How to Win Customers with a Branded Podcast
We get this question a lot: “What’s the value of a podcast?” Or, more specifically, “How will investing in developing a corporate podcast help me win customers and grow my brand?
Here’s the short answer:
Podcasts help grow your brand by expanding your reach, attracting and engaging audiences, building trust, establishing loyalty, and driving revenue. How? By enabling you to 1) create content authentically and efficiently and 2) drive demand and leads.
And here’s the long answer:
The world of work is fundamentally changing. Consumers, employees, and other key stakeholders are looking for more from companies than products and profit. They want to know what companies stand for, what their missions are, and how they are contributing to society. According to a 2020 “Strength of Purpose” study by the global integrated communications agency Zeno Group, 8,000 individuals across the U.S, U.K, Canada, France, China, India, Singapore, and Malaysia responded that when a company clearly communicates its purpose, then they are:
- 4x more likely to purchase from the company
- 6x more likely to protect the company in the event of a misstep or public criticism
- 4.5x more likely to champion the company and recommend it to friends and family
- 4.1x more likely to trust the company
Purpose matters. But while defining your company’s purpose on your website or in your marketing materials is one thing, truly living your purpose is another.
That’s where podcasts come in. A corporate podcast helps you humanize your brand and communicate your mission. It is a platform where internal and external voices associated with your company can consistently deliver authentic messages about your mission in a way that is accessible to your target audience. Whether your purpose is thought leadership (contributing knowledge to your field), social responsibility (pursuing philanthropic initiatives), innovation (finding ways to provide new and better tools to those who need them), or anything in-between, a corporate podcast is a space to have genuine conversations about the things that matter to your brand and your stakeholders.
And that can translate into measurable outcomes for your bottom line. Here are some examples of ways your purpose and mission-driven podcast can generate value:
- Brand Awareness and Web Traffic
Podcasts are often discovered within podcast-hosting apps and directories, like Apple podcasts, Spotify, and Overcast. In one study, 40% of podcast listeners said they find new shows to listen to by searching in their podcast listening app’s directory. Today, nearly 112 million people listen to podcasts monthly. By producing a podcast, you are tapping into those communities, placing your brand (and your mission) in front of people who may never have come across it otherwise. When you clearly share your brand’s name and website on your corporate podcast and in the notes on the directory listing, then you can send those new audiences directly to your conversion-optimized website (where you can then track their activity and push them through your conversion funnel). Tip: be sure to add custom URLs and track podcast-generated traffic on your website to measure your unique ROI.
2. Brand Trust and Emotional Engagement
Humanizing your brand with a podcast also creates pathways for trust-building and emotional resonance. A recent study from Movista found the customers who feel an emotional connection with a brand have a 306% higher lifetime value. They’re also 26% more likely to recommend that brand. A great way to build an emotional connection with your audience is through storytelling — which is one of the most common narrative formats of podcasts (versus, say, reading a list of facts). Listening to stories triggers the motor, sensory, and frontal cortices, and releases chemicals like cortisol, dopamine and oxytocin, according to Harvard researchers. These things accelerate message retention and induce feelings that will inevitably be associated with your brand. When you tap into your listener’s emotions, you are tapping into their subconscious; and as many marketers know, 95% of buying decisions occur in the emotional subconscious, rather than the logical brain. Think of it this way: Podcasts → storytelling → trust and emotional engagement → brand preference.
3. Lead-Generating Thought leadership
This one can be explained in a few simple statistics. Specifically in B2B environments, thought leadership encompasses all of the ways brands demonstrate their cutting-edge intellectual advancements in a particular area, and podcasts are a fantastic way to share your company’s proprietary insights as you continue to champion your mission. According to a study by Edelman and LinkedIn Research, 58% of decision-makers say they choose a business off of their thought leadership output, and 61% are willing to pay more for a product or service based on thought leadership.
4. Effective Cross-Promotion
You can also use your podcast to cross-promote your brand’s promotions, product or service launches. Having a captive, invested audience means that when you tell them about a new release, event, new product line, etc. — even if it falls outside of your typical podcast programming/content — then they’re more likely to check it out. Use this sparingly, as no one wants to listen to a podcast that is all advertisements, but also use it as an opportunity to get creative about the promotion (e.g. have a thoughtful discussion about how a problem your industry is facing, and mention your new product/service as a potential antidote to that problem).
5. Proof of Product/Service
Another use of podcasts is for case studies and customer testimonials, in which case your show can be an indirect, non-disruptive advertising platform. You can use your podcast to stimulate interest in a product or service for the purpose of developing a sales pipeline. This goes back to the intent to drive demand and leads. Your podcast content can deliver proof that your product/service has real value based on 1.) what your customers are saying (in the case of an audio testimonial), or 2.) through internal company leaders sharing perspectives, insights, and tips that demonstrate they understand the problems customers are facing and are looking to support them and help solve the problem (without selling directly). Another great way to do this is by inviting guests to your show from within your target audience, providing guidance to address their challenges during the interview, and eventually converting them into paid customers over time.
In addition to these benefits, advertising on podcasts can also be a valuable component of your marketing campaigns — where relevant. The authentic, thoughtful, story-driven and human-centric nature of the podcasting industry is why podcast ads are also so effective. Host-read ads in particular increase brand familiarity (+4%), affinity (+5%), information-seeking intent (+8%), purchase intent (+6%) and recommendation intent (+6%), according to Nielson. They are more than 50% more effective in these areas than non-host-read ads on average. This is simply because consumers trust podcast hosts and therefore are more likely to trust the products they are promoting.
So, what’s the value of a podcast? It’s abundantly clear. (And if for some reason you need even more convincing, here’s a great report from the BBC on the “unique effectiveness of branded podcasts.”) As more and more consumers start to adopt the technology and increase their listening libraries, mission-driven brands should take advantage of this opportunity to engage new and existing audiences, share their stories, and grow their brands.
Originally published at https://www.flywheelassociates.com/ on April 30, 2021.
