Podcast Marketing Strategies I Tested on My Break

The Experiments I Tried (And What I Learned)

So let’s get into it! Here’s a honest rundown of everything I experimented with during my seasonal break.

Pinterest VIP Setups

One of the biggest things I tried was launching a brand new offer — Pinterest VIP setups. I opened five spots, and by the beginning of the year, all five were filled. I won’t pretend it was smooth sailing though. It was overwhelming, there were tears, and I quickly realized I’m going to need some support to keep offering this in a sustainable way. But I am SO proud of the results my clients got, and I absolutely plan to keep doing it.

Refreshing My Own Pinterest Profile

Here’s an embarrassing truth — as I was polishing up my clients’ Pinterest profiles, I realized mine was… fine. Not great. Total cobbler’s kids situation! So I carved out time to rename boards, update descriptions with better SEO keywords, refresh my board covers, and update my Pinterest banner. Now when someone asks for my profile link, I send it with zero hesitation.

Pinning Past Episodes

Since I wasn’t publishing new episodes during my break, I leaned into pinning older content — and I’m so glad I did. My pins about podcast SEO and Pinterest for podcasters are still popping off right now, even though those episodes are from last fall. This is exactly why Pinterest is one of my favorite podcast marketing strategies — it is truly an evergreen platform. The key? I created a fresh pin image for each one in Canva rather than recycling the same graphic.

Building My Own Link Page

This one had been on my to-do list forever, and I finally did it! Instead of sending people to Linktree, I created my own version of a link page directly on my website. The result? More traffic going to my site instead of a third-party platform. My podcast friend Brittany Herzberg was the one who first introduced me to this idea, and honestly, she was so right.

Pinterest Academy

Okay, this one was a beast — in the best way. I went through Pinterest Academy and earned my Advertising Essentials and Performance Essentials skills badges. I learned so much about what Pinterest loves, what users respond to, and all the tools Pinterest gives us to work with. It was way more work than I expected, but I am genuinely proud of myself for finishing it.

Joining Simple Pin Media’s Pinterest Community

I also joined a Pinterest strategy group put together by Simple Pin Media — an amazing Pinterest education company founded by Kate. For around $7 a month, it’s been such a valuable space to stay current on what’s happening in the Pinterest world. If you want to deep dive into Pinterest for podcasters, it’s a great place to start.

Skipping Bonus Episodes

This was honestly the scariest experiment of all. I usually drop a couple of bonus episodes during my seasonal break to keep listeners engaged, but this time around I just didn’t have the bandwidth. Instead of spiraling, I decided to treat it as an experiment. By the end of March, I’ll be checking my download numbers to see if skipping those episodes made a noticeable impact. Jury’s still out — and I’ll definitely report back!

Podcast Guesting and Workshops

Last but not least, I got to be a guest on two different podcasts and lead two workshops during my break. Every single time I show up as a guest or lead a workshop, I see a jump in both downloads and email subscribers. It’s one of the most reliable ways I’ve found to grow a podcast without social media being your whole strategy. I always check the numbers afterward to make sure it’s worth my time — and so far, it consistently is.

Your Turn: What Experiment Will YOU Try?

The whole point of sharing all of this isn’t to make you feel like you need to do everything I did. It’s to spark something for you! Maybe you’ve been thinking about trying Pinterest for podcasters, or maybe you’ve had a podcast guesting opportunity sitting in your inbox. Consider this your nudge.

Pick one experiment. Try it. See what happens. That’s how we grow — and I want to hear all about it!

Links & Resources

• Free “Is Pinterest Right for Your Podcast?” checklist
• Simple Pin Media Pinterest strategy group

Connect with Me

• Threads
• Pinterest

Unedited Transcript

I had big plans for my break between podcast seasons, and let’s just say it didn’t go exactly the way that I thought it would. Hey, I’m Andy Smiley, and I’m obsessed with helping you grow your podcast without letting it rule your life. I share strategies that actually work, the stuff I wish someone had told me earlier, and conversations with some of the smartest podcasters I know.

One of my favorite marketing tools is Pinterest, if you know me at all. This doesn’t come as any sort of surprise, but what might be a bit of a surprise is I didn’t set out to become a Pinterest strategist. I was simply looking for a way to grow my podcast without thinking about marketing all the time.

