The biggest challenge for any podcaster today isn’t creating good content, but getting more people to consistently discover and listen to that content.
The competition is huge: new shows appear every week, and major media outlets and creators with established audiences dominate the top spots on the platforms.
Standing out in this environment requires more than just publishing episodes and waiting for the audience to come on its own.
Social media can help, but it usually attracts less engaged listeners. Paid advertising is expensive and doesn’t always guarantee sustainable results.
That’s why cross-promotion has become the most effective—and yet most underused—tactic for real growth.
When you collaborate with other podcasters and recommend their shows to your audience—and they do the same for you—you reach listeners who are already used to podcasts and who trust recommendations from someone they follow.
This way, you reach new qualified audiences, increase your listens, and build valuable relationships within the community.
Unlock new audiences: Why cross-promotion is essential for podcast growth
Cross-promotion in podcasts is a collaboration between two or more podcasters to mutually recommend each other to their audiences.
The goal is for each show to present its content to listeners who already consume podcasts and have similar interests, thus making it easier for both programs to be discovered and grow.
What is the difference between cross-promotion and cross-posting?
- Cross-promotion means that one podcast recommends or mentions another within its own content, either through a regular segment, a special mention, or an exchange of audio clips. The focus is on direct and personal recommendation, leveraging the trust that listeners have in the host.
- Cross-posting, on the other hand, simply means publishing the same content (for example, an episode) on different platforms or channels, without any explicit recommendation or collaboration between creators. It does not involve interaction or audience exchange; it only expands the distribution of the same material.
Step-by-Step: What a Successful Podcast Cross-Promotion Looks Like
Imagine you have a podcast about productivity and you collaborate with another show about healthy habits.
In one episode, you include a brief recommendation of the other podcast, explaining why you think it might interest your audience. At the same time, the other podcaster does the same in their show, recommending your podcast to their listeners.
This way, both gain visibility among similar audiences and increase their chances of attracting new, interested, and engaged followers.
Cross-promotion is one of the most effective and natural ways to grow in the podcasting world, as it connects directly with listeners who already have the habit of listening to podcasts and trust the recommendations of the hosts they follow.
Podcast Growth Made Simple: How Cross-Promotion Really Works
Podcast cross-promotion is a direct and practical growth strategy based on collaboration between creators.
Here’s how the process works, step by step:
- Identifying compatible partners
Look for other podcasts that share a similar audience but are not direct competitors. Thematic and values alignment is key for the recommendation to have real impact.
- Collaboration proposal
Contact the podcaster or team of the chosen show and propose a clear exchange: you recommend their podcast on your show, and they do the same with yours. It’s important to define the format (mention, clip exchange, joint episode, etc.) and the timing of the promotion.
- Integrating the promotion into your content
Include the recommendation naturally in your episode. It can be a brief mention, a regular segment like “podcast of the week,” or even a special segment recorded by the other podcaster. The host’s authenticity and trust are fundamental for the audience to pay attention and take action.
- Reciprocity and mutual benefit
Cross-promotion works best when both parties get value. It’s not just about exchanging mentions, but about building relationships and opening the door to future collaborations, such as joint episodes or special projects.
- Measuring results
Use personalized links, codes, or specific calls to action to know how many new listeners come from each collaboration. This way, you can adjust your strategy and choose the most effective partners for future actions.
Cross-Promotion Benefits Explained: Why It’s a Game Changer for Podcasters
Cross-promotion in podcasts is based on a simple yet powerful theory: it’s much easier to capture the attention of people who already listen to podcasts than to convince someone who is unfamiliar with the format.
That’s why cross-promotion is considered one of the most effective strategies within the podcasting marketing mix, fitting into the “P” of promotion, alongside actions like advertising or social media presence.
Why Does Cross-Promotion Work? 5 Powerful Reasons Podcasters See Real Results
- Direct access to qualified audiences: When you collaborate with other podcasters, your message reaches listeners who already consume audio content and who usually trust the recommendations of the host they follow.
- Organic and sustainable growth: Cross-promotion allows you to grow without relying on large advertising investments. Growth happens naturally, through thematic affinity and trust between communities.
