How to Get Your Show Featured on Apple Podcasts: Follow These Tips!

[00:00:00] Did you know you can actually request to have your podcast featured within Apple Podcasts? And while it's not guaranteed, it's one of the best ways to get free visibility. And in this episode, I'm going to be walking you through how to submit your show, why to submit your show, and some of the best practices for submitting your show to Apple Podcasts so you can land that feature.

[00:00:29] What's up everybody and welcome back to the show. You're listening to Clipped. I'm Eric, your host, and Clipped brings you the tips, resources, and people to help you crush your content goals. Today I'm talking about Apple Podcasts features and how to get featured on Apple Podcasts so that you have a chance of your show showing up on the homepage, within browse sections, within your niche.

[00:00:57] So, stoked for this, stoked to be back. I recorded this on a lav for YouTube, but I wanted to put this in the podcast audio feed as well. So, you're going to hear a difference in the audio. Right now I'm on my studio mic and then I moved to my lav, but it doesn't matter. The content is where it's at. And this is a video first episode. So, I encourage you to check this out on YouTube so you can see the screen share and follow

[00:01:26] along because I point specific things out and talk about some different pages that you need to go to to get featured on Apple Podcasts. And there's a form that you need to fill out and I go through that, all that good stuff. So, check it out on YouTube.com slash thepodcasthaven. That's YouTube.com slash thepodcasthaven. But before we get into this episode, well, I've got a noisy jacket on. You hear that? That's probably annoying you. But I'm not going to rerecord this.

[00:01:53] Before we get into it, got to give a shout out to Riverside. They sponsor this podcast. They're sponsoring for the whole year. I love Riverside. The URL is riverside.fm. That's where I record remote podcasts. I can record in 4K there. I can record high quality audio. And I love their AI tools. They automatically transcribe my show, write my show notes. And I use their magic clips feature.

[00:02:17] With a click of a couple buttons, it turns my videos into vertical short form clips for social media. I caption them. I tweak them a bit. But that AI really crushes it and helps me at scale. So that's riverside.fm. Enter promo code CLIPPED, C-L-I-P-P-E-D, at checkout for 20% off. Let's go. Okay, so why would you want to get featured? Well, it's kind of obvious, dum-dum.

[00:02:45] If selected, you can get your podcast featured on the Apple Podcasts homepage, within one of the browse section, or within the category for the niche that you're in. So I'm going to walk you through how to do this. I'm going to share my screen. I'm going to put the URL to the submission pages down below. That way, you can fill out the form. And you can also see some of the best tips and practices and how to actually do it in

[00:03:10] a way that Apple's editorial department will be receptive to. And yes, real humans actually review the submission requests. That's my understanding. It's my understanding that it's not like a computer or AI. So you're going to want to follow the steps that I'm about to lay out so that you have the best chance of getting selected. Okay, so you're going to have to fill out this pitch form, which is a little bit of a daunting task. I'm not going to lie. So let's check it out here. So you're just going to fill these out. Some of these are standard questions.

[00:03:40] What is the subject of your request? Why should we feature you? That's going to be a tough one. You're going to want to explain how your show maybe has a unique angle that hasn't been covered in other shows. Or maybe you have a milestone with like a really popular guest that's on. Maybe you're launching like season two of a true crime show or season two of, you know, a podcast that was a hit for season one. You need something compelling here.

[00:04:12] Where would you like to be featured? Okay, so you're going to select here, you know, USA, content type. That's a show, likely. Or you could do an episode or a season or whatever it may be. Let's just show. So I'm just going to fill this out in like a little bit of a generic way just right now so you can follow along with me. Big guest coming up. Obviously, you wouldn't want to put that.

[00:04:41] You'd want to put a real reason. Feature placement. Okay, so you got to pick a date with that least two weeks of lead time. That shouldn't be that typical. That shouldn't be that hard. Let's just say it's launch. For season two. You know, fill this out. Forecasted listeners.

