Enter and explore it before it's too late!
It's 2021 and the world we live in today, is a largely virtual one. With the ever-evolving nature of the digital marketing industry, it is of importance to understand that we are now in the phase where audiences are circling back to demanding honesty and personalization in their interactions with brands, a sense of reality in the reel world, ironically.
A strong and effective content strategy stands at the forefront of digitalization in brands. Gone are the days of hostile sales-driven methods of advertising. Today's informed consumer wants you to spend time on them, on their needs and preferences, and on customizing the experience as per their liking. To achieve this perfect balance of advertising, sales, and intimate interaction, one of the most powerful tools at the disposal of businesses, large-scale and especially small-scale, are podcasts.
Podcasting as a medium began to catch hold in September of 2004 and hit popularity on a steep curve pretty much instantly. Previously known as 'audio blogging', the term is quite self-explanatory to help one understand how the medium works, as an audio-only broadcast.
Although it has continually grown in popularity, podcasts continue to have tremendous potential for further growth in terms of numbers and competition. Which is one of the major reasons you should explore starting your own podcast as soon as you possibly can!
Apart from the numerous benefits listed below, of having a podcast for yourself or your brand, one of the most relevant ones is that the podcast space is way less crowded than any other content platform existent amidst us today. As of January 2020, there are 850,000 active podcasts and more than 30 million podcast episodes. As big as this number sounds, it is a far less competitive number than YouTube which has 2.3 billion users worldwide with 79 percent of Internet users having their own YouTube account! And all this when the first video ever uploaded on YouTube was actually in 2005, after podcasts came into the picture officially. This neatly explains why audio made a comeback even though video obviously has its own benefits in marketing. Let us now understand why exactly podcasts even work as a content strategy -
1. Engaging storytelling equals an engaged audience
Everyone loves a good story, it's what makes us human after all. Podcasts are a beautiful long-form tool for the ones scared to be on camera as well as the ones who don't have too much free time on their hands but love a good story!
Once you've got a user utilizing their time by multi-tasking, whilst listening to your voice, you've got them hooked. This is your loyal audience member now and a consumer of what you may suggest/sell them in the future.
2. Low investment, quick turnaround
Unlike other forms of content such as video or infographics which can be rather exhausting and time-consuming with editing and costly equipment involved, podcasts shatter the glass on the concept of money making money. You can basically start from scratch with minimal investment and still yield large profits. Not to be mistaken, this form of content requires time, effort, planning, and most of all consistency. But when the result is so glorious, you don't find it hard to be self-motivated.
Bonus tip: if you are a small business or individual looking to start your own podcast, what you need to create is a short intro segment to introduce your voice to the listeners and then a story. Spend some time on this and research what listeners are looking for and join the dots back to what you want to speak about. Record your audio with a good quality mic and re-listen for good quality playback before broadcasting. That's it. It's really that simple.
3. Progressive towards interactions
What more could you want from a form of digital media than to let it really talk and interact with your audiences as personally as you'd like. Podcasts are known for being the most intimate of all digital media platforms. Your listeners are largely educated and make a conscious choice to subscribe to you. That suggests an audience that values its time and yours too. Progressing towards more interactive activities such as interviews and challenges in your podcast is definitely encouraged.
The way podcasts make money for you is quite straightforward. It can be directly through your podcast or indirectly through advertising for other brands on your podcast. You can also indirectly earn through affiliate marketing.
Research shows that a majority of podcast listeners, listen to learn something new and stay updated with all the current trends. When it comes to highly educated multi-tasking listeners, CEOs come to the forefront of this category. They listen to business and leadership podcasts that really have some value-add to them and saves them some thinking time. To them, it is important that the podcast be well-researched and coming from a reliable and well-established source.
Some such podcasts are listed below:
1. EntreLeadership
2. HBR Ideacast by Harvard Business Review
3. The CEO Show by Robert Reiss
4. The Gary Vee Audio Experience
5. Office Hours - Daniel Pink
Podcasts have a whole world residing within them, of stories, experiences, journeys, thoughts, and expert suggestions. Even the most successful of the lot subscribe to this platform of knowledge and entertainment, as do the young busy in their lives and the old at home bored of their daily routine.
If you have thought about starting your own podcast, do it now. And if you haven't, well after reading this, we're sure you want to start one too!