10 advantages of podcasting for brands
In the last decade podcasting has seen explosive growth. On-demand media has become the norm, while companies like Apple and Spotify have invested heavily in their distribution platforms. Once a niche pursuit, podcasts are now a multi-billion dollar global industry.
The best brand podcasts consistently serve up entertaining, valuable content that attracts listeners from their target audience.
As the audience for podcasts continues to grow, their value as a marketing tool increases too. If you’re asking yourself if a brand podcast should be part of your content marketing strategy, you’re not alone.
Arts organisations, charities, B2B companies and smaller brands are claiming their place in the podcasting firmament alongside Executive Coaches, Fitness Instructors and Business Gurus.
But even the simplest podcasts require a minimum of effort, money and time. So what’s in it for those who make the investment?
Here are 10 benefits of podcasting that could persuade you to add a new line to your marketing spreadsheet…
1. Build Trust and Loyalty
Here’s a scenario: you’re sitting in a cafe with some friends when a woman walks in, holds up a mobile phone, and asks if you want to buy it for a tenner.
Do you buy the phone?
Of course not.
You politely decline and go back to your conversation without a second thought. Why? Because you cannot trust what you are buying, or who you are buying from.
Podcast listener brand engagement
Every brand wants to be trusted and inspire loyalty among its clientele. And when it comes to high ticket digital marketing, it’s all the more important.
The more a person gets to know a brand, the more likely they are to trust it. This is where podcasts can give your organisation a boost.
Podcasts are an intimate medium. It’s you and your show, up close and personal with your listener. There’s a good chance you’ll be speaking directly into their ears through earbuds or headphones.
“The more time listeners spend with a show, the better they get to know the people in it”
A 2019 BBC study found the conversational nature of podcasts prompts higher engagement with brand mentions - 12% more brand retention and 16% more engagement than the surrounding content. All of which lifted brand favourability by 24%. Consideration and awareness scored even higher.
These stats measure and quantify what podcasters instinctively understand - their audience connects with them on a personal, emotional level. The more time listeners spend with a show, the better they get to know the people in it, and the brand behind it.
That’s how trust is built. And when you keep showing up for your audience with valuable content, they’ll keep coming back.
That’s loyalty, and it’s a beautiful thing.
2. Drive traffic
Gotta deal with traffic? Cue up your favourite podcast…
Traffic. When you’re sitting in it, you want it to disappear. But when you’re promoting your brand you can’t get enough. The problem is it can feel like standing next to a motorway holding a sign saying “please stop and visit my website”.
Yeah. Good luck with that.
So what drives traffic to your website? Answer: content. That’s where your podcast comes in.
Your podcast is like any other content you produce. It has a target audience and a purpose. This means your podcast should have a home on your website.
Add transcripts, contributor biogs and show notes to your podcast pages to make your content more visible to search engines (Google, we’re looking at you). Then include links to other parts of your website to build a visitor journey and keep them engaged with your brand.
As marketing website The Drum points out, your podcast pages can also be leveraged to build an email list to grow your most loyal listeners.
So stop waving madly at all those speeding cars. Instead, be clear about who you want to engage with, and give them a good reason to pull over into your lane.
A podcast can be a great vehicle to achieve that. (See what I did there?)
3. Increase conversions
Trust, loyalty and traffic. If your podcast delivers that, surely it can drive conversions too? Website visits, email signups, even sales?
All the evidence points to podcasts being a successful tool for increasing conversions.
How listeners respond to brand promos
A 2019 report by consultancy 4DC found that 39% of podcast listeners spent money with a brand they heard discussed on a show. A more recent study by the podcast hosting service Acast found a whopping 73% of listeners followed up on an ad they heard in a podcast.
More than half of listeners in the study said they were better disposed towards brands that advertise on their favourite podcast.
“There are opportunities for seeing direct business results, too. Sharing a discount code referenced by talent can be an easy method for measuring short-term responses.
