Top tips to develop a branded podcast
Kristina: Is the sharp uptick in podcast interest a direct result of the pandemic?
Lindsay Tjepkema, CEO & Founder, Casted: It’s not a direct result, but the pandemic certainly had a hand in the uptick. Podcasts have been on the rise for a while now and they’re gaining even more traction as of late because they offer an opportunity for brands to meet their audiences where they are. Last year, Edison Research saw the biggest growth in podcasts since 2006. But, now, more than ever, we know podcasting has a place in the future because people are craving authentic conversations — even if they can’t personally be physically present to witness them. The pandemic revealed just how important those human-to-human conversations are to brands, as well. Audiences crave connection. Audio uniquely delivers it.
Podcasts also allow more flexibility for the listener. For example, they can listen in the car, as they do the dishes, or laundry. It’s about convenience for them. So a brand can leverage a podcast to connect with its audience in activities and areas of life that were previously not at all linked with consuming B2B content. As a result, that B2B brand really begins to feel more a part of that audience member’s life. It’s more human and more personal.
Kristina: What do podcasts offer brands and marketers?
Lindsay Tjepkema, CEO & Founder, Casted: Podcasts capture good, old-fashioned conversations in a way written content can’t. Brands that utilize podcasts are seeing huge returns because audiences are more engaged with the human exchanges, featuring multiple perspectives on relevant industry topics. Marketers can get inspiration for content from these podcast conversations and create a more robust content strategy by working to build out a solid guest list and identify key themes.The show can actually fuel the entire content marketing effort.
From transcribing the podcast and using it as the source of supplemental written content like blog posts, written lessons, white papers, books, etc. to pulling audio clips from that content to use on social media, on your website, in emails, in SMS messages and more, the possibilities are endless. The bottom line is that the episode you create from that conversation is just your first piece of many that will come from it. When you wring-out this content and pull all your other pieces from it, there is a through-line tying together all of your content – from the first words spoken by that subject matter expert, all the way through to every last piece pulled from it.
Kristina: How can marketers ensure their different content silos are feeding one another?
Lindsay: There are many ways to ensure your content silos feed into one another. Here are just a few that come to mind:
â— Use podcast clips across other channels. You can drive traffic back to your podcast by embedding clips of audio from previous episodes throughout other mediums like the website, social media, sales enablement materials, and emails. Embedding episodes into content, like blog posts, will do the same, especially when they offer an alternative to reading a full page of text.
â— Host the podcast on your site for easier visibility. In addition to syndicating your show to the big players like Apple and Spotify, definitely host the podcast on your own website, as well. And send people to that page on your site, not to the big players, when you promote your show. This will improve your access to listener data and also allow you to deliver a more intentional brand experience for your audience.
â— Fuel sales and customer success cadences with expert opinions from your podcast.
Marketing isn’t the only area of the business that benefits from your podcast. Because your episode guests can range from industry experts to customers and prospects, there’s often a lot of valuable content for your sales (and even customer success) team in the form of use cases, testimonials, and expert insights that can be used in sales emails and customer education.
