It’s important to catch your audience in new and unconventional ways to stand out from the competition. A great way to do this is through podcasting. Though not a new form of media for entertainment, it is becoming a new and innovative way for businesses to reach their audiences.

Consumers are constantly bombarded with advertisements–so much so that they begin blocking them out–that traditional media just doesn’t have the same impact it used to. Not to mention, traditional media lends itself to being more intrusive–it attacks your audience where they’re at. In contrast, podcasting allows its audience to come to them, creating a symbiotic relationship.

Those who listen to podcasts seek them out and are actually interested in learning about what you have to offer. For this reason, podcasting is a unique marketing strategy because, when done right, it doesn’t feel like marketing. And if getting directly into your target audience’s ear isn’t enough to sell you on the benefits of podcasting, keep reading, and you’re sure to see why it’s becoming one of the #1 marketing strategies.

1. Your target audience is listening.

Okay, yes, this was just mentioned above, but we cannot stress this enough! By creating quality, niche content for your audience, your perfect target audience will come to you. No need to sit back and hope the ideal prospect sees your ad.

2. You’ll attract high-quality customers and clients.

In line with point #1, what’s the point of an advertisement if the people seeing it aren’t interested in your product? After all, you wouldn’t put a display ad for a vegan restaurant in a Cabela’s. 

3. You can present your business as an industry expert.

Starting a podcast for your business allows you the opportunity to share your story in a personable way. By providing valuable information about your industry, you create an authoritative, credible presence. 

4. It fits into a busy schedule.

It’s true what they say, time is money, and that’s why we strongly recommend outsourcing your podcast product (no bias here at all). By hiring a professional podcasting agency to manage your podcast, all you’ll have to worry about is showing up and speaking–or not even that, as we also can host for you.

5. Podcasting can be lucrative.

Not only are you gaining exposure to potential customers and clients and therefore leads, but you’ll also be gaining a powerful networking tool. You’ll find yourself creating powerful partnerships with those you invite to be on your show.

6. Increase your reach and your brand awareness.

With just one recording, you can distribute the audio to all major listening platforms and use the content for social media, blog posts, videos for Youtube, TikTok, and Instagram, and content for any ads you might want to create.

7. Longlasting content

Once your podcast is released, that content is out in the world for anyone to find at any time. Your content won’t be buried by the competition on an Instagram feed or faded by the sun outside; it will continue to be recycled as new listeners discover your content and go back to old episodes.

8. It’s fun!

Sure, these are all great–logical–reasons to start a podcast for your business, but if nothing else, it’s a ton of fun! After all, we wouldn’t center a business around something unless it was #1 effective and #2 fun.

Resources: Forbes & Applepie

Alright, so you’ve made the decision to start a podcast; now what? Before diving into the logistical details, ask yourself, “Why?” What are you looking to accomplish with your new show? Perhaps you’re looking to develop a deeper connection with your audience, spread brand awareness, further your brand identity, generate leads, or create meaningful partnerships. And once you’ve determined your objectives, you can start thinking about the format.

There are many formats to consider when developing your podcast; however, it’s essential to pick one that fits your target audience and aligns with your objectives. We’ve dappled in a little bit of everything between ourselves and our clients, but below, we’ve included a few that we’d recommend for any business looking to start their own podcast.

1. Interview

One of the most popular podcast formats is an interview-style. This format requires a host (or two) and a new guest for each episode. This style is great for those who plan on gaining a multitude of viewpoints and a potential new audience with each episode. In addition, guests will typically promote their appearance on your show, so you’ll be able to engage with a new audience.

2. Solo/Monologue

If you’re running a one-person show or have an ultra-specific topic or thought leader content you’d like to share, you may want to consider a solo/monologue format. This format also lends itself to a flexible schedule, easier editing (since there will only be one audio track), and an intimate relationship with your audience. Just be cognizant that this style requires a lot of talking; if you don’t have the personality or preparation to speak for 15+ minutes.

