Five Ways Branded Podcasts Can Boost Audience Engagement

Whether you’re a new podcaster or a seasoned creator, increasing your podcast audience engagement (and awareness!) is crucial to maintaining and growing interest in your content. 

Throughout this article we breakdown the top five ways you can strategically engage your audience as a brand, so they keep coming back for more. 

‍

1. Have a Social Media Strategy 

Having a social media strategy is key when it comes to audience engagement but before your team creates one, there are a few different things to think about. 

To start with, it’s important to know when your listeners are active on social as it gives you the chance to target them with your podcast posts in a timely manner. For example, if your target audience are finance executives students, it’s worth thinking about posting in the early mornings so they can listen either on their commute or throughout their workday. 

By taking the time to understand your audience’s daily routines, it will allow you to tactically plan your posts and maximize engagement.

Secondly, create an online space. Organizing a group chat for your audience will build a community where your listeners all have something in common and can discuss your podcast, content and similar topics (plus it doubles up as a great focus group). There are plenty of sites where you can create a group chat, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit and Discord. 

Lastly, instead of just focusing on post-podcast promotions, think about writing posts before a podcast airs (tease episodes!), during podcast creation (behind-the-scenes footage) and of course, promotional posts after your podcast has aired. 

Remember fans and communities love to go on a journey with their favorite podcast hosts as it makes them feel more connected. Make sure to think outside the box with your promotional creative and go beyond a post or image and consider IG reels and audiograms. 

2. Include the Audience in Your Marketing

Your audience may be commenting on your show through different podcast platforms and social channels with reviews and feedback. This is a perfect opportunity to engage with your followers.

‍

• Pick some of the stand-out comments and read them out loud on your podcast or comment directly on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. You can even choose to tag certain listeners, so they know you’re paying attention which in turn increases engagement. It allows your followers to feel like they’re included in your content and that it’s a two-way dialogue. 
• Point listeners over to a Reddit or Facebook post about the episode to answer a question, discuss the topic or share feedback
• Ask your audience a question during the podcast and encourage them to send you an email or tweet with their answers that you will cover in the next episode
• Invite callers on your podcast or ask your audience to send voice messages, then play recordings of their questions and messages on the show
• Create a survey or poll, encourage people to take it, and discuss the results on a future episode (keeps them tuning in!) 
• Run a contest since everyone loves to win something. Contests are a guaranteed way to gain attention from listeners. Partner with other businesses or influencers to really maximise your reach and offer prizes that your specific niche audience would love. 

3. Launch a Podcast Newsletter

Newsletters are a great way to connect with your audience and let them know what you’re up to.  By tracking your newsletters’ open rate and click-throughs you can start to understand the topics that interest your audience the most which will allow you to plan your content more effectively. 

Encourage listeners to sign up to your newsletter by offering an incentive – shout outs, exclusive content or being entered into a contest are great ways to engage users to sign up. 

‍

4. Cross-Promote and Collaborate

Cross-promotion is a fantastic way to grow your audience. Whether you’re trading ad reads with another podcaster or trading interview episodes, cross-promotion allows you to increase the audience that you’re interacting with, as well as introducing new listeners to your content. 

Working with another podcaster has a compound effect because it means that you’re letting that podcaster’s reputation and trust built with their audience work in your favor. The end goal, of course, is to reach new listeners who may not have otherwise heard about your podcast. 

Your collaboration partners could cover the same exact material as you do, but they could still have a different audience because of how they promote their content, their target age demographics or where they are located globally. So, make sure whoever you’re collaborating with would attract new listeners to your podcast and vice versa since you want it to be value-add for everyone involved.

‍

5. Have a Clear Call-To-Action (CTA)

Part of podcast engagement is encouraging your followers to take action. So, what do you want them to do after they listen to your podcast? Leave a review? Subscribe to the podcast? Join your email newsletter? Follow you on Facebook or Instagram? Come to an in-person event? Check out a product or service? Buy swag? 

Make sure every episode of your podcast has a specific CTA mentioned in the podcast itself and listed in the podcast description/shownotes. 

‍

There you have it – five sure-fire and turnkey ways to start increasing your audience engagement. 

Want to learn more about growing your audience and promoting your podcast? Get in touch with our team.