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In today’s market, getting people to buy from your company is no longer the only end goal. And sure, it’s always nice to increase conversion rates and sales. But building your brand, investing in it, and harbouring a loyal community around it is where the real value is.
In other words, people don’t just want to buy from businesses anymore. They want to buy into them. Hence the importance of brand identities, brand stories, and brand transparency.
With this in mind, there are many ways in which businesses can increase their brand-building efforts. Social media, influencer marketing, and brand partnerships, to name a few. Another option is to develop a podcast content strategy. In other words, create a podcast.
Podcasting is a marketing strategy that many businesses use to enhance their brand. If executed well, they’re are an excellent way of:
In this article we’ll explore the benefits of having a podcast content strategy. We’ll also be looking at how online audio can drive brand growth and performance, raise your brand’s profile, and create stronger relationships with customers.
Let’s dive straight in…
This is the most obvious place to start.
For any readers not already in the know, a branded podcast is a podcast created by a business in an attempt to predominantly establish relationships with ideal customers (or clients). They might be looking to boost sales, promote a new product, improve their content marketing, or simply grow their brand.
If done well, a successful podcast content strategy will enhance the brand’s industry authority in all of these areas.
Now we’ve established what a branded podcast actually is, let’s look at the 9 main reasons as to why your business needs one.
Connecting with audiences through audio or visual content pays dividends. Your voice is a powerful tool, and is capable of building up a more personal connection with your audience than written content is. It can build trust (which is essential in selling a product or service in the first place), and helps establish loyalty - particularly if you appear open and honest.
Having a podcast content strategy is an opportunity to remind audiences of your company name, what it stands for, and what you’re selling or promoting. Including your logo in your podcast artwork, for example, will act as a subtle nod to your brand. As will a short and snappy brand pitch in your episodes’ intros and outros.
Small touches aside. Podcasts give you the opportunity to tell listeners about your brand’s story. Creating transparency about the origins of your business, and the values you stand for can be really beneficial when it comes to building a dedicated clientele. If clients genuinely feel like they know who you are as a brand, they’ll be more willing to work with you.
A significant perk of podcasting is that episodes are incredibly easy for people to download and listen to, from wherever they are. Meaning they don’t have to be tied to a computer screen to engage. They can be out running errands, doing the school run, or simply on a walk. You get the jist. There’s next to no effort in listening to an episode of a podcast, and once downloaded, it can be replayed at any time. This increases listener retention. Plus, anyone who subscribes to your podcast will get the latest episodes automatically downloaded onto their devices.
The spoken word can make a refreshing change from reading content online. And a branded podcast can capitalise on this. It’s also a more interactive way of talking to your audience, enabling you to get to know them better and create a lasting dialogue with them.
Getting people to your brand’s website is the hardest part of the sales process. Thankfully, a good podcast content strategy will help you out with this. Because as your podcast builds, so will people’s confidence in it. And hopefully, so will your overall podcast SEO presence.
An in-depth explanation of podcast SEO is beyond the scope of this article. But if you’d like to learn more about it, check out the article below:
Podcast SEO: Tips to Optimise Your Episodes for Google Search
Perhaps one of the most obvious benefits to starting a branded podcast, but we’ll mention it anyway. Creating a podcast will hopefully lead to improved sales figures, and conversions. If you can get your audience to trust you, you’re more likely to make a sale. And getting behind the microphone, putting a face to the name, and interacting with clients in a genuine way is key for building up that trust.
Once your podcast starts to gain some traction and popularity, there’s the potential to monetise it. If you can deliver engaging content on a regular basis to a loyal audience, you increase your chances of monetising episodes. This might be through sponsorships, cross-promotion, or affiliate marketing. Whatever it is, creating an additional stream of revenue is never a bad thing.
Digital consumption of audio has grown rapidly over the past few years. And it’s now more popular than ever. Podcasting has been one of the main factors driving this evolution, and the growing audience figures haven’t gone unnoticed by marketers and advertisers. It’s clear that more and more brands are catching onto the fact that audio offers a uniquely intimate atmosphere where people can connect with brands. To overlook this when it comes to your own brand, means to miss out.
Audio content currently offers better cut-through than other media. There are 600 million blogs, 51 million YouTube channels, but only 4 million podcasts.
But this situation won’t last forever, as the competition is already heating up. Molly Beck (founder of Messy.fm), claimed in an interview with Quartz magazine that if you want to start a podcast, you have three years to do so. After that, it will become extremely difficult to carve out a niche in the market. She said:
“Every brand will have a podcast soon, and many of the biggest ones will be updated daily. Nobody is going to tap you on the shoulder and tell you it’s time to launch a podcast. That comes from your desire to share your brand story with the world. So, don’t wait. If you start your podcast three years from now, it’ll be way too late.”
There’s no denying that producing a podcast takes a lot of work. And that’s why it’s always smart to invest in your show and do it well.
If you’re a bigger brand with a production budget to work with, you might decide to partner up with a production agency. An agency will handle everything from the initial concepting stage, right down to promotion and distribution. That’s exactly what we offer here at Cue Podcasts. You can check out our showreel below:
If you’d like to get in touch with us to talk about the project you have in mind, click here.
