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 the way to 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 comfortable to share them with you.
1. Perceive the attributes of enterprise podcasting
A enterprise podcast differs from an leisure podcast in function, format, tone, and audience. Right here’s how:
- Goal: A model’s podcast’s function isn’t to entertain or straight monetize it. It exists to construct model consciousness and authority, exhibit thought management, enhance content material output, and enhance 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. What you are promoting podcast tone ought to be skilled and in step with your established model pointers. You should utilize some jargon in case your viewers makes use of that language, too.
- Viewers: Your viewers just isn’t a mass-market viewers who enjoys podcasts, typically revolving round a social demographic. Your audience is potential clients, business friends, or staff (for inner podcasts).
What you are promoting podcast received’t entice the big viewers some leisure podcasts get. However it might enable you to:
- Overcome content material and useful resource challenges
- Construct relationships with business leaders, leaders at shopper organizations, and potential clients
- Co-create content material with the faces and voices of business leaders.
2. Evaluate the manufacturing course of earlier than you hit ‘document’
Many groups bounce into podcasting for his or her model and find yourself saying, “Wow. This takes a bit greater than I assumed it will.” Right here’s what a enterprise podcast requires:
Manufacturing workforce
Sure, you want a number and an editor, however you additionally want:
- A author to arrange the semi-scripted episodes
- An outreach supervisor to method and schedule potential company
- Somebody to repurpose the content material throughout a number of media varieties
- An govt producer to be the quarterback of choices on subjects, schedule, and many others.
Your manufacturing workforce members may put on a number of hats, however every activity have to be lined.
Pre-production course of
Within the pre-production stage, the workforce decides on technique, scheduling, and tools. Reply these questions:
Technique choices
- Why are you creating this podcast?
- What are your aims?
- What’s the format of every episode?
- What are the podcast’s targets?
- How will you measure them?
Scheduling choices
- Will you document batches of episodes?
- How will you be certain 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 an important factor of their day.)
Gear choices
- Microphones
- Headphones
- Lighting
- Location
- Software program
- Distant platform (Riverside.fm, Descript, Zencastr, and many others.)
Manufacturing course of
Podcast listeners might tire of listening and depart the episode for an additional podcast or to do one thing else. They might not know why they stopped listening. It could possibly be the manufacturing high quality.
Consider it this manner. You don’t get to go away if you’re on a Zoom work name. You need to hearken to that individual with the loud air conditioner and the dangerous microphone. However podcast listeners have a selection. Psychological analysis finds when an individual’s voice is evident and soothing, the viewers will pay attention longer.
Be certain that to account for these manufacturing points:
- Teaching for each host and company. An skilled producer may also help the host and company be taught to current on-camera look and discuss into the microphone with out slicing out and in.
- Actual-time high quality checks. A producer ought to notice when one thing sudden occurs. For instance: “At 5:05, somebody had a coughing match — you’ll want to take that out.”
- Modifying. After the recording is full, an editor should optimize it for audio, take away undesirable sounds, organize segments in the precise order, add parts, akin 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.
- Characteristic 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 the way to get probably the most out of every.
Assist your visitor promote their episode: The screenshot under reveals 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 stay, and supplies hyperlinks to the episode web page on the Content material Monsta web site, a shared folder containing video snippets, graphics, pictures, 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’ll be able to 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 e mail subscribers: We ship a quick e 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 priceless issues” and highlights them. So, we give some worth within the e mail and embody a name to motion to hearken to the podcast or learn the abstract. We additionally at all times embody 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 aim is to ask them questions that I genuinely need their tackle.
That isn’t at all times straightforward once they get interviewed each day.
I determine, if I’m curious and I would like the reply, perhaps you need the reply too.
And in some way, miraculously, I commonly get the distinction 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 and marketing professional, trainer, blogger, and Founding father of the Carbon Almanac, Seth Godin!
Seth is an entrepreneur, best-selling creator, and speaker. Along with launching one of the well-liked blogs on the earth, he has written 20 best-selling books.
When you’re on this e mail checklist, odds are you already know who Seth is. If not, simply Google “Seth” and he’ll possible be the primary consequence.
Here’s a video of our dialog the place we focus on confidence, creativity, and focus.
Don’t overlook to take a look at previous episodes of our podcast with advertising and marketing gurus from across the globe, and keep tuned for the superb lineup we’ve got 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 attempting to drive enterprise. That makes the web site journey an important 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 reveals, every social media put up, e mail, and even hyperlinks throughout 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.
Be certain that your web site hosts a “pod roll” web page with a listing of your podcast episodes — just like a weblog web page with a listing of articles. Put the label and hyperlink on the prime 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 embody 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 precise subsequent to the hero picture and podcast participant.
Web site guests will pay attention or learn in regards to the episode and say, “ 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 may create past the podcast. Choices embody:
- Video highlights (two to 5 minutes) for YouTube, Fb, and LinkedIn
- Micro-videos (60 seconds) for YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, LinkedIn, TikTok, and many others.
- Micro-audio as audiogram waveforms or audiogram textual content animations.
It’s also possible to 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 per week, a month, three months, eight months, and a 12 months later. Even when we don’t produce new episodes, the content material advertising and marketing machine retains shifting and pointing again to the web site.
This chart reveals our repurposing workflow. It begins with a produced episode and graphics.
The primary part includes distribution — RSS feeds by way of Apple, Spotify, and many others., audio embeds on the web site touchdown web page and company’ web sites, and publishing within the e-newsletter. The second part contains creating the audio clips and social copy. Within the third part, the visitor content material pack, which incorporates content material for a number of social posts and e-newsletter mentions, is shipped.
The fourth and remaining part includes figuring out content material in your web site the place it is smart to focus on the podcast episode. When you’ve printed an in-depth article on a subject addressed within the episode, you would embed the audio or video file on that very same web page.
How rather more are you able to derive by the podcast to serve the viewers alongside their journey? Take into account these choices:
- Develop e-newsletter editions about podcast subjects to coach potential clients.
- Reply vital questions on your model’s choices in podcast conversations.
- Host clients as company, and you’ve got instantaneous testimonials.
With this enterprise podcasting technique, if you discuss to your CMO and CFO about getting a finances, you’re not asking them to pay for a podcast. You’re asking them to assist a content-making machine for the model.
Metrics and extra enterprise podcasting pitfalls to keep away from
somebody will ask what number of downloads or listeners the podcast attracts.
Strive your finest 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 aim — enterprise is. Don’t measure listenership as your finish aim. Your podcast is a supply, not the top product.
As an alternative, give attention to metrics that matter to the enterprise:
- Model consciousness
- Authority
- Web site engagement
- Elevated content material output
- Influenced pipeline
One technique to assess the podcast’s influence is to incorporate UTM monitoring on each hyperlink to the podcast. Then, you may attribute all of the associated hyperlinks and site visitors that come to your podcast. For instance, a hyperlink shared in a LinkedIn put up will get attributed to the podcast, not LinkedIn, as a result of with out the podcast, the put up 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 a couple of individual in every function.
- Including video with out contemplating high quality: Please don’t document your Zoom calls and say you will have a video podcast. When you’re not able to decide to high quality video, simply do audio podcast.
- Believing microphone is nice 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: Be certain that to incorporate the podcast within the advertising and marketing combine.
Path to podcast success
When you take one factor from this text, let or not it’s this. Making a podcast isn’t your aim. Getting listeners or podcast subscribers on rented platforms isn’t your aim.
Getting the precise individuals to your web site the place you may feed them the precise data to make them motion is your aim. 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
