When building a successful podcast, you will need to continuously attract new subscribers. Subscribers, as opposed to listeners, are notified of new episodes and are loyal fans of the show. It is important to attract new subscribers as these are the people who are most likely to listen to the new episode in the first couple of days of release, helping you to rank higher on streaming services.
So how do you go about attracting new subscribers to your podcast? Here are several options for you to try with your podcast show.
A Good Call to Action
The first aspect to consider is to ensure that you have a call-to-action in your podcast and on the show notes that remind listeners to subscribe to your show. There are several key parts to a good call-to-action, such as having urgency, specific action, and valuation for the listener.
Simply stating that by subscribing they’ll be informed when the next episode is released can be a good value for the audience.
Calls to action should be included at the beginning and end of the show, especially if you have a particularly long show. However, you can differentiate these so the audience doesn’t hear the same thing.
Have a Membership Program
One factor that you might want to try is to have a membership program where people can subscribe. Using programs like Patreon can be very effective because you can offer a free membership tier, where people can get benefits such as advanced notification of new episodes, and you can then offer paid tiers that offer new benefits such as behind-the-scenes, monthly Q&A sessions, and more.
There are also membership programs that you can add to systems like YouTube for video podcasts. Therefore, you can build an effective subscription list while at the same time growing revenue for your podcast.
Connect with a Guest’s Audience
When guests are on your podcast, then you have an opportunity to reach a highly engaged audience that can help you grow your own. What you need to do is look at the social media accounts of guests and then build engagement opportunities with them. Perhaps use their core hashtags and other tags to ensure their audience sees the posts.
By connecting to their audience, you will have a higher chance of your podcast getting new subscribers.
It’s also important to consider which guests you’re recruiting for your show. You want to have guests who not only have fans that you can connect with but are also willing to promote their appearance on your show. And they might not just have fans on social media. They might have a large email list, but these can be important.
Improve the SEO of your Show Notes
If you want to attract new subscribers, you need to get higher levels of traffic for the podcast. So attracting more listeners is going to be key for your recruitment of subscribers. SEO is going to be key to this. For every episode you have on your website or streaming service, you need to optimize the content for search users.
Each set of notes should have a keyword assigned to them. This should be researched carefully so they match what the audience is currently searching for. For example, if you create an episode that is about social media marketing, then you need to look for keywords that match user search behaviors. For this, something like “Why is social media an important part of inbound marketing?” would work better.
However, it is also important to consider that YouTube and Google user behaviors are completely different. You might need to change the title or description based on where you’re publishing the content.
In addition to having the title and text elements including your keyword, then you should consider that all media need to have the right meta title and information.
Improved SEO also extends to your website. You need to add blog posts that are connected to
your podcast episodes, using the right keywords and also metadata inside the backend of the website to ensure that your podcast episodes get ranked high on search results.
Build Social Media Followers
Social media can be an important way to attract new audiences to your podcast. You can market on social media channels like LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook TikTok, and X to help you reach new audiences.
Research what hashtags are available for the platforms, which ones are popular, and also find the best times to publish. There is a lot of research that has found what the best times are for publishing content on these platforms. Look for your audience and hashtags and use a social media management software option to schedule the content.
Don’t forget that this will increase the number of listeners to your show, but it might not improve the number of subscribers you have.
You might also need to use more than simple text options. Using podcast clips can be a critical option to help you demonstrate what’s going on in your episodes and be more attractive to your potential audience.
Add Benefits to Subscription
If you’re looking to attract subscribers then you have to give them a reason to subscribe. There are lots of benefits that you can offer potential audience groups that might include first access to your new shows, or you could provide specific benefits that might make them feel more connected to you and your podcast.
These can be more challenging, which is why you might need to add something like a mailing list or membership program to this option.
And there might be costs. However, the long-term benefits you can gain through higher sponsorship revenues can make it a good reason to offer this option to subscribers.
Be a Guest on a Podcast
Above we discussed how you can use the audiences of your guests to attract new listeners to your show. However, you can also be a guest on other podcasts and build traffic to your podcast this way. By doing this, you can have more people come to your podcast because they enjoy listening to your points of view on the guest episode.