[00:05:08] You're going to want to put your contact information here. Let's say it's in fiction. So the marketing plan. So this is where it's a little bit tricky. While none of this is guaranteed, if you do all this well and to the best of your ability, it's going to improve your chances. But you want to talk about like, well, is anyone from this show like appearing on like a big YouTube interview to promote the show?

[00:05:34] Are you pumping out social media content within your own channels to promote this episode or this new season? Maybe they're like a really big guest and they're going on like one of the morning news stations or whatever it is. Maybe there's a TV appearance. Obviously, that's thinking super big. If you have that type of show, those are probably more likely to get selected, to be honest. Social media accounts. Here it is.

[00:06:01] You're going to want to fill this out in a way that's compelling, accurate. Definitely accurate. You don't want to lie here. And if you don't have any of that stuff, if you don't have any of like the big like network appearances or the big interviews coming up to promote whatever it is you're promoting, I don't know that that works against you. I would imagine it would because Apple, obviously, they want to build buzz around like big shows, big events, big new seasons. But do what you can because you got to be promoting. So fill this out accurately.

[00:06:31] But make sure you have some kind of plan for marketing and promotion. Okay, artwork. You're going to want to fill this out to these specs that are here. But what might be a little challenging is the files that you have to submit are layered Photoshop. PSD is a Photoshop file. And so if you work in Canva or something, that's a problem.

[00:06:52] Find someone that can work with you and turn your artwork into the format that's necessary for Apple. It's because like if you get featured like the hero artwork, that's oftentimes like the rectangle artwork at the top of the page when you're looking at Apple Podcasts on your phone. So there's different dimensions.

[00:07:14] And if you follow this the way you're supposed to, if you don't follow it the way you're supposed to, I've read that you don't have to submit artwork. But if you like give them everything they want, that's going to be a lot easier for them to make that decision. And then if they decide to use you, boom, that artwork is already to spec and they can just lay it in the app where they need to. So here are the four tips.

[00:07:37] The first one, as we mentioned a little bit earlier while we were filling out that form, but you have to have some unique perspective, some unique angle, some big milestone. Here's a couple of things they look for. Fresh perspectives, unforgettable stories, stimulating conversations. And this is a tip. The best requests have a compelling subject line, engaging synopsis, background on the host. Okay, so this is better.

[00:08:06] So now you know exactly what to put in these boxes here of, in this box here of why we should feature you. So here's some tips. You know, background on the guest, clear description, compelling subject line. Make sure the artwork meets the specs. We had talked about that a little bit. There's more info here with some of the exact specs and what it will look like if it gets featured. So it's a lot.

[00:08:36] The artwork is a lot. And while they did say that you don't have to have it, I bet you do. And that was tip two, the eye-catching art. Tip three, optimize your feed-in episode title. Here's some information here, guys. Again, read this. But keep titles brief and focused. Always keep the audience in mind. Apple Podcasts should be part of your marketing plan.

[00:09:03] Consider the news cycle, world events or local events. And if you have a podcast that sort of is related to that, that might be something to consider here. What happens next, we may contact you if we need more information. If you aren't selected, this is key. Try again in six to eight weeks. It might take you a few times. And you'll learn each time and how to optimize your pitch. So getting featured on Apple Podcasts isn't guaranteed.

[00:09:32] But taking the time to submit a polished, thoughtful, and strategic request along with a strategic plan that you have going on in the background for your show, for your involvement, for your marketing, that's going to get you a real shot at landing one of these featured placements. Plus, just going through this is going to help you improve your branding, help you to think about your podcast with a more marketing mindset, how you're kind of handling all that.

[00:10:01] And if you don't get accepted, try again in six to eight weeks. And if nothing else, I think it's just going to get you to think about your podcast in a different way and help you to start pitching and start to understand what people are looking for. And it's a great stepping stone on your journey towards podcast success. So this episode helped you guys. Share it with another podcaster, YouTuber. Check it out. Watch the screen share. Thank you for listening.

[00:10:31] To get more information about this show, head on over to thepodcasthaven.com. The Podcast Haven is the production company that I own that produces Clipped. That's thepodcasthaven.com. You can check out the show as well as some of our other offerings. Keep listening. Keep engaging. Keep creating. Amen.