3. Conversational/co-hosted

A conversational/co-hosted format marries the consistency of a solo/monologue show with the conversational aspects of an interview format. It’s essentially two hosts with great chemistry talking about their specific expertise. This format is perfect for those with a common goal but different strengths. This style encourages organic conversation and creates a friendly environment for listeners. However, as mentioned above, you and your co-host must have chemistry to be on the same page with topics to discuss, roles each other has, and agreement on an overall message.

4. Panel

Another podcast similar to the interview format is a panel. A panel-style podcast consists of a single host with multiple guests. This style facilitates meaningful conversations and healthy debates, and very little is required from you conversationally.

5. Non-Fictional Storytelling

A non-fictional storytelling podcast is essentially turning a documentary into a podcast. This style is perfect for those with a specific event or a series of events that they would like to discuss. This podcast format is gaining popularity as it is highly addictive for people interested in a specific topic. This style also lends itself to more creativity than the others, as you can splice different audio elements and choose whatever stories interest you and your audience. However, the customizability of this podcast style does require more work in post-production.

6. Repurposed Content

A repurposed content podcast is the definition of “work smarter, not harder.” A repurposed content format turns the content you’ve already produced into a podcast. This style is great if you regularly give seminars, lectures, or speeches. Though it requires a lot less from you, the host, it doesn’t always sound the best to the listener. When you repurpose content just make sure to preface it in the intro.

7. Video Podcasting

Lastly, a unique format that can be in addition to any of the ones we’ve mentioned above is video podcasting. This format can be layered with any mentioned above because it is just setting up a camera while recording. You can use the entire video for YouTube, splice it for social, and even create TikToks. Anyone can benefit from this style as it allows for further reach on multiple platforms, and if you use closed captions, it opens the door to those that can’t traditionally listen to podcasts.

If you’re looking to start a podcast to grow your business, reach new audiences, and deepen relationships reach out today!

Sources:

8 Podcast Formats To Consider For Your Show

Podcasting has gotten significantly more competitive over the last couple of years, and it begs the question: how will your podcast stand out from the competition and is it even worth starting one anymore? 

In the fall of 2016, when we launched The GoGedders Podcast, there were less than 80,000 active podcasts, and only 57 million Americans listened to podcasts every month. Today, that number is up to more than 850,000 active podcasts with 140 million active listeners. Though the growing listener base is encouraging, that’s still only 2.5x more listeners compared to the 10x more podcasts. According to ListenNotes, nearly 197,000 new podcasts were released in 2018, then in 2019, that figure jumped to 316,000; however, 2020 was a record-breaking year with more than 954,000 new podcast shows(!). Which brings us back to the question: Is it still worth it to try to start and grow a podcast in 2022? Absolutely, it just needs to be done right.

The media landscape has also changed dramatically and it is tougher than ever to stand out. 

The GoGedders started with a recorder mic in a wide open room shooting social videos on a camcorder. Those very mediocre videos were posted to Facebook, typically boosted for $20, and would get 10,000+ views and a lot of engagement. Episode downloads, despite the quality, would still perform well because of the time invested into researching interesting and relevant topics and focusing on strategies that worked at that point in time. The show has evolved significantly and has since had over 220k downloads since 2019 and served as the main tool to grow our business.  

With that said I do believe there is still a big opportunity for brands to use podcasting to grow their business and build relationships with their audience even as a maturing platform.

Below are a few general rules of thumb to help your business stand out and be a catalyst to growing your business when starting your podcast:

1. Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. If you are going to create your own podcast as a brand, make sure you have the time and resources to develop a consistent and engaging show (or a batched series). Podcasting is time-consuming especially if you are hosting it internally, and if you can’t dedicate the time and effort to it, you could be wasting time and money. If you are still interested in podcasting but don’t want to go all-in, consider placing your brand on other shows or hire an external personality to host your show (to learn more about GGMM’s hosting, click here).
2. Find your niche. Since the podcast landscape is more crowded, it’s crucial to do something unique to you and your brand. Tell stories your audience wants to hear that only you can tell. As a brand, you likely have unique relationships you can leverage to provide one-of-a-kind stories, viewpoints, and thought-leader content. Remember, your main job is to educate or entertain your target audience, and if you can combine both of those, you’ll be better off. 
3. Go in with clear success metrics. Success doesn’t always mean a ton of downloads; as a brand, there are several other benefits to podcasting. Recognize that your show can be used for multiple facets within your business: content for your sales funnel, building relationships with guests that could turn into clients/strategic partners, highlighting customers, and building powerful relationships with your audience. 
4. Create a launch plan. Don’t just shoot your show out there and hope that people engage with it. Utilize your resources, such as paid media. If your goal is to drive leads and get more exposure to your brand, a paid media strategy is vital for your podcast to gain traction if you are launching in 2022. Serving someone in your sales funnel podcast content can be a compelling tactic to build that relationship and help push them over the edge.

These are just a few basic rules to follow when creating and distributing your podcast; however, if you’d like to learn more or need any help growing your brand through podcasting in 2022, reach out!

Last week was arguably the biggest week for podcasting in 2020 with Spotify’s market cap jumping $5 billion, yes BILLION, after signing Joe Rogan to an exclusive deal in the neighborhood of $100M and Barstool’s podcast “Call Her Daddy” making the national spotlight for all sorts of dramatic and contractual reasons. 

I won’t go down the rabbit hole of the Call Her Daddy situation, but it says a lot about the state of podcasting, influencers, and media today. Call Her Daddy is Barstool’s top podcast, with over 2 million listens per episode and was started less than two years ago. The two hosts were offered $500k base salaries, a lot of bonuses, and full rights to the IP in one year in a deal to continue the show once a week. All of this in the middle of a three year contract. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal, right? Well, they initially turned it down and the situation was spiraled from there. Ultimately the show will be back on air this week for the first time since early April but only with one host. This speaks to the power that content creators have in the current media landscape. As content creators amass their own followings, they become more and more valuable and also harder to control.

Speaking of the ultimate podcast content creator, let’s go more in depth on Joe Rogan’s deal and Spotify’s quest to knock out Google, Apple, and Amazon to ultimately win this platform. First off, this purchase is just one of a several huge acquisitions Spotify has made in the podcasting space. Just in the past two years they’ve acquired Parcast ($55M), Gimlet Media ($230M), Anchor ($340M), The Ringer ($190M) and now Joe Rogan for an estimated $100M+ multi year deal, no concrete details have been made public. What makes Rogan’s deal unique is that he ultimately gets to keep the IP. 

$100M+ is a lot to pay for one podcast, especially one that you don’t get to keep the IP for, but did Spotify overpay? Actually, probably not. First off, this is a clear shot at Apple who despite ramping up their own push into original podcasts, and benefits significantly from having their podcast app the default app on every iPhone, has seen its podcast market share slip from 80% to 63% in recent years. 

On the other hand, Spotify continues to be more aggressive and grow with now over 286M users and a stock that shot through the roof last week. The stock currently sits at $191 with a market cap at $35B just last week before the deal got acquired the stock was sitting at $161.43 with a market cap of $30B. Essentially, they paid $100M to have their value go up $5B. And, the market says they will get a 50x ROI on that investment. 

This will be very interesting to see play out. Joe Rogan, who generates 150M podcast downloads a month on top of over a million YouTube views per day, will not be putting content on those platforms any more. My gut feeling is that Joe Rogan’s views and downloads will decrease significantly but a good percentage of his followers will migrate from Apple and Google to Spotify taking that share from those companies. Based on the stock price increasing exponentially it seems easily worth the risk for Spotify and it is good to see an independent podcaster like Rogan get a massive payout. With podcast listenership and ad revenue continuing to grow at a double digit clip per year, with no sign of slowing down, it is no wonder that Apple, Google, and Spotify are all vying to win this game. 

On tomorrow’s “Podcasting for Brands Master Class” webinar, I will be going more in depth on the state of podcasting and audio 2020 and what this means for smaller podcasters and brands who produce shows. There is a 1pm and a 6pm CDT slot that you can sign up for, more details below.