🔮🎉2023 Podcast Marketing Insights🥂🏄♀️
🤸♀️Podcast marketing: let's have some fun.🌈
Hello, hello! It’s prediction season, baby! Just as we finish the wave of year end lists, another wave begins – the thoughts, hopes, and dreams for what 2023 will bring. Last year, we asked our podcast marketing friends about what they expected to see in podcast marketing specifically for 2022. And we’re doing it again! Even if you’ve read the other roundups, these predictions about podcast PR/marketing, social media, newsletters, and partnerships could help your marketing plans this year.
But first (this is Lauren talking)—Devin, who is one of the strongest muscles of Tink Media, one of the biggest podcast consumers I know, and often the voice of this newsletter, has launched her own podcast newsletter, Podstack. For the first issue, she covers some of her favorite podcast episodes she found via podcast newsletters. Subscribe now!
Okay. Now on with the show!
We’ve organized the responses into the following themes:
AI in Podcasts
Independent Creators
Investments in Podcast Marketing
Advertising in Podcasts
Reaching New Listeners
Thoughtful Strategies
We asked: What do you think we'll see in podcast marketing/PR/social media next year? What do you hope to see?
AI in Podcasts
🔮 “AI will find its way into our podcast marketing workflow, whether it's to help brainstorm ideas, generate action items from meeting notes, or even create rough drafts of campaign materials (from podcast artwork to descriptions and beyond).” - Joni Deutsch, Vice President of Podcast Marketing & Audience Development at The Podglomerate
🔮 “Creators are going to make heavy use of AI to support their marketing efforts. Unfortunately, most of this is going to be clunky, come off as spammy and inauthentic, and actually hurt creators' brands more than help. That said... there's a huge opportunity waiting for creators who learn the nuances of AI tools and leverage them for what they're great for.” - Jeremy Enns, Founder of Podcast Marketing Academy
🔮 “ChatGPT will make SEO more effective. (Keyword research, content ideas, titles.)” - Lauren Passell, Founder of Tink Media
Independent Creators
🔮 “Independent creators will start investing in the content surrounding their podcasts. The big one I see for 2023 is newsletters: podcasters will begin building up their email lists. Email marketing is an undervalued way to stay in touch with listeners — to have direct access to people who have opted in to receive (valuable) correspondence from you.” - Arielle Nissenblatt, Head of Community and Content at SquadCast.fm, Founder of EarBuds Podcast Collective
🔮 “Insights from independent podcasts will drive other independent podcasts, as opposed to data from a selected number of ‘top’ podcasts.” - Shreya Sharma, Writer, Inside Podcasting
🔮 “Can 2023 be the year we stop using a download as the only metric of a show's reach/success?” - Michele Dale, Marketing Manager at Wonder Media Network
🔮 “I'm more bullish on indie podcasters than ever this year. We've seen enough Big Podcast to know that those companies are not always nimble enough to sustain shows with a solid, but not blockbuster, audience. This medium is perfect for passionate, entrepreneurial creators who can make professional content on their own or with a lean crew.” - Courtney Kocak, Creator & Curator of the Podcast Bestie newsletter
Investments in Podcast Marketing
🔮 “I think we'll see an increased investment in marketing and PR in podcasting as some networks and shows watch others who have already invested have noticeable growth as a result, but there will continue to be a pretty steep learning curve when it comes to actually understanding how it all works.” - Heidi Vanderlee, Positive Jam PR
🔮 “We'll see bigger companies start to make acquisitions of marketing focused apps/services as they look to round out their offerings.” - Dan Page, CEO of Podspike
🔮 “Podcasters and companies will be more willing to experiment – and fail – to find what really works for their podcast when it comes to promotion and marketing. There can be no big wins without some form of experimentation and the same approach to marketing won’t work the same for every single show. Companies with larger budgets, in particular, will see the need to allocate more budget to marketing consultants or their marketing team so that there *can* be more experimentation with different channels for promotion so that podcasting can play against other big entertainment mediums like film, television, books, and even fashion.” - Alexandra Cohl, Founder of and PR & Marketing Consultant at POD.DRALAND
🔮 “Podcast marketing will be something people think of at the very beginning of the planning process. In the past, it has been such an afterthought.” - Lauren Passell, Founder of Tink Media
Advertising in Podcasts
🔮 “While there is a good understanding of the CPM (cost per 'mile' / thousand downloads) for adverts on podcasts, I've not yet seen market consensus around a similar metric for the cost of adding 1, 10 or 100 new subscribers to a podcast. Subscribers for me represent a key growth metric, as they're audiences who've committed to listen to your show (or at least be informed when a new show is available!). So in 2023 I'd like to introduce CPS (Cost Per Subscriber) as a new metric for podcasters to start thinking about. Right now I'm seeing CPS figures being claimed anywhere between $2 and $30, but I think the $6 to $10 range is probably a realistic target right now.” - Dan Page, CEO of Podspike
🔮 “More YouTube ads for podcasts. And more podcasters building their presence on TikTok.” - Chris Colbert, CEO/Founder of DCP Entertainment & Podstream Studios
Reaching New Listeners
