Does your podcast need a media kit? Yes, definitely, because you want people to listen to your show. It’s a means of packaging your podcast’s information, for listeners, sponsors and journalists, in one convenient place.
Not everyone processes information in the same way. Your media kit is the most accessible gateway to engagement with your show.
True, it’s added work. But whether your podcast should be an income stream or a fun hobby, it’s worth your time and energy.
A good media kit does all of the following:
- Helps listeners to find and share your podcast
- Builds a relationship with sponsors
- Gives journalists key information for articles about your podcast
- Shows how your podcast is unique
- Encapsulates and condenses your podcast for future pitches
In short, a media kit is a parcel of information about your podcast that’s easy to share and consume. Think of it as an appetizer sampler platter. It’s a condensed, snack-sized, flavorful version of your work, that makes listeners want more.
What To Pack In Your Podcast Media Kit?
Media kits are also called press kits, for those of us old enough to remember when media outlets used printing presses to distribute information on paper. Keeping traditional print journalism in mind will help you focus your thoughts as you make this kit.
First, draft out your thoughts. Take a moment to write down the What, Who, Where, Why, When, and How of your podcast.
What:
A meaningful, descriptive sentence. For example, “Hostile Worlds is a podcast that helps you explore alien landscapes, all from the comfort of your headphones.” Or “Knit Wits (hypothetical) is the continuing story of a knitting workshop in an after-school program for inner-city pre-schoolers.”
Who:
Who’s involved, and who’s it for?
This part should include a brief biographical sketch of the people working on your podcast.
It should also involve thinking about your audience avatar. Is your podcast a family-friendly science show, or is it true crime? Those audiences might overlap, but at different places and times.
Jot down some notes about your ideal listeners. For example, Knit Wits might be for educators, parents, knitters, math geeks, and families. Hostile Worlds would be for science and space enthusiasts, people who enjoy immersive experiences, and families.
Our free Podcast Planner tool will help you a lot, here. It just takes a few minutes to fill out and it’ll get you set up with your own personalised program.
Content warnings are worth your consideration. Who is your podcast definitely not for? Moliére’s plays didn’t have cursing or sex in them, but they’re boring for some folks.
If you know what’s challenging about your podcast, you know where you risk losing listeners. This way you can plan ahead, and avoid it.
Where:
Think about environment. Did your show come out of a particular event (such as a team-building exercise or workshop) or place (Los Angeles? Iceland? Tangier, Virginia)?
Does your show have a particular environment in it (like a fantastic spaceship, in Hostile Worlds, or an imaginary courtroom, as in Judge John Hodgman?)
Do you record in your home? Place and time are part of how your podcast is unique.
Why:
Sum up the intended impact of your podcast. Why are you doing this? What makes your target audience want to listen? For example, “Hostile Worlds is designed to teach the audience about the universe in an entertaining and accessible way.” or, “Knit Wits shows how knitting gives young children an advantage in math education, with the wit of kids’ humor.”
If you have already launched, and you have released several episodes, this is a good place to copy and paste some reviews that describe your podcast’s impact. Make notes about your show’s downloads and geographic reach. These show how contagious your podcast is.
When:
What important dates are coming soon for your podcast? What’s your launch date? If you’ve already launched, write about the time you’ve invested in this podcast. Are you starting a new season? Is a milestone (such as a 100th episode) coming up? These are all important.
How:
This section of your podcast media kit is to help people listen to your podcast. It should link to one page on your website – this might be labelled /listen or /subscribe. There you want links to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and maybe one or two others that you like.
You can mention that they can use whatever podcast app they want. Some podcasters put in the RSS feed so that people can copy and paste it into their preferred podcatcher. Here’s an example of the Listen Now page for Podcraft.
