When it comes to promoting your podcast, posting on social media is likely to be the first thing that comes to mind, and it is reported as being the most commonly used form of marketing for podcast hosts.
But with constant algorithm changes, limited organic reach, and the distraction-prone nature of social media, not to mention the platform dependency that develops as you build an audience, it is worth considering alternative opportunities to promote your podcast to boost growth and reach.
So, in this blog, we’ll guide you through 14 ways to promote your podcast without using social media.
#1 Use postcards and stickers with QR codes
It is possible to record, publish, and promote your podcast without ever leaving your home, so to kick us off, we’re exploring a technique that brings you into the real world and encourages you to connect with potential listeners in person.
The idea of creating postcards with QR codes originally came from our guest Lisa Smith, host of Pretty Well. Here’s a clip from that interview.
Additionally, stickers can be a good alternative. However, in an ideal world, your stickers will be on common everyday items such as reusable water bottles, laptops, or on the back of phone cases. To ensure longevity, make sure you splash out on the nice vinyl ones that stick around.
Or for personal encounters, you could consider the more traditional option of printing business cards. Alternatively, if you want to take a more modern approach, you can use an NFC business card or wristband.
For context, NFC stands for Near-field communication, and by using this technology, you can digitally share your information by tapping your NFC business card or wristband on the recipient’s phone. These cards and wristbands should cost you no more than $20 to $30, and you can easily order them online.
#2 Cold outreach
Email is one of the most effective ways to reach your ideal listeners, develop a relationship with them, and establish brand loyalty to your podcast. But we want to be clear: We’re not talking about mail merges or starting a newsletter. Instead, we’re talking about tracking down your ideal listeners and emailing them individually.
To ensure that your message is well-received start by introducing yourself and your show, and then explain that you created your podcast for listeners just like them. Following the description of your show, it should immediately be clear to them why they are an ideal listener for your podcast.
Then offer a selection of top fan favorite episodes or hand-pick episodes you think they could benefit from the most. And finally, share that you’d love their thoughts on the show since you should always strive to get honest feedback from your listeners.
#3 Secure PR coverage
Getting PR coverage for yourself and your podcast can be one of the most advantageous techniques when it comes to reaching new audiences.
For example, when we launched Mics to Millions in January 2024, we reached out to Podnew with the announcement, pitching them our show to be featured in their newsletter, which goes out to over 30k readers. It was picked up and published, and consequently, we received over 1000 downloads in our first week.
Furthermore, you can put yourself forward for written interviews or comments on subjects where you can add value based on your knowledge or wisdom. When doing this, make sure you include your podcast in your bio.
We did this earlier this year with Authority Magazine, an outlet that shares in-depth interviews with authorities in business, pop culture, wellness, social impact, and tech. Our interview was about top strategies for podcast audience growth.
#4 Share the MP3 of your interview with your guests
If you’ve had a guest on, and perhaps for whatever reason, you’re not right to be a guest on their podcast, you can still get on their feed and make yourself known to their audience by sharing the MP3 of the interview.
By offering them access to the MP3, they can feature your interview on their podcast feed. This is something we do here at Mics to Millions. We find that guests often use these interviews as a bonus episode or to fill a gap in their content.
Moreover, given that our interviews often focus on how a host has built their podcast, by publishing this in their podcast feed, their listenership gets a behind-the-scenes look at how their podcast is made.
Multiple past guests have done this such as Dr. Yami Cazorla-Lancaster, host of I AM HUMAN, Danielle Collins, host of The Face Yoga Expert Podcast, and Philip Pape, host of Wits & Weights.
#5 Do a promo or trailer swap
Appearing directly in the feed of other podcasts is the best type of promotion you can do for your show. This is because you know you’re getting into the ears of podcast consumers.
With this in mind, let’s look at promo and trailer swaps.
This one is pretty simple. If you find a show that speaks to the same audience as your podcast, you can reach out to the host and suggest featuring a trailer or promo in each other’s podcast feeds. This way you know you’re pinpointing your perfect target audience, and it won’t cost you a penny since it is a reciprocal exchange and a win-win for both of you.
Before reaching out to the host, make sure you do your research on them and the show first. After all, if you’re promoting a show with poor-quality content or audio, this will reflect badly on you and will diminish trust among your audience.
Be sure to check the Apple podcast ratings to see what others are saying about the podcast you’re assessing and listen to a few episodes before sending an invite.
#6 Guest swapping and podcast guesting
Getting featured as a guest on a podcast is a great way to showcase your expertise to a new audience and also gives you a chance to connect with the host.
If you want to turn this into a collaboration, you can suggest a guest swap, where you feature as a guest on their show, and they come on as a guest on your show. In many cases, it can be easier to secure a guest spot when offering a collaboration like this, as it shows you have something to offer in return.
If you want to get started with podcast guesting, you can download our 4-Week Plan to get yourself booked on shows. Alternatively, you can hire a podcast booking agency that handles the entire process, so all you have to do is turn up for your podcast guest interviews.
#7 Leverage word of mouth
Your audience is your greatest resource when it comes to spreading the word about your podcast. Our client Kelly Smith, host of the top 0.1% ranked podcast Mindful In Minutes Meditation, shared in her previous interview on Mics to Millions that word of mouth has been hugely influential in growing her podcast.
To encourage your listeners to share your podcast, consider creating a contest where existing listeners can win prizes by referring new listeners to your podcast. You can discover more about using giveaways and competitions to grow your podcast in our episode with Dr. Mariza Snyder, host of Energized with Dr. Mariza.
#8 Start an email list
As mentioned above, platform dependency can be a real issue when your following exists primarily on social media.
