The Power of Audio: How to Incorporate Podcasts into Your Digital Marketing Strategy

If you’re familiar with digital marketing, you’re well aware that “content is the king”. However, when it comes to content, most people instantly think of written articles and blogs. This is a mistake. Content can also include images, infographics, video, and audio, all of which can have a significant impact on website ranking and the user experience.

While most of the marketers have already seen the value of video content, audio seems to be low on their priority list.  The podcast audience is not as diverse as the blog readers or video viewers, but it is well educated and loyal. In fact, 80% of podcast listeners listen to every or most episodes of the show they follow. This gives digital marketers an opportunity to use the loyalty and attention of the podcast audience to establish their brand as an authority in the industry. It also signals that podcasting is a digital marketing must-have in 2019 and beyond. 

If you don’t want to lag behind your competition you need to consider adding podcasting to your online marketing arsenal.

Follow these tips and guidelines to help you set up podcasting and make it part of your overall marketing strategy.

Set the budget

Let’s get the most lackluster part of the planning off of the table – budgeting. Fortunately, podcasting doesn’t require fancy equipment like video production. However, you should avoid getting started with nothing but a smartphone, because you don’t want your quality to suffer. Mixer, headphones, microphone, mic stand, and editing software will cost you up to $250. If you want proper acoustics, you will probably need to rent a studio or redesign one of the rooms on your premises, but you can save that for later. Finally, unless you or one of your managers is talented for talking on-air, you should hire a host.

Know your audience

If you already have a blog and social media profiles, the chances are you probably already know your audience. What you also must know is that not all the users will be as willing to listen to podcasts, so it is always better to do new market research. Use the information you acquire this way to get some ideas about the content and the topics, and the way the listeners want to be talked to (e.g., funny, serious, professional, casual…).

Give your audience valuable content

When you get an insight into what your audience would listen to, you need to build your content strategy around it. The topics should be related to your industry and they should contribute to your overall digital marketing, but don’t fall into the trap of getting too “salesy”. No one wants to spend half an hour listening to ads and promotions.

The best content is the one that keeps the listener interested from the first to the last minute. It should be inspiring, engaging, encouraging, funny, informative, and educational. The best approach is to ask for feedback after every show to see what appeals to them the most.

Build trust and credibility

One of the main advantages of podcasts over traditional marketing formats is that it allows you the chance to build trust with your listeners. However, this only works if you do it properly. A host with a compelling tone of voice who is witty, interesting, and dynamic will definitely help, but so will interesting guest speakers, and topics that address some of the concerns of your audience. Podcasting doesn’t require you to know everything. On the contrary, you will appear more honest and human if you invite experts for specific topics you are covering.

All of the rest will come naturally. Listening to someone’s voice from week to week will become a habit for your audience, and, in the end, it will seize to be a web show, and it will turn into a conversation between old friends.

Make it consistent with your brand

While it is normal for the brand message to adapt to various channels to appeal to the audience, it should not be changed drastically to please the “rules of the game”.  The brand voice needs to be unified throughout all the channels, and the message that is emitting should be the same in its essence. Consistency will also help with creating trust, so try to watch your podcasts as a season, not one show at a time.

Optimization for optimal reach

Just as with blogs, the key elements of podcasts need to be optimized for maximum reach and engagement. This includes the title (catchy, memorable, informative, and keyword optimized), the description (also informative, keyword infused, and intriguing too), and the show category. With the latter one, aim for accuracy and visibility.

Marketing and social media presence

Before you start with podcasting, announce it on your blog and social media. After, you can publish the summary of each show on the blog (with embedded audio). You can also use behind-the-scene images for social media platforms which rely on visual elements the most (e.g., Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook). The key is to get people talking on social media and make your content shareable.

Conclusion

Podcasting is not the future of digital marketing. It is its present. The chances are that most of your competitors are not using podcasting as part of their marketing strategy. Follow these tips to learn how to get started with podcasting the right way.

About Author: Natasha is lady of a keyboard and one hell of a growth-hack geek. She is always happy to collaborate with awesome blogs and share her knowledge about IT, business growth strategies and digital marketing trends. To see what she is up to next, check out her Twitter Dashboard.