- Mutual benefit: Both theory and practice show that cross-promotion is most successful when all parties involved gain real value. It’s not just about exchanging mentions, but about adding value for both audiences.
- Ladder effect: You can start collaborating with podcasts similar in size to yours and, as you grow, access collaborations with larger shows. Each appearance adds credibility and opens new doors.
- Word-of-mouth boost: Personal recommendations between hosts and listeners multiply the “word-of-mouth” effect, one of the most powerful ways to grow in podcasting.
The Top Benefits of Cross-Promotion: Visibility, Subscribers, and Lasting Growth
- Greater visibility on platforms and rankings.
- More quality subscribers and downloads.
- Building relationships and networking with other creators.
- Possibility to diversify formats and reach new audiences through joint episodes, mentions, newsletters, or social media.
Cross-promotion is not just a marketing tactic, but a strategic lever for the sustainable growth and consolidation of any podcast. Its success lies in audience affinity, genuine collaboration, and the ability to add real value for everyone involved.
Before You Cross-Promote: Risks, Drawbacks, and How to Avoid Them
Although cross-promotion is one of the most effective strategies for growth in the podcasting world, it also presents challenges and disadvantages that should be considered before implementing it:
- Real audience affinity
Not every podcast you can collaborate with has an audience truly compatible with yours. If there isn’t strong thematic or values alignment, the promotion may be ineffective and attract listeners who don’t stick around.
- Risk of cannibalization
If you collaborate with podcasts that are too similar, you might end up competing for the same audience instead of complementing each other. This can limit the real growth of both shows.
- Measuring results
Knowing how many new listeners come from a cross-promotion can be complicated without the right tools. Many podcasters don’t have clear tracking systems, making it difficult to evaluate the return on the strategy.
- Audience fatigue
If you overuse cross-promotions or integrate them in an unnatural way, you may lose your audience’s trust. It’s important that recommendations are authentic and relevant, not perceived as mere ads.
- Operational disadvantages
Coordinating collaborations, negotiating agreements, and maintaining reciprocity require time and organization. Without clear management, the experience can become frustrating or unsustainable in the long term.
- Unrealistic expectations
Not all cross-promotions generate immediate or massive growth. The impact is usually gradual and depends on the quality of the collaboration and the real interest of the receiving audience.
- Increasing competition
The growing number of podcasts makes it increasingly difficult to stand out, even with good cross-promotion strategies. Market saturation demands more creative proposals and better-planned collaborations.
Cross-promotion is a powerful tool, but for it to work, it must be executed with strategy, authenticity, and a clear focus on audience affinity and results measurement.
This way, you’ll avoid the main risks and maximize the positive impact on your podcast’s growth.
Cross-Promotion That Works: 9 Proven Strategies to Grow Your Podcast Fast
Cross-promotion is one of the most effective tactics for growing in podcasting, but its success depends on a clear and actionable strategy. Here’s a practical approach, based on the most common questions from creators and the best practices in the industry:
- Choose your promotion partners wisely
Prioritize podcasts with similar audiences, even if they aren’t identical. Thematic and values affinity is more important than show size.
Analyze your podcast’s ideal audience and look for shows where that audience is already present.
- Define the format and agreement
Clarify from the start how the promotion will work: mention, clip exchange, joint episode, regular segment (“Podcast of the Week”), etc.
Formalize simple agreements to ensure reciprocity and clarity in expectations and timing.
- Personalize the message
Make the recommendation authentic and relevant for your audience. Explain why the other show might interest your listeners, not just mention its name.
If possible, record personalized messages or exchange intros recorded by the hosts.
- Integrate the promotion into your content
Dedicate a regular spot in your podcast for cross-promotion, which creates a habit and expectation for your audience.
Alternate formats: brief mentions, detailed recommendations, cross-interviews, or collaborative episodes.
- Take advantage of multiplatform content
Break collaborative episodes into clips for social media, newsletters, or blogs, expanding the reach of the promotion.
