Morgan Franklin: I'm gonna say something, and you might not
agree with me, but in my experience, this is the truth.
Marketing a podcast is harder than having a podcast now,
finding the right people that should be listening to your
podcast and reminding them every week to listen to your podcast
is actually harder than making the podcast itself, and that
part isn't easy. In this episode, we're gonna talk about
why your podcast marketing isn't working, what you can do to
improve and how we can make small changes to start
rebuilding our listener base and engaging our existing audience.
Hello and welcome to podcast for profit. My name is Morgan
Franklin. I'm a Podcast Producer, strategist and
educator. This podcast will help you create and grow a podcast
that cuts through the noise of social media and speaks directly
to your target audience. If you're ready to create a podcast
that will align you with the experts in your industry
position yourself as a trusted leader and create another source
of revenue for your business. You're in the right place. I did
a poll with 100 podcasters a few months ago on threads, and I
asked, how would you spend $1,000 on your podcast? About
80% of the people said advertising. But then when I
asked how they would use that money on advertising, there
wasn't really a very clear answer. And the truth is that
most podcast marketing doesn't work that well because it's just
not at the right time and place. I've talked about this several
episodes in the past, but if, for example, you were relying on
short form clips, on, let's say, Tiktok, or Instagram reels, to
be converting into listeners. As my granny would say, you've got
a long row to hoe, because think about this, you're scrolling on
Tiktok. Maybe at the end of a long day, you're exhausted, like
so many of us are. We're turning off our brain. We're just
flipping through these videos, even if you come across a
podcast that you think is so funny or smart or whatever you
may want in a podcast, the likelihood of you doing anything
more than just bookmarking it or saving it for later is very
slim. And honestly, how often do you go back and look at those
saved videos or bookmarks on social media? Is this to say
that I think marketing your podcast on short form video is
pointless. No, not at all. I think you should be using it. I
think that Tiktok, specifically is the best place for awareness
and growth potential. The average user spends about 95
minutes a day on Tiktok. And in the United States, we have 160
million active users. Now, I'll let you do the math on that one,
but what I'm trying to say is it might not be the best place to
market your podcast if you want conversion from podcast
downloads and listens, but it is so amazing for awareness, so
make sure that you're utilizing it, especially in the United
States. We know that we only have until about April, that for
sure Tiktok is going to be here. So if you know you want to use
it, make sure that you are utilizing that time on the
platform a short form video strategy that I've not heard
anyone talk about is using YouTube shorts, which is kind of
the version, the Tiktok short form version of YouTube videos.
So basically, what you would do is make one of these short form
videos and then link your longer episode that's also on YouTube
so that someone will hopefully subscribe to your channel, and
if you're looking for them to convert to the full episode. I
think that utilizing YouTube and YouTube shorts is like the
perfect conjunction, and a great place to do this, because you
don't have to go off of another app, and people can subscribe to
you there. You know, there really should be a place for
brand awareness in your marketing strategy of your
podcast, because like people seeing your podcast on Tiktok or
Instagram reels or YouTube shorts and watching that 32nd
clip, there is a place for that. Instead of having that direct
conversion like you might have on Facebook or LinkedIn or even
Pinterest, you need to recognize the difference, and that's when
you can start properly marketing your podcast episodes. We have
to understand the difference between awareness and a direct
conversion to a potential subscriber. So when I say that
there needs to be a right place and a right time. I mean that
your listener needs to be in the zone for listening to a podcast,
or at the least, in the zone to be opening their podcast
platform, app to follow your podcast. In my opinion, one of
the best ways to market your podcast is to be a guest on
another podcast. And I know that this isn't a task that you can
just pay an agency to do, and it's not traditional podcast
marketing, but it's fixing the exact problem we were talking
about earlier, about needing people at the right place in
time, if your imaginary listener is already listening to this
podcast episode, you. That you're a guest on, then they're
already listening to a podcast. They're already on a podcast
platform, app of their choosing. They're getting to know you.
They can follow your podcast while they're still listening to
this other one, and if they like you, chances are they are going
to want to follow your podcast and listen to it. Another thing
that guesting does is it provides that social proof to
your future listener, so they know that they like the podcast
that you're guesting on. So most likely, they trust the host and
they want more of what they're currently getting. This is why
you need to be strategic with the podcast that you guessed on.
