Beyond the Interview: Creative Formats for your Company Podcast to Captivate your Target Audience
With podcast listenership reaching over 500 million worldwide by the end of 2024, brands are increasingly turning to audio to connect with their audiences.
But are you still relying on the same old interview format?
The format of a podcast refers to its underlying structure. While the interview format has been a staple, there's a world of creative possibilities to explore.
At Message Heard, we're experienced in developing engaging formats for branded podcasts, helping companies of all sizes craft original and compelling audio experiences.
The Benefits & Limitations of the Interview Format
The 'as-live' conversation, where a host or pair of hosts chat with guests, is a perfectly fine format and has a lot to commend it.
This classic format features a consistent host guiding insightful conversations with diverse guests. It's truly is a fantastic way to establish a personal connection with your audience and build a strong brand identity.
Benefits:
Easy to produce and edit, making it a cost-effective option.
Fosters a strong host-listener relationship, enhancing audience engagement.
Provides a platform for in-depth discussions and knowledge sharing.
However, it's not the only way to do a podcast. It might not always be the best approach, its not a one size fits all.
Considerations:
Requires a skilled and engaging host to drive the conversation.
Success hinges on securing compelling guests and asking insightful questions.
It’s vital to understand and consider who your audience is and what they actually want.
To truly resonate with your audience and foster a loyal following, it's crucial to consider formats that create habit and joy in consuming your content… not just following the standardised route.
Alternative Podcast Formats (with examples)
Here are some alternative podcast formats to consider, with examples and their potential benefits for your brand:
Narrative Storytelling:
Immerse your listeners in compelling narratives that weave together information and emotion. This approach, inspired by the popularity of true crime and other narrative podcasts, can be incredibly effective in capturing attention and delivering your message in a memorable way.
Focusing on telling a compelling story over multiple episodes, often involving in-depth research, sound design and dramatic elements. Narrative podcasts can explore a wide range of topics, from historical events and true crime to fictional tales and personal journeys.
They often employ techniques borrowed from radio documentaries and audio dramas to engage listeners emotionally and keep them hooked.
Benefits:
Highly engaging: Well-crafted narratives can captivate audiences and keep them coming back for more.
Can create a strong emotional connection with listeners: Storytelling has the power to evoke emotions and build empathy, fostering a deeper connection between the brand and its audience.
Soundscape: Offers opportunities for creative storytelling and sound design.
Ideal for in-depth explorations of brand values or history: This format allows brands to delve into their origins, showcase their values, or explore complex topics related to their industry in a compelling and memorable way.
Narrative storytelling can be used to communicate complex information in a more accessible and engaging way.
Considerations:
Requires strong storytelling skills: Crafting a compelling narrative requires expertise in writing, sound design, and audio production.
Can be more time-consuming and resource-intensive to produce: Narrative podcasts often involve extensive research, interviews, and editing.
Balance: Requires careful crafting to balance storytelling with your strategic message.
It's important to have a clear story arc and structure to keep listeners engaged.
Example: “Gone Rogue” - Shield
A narrative series about the financial mavericks who bend the rules till they break, outlining how things have changed and how the story would play out differently now.
Naturally, with a financial compliance organisation, a classic, 1-1 interview approach seems to be the fit… however, through content and formatting workshops, taking into account the niche they wanted to target in regards to their target audience.
From this, we came up with a narrative style show, diverting the usual rhetoric with financial compliance, shaking up the market and garnering a more audio rich experience for the audience.
In each season we’ll investigate financial misconduct at the very biggest scale – hearing from those closest to the action to discover how people use and abuse financial loopholes, and what the industry can do to stop it from happening again.
Roundtable Discussions:
Lively and dynamic, round-table discussions bring together multiple guests and/or hosts to explore topics from various angles. Involving experts and industry leaders, allowing for a two-pronged approach of adding value to the listener's whilst also allowing you to engage with industry professionals or organisations in a BD capacity. This format encourages diverse perspectives, aiming to provide a balanced view, explore different angles, and generate insightful conversations; leading to more engaging content.