Pinterest changed that for me. When I buckled down and got serious about Pinterest to promote my podcast last summer, my show had a 100% increase in monthly downloads. Yes, I checked that number at least three times because I was flabbergasted. I still think that’s a little bit crazy, but it’s true.

Another thing that happened is I gained more than 100 email subscribers, and my business had the most successful revenue month since I started podcasting four years ago. What surprised me most was how predictable marketing became Pinterest rewarded the same things every time, clear messaging, strong keywords, and a solid foundation and pins that I made years ago are still bringing new listeners to my show.

If you wanna figure out if Pinterest could be a good fit for you and your podcast, grab my free Is Pinterest write for your podcast checklist. The link is in the show notes.

A lot of the experiments that I tried during my seasonal break revolve around Pinterest because I’m a bit obsessed and honestly, I learned a lot from these experiments. The ones that went really well, and the ones that kind of Flo. The first experiment was I tried out a new offer.

I started selling at the end of last year, Pinterest, VIP setups. I had five spots open, and by the beginning of this year, all five spots were filled, which was super exciting, but also really nerve wracking because this was a new offer and I was still kind of trying to figure out how to do things on my end, and it was overwhelming to say the least.

I got it done and I am so excited about the results. But I did learn that while, yes, I really like doing this and I’m so excited to keep doing Pinterest VIP setups, but I am gonna need some help because it got quite overwhelming and there were lots of tears as I was trying to figure out how to make all of this work and make sure that my clients were getting the best results the in the fastest way possible.

Another experiment was cleaning up my own Pinterest profile and boards. It was so funny. So as I started working on my client’s Pinterest profile and boards, I realized that my Pinterest did not look as professional as theirs did, and I needed to spend a little bit of more time on my own Pinterest as well as theirs.

It was one of those situations where like the cobbler’s kids have the worst shoes. I don’t think that’s the exact, uh, quote, but you get the vibe of like, all of my clients had these beautiful profiles, and then mine was like. Fine, but not great. So I spent some time making my own profile and boards look more polished, more professional.

The other thing I did is I renamed a couple of my boards and, updated their descriptions because I realized that. The SEO keywords that I was using at the time, I have now refined them a little bit more and I wasn’t using all of them, so I kind of did like a spring cleaning of sorts for my Pinterest.

I also updated as part of like. Freshening up my profile. I updated my board covers and my Pinterest banner. And I have to say like before when people would be like, Hey, can I see your Pinterest profile? Just to like get a feel for what a podcast Pinterest profile looks like. I would be like a little bit nervous.

I would always send the link, but just be like. Please don’t judge me. I’m really busy helping other people and being a mom and all these things. So it was really nice during this break to take some time to update. Now everything looks really professional and I’m super proud. Whenever anyone asks for that link, I will send it to them immediately.

Another experiment that I tried is pinning past episodes. So obviously I was on a break, so I did not have any new episodes, but I still was creating pins. I still am doing one pin a day for right now, and I wanted to see if the pins like how the pins did, even though the content was not super fresh. And to tell you the truth, they’re doing great. I have pins about podcast, SEO that are popping off right now. I have some pins about Pinterest for podcasters that are popping up right now. And those episodes I did like at the beginning of. The fall season last year. So I know I talk about this all the time, but Pinterest is definitely an evergreen platform. So if you want to up how many pins you’re doing, but you’re not creating any more episodes, you can always pin, um, past episodes. But I will say I am creating a fresh pin, like it’s a new image each time that I do that, I don’t reuse the same image every time, and just like rein that image, I make a fresh one on Canva. So something to keep in mind.

One experiment that I have had on my to-do list for so long, and I finally did it, was to make a page on my website that looks like my link tree because Brittany. Herzberg told me to, honestly, she’s the one that first like introduced me to this idea and it makes so much sense to have the links on your own website. So you are getting that traffic to your website instead of it going to Link Tree. So I finally did it and so far I have had no one complain or say anything about it. So. That’s nice. And I’m getting so much more traffic to my website now because I created my own page, that’s my own version of a link tree on my website.