That is very important to make sure that the person has an
audience that you'd want to share, and that it makes sense
for your time and effort. I think so often podcasters are
like, I'm going to go on every single podcast that could even
possibly make sense. And I think that that's kind of a waste of
time. But what I do think that you should do is investigate who
their audiences. What is the kind of production that they are
putting out, and do you want to be associated with that? Listen
to a few of their episodes and make sure that this is worth
your time and effort. Make sure are people listening to this. Go
look up their listen notes. Go see if they're ranking on
anything. Is this worth your time and effort? Do they even
have an audience that you would want to speak to. So that's a
free way to market your podcast, usually. So let's talk about
paid ways to market your podcast, paid ads. Now it might
not be paid ads in the sense that you might be thinking like
meta or Google ads. I think that those can both be effective. But
again, are you at the right place and the right time for
that potential podcast listener. If I were investing $1,000 into
paid ads for my podcast, I'd be on another podcast ads or on
another podcast platform. So for example, Spotify. You can buy
banner ads, you can buy audio ads, you can buy all kinds of
ads, and that is where your listener is. You are meeting
them at the time and place when they are looking for something
to listen to. And you can niche this down so far. So even if,
let's say that you have a business investing podcast, you
can drill it down to people who are looking for business
investment podcasts. This is so easy and so specific to make
sure you are getting the person that you're looking for. And I
know that you can do the same thing on Pocket Cast and a few
of the other podcasting platforms. So do a little bit of
research and find out who you can advertise with. That is a
podcast platform where you can advertise your podcast to people
who are looking for a podcast to listen to. There is no better
Right place, right time than that, right another way that you
could utilize paid ads is advertising in a relevant space
online that is specific to your niche. So for example, if it
were me, if I wanted to sponsor a blog post or a video of
another podcast creator to talk about my podcast that would be
meeting my audience, where they are and what kind of information
they're looking for, right? Like, let's say that this is
someone that makes all their content about podcast
microphones. If I were to buy a paid ad with that person, that
would be my market. That would be the people who are looking
for me. So think about the niche opportunities that you have and
the ways that you could spend your money to be closer to those
other kinds of creators that could align themselves, their
brand, with who you are looking to speak to, but make sure that
you are keeping in mind, would this actually convert to someone
listening? Because we can go way off into left field, or, for
example, you could sponsor a YouTube video that then links
back to the episode that you want people to listen to. So
make sure that you're being very specific with that, and that you
have a clear path to someone actually listening to your
podcast, or to a specific podcast episode. Most podcast
advertising doesn't work because it's selfish, and I know that
I've said this before, but posting about a new episode for
the sake of sharing that you have a new episode is not
enough. That should be the status quo. If you have a
podcast, you should be putting out a new episode every week, or
whatever amount of time that you normally put out a new episode,
this is not news. So instead, take the time to tell me why I'd
be interested in this episode. Short clips from podcasts work
for a long time, and I think to some extent that they still do.
So just taking a little clip out of your episode. But what's so
much better is you making a piece of content that explains
to your audience, to me, why you made that episode, take the
time. Don't be selfish. Don't be lazy. Explain to your audience
why you made this episode, why you think that they'd like it,
and where they can. And listen to it. You know, time is our
most precious resource, and if we think that someone is going
to listen to our podcast just because it's a new episode, we
are incorrect. If I could task you and every podcaster with one
thing that would help convert social media content into an
actual listener, it would be to explain where your listener can
listen to the podcast. And I know that this sounds useless,
but hear me out. There are so many people that you're trying
to get to listen to your podcast episode that hardly know what a
podcast is. And I know this sounds impossible, but it's not.
We think podcasting is so mainstream and well known, and
while we're getting there, for sure, you can have a beautiful
post that is so engaging and that the person thinks, wow, I
really want to listen to this podcast or this episode, but
they have no idea how to do it all right? So the first thing
is, most of us are not being straightforward enough and
reminding people clearly and consistently what the name of
our podcast is. And I could go on an entire episode, long rant
about this. I won't, but half the time, someone's like, listen
to my podcast episode or showing a clip from their podcast. I
have no idea what podcast that's from. I'm hunting around the
profile. I'm totally lost. I'm starting to think that maybe
they don't even have a podcast. This was just a podcast they
were a guest on, you know, and I'm so guilty of this too. I
remember a few years ago, before I really kind of realized this,
I would be making promotional content for podcasts that I was
producing, and I just put the cover art for the podcast, like
so the logo so tiny on the video. And think that people
knew what that meant. They don't. They don't know what it
means. They don't. So what I want you to say is, I want you
to spell it out for people say you can listen to my podcast,
podcast for profit, with Morgan Franklin, new episodes on Monday
on all major streaming platforms and YouTube. So tell people what
day it comes out, tell the full name of your podcast. Tell them
where it is, tell them if it's on YouTube. Don't leave anything
to chance, because I promise you, people don't even know the
name of your podcast. And another thing in this vein is
having the correct linking to your podcast. It is 2025, there
is no reason your audience has to look around for where to
listen to your podcast. It better be linked everywhere.
It's in your link tree. It's in your posts. It's connected to
everything with the full name of the podcast. And if you think
it's overkill, then you're probably doing it right. Because
I'm telling you, I record anywhere from four to eight
podcast episodes a month with guests, and these people don't
know where to find podcasts, and they don't really understand how
podcasts work. So they are people that are literally coming
on podcasts that don't know how they work. They have no idea how
to listen to them. So make sure that you are telling people,
Hey, go listen to this episode. In the Link, in the caption,
wherever it may be, tell people where to go. So the last thing
that I want to talk about in this episode is being consistent
with advertising new episodes and whether this is free or paid
advertising, there is no reason a week goes by and you aren't
telling people about your new episode. They say it takes eight
to 12 touch points for a buyer to buy, and we've already talked
about this earlier in the episode, but listeners are
giving you their most precious resource of all their time. So
if you really want people to listen to your podcast episodes,
you should probably be putting out at least one piece of
content every day, but never, ever less than once a week,
because truthfully, at that point, why even have one. And if
you want to work with me one on one to create podcast
advertising that works for your podcast, my coaching information
is in the episode description, or you can email me at Morgan,
at Morgan Franklin dot media. You can also shop my digital
template store that will definitely help you get started
with making social media posts. I have Canva templates for
social media that I've designed and perfected over the years to
help convert followers into listeners. And as always, I
can't wait to listen to your podcast. Hey, thank you so much
for joining me on this episode. If you enjoyed the podcast and
you'd like to hear more episodes like this one, go ahead and
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