How to Promote Your Podcast the Right Way

TRUE or FALSE: You like podcasting, but the marketing part – meh🤷‍♀️ – not so much.⁠ Friends, please don’t let your love/hate relationship with social media get in the way of growing your influence and impact. ⁠

With that in mind, we here at Wildfire Creative spoke with our own “go-to” marketing expert and friend, Melody Belotte, about the importance of knowing your audience and figuring out the best platform to reach them. After 15+ years of launching dozens of brands and Fortune 500 companies, she knows a thing or two about what works (and doesn’t work) in marketing.⁠ 

Melody Belotte is a full-time speaker, writer, strategist, and recovering “busy addict” who gives individuals and organizations the tools they need to stop feeling overwhelmed and start spending more time on what matters. Y’all. She is the real deal.

Melody took a moment to sit down with us and provide some practical tips you could implement with your social media and marketing today. So good. 

One of the things we find when working with clients – whether for a launch or coaching even – is that they’re not utilizing social media and marketing the way they probably should be.

#1 Most Common Mistake on Social Media

When asked about the #1 or the most common mistake Melody sees podcasters and entrepreneurs making concerning social media, she responded by sharing, “I teach a lot of marketing workshops, and one of the principles I talk about, and one of the biggest mistakes made in social media marketing, is making announcements instead of making connections.”

Making announcements instead of making connections. The trouble comes when podcasters feel social media is the only way that they have to talk with their listeners and followers; then they begin to feel all of this pressure to tell the audience everything they want to talk about – every product, every latest promotion, every latest book, every latest episode – so they get into this rut of only making announcements.

Melody shares, “If you think about it like announcements at church. You know, the ones where they start droning on and on saying things like, ‘We’re having this potluck supper, and the baseball team’s doing this, and most everyone in the room is thinking, ‘Can we start singing now? Can we connect with each other?’ The same thing happens with social media.

“You get into a habit of feeling as if you have to tell them everything because otherwise, how will they know what I’m selling and what I’m promoting? I think a better path is using social media to make connections – be more subtle, share your personality, and build the ‘know, like trust’ factor.

“Social media is just that. It is social. It’s the cocktail party and not the dinner party. You might meet a few people and probably only talk about some superficial things, but you’re not going to have deep conversations, convert or sell anything. So keep it social on social media and then use some other marketing tactics to have those deeper conversations.”

Y’all know what Melody’s talking about here, right?

When you’re endlessly scrolling Instagram or Facebook or looking to connect with other podcasters, all you see are announcement after announcement. People are not sharing how they love Chick-fil-A, sweet tea, or anything personal, so it makes it hard to connect with them on different levels. Instead, your feed begins to feel like one sales pitch after another, where you’re not getting to know the person behind any of those accounts. Buy this, buy that, download this, sign up here, do this, do that. Yikes!

Melody continues, “So If it’s a cocktail party, you don’t walk in and say to the nearest person, ‘Have you heard about my latest download?’

“Instead, if everybody else is talking about the latest change in the weather or the latest episode of some TV show, then that’s where you start. You start with those conversations, and then maybe it’ll eventually lead to some things that you’re passionate about, or you know something about, but that’ll be for another time because the days of the “hard sell” with marketing are gone. They are… It’s more subtle. People don’t want to be told what to buy or what to do. They want to get to know you, they want to like you, they want to trust you. That’s what social media’s for.”

Choosing a Social Media Platform

We at Wildfire Creative often hear variations of this next question, especially when working with a new launch or consulting client. 

What social media platform should I be on? 

We asked Melody to give us her thoughts regarding platforms, and she had the following recommendations:

1. “I love this question because it leans into my heart of minimalist marketing, which is like you do not have to be on every platform.”

2. Be sure to claim the URL or the handle on all platforms. “So think of it like real estate. Just grab ’em all up.” Go get them all (even if you are not sure you will use the platform)… go get it anyway. We promise you will thank us later!

