♾️How to end your podcast but keep marketing
Your podcast might be over, but the feed is forever
Hi hello, Wil back again here at Podcast Marketing Magic! And I LOVE ENDINGS!
I’m a big believer in stories with endings. I love few things more than a piece of art culminating in a satisfying conclusion.
But I’m also someone who works in marketing, and I know marketing something that’s finished can seem difficult — or even silly.
I’ve got great news for you though: unless you’re taking down your feed (and why would you do that?), your podcast actually still exists. Thinking that nobody will listen to your show because it’s over is like thinking nobody is going to watch Jurassic Park because it came out in 1993.
We all know Jurassic Park still slaps.
🏃🏻Listeners love a marathon
When Netflix rolled out and popularized the “binge model” (I hate this phrasing. I hate it a lot. I use “marathon” instead, and will henceforth), more and more people like engaging with productions in one fell swoop. Creators often think this only applies to limited, serialized series, like a true crime investigation — but that’s not true at all. When I fell in love with 5-4, I was several years late, but I was in love.
I listened to the entire archive over the course of a week or two, including all of the Patreon bonus episodes. 5-4 is still running, but I’ve done this with plenty of now-concluded podcasts as well.
A good deal of listeners even prefer this method than weekly releases: they can listen on their own terms and their own time, voraciously devouring episodes like I do, or taking their time without the anxiety of trying to stay current.
Capitalize on this! Start talking about how your audience can listen to all of your episodes now. Advertise the conclusion of your podcast just like you would the start of your podcast; it’s just as newsworthy as your show beginning!
♻️Been a while? Go for a rebroadcast
Re: Dracula is a fiction podcast that releases the same episodes annually. This word-for-word adaptation of Dracula, an epistalory novel, drops episodes on the dates of the letters that make up the text. Each year, new listeners can join along to follow the characters in realtime.
But you don’t have to have a timed podcast to make this work. Last week in our ✨More Magic✨ segment we mentioned that Audacious Machine’s Our Fair City has started rebroadcasting its episodes, originally aired starting back in 2011. This fiction podcast remains relevant and beloved — but newer audiences might not have caught it on its first run.
If you’ve got an episode that touched on a topic that’s timely again, put it back up! I love podcasts that include an updated note on the topic that responds to what has brought it back into the news or the zeitgeist, but that’s not always necessary.
And of course, those episodes are great not just for your feed, but for other shows’ feeds! So let’s discuss . . .
🤝 Feed swaps feed swaps!
Last week, Shreya talked about feed warmer campaigns — absolutely check that edition out if you haven’t yet.
This tip is similar: a completed show gives you great opportunities for feed swaps. Feed swaps are co-marketing campaigns in which you put a podcast’s entire episode on your feed, and they do the same for you. These can stay on your feed eternally, or for an agreed-upon length of time or number of impressions.
While I don’t recommend dropping tons and tons of other peoples’ episodes on your feed after your show has concluded, I am a fan of keeping 1-2 feed drops up at any given time. This will help keep your feed fresh with your listeners (especially if you ever want to advertise a new show on that feed), and will help you find new listeners when your episode goes up on your podcast friend’s feed.
🛑 Don’t get in your own way
One of my biggest and most universal tips for podcast marketing is to not get in your own way, and that could not be more true with a podcast that has completed.
I consistently see podcasters underestimate the power of a completed podcast. I see podcasters preemptively apologize that they don’t have new episodes coming out.
You do not need to do that! Jurassic Park remains good despite pretty much all of the other films in the series being super, super bad. I’m not apologizing for this opinion. The Postal Service’s Give Up is the band’s only album, and they still tour with it — and it came out in 2003. People are literally still reading Dracula (or listening to a podcast that reads Dracula to them with a full cast and sound design).
Having a finished podcast can be a great thing. Your audience still exists, and new audiences will be even more excited if the show has concluded. You might lose some audience who only likes listening to current shows — but that is not the entirety of the podcast audience ecosystem.
Don’t preemptively apologize! Don’t underestimate your podcast! Don’t get in your own way!
⭐ More Magic:
Over at Bingeworthy, Samatha Hodder talks all about how to ask the right questions while you create
And Frank Racioppi talked up Tink’s Feed the Queue in this edition of Ear Worthy!\
Last night, I attended Gabriel Urbina’s (Wolf 359, Unseen, Zero Hours) “Directing Stories for Sound” workshop webinar with guests Mary Kate Wiles and Lauren Shippen. It was tremendous. One of the most important parts of marketing is having something spectacular to market, and I know this workshop is going to make my own works so much better. Keep watch for upcoming workshops — and while this class was geared towards audio fiction, I KNOW it’s going to be useful for any podcast that uses a script!
BuzzSprout just rolled out their new podcast website designs, and they’re sooooo dreamy! The new sites are so customizable and have a ton of great information to highlight: “You can feature guest and host bios, display Fan Mail, promote your favorite podcasts, search through episodes, and offer premium content—all in one place.”
🌃 From The Desk of Tink
From Now On with Lisa Phillips is a podcast all focused on the lives of survivors of abuse. Unearthing stories that haven’t been told before, From Now On is a series of interviews with survivors that is made for fellow survivors — not for a voyeuristic look into trauma. As a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein, Lisa Phillips understand how surviving abuse works, how it feels, and how often suvrivors are spoken over or victim blamed. Instead, she uses her empathy and lived experiences to inform these beautiful, real conversations about the realities of surviving abuse. As a survivor myself, this podcast means a lot to me. Whether you’re a survivor or not, I think it’ll matter to you, too — and most importantly, I cannot imagine how much it must matter to her incredible guests.
Next week, Shreya’s back to talk more about endings and marketing in the podcast space! And if you haven’t watched Jurassic Park in a little while, go do that.
— Wil 🦇