Remember when you’re a guest on the episode you have a limited amount of time to build trust with the audience. Use statistics, social proof, and more to improve your chances of attracting an audience.
Demonstrate your value to your host by advertising their podcast too. This can also help you to attract the audience of the host’s podcast when you use the tags for the podcast.
Attend Networking Events
If you’re looking to grow your subscriber list, then you need to consider all the potential avenues that are open to you. And one avenue that some podcast hosts forget is in the physical world. When you attend networking events there is an opportunity to collect names from those attending.
If you’re hosting a seminar or a talk at the show, this is an excellent opportunity for you to convince people to subscribe to your mailing list or podcast. You can have a signup sheet, or you can collect business cards with email addresses on them to help you out.
Alternatively set up a QR code that allows your audience to automatically subscribe to your podcast using their mobile phones. It is a quick and easy way to attract more subscribers.
In addition to attending networking events, don’t forget that any physical engagement with audiences can be an opportunity to get people to your podcast. When you’re at client meetings or with suppliers, you can always direct them to your podcast. Not only can this help increase your subscribers, it can help you build a more inclusive community that you can use to promote your show.
Competitions
Competitions and raffles are a core tactic of email marketers to get more people to subscribe to a list. That doesn’t mean that they’re not a great option for podcast hosts either. You can host a monthly competition where someone can win a free audit or complimentary service for subscribing to your podcast episodes.
To make this option more valuable, be sure that you’re collecting lots of information, such as name, position, business, industry, etc. Therefore, when you add the details to your CRM, you have lots of information to help market to the new contact, as well as all the information you need to promote new podcast episodes to your new subscribers.
However, you must carefully balance competition. You don’t want to give something away that is not valuable to the audience, or too valuable to you. And you should ensure that you mix up the prize every month, that way you can be sure that you can attract the right audience.
One problem with this tactic is that if someone is listening to a podcast that has an expired offer, it might mean that they’re less likely to subscribe. So you need to tell people that there are new prizes every month.
Improve the Quality of Your Shows
One key tactic to the success of your show is to improve the quality. The higher the level of production value, the more professional you will seem. As a result, you can attract more attention, whether you’re being included in local/national media or because your audience appreciates the work that has gone into the production of your show.
Small teams can sometimes struggle with improving the quality of their shows. This is why using a high-quality podcast production company, like Produce Your Podcast, can help take your show to the next level.
We work with our clients on all elements of the podcast production process. We can test sound and video equipment, ensuring that the best sound and video quality is being used. In addition, our team includes the best editors and marketing experts to help your show get that polished finish that will improve the returns on the show.
And we will help you to keep a consistent production timetable, ensuring that your show is constantly being produced. Therefore, people can rely on you and you’re going to build trust with the potential audience.
FAQs
Does a podcast need a large audience to attract sponsors?
No, podcasts do not need to have a large audience to start building a sponsorship revenue stream. However, working with a podcast production company can help you build a proposal template that can maximize your attraction to potential sponsors and help you earn more quickly.
What’s the difference between podcast subscribers and listeners?
Podcast subscribers are those who have requested information be sent to them when a new episode is released. They’re the warm contacts that you’re most likely to sell to or get more of a return from in future marketing components.
Can I have several different subscription lists to a podcast?
Yes. You can have several ways that a person subscribes to your podcast. For example, you can have them subscribe on Spotify, YouTube, Patreon, or via your email address. The key is to get them to commit to your show.
Final Word: How to Attract New Subscribers to Your Podcast
When it comes to getting listeners to your show, the easiest are those that are subscribed to your podcast. Therefore, you want to attract new subscribers to whatever subscription system you’re using all the time. Above are some of the core tactics and strategies that you can use to attract listeners and subscribe to the podcast.
Produce Your Podcast is a full-service podcast production, editing, and marketing agency specializing in helping brands launch, grow, and monetize successful podcasts that impact their bottom line. With 30+ years of experience in both broadcasting and business development brought to every project we work on, our team of experts is a reliable partner to help you achieve your goals with your show.
Click here to schedule a conversation with our team today and let’s bring your show to life!