This week on the Magnet Minute, Amy talks about the podcasting industry and how it’s booming in the content marketing world. Why is it so popular for brands to create podcasts and what return is there to do it in the first place?

This week Apple released a statistic that it’s reached 1 billion subscriptions to podcasts within the iTunes store. This is a huge indication of the upward trend of audio.

Simply put, people want on-demand services and mobile has made that increasingly easier to achieve. YouTube and video kicked off this phenomenon — making it possible to stream away from the computer — and now audio is following quickly in its footsteps. Talk radio is a space that makes even more sense to have on the go.

But not only is consumption really easy with mobile phones these days, production is even simpler as well. Tools and resources for making a podcast are within reach for all budgets. Some software and publishing tools online are even available for free.

If you want to stay top-of-mind with your customers, you’ll engage them with a podcast that can easily become a part of their every day routine. They already listen to the radio, both talk and music, as they get things done throughout the day, so why not have that background track be about your brand and the content you want to share with your audience?

Working at your desk. Driving in the car. Laying out in the sun. Cooking in the kitchen. Running on the treadmill. These are all things that can have an accompanying audio track. You even have an upper-hand on video, as during some of these daily activities, people aren’t able to focus their eyes and attention on a screen.

But that can also work against you if you’re not careful. Since you’re not requiring visual attention, you have to be sure your podcast is engaging and full of interesting content in order to gain keep their attention while they’re doing other things.

You also need to make it worth your while by including proper calls to action; ones that will make the listener want to act during or after the show. Let them know what information they can find in the “show notes,” like finding links to more information, or how they can leave a review, and/or how they can engage with your sponsors. Making sure to put that information out there in a format that will be well-received will mean you’ll make the return on your time and resources.

Be sure to catch the Magnet Media podcast for all things digital media news and marketing.

Do you listen to brands’ podcasts? Which ones? Let us know in the comments and connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn.

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