3. So, by all means, claim all handles, but then pick and choose where you want to be present. And be all there. There are no hard and fast rules about which platform is the best for podcasters. “Usually, the exercise that I take my clients through is helping them find the perfect mix is first considering their personality. By that, I mean thinking about whether you are good with spoken words or more of a visual person. Do you like a curated feed or an authentic, in-the-moment feed? You want to work with your personal preference because then you’re going to do it, and you’re going to enjoy it. You’re not going to dread it. So start there.”

4. Next is looking at your existing workflow. What content you can create on your normal day? So, for a podcaster, taking a screenshot of you and the guest you’re interviewing is an example of natural content – something you can share on whatever platform you choose. Can you repurpose blogs? Can you repurpose episodes?

5. Last but not least, look at your target audience. “I usually tell my clients to go through a day in their life and map it out. What is your person doing from morning until night? When they wake up, what’s the first thing they reach for? Are they looking at email? Are they opening up Instagram? When they get in their car, what kind of music are they listening to – basically, you go through the whole day, and then you look for the common themes, and that usually will help you paint a good picture of your perfect person, which then makes it easier to choose the platforms they’re going to be interacting on.”

Other Marketing Tactics Besides Social Media

Again, there are no hard and fast rules + we must remember that social media is only one piece of the bigger marketing puzzle. Let’s now consider some of the other tactics or strategies podcasters should be looking at beyond social media. 

Melody advises, “You cannot rely strictly on social media to be your one and only marketing solution. That’s like if a hammer is the only tool in your toolbox, then every problem will look like a nail, and you’re just going to pound it into the ground. You need to have some diversity and need a healthy medium mix. 

“Usually, I ask podcasters to start by thinking about their podcast’s purpose. For instance, is the podcast the end game, or is it a tactic? Starting with the answer to that question will help you know which marketing tactics to use and where you want to direct traffic. I’m sure this will not surprise any of you, but I think email marketing is the best place to start.

“No matter whether it’s a tactic or the end game, you know social media is the cocktail party, and email is the dinner party. When you think of a dinner party, you have people around the table, and you’re guaranteed to have a conversation with every person at that table. Emails are like that – where you’ve gone from a superficial conversation to a more intimate one.”

So using lead magnets, downloads, and talking about your email list in your episodes is a no-brainer. I’m personally not a fan of paid advertising in podcasts. I know there’s a time and place for it, but I always like to suggest cross-selling in your own podcast episodes.

“What promotional offers or products can you point people to? Things that you’ve personally created are things that you can sell. Do a direct sale on your website, or you can, again, use those things as a lead magnet to get more email subscribers. I think getting your audience from the headphones to the inbox is a big, big deal.”

In our time together, Melody also mentioned creating a marketing toolkit to help you get on other podcasts as a guest. Here are a few of her recommendations about what to include in your toolkit:

• A one-sheet that talks about who is your target audience.
• Links to sample episodes or quotes + reviews from listeners. 
• What are your current numbers? Your reach, your platform. 
• A one to two-minute video that you can share to show other podcasters what you talk about & your area of expertise. That’s a nice personal touch. 

SEO is another marketing tactic to consider. All things Meta Tags and Alt Text. If this technical stuff is not your sweet spot, outsource it. Hire somebody who knows this stuff, or you can watch a video on YouTube that will show you how to add Meta Tags and Alt Text Titles to your website. Google loves this stuff, and search engines need to speak the same language as your website. 

Finally, consider creative ways to get reviews besides asking listeners for them every episode. “Make it fun. Make it creative. Incentivize them. Whether it’s offering free books or free downloads, a shout-out even is sometimes enough. They’ve already spent time listening to your podcast. They’ve probably already subscribed to show notes. So what’s in it for them? Why would they want to have one more thing to do? Let’s give them something of value, which is another way to help your listener ‘know, like, and trust you.”

You Can Do This! 

Truthfully, we could go on and on here, but probably the easiest way to wrap this up is to remind you that if you have any questions about social media marketing, we are more than happy to answer them. Please be sure to reach out to our team by emailing hello@wildfirecreativecompany.com.