Benefits:
Creates a sense of community: By bringing together different voices, this format can foster a sense of connection and engagement among listeners.
Offers diverse viewpoints: Roundtable discussions provide listeners with a range of perspectives, which can enrich their understanding of the topic.
Can be more conversational and engaging than a solo host format: The dynamic interaction between participants can make the podcast more lively and interesting to listen to.
It’s a great way to show how you are connected to the wider community, and to open your podcast up to new audiences by bringing in guests.
Considerations:
Requires careful moderation: A skilled moderator is essential to keep the discussion focused, ensure everyone has a chance to speak, and draw out key insights.
Participant selection is crucial: Choosing knowledgeable and articulate participants is key to the success of this format.
It's important to have a clear topic and structure for the discussion to avoid it becoming aimless or unfocused.
Example: “Driving the Future” - Capgemini
The automotive world is rapidly transforming due to climate change and tech. Hear how car companies are navigating electrification, becoming tech players, and redefining mobility.
"Driving the Future" explores the challenges and innovations as the car industry shifts from traditional manufacturing to a software-driven, sustainable future.
Join us to understand how companies are adapting to this revolution, balancing car production with new technologies and the race towards a greener, more connected world.
Educational/How-to Podcasts:
This format type looks at giving direct, practical advise for their listeners… whether that be teaching a skill, offering expert insights on a specific topic… it looks at educating their target audience, becoming a thought leader in their particular industry. Whist this type is utilised in traditional marketing via infographics and whitepapers; utilising this format type for a company podcast engages the audience on a more personal 1-1 basis. This can be in the form of…
Tutorials
Q&A Sessions with experts
Discussion & forecasts of industry trends
Benefits
Offers practical value to listeners: By providing useful information, these podcasts become a valuable resource that listeners can return to repeatedly.
Establishes your brand as an authority: Sharing expertise and insights helps position your brand as a knowledgeable and credible source in your industry.
Attracts a highly targeted audience: People seeking to learn about a specific topic are often highly engaged and motivated, making them a valuable audience for your brand.
Demonstrates that you have your finger on the pulse, and to become a can’t-break habit in your audience’s work week.
Considerations
Content needs to be accurate and well-researched: Ensure that the information you provide is reliable and up-to-date.
Presentation should be engaging and easy to understand: Avoid overly technical jargon or complex explanations that might alienate listeners.
Consider production quality: Even though the focus is on education, good sound quality and production values are still important for maintaining listener engagement.
Think about episode length and frequency: Bite-sized, digestible news or facts? Do they want to get an edge when it comes to their job?
Example: ‘The She-Wolf Investor’ - Female Folio (Brooks MacDonald)
This type of format can and commonly is, utilised in conjuction with another overarching format. For example, The She-Wolf Investor’ a company podcast we produced with Female Folio (Brooks MacDonald), whilst this was an interview stye format, we put emphasis on practical advice to share with the listeners, in this case, financial advice by women, for women.
Section 3: Choosing the Right Format for Your Branded Podcast
The most important thing is your intended target audience. Who are they? Clearly define who you want the podcast to appeal to – in interests, demographics, relationship to you and more – before you move on.
People have to want to listen to your company podcast if it’s to have any chance of answering the strategic objectives you built for it, and so you have to give them something they actually want.
Are you trying to get more customers?
Position yourself as a thought leader?
Build a closer relationship with your existing audience?
Developing relationships with ICPs & other organisations?
Message Heard is very experienced in developing formats for the branded podcasts that we make for a huge range of companies. All this thinking can be pretty overwhelming, but happily, Message Heard is very experienced in working with companies of all sizes in every sector to interrogate the mission of a show and then craft original, compelling formats that answer that mission head-on.
If you’d like our help contact us below!