Podcast Marketing

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Why Should my Business Have a Podcast?

Consistently hosting a podcast allows you to create a conversation around your industry, product or service, or your company, and drive it. Podcasting gives you the unique opportunity to connect with your audience and control what’s being talked about in reference to you and your company. Is your product or service often misunderstood? Great! Create a podcast series so you can explain those misunderstandings and set the record straight. Do you find yourself receiving the same questions regarding your service or product over and over again? Great! Launch a 10-episode series addressing your Frequently Asked Questions. Save your customer service department some time and answer those questions before they’re even asked. 

Will a podcast directly impact your sales and growth in the next 3 months? Maybe. Like all forms of marketing, you may or may not see an immediate result from launching a podcast. It’s more important to remember that hosting a podcast is a way for you to control the conversation that’s being had among your audience. 

For those of you who are more numbers based, here are some staggering statistics:

  • 165 million people in the U.S. have listened to a podcast at least once
  • 32% of Americans listen to podcasts on a monthly basis
  • 22% of Americans listen to podcasts on a weekly basis
  • Young adults (18-44) make up 67% of active listeners
  • Podcast listeners are more likely to use streaming services such as Amazon Prime or Netflix (meaning they’re less likely to be exposed to commercials on TV)
  • Podcast listeners are more likely to have completed a higher level of education and have a higher household income

 

If your target audience is under the age of 44 and in the U.S., then you need to be producing a podcast to help increase the awareness of your business. 

 

How can I use a Podcast to Increase my Lead Generation? 

While your main goal for hosting a podcast should be increasing brand awareness, there are a number of ways you can use a podcast to increase your lead generation as well. Be creative with the content you produce in order to attract a diverse audience. Don’t feel like you’re tied to producing content that is directly related to your product or service. In fact, if your product is all you ever talk about, then you’re going to lose listeners, fast. No one likes to be sold to 24/7. The key to using a podcast to generate leads is to identify yourself and your company as an expert in your industry. Talk about the changes that are happening in your industry and if they’re good or bad, talk about the bigger problem that your service is solving and how that problem was created, talk about what your competition is doing and whether or not you think it’s a smart move. These are all topics that your target audience will be interested in, without directly selling to them. The next time they’re in need of a product or service like yours, they’ll remember you and your podcast because of the useful information you gave to them. 

Now that you’ve expanded on the topic of your podcast, let’s talk about how to capture leads. How can you notify your listeners when there’s a new episode launched? An email campaign maybe? Add a newsletter signup to your website and at the end of each episode, encourage your listeners to sign up for email notifications for when the next episode is released. Boom, you’ve just captured an email that you can then use to send other email marketing campaigns to. (If you’re not sure how to run an email campaign, or what an email campaign even is, check out our Email Marketing) Are you looking for people to test your product or service? Have them send you a direct email with their name, address, and phone number so you can send them some free samples. Boom, you just captured a lead that you can follow up with in the future. Do you use Social Media Marketing for your company? (If not, we need to talk about that. Click here to learn why you should be using Social Media Marketing) At the end of each episode, encourage your listeners to “like” or “follow” your social media pages for access to exclusive content and promotions. 

There may not be a wide variety of ways to capture direct leads, but there certainly are a few options. At the end of the day, you’re getting content relating to your company in front of more people, people who may not have discovered your product somewhere else, and that’s always a good thing.