If you’re looking for ways to market your business in 2022 or 2023, starting a podcast might be a (surprising) answer unless you were at one of our events with Jason Allan Scott and Caleb Parker.

You’ve probably heard that content marketing produces three times the leads as pounds and pennies spent while costing much less than traditional marketing - check this article for proof.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, 70% of B2B marketers and 86% of B2C marketers surveyed use content marketing in some form or other. And it’s no surprise. If done well, an effective content marketing strategy can grow brand awareness, bring in new customers, drive revenue, and most importantly, help guarantee brand loyalty, conversions, and growth.

Need more proof?

According to research compiled by Coschedule:

• Companies that publish 16+ blog posts a month get as much as 3.5x as much traffic as those that publish 0-4 posts a month
• Content marketing produces 3X more leads per penny spent
• Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing
• Content marketing methods convert 6X more often than other marketing methods

And when you think of content marketing, you probably think of email newsletters, writing a blog post on your site, and posting on social media but why not podcasting? 

But you may not have considered that audio and video content can be just as powerful tools for attracting and engaging potential customers. 

For businesses that want to stand out from the competition, establish their credibility in their industry, and see an impressive return on their investment, podcasting can be a surprisingly great choice. In this piece, we’ll walk you through the benefits of podcasting for business. 

Let us get straight into it. 

Benefits of Podcasting for Business

You may think of podcasts as something passionate hobbyists do. Maybe you picture white men with backward baseball caps talking sports or recapping their favourite television show, pop culture enthusiasts gossiping about the latest celebrity scandal, or muscle-bound bros sharing their “wisdom” about health and fitness.

But a podcast can be much more than just a niche audio program. It can be a powerful tool for businesses and those looking to build their brand and make sales too. 

Let’s check out a few benefits you can gain from starting a podcast for your own business.

1. It’s a Great Content Marketing Tool

Content marketing is the practice of providing valuable information to your target audience to build a long-term relationship of trust with them.

Once your audience knows, likes and trusts you, they’ll be more likely to purchase from you when they’re ready. 

And what better way to develop a relationship of trust than with a podcast? It’s a great content medium for building a loyal audience base that connects with your topic choice, host personality, and delivery style. Also, according to our previous event huddle speaker, Jason Allan Scott, there is far less competition for your ears than your eyes in today's competitive attention landscape! 

Podcasting is also an easy way to repurpose content you’ve already made (or vice-versa), get more traffic to your site through SEO and get multiple eyeballs on your content on multiple social media platforms - while only having to do one action, host a podcast! Many birds, one mighty stone! 

2. It’s Very Affordable

You don’t need a massive budget to start a podcast...

In fact, it’s possible to create a professional-quality podcast with £500. 

3. It’s a Great Way to Network

Hosting a podcast is also an excellent opportunity to connect with other experts or major players in your field. You might invite them on as guests or even become guests on their shows. 

After all, a podcast is essentially a recorded conversation, so what better way to network and get to know others in your space? Plus, thanks to a pandemic we will not name you have all the practice you need to be a great podcaster simply by doing all those Zoom and Google Hangout meetings you were forced to do! 

4. You Can Build Your Brand and Establish Your Authority in Your Industry

Hosting a podcast lets you demonstrate your expertise by making your conversations, insights, and monologues public. With an established podcast, you can build a backlog of examples of your authority and knowledge of your field. You can then link back to this in other blogs to come or send clients there to show provenance and build trust. 

5. Statistically, Podcast Listeners Have Money to Spend

45% of podcast listeners earn more than 250,000 in yearly household income ( yes this is in USD as we can't seem to find Ofcom's report). That means they’re a great audience if you want to find potential customers. 

But before you get excited about the prospect of landing more sales, remember the basic principle of content marketing: you provide value over time so that your audience trusts you. It’s a slow process, so don’t be overly sales-eee, or your listeners will be turned off.

6. Podcasts Can Be an Added Source of Revenue

And, of course, an engaged audience means you can create additional income streams from your podcast, make partnerships, and test new products and services for your business without having to pay for an audience. 

For instance, if your catering company starts a podcast, the manager of a local wedding venue might be interested in making an appearance on your show. You can have conversations about wedding food tastes that interest your audience while everyone gets some publicity and then start a relationship with the venue, so you can later sell your catering.

WIN WIN WIN 

7. Podcasts can easily be converted into more content

To make the best of your podcast, a good idea is to repurpose it into other content material. Some people prefer to consume content through written text than hear everything audibly. You can easily use the transcripts of a podcast to create blogs, articles, and even online course written materials. This helps boost search rankings, creating more traffic possibilities for your business’ site. 

Another idea is to convert your podcast into shorter shareable segments to share on all social media platforms. This not only entices listeners to hear your full podcast, but this can serve as a great way to provide short snippets of content for different channels without going through the effort of having to create something new. Make one, share multiple pieces of content. 

8. Get more clients from a new audience 

When you start podcasting for your business, you can tap into a whole new audience channel. While some people are less reluctant to read content or buy a service/product through advertising, they might be more interested in listening to a podcast. 

Through podcasting platforms, you also place your brand in a new space. This means you can reach audiences that originally might not have heard about you from other marketing channels. A larger audience means you could earn yourself more clients and for this reason, podcasting for small businesses starting out is great for attracting new leads. Though, this is equally helpful for bigger businesses looking to grow their client base.

9. Podcasts are effective advertising tools

Although your business podcast is not a traditional advert, this type of marketing can be highly effective. In fact, according to research, podcast ads have high recall rates. Podcasts have 4 times better brand recall than display ads and in a Nielsen survey, 62% of respondents say that podcasts have made them consider buying a new product or service.

Another strength of podcasting for business is that you can make advertisements more organic. You don’t have to read out a super sales-y podcast ad, but instead, you can mention your service more naturally in conversation. 

Look out in the future for our very own podcast coming soon and you can tell us if you could spot the advert!

Now let's be clear, starting a podcast may not be suitable for everyone. But if the following characteristics apply to you, you may be a good candidate to start a business podcast:

You have the time. While podcasting isn’t as time-consuming as other endeavours, it can take up to 2 hours every week. If you can’t take the time to do some research and then record a 30 min episode regularly, your podcast probably won’t be sustainable. It also needs to be weekly, once a week, to gain momentum and find its audience, adding consistent valuable weekly content wins in this format every time. 

You’re ready to expand your content marketing efforts but may not have a huge budget. Podcasting can be an extremely cost-effective way to do content marketing if you can spend a min of 14 hours a month (that is 2 hours hosting, 4 hours editing and 8 hours promoting) or you can hire an agency to produce, edit, distribute, repurpose content and promote. 

Comes down to what kind of poor are you? Time-poor or cash-poor, podcasting can be done successfully for either.

If you’re passionate about your industry and can talk about it (and interview other experts) all day. And let’s be honest as event planners or someone who organizes events we know you have what it takes to talk and share what you are great at, so let us know if you have a podcast or if you are thinking about starting a podcast in the comments!

Ready, set, RECORD!

Creating a long-term, engaging, and rewarding content strategy is no easy feat but if done well with long and short-term goals in mind, a podcast is certain to pay off.

If it seems overwhelming, don’t forget that you’re not just adding to the noise and pushing another product – you’re a storyteller sharing your brand’s story that deserves to be heard. The tips here are just the tip of a larger digital marketing iceberg.