How to use Podcasts to Boost your Content Strategy

What can a podcast do to boost your overarching content strategy? Learn more about how podcasts can help create a more effective content offering for your brand.

There are so many great reasons to consider creating a podcast for your business. Not least, a quality podcast can serve every part of your wider content strategy. From ideation through to engagement, a podcast can elevate your content one step further and maximise the efforts of even a small content team.

Are you considering the value of creating a podcast for your business or brand? In this blog we outline the ways a podcast can improve your content offering, to better serve your business and maximise your digital presence.

Podcasts offer a platform for unique storytelling

Any holistic strategy already accounts for the use of blogs, newsletters, social media and video. But podcasts appeal to audiences that may not wish to engage in text or video – as an audio medium, podcasts are popular with all sorts of individuals, and this popularity only continues to rise. 

Creating a content strategy without the consideration of audio is a missed opportunity. Podcasts can take so many formats – from two-hander conversations, dynamic multi-person discussions, re-enactment and in-depth reporting, thought leadership, and more. Take a look at The Cut and the New York Times podcasts – both publications have created specific spin-off blogs that boost their reporting in an audio format, making the most of the in-depth work their journalists already do, reaching new audiences and facilitating easy sharing and listening. So, ask yourself: What messaging and goals could you use podcasts for, rather than another medium? 

Podcasts are perfect for dynamic thought leadership

If your brand is keen to create thought leadership within your industry, podcasts are an incredibly effective way to go about this. They enable a vibrant conversation to take place, and you can invite those from your industry but external to your organisation, demonstrating your network, expertise and engagement within your field. 

Take a look at the work we did with NatWest for a specific example of how to make thought leadership work for your brand.

Podcasts enable conversations that boost engagement

Conversations with your audience are an essential way to boost brand awareness and appreciation. Podcasts can help facilitate this, beyond the recording studio – they offer something for your followers to listen to, think about and respond to, in a format that may be more appealing and varied than a simple blog. After all, reading long paragraphs of text doesn’t appeal to everyone – in this time-poor age we live in, audio might serve your audience better.

Introducing guests also introduces the opportunity to widen your audience, bringing in the supporters of your guests to pay attention to your brand and business. Syndication efforts are also eased, as podcasts can be embedded in a variety of places where conversations that concern your brand take place.

Podcasts can spark ideas for your whole content strategy

Given the variety and dynamism of a podcast conversation, episodes you create can feed your wider strategy, helping to support your content creation efforts across platforms. Take our Buffer case study as an example – the creation of a conference using podcasts helped to flesh out ideas for their next quarter of content, filling up the calendar with relevant new ideas born of strategic podcasted conversations with industry experts.

Episodes that we created together received a whole host of replies from interested listeners, which also helped Buffer determine what their audience really wanted to know more about from them as a business. It also helped them source ideas from industry experts themselves who are at the forefront of their field. Taking all these ideas and this information from their audience, Buffer was able to create new content plans and specific ideas going forward.

They also utilised snippets of the conversations from the episodes we collaborated on, reusing this to help boost their social media content, and also creating spin-off blogs. In this way, a podcast can help fuel a larger content plan and be reused and repurposed for other platforms.

If you’re ready to look into how a podcast can serve your business or brand, take a look at more of the best advice from our site for getting started. With one well-placed and thoughtfully created podcast, your entire content strategy can benefit.

Want to learn more? At Message Heard, we make podcasts that help your brand reach new audiences. Find out how we can help you by getting in touch.

How Podcasts Can Help You to Reach New Audiences

The Age of the Podcast has arrived. Just as the internet disrupted the monopoly of the print media, podcasts are now disrupting the dominance of on-screen content. This audio format is expanding rapidly — both in terms of listener numbers and in share of ad spend.

The trend is only set to grow. That’s why now is the time to get ahead of the curve; to understand why this medium can add so much value to your business and to find your brand’s podcasting voice.

Ready? Read on.

• Who is the podcast audience?

• Why do they matter?

• How do podcasts help you to reach new audiences?

Who is the podcast audience?  

The podcast audience is growing fast. Worldwide, the research company Omdia (formerly Ovum) estimates that the global monthly podcast listening figures will hit 1.85 billion by 2023 (a six-fold growth from the 2016 figure of 287 million).

In 2019, Ofcom said there were 7.1 million regular podcast listeners in the UK. The global measurement and data analytics company Nielsen estimates that within just three years – by 2022 - that number will have doubled.  

