit websites from their mobile devices, so build a mobile-friendly exit pop-up on your website.

The best strategy is to set up your pop-up timer to pop up 30 seconds, asking your audience to subscribe to your podcast channel. You can channel your pop-up to direct visitors to podcast directories like Google Play and Apple Podcast, where your podcast episodes are available for download.

Using an exit pop-up on your website is a means of channeling traffic to your podcast channel for increased podcast downloads.

4. Optimize Your Podcast SEO 

You get more traffic to your podcast by plugging in more keywords. Use tools like Ahrefs, SemRush, WordTracker, etc., to get a long list of relevant keywords.

Use SEO-friendly titles for your podcast episodes: your podcast title should contain a keyword phrase to increase its rankings on search engines. It should also be captivating enough to attract readers who will likely subscribe to your podcast channel.

Incorporating SEO-friendly keywords and titles in your podcast episodes makes your podcast appealing enough to attract listeners.

5. Send A Broadcast Email Of Your Podcast Episodes

You can send weekly or monthly email broadcasts embedded with download links summarizing your podcast episodes to your contacts using email outreach tools like MailChimp, SalesHandy, SmartReach, AutoKlose, etc.

Email prompts serves as reminders and also provide download links to past podcast episodes.

6. Use Push Notification Tools To Broadcast Your Podcast Episodes

Tools like OneSignal, Leanplum, PushBots, etc., allow you to collect push notifications. It’s easy for visitors to your website to opt in to your podcast channel with push notification tools. When you have a new episode, you can send them a broadcast through web browsers and immediately notify them about your new podcast episode.

Push notification tools are one way of reaching out faster to a large audience base.

7. Interview Popular Guests and Influencers

Invite famous guests and influencers to your show. When the show is out, ask your guests to share it on their social media handles, and also ask them to share it with their email contacts.

8. Use Embedded Players With Auto-Play Settings

Consider embed players as one of the things you need to start a podcast. To promote download, set your embedded players to auto-play when a guest visits your podcast page or clicks on your podcast episode in a directory.

Auto-play counts for download when you set up your podcast with an embedded player.

9. Get Feedback From Your Active Listeners

Active podcast listeners comment on your podcast, share your podcast posts, and reply to your emails.

Ask these people for feedback, let them share their opinions, suggestions on how you can serve them better, and some people they would like to have on your podcast show.

Feedback helps you adapt your podcast episodes to meet your listeners’ needs.

10. Release Early Teasers For Upcoming Podcast Episodes

If you have landed a popular guest for your next podcast show, you should hype it by releasing early teasers or use the last 30 seconds of your podcast show talking about the next podcast show to keep your listener’s anticipation high.

Front selling your podcast episodes can create eagerness in your listeners and also motivate them to invite their friends

11. Ask For Ratings and Reviews

Encourage your listeners to rate and review your podcast episodes to help you improve your podcast quality. Accumulating positive reviews and 5-star ratings assures prospective fans and audiences of high-quality podcast episodes.

Good reviews and ratings are positive recommendations that boost your podcast downloads.

12. Organize Regular Outreach to Boost Your Subscriber Base

When ruminating over the question ‘Should I start a podcast?‘ you should also ask yourself, ‘How do I get subscribers for my podcast channel?’ You can survey what people will love to listen to and start a podcast that caters to the needs of your survey participants.

You can also find people on social media who are interested in your podcast topic. After releasing a podcast episode, you can ask your listeners to subscribe to your podcast channel, detailing some of the benefits they will get when they do so.

Summary:

13. Have A Podcast Schedule And Stick To It

If you’ve answered the question, ‘why should I start a podcast show?’ and you’re convinced you want to be a podcaster, you should have a podcast schedule. One that you are committed to and consistent with. If you have chosen to upload weekly podcast episodes, you should be compatible with delivering quality podcast content.

A scheduled and regular podcast guarantees regular download by listeners.

14. Record High-Quality Audio Output

In one of our previous articles, I mentioned having a good-quality microphone and editing tool as part of what you need to start a podcast show. It would be best if you produced your podcast in a noiseless environment using a soundproof room to block out noise during a recording session.

High-quality audio output always makes listeners want to listen to your podcast episode.

15. Create An Attractive Cover For Your Podcast Show

Most audiences are attracted to good-quality cover design; giving your podcast a good cover design can increase your subscriber base and attract more downloads.

A good cover design for your podcast is a motivating factor for downloading a podcast episode.

Final Thoughts

These simple tips form part of what you need to start a podcast show and get way more subscribers and downloads to your podcast. However, all these can be summed up into three broad tips:

  1. Increase visibility for your podcast
  2. Make your podcast episodes available to more users worldwide
  3. Build a more robust presence for your podcast shows.