Enterprise podcasting differs from leisure podcasting in virtually each dimension. (The trace is within the adjective.)
So don’t look to podcasts from Trevor Noah, Glennon Doyle, Joe Rogan, and even The New York Instances for hints on succeed. You don’t need to be like these individuals.
You’re taking the enterprise podcasting onramp to a special freeway.
I’ve gathered insights from serving to many corporations launch and succeed with enterprise podcasts I shared at Content material Advertising and marketing World 2023. I’m blissful to share them with you.
1. Perceive the attributes of enterprise podcasting
A enterprise podcast differs from an leisure podcast in goal, format, tone, and target market. Right here’s how:
- Objective: A model’s podcast’s goal isn’t to entertain or instantly monetize it. It exists to construct model consciousness and authority, show thought management, improve content material output, and improve demand and (doubtlessly) leads.
- Format: Leisure podcasts can get away with an absence of construction; enterprise podcasts can’t. Create a construction and partially script episodes. Simply don’t go too far. Use a bulleted define of concepts moderately than studying a word-for-word script.
- Tone: Leisure podcasts typically use a much less formal tone and broad humor and pop-culture references. Your online business podcast tone ought to be skilled and in step with your established model tips. You should use some jargon in case your viewers makes use of that language, too.
- Viewers: Your viewers isn’t a mass-market viewers who enjoys podcasts, typically revolving round a social demographic. Your target market is potential prospects, trade friends, or workers (for inner podcasts).
Your online business podcast gained’t entice the big viewers some leisure podcasts get. However it could actually enable you:
- Overcome content material and useful resource challenges
- Construct relationships with trade leaders, leaders at shopper organizations, and potential prospects
- Co-create content material with the faces and voices of trade leaders.
2. Evaluation the manufacturing course of earlier than you hit ‘file’
Many groups leap into podcasting for his or her model and find yourself saying, “Wow. This takes a bit greater than I assumed it could.” Right here’s what a enterprise podcast requires:
Manufacturing crew
Sure, you want a bunch and an editor, however you additionally want:
- A author to organize the semi-scripted episodes
- An outreach supervisor to strategy and schedule potential company
- Somebody to repurpose the content material throughout a number of media varieties
- An government producer to be the quarterback of selections on subjects, schedule, and so forth.
Your manufacturing crew members would possibly put on a number of hats, however every process should be coated.
Pre-production course of
Within the pre-production stage, the crew decides on technique, scheduling, and tools. Reply these questions:
Technique selections
- Why are you creating this podcast?
- What are your targets?
- What’s the format of every episode?
- What are the podcast’s targets?
- How will you measure them?
Scheduling selections
- Will you file batches of episodes?
- How will you make sure that your company are on schedule?
- What occurs if a visitor should reschedule? (This occurs typically when scheduling executives as a result of — shock — your recording isn’t crucial factor of their day.)
Tools selections
- Microphones
- Headphones
- Lighting
- Location
- Software program
- Distant platform (Riverside.fm, Descript, Zencastr, and so forth.)
Manufacturing course of
Podcast listeners could tire of listening and go away the episode for one more podcast or to do one thing else. They could not know why they stopped listening. It may very well be the manufacturing high quality.
Consider it this fashion. You don’t get to depart once you’re on a Zoom work name. You should hearken to that individual with the loud air conditioner and the dangerous microphone. However podcast listeners have a alternative. Psychological analysis finds when an individual’s voice is obvious and soothing, the viewers will hear longer.
Ensure that to account for these manufacturing points:
- Teaching for each host and company. An skilled producer will help the host and company study to current on-camera look and speak into the microphone with out slicing out and in.
- Actual-time high quality checks. A producer ought to observe when one thing sudden occurs. For instance: “At 5:05, somebody had a coughing match — you should definitely take that out.”
- Modifying. After the recording is full, an editor should optimize it for audio, take away undesirable sounds, prepare segments in the appropriate order, add components, similar to music, and grasp and equalize the ultimate recording.