🔮 “We’ll start seeing even more visual promotion of podcasts in the form of traditional marketing techniques like billboards or subway train and station ads. Yet, at the same time, I think the industry is primed for an era of more guerrilla marketing approaches, especially to expand intrigue of the whole creative medium itself – rather than just promotion of individual shows (though I can tell you now that would definitely peak my interest for a specific show!).” - Alexandra Cohl, founder of and PR & marketing consultant at POD.DRALAND
🔮 “I believe we will continue to see an upsurge of newsletters and newsletter content. I'd love to see more diverse voices be promoted in newsletters as well.” - Adell Coleman, Chief Operations Officer at DCP Entertainment
🔮 “I think there will be an influx of more live podcast recordings and tours. Podcast fans will continue to yearn for more immersive experiences with their favorite hosts. So, I think in 2023, we will begin to see more podcast creators experiencing with active listening.” - Faybeo'n Mickens, Tink Media
🔮 “As a podcast marketer, I’m feeling very motivated by strategies to find more listeners and more ways to reach new listeners. We all know it’s hard to converting a listener to a loyal listener, but even harder than that is converting non-listeners. Most consumers, when it comes to anything, can feel overwhelmed by choices, and non-listeners feel that way when they look at podcasts. At least, that’s what I’ve learned from talking to the non-listeners in my life about it. They’re curious, but they don’t know where to start. Addressing that pain point could help! My hope is that more writing about podcasts, across a variety of platforms, can do that. Word of mouth is still our most powerful tool, whether it’s a text to a friend, a newsletter, a mention on social, or listicles – they all help! Don’t underestimate the power of curating content for listeners.” - Devin Andrade, Tink Media and Podstack newsletter
🔮 “We’ll see more series that will grab the attention of new listeners.” - Lauren Passell, Founder of Tink Media
Thoughtful Strategies
🔮 “For me, 2023 is the "Year of the Collab," and I think we're going to see the growth of savvy, mutually beneficial collaborations across the industry to launch and grow shows. In fact, Lauren Passell is an expert co-marketer and has had a big hand in raising the bar in this department.” - Courtney Kocak, Creator & Curator of the Podcast Bestie newsletter
🔮 “The easiest and most obvious KPI for a podcast is the total number of downloads a show sees, but it's becoming clearer that for a certain kind of podcaster, the metric they should be (and hopefully will be) focused on is total consumption rates of an episode, engagement in one form or another, and generally speaking the 'quality' of a listener rather than the amount of listeners.” - Jeff Umbro, Founder and CEO of The Podglomerate
🔮 “At some point, the podcast industry is going to reach the cross roads of defining consumption. I think there will be an insightful approach to differentiating streams, downloads, and views as it relates to indexing listener behavior. A very similar tracking metric eventually came about in the music industry to better define how a download would compare to a stream during the Napster, iTunes, etc early days.” - Faybeo'n Mickens, Tink Media
🔮 “I think we’re finally starting to realize that if you try to please everyone, you please no one. I see podcasters leaning into niche interests, targeting specific communities that might be smaller, but will be mightier.” - Lauren Passell, Founder of Tink Media
🔮 “We are finally moving away from the 'download' as the standard for podcast measurement. Metrics like 'Listen Time' will become more widely used.” - Jonas Woost, Co-founder at Bumper
🔮 “People will invest more in audience research and develop that audience before they launch something so that when they do launch the podcast, people will come.” - Lauren Passell, Founder of Tink Media
🔮 “Let's dream up ways to cross promote shows that go beyond cross promos. When there's great editorial and audience crossover, we should double down on collaborating, whether that be through live events, sharing feeds, or something bigger.” - Michele Dale, Marketing Manager at Wonder Media Network
🔮 “Podcast guesting and collaborations are going to get increasingly saturated and as a result, less effective as the Law of Shitty Clickthroughs works its way through both of these tactics. There will still huge opportunities to leverage both of these tactics, but the competition is high and those who win are going to be those with ultra-compelling shows with tight messaging, spiky points of view, and a razor sharp focus on who they're trying to reach and where they can add value.” - Jeremy Enns, Founder of Podcast Marketing Academy
🔮 “Focus on collaboration, rather than chart-topping competition. As I shared in my contribution to Harvard's annual Nieman Lab Predictions for Journalism and Media, podcast marketers and audience strategists should focus on building relationships with others in audio.” - Joni Deutsch, Vice President of Podcast Marketing & Audience Development at The Podglomerate
🔮 “Creators will begin to reserve social media handles on all of the social media sites but use them sparingly. 2023 is the year that creators begin to understand that social media doesn't drive direct podcast growth but is a necessary part of connecting with listeners and collaborators.” - Arielle Nissenblatt, Head of Community and Content at SquadCast.fm, Founder of EarBuds Podcast Collective
🔮”Maybe I’m just hoping this into existence, but I think people are caring less about actual download matches in promo swaps. Getting the right audience match is more important than the size match. So we’ll see bigger shows swapping with smaller shows, which will technically give the smaller show more in return, but will help the podcast industry overall.” - Lauren Passell, Founder of Tink Media
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