WHY YOU SHOULD FOCUS ON PODCASTING FOR YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY

A variety of marketing tools are available in the market but one underutilized tool is podcasting which can be a highly effective tool in the world of marketing today.  As per research, this underutilized tool can assist brands to reach a niche targeted audience and give a decent Return on Investment (ROI). Being informative and educational, podcasts provide a huge deal of value to the listeners. Moreover, due to the explosive new podcast programming, the global pandemic, and increasing consumer adoption of “smart speakers” like Amazon Echo and Google Home devices, there is a surge in awareness and listening to Podcast trends.

As indicated by Forbes, iTunes is a rank-one website. Consequently, podcasts can play a crucial role in boosting up page rankings as any founder who is featured on a podcast with a description adds to the SEO appraisals of the brand as every podcast episode is usually linked back to both the show’s website and the guest’s website. The audience landscape is expanding for podcast channels and in 2021, 116 million people listened to a podcast monthly which is approximately 41% of the population. Smart speaker ownership overall increased by 22% between 2020 and 2021. The increasing trend in smart speaker ownership is giving owners more opportunities to listen to podcasts at home. Podcasting has been a mainstream marketing strategy for quite a long while. As of 2021, 56% of all Americans, 12-34, listen to at least one podcast per month. Any digital advertising campaign can extract a lot of benefits from its minimal expense, straightforwardness, and simplicity but before taking a plunge, it’s essential to draw out your podcasting strategy.

Due to the global proliferation of mobile phones, the expense of podcast advertising is expected to double through 2021 therefore, podcast advertising may attract many business owners looking forward to advertise their businesses. As compared to the other social media platforms, the podcast space offers a lower rivalry level, this fact is backed by the statistical analysis showing around 80 million Facebook business pages and just 70,000 digital broadcasts. It is simpler to track down an undiscovered niche in podcasts and market to the audience. Podcasts likewise require less attention in light of the fact that they just should be heard. Particularly during the pandemic, people have been attempting to decrease their screen time. Consequently, tuning in to a podcast is a decent break from screens. Therefore, in case your brand is looking for a boost to reach a new audience, now is the perfect time to add a podcast to your content marketing mix.

You can use podcasting as a content marketing strategy as there is genuine worth in podcasts since it isn’t only a marketing tool, it makes an incentive for the audience out there. The audience develops a feeling of connection and gets attached ultimately, gets familiar with their inclinations, and becomes a part of the podcast community through engagement in the discussion. Podcasts turn out to be best for pulling in and connecting phases of the client/customer venture. You can utilize your podcast to construct brand awareness and set up thought leadership in your industry.

Smart, significant content can help your brand image protrude from the competitor’s brand, and urge the audience to forge a relationship with the brand. Generally, the best B2B podcasts are in the Q&A or panel discussion style. Hosts can invite new guests every week to share their insights. This kind of arrangement is ideal for influencer advertising which can help you boost your internal subject matter experts, structure associations with influencers in the business, and even feature your potential prospects.  Podcasts are much more than just a mere marketing tool for increasing reach. Being informational, they pull in more target audiences due to the knowledge-based discussions.

Podcasts are a great source to build and cultivate a community of loyal audiences via meaningful dialogue and these audiences help grow your audience landscape by sharing the content within their social circle. Most brands focus on creating content that contributes towards user-generated marketing. There are various podcasts that strike with a niche and are shared widely within that niche. The niche factor helps brands target specific groups and tap customers.

YouTube and Instagram are unable to substitute podcasts as they cannot cover complexities like podcasts as some people do not prefer video content. The challenging task is the choice of platform to build a presence, though there is a lot of presence on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook and brands are trying to amplify this online presence, they are missing out on the niche that can be built on Spotify and iTunes. These platforms let you showcase your expertise in your niche but providing high-quality content at a steady pace is the requirement. In order to provide engaging and high-quality content, the best way is to collaborate with others in your niche whose expertise complements yours. A podcast permits you to invite guests and engage in discussions in which they share their insights while you likewise feature yours. In addition, Audiences tuning in to podcasts are more loyal and are 20% more likely to connect with the brand on other social media. Thus, podcasts can be an effective tool to channelize more traffic towards other social media channels that the brand has.

In order to summarize, let’s have a look at 10 reasons why podcasts can be the perfect addition to any existing content strategy.

1.    Podcasts have a low competition marketing landscape

2.    Engaging and equally convenient for listeners while they do their chores

3.    Another addition in the mobile-friendly content option

4.    The popularity trend of podcasts is growing

5.    Podcast audiences are extremely loyal

6.    Interactive options like calls and audience polls are available for the listeners

7.    Scalable costs for the creators as good audio content can be created with relatively cheap equipment

8.    Podcasts are a great source in establishing thought leadership via credible information

9.    Podcast listeners are a high-value market segment as they have disposable income demographics

10. Consistency in the content publication does wonders for brand awareness 

On a final note, A large part of marketing strategy is about celebrating a story and even highlighting struggles. Hence, businesses that may not have space or funds to create an effective marketing campaign can use podcasts as an effective tool. Podcasts carry plenty of advantages to a business’ posting strategy. Podcasts are an engaging way for B2B companies to share their stories and can help them more efficiently. A portion of these advantages, however, are dwindling, as these radio-like shows having online broadcasting become more mainstream. The competition for podcast audiences is soaring. On the off chance that you’ve at any point pondered starting to record a week after week, or even month to month, a digital radio-like broadcast for your client to tune in to, this is the ideal opportunity and time period to begin! You’ll have the option to set up that loyal audience base before your rivals enter the podcasting space.