Postproduction course of
After the file is prepared, the postproduction actions kick in — publishing, repurposing, and selling the podcast.
Publishing
Repurposing
- Create clips to repurpose as audio and video grams.
- Create social copy for the clips.
- Flip episodes into articles.
- Function episodes in your e-newsletter.
Promotion
- Assist your company promote their episode.
- Ship emails.
- Add it to the web site journey.
- Repurpose the podcast.
- Publicize it on social media.
Given the significance of promotion, I’ll go into element about get probably the most out of every.
Assist your visitor promote their episode: The screenshot under exhibits an instance of what I ship within the “visitor content material pack” to individuals who seem on my podcast, The Enterprise of Advertising and marketing.
The e-mail thanks Seth, notifies him the episode is reside, and offers hyperlinks to the episode web page on the Content material Monsta web site, a shared folder containing video snippets, graphics, photographs, and a hyperlink to the video on YouTube.
On this case, we didn’t write the social copy (as a result of nobody can write for Seth Godin). However Seth wrote about his look and linked to it on his weblog. You possibly can think about the hyperlink juice from a web site like Seth’s weblog — all as a result of we included all of the content material to make it straightforward for him to do.
Promote the episode to your electronic mail subscribers: We ship a quick electronic mail to our viewers each episode. It typically reads, “On this episode of The Enterprise of Advertising and marketing podcast, we talked about these three useful issues” and highlights them. So, we give some worth within the electronic mail and embrace a name to motion to hearken to the podcast or learn the abstract. We additionally at all times embrace a picture.
Right here’s the e-mail for the Seth Godin episode:
It says:
Hey Alex!
I’m so excited to share this with you. Every time I interview somebody who’s extraordinarily well-known, my objective is to ask them questions that I genuinely need their tackle.
That isn’t at all times straightforward after they get interviewed day-after-day.
I determine, if I’m curious and I need the reply, perhaps you need the reply too.
And by some means, miraculously, I often get the respect of listening to, “Wow, I’m by no means requested that!”
That is a type of circumstances.
To start out Season 3 of The Enterprise of Advertising and marketing Podcast with a bang, I chat with advertising knowledgeable, trainer, blogger, and Founding father of the Carbon Almanac, Seth Godin!
Seth is an entrepreneur, best-selling writer, and speaker. Along with launching one of the vital standard blogs on the earth, he has written 20 best-selling books.
When you’re on this electronic mail listing, odds are you already know who Seth is. If not, simply Google “Seth” and he’ll seemingly be the primary outcome.
Here’s a video of our dialog the place we talk about confidence, creativity, and focus.
Don’t overlook to take a look at previous episodes of our podcast with advertising gurus from across the globe, and keep tuned for the superb lineup we now have this season of the present.
Yours in Content material,
Lee
TIP: Use your name to motion to drive site visitors to your web site, to not Apple or Spotify.
Incorporate your podcast into the web site journey: You’re not in radio. You’re not in podcasting. You’re making an attempt to drive enterprise. That makes the web site journey crucial promotional tactic.
I drew this idea one afternoon so I wouldn’t lose the thought. These doodles have been in my displays ever since. First, level all of your exterior property to your web site.
As this doodle exhibits, every social media submit, electronic mail, and even hyperlinks inside the podcast on Apple or Spotify level again to an internet web page for that episode that features the podcast participant and a transcript or an article about it.
Ensure that your web site hosts a “pod roll” web page with a listing of your podcast episodes — much like a weblog web page with a listing of articles. Put the label and hyperlink on the high menu of your web site (below Sources, for instance).
Web site guests can binge-listen to the podcast with out going to Spotify or Apple.
Now, right here’s the key sauce. Put a kind on that web page. We get subscribers and leads from The Enterprise of Advertising and marketing podcast as a result of we embrace a kind on each podcast episode web page.
