Misty Phillip “Harnessing the Power of Collaboration to Skyrocket Your Podcast”

As the audio landscape becomes more crowded, and with the changing algorithms of social media making it more challenging to gain traction, creators need to get imaginative. Collaborations are one of the best ways to reach new audiences for your podcast and grow your brand, especially as a faith-based podcaster. As the world grows increasingly darker and becomes more hostile to the gospel, we have to find new and compelling ways to get our message out to the world.

We are co-creators with the God of the Universe, who supplies us with creativity and wisdom, and He is our best collaboration partner.

We are co-laborers in the gospel with God and other faith-based creators. We all have unique gifts and talents to use for the Kingdom, and the body of Christ works best when we are all operating in those gifts. 

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. “Ephesians 2:10

There are several types of collaborations to spur you on to create strategic alliances. You can find collaboration partners everywhere as podcast hosts—with other hosts, businesses, non-profits, and ministries. Alignment is crucial when choosing collaboration partners. Look for organizations that have similar missions, visions, and values. You want to look for relevant podcast hosts, influencers, ministries, companies in similar niches and categories, and partners with different but complimentary products or services. 

Collaborations can be digital or in-person based on shared interests and geographic region. As podcast hosts, we want to partner with other podcasters, radio stations, businesses, and brands outside our niche. As a faith-based podcaster, I want to support and collaborate with organizations with similar values doing kingdom work. 

Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of using podcast collaborations to skyrocket our growth, looking at several types of cross-promotion strategies. 

Podcast Cross-Promotions

A podcast cross-promotion is the process by which podcast hosts and producers of different podcasts help each other to promote their podcasts. 

Rephonic has a podcast discovery tool to help you find podcasts similar to yours. The rephonic graph tool collects millions of data points from the “Listeners also Subscribed To” data displayed in Apple Podcasts to create these relationships. The data tells you what other podcasts share a similar audience. Savvy podcasters will use this data to place ads and do guest and promo swaps.

Promo Swaps

You can swap podcast trailers, pre-recorded ads, or give a shout-out to others shows on your podcast. Include a pretty link like a bitly link to get people to your website’s “listen now” page or to your lead magnet. These links are easy for the audience to remember and can include tracking data. 

Make sure the Call To Action (CTA) is a simple download, subscribe, listen, rate, review, and subscribe to my list. Word-of-mouth promotions can be quite effective, especially when a host shares their personal reviews of shows or mentions that they are fans of your work. 

Another way to do promo swaps is by adding a promotion in the show notes, email marketing, or social media. It can be as simple as if you enjoyed this podcast; then you may also like this other podcast. You can also swap audiograms and podcast graphics or share episodes that are meaningful to you and vice versa. Retweets, shout-outs on linked, and Instagram stories are all great ways to cross-promote. 

An established podcaster posting your episode on their feed is a great way to gain exposure and widen your audience. Someone’s favorite podcast host endorsing your show may be what convinces them to listen to your content for the first time. 

Podcast Guest Swaps

Guesting on each other’s shows is a great way to serve each other’s audience while building your audience. Being a podcast guest helps you grow your podcast brand awareness and brand authority. Podcast guesting helps get you gain exposure from another audience. 

Content Swaps

Swapping content by sharing blog posts with backlinks is a fantastic way for podcasters to grow online and can help improve your website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Content swapping utilizes the power of internal and external links pointing to the article, allowing search engines to find and include the content in their databases, spreading the connection far beyond the initial swap. 

Agree upon topics for the content swap to be exchanged. The key to a successful trade is that both pieces of swapped content must be linked to a page recognized by the major search engines.

Next, each site should have a link that links back to their “guest post” on the other site. 

Email Swaps

Email marketing is powerful because it creates a deeply personal connection with your followers. Email is a great place to provide value and serve your audience. It is one of the few channels you own. All social media platforms are borrowed space and could disappear at any time. Swapping content in your email is a great way to promote content in each other’s email lists. You can promote affiliates or joint ventures.

Lead Magnet Swap

Like an email exchange, a lead magnet swap provides a piece of valuable content in exchange for an email. You can collect email addresses from blogs, videos, walled content, or social media by providing something of value in exchange for their email address. Once you create a lead magnet that converts, you can swap lead magnets with other podcast hosts by sharing via podcasts, social media, webinars, events, or email marketing. 

If your podcast gives away e-books, informative PDFs, or video content to generate a mailing list, work with another podcast to create one. Then, share the mailing list with each other.

Review Swaps

Reviews are social proof. You can make recommendations for other hosts by leaving a rating or review by leaving podcast reviews. Another review swap is exchanging social media recommendations on platforms like LinkedIn or Alignable.

Social Media Promotions

Create social media partnerships with other content creators to increase social media engagement and attracts more followers to build brand awareness. Use giveaways to help generate interest by creating branded graphics to promote. Share each other’s graphics, and interact with each other’s posts to increase. 

Giveaways

Partner with other podcast hosts to giveaway items that are meaningful to your target audience. Items could include books, access to a course, behind-the-scenes content, webinar or video training, gift cards, jewelry, earrings, planners, t-shirts, candles, or gift cards. Create giveaways that link to your podcast or website or require social media following and engagement. 

Network

Podcast Networks host a group of shows connected by theme or genre. They exist to help market, scale and monetize. A podcast network is a collection of podcasts. Often, podcasts are produced and distributed by an umbrella company. Individual shows can join a network to take advantage of benefits, especially regarding advertising, growth, and promotion. Some podcast networks stick to themes, while others are more open. 

At Spark Media, we believe in the power of podcasting to spread messages of hope to all nations. Our mission is to share Biblically-based messages to people globally via podcasts. The Spark Network is a podcasting platform dedicated to bringing Faith-based content through various podcast shows. At Spark Media, each show is hosted by individual podcasters, but we come together for promotional opportunities, sponsorships, and advertising.

One of the benefits of joining a Podcast Network is that it increases visibility. For example, the Spark Media network has an on-demand player that serves as a podcast directory. Joining a podcast network also connects you with advertisers and sponsors. As an independent podcast host, you may not have enough download numbers to attract a sponsor or advertiser. 

Still, when you join forces with podcast hosts, your download numbers grow exponentially. You can start earning some ad revenue with a podcast network earlier than you could on your own because the network “pools” download numbers together to lock in sponsorships. You may not earn much, but every little bit helps you produce a better show. 

Radio

There is an excellent opportunity for podcasts and radio to collaborate. Both radio and podcasts produce audio content that exists to inform, educate, or entertain an audience. Collaborations can go in both directions- from radio to podcasting or podcasting to radio.

Radio is typically a live show produced by a station or an individual broadcasts over an airwave for a regional area. Versus podcasts are typically pre-recorded, edited audio files pushed out to various directories via an RSS feed and listened to on-demand.

However, this is changing. Radio stations are beginning to diversify by adding digital on-demand content, podcasts, and live streams. 

I hope these podcast collaboration examples have inspired you to create new collaborations!

Misty Phillip is the Founder and CEO of Spark Media. Misty empowers faith-based podcasters to launch, grow, and monetize their shows through community, events, the Spark Media magazine and podcast network, and a radio initiative. She is the host of By His Grace, and the co-host of Spark Influence. Misty is the author of award-winning Bible study entitled The Struggle is Real: But so is God, and the Spark Podcast Planner. Contact Misty at misty@sparkmedia.ventures