6 Ways to Promote Old Podcast Episodes and Boost Downloads

As a podcaster, it’s normal to focus on promoting the latest episodes of your show. However, neglecting older episodes means missing valuable opportunities to engage new listeners and increase your downloads. Pay closer attention to older episodes for a few reasons. Firstly, your current listeners or followers may have missed it when it was first published. Highlighting these episodes shares quality content they might enjoy right now. Also, you worked hard on those episodes, so wouldn’t you want new people to find them? Lastly, by sharing older episodes with featured guests, they might share them with their audience, further boosting your reach. In this article, we’ll explore six ways to promote old podcast episodes effectively. By implementing these strategies, you breathe new life into your back catalog, attract a wider audience, and reach your podcasting goals faster. Keep reading for how to grow your podcast with older episodes!

Leverage Old Podcast Episodes For More Downloads

1. Create Spotify Playlists Grouping Similar Episodes

Since Spotify is a popular podcast listening platform, leverage its features to boost the visibility of your older episodes.

Consider creating playlists that group episodes with similar topics, themes, or a series. This allows listeners to discover and binge-listen to multiple episodes on a specific topic, increasing their chances of finding and enjoying your older content.

Promote these playlists on social media, your website, and within episode descriptions and show notes to drive more traffic to your back catalog.

As an example, I created a Spotify playlist for my travel podcast, The Thought Card — here’s the playlist for financially savvy travelers.

2. Audit and Update Episode Titles

Episode titles play an important role in attracting potential listeners. Audit and update the titles of your older episodes to make them more appealing and search-friendly. Titles should accurately reflect the episode’s content while piquing curiosity.

Increase the likelihood of episodes appearing in search results by conducting keyword research to identify relevant keywords and phrases people use when searching on Google. Incorporate them naturally into podcast episode titles, descriptions, and show notes. Consider using numbers to make the titles stand out.

By improving your episode titles, you increase the likelihood of people finding your episode, clicking through, and listening.

For best practices for writing episode titles, in ‘Write Better Podcast Episode Titles,’ learn (7) ways you can structure episode titles for maximum visibility.

3. Mention Older Episodes On Air

One of the most effective ways to promote older episodes is to mention them in new episodes.

During each new episode, I share (2) relevant and valuable older episodes that my listeners might find interesting. Highlight each episode’s key takeaways or unique aspects to entice listeners to click through and listen.

Share a brief summary of the episode and explain why it’s worth revisiting. Remember to provide episode numbers or titles to facilitate easy navigation. Add the links to those episodes in your episode description for easy access.

I recommend using universal links by Podlink so listeners can quickly listen to the episode on their preferred podcast player. If you’re curious to see how many people click on your links, use a link-tracking tool like Bitly.

4. Mention Relevant Episodes in Podcast Guest Interviews

When appearing as a guest on other podcasts, take the opportunity to mention relevant episodes from your archives.

Before the interview, prepare a list of episodes that align with the topic of discussion and mention them naturally in the conversation.

Don’t forget to share those episode links with the host, suggesting they include them in the show notes as additional resources.

This podcast cross-promotion strategy provides value to the host and their listeners and drives traffic to your older episodes from a new audience.

5. Share a Summary with Your Newsletter

Leverage your existing email newsletter to promote old podcast episodes. Craft a summary that captures the episode’s main points and highlights its value. Explain why subscribers should take the time to listen, focusing on the benefits they’ll gain or the unique insights they’ll receive.

Include a direct link to the episode via Podlink and a link to the blog post driving traffic to your website.

Also, if you have any graphics you created for the episode, include them in the newsletter to add visual elements.

Not sure what to email your list? I recommend the Email Marketing Membership by Liz Wilcox for templates you can quickly customize and send.

Create Automated Email Sequences

Another way to leverage old podcast episodes is to create automated email sequences where you drip out older podcast episodes weekly, for example. Evergreen episodes with timeless content are ideal here.

Email service providers like Mailerlite can help you quickly create automated email sequences, even if you’re a non-techy person.

Regularly featuring older episodes in your newsletter keeps your content fresh in the minds of your subscribers, no matter how long ago you originally published the episode.

6. Create YouTube Videos or Shorts

This strategy is for you if you record your podcast in video format.

Boost your reach by sharing the video versions of your podcast. If your podcast hosting platform can automatically share episodes to YouTube, ensure those features are enabled.

For example, I use Libsyn, and every episode automatically transforms into a YouTube video.

Once the YouTube video is live on your channel, look at the YouTube description and optimize it — make sure all of your links are working and encourage YouTube viewers to follow your channel or podcast on their favorite podcast player.

I use Swell AI to find the best quotes from episodes and share those quotes in video format via YouTube Shorts, IG reels, and even TikTok videos and Idea pins on Pinterest.

Pick key moments or valuable snippets from older episodes. Include subtitles to make the content more appealing and accessible.

Closing Thoughts: Promoting Old Episodes, Totally Worth It!

The riches are in your archives.

Implementing these podcast promotion ideas increases the potential of listeners finding relevant content they are interested in or are already looking for.

While most of these podcast marketing strategies don’t require a significant time commitment, they can effectively attract new listeners and increase your download numbers long term.

Older episodes contain valuable content that deserves to be discovered and enjoyed by a wider audience.

Discover more long-term strategies to grow podcasts with my signature workshop: Marketing Strategies For Long-term Growth. In this training, learn how to increase downloads using (3) proven podcast growth strategies; no social media required. If you enjoyed this blog post, you’ll enjoy the lesson where I detail even more ways to promote old podcast episodes.

Read Next: 6 Habits of High-Growth Podcasters, or watch this video for more podcast marketing goodness!