With the recent surge in podcast listening, you have another medium to grow your business.

With people stuck indoors, doing household chores, and generally having a lot more time on their hands, they are turning towards new ways to keep themselves occupied. One of them is attending webinars, which is why I talked about how a business can capitalize on that. Another one is listening to podcasts. Podcasting has been steadily growing over the last few years but has picked up speed in 2020. In this blog, I tell you what’s involved in podcasting for business and why you should do it.

Why podcast?

A 2020 report by The Podcast Host showed that 37% of people in the US and 24% of the people in the UK listen to at least one podcast every month. Both numbers have increased significantly from 2019. In Dec 2019, 8% of Indians were listening to podcasts, which increased by 42% during the pandemic. A study by HTSmartCast shows that brand awareness increases by 89% through podcasts.

Podcasts have no restrictions with respect to content; creators can produce what they like (unlike a radio). As people become more used to listening to podcasts, they are looking for more content to consume. That is why, in a more mature market like the US, people listen to 6 podcasts on average every week. For a business, this is an opportunity to create content that listeners like and can relate to the brand. A business podcast can help drive brand awareness and eventually become a lead magnet.

How to podcast

Recording and creating a podcast is fairly simple these days and can be done easily with free tools. You can then host your podcast on Anchor.FM or Buzzsprout. These hosting platforms distribute your podcast to most major platforms like Google Podcast and Apple Podcasts. You can also manually link other platforms where you want your podcast to appear.

What to podcast about?

This is the key thing to think about. A personal podcast can be on a topic you feel passionately about. But a business podcast has a clear goal – brand awareness about the business. The podcast should be linked to what your business does. And the business should treat the podcast as an opportunity to create new customers. Here are three tips to decide the topic for the podcast:

  • Related to your brand: Your podcast should be related to your brand in some way or the other. If your business is a sustainable apparel brand, then talk about different sustainability practices in the apparel industry. Or if your business is into technology, then you can talk about the impact of those technologies in the real world. Whatever the topic may be, it should be clear to the listener that it links to what your business does. This is what will build your brand recall.
  • Your perspective: There may be other people in the same field as you who are creating a podcast. Keeping that in mind, your business podcast should present your perspective about the business. People who consume business podcasts on one topic, normally like to get more perspective from multiple sources. Identify what your niche is going to be on that topic so that people follow you.
  • Make it interesting: Since a podcast is an audio medium, you cannot rely on fancy graphics or eye-contact to keep your listener engaged. You have to use your voice to keep them interested. Whether you are recording from a script or extempore, add energy to your voice when recording. Pretend to be talking to a person, so that your voice modulation sounds normal. And by all means, add royalty-free music effects to your podcast should it be required.

How to get listeners

Once your podcast is done and ready, you want people to start listening. The best way to market your podcast is through your brand’s social media or email marketing.

Social media: The podcast episode is like any piece of content that your brand produces (e.g. blog, video). To generate enough buzz around it, you need to post the content in different ways and multiple times. This will ensure that each episode gets a lot of exposure and attracts new listeners. Some of the most common ways that brands talk about their podcasts are through

  • Image posters of quotes from the podcast
  • Audiogram videos – you can use Headliner to make a nice one
  • Video recording of the podcast

Email marketing: If you have an email list already, it’s the best place to start with getting loyal listeners. If you have been active in email marketing, then the people on your list would be more willing to listen to your podcast. You can send out an episode summary every time you release a new one and entice your email list to listen to it.

When podcasting for business, remember that the podcast is primarily a tool to further your brand awareness. You are trying to tell those people about your brand, which prefer audio over text or video. When you consistently create great content, your listeners will identify your brand with your content and have more trust in doing business with you.

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