Great! Now that you have drafted all these thoughts into condensed statements, let’s make the building blocks of the press kit itself. You want your podcast to be accessible to any journalist, blogger or influencer, so you need it to be the simplest possible multi-tool. You are going to make:
- A fact sheet, in a format which can be a PDF or HTML
- A big copy of your podcast’s art
- A Google Drive folder or a downloadable zip file
The Folder
Make it easy for writers to promote you. Some prefer to work offline, and would rather have the data about your show in a format they can save to their own desktop, or print out and read.
Make a folder with a public link, such as a Google Drive folder or a Dropbox zip folder. Test the link with a friend to make sure it can be reached easily. Bookmark this link, or copy and paste it into a note on your desktop. You’ll be using it often.
The Fact Sheet
Make this one page. Use short paragraphs and columns, if necessary. This should be easy on the eyes and allow the reader to skim several topics easily, to find the particular data they want. If it can be printed on one page, it won’t require much scrolling. This fact sheet includes:
- A summary: Use summary sentence from What, with some flavor from Where
- The intended audience: Use a sentence from Who, which can include content warnings, if necessary
- Creators: Use a sentence from Who about creators, and link to a page with creative team bios
- History: Use information from Where. How did your podcast come about? Use one brilliant sentence. If a writer wants more information, they’ll ask.
- Why listen? This is where you use a one-sentence impact statement from Why. If your show has launched, and you have reviews, or interesting download numbers, add them here!
- How urgent is the time? Put in the most pressing news from your When section. Do you launch soon? Is your 5000th episode approaching?
- How to listen: With two or three links to podcatchers
- Audio Taster: Embed or link to a promo trailer
- Visuals: Smaller (72 dpi) versions of your podcast art, just to tempt the reader
- Downloads: A link to your Google Drive or downloadable zip file, clearly labeled “Link to a downloadable press kit folder”.
- Save this fact sheet to your folder as a PDF.
- Make the fact sheet into a media kit page for your podcast web site.
- Put a link in the main menu of your website that says Press Kit or Media Kit. Make it easy to find.
Podcast Media Kit Landing Page Examples
Here are some solid examples of different types of landing pages for the media kit for different podcasts. Notice they all have links to the press or media kit in their website’s main menu:
Your Podcast Art
When we say “a big copy of your podcast art,” we mean print quality. It is entirely possible that a journalist might publish an article about your podcast in print media. If they do, they will want a visual to make their article stand out.
Art that is 300 dpi (dots per inch) or more works well for print media. Most art that works on a screen is 72 dpi, and won’t be clear in print.
Save it as a .png or .jpeg to your folder, with a clear name(i.e., “knitwitsmediakitart.png”), so that the recipient can find it easily.
Here’s a deeper dive into creating artwork and logos for your podcast, too!
Update, Update, Update
When your podcast hits a production milestone, celebrate it on your press kit. Keep the information fresh. Add the good news to your fact sheet, both the web version and the PDF.
Finally, Share Your Podcast Media Kit
Again, make sure that the home page of your podcast website has a clear and direct link to your press kit page.
Think about your topic, and where its enthusiasts look for information. For example, our hypothetical Knit Wits podcast might be interesting to knitting blogs, parenting magazines, and teachers’ forums.
Social media, of course, is another place to share your beautiful new media kit. If someone has been thinking about listening to your podcast, but hasn’t pressed play yet, the media kit could give them a nudge. Journalists look at social media too.
And speaking of journalists, here’s how to pitch your podcast to them.
Your podcast media kit will also come in handy when you send out a sponsor pitch.
For some other ideas, take a look at the website for your local newspaper. There might be an Arts & Culture reporter who would want to write about your work.
You can look up the websites of people who write about podcasts, and check their review policies. Read the policies and follow the instructions. Learn a bit about what kind of shows they write about. If your show isn’t the kind of show they write about, move on to the next one.
Reach out to any writers via their preferred method (which is generally email). Introduce yourself and your show with a link to your press kit page. Politeness counts.
The easier you make it for people to write about you, the more likely they are to post a review that engages more listeners for your podcast!