What I mean by that is does everyone, and importantly every business, actually need a podcast? It might be that your Granny runs a business or is intent on building her personal brand in which case she may well benefit from a podcast, you get my meaning…
I listen to a large number of podcasts from a wide range of genres from Sheer Luxe; discussions on fashion, etiquette, interiors and all things generally lovely through to ones about sales, marketing, fitness, soul searching, positivity, linguistic education and even Desert Island Discs. I love learning from podcasts but I also enjoy just listening to people who appear to get on really well and have a great connection with each other, just chatting about things that I think might be interesting and often they really are.
Just because you can create a podcast, doesn’t mean you should
It’s much easier for businesses to have a podcast these days, the barriers to entry are low and the tech required to create a half way decent recording is less expensive. BUT, just because you can create a podcast, doesn’t mean you should.
Just because you think other people will be interested in what you and your chosen interviewees will have to say, doesn’t actually mean enough other people will be to make it worth your while. For podcasts to be used as successful and valuable elements of your marketing mix they have to have a point. They have to form part of an overall business and marketing strategy and be carried out as part of the marketing plan. All too often people think that because everyone else has one, they need one too and it’s simply not true.
A great deal of research into your market and your potential audience needs to be carried out to make sure that what you want to achieve with your podcast is actually what people want to hear. Without an actual goal to the podcast it simply becomes a vanity project.
Consistency is key for a business Podcast to work
If you do decide it’s for you and your business, like all other elements of marketing, consistency is key. There is no point publishing a podcast one week and leaving another 3 months before doing another one. This is also true for social media posts, if you can’t be consistent, there’s not really much point publishing and posting at all.
In addition, it’s worth pointing out that there are a huge number of podcasts available at any one time across a number of platforms – according to Podcast Insights there were 1.75m podcast channels in Jan 2021 and over 43million episodes in total. That’s a lot to choose from. In the same way as for websites, they are not the field dreams! It is not a case of build it and they will come. You have to put a lot of effort into publishing the fact that you have a wonderful podcast and telling people what it’s about and why they should listen to it. The content titles and episode descriptions need to be optimised for search engines with your key words chosen to tie in with your overall key word strategy.
Not only does your podcast need to form part of your marketing plan, but the publicising of it needs to be part of your social media strategy and the content descriptions need to be part of your overall SEO strategy.
Whilst the barriers to actually ‘doing’ a podcast may have been significantly reduced over the last few years, doing it successfully still takes more time, effort and consideration than many people think.
If you’d like help marketing your podcast, making sure it fits into your marketing strategy, scheduling it in line with your social media and ensuring it is optimised for search engines, get in touch with The Marketing Optimist team and we’ll gladly guide you through it.
