Why podcasting should be part of your content marketing strategy

Adding podcasting to your content marketing strategy makes sense whichever way you look at it

Podcasts have been around for more than a decade, and the number of podcasts is growing. The audience tunes in to listen at any time - the morning commute, in transit, doing chores, the evening jog. If podcasting isn't part of your content marketing, here's why it needs to be.

Here's why podcasting needs to be part of your content marketing

Why do they work so well with any overarching content marketing strategy? Here are six reasons you should consider podcasting.

Branding and tone

Podcasting gives you an additional and powerful channel to distribute your message. In addition, you have control over what information is conveyed, how it is conveyed.

Compared to written messaging, which requires the audience to focus on reading, podcasts can be easier for some people who prefer listening. Podcasts often make it easier for potential customers to learn about your brand, values, and solutions. 

In our age of content overload, making a brand and tone stand out is a difficult task, and the other mediums - blogs, social media, etc - are already oversaturated, and require more from their audiences. Podcasters will find it far easier to convey branding and tone in this rapidly growing medium.

Podcasts enable deeper engagement

All content marketing strategies depend on audiences who are open to your receiving your messaging. Each potential customer or employee has personal preferences, so a podcast adds a new method of engagement for people who enjoy an aural connection or want to listen to and from work, at home, or in the gym, and podcasts are primed to capture and hold the listeners’ attention. 

Your audience becomes accustomed to the podcast’s host(s) and their style(s), and familiar with the way the information is delivered. A strong, unique podcast will develop habitual listeners, and this audience base can be hard for competitors to tap into.

Listeners become loyal because podcasting carries a level of intimacy second only to in-person conversations in person. They resonate with the host, interact and often discuss the ideas presented. 

A podcast offers a low barrier to entry

Many content marketers face constraints: budgets, people, and time commitments can all put pressure on an effective and actionable strategy. Under these limitations, adding anything new can seem unfeasible.

Fortunately, podcasts have a very low barrier to entry. With so many options in equipment, software, and programs, any individual or organization can get a podcast started. The most important factors in a podcast’s success are quality content and good sound. The message delivery and style are also important to consider. 

This flexibility allows content marketing strategies to experiment with podcasts, adjusting their level of investment based on results.

Integrating with content marketing

Podcasts are a great addition on their own to any content marketing strategy, but they really shine when in synergy with every platform and medium used. Podcasts integrate seamlessly within blogs, social media, and other messaging. They can organically guide audiences to other platforms where your content can be found, and they do so by bringing value upfront to listeners. 

Podcasts are most effective when they avoid the sales pitch angle, and instead bring value to the listener. Once the listener finds that value, they’re inclined to seek out more from the individual or organization behind the episode. This allows redirection of traffic from podcasts to blogs and other messaging tactics.

Most other content marketing tactics are visual, and podcasts are purely auditory. Podcasts are thus unique in conveying messages in a new way, and only stand to have greater impact when used in synergy with other tactics.

Establishing thought leadership with podcasts

A business or organization that communicates their messaging in complete alignment with its values, objectives, and vision will find many listeners gravitating towards them. Listeners who look to the podcast hosts for knowledge, perspective, and solutions. 

They will view the host as a thought leader and look to them to address issues they’ve come to expect them to tackle. A podcast becomes an intimate messaging platform that meets the expectations of listeners, and establishes the hosts and organization as experts, who bring consistent value. Educating your audience also has a powerful return on marketing strategy: it establishes you as an authority, and validates the use of products or services offered from the organization.

Building on this, podcasts aspiring to thought leadership can bring other experts on board for episodes, to share insightful perspectives that add to the value listeners tune in for. 

Content and episode planning

All podcasters must plan their episodes. If you have a communications plan or a content marketing plan, questions and points to consider include:

1. How does this episode fit into our content marketing strategy?

2. What are the key messages to deliver in this episode?

3. What produce or services do I want to reference, and how?

4. What are the key value points we’re delivering to customers in this episode?

5. How am I positioning my colleague or referenced sources as a thought leader?

6. How am I positioning our brand as a thought leader?

7. What actionable tips shall we give the listener?

8. What is the call to action?

9. Is the customer journey clear after the call to action?

10. Is the path to more information clear?

    
    

Be your best self

Stiff, formal messaging in podcasts may be suitable for some podcasts, but for others this kind of messaging can be a turn-off. For most podcasters, when the messaging comes across organic, natural, and effortless, the audience will believe the hosts and guests believe in it. 

Podcasts have the greatest potential for manifesting and presenting authenticity. In an age where audiences are fatigued by constant ads and marketing tactics, a voice that seems to stand by its messaging, believes in it, and genuinely aims to bring value, can have an immense impact on the listener’s ear.

These six advantages make adding podcasts to your content marketing strategy a no brainer. Yet proper integration and cohesion with the rest of your platform requires a lot of strategic thinking, planning, and discussion of potential obstacles along the way.