It’s 2021. The podcasting industry is HUGE and expected to continue growing. According to Statista.com, “Forecasts suggest that the number of podcast listeners will surpass 160 million in 2023 after increases of around 20 million each year.” But what does this mean for businesses – in particular, B2B businesses?
If you’re in the B2B industry and looking to expand your marketing efforts and attract new clients, podcasting could be a great option. However, as with anything in marketing, you need to know what you’re getting yourself into. This article will explain to you five reasons why podcasting can increase your B2B clients in 2021.
Learn how to create B2B marketing content that resonates with your audience.
How does podcasting help my B2B Business?
1. Thought leadership
Thought leadership is a big deal in marketing. As a thought leader, you become a trusted expert in your particular field. If you are brave enough to start a B2B podcast, you likely already know a whole lot about your industry. You should be an industry expert. However, it’s one thing to claim you’re an expert in something, and it’s quite another to prove it.
With podcasting, you get the opportunity to showcase what you know. Depending on the type of podcast you host, it may influence how you’re positioned within the podcast. For instance, if you’re hosting an interview-style podcast, you’d show your expertise more in asking a special guest educated questions vs. tooting your own horn. If you host a podcast where people can call into the show, you’d display your expertise by answering questions in an educated manner.
However you produce your podcast, though, you need to make sure you know what you’re talking about. You want to prove you are worthy of the title of thought-leader and not embarrass yourself and ruin your reputation along the way.
As you may know, prospects in B2B can sometimes be more challenging to land than those in B2C. The sales cycle is often longer, and acquiring those clients can take more work. Having a podcast can help you with some of that work because, in your prospect’s minds, they hopefully already know and trust you. Pitching your services or products to them once they are already podcast fans should make the whole process of landing B2B clients a little easier.
2. Brand awareness
Podcasting can also help with brand awareness. Like a blog, a podcast is often distributed using an RSS feed (real simple syndication), making it simple for people to listen to it from around the world. Since your podcast will be associated with your brand, any listeners of your B2B podcast will most likely become more familiar with who your company is and what your company does.
It’s not uncommon for people to drop the name of their company casually within conversation during a podcast because it might tie into their overall narrative of that episode. Someone also produces each podcast. That information is displayed with every episode, which helps to share your company’s name.
Those people who have never heard of you before may discover your company for the first time because they are searching for a podcast about a particular topic. If you happen to provide the right content for them, this will help them recognize your brand. If what you discuss in your podcast pertains to a possible “pain-point” or need for potential B2B customers or clients, you could go from unknown to sought-after.
3. Content. Content. Content.
Content creation in marketing is everything. Content can come in various forms, from copy to graphic designs and video to online ads. Podcasts are also a lucrative form of content.
As with every type of content your produce for your business, it needs to serve a purpose. With podcasts, they can have multiple purposes, and the content can be repurposed and used in various ways.
For instance, if you record a video of your B2B podcast, you can not only have the typical audio version, but you can also have a video of it. This gives you additional, high-ranking content to post on places like social media and sites like YouTube or Vimeo.
Getting a podcast transcribed is easy enough through services like Rev. Podcast transcriptions can be published on your website. Often, podcasters will add the transcript of their podcast as a blog article. Then, you also get the added benefit of searchable content (read: helps with your SEO rankings) for your audio podcast. Or perhaps you gate your written podcast content into a downloadable form and use it as a lead capture.
You have many ways you can repurpose your podcast and remarket it to how your viewers want to tune in. With B2B marketing, drawing your customer to you through various marketing methodologies is critical to attaining leads and landing clients. Podcasts give you an additional form of content to reach out to your potential customers in a non-salesy way, turn them into a prospect, and eventually a customer.
4. Reaching Your Customer When It’s Convenient for Them
Podcasts are unique because they are highly portable. If you have a smartphone, you can easily listen to podcasts. All users have to do is download an app, find a podcast that interests them, and press play. Typically, podcasts are free unless you have to have a subscription to one of the podcast services to listen to them.
For marketers, the accessibility of podcasts is a massive win in distributing your content. Since podcast platforms are searchable, streaming services typically break podcasts up by genre or topic, so listeners can potentially stumble upon your podcast without prior knowledge of it.
When they are ready to listen, they can quickly press play from home, while driving, at work, or on the go. Podcasts work around a listener’s lifestyle and usually allow you to multi-task while listening. You could be doing the dishes, picking your kids up from school, or going for a jog, all while catching up on their weekly podcasts.
Due to the nature of how podcasts work, they are less intrusive than many other forms of media and easier to absorb – making podcasts an ideal way to share content while holding a listener’s attention.
5. Advertising - But Better
To most people, ads are darn annoying. While podcasts don’t lack in ads, typically having them pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll, a key difference to traditional advertising is that podcast ads generally are host-read. Meaning, they come to the audience already having a bigger buy-in because users often trust the host. The ad comes off more natural and more credible, all while remaining an ad.
Advertising on podcasts is, of course, the primary way in which podcasts make money. With podcasts, the ad placements often come in the form of sponsorship. The company will sponsor your podcast (help to pay for it) in exchange for you advertising their products and services.
So not only can you use your podcast to increase your thought leadership and brand awareness, but you can also potentially make money off of your podcast in and of itself.
Does all of this podcast notoriety come easily? To be blunt, no. Producing a podcast doesn’t have a magic recipe that creates amazing results. Like anything else in marketing, you need to hone in on your goals and your intended audience and produce high-quality content that will attract listeners and keep them tuned in. However, putting the effort in can definitely pay off to increase your B2B clients.
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