5 Tips on Email Marketing to Grow Your Podcast

Email marketing is a powerful tool for all brands, big or small. This means it is also useful to podcasters. Email marketing allows you to reach a larger audience, increase engagement, and grow your listener base. Like many marketing tools, this can be a hit or a miss. We won’t let you miss though; in this article, we will give you a few tips on how to start your journey right!

Build an Email List

This is the obvious one, right? But the key is in how to get this going. You need a sign-up form to start; put this on your podcast website or your social media channels. The trick is in getting people to enter their email addresses and click sign up, so here are a few things you need to think about.

A punchy headline for the sign-up form; keep it neat and short. An example is a sign-up form titled, ‘Be a champ today!’ This will make anyone pause and read a little more about being a champ, what it means, and what the advantages are.

Secondly, make sure your sign-up form is visually appealing, and this does not mean it should be too busy, just enough to keep people interested. Lastly, an incentive. The human brain always asks, ‘What’s in it for me?’ And no, the answer is not that they will get updates for the podcast; you already send those out on social media.

However, if you say that they get the episodes 24hrs earlier than everybody else, then that is a little special, isn’t it? Or that the bonus episodes are only available to those on the email list; who wants to be left out of that? If your podcast has evolved so much that you are selling merchandise, then a discount voucher or a freebie would be a great incentive for your audience.

Another thing to remember when building your email list is segmenting into different groups based on interests. Some people may be interested in the podcast episodes only, whilst some would like to receive the newsletters as well. Give your audience what they want so that your open rates are high!

Create Compelling Emails

Press the like button if you have ever opened an email because the subject line was good. ‘20% off your fave look’ will have anyone flying across the room to open the email, but ‘Today’s newsletter’ will have you scrolling right past. The point here is you need to keep your subject lines fun and engaging. The visuals, as mentioned before, need to be appealing and easy to read with clear calls-to-action.

Big tip: keep in mind that you are talking to people and not robots! Pour your character into your emails, and keep it fun and informative. To tap into your audience’s loyalty, throw in some behind-the-scenes content that you will not put anywhere else. Let them in on who the next guest on the show will be and have them send in questions they want to ask them. You don’t just score loyalty, but you also get engagement.

Send Regular Emails

Consistency is key when it comes to any form of marketing. This, however, depends on how often you put out your episodes. If you are publishing weekly, then it may be wise to also have a weekly newsletter. Whatever frequency you choose to go with, stick to it as much as you can. The end goal is to keep your podcast on top of their mind.

Use Automation

Here is another opportunity to make your audience feel special. Automated emails go out when an action is triggered, for example, when someone signs up, they get a welcome email. This is where you brief them on your brand, what they can expect, and how often they will hear from you.
A week or two later, you can email your new subscribers, and this

could be to give them the 3 most listened-to episodes for them to listen to. This way, you continue to boost the numbers of those shows. There is a lot more you can do with automated emails; it all depends on your goals, but do take advantage of these as much as you can.

Optimise for Mobile

Ever opened an email on your phone and had to scroll sideways to continue reading because the text is overlapping your screen? It’s frustrating, isn’t it? Be sure that never happens to your audience. The truth is, people are on their phones more than any other device; therefore, it is important to optimise your emails for mobile. Most email marketing tools have a preview option for each device; do not skip that option EVER!

Like any other marketing tool, email marketing comes with a lot of learning. Be sure to watch your analytics and make changes where necessary. Have a strategy in place so you can trace your growth, too. We encourage you to get into email marketing because it is a very stable marketing tool when compared to social media marketing. Here, we grow together, so let us know how you have managed to grow your podcast using email marketing in the comment section.

Looking for another great article to read? Check out “The Art of Repurposing Content“.

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