Digital marketing is all about grabbing the attention of your target audience. However, there are times when content may feel so saturated that it becomes harder and harder to stand out from the rest of the competition. Taking this into consideration, marketers need to be creative and innovative in the ways they engage and entertain their audience. At the same time, their marketing efforts should be reaching their goals and objectives.
Fortunately, there is a wide variety of content types used for marketing purposes. When blogs and videos aren’t getting the attention that you want, maybe it’s time to branch out and try some podcasting.
In comparison to written and visual marketing tools, not many businesses have ventured into podcasting as part of their marketing efforts. While podcasts are relatively new players in the digital marketing space, the potential to become an effective marketing tool is undeniable. It caters to a whole new demographic that allows everyone from small businesses to established brands to direct their marketing efforts to an audience aside from avid social media users.
According to the latest research, there are roughly 125 million podcast listeners each month. A significant number of them are younger people between the ages of 12 to 34 years old. Aside from that, the majority of podcast listeners are well-educated with college degrees or good-paying jobs.
In terms of marketing and advertising, some marketers consider podcasting with integrated ads to hold the highest return on investment. In relation to this, more than half of the active podcast listeners say that they lean toward brands, goods, and services that were advertised on a podcast they are following. In the next years, marketers expect that business revenue from podcast advertising will significantly increase and pass the $2 billion mark.
Taking this into consideration, adding podcasts as one of your marketing tools can help you reach a broader audience effectively and cost-efficiently. But before you do this, you should know how to properly set up a podcast for your business. Here is a quick guide on how to start a podcast marketing campaign and some of the popular topics consumers listen to.
Creating A Podcast Marketing Strategy
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Determine your marketing goals and objectives
Much like any digital marketing campaign, the first step to building your strategy is to identify the specific goals and objectives that you want to achieve. Using podcasts as part of your marketing efforts can have different effects on your business. You can use it to reach and expand your audience, improve brand awareness, educate and inform consumers, generate revenue, or directly promote your product, service, or business. Generally speaking, your goals and objectives would serve as a backbone and guide on how you would conduct your marketing strategy.
Identify your niche and target audience
To make your podcast valuable, it’s crucial that you create content that is considered relevant by your target audience. Let’s say that your niche revolves around technology. Taking this into consideration, suitable topics around this niche could be the latest Apple releases, the future of artificial intelligence, a debate between Android and iOS, and so on. With these, you are more likely to catch the attention and pique the interest of your target market who are people that are into tech, gadgets, and devices. Ideally, it is best to choose a niche or industry that you are personally passionate or knowledgeable about. This will make content creation seamless and sound more natural to the listeners.
Build your brand and persona
Much like any other content, your podcast would be in competition with every other show on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and any other podcast app available. So in order to rise above the rest, it’s crucial to come up with a creative and unique podcast name that is still relatable. From there, start building a brand and persona which consists of your pod titles, artwork, background music, sound effects, etc. Keep in mind to include elements in your brand that allows people to know what your show is about at first glance.
Keep track of your KPIs
Going back to your marketing goals and objectives, identifying your podcast’s key performance indicators (KPIs) would allow you to determine if your podcast marketing strategy is effective or not. Gauging your marketing effort and performance is key to understanding the dynamics of the digital marketing industry. It will also help you identify the particular aspects of your campaign that needs changes and improvement. When it comes to podcast marketing, some of the metrics that you can look into include the number of unique listeners, the average consumption rate, monthly downloads, and community engagement.
Expert Tips on Starting a Podcast for your Business
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Podcasting may not be as easy as one might think. It takes a different approach than writing blogs or creating videos. If you’re a startup or a small business, it can be even harder to start a podcast marketing campaign on your own. With that, here are some tips that can help lift your podcasting efforts off the ground easier:
Plan ahead
One of the biggest mistakes aspiring podcasters make is to launch their campaign and immediately upload one episode without having a surplus of content. If you’re just starting out, it would be difficult to hook listeners with just a single episode, regardless of whether it’s a 30-minute or 1-hour-long pod. Instead, it is best to upload several episodes immediately at launch. This will allow listeners to consume your content under different circumstances and help them better gauge how much they like your content.
Aside from uploading several pieces of content, it’s also best to plan your podcast episodes ahead of time. Spend enough time researching what’s popular at the moment, what’s trendy, and what your target audience is interested in so that you can provide them with up-to-date and relevant content.
Be creative with your titles and descriptions
Your podcast titles and descriptions are the first things a potential listener would see and interact with. They are also the only way listeners could have an idea of what the episode is about. Unlike articles or videos, there is no good way for a podcast listener to browse through a podcast episode. They can’t exactly skim through or skip to a specific section of the show. Taking this into consideration, it’s important to put the effort into creating your titles and descriptions. Your podcast title should be engaging, enticing, or intriguing to grab the attention of the listeners. On the other hand, the description should be able to provide just enough background information to encourage them to listen to the episode fully.
Hire a helping hand
Podcasting on your own can be very challenging. Aside from recording episodes, you would have to do some research, edit and engineer the raw audio file, as well as promote the podcast online. To help lighten the load, you can hire virtual assistants (VAs) to take care of other podcast-related tasks or responsibilities on the business side of things.
If you prefer working on the podcast on your own, your VA can help work on administrative tasks, take in phone calls, provide customer service, and even deal with laborious data entry. On the other hand, there are also virtual assistant jobs specifically for outsourcing audio engineers that can provide expert skills and knowledge to improve the quality of your podcasts.
Want to know more about podcasting for marketing? Sidekicks is an on-demand virtual company and we’re eager to help visionaries and entrepreneurs like you. Get a free ebook and learn more about how we can help you by signing up for our newsletter. We also offer a free 30-minute consultation if you prefer something more personal.
