Are you using podcasts to improve the impact your brand has on your niche market? If not, you may be missing out on one of the most valuable digital assets and tools your brand can have. Podcasting provides a way for you to communicate with your customers on a regular basis by recording key topics that interest them that will result in a greater engagement with your site.
Advantages of Podcasting in Business
If you are wondering what the advantages are in podcasting, consider these benefits to business owners that podcasting provides.
1. Podcasting is easy to produce and consume.– One of the main reasons you should look into podcasting as a digital asset that you should have on your site is that it is easy to produce and consume. First, from the perspective of a business owner, you can produce a podcast quickly and easily, provided you have the right software, tools, and equipment. Producing a podcast just takes around 15-30 minutes, depending on the length of your show and the complexity of it. Several tools around now make this process easy such as Blogtalkradio.com, that allows you to host a live show on their platform that is topic and keyword based, then download the show as a podcast to use on your site.
2. It increases your audience.– Podcasting increases your audience by allowing people to engage with your content in a variety of different contexts. People can take your broadcast along with them on their portable devices and listen “on-the-go.” This puts you on the radar of your target customers more often and helps you spread your message on more platforms. If you publish your podcast on iTunes, you have an additional audience of over 500,000 people just by being on their platform.
3. It helps your brand stand out.– By carving out a niche with your podcast material, you will make an impact with people that you might never reach otherwise.
4. It engages your audience on a different level.– The brain takes in information in a variety of ways. Some people respond to recorded audio better than others. But many studies suggest that audio recordings are so effective to retaining information that we can even learn while we sleep. (Smithsonian Magazine)
5. It appeals to aural learners.– Aural learners (learners who learn better by listening to recorded speech) have stronger memory retention when listening to audio recordings. Audio also allows you to reach people while they are engaged in another activity such as cooking, working, or driving.
6. It helps build trust with your audience.– Your online website is in text format, for the most part. You communicate everything that your brand stands for and everything you do as a business through text. Whether it’s on your blog, your website, or in your product descriptions, you create meaning for your audience through the written word. Adding podcasting to your digital assets will increase the level of interest in your communications. It also increases your trustworthiness with your audience because they can hear your voice rather than just see your words in text form. This can clearly be seen through any of the top marketing podcasts in the world today.
This makes a more personal connection with your listeners, much in the way that landline radio DJ’s have done for years by connecting to their audience listening at home through the power of the human voice.
Invite influencers as co-hosts
If you are a startup business or a business that is trying to expand, it would be a good idea to use the social influencers in your niche to help you boost your brand. You can connect to some of these people by listening to their podcasts and other media online, then follow them on Twitter or Facebook and send them a message, asking them to come on your show.
How to Choose the Best Influencers
Keep in mind that the more famous they are, the less likely it is that they will be able to give you their time and you may have to offer to pay them for doing so. But some mid-range influencers who have a book about a topic that they are wanting to promote may offer to come on your show free, in exchange for the publicity they get from doing so.
If you offer to promote them with your podcast on your website, it will also promote their book, and they may be willing to help you in return for this free promotion.
Make sure that you vet your influencers before inviting them on your podcast. Make sure you agree on the important things that define your brand and that you are okay with allowing them to express their views on something that they feel strongly about.
Consider anyone that you bring on your show as a cheerleader for your brand. If they do not have at least a passing interest in your brand and your ideas for your website, they should not be on your show. In fact, you could run into some influencers who tend to make it all about them and will not even talk about your brand or the topic you want to get across. Steer clear of these self-absorbed “gurus.” They are only using your platform to toot their own horn.
It’s fine for them to promote their work if you invite them to do that. Just make sure they have a mutual respect for you and you for them if you have them on one of your shows.
Building a podcast takes time, but it is the essence of making your podcasts work for your brand. Just like any other digital asset that you own, your podcasts should always keep your target audience in mind and work toward promoting your goals and ideas for your brand through everything you put out to your audience.
Getting Audience Feedback
Do you have a way to engage your audience with your podcasts? This is also very important and can serve to improve the way your audience reacts to your podcasts and your brand. Have a plan to increase your audience engagement by finding out how they are responding to your podcasts. You can do this in some different ways.
- Creating and distributing surveys and polls.
- Asking listeners to call in.
- Looking at customer reactions in chats and social media.
- Create a chat system that runs “live” when you are broadcasting.
- Ask customers to write reviews on the podcasts.
All of these techniques may serve to help you increase the level of engagement and interaction that customers do with your brand. If you do “live” show, you can see the reaction of your listeners in real time. This can help you to monitor and adjust your responses to what customers want to know and increase your engagement levels.
With recorded shows (podcasts) that do not allow you to be present with your audience when they are listening, ask them to send you email responses to what they heard or to write comments on your blog about it. Placing your podcast on your blog is a great idea since this makes this process simple and natural.
Encouraging comments and reactions to your podcasts, creating top-quality rich content, and running your podcast on a variety of platforms can all serve to boost your web presence and your brand.
You’ll attract people you didn’t before with text alone, create a following through the recorded material, and widen your influence across more platforms.
How Web Design Team Can Help with Your Podcast
If your website needs work or you want to know how to best integrate your podcasts with your website, contact us. We are the web design experts at webdesignteam.com.