5 Reasons Your Business Should Have a Podcast
Podcasting is entering its second decade of existence, and continues to grow rapidly. How rapidly? 2014 ended with Americans listening to 21.1 million hours of podcasts per day. According to Edison research, the number of published podcasts grew by 18% from last spring to last fall alone. Does that mean it’s time for your business to start a podcast? To answer that question, we have put together 5 reasons your business should have a podcast.
Content is a breeze - You know your business inside and out, and a podcast is the perfect opportunity to share that knowledge with customers, potential customers, and anyone else who is interested. Where does the content originate? It starts with your experience and branches out from there. Everything from sharing expertise to answering frequently asked questions by your customers to injecting your opinion on industry related news can turn into podcast content.
Perceived authority – When you create content, you are also developing a voice as an authority in your industry. Take a look at the weekend line-up on your local talk radio stations. Saturday and Sunday mornings are often full of “service oriented” programming where an attorney, retirement planner, mechanic, landscape architect, or health professional buys an hour of airtime from the station to talk about issues concerning their particular field. What makes them any more qualified to speak on these issues than their competitors? Nothing. They just paid the money to air the show. What do they get for their efforts? “Expert status” in the minds of the audience. So why not elevate yourself to that same status via a podcast? While your podcast may not start out with the same reach as a terrestrial radio station, proper distribution and promotion can create every bit as much of an audience (without handing over a huge check to the station every month).
Listeners are actively engaged – Podcast listeners are simultaneously engaged in your show and multi-tasking you. This is truly the best of both worlds from the business’ stand point. They are engaged in your show because they sought it out and found it. If they didn’t have an interest in your topic, they wouldn’t have downloaded it in the first place. The listener has called upon you to answer any number of questions, so what you say matters. At the same time, a podcast is built to be multi-tasked. The overwhelming majority of podcasts are heard while the listener is in the car, at the gym, or working on another task. Very rarely does someone sit down with their I-pod or tablet and do nothing but listen to a podcast. This is ideal for your purposes because it allows you to fit your message into their busy lifestyle without constraints on time. Your podcast covers whatever topics it needs to cover, isn’t subject to the restrictions of traditional radio clocks, and your listener has gotten twice as much done by not having to stop their routine for you. Podcasting is the only form of marketing that creates this scenario. Blogs and videos require the user’s full attention. Traditional radio advertising can be multi-tasked, but your message has to be kept to 30 or 60 seconds, and there is no guarantee that the listener wanted to hear from you in the first place.
Growth of podcasts – As we mentioned earlier, over 21 million hours of podcasts are downloaded and listened to every day, and that number is growing. The number of people who regularly listen to podcasts is growing as well, which means that turning to podcasts for expert and authoritative information is becoming second nature. The sooner your brand develops a presence in podcasting, the sooner you will be present to an audience that surpassed 40 million monthly users per month. Also, the sooner your brand develops a presence in podcasting, the more established and polished you will be to the new listeners as those numbers grow. Edison Research recently did a study on how people spend their time using audio. See the video below for a 5 minute webinar on that study.
Brand visibility/Cross promotion – By establishing a podcast, you are establishing another element in marketing cross promotion for your brand. Your social networking becomes more relevant when you can post about your most recent podcast topic, your next topic, or better yet, poll your followers to learn what they want to hear about and do a “mailbag” podcast. This is a level of interaction that the vast majority of businesses, even those already podcasting, are not taking advantage of. Conversely, your podcast can drive listeners to your website to follow up with further information from blogs, , and so on.
By creating and maintaining a podcast, you are giving your listeners levels of service they have yet to ask for, which should a long way in turning leads into customers and customers into promoters.
