Podcasts may have become a marketing go-to, but how do you actually get listeners that engage with your show?
Three years ago, every business was lining up to start their own podcast. It was the buzzy new medium for brands looking to cut through to new audiences. Today, many brands have now turned their backs on audio as many shows come out feeling a little dry and failed to find an audience. Often they were quickly pushed out the door without a huge amount of marketing strategy behind them. After all, we get it – podcasts for brands are marketing and thinking of more ways to market a marketing campaign just seems counter-intuitive. But good news is that there are ways to make your branded podcast not only work, but thrive.
From working with massive publishers like The Economist and Sky, we can tell you that a brand’s podcast shouldn’t stand out in the sea of audio. It should actually fit in. That’s the key to giving your audiences a reason to listen – a podcast by a brand should provide just as much value as other podcasts. Your business podcast should be just as entertaining, engaging and sleek as the podcasts from big publishers and here are our five tips to make this happen:
- Solve a Problem
This is our advice to all podcasts and it remains the same for a brand. Often branded podcasts solve a problem for the brand (e.g. we need to communicate our product offers), but don’t solve a problem for the listeners. We think a good podcast always solves a problem for a listener. It can be a tiny inquisitive question like, ‘Where does my shower water end up?’ or a huge existential one like, ‘How can we solve climate change?’ but there should always be a reason to listen to a podcast. Without a reason, there will be no point in beginning to market your podcast at all. Be extremely clear about the problem you are trying to solve in your description, in your opening on the show and throughout all of your messaging and make sure you are also doing it creatively enough to stand out against similar podcasts.
- Know Your Competition
Speaking of standing out… make sure you know who you are up against. Search for your genre and topic across podcast apps and look up how other podcasts have done something similar. If you are extremely lucky, you’ll find no one who is doing what you are setting out to do. And yet, you will probably find at least 20 other podcasts within the same subject area trying to solve a version of the same problem. Don’t be discouraged, podcasts can be similar and yet have very different takes on the same issue. That’s where your brand’s expertise and creativity really comes in. This understanding of who is in the same space as you will also help you guide in making the treatment of the idea, as well as your artwork and your description distinctive.
- Stay Light on Branding
While your brand’s biggest incentive for a podcast might be to sell new customers your product/service, try not to push it. There are some amazing examples of how branding can be done right in a branded podcast (see Zoe’s Science and Nutrition podcast or Subcultural by Mailchimp) so try to keep it light. You might want to integrate the brand’s colours, but if you can make it like part of pop culture, you will likely win more listeners and in return, customers. One of the best examples of how you can make it look almost indistinguishable but completely part of your brand is of course the famous Dish podcast by Waitrose. Not only is the show itself fun, but it also folds in Waitrose in a really casual way that doesn’t obstruct any listener from engaging with its content. You are in the Waitrose universe, but it feels so cosy that you really don’t mind that this is ultimately another marketing tool!
- Invest in Your Host
Part of the success of many of these shows is of course a good host. Your host will not only drive listeners to the podcast, but they will also represent your brand. While it might be simple to have the company’s CEO speak about your brand – consider that they might not be a natural entertainer! Their expertise and time is probably more valuable in the boardroom rather than a studio. Have a look through different talent agencies for a host that speaks to you and the brand. We have recently worked on the My Life With Dementia podcast by Dementia UK and that was narrated by Jim Broadbent. Not only does he have a personal family connection to the subject and charity, but he is also an extremely talented presenter. The result was a podcast that was more visible, more engaging and more suited for your everyday listener.
- Be Realistic
If you are just thinking about putting together a podcast for your company our biggest advice to your success is – be realistic! This means that we want you to focus on who you are trying to reach rather than how many listeners you want to see on your feed. A great branded podcast could have mass appeal, but most of the time you would be working for a very specific and niche audience who could then be converted to your customers. If you have an exact idea of who these people are, a marketing strategy for your podcast can help you to identify exactly how to reach them. These realistic expectations should also aid you in splitting your podcast marketing budgets into two buckets: organic reach and paid. Even if your brand has millions of X followers, to reach a podcasting audience, you will need to push hard across different platforms and beyond. Your podcast’s social clips for example would be competing with all of your other online content so making sure you have a direct route for your audiences to find you and to subscribe is key. This realistic setting of your marketing strategy will help you find an engaged community.
Podcasts are powerful. Even if there are more of them now, there is still little other alternative that would hold your potential customers’ attention for 20 to 30 mins at a time. That is valuable time you are spending with your customers, and that cannot be underestimated.
And yet, podcasts are also plentiful. You need to have a better understanding of your competition and the podcasting space to make your show a success. Trust us – that doesn’t make it harder, it just makes it more interesting. Gone are the days of boring branded shows, we are here for fun and entertaining podcasts that help us solve our everyday problems and quench our curiosities.