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Podcasting is still perfecting the tracking metrics that will give detailed insight into your listeners’ journeys. But using techniques like unique voucher codes that are only shared in your podcasts can give you specific data on how your audience responds to CTAs in your podcast.
And while podcasts are perhaps better thought of as a way to convey your brand message than closing sales, digital marketing executive Larry Fisher points out that audio can “drive a lift in brand metrics across the entire buyer lifecycle”.
4. Own your niche
Many creators, from a range of industries, have found podcasts to be an effective way to take a hold of their niche and own it.
As a medium, podcasts are built on opt-in listener habits and loyalty. And if you are publishing consistently you are building something that all the biggest podcasts have in common - a solid back-catalogue.
The other advantage of podcasting when it comes to demonstrating expertise and thought-leadership in your field is that it doesn’t rely on publishing heavyweight articles filled with academic language and sheets of data.
Instead, as a conversational and intimate medium, a podcast can bring alive subject areas that otherwise would appear dry or impenetrable.
You don’t need a massive audience - just the right one.
If you are holding the ring as show host, chairing a discussion panel, or sharing your knowledge in a solo podcast, you’ll be positioning yourself and your brand as a go-to source of expertise in your field.
5. Expand your network
Nobody has that many friends. Not even in stock photos.
The first guests you invite onto your show will probably be people you know. It’s likely your existing network will comfortably get you through your first dozen episodes.
But once you’ve established your show, buttoned down your production process and gained some confidence, chances are you’ll want to approach contributors you’ve never met.
And assuming an occasional bad hair day doesn’t sabotage your usual welcoming demeanour, building connections with new professionals with a natural affinity for what you do (why else would they be on your podcast) can only be a good thing.
B2B marketers exploit the opportunity podcasts provide to speak directly with people they want to do business with. Whatever the focus of your company, you can take a leaf out of their book by thinking strategically about your choice of guest, and paying attention to their experience.
Treat them like you would a valued customer, and they’ll be ready to recommend you to their own network too.
6. Reach new audiences
The UK podcast audience alone is now sixteen-and-a-half million listeners strong. And it’s set to break through 19 million in the next two years.
And while podcasts may once have been the preserve of geeky guys hanging out in nerdy corners of the internet, 41% of regular listeners are now women - and the female audience continues to grow steadily.
The biggest consumers of podcasts are 25-34 year-olds. Almost 40% of that age group listen to podcasts on a weekly basis.
And the average listener is also likely to be part of an affluent demographic with disposable income.
Weekly podcast listeners
As you may have found yourself, that younger audience is typically less responsive to traditional advertising channels. But it’s also likely these technology early adopters will stay with podcasts as they grow older. Uptake is more about their openness to the technology platforms than the content.
That opens up an opportunity, not only to build an audience in a younger age-group, but to remain part of their journey as they progress through their next life-stage.
7. Generate revenue
Have you heard the cliche “everybody has a podcast”?
Perhaps the only bigger cliche in podcasting is that everybody wants to know how to make money out of their show.
Monetisation may not be a KPI for your podcast. And that's absolutely fine (although you should be crystal clear about what goals you do want to meet).
But you may be surprised to learn that ad spending for 2023 is expected to top $2bn. That’s a big pie.
Of course, there are some big bellies out there too - you can expect the podcasting heavyweights to grab a big chunk of that spending. But you don’t need to be Joe Rogan to see some income from your show.
“If you are publishing consistently there’s no reason your podcast shouldn’t at least be able to offset some production costs.”
There are numerous approaches to squeezing revenue out of your podcast, from selling your own services to gated content and YouTube syndication. Keep your focus on your audience and you could conceivably achieve a small income with fewer than 1,000 listeners, and do it inside a year.
A bigger audience is easier to monetise, naturally. And most shows start with a relatively small following.
But if you are publishing consistently there’s no reason your podcast shouldn’t at least be able to offset some production costs.
