Preaching to the converted

26% of Americans listened to a podcast in the last month. Don’t forget about the 74% who didn’t.

Which piece of the pie are you going after?

Broadly-speaking, all podcast marketing falls into one of two categories:

Preaching to the converted Growing the denominator

When you preach to the converted, you’re trying to reach existing podcast listeners. That is, the quarter of Americans who listened to a podcast in the last month.

You’re vying for a coveted spot in their podcast app. Those spots are scarce: the average podcast consumer listens to 7 shows per week. So-called “Super Listeners” listen to 13 shows per week. That’s limited real estate, and 500,000+ shows are competing for it.

Here’s what preaching to the converted looks like:

Promo swaps

Podcast guesting

Podcast ads inside other podcasts

Podcast ads inside third-party podcast apps

Paid social media that targets “Podcast” as an interest

Preaching to the converted is an important part of any podcast marketing strategy. But remember: if you only market your show to existing podcast listeners, you’ll only ever reach existing podcast listeners.

Growing the denominator

Growing the denominator is more difficult than preaching to the converted. It’s more time-consuming. It can be more expensive. But it’s also the largest opportunity for growth, industry-wide.

Growing the denominator means creating content so valuable that people are willing to dip their toe into a new medium and sample their first podcast. It means holding their hand through the fussiness and clutter of most podcast apps. And it means reaching potential new podcast listeners where they already live.

Here’s what growing the denominator looks like:

Pitch the content, not the medium

For a large, mainstream audience, content-focused hooks beat medium-focused hooks.

What’s a compelling content-focused hook? A terrifying story about swimming with deadly sharks. Or an inspiring interview with one of America’s leading entrepreneurs. Or the fascinating backstory behind a deeply misunderstood technology.

What’s not compelling? An announcement that “Brand X has an exciting new podcast,” accompanied by a stock photo of a pair of headphones:

Is this enticing to someone who doesn’t already listen to podcasts?

Podcast people care about podcasts. But everybody cares about amazing stories that inform, enlighten, educate, entertain, and stimulate.

To grow the denominator, pitch the content, not the medium.

Hit new podcast fans where they live

Think about channels outside of podcasting. Atlanta Monster put up billboards:

Charles Schwab promotes Choiceology on the video screens inside branches across America:

Trader Joe’s announced their new show in a place their existing customers already spend time:

Photo credit: Jared Easley on LinkedIn

Where do potential new listeners already spend their time and attention?

Fish where the fish are.

Teach people how to listen

If you’ve never listened to a podcast before, the process can be daunting. Hold people’s hands. Make it easy.

The Daily is the gold standard here. At the bottom of each episode page, there’s a “How do I listen?” section that spells out, in plain English, exactly how to listen to the show:

When Balado Media launched Norene’s Kitchencast, they made a charming and accessible video to walk new podast listeners step-by-step through the process of subscribing:

Legitimize the medium

Don’t position podcasts as a weird, nerdy, niche medium. Instead, position podcasts as the mainstream news, information, and entertainment source they already are.

When S-Town’s Brian Reed appears on The Tonight Show, that grows the denominator:

When The Secret Life of Canada co-hosts Falen Johnson and Leah Simone-Bowen appear on TVO’s Agenda, that grows the denominator:

When Walter Isaacson appears on CBS This Morning to talk about Trailblazers, that grows the denominator.

Podcasting is well into its second decade. It’s growing up. And when podcasts are featured alongside movies, TV shows, books, music, and other established, broadly appealing mainstream media, it legitimizes the entire medium.

Use star power

In 2004, Sirius announced a $100 million dollar deal to bring Howard Stern to their satellite radio service. They used star power to attract Stern fans to a new platform.

The same approach can work for podcasters (and podcast distributors) who want to grow the denominator.

Look at the popularity of shows hosted by Oprah Winfrey or Malcolm Gladwell. At Pacific Content, we’ve worked on a number of shows hosted by well-known names like Dan Heath, Walter Isaacson, and Veronica Belmont.

When Gimlet Media cast Sandra, they capitalized on the name-recognition of Kristen Wig, Alia Shawkat, Ethan Hawke. And Spotify is reportedly paying Amy Schumer $1 million for the exclusive rights to a comedy podcast.

Stars aren’t the only way to attract new people to the podcast ecosystem, but they’re an effective one.

Invent new formats

Lots of podcasts (and podcast producers) have roots in public radio. Clearly, the tone, style, and format of public radio programming translates well to an on-demand medium.

But growing the denominator requires a greater diversity of formats, tones, styles, and voices.

That means new formats (like daily news shows). It means new marketing approaches designed for mass appeal (like Wondery’s amazing campaign behind Dirty John). It means more non-English podcasts. It means more non-US podcasts.

A fun exercise: compare the top shows on the Apple Podcasts charts to the top shows on Nielsen’s Top 10 lists. Pretty big difference, no? There’s a lot of room to grow.

Explore new platforms

Growing the denominator also means reaching new listeners on the platforms they’re most comfortable with.

According to the IAB, 45–52% of podcast downloads come from Apple’s iOS Podcasts app. Yet, according to Google Podcasts Product Manager Zack Reneau-Wedeen:

At a high level, most people in the world who have smartphones have Android phones. And at the same time, the majority of people who listen to podcasts do so on an iPhone. It’s actually so egregious that on a device-by-device basis, the average iPhone listens to over ten times more podcasting than the average Android.

Growing the denominator means giving Android listeners a great, first-party podcast solution. It also means embracing other podcast distribution endpoints, like Spotify and and iHeartRadio.