📫 Starting a newsletter for your podcast. 💌 (Plus: the newsletter database is live!)⚡️

🤸‍♀️Podcast marketing: let's have some fun. 🌈

Jul 01, 2022

Ciao, bimbi!

Should you have a newsletter for your podcast?

This is a question I get asked a lot. It may sound like a lot of work but it can be valuable, even if you are just collecting email addresses and saving them for a rainy day. Why? You don't own your podcast audience or social media following, but email addresses from newsletters is an audience you own.

For your podcast newsletter, you can…

Put out an issue when your episode drops with show notes and bonus content like photos, links, or anything you couldn’t fit into the show
Put out an issue when you have exciting news (this is also a platform that allows you to make exciting news happen)
Mine your listeners’ brains for feedback or things to use on your shows.
Or just collect those emails for when you’re ready to launch your newsletter.

I recommend coming up with a template that goes out each week. This can include:

A note from you
A link to your most recent episode
Links to your resources or your show notes
Links to other things you are listening to / reading
Questions for listeners (you should send your listeners a survey once a year)
Reviews or questions/comments you’ve received
Anything personal about you…this is your chance to deepen your relationship with your fans! They have a parasocial relationship with you and want to know you better.
My favorite thing: a section where you shout out a podcast you love, one you think your listeners will love too. This is a place you can use to swap with other shows. Reach out to similar shows with newsletters and offer to give them promotion in exchange for promotion of your show in their newsletter.

Great podcast newsletter examples:

More great ideas about why a newsletter can help you market your podcast here.

The Newsletter Swap Database is live

I recently launched a Podcast Partnership Database to help you all work with one another on promo swaps, feed swaps, guest swaps, whatever your hearts desire! Remember to enter your show and keep checking back. It’s a powerful tool for growth. I check it every day for my own clients.

Anne Baird (god bless) also helped me build a Swap Database for Podcast Newsletters. So if you have a newsletter for your podcast or a podcast industry newsletter, enter it here. You can browse the database here. Please only enter the database if your newsletter is open to featuring other shows. This will be a place where people can pitch their shows, and you can work with one another to do cool newsletters swaps.

For example, I am working with Our Body Politic, which has a really cool newsletter. If you have a similar show and a newsletter, reach out to me for a chance to swap newsletter placement.

Newsletter promotion works. One thing I have found that hopefully will not discourage you: people read newsletters in order to find new shows to listen to, but they don’t always click! I read podcast newsletters with my phone in one hand and subscribe to the shows from there. Full transparency: my click through rate for Podcast the Newsletter is pretty high—12-15%. But I suspect that even more people are subscribing to shows. So if you think your CTR rate should be higher, that’s probably why. You want to focus on the open rate. (Which is usually around 60% on Podcast the Newsletter.)

Read about pitching your podcast to newsletters here.

🤸‍♀️Have fun!🤸‍♀️

Submit your show here

Browse the database here

Podcast marketing: If You Only Have Time for One Thing

Pitch yourself to published blog articles. Chances are there are already blog articles about the best podcasts in your genre. Do a google search and find out if you’d be a good fit for any of them. Then reach out to the journalist (this might take some hunting) and send them a nice note, telling them that you enjoyed the article and wonder if they might give your show a listen and add it into the piece if they like it.

Show notes:

Alexa Heinrich (she/her) @HashtagHeyAlexa

Graphics on social media should be treated like billboards. -Pretend like you only have 7 seconds to engage and inform a user before they scroll away. -Keep your graphics simple with minimal text (10 words or less). - Don’t forget your alt text!

🪄The first-ever credible study of the people who create podcasts is here! This in-depth report gives key insight into the demographics, psychographics, and more of the U.S.-based podcasting community. Download it today, here [Edison Research / Sounds Profitable]

🪄Multitude just published takeaways for industry peers from their1,000+ unique respondent listener survey. They drill down into where people actually find out about new podcasts, what makes for an effective podcast recommendation, the real value of guesting on other shows, and pandemic habit changes.

🪄Why your audiograms aren’t working [Pacific Content]

🪄Why “recommendability” is the best and most effective way to grow your podcast [BIPOC Podcast Creators]

🪄RADAR Podcasters is a new Spotify initiative to spotlight podcasts on the platform. Creators in the U.S. can submit their podcasts for consideration here. [h/t Shreya Sharma]

🪄Subscribe to Podcast the Newsletter!

From the Desk of Tink

ICYMI, Tink Media is a podcast growth and ideas company that helps shows with pitching to apps and media, setting up promo and feed swaps, advertising, wild out-of-the-box thinking, and more.

This week I’m highlighting one of our clients, Cerca! Let me know if you’re interested in a promo swap for their audio guides on London, Los Angeles, Barcelona, Iceland or Rome.

Cerca podcast guides launched with 5 cities – London, Los Angeles, Barcelona, Iceland and Rome. Additional places, including Paris, Hawaii, Costa Rica, New York, and Mexico City are coming soon. There are episodes all about food, music, culture, and adventure, but also stories about the Blitz in London, the history of FC Barcelona, and the famous crimes that have shaped Los Angeles. The future of Cerca includes not only guides but also masterclasses for travel, like how to travel the world safely narrated by a former British Intelligence agent.

The Cerca App makes the experience of listening to these travel podcasts more dynamic by including maps, notes, lists, and photos for the recommendations delivered in the audio. In addition, the ability to favorite and draw up a personalized itinerary takes a narrative podcast and turns it into a tool for planning the perfect trip. Each guide is written and hosted by locals, people who know the authentic and inside information about each place.

xoxo lauren