Podcasts and newsletters reach people differently, but pairing them reinforces both channels’ strengths. It’s easier than ever to partner a podcast and newsletter strategy together in Kit with our exciting partnership with Acast, the global authority on podcasting.
Podcast email marketing is what happens when podcasters and newsletter writers stop treating their formats as separate ways to reach people, and start treating them as one system for growing a community and a business online.
A newsletter turns a podcast’s listeners into subscribers a creator can reach directly while a podcast gives a newsletter’s readers a second way to spend time with the same ideas and content. Creators who already run one format are increasingly picking up the other, not to replace what’s working, but to cover more of the time their community spends learning and being entertained.
This is also the thinking behind Kit’s new partnership with Acast: newsletter writers who want to start a podcast, and podcasters who want the direct relationship a newsletter builds, now have a clearer path to do both.
We just announced a partnership with Acast designed to help creators build and monetize their audiences across multiple formats. The partnership reflects how content creation has evolved beyond a single platform and gives creators the means to meet fans in their inboxes and podcast feeds.
How podcasts and newsletters reach people differently
A podcast and a newsletter earn attention in different moments. That’s what makes them work well together in today’s creator economy.
Acast’s Podcast Pulse research found that 80% of podcast listeners also read newsletters or other written content from creators they follow, which means most podcast communities are already primed to receive email. Separately, research from the Reuters Institute, cited alongside Acast’s own data, found that 92% of podcast listeners say they tune in at least partly to learn something new, closer to how someone reads a newsletter than how they scroll a feed.
Read together, the two numbers point the same direction: podcast listeners are newsletter readers in waiting, and they’re already listening the way a newsletter reader reads. A creator running only one format is reaching that person in just one of the moments they’re available.
Why podcasts and newsletters reinforce each other
A podcast is built for when your community can’t look at a screen. A newsletter is built for when they can click, save, and reply. Neither one is the better format, they cover different parts of a person’s day, and a creator who runs both is simply present for more of it.
The reinforcement runs both ways. A newsletter can turn a single episode into a written recap, a set of show notes, or a resource link that a listener saves for later, extending the life of something that would otherwise disappear from a feed after a week. A podcast can turn a written idea into a conversation, bring in a guest to expand on it, or answer listener questions a newsletter reply thread already surfaced.
Each format gives the creator new material for the other, so the second format doesn’t add work as much as it reuses work already done.
Why pairing a podcast and a newsletter is good for your business
Running two formats instead of one changes more than reach, it changes how resilient the business is. A creator who depends on a single platform is exposed to that platform’s algorithm, its policy changes, and its ad rates. A creator with both a podcast and a newsletter owns two direct paths to the same community, and one of them, email, isn’t subject to a platform deciding who sees it.
It also widens how a creator can build income. Podcast income tends to come from sponsorships and ad reads, priced against downloads. Newsletter income can come from sponsorships too, but also from products, paid subscriptions, and affiliate links placed directly in an email a subscriber chose to open.
A creator running both has more places to introduce an offer, and more data, opens, clicks, replies, on which offers are actually landing.
How the Kit and Acast partnership supports podcast monetization
Podcasters and newsletter writers now have a clearer path to do both, through Kit’s new partnership with Acast, one built to make podcast monetization more accessible along the way.
Podcast monetization has traditionally meant sponsorships priced against downloads, which is one reason podcasters who also run a newsletter tend to have more options: a direct list opens up product sales, paid subscriptions, and affiliate income alongside whatever a podcast earns on its own. Kit’s guide on how podcasts make money covers those paths in more detail.
Through the partnership, podcasters from Acast get exclusive Kit benefits:
- Under 10,000 weekly listens: six months of free hosting, onboarding support, and access to the Acast Marketplace.
- 10,000 or more weekly listens: eligibility for Acast’s Creator Network, which includes permanently waived hosting fees, six months of waived Ad Manager fees, and up to $50,000 in promotional credit through Acast Recommends.
Additionally, Kit creators gets:
- Six months of free hosting when you migrate to Acast
- Dedicated onboarding support for the technical and publishing side
- Acast Marketplace access from day one, so your podcast can earn through ads right away
- 10,000+ weekly listens? Hosting fees are waived for good, plus revenue splits and up to $50,000 in promotional support through Acast’s network
Kit and Acast bring both community and audience together, so you own the relationship, grow the reach, and monetize everything.
Turn podcast listeners into email subscribers
None of this works without a way to move a listener from an app they don’t own into a list a creator does own. That’s the practical starting point: a signup link in the show notes, a mention at the end of an episode, or a lead magnet built specifically for people who just finished listening.
Kit’s use cases for podcasters cover the mechanics of building that signup path, from where to place the link to what to offer in exchange for an email address.
Building a season launch sequence
A season launch is one of the clearest moments to put podcast email marketing to work, because there’s a specific date to build anticipation toward and a specific action, listening to the first episode, to drive once it arrives. A three-email countdown sequence is a simple way to structure it.
- Announce the date. Send this as soon as the new season is confirmed, with the release date and a preview of what the season covers.
- Build anticipation. A few days before launch, share something specific, a guest name, a topic, or a behind-the-scenes note about how the season came together.
- Drive the first listen. On release day, send a direct link to the first episode along with a clear reason to press play now rather than later.
How to set up podcast email marketing in Kit
You can run this without stitching tools together, forms, tags, sequences, and automations all work together in Kit to handle it.
To capture listeners as subscribers:
- Build a form for the podcast, using show notes, a link in the episode description, or a dedicated landing page as the entry point. Kit’s podcast landing page guide walks through building one.
- Set up an incentive email that sends automatically when someone joins, delivering a lead magnet, a resource, or simply a welcome that sets expectations for what they’ll get by email.
To organize and act on that list as it grows:
- Tag subscribers by how they found the show, for example
podcast-subscriberorseason-4, so segments can be tracked separately. - Build a sequence for the season launch countdown above, and set an automation that adds new episode subscribers to it the moment they join a season-specific form.
Frequently asked questions
What is podcast email marketing?
Podcast email marketing is the practice of using a newsletter, sequences, and automations to turn podcast listeners into email subscribers, then reaching them directly instead of relying only on a podcast app’s algorithm to resurface new episodes.
Do I need a large podcast community before starting a newsletter?
No. The signup mechanics work the same at any size, and starting a newsletter early means a creator captures listeners as subscribers from the first episode instead of trying to convert a much larger, scattered community later. Kit’s use cases for podcasters cover getting started at any stage.
Can I run podcast email marketing without technical skills?
Yes. Forms, tags, sequences, and automations in Kit are built to be set up without code, and most of the setup described above takes an afternoon, not a developer.
How the Kit and Acast partnership supports podcast monetization
Podcasters and newsletter writers now have a clearer path to do both, through Kit’s new partnership with Acast, one built to make podcast monetization more accessible along the way. Podcast monetization has traditionally meant sponsorships priced against downloads, which is one reason podcasters who also run a newsletter tend to have more options: a direct list opens up product sales, paid subscriptions, and affiliate income alongside whatever a podcast earns on its own. Kit’s guide on how podcasts make money covers those paths in more detail.
Through the partnership, podcasters get:
- Under 10,000 weekly listens: six months of free hosting, onboarding support, and access to the Acast Marketplace.
- 10,000 or more weekly listens: eligibility for Acast’s Creator Network, which includes permanently waived hosting fees, six months of waived Ad Manager fees, and up to $50,000 in promotional credit through Acast Recommends.
See the full terms and get started at acast.com/en/kit.
