Jumping into a new marketing channel like podcasting can be challenging. It requires time, budget, and commitment, which many brands do not have. However, the rewards of running a podcast more than outweigh the challenges. It can drive revenue, improve audience trust, and increase brand awareness. Still, many ask the question – is it worth starting a podcast?
My answer is 100% yes, absolutely, as long as it aligns with your brand vision and goals. Currently, only 50% of marketers are using podcasts to reach their target audience, so there’s still plenty of room for new brands to take over! Also, the podcast industry is expected to grow to 100 billion dollars before 2030, whereas, in 2023, it was valued at 23 billion dollars.
Anyway – let’s have a look at reasons to start a podcast in 2024:
Increase Brand Awareness
Podcasts offer a unique platform for increasing brand awareness and can reach diverse audiences located anywhere in the world (language permitting). Although it might seem like ‘just another marketing channel’, podcasts, being audio-based, allow for brands to tell their own narrative, in their own style, and connect with listeners on a deeper level. Meaning that brands can effectively communicate their values, missions, and personalities, to create deeper connections and stronger brand recall than other marketing methods.
The credibility and trust built through regular podcast episodes can also be great for brand reputation, additionally, 66% of people feel connected to a brand when it gains their trust. Consistently delivering high-quality, informative, or entertaining content can establish your brand as a reliable source, enhancing customer loyalty. Also, if you feature industry experts or influencers as guests, it can significantly increase your brand’s reach – increasing brand awareness in the process.
Enhance Thought Leadership and Authority
Whether you are positioned as a brand, an individual, or an individual representing a brand – podcasts provide an excellent opportunity to establish thought leadership and authority in your industry. By producing regular episodes that focus on key issues, challenges, or topics within that industry, you build up awareness, trust, and credibility with the audience. If production and quality are consistent, it leads to a position of authority and thought leadership. Additionally, 64% of buyers say that an organization’s thought leadership content is a more trustworthy basis for assessing its capabilities and competency than its marketing materials.
The key to establishing thought leadership and authority in the podcast industry is to go deeper than surface-level information by tackling challenging topics, interacting with other thought leaders, and breaking down complicated areas of the industry. Reaching this level of trust with an audience can drive engagement, reputation, and awareness, and become influential to the listener.
For Lead Generation
One of the many reasons to start a podcast is that it can be a powerful tool for generating leads. I have already established that podcasts allow brands to form a deeper connection with listeners and as a result, build trust, credibility, and awareness. If done correctly, this can be leveraged for lead generation. People who listen to podcasts are often seeking information or entertainment that aligns with their interests or needs. By providing content that resonates with these interests, a podcast can guide listeners toward a brand’s products or services.
According to Exploding Topics, podcasts are actually the most effective content to move leads from the awareness stage to the consideration stage.
The key point here is to ‘guide’ listeners not ‘sell’ or ‘push’ as that’s where you will begin to lose the trust. Leveraging lead gen through a podcast is less intrusive than other marketing methods – especially as the listener has already chosen to engage with your brand by listening to the podcast. You would still need to include a strong call-to-action, such as inviting listeners to visit a website, join a mailing list, or check out a product, in a way that feels natural and unforced.
Deeper Customer Engagement
Podcasts create a more personal connection with your audience as they feature real people acting in a humanized way. With AI crowding written content, advertising, and even video content, podcasts remain relatively natural and unforced, which is essential for making a connection with audiences. Combined with the fact that on a podcast, you aren’t trying to make a sale or overpromote your brand (at least you shouldn’t be), it removes the friction that can sometimes be faced when people are marketed to directly.
Also, podcasts are often consumed in a very intimate setting – listeners may tune in through headphones during their daily commute, while exercising, or even during quiet moments at home. This creates a sense of one-on-one conversation as if the host is speaking directly to each listener. This personal connection, enhanced by the conversational tone that many podcasts adopt, can make listeners feel as though they are part of a conversation rather than recipients of marketing communication.
Podcasts also provide the opportunity to explore topics in greater depth than other forms of content. This provides value to the audience and they are more likely to engage with the brand or individual behind the podcast, whether through social media, email, or other marketing channels.
Content Repurposing
Content repurposing is an essential part of content marketing strategies, and podcasts are a great resource for it. Episodes can be repurposed into blog posts, social media content, and audiograms, maximizing the impact of your marketing efforts. Brands can also explore video podcasts, although this is generally recorded at the same time as the podcast, and not repurposed after.
According to a study, 32% of podcast listeners in the US prefer video podcasts to audio-only podcasts. Video podcasts add the missing visual stimulation that users don’t get with audio-only.
As these are the top reasons to start a podcast, you can also think of content repurposing the other way around. Say you had masses of blog content, archives of YouTube videos, or even customer queries on forums… this can all be used to form a podcast series, episodes, and even the content for entire episodes (adjusted slightly).
New Revenue Streams
There’s a lot of money to be made in the podcast industry and many ways to do it. It could be through sponsorships, ad revenue, affiliate marketing, and direct sales. Every revenue channel would have a different use, for example, a brand might only focus on direct sales, whereas an individual only running a podcast, would use all of the revenue channels available.
In terms of how much money can be made, it varies and there is no specific answer. However, Descript estimates the following:
- Podcast sponsorships: $18 – $25 per 1,000 listeners
- Affiliate marketing: 5% – 30% commission
- Book sales: 35% – 70% in book royalties
- Merchandise and physical products: Roughly 9% net profit margins
- Email ads: $25 – $50 per 1,000 sends
Networking Opportunities
With the power and rise of influencer marketing over recent years, networking can open up endless opportunities for brands. Running a podcast can open the door to collaborations with influencers, industry experts, and other brands, creating opportunities for co-marketing and expanding your network. This drives brand awareness and can attract new listeners to your podcast.
Additionally, when you collaborate with other experts or influencers, the trust that the audience has for those individuals will be passed on to you. This is important as a 2019 study found that 81% of consumers need to be able to trust the brand to buy from them. It’s worth noting that any collaboration should be planned and researched carefully, as collaborating with someone who is misaligned with your brand can do more damage than good.
Reach New Users
Not everyone is on social media, not everyone watches YouTube, and not everyone watches TV, and you get where I am going with that. There are small segments of users that will only listen to podcasts or prioritize 70% of their time to them – more than other digital channels. By starting a podcast, brands can reach this niche audience – an audience they might never have captured without exploring that marketing channel.
It’s Evergreen Content
Unless taken down, podcast episodes usually remain active online and can be accessed at any point in the future, creating a library of evergreen content. Of course, if your podcast focuses only on current issues (such as the news) then the content won’t be evergreen as it will not be relevant 4 weeks, months, or years, Podcast episodes often remain relevant and can be consumed long after they are published, providing long-term value and ongoing exposure for your brand.
This content can also be repurposed and republished at a later date, providing masses of unique content to share. This content then has the potential to pull in new audiences and capture lost audiences, repeating the whole process.
To Educate Your Audience
One of the other many reasons to start a podcast is to educate your audience. Perhaps you want to highlight the sustainability initiatives your brand is implementing, the social impact of your work, how to use your products, how to succeed in certain industries, and so on.
Educational content is one of the most popular forms of content for podcasts – but it’s also one of the most valuable, both for the listener and for the brand. By providing value for the audience brands will get the value back in the form of trust, awareness, and credibility.
Check out this guide on how to promote a podcast too!