Right here’s the web page for the episode that includes Seth Godin. The subscription kind sits on the appropriate subsequent to the hero picture and podcast participant.
Web site guests will hear or learn concerning the episode and say, “You already know what? I need to know extra about this data.” Or “I need to hear extra from this firm.” They fill out the shape.
At Content material Monsta, we get extra leads or kind fills from some podcast episode pages than from a few of our weblog articles.
Repurpose your podcast: Take into consideration how a lot content material you possibly can create past the podcast. Choices embrace:
- Video highlights (two to 5 minutes) for YouTube, Fb, and LinkedIn
- Micro-videos (60 seconds) for YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, LinkedIn, TikTok, and so forth.
- Micro-audio as audiogram waveforms or audiogram textual content animations.
You too can use this abbreviated content material in your emails, in your web site, and in social posts.
Schedule your repurposed property over time. We promote an episode on launch day, then every week, a month, three months, eight months, and a yr later. Even when we don’t produce new episodes, the content material advertising machine retains shifting and pointing again to the web site.
This chart exhibits our repurposing workflow. It begins with a produced episode and graphics.
The primary section entails distribution — RSS feeds by way of Apple, Spotify, and so forth., audio embeds on the web site touchdown web page and company’ web sites, and publishing within the e-newsletter. The second section consists of creating the audio clips and social copy. Within the third section, the visitor content material pack, which incorporates content material for a number of social posts and e-newsletter mentions, is shipped.
The fourth and last section entails figuring out content material in your web site the place it is sensible to spotlight the podcast episode. When you’ve printed an in-depth article on a subject addressed within the episode, you possibly can embed the audio or video file on that very same web page.
How far more are you able to derive via the podcast to serve the viewers alongside their journey? Contemplate these choices:
- Develop e-newsletter editions about podcast subjects to teach potential prospects.
- Reply vital questions on your model’s choices in podcast conversations.
- Host prospects as company, and you’ve got immediate testimonials.
With this enterprise podcasting technique, once you speak to your CMO and CFO about getting a price range, you’re not asking them to pay for a podcast. You’re asking them to help a content-making machine for the model.
Metrics and extra enterprise podcasting pitfalls to keep away from
You already know somebody will ask what number of downloads or listeners the podcast attracts.
Strive your greatest to disregard these metrics. It’s OK if individuals devour the promotional content material with out ever listening to the podcast. Listenership isn’t your objective — enterprise is. Don’t measure listenership as your finish objective. Your podcast is a supply, not the top product.
As a substitute, deal with metrics that matter to the enterprise:
- Model consciousness
- Authority
- Web site engagement
- Elevated content material output
- Influenced pipeline
One strategy to assess the podcast’s influence is to incorporate UTM monitoring on each hyperlink to the podcast. Then, you possibly can attribute all of the associated hyperlinks and site visitors that come to your podcast. For instance, a hyperlink shared in a LinkedIn submit will get attributed to the podcast, not LinkedIn, as a result of with out the podcast, the submit wouldn’t have been printed.
Among the many different potential pitfalls and fixes:
- Considering one individual can do all of it: I laid out the 5 important podcast roles however acknowledge chances are you’ll want multiple individual in every function.
- Including video with out contemplating high quality: Please don’t file your Zoom calls and say you’ve got a video podcast. When you’re not able to decide to high quality video, simply do audio podcast.
- Believing microphone is sweet sufficient: You have to work with somebody who understands audio effectively sufficient to combine it so it doesn’t ship listeners away.
- Internet hosting the podcast in a silo: Ensure that to incorporate the podcast within the advertising combine.
Path to podcast success
When you take one factor from this text, let it’s this. Making a podcast isn’t your objective. Getting listeners or podcast subscribers on rented platforms isn’t your objective.
Getting the appropriate individuals to your web site the place you possibly can feed them the appropriate data to cause them to motion is your objective. A enterprise podcast and its many content material byproducts could make that occur.
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Cowl picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content material Advertising and marketing Institute