And as your audience grows, it’s a fair bet income from your show will follow.
8. Capture attention - and keep it
When was the last time you spent half an hour on a Facebook post? Or a tweet?
There’s no denying the pervasive nature of social media and its ability to grab attention - we all spend time on our favourite platforms.
But stats published by the Social Shepherd suggest UK adults spend just four minutes a day on Twitter. Strip out the aimless scrolling and it’s a fair bet that much of that attention is low-level skimming.
“An average length episode can deliver your audience’s undivided attention for a solid half hour.”
Podcasts are a more active choice for consumers. They make a decision to spend time listening to your show.
And according to Forbes, podcasts engage your audience to a higher level than many other types of media.
That trust and loyalty we talked about earlier? They make your listeners want to hear every episode. And while the choice to give your show attention is proactive, podcasts are easier to consume than other media. They require less brainwork from your audience.
The average YouTube video is 11.7 minutes long. But according to one analysis only about 50% to 60% of videos are watched past the halfway point.
In contrast, the average podcast episode is around the 30 minute mark, and research by the popular hosting platform Buzzsprout found that eight out of ten listeners will stay with a podcast pretty much to the finish.
And with more than half of regular consumers relaxing at home when they listen, an average length episode can deliver your audience’s undivided attention for a solid half hour.
Not too shabby.
9. Event promotion
Here’s a brief case study to illustrate how a podcast can drive sales for a live event.
If you like to follow British politics, and you are a fan of podcasts, you may well have encountered The Rest is Politics.
It’s a regular show featuring Tory ex-cabinet minister Rory Stewart, and Alastair Campbell - the former Downing Street Director of Communications and Strategy under Tony Blair’s Labour government - who share their views on what’s hot in the Westminster mosh-pit.
The show published its first episode in February 2022. In October tickets went on sale for a live show of the podcast at the London Palladium, one of the biggest theatres in the world.
The first tranche of 750 seats sold out in 17 minutes, putting Campbell and Stewart comfortably on course to sell out their two-night show in the 2,286 seat auditorium.
Their formula for success?
The same one that works for all podcasts: the right presenters, delivering the right content to the right audience at the right time.
Job done.
10. Generate content
Where does your content come from?
If you’re lucky, you’ll have a team of writers, creators, editors delivering a constant flow of valuable cross-channel content.
It’s more likely you’ll be part of a small team working on a tight budget. To get the best from your resources you’ll need to work smarter, not harder.
How much content could you generate from a single 30-minute interview? Ideas enough for two or three blog posts? Half a dozen social posts?
If you’ve gone to the effort of fixing and recording a half-hour interview, you’ve already done 70% of the work on that other content.
So capitalise on it.
Getting into the habit of thinking across channels when you plan your podcast can pay huge dividends when it comes to your content and inbound marketing efforts.
Yes, that extra 30% of work has to happen. But if it generates a week of social posts - plus a blog post for your website - it looks a lot more like a worthwhile investment.
And as you develop a deeper well of content and collateral, it will be easier to steer listeners, viewers and visitors to other parts of your digital ecosystem.
The longer they stay, the more likely they are to become customers. You’ll rank higher on search engines too.
Conclusion
At Creative Kin we love podcasts. We are storytellers at heart, and we believe in the power of stories to move people to action. That’s why we built a podcast agency specifically tailored to meet the needs of arts and non-profit organisations.
And while we will always advocate for podcasting, it is also true that content marketing is never a one-size-fits all solution. Not every podcast will benefit from every advantage discussed in this list.
But with podcast audiences continuing to grow, an enthusiastic listenership among younger age groups, and clear evidence that listeners develop loyalty towards brands they associate with podcasts, there is a clear and strong case for including podcasting in your marketing strategy.
What’s more, with one of the advantages of podcasting being the opportunity for new and smaller creators to develop a following in their niche, we believe companies of all stripes can use podcasting to build long-term, fruitful relationships with an audience that actively engages with their brand.
