💰How to spend your money, honey
Plus, week #3 of podcast growth
One of the questions we commonly encounter in our Podcast Therapy sessions is: ‘how and where should I spend money to promote my podcast?’ So, today we’re talking about where to (and more importantly: where not to) spend your money when it comes to podcast promotion, especially for the independent and/or new creators in the house.
⏳ If you only have time for one thing
Then let it be this little nugget: don’t spend money promoting your podcast on social media. In our experience, podcast promotion on social media does not result in sustainable growth in listeners. Instead, consider spending your promotional dollars advertising on apps like Castbox.
🙇 The heroes that came before us
We’re definitely neither the first nor the last to delve into this question. We thank the following sources and also highly recommend you bookmark these for later reading:
This legendary Twitter thread from Arielle Nissenblatt on where to put your podcast money.
This comprehensive guide on podcast advertising from The Podcast Host.
Let’s get to it!
🎯 When to spend your money on promotion (and when not to)
Prioritize spending your money on promotion:
Only after your creative is complete. Channel your money and efforts on making a podcast that you are proud to promote.
When you've mapped out your budget and know how much you have to spare, whether that's $100 for a newsletter ad or $3,000 for a Castbox ad.
When you’ve got a plan. We hope this newsletter will help with that bit!
Now, to arguably the more important bit.
When not to spend your money and what not to spend on:
Generic social media ads that do not involve intentional planning and thoughtful targeting.
Sponsored posts that are promoted just for the sake of promotion. Consider where in your complete marketing strategy do sponsored posts fit.
When alignment is low. Whether it be an influencer or another podcast, avoid spending if the alignment in content and audience is low. We often encounter creators that think that they need to advertise with the biggest podcasters in the space to get their podcast heard. ❌ Well, don’t. Prioritize audience alignment over number of followers or listeners; you’re guaranteed listeners who stick with your podcast.
➡️ What to spend your money on*
Here’s where to put your money, in order of priority:
🎧 Paid in-app placements on listening apps
Why:
✅ Listeners are already in the listening mindset’ they are more open to hearing other podcast suggestions.
✅ If a listener is using an app they are likely loyal to it and are more likely to interact with an ad.
✅ Dedicated podcast listening apps are mostly used by dedicated podcast listeners so the audience you’ll gain from these ads is likely to be an engaged audience.
Where:
Podcast Addict (currently available on Android only)
🗞️ Classifieds in podcast newsletters
Email a podcast newsletter and ask them for their rate card. If they don’t have one, they’ll probably come up with one quickly!
Why:
✅ They already have a curated audience that is looking for podcast recommendations.
✅ Bonus: you’ll also support the industry you’re now a part of.
Where:
Quick note: all of the newsletters mentioned here also welcome pitches for podcasts, which you needn’t pay for. Try sending them a pitch before you spend on ads.
📢 Podcast ad marketplaces
Advertising marketplaces within the podcast industry allow creating targeted campaigns to advertise your show across the platform’s audience network. These include:
Megaphone (which opens the Spotify Audience Network to advertisers)
👀 We recommend keeping a close eye on The Podscape, which keeps updating ad serving technology in the industry.
💬 Other podcasts
Find podcasts that have high alignment with yours and approach them to place a 30 or 60-second promo on their show. Remember to ask the number of downloads each episode enjoys; avoid spending money on shows that have less than consistent 15k downloads per episode.
Brave warrior, be unafraid to ask how your promo has performed once the campaign is over.
🔎 Google Search
Last on the list, and perhaps the least, would be Google Search Ads. You can create a Search Campaign to target listeners searching specific keywords in Google. However, as someone who’s worked in Google Search Ads in a past lifetime (Shreya here), I’d suggest either getting an expert to do this or taking a course on it. For something like a niche podcast targeting on Google can be tricky so you want to make sure you’re spending your money smartly.
*Psst…if I’ve missed any apps or newsletters that offer paid ads, drop them in the comments. Thanks!
Speaking of spending money smartly…
💸 Got extra money? Here’s what you can save for
If you’re not at the $1000 mark yet or you’ve got some cash lying around to spare OR even after all this you’ve got money, here’s a few things worth saving for:
Save it to pay yourself when you become your own newsletter writer.
Save it to pay yourself or a team member to pitch for earned placements like promo swaps, feed drops, and pitching yourself as a guest.
Invest in a team that can help you with running a page on a membership platform.
Here’s an easy one: invest in better tools or upgrades on gear. I’ve been eyeing this studio as inspiration.
52 Weeks of Podcast Growth
It’s that time of the week, again! Here’s this week’s tip for podcast growth:
Join 3 subreddits and/or discords that are relevant to the topic of your podcast.
Previous week’s tips were:
Find 10 podcasts that are similar to yours.
Connect with 10 new podcasts on social media.
🎙 From the desk of Tink
Digital Folklore is a fusion of audio drama and narrative documentary exploring how our online expressions and culture—from scary stories to cat memes—are folklore. Using a clever combination of immersive sound design, storytelling, voice acting, interviews, and scripted narrative, Digital Folklore analyzes various expressions of internet culture through the lens of academic folklore. The show’s format is almost certainly unlike anything you’ve heard before. In Digital Folklore, hosts Mason Amadeus and Perry Carpenter play exaggerated versions of themselves as they take listeners on a journey exploring various topics of internet culture. And as a result, they frequently end up in some pretty strange situations. All of this helps to create a semi-fictional world and set of scenarios that serve as a wrapper for the real interviews they conduct with experts and the folkloric concepts and facts they bring forward.
✨ More Magic
How to (smartly) launch a podcast from nothing + the launch of 52 weeks of podcast growth.
Wow, this NL is great. Thanks!
Excellent resource for all podcasters! The alignment point is so key, whether that's with sponsors and audience, or the ads that you might be dropping in to your show (either yourself or via your host). The context needs to be there for the audience - you wouldn't put an ad for Sam the Butcher in a show about vegan recipes, for example.
Great stuff, this will be revisited many times. :)