👍 Podcast marketing and publishing: what's IN and what's OUT for 2025?🚫
🥢Podcast Thoughts Powered by MáLà Project🥡
It’s the start of a new year—we’re sure you’re taking stock of things important to you. Here in Lauren and Arielle’s world, (who, combined, listened to more than 130 days of podcasts in 2024) that means taking stock of podcast and marketing trends.
We’re back for a third year of ins and outs for the podcast world.
To recap:
This is a combination of trends we’ve noticed from the past year AND things we’re either a) predicting we’ll see more of or b) putting out into the universe as our hopes and dreams for the future.
We started this yearly tradition while at dinner at our favorite NYC restaurant, MáLà Project. And we’re back here again, enjoying some dry pot, as we type out this intro section, as the gospel dictates we must.
Once again, we remind you that if you visit New York, we want to take you to MàLá. It’s the unofficial podcast dinner spot. We mean it! We expect some reply emails about this!
Before we get into it:
Subscribe to Arielle’s podcast recommendation newsletter here.
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OK now let’s get into it.
First up, here are the podcast and marketing trends we’re excited to get rid of in 2025:
OUT.
Feed drops without localization. Yes, feed drops can be extremely powerful — they’re a great way to introduce your audience to another, possibly more established audience. However, your chances of bringing new listeners to your show will be higher if you take the time to record an intro to that episode, or to send some copy points to the host of that show so they can introduce it to their listeners. Let’s explore localizing our shows when we partner with others.
Asking your guests to drop their interview with you on their own feed if they have a podcast. We tried this. We recommended it for a while. But after some testing, we’ve found that the conversion is low. Too many people will listen and say “that’s great!” But not follow the new podcast they’re being introduced to.
(Read the “IN” section to learn how to counteract this situation).
“I heard I need to start a TikTok account.” It’s possible that you do! But it’s also very possible that you don’t.
The same goes for so many other things that you could possibly do as it relates to marketing and promotion—primarily social in this case. You don’t need to do anything other than assess where your current audience is and where your desired audience hangs out. Then, make a plan to be there.
Podcast Twitter. We’ve been saying this for years but the nail is really in the coffin now. Sadly.
Find Lauren lurking on weird subreddits, or by reading her newsletter. And like, probably other places, eventually.
Content-making before audience-planning. Who is your show for? Have you spoken to them? What insights are you hearing about their needs and pain points? These are all great things to know before you embark on making a show that could be expensive and time-consuming.
Ignoring the listener on-ramp. When listeners are looking for new shows, they need to be nurtured. What does your show do to ensure that? Do you have a trailer that brings them into the fold? A clear description of who the show is for? Do you state your business on each episode (even in subtle ways) so that people know who you are and why you make this show? In 2025, we will no longer ignore the on-ramp.
Building a community without a reason/blueprint. Just because it might be nice to establish a community around your podcast so that you can get feedback, or start a Patreon, or host live events, it’s also very possible that your audience is already involved in TOO MANY communities. Consider this while planning the community side of things.
What makes you different? Use that.
Expecting short form to convert to long form. The issue with promoting your podcast on TikTok, Reels, and YouTube shorts isn’t that you won’t get traction (though you may have to work hard at it). It’s that capturing followers for your short form content is different than capturing listeners for your podcast. Even if they are the same audience, if they encounter you on TikTok, they may not be interested in going from a 30-second soundbite to a 45-minute episode right now.
That doesn’t mean don’t do it. But expecting conversion = out.
Straight-up traditional interviews. We’re already seeing this happen—podcasts taking fewer and fewer pitches for guests on their shows, opting for doing things a bit more creative with guests, asking for something in return, or doing more solo episodes.
Microphones on cover art. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again—as this industry grows and reaches more mainstream audiences (thank you, Podcast Election!), we need to further professionalize our podcasts. Unless your podcast is about podcasting or microphones specifically, you don’t need to include one on your cover art. We don’t see boom arms and video cameras on film posters.
Complete reliance on the CPM model. Podcasters will find more creative ways to monetize.
See below for some ideas.
AI-generated “thought leadership” slop on LinkedIn. Yes, you should probably be more active on LinkedIn (depending on your subject matter). But no, you shouldn’t rely completely on Chat GPT to make listicles and grand statements.
After a while, these all look the same and we start to tune them out.