The latest statistics (2018) show that there’s currently a gender split amongst UK listeners: with men representing 63% of the podcast audience and women 37%. There’s an age bias, too. The early adopters of podcasts are young: 14% are aged between 15 and 24; 38% between 25 – 34 and 29% between 35 – 54. 

One other point to note? Figures show that podcast listeners tend to be affluent. While only 29% of households across America earn more than $75,000 or more per year; that rises to 41% amongst podcast listeners.

Why does the podcast audience matter to your brand?

Podcast listeners matter to brands because:

• They’re young (they’re your current and future potential customer base).

• They have spending power.

• They are early adopters: helping to influence the behaviour of others.

The data says that the podcast audience is also engaged and loyal. That loyalty translates into consumer activity. According to the Stockholm-based podcasting platform Acast, 76% of this audience will follow up on the services or products discussed during a podcast: whether that’s linking to a website; making a purchase or taking out a subscription.

So, how do podcasts help you to reach a new audience?

There are three keys ways in which podcasts help to raise awareness of your brand, reach new audiences and convert listeners into customers and clients:

• Visibility

• Diversity

• Connection

Visibility

You can choose to sponsor a podcast; run podcast ads or create your own branded podcasts. This audio content helps to promote your business and build awareness by providing visibility for your brand across a host of new channels.

Podcasts are hosted on networks. Some are small, independent platforms and some are huge global players (think iTunes; Spotify; Audible and Luminary). Once your podcast is made, it can be listed on different networks. And you can link your podcast back to your website on every distribution network you use – reaping SEO benefits , increasing your website traffic and building brand awareness.

Branded podcasts sit on the same platforms as podcasts from big name providers (like the BBC). Content isn’t separated: if you’ve got great audio you will rise to the top of the chats, increasing your visibility as you go.

And because your podcast is hosted on these distribution networks, users can find your content without having any prior knowledge of your brand. The result? These new channels give you an online presence that help you to reach a completely new audience.

Diversity

Podcasts are incredibly versatile: both in form and content. That means they can reflect your brand values and messaging and offer innovative, immersive ways of aligning your business with the base you want to reach.

They’re a tool for humanising stories; showcasing different voices; exploring new angles and aspects of your industry and identifying and discussing different points of view. And that’s just the start of what they can do. Here are some examples of the ways in which brands have used podcasts to raise their profile:

General Electric and The Message. The manufacturing and tech giant branded this mega-successful science fiction podcast series, subtly linking the business with its purpose: scientific innovation. 

Buffer and Breaking Brand. The software company commissioned this five-episode narrative series following a New York brand agency as it relaunched itself as the home for a family of direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands. The audience the series was created to attract? Marketers and founders of DTC brands.

“We’ve noticed that this is a medium where our DTC customers are investing money themselves, and there appears to be great synergy between the age, interests, and aesthetics of the people who work at these brands and the type of content available through podcasting.”

— Ash Read, Buffer Editorial Director

Selfridges and Hot Air. The high-end department store created this multi-episode series that examine a contemporary issue: how can we enjoy both luxury and sustainable living?  The message was aimed at ethically-minded, wealthy consumers: at Selfridges they care about the world and about living well – and the store’s products marry those two concerns.

Connection

The key to successful podcasts is that they build a direct relationship with their audience. They talk to - rather than at - their listeners. That connection builds trust, which extends to the associated advertising. Research from Nielsen in the US found that 57% of the podcast ads that they tested outperformed pre-roll video advertising in driving purchase intent.

This sense of connection is an indirect way of gaining new audiences. It familiarises your brand and gives it a voice with which people can identify. And it does it in a way that fits comfortably into their lives.

According to the data platform statista.com, 68% of UK podcast listening is currently done on a smartphone. This is a medium that allows you to connect with new audiences where they are: on the phone and on the go.

In the coming years, that move away from screen-based content to audio looks set to increase. One in five UK households now own a smart speaker: a device that is fundamentally changing the way people interact with technology and another channel from which podcasts are easier to access than screen content.

Want to know more? At Message Heard, we make podcasts that help your brand to reach new audiences. Find out what we can do for you. Find out how we can help by reaching out to us here!

Podcasts: An Alternative to Conferences?

In his latest post on Linked In, our founder Jake Warren explored six ways podcasts can be a compelling alternative to the conference.

He goes through what we want from a conference, and how podcasts can compare. Including:

1.  Drawing the crowds and accessing audiences who are not able to attend in person

2. Learning from experts: new knowledge and fresh perspectives

3. The opportunity to ask questions, refine knowledge and workshop learning

4.  Networking

5.  Marketing products and services

6.  Discovering new products and services

Have a read of the full article here, and let us know your thoughts.