Podcasts for companies – On the pulse of time

More and more brands and companies have recognized the opportunity to use podcasts to strengthen their brand awareness and build trust with their target audience.

Podcasts are very popular – and the trend is rising. Concise, relevant and in-depth information with added value: that’s what resonates with podcast listeners. Around 30 percent of the German population listens to podcasts.

The role of the enterprise podcast in the marketing mix

An own company podcast is probably the most authentic, but at the same time most time-consuming variant to increase the brand awareness as little promotional as possible and to be in the head of the people through target group relevant content when it comes to the own topic.

A well-planned strategy is essential for the success of your own company podcast. In doing so, one must clearly ask oneself the following questions: what role should the podcast play in the marketing mix, what goal should the podcast pursue, and with what content can a specifically defined target group be reached?

For a better understanding, a distinction can be made here between corporate and branded podcasts.

Der Unternehmens-Podcast

With this strategy, it says brand on it and it says brand in it. Employees and managers are interviewed, providing a look behind the scenes. This often involves day-to-day work and internal processes, or customer success stories.

The corporate podcast usually pursues the goal of employer branding and image cultivation.

The communication runs from the inside to the outside.

The target group is potential new employees, to whom you want to show how attractive working for the company is. In the same way, it goes down well with customers if the supplier has happy employees.

However, you won’t really be able to build customer loyalty here.

A good example of a corporate podcast is the Pick me Up podcast from the Lift driving service, in which the drivers tell their personal stories.

The Branded Podcast

In the case of branded podcasts, the situation is somewhat different with regard to brand visibility. The rule of thumb here is that the bigger the brand, the less it can be visible or audible.

The goal here is to position oneself as an expert with topic-specific content around one’s own company’s main focus and to gain the trust of customers. The latter works particularly well when the focus is on added value for the listener. The Audience must recognize directly, which use it can draw from the Podcast and that it above all no advertising broadcast of the enterprise is.

Accordingly, it is important not to advertise your own products in the podcast and also not to tell success stories of customers, because this can be credited to a company quite quickly as advertising, which is often directly reflected in the ratings. Except for a classic “Presented by…” in the description and the logo in miniature format on the cover picture, the own company name should best not occur.

The podcast “Iss so von Edeka” does a good job as a branded podcast, to give an example here as well.

You should also have a plan for the launch, because if you manage to attract the attention of your listeners right from the start, you will have a much more stable basis for successful long-term growth. Therefore, my recommendation is to start with a few more episodes and to activate all employees, customers and partners to bring the podcast out into the world, because this will get the wheel rolling much faster.

Podcast advertising

If you don’t want to spend half a year building up your own podcast reach, you can simply rely on the existing reach of other podcasts in your own niche.  Of course, it is important to know the interests of your own target group in order to select the right podcast.

First and foremost, one should pay attention to the topic content and the personality of the host, whether these fit the brand. For podcast advertising, ads recorded by the host himself work much better than professionally pre-produced commercials, since the trust advantage of the podcast host to the target group, as with an influencer, has an often underestimated power.

In the second step, one should then naturally obtain details on the reach from the selected podcasts. Because podcasts with the RSS feed are not limited to one platform, it is not possible for outsiders, in this case advertisers, to estimate how large the reach actually is. Even the charts can sometimes be misleading.

Understanding KPIs for podcasts

  • In marketing, KPIs are as important as the air we breathe.
  • That’s why you should know and keep an eye on the right KPIs for podcast marketing, depending on your strategy.
  • Basically, you can say that the download numbers per episode after 6 weeks and measured on the basis of the IAB2.0 standard is the most important value for reach measurement.
  • This KPI shows how many people you reach with one episode.

With your own company podcast, the retention rate, i.e. the bounce rate, plays another essential role. Especially at the beginning, it helps to identify the best content and to set the right course.

This key figure can be viewed on Spotify for Podcasters as soon as the podcast is registered there.

With podcast advertising, it’s essential to realize that it’s not performance marketing. Still, there are directional measurement methods, such as tracking URLs or coupon codes.

Conclusion for podcasts for brands

Podcasts can score with deeper information and stronger added value for consumers due to their authentic, personal and emotional characteristics compared to other marketing channels.

If the goals are a strengthening of brand awareness, employer branding or the consolidation of market positioning and the target group as well as the benefit for the listeners can be clearly defined, then podcast marketing is a useful addition to the marketing mix. Those who bring creativity and a little patience with them will be able to strengthen their customer relationships in the long term.

Author: Paula Thurm (XING LINKEDIN) | Podcastmarketing.io

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