Use newsletters to reinforce the recommendation and drive additional traffic to the collaborating podcast.
- Measure and adjust results
Use personalized links, codes, or specific calls to action to track how many listeners come thanks to the collaboration.
Evaluate the retention of new listeners and adjust your strategy based on the results.
- Think in steps and credentials
Start with collaborations between podcasts of similar size and use each appearance as a credential to access larger shows.
Document your collaborations to show results and make future negotiations easier.
- Be creative and relevant
Propose themed collaborations, special events, joint challenges, or shared miniseries that generate conversation and engagement.
Adapt the approach to each audience; what works for one niche may not be as effective in another.
- Use technology and tools
Consider platforms and tools that make it easier to manage, automate, and measure cross-promotion, optimizing the process and saving time.
The key is authenticity, affinity, and measurement. Well-executed cross-promotion not only adds listeners, but also builds long-term relationships and positions your podcast in relevant communities.
Multiplatform Cross-Promotion: How to Reach New Podcast Listeners Everywhere
It consists of sharing and adapting your podcast content (or your collaborative content) in different formats and on various platforms: social media, newsletters, blogs, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more.
This way, each piece of content can attract new listeners from different touchpoints, increasing your visibility and discovery potential.
Multiplatform Cross-Promotion in Action: 6 Smart Ways to Grow Your Podcast Audience
- Break up your content
Turn the best moments from your episodes into video or audio clips for social media like Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube Shorts. Short, engaging clips work as “entry points” for people who don’t know your podcast yet.
- Include cross-mentions in newsletters
If you have a mailing list, share recommendations from other podcasts and ask them to do the same. Email remains one of the most effective channels for mobilizing loyal audiences and generating downloads.
- Leverage blogs and articles
Publish summaries, analyses, or lists of recommended episodes on your own or third-party blogs. Written content can capture traffic from Google and position your podcast in front of new, interested audiences.
- Collaborate on YouTube channels
Record video episodes or adapt your audio for YouTube, where discovery works differently and you can attract listeners who prefer visual formats.
- Participate in challenges, events, or joint campaigns
Organize collaborative actions with other podcasters on social media, such as themed challenges, joint livestreams, or hashtag campaigns. This multiplies your reach and engagement across several platforms at the same time.
- Adapt your message to each channel
Don’t publish the same thing everywhere. Adjust the format and tone for each network or platform, thinking about how each audience consumes content.
4 Powerful Multiplatform Cross-Promotion Tactics to Explode Your Podcast Growth
- You reach audiences who aren’t just on podcasting platforms.
- You reinforce brand and show recall in different contexts.
- You take advantage of the viral effect of social media and digital word of mouth.
- You diversify your sources of traffic and downloads, reducing dependence on a single channel.
Multiplatform cross-promotion is one of the smartest and most effective ways to amplify your podcast’s reach. Take advantage of every channel where your potential audience is present and adapt your content to connect with them authentically and relevantly.
This way, you multiply your growth opportunities and build a stronger, more diverse community.
The Best Tools for Podcast Cross-Promotion: Automate, Track, and Grow Faster
Cross-promotion between podcasts is much more effective and sustainable when supported by tools and technological solutions that simplify management, measurement, and connection between creators. Here are practical and actionable approaches to leverage technology in your cross-promotion strategy:
- Specialized platforms to connect podcasters
There are platforms and marketplaces that allow podcasters to easily find and contact other shows with similar audiences, making cross-promotion agreements easier without the need for lengthy manual searches. These platforms usually offer filters by topic, audience size, and show style, saving time and increasing the effectiveness of collaborations.
- Automation of exchanges and agreements
Some technological solutions allow you to automate the process of exchanging mentions or clips, scheduling in advance when and how promotions will be published on each show. This reduces operational workload and avoids oversights or misunderstandings in the collaboration.
- Tracking and analysis of results
The best tools offer clear metrics on the impact of each cross-promotion: how many new listeners arrive, from which platforms, and what the retention of those listeners is. Measuring this data allows you to adjust your strategy and choose the most effective partners for future actions.
