The Ever-Growing Importance of Podcasting in Digital Marketing » Growth Gurus Digital Marketing Agency

1. It helps you reach the right audience

Podcasts are a phenomenal tool for dialling in on precisely the right audience.

Only the people interested in what you’re talking about will tune in. Everybody else will skip over your podcast and keep looking.

This means you won’t waste your time marketing to people that are never, ever going to become your customers.

And as an added benefit, all of your podcast’s analytics will be extremely valuable because they won’t be tainted by people that shouldn’t have heard your messages, to begin with.

You’ll have the perfect test platform for new ideas, products, and services.

Targeting isn’t as easy as on Facebook Ads.

You won’t be able to pick an audience from a dropdown menu and let the platform do its magic.

It’s hard work, but it pays off.

Zendium, a natural toothpaste company, is living proof thanks to its ultra-short podcast, 2 Minutes of Zen.

By giving out simple wellness hacks you can do while brushing your teeth, they successfully:

1. Give existing customers something fun to do while doing a mindless task
2. Target people interested in well-being, and get them thinking about oral health

All while subtly promoting their product and increasing the odds listeners will pick out a Zendium toothpaste the next time they’re in Boots (or whatever local pharmacy they’re in).

2. It builds your reputation in your niche

A podcast is one of the best ways known to marketing-kind to build, sustain, and influence your reputation in a particular niche.

Because podcasts give you the chance to show off your expertise to a specific group of people that are extremely interested in what you have to say.

Give it enough time (and episodes), and they’ll consider you as their “go-to person” whenever they want to learn about something new in your field.

Or maybe they’ll even start to rethink entrenched beliefs about your company.

Let’s explain with an example.

Microsoft, no introductions needed, was looking for a way to change how influential people in the tech industry perceived their company and products.

After years of complacency and dominance, they had fallen behind their rivals and were seen as a relic from the past.

Among other marketing strategies, they turned to podcasts and created, .future, a discussion on how to engage with the technologies expected to define the next 10-20 years.

Clever brand association or what?

3. It humanises your company

Podcasts help you connect with your audience on a far deeper level than written text can.

People love to listen to voices. They can hear all the emotions, the humour, and the subtle nuances that are lost in translation when we put pen to paper.

And it makes sense; mass literacy was only achieved in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, while humans have been chatting and debating since the dawn of our species.

Storytelling, in particular, is built into our DNA as one of the most powerful ways to transfer and retain information and knowledge.

Podcasts leverage this instinct by using the spoken word, loads of stories, and, most importantly, conversations between people.

This explains the success of podcasts, where the hosts have incredible synergy and sound like a couple of old friends who have been chatting on and off since they were 12.

Need an example of just how big this personal touch can be?

4. It complements your written content and boosts your SEO efforts

Your podcasts shouldn’t live in a bubble.

In particular, podcasts work wonders when they’re combined with three specific tools:

1. SEO
2. Written content, like blog posts and downloadable resources
3. Social media campaigns

SEO principles — like ensuring each podcast has its own website, a transcript, and keyword-rich copy — help your podcast episode rank on Google SERPs (something that’s been possible since 2019).

Written content and social media campaigns give you a chance to repurpose a single idea into various formats, lengths, and tones to reach and engage with a much wider number of people than you could with any on their own.

Here’s how we do it at Growth Gurus for maximum marketing effectiveness:

1. A podcast episode with its own SEO-optimised web page and transcript

2. A blog post (that’s not a copy and paste job) on the same topic

3. A couple of engaging social media posts (that don’t always expect the visitors to leave the current platform, Instagram in this example)

So go for it, take a page out of our book and build a multichannel strategy to support your business goals, the real reason why you started a podcast in the first place!

5. It keeps people engaged with your brand

Last but not least, a podcast is most definitely not a one-off exchange.

It’s nothing like an advert, a random social media post, or a blog post you find when you’re googling “how to fix my leaky radiator.”

Podcasts help you build long-term relationships with your listeners and take them on the journey from total strangers to prospects to customers to promoters to die-hard fans.

Think of your podcasts as “regular conversations” with your audience, which is why consistent publishing always shows up as one of the top tips in that’s worth more than the server it’s hosted on.

You should aim to become a mainstay in your listeners’ routines, i.e., condition them to know that they can open up your podcast every time they clean up the house on a Saturday morning.

1. Everyone Hates Marketers by Louis Grenier

This is a digital marketers podcast with a heavy dose of attitude that’s targeting marketing professionals that are sick and tired of being seen like this in wider society:

It takes a no-bullsh*t approach to marketing and gives no-fluff, actionable insights to help you stand out from the crowd without resorting to being sleazy.

And it’s incredibly successful because it resonates with its target audience.

• Pulling together a star-studded lineup (don’t expect David Beckham, star-studded in the context of marketing)
• Publishing consistently

2. and 3. The Distance and The REWORK by Basecamp

Basecamp, the online collaboration app, has created two podcasts that deserve mentioning (and a quick listen):

The Distance is an inspirational podcast that tells the stories of entrepreneurs that have been running their businesses for 25 years or more.

But what does that have to do with Basecamp and its product?

These stories embody the company’s values — efficiency, organisation, and resiliency — and inspire the listeners to take action and turn their dreams into reality.

Something that, in the 21st century, more than likely means the use of online project management and collaboration tools, like Basecamp. 😉

After finishing off this inspirational podcast, Basecamp took all the listeners it amassed on another, far more concrete journey with The REWORK.

This time they decided to focus on better ways to work and run your business, challenging prevailing narratives around working 24/7, scaling fast, and raising outside funds.

The change in strategy has also allowed them to slip in the odd discussion about their product and how it helps entrepreneurs, remote teams, and businesses around the globe without affecting the quality of their show. Smart stuff.

4. Make Things, Make Sense! by Growth Gurus

In third place, we have another digital marketers podcast.

But don’t take this the wrong way; we’re not here to brag or blow our own horn, far from it.

We’re not experts in podcasting by a long shot…

We’re experts in digital marketing and branding who are having fun with a podcast that’s the newest (and brightest) addition to our marketing toolkit.

So why are we including our baby podcast amongst the giants?

To prove you can get started with podcasting in 2022 and still be successful.

It’s not too late, and you still have time to make waves in your niche.

And this leads us perfectly (we dare say) to our final section:

• that range from €50 to €1000
• €15 to €50 a month on hosting
• Around 2-3 weeks to set everything up and start recording

So what’s stopping everyone and their dog from having a podcast?

You have to be ready to commit to producing high-quality content regularly (at least once a month). If not, you might as well stop here and focus your efforts on other channels.

Then here’s the super-abridged version on how to get started:

Things we learned the hard way when creating our online marketing podcast

Make no mistake, you’re going to make mistakes wh

Is that sentence a mistake?

Probably. But see how we didn’t edit it out?

Mistakes are part of the learning process, and since we’re all still learning, it’s perfectly acceptable to slip up now and then.

But the good news is you don’t have to make the same exact mistakes we did, so pay attention and avoid these avoidable mistakes:

1. Don’t wait too long before jumping in

You don’t need to be perfect; just commit to creating and publishing valuable content (and aligning your podcast to your overall marketing strategy), and you’re good to go.

2. Repurpose content across different channels

Make the most of your precious, limited workday by thinking about innovative ways to reuse the same content across a variety of marketing channels — and don’t let lack of time and resources stop you from podcasting like it were the only thing on your to-do list!

3. Hit the record button; we kid you not!

You won’t even believe how frustrating it is to “record” the best-ever 20+ minute podcast, only to realise you forgot to click record before starting.