Half-assing social promotion. There are simply too many places to be right now. You can’t — nay, shant — be everywhere. Choose a few platforms to ass completely.
And here are the things we either want to see more of in 2025 and/or think are here to stay.
IN.
Transcripts for every episode.
Surveys! Podcasters will work harder to get to know their audiences.
Old shows coming back. We saw this a LOT in 2024 (Millennial, Personal Best, Advice For and From the Future) and we know there will be more. (Like The Longest Shortest Time! Coming back after a five-year hiatus!)
Advice shows. They’re relatively easy to make (people will always have problems so it’s easy to be always-on from a constant content pipeline perspective) and people love them! Which reminds us…
Existing podcasts figuring out how they can convert to always-on if they aren’t already. Listeners want it. Networks want it. Advertising partners want it. It may or may not be in the cards for you. But we think there’ll be more of this happening.
Quick guest promos. Ask your guests to drop a :30 promo (or a quick episode) for their interview with you on their own feed if they have a podcast. That quick episode will get listeners over to your feed.
Not the whole episode. (See #2 in the OUT section).
Split episode enticements. Have a conversation with another podcaster, split it into two, and put one half on one feed and one on the other. Listeners who want to full conversation will have to go to both shows! Find the right partners.
Getting to know your “competitors.” And calling them collaborators instead. Listen to their shows, read their newsletters, and respond to their social posts. You’ll get episode and promotion ideas from this!
Video (but not for everyone). We couldn’t make this list without acknowledging the rise of video. Or the pressure of it. Shows that have been audio-only for a long time are starting to record and publish video elements—whether that’s clips or full episodes.
Will this work for everyone? No. Should you try it? Depends what your goals are. We are happy to talk about it with you. We will be gentle and honest.
Podcasters thinking of themselves as creators and storytellers. Audio makers are starting to worry about the story they want to tell and the message they want to convey more than the method their audience will get that story, that message.
Multi-channel planning. While video might not be for you, we do recommend existing elsewhere—social media, a newsletter…etc. You want your listeners to be able to find you and interact with you between episodes.
These elements won’t necessarily point back to your RSS-based podcast, but they will nurture your flock.
Sound overwhelming? At minimum, grab your account handles and populate the bio with a simple link to your show.
Tim Ferriss’ four new rules for interviews. Tim Ferriss recently announced that he’s sticking to four rules when it comes to interviews in 2025:
He’s not interviewing authors who are on PR circuits.
He’s prioritizing living legends.
He’s doing more interviews in creative places (like a sauna!)
He’s doing this thing he calls “the barbell method,” which means his guests need to be known by 90% of his audience or by only 10%.
The result will be interviews that interest Tim more, and us, too. And we think other podcasts will follow suit. (Lauren plans to get more into this later this year. Stay tuned!)
LinkedIn for utilitarian podcasts. With Twitter basically out of the picture, we’re looking for replacements. If your show is utilitarian—AKA people use it to learn something concrete, LinkedIn is probably a great spot for you – NOT JUST TO PROMOTE YOUR SHOW – but to build up your authority.
And then to promote your show.
Merch as a metric. It’s really easy (and fun) to make merch for your listeners (see: Certified Crucial). And then to use that merch as a way of:
Incentivizing reviews or other things you want them to do
Involving your community in a project / design.
Adding it as a stat to your media deck, “here’s how many t-shirts we sold last quarter.”
Among other things.
And last but certainly not least, podcasters will realize they have to, HAVE TO invest time or money into marketing. If a podcast drops in the woods but you don’t market it, will anyone hear it? Maybe not!
As always, we invite your comments, thoughts, and questions.
We are not soothsayers. We won’t claim to be. We are simply obsessed with listening to podcasts, helping people make them and grow them, and, underneath it all, we feel privileged to be able to work in this industry. Here’s to more listening and learning in the year to come!
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Arielle and Lauren
Also, I'm definitely taking fewer guests and doing more solo episodes. The solo episodes do just as well, and are 1000% easier to schedule and edit. There's no comparison.
Great advice. Other side of the coin to "asking your guests to drop their interview with you on their own feed if they have a podcast" ... I do like sharing shows when I'm a guest, on the Dating While Gray feed. Might not convert DWG listeners to the other show, but it garners downloads (and comments) for DWG.