Online marketing expert and the host of Online Marketing Made Easy, Amy Portofield does a great job of summing this. She says that you should never build your business on rented land. And argues that that’s exactly what you’re doing when you make all your efforts happen on social media. It’s rented land, meaning the rules can change at any time. You don’t make the rules. You don’t own that land.
Instead, by building a following with an email list, you own it. It is yours. And nobody can take that away from you.
Running an email list alongside your podcast is great because it can be an excellent method for promoting your podcast episodes. This is something Danielle Collins, host of The Face Yoga Expert Podcast, mentioned during her interview on Mics to Millions.
Danielle’s comments here are even more notable, considering that, at the time of recording, she has a combined Instagram following of 337,000 across her two accounts.
If you’re unsure how to get started when it comes to developing your email list, then here’s a clip from our interview with Philip Pape, host of the top 1% ranked podcast Wits and Weights, who shared his approach that has allowed him to significantly grow his email list.
#9 Repurpose your content
Turning your podcast content into guides that serve as lead magnets to attract followers to your email list is a great way of repurposing content.
However, your podcast audio can be turned into many different types of content that can bring attention to your show.
For starters, you can turn your podcast episodes into blog posts. And by this, I’m not talking about publishing transcripts or running them through ChatGPT to create blogs. Instead, consider what topics you’ve discussed that could warrant a deep dive which can then become a captivating blog.
Or create a listicle that includes a collection of insights shared across numerous podcast episodes. We love doing this regularly, just like we’ve done in this blog! By creating these blogs, you can boost your website’s SEO and increase its online visibility.
Here at PodWritten, we believe that everyone hosting and guesting on podcasts should be taking advantage of repurposing podcast content into blogs to reach wider audiences and boost SEO.
In fact, we include blog posts as part of our package for our fully managed podcast guest booking service. We take talking points and inspiration from your podcast content and turn them into blogs that you can benefit from.
#10 Include your podcast in your email signature
With the right email signature, every email you send is a potential opportunity to promote your podcast.
Adding your podcast to your email signature is easy to do. But if you want to take it up a notch, you can use a tool like Canva to create a flashy graphic and hyperlink that image, directing traffic to your podcast.
When it comes to the link you choose, if you’re specifically promoting your podcast, choose a link that gives the user the option to pick their preferred podcast listening platform of choice. Services like Chartable and Episodes.fm work great for this.
However, if you want to promote your podcast alongside your other offerings in your email signature, consider using a service like Linktree. Or list and link everything separately in your signature, but be sure to keep it minimal because you don’t want your signature to come off as overwhelming or confusing.
#11 Create merchandise
By creating merchandise that your fans love, you not only have the opportunity to bring in extra revenue, but every time one of your fans wears your merchandise, it’s free advertising.
This is somewhat distinct from the previous method of using promo material such as stickers and postcards. Rather than giving them away for free to promote your show, listeners pay for this merchandise.
However, it’s important to clarify that merchandise isn’t for every podcast. In fact, if you aren’t a top podcaster, and I’m talking in the top 0.5% of podcasts, you’re unlikely to see much benefit from this as a revenue stream.
Instead, you should see it as an investment in your podcast’s marketing efforts. And much like the stickers we mentioned before, don’t go cheap when it comes to the materials you use because the products reflect you and your podcast. Every aspect of your brand should convey excellence, attention to detail, and purpose. And, your merchandise is no exception.
The good news is that, even if you’re not a top 0.5% podcast, you can still create clothing and accessories and use them yourself. This works particularly well when attending events or conferences.
Here’s a clip from our interview with Colleen Rosenblum and Bridgett Biagi Garratt, hosts of Hot Flashes and Cool Topics, who created t-shirts for their visit to Podfest to show off their podcast.
#12 Visit events, conferences, and meet-ups (or start your own)
You can build an unmatched connection with your listeners by meeting them in the real world.
Events like Podcast Movement in the US or The Podcast Show in the UK provide fantastic opportunities for meeting and connecting with podcast listeners as well as other hosts.
Also, smaller meetups that are more local and intimate can be great for this too, even if they’re on a much smaller scale. You can discover a long list of upcoming podcast-related events, both physical and virtual, at podnews.net/events.
Alternatively, you can create your own live event based on your podcast. That is exactly what Colleen and Bridgett did for their show. They created Conversations With Prime Women, a live event designed to change the narrative around midlife and give midlife women a platform to meet one another and be heard. Following the success of their first Conversations With Prime Women event in October 2023, they created their second event in April 2024, which was also incredibly successful.
#13 Use paid ads
With Google Ads, you can target users by selecting keywords relevant to your podcast’s topic, as well as specific demographics like age and location, and even their online behavior. Google Ads use a pay-per-click (PPC) or pay-per-impression (PPM) model, giving you the flexibility to manage your budget and only pay when users engage with your ads.
You can also advertise in newsletters. But as we’ve mentioned earlier, podcasts are almost always the best place to find and attract new listeners to your show.
It’s important to remember that you should have the infrastructure in place to handle and direct traffic so you can effectively move users down your funnel to convert them into listeners and, eventually clients.
This means having everything in place, from landing pages to lead magnets, before you start driving traffic. Paid promotions can be great for driving traffic, but none of that means anything if they don’t stick around or take the desired next step.
#14 Get your podcast featured on Apple Podcasts
Apple’s global team of editors regularly reviews their constantly growing catalog of podcasts and hand-curates content to help podcasters get their shows in front of more ideal listeners.
Getting a featured spot on Apple Podcasts can help your podcast stand out from the crowd. This is a fantastic place to secure visibility, given that it is one of the key locations where listeners consume podcasts.