If you have a podcast and you can’t figure out why you don’t have many listeners, then you might need to think about putting together a marketing strategy.
An online course could give you all the information you need to put together a fantastic plan that will grow your audience and improve the success of your podcast.
However, you need to make sure that you choose the right online podcasting course.
We have reviewed ‘Podcast Marketing: How To Grow Your Audience With A Marketing Plan, Social Media & Metadata Tips’.
Keep reading to find out what we thought of the course and whether it could be a good fit for you and your podcast.
About The Course
‘Podcast Marketing: How To Grow Your Audience With A Marketing Plan, Social Media & Metadata Tips’ is a course that you can access on skillshare.com.
It is designed for people who already have experience with podcasting, but are entirely new to marketing.
It will fill the gap in your skillset and give you all of the information you need to put together a great marketing plan that will grow your audience.
You can access this course by signing up to skillshare, or by taking part in a free trial. It is taught by an industry leader so you can be sure that the information is relevant and trustworthy.
About The Creator
This course is created and presented by Amanda McLoughlin, a podcaster and a business owner.
She runs a business called Multitude, which produces shows and helps clients to market their podcasts as well as offering free resources to podcasters.
Not only does Amanda have experience with making and producing podcasts, she has also helped many clients to market their podcast and grow their audience.
This puts her in a good position to give advice and help her students to do the same.
What To Expect From The Course
So what can you expect if you decide to sign up for this course?
Course Overview
This course has a total of 11 lessons which makes up 24 minutes of teaching time.
It is quick but packs in lots of useful information that will help you to learn more about marketing your podcast.
As well as the lessons, you will also be able to read the free resources. This includes guides to podcast accounting, pre-production, monetization and sponsorship, and a pitch deck template.
Course Structure
The first lesson is a simple introduction to the course and the teacher to ease you in.
Then you move on to an explanation of what a marketing plan actually is. This will help you to understand why it is so important that you make one!
The next two lessons focus on your audience – defining who they are, and then learning how to find them.
You need to know who you should be trying to market your podcast to so that you can think about the best way to reach those people.
Once you have established who your audience is and where they are, you will learn about how to use social media to successfully market your podcast.
This ties in to reaching your target audience, and also into collecting new and possibly unexpected listeners.
This is one of the longer lessons because it is an important part of your marketing plan.
The next lesson is all about connecting with the podcast community. This is something that the teacher is passionate about as you can tell by the business that they run.
Connecting with fellow podcasters to share resources and information and promote each other’s work can be beneficial to everyone and builds a strong community.
Then you move on to a lesson about Metadata, what it is, why it is important, and how you can use it to your advantage when it comes to marketing your podcast and growing your audience.
This is a really useful section which is not included in a lot of other courses.
Next you will learn about how to pitch your show. This is an important skill to learn when it comes to collaborating with people, booking interviews, and gaining sponsorship.
It’s also important if you want to bring other companies or podcasters into your marketing strategy, as you will need to be able to sell your podcast to them in order to convince them to help you.
Once you have learned about pitching your show you will then move on to content marketing. This is a shorter lesson, but it is still very useful.
The final two lessons round off the carousel nicely. There is a lesson on putting your marketing plan into action which ties together everything you have learned on the course.
You then finish off with a very quick lesson to conclude the course.
Tone & Pace
This is a very short online course that feels more like a mini-lecture. It is split up into very short lessons, which means that it can feel a little bit stop/start.
However, the short sections make it easy to follow and you can go at your own pace. You don’t need to worry about losing concentration as all of the information is relevant and succinct.
The teacher is engaging and delivers the content in a way that is easy to follow and understand. The course gives clear instructions that can be actioned.
What Did We Think?
So what did we think of the course overall? What did we like and dislike about the lessons?
Pros
- Succinct – No words are wasted and there is no waffle. The teacher says what needs to be said in a straightforward way that wastes no time but is still informative and easy to understand.
- Engaging – The teacher is clearly passionate about the topic which makes the content very engaging and fun to learn.
- Actionable – The course gives you clear actions points which you can go away and carry out in order to grow your audience.
- Relevant – This course is relevant to anyone who has a podcast, regardless of how long it has been going for. It also has some useful information about marketing in general, not just podcast marketing.
- Time – You don’t need to set a lot of time aside to complete this course. It is short and sweet but gets the job done, so it is very easy to fit into your day.
- Motivational – The tone and the content of the lessons motivates you to get working on your own marketing plan so that you can see the results. If you have hit a slump with your podcast then this course will help to kickstart your determination again.
- Resources – This course comes with some great additional resources which will be very useful when it comes to your podcasting journey.
Cons
- Detail – This course is very short which means that it is not an in-depth delve into marketing and is more of an overview.
- Entry level – The course is aimed at beginners, but it is more of an entry level course. The marketing information is quite basic.
- Flow – This is 24 minutes of content split into 11 lessons. Just as you are getting into the flow of a lesson it stops and another one begins. This can be quite jarring.
- Monetization – There is not a lot of information in the lessons about how to monetize your podcast, which seems relevant to marketing. However, there is a guide to monetization and sponsorship in the additional resources.
- Value – This is a helpful course but you don’t get a lot of teaching time compared to other courses. Unless you are already a member of skill share then it doesn’t seem like great value for money.
Should You Purchase This Course?
Now that you know what this course is about and what it can offer you, it is time to decide whether you want to sign up for it or not.
If you are looking for an in-depth online course on how to market your podcast with lots of tips on monetization strategy and how to get sponsorship etc, then this is not the course for you.
You will need to find something with more teaching hours that gives a lot more detail.
If you want a quick guide to podcast marketing that is easy to understand then this course is perfect.
The advice is practical and actionable, and can get you some great results if you want to grow your audience.
It won’t take up much of your time and it could even give you a renewed passion for your podcast project.
You might still need to pair this course with another, more in depth course. But it is still very useful. Especially if you check out all of the additional resources that come with it.
Summary
This is an interesting and engaging course that gives you different ideas for how to grow your audience. It is short and sweet and comes highly recommended.