One of the hardest experiments that I did was Pinterest Academy. So Pinterest has an academy of sorts where you have to go in, I guess I don’t have to, I chose to go in and do a bunch of courses and learn how Pinterest does its thing. So that I could. Better understand Pinterest and help myself and my clients with it. And I am so proud to say I got the advertising essentials and performance essentials skills badges through Pinterest Academy and. It was a lot of work. It was way more work than I thought it was going to be when I like decided that this was one of the things I was going to do during my seasonal break, but it was completely worth it. I learned so many things about what Pinterest likes, what Pinterest has learned, that like Pinterest users, like as far as pins go, and descriptions and titles and like backend stuff. Along with all of the different tools that Pinterest gives us to use. I learned so much, but also it was a lot. So I’m really glad that I did it. I’m really proud of myself. I’m really also very glad that it’s done.

Another cool thing that I was able to do was I joined like a Pinterest strategy group. I, I know that’s not what she calls it and I honestly can’t remember what she calls it. I’ll put a link to it in the show notes if you wanna join it too. I think it’s like $7 a month. It’s nothing crazy, but it’s just a group that Simple Pin Media put together. Simple. Pin Media is a awesome Pinterest education company and Kate, the owner and founder, made a group for people to talk about Pinterest and I joined it. I have already learned so much about Pinterest. If you want to join it too, I’ll put the link in the show notes. Um, but if you don’t want to join it because you just wanna learn Pinterest from me, I get that too. That’s why I’m here. But if you wanna deep dive Pinterest, like I have been, that’s a really great, like first step is joining that Pinterest group and kind of just getting a feel for. What’s going on in there and what’s happening in the Pinterest world?

So one of my biggest experiments that I am worried about, I am concerned, is I did no bonus episodes during this seasonal break. Usually I will have a couple of bonus episodes that come out. In between seasons, kind of as a, reminder, Hey, Andy’s still here. She still exists. You can listen to this episode during the break. Um, I did not do that this time because truly I just did not have the time. It was, I was, it felt like I was a chicken running around with its head cut off. And when I realized that I wasn’t gonna be putting out bonus episodes, I was concerned. I was worried. But then I realized that this was a great opportunity to experiment. So I decided instead of feeling really scared and bad about it, I’m going to treat this like an experiment. And at the end of March, I’m gonna look and see if my download numbers are. Lower because I didn’t do bonus episodes, um, in between. So like there wasn’t as much of a ramp up to my new season. And if my downloads are low and like my engagement is not as good as I want it to be on social media and all of those things, then I will make sure that I do bonus episodes from now on. And I’m honestly a little bit worried that that’s gonna be how it is and that bonus episodes are a really good way to keep. Interest in your podcast going during a seasonal break, but we’re gonna see. So I will let y’all know if doing bonus episodes is kind of essential to keep your numbers where you want them to be and keep your listeners engaged. So jury’s still out on that one. I don’t know, how that experiment’s gonna work out. I’m a little bit worried that it’s gonna be one of those that flops, but you never know. We’re gonna find out together.

My last experiment that’s kind of a reoccurring experiment for me is I got to be a guest on two different podcasts and I got to do two different workshops and yes, I’ve done this before, but it is so fun to see. Every time I was a podcast guest or I did a workshop, I had a jump in download numbers, and I also had a jump in email subscribers. So. This is definitely an ongoing experiment because I do not wanna be wasting my time on something that doesn’t work. So I’m always checking my numbers when I am a podcast guest. Um, and when I do workshops, I definitely have done more podcast guesting than workshops, but it’s interesting that both of them, um, have similar outcomes for me at least. That I usually get more download numbers, like my download numbers jump and, um, my email subscribers also go up. So. Um, something that I’m always checking is making sure that the marketing methods that I’m using are working. ’cause if they’re not, I don’t wanna do them.

The goal of this episode isn’t to brag about the experiments that I tried. It’s to help you think about what experiments you could try with your podcast. So please don’t walk away thinking, oh my gosh, Andy did. So many experiments and I’m a terrible person ’cause I’ve never done them. Please don’t, please don’t think that way. This is just like a springboard for you to be like, oh, interesting. She experimented with this Pinterest thing. Maybe I could experiment with this Instagram thing, or whatever. Whatever thing you’ve had on your heart to try, this is your nudge to do it. If this episode has helped you think of some experiments that you wanna try, will you share it with your podcasting friends who might need a little push to try something new in their podcast? Next week I’ll be sharing an enlightening conversation I had with Whitney Archibald, the host of the Family Lab, where we talk about what experiments she has tried with her podcast. Thanks for being here, and I’ll see you next week.