- Multiplatform integration
Many solutions allow you to distribute and adapt promotional content to various channels (podcast, social media, newsletters, blogs), maximizing the reach and visibility of the collaboration.
- Integrated functionalities in hosting platforms
At Mumbler, we have launched the Cross Promotion feature to make cross-promotion between podcasts easier. This integrated tool allows you to upload a thirty-second audio clip to be played on any other podcast on the platform.
In the same way, you can select the audio you want to play on your show, making the exchange possible with just two clicks. Additionally, you can measure the impact of the promotion by viewing the number of unique plays of your audio from the same dashboard.
Technology is key to scaling cross-promotion and professionalizing your podcast growth strategy. Take advantage of tools that let you automate, measure, and optimize each collaboration, and consider the new features of your hosting platform as an ally to make cross-promotion simpler, more effective, and more measurable than ever before.
Cross-Promotion Demystified: The Most Common Questions Answered
Below, we answer the most common questions about cross-promotion in the podcasting world:
- What does cross-promotion mean in podcasts?
It’s a collaboration between two or more podcasts to mutually recommend each other to their audiences. The goal is for each show to gain visibility and new qualified listeners through the trust that already exists between the host and their community.
- How does podcast cross-promotion work?
It works through agreements in which each podcaster mentions, recommends, or exchanges segments of their content with another similar podcast. This can be done through mentions, regular segments, joint episodes, or clip exchanges, always seeking thematic affinity and mutual benefit.
- What is the theory behind cross-promotion?
The basis is that it’s easier to capture the attention of people who already listen to podcasts and trust the recommendations of a host than to attract listeners from scratch or from other media. That’s why cross-promotion is one of the most effective strategies within the podcasting marketing mix.
- What is multiplatform cross-promotion?
It means taking the collaboration beyond audio, adapting promotional content for social media, newsletters, blogs, YouTube, and other channels. This way, you expand your reach and connect with audiences who consume content in different formats.
- What are the disadvantages of cross-promotion?
Among the most common challenges are the difficulty of measuring results, the lack of real audience affinity, the risk of cannibalization if the podcasts are too similar, and audience fatigue if mentions are overused.
- What’s the difference between cross-posting and cross-promotion?
Cross-promotion involves an active and collaborative recommendation between podcasts, while cross-posting is simply publishing the same content on various platforms, without interaction or recommendation between creators.
- How do I get 1,000 listeners for my podcast?
Cross-promotion is one of the most effective ways to achieve that goal, especially if you collaborate with podcasts that already have a similar audience. The key is to choose your partners wisely and measure the impact of each collaboration.
- How can I use the cross-promotion tools in Mumbler?
You just need to sign up, upload your podcast, and create a thirty-second promo that you want to play on another show. Then, contact the podcaster to coordinate the exchange. Once you’ve reached an agreement, simply select the audio spot to be played on each of the programs.
Are you ready to take advantage of cross-promotion?
Cross-promotion has become the most effective, practical, and sustainable strategy for growing a podcast today.
It not only allows you to reach new audiences already accustomed to the format, but also multiplies trust and affinity thanks to direct recommendations between creators.
Unlike other tactics, cross-promotion leverages the power of word of mouth and collaboration—two key drivers for organic growth and building strong communities.
Implementing this strategy consistently can make the difference between a podcast that stagnates and one that keeps growing episode after episode.
Remember: true success comes when collaboration benefits everyone involved and becomes a natural part of your content and marketing routine.
What’s the next step?
Evaluate which podcasts you could collaborate with and how you can integrate cross-promotion into your editorial calendar.
Take advantage of Mumbler’s new tool to find partners, automate agreements, and measure results easily. This way, you’ll turn cross-promotion into an agile, measurable, and scalable process—ready to take your podcast to the next level.
The growth of your podcast is just one exchange away.
Take the first step and make cross-promotion an essential part of your strategy.
About the author
Content Manager at Mumbler.
Podcaster and content creator.
Passionate about communication and a fan of the WordPress community.
I talk about movies and series on Babel Infinito.
I talk about podcasting on Todo por Un Podcast.
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