The Benefits of Using Podcasts as a Marketing Channel

This guest blog post was written by our friends at Nikki Butler Media.

You’re probably here because you’ve been thinking about starting a podcast or advertising on podcasts. Well, long story short, podcasts are an excellent way to get your message, product, service, brand, or self in front of niche audiences. And with the growing popularity of podcasts not only in America, but globally, your opportunity to continue growing your audience with a podcast is only on the rise. According to a Forbes article, a big driver of podcast popularity are smartphones, and these devices are most popular with the 18-34 year old demographic that makes up 44% of the global podcasting audience. Whoa. Additionally, more than half of U.S. consumers above the age of 12 listen to podcasts, according to Statista.

So let’s dive into six other reasons why podcasts are a great marketing tool.

BECOME A TRUSTED RESOURCE FOR CURRENT AND POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS

Podcasts really let audiences into the more personal side of you and your business. Before Instagram stories became a thing, didn’t you always wonder what your favorite influencers were like when they talked? Similar to Instagram stories, podcasts let listeners get a better taste of you or your brand’s personality. With the ability to create such familiarity and relatability with listeners, you have an amazing opportunity to build trust with your followers and eventually, convert them to customers because of that trust.

REACH A NEW AUDIENCE THROUGH A NEW PLATFORM

Just like you might prefer coffee over tea, some people love getting their information from podcasts versus television, books or IGTV. When you enter a new platform, you’re opening yourself up for exposure to an entirely new audience who are loyal consumers of whatever the platform it is you’re adding to your repertoire.

CHEAPER TO PRODUCE THAN VIDEOS

This is definitely a bonus when weighing whether you’d like to take on a podcast or YouTube. While we don’t recommend skimping on a good audio editor, you can still find some decent editors for a decent price. Or, if you’re feeling really ambitious and have the time, it’s pretty easy to learn how to edit audio yourself or teach a team member. A great resource to find an audio editor for a good price is Fiverr. 

HAVING GUESTS ON YOUR PODCAST OPENS YOU UP TO NEW AUDIENCES

Inviting guests onto your podcast not only provides for some diverse, dimensional content, but it opens you up to cross promotion and exposure to their audience! This strategy is such an incredible way to grow your podcast audience organically. It also gives you the ability to bring in experts on topics that you might not be an expert in, but are still so relevant to your business and what you’re promoting weekly on your podcast.

HYPERTARGETING

You know all those different categories and subcategories within the Apple Podcasts app that you can browse? When you launch a podcast, you choose three subcategories that you’d like to file your podcast under, giving your podcast a hyper targeted leg up to reach niche audiences that you know will be interested in the content you’re delivering. This also makes it easier for you to determine which podcast advertisers would be a good fit for your audience, creating a significant ROI on the ad spots they buy. In turn, this will keep advertisers around to purchase more spots and become a consistent advertiser on your podcast. With a platform like Instagram, it’s much harder to hypertarget and get in front of audiences that you know want to consume the type of content you’re putting out there. Hashtags are one way to try and mitigate this issue, but as I’m sure you’ve heard from the Homies, hashtags are falling shorter and shorter with their effectiveness. Therefore, adding a podcast to your list of things (I know, you already have a long list of things), is super beneficial to reaching the right people.

SEO BENEFITS

Show notes serve a bigger purpose than just providing additional information on what a listener can expect from an episode. You can link anything in show notes, a benefit for both podcast hosts who have businesses as well as their advertisers. You can also link affiliate links to products or discount codes, which are other forms of passive income that will live forever with the episode. Like with any SEO strategy, be sure to include important keywords that you’d like to rank for in your podcast’s name, episode titles, podcast description and show notes. 
I hope this blog post helps you determine if you’re ready to dive into the podcast world by either advertising on podcasts, becoming a guest on podcasts or starting your own podcast! If you are looking for assistance in any of these areas, please visit my website nikkibutlermedia.com for more information and follow us on Instagram!

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