In keeping with our 2022 Advertising Tendencies Survey report, 34% of entrepreneurs plan to cease leveraging podcasts or different audio content material in 2022.
It’s doubtless due to the foremost roadblocks that entrepreneurs nonetheless face within the podcast advertising and marketing house. Two podcast consultants weigh in on the largest challenges and techniques to sort out them.
Natural Discoverability
Presently, there are two essential methods to find podcasts: Search via top-ranking podcasts in varied genres or get suggestions primarily based on what you’re already listening to.
This makes it very onerous for lesser-known exhibits to get found organically.
“It is actually onerous for podcasters who’re creating wonderful content material and are nice creators to determine methods to get in entrance of their viewers,” says Alanah Joseph, head of creator partnerships on the HubSpot Podcast group.
At HubSpot, Joseph says our podcast community addresses this by leaning into our cross-promotion technique – this implies putting adverts throughout varied exhibits throughout our community whereas making certain viewers alignment.
“As a substitute of going out and looking for new audiences, we’re leveraging the audiences that we have already got and sharing these audiences in a means that helps enhance discoverability for the podcasts,” she says. “After which, additionally as a result of we’ve got a neighborhood, we are able to leverage that advert stock.”
Nevertheless, not each model can go this route. Companies with entry to a big advert price range go for paid promoting, as that ensures you’ll acquire extra publicity and attain your required viewers.
“Quick-term [discoverability] methods will most frequently be paid media, like selling on a podcast participant or working Fb adverts,” says Principal Podcast Producer at HubSpot Darren Clarke, as a approach to sort out discoverability. “These performs normally give nice outcomes, however will not essentially be ‘sticky.’”
Different techniques embrace cross-posting on a number of channels and rising your social media presence. Many podcasters put up the video model of their content material on YouTube to broaden their attain and get an search engine marketing enhance.
On social media, discovery is way simpler. You possibly can construct a neighborhood there, market your podcast, and direct site visitors to your collection.
“A majority of these natural progress methods take a very long time to register any vital outcomes, however over time, if performed properly, will primarily provide you with rather more management over your distribution,” he says.
Rising a neighborhood is one other key means to assist with discoverability. Issues like attending podcasting occasions and reaching out to fellow podcasters will aid you construct a community of people that can share their audiences with you.
As an illustration, being a visitor on one other podcast whose viewers aligns with yours might be extremely priceless for manufacturers with restricted assets.
“The viewers will get to fulfill you, will get to find out about you, get to grasp your values, [and] why you’ve got a podcast,” Joseph says. “All of these issues are necessary for not solely driving site visitors but in addition constructing retention and loyalty.”
Clarke echoes this sentiment, saying that while you visitor host, having a compelling message and an inviting name to motion is important for it to function a progress lever.
He additional cautions that promotion, advertising and marketing, viewers constructing, and neighborhood improvement are all progress mechanisms that require totally different approaches. As such, they’ll require a unique set of expectations and ROI.
Knowledge Insights
As entrepreneurs, information is our lifeline. It tells us who our viewers is, what they’re responding to, and rather more. Joseph says with podcasts, information insights are restricted.
“With monitoring and reporting, the largest challenge within the podcast trade is as a listener, you aren’t capable of settle for cookies,” she says.
Because of this podcast entrepreneurs are restricted within the info they’re capable of collect on their viewers, significantly monitoring how they’re behaving after listening to an episode.
What you usually get is the next:
- Geolocation
- Listens (distinctive listens, common listening time, and so forth)
- Subscriber depend and tendencies
- Downloads (complete downloads, common downloads, and so forth)
And sometimes, Joseph says, you must compile information from a number of sources which isn’t all the time correct or dependable.
One key piece of information that’s lacking is listener demographics, comparable to gender, age, and training. Consequently, constructing out a powerful social media presence turns into much more necessary in understanding your viewers.
From LinkedIn, as an example, you possibly can uncover an individual’s title, establish the place they’re of their profession, and why they’re tuning into your podcast.
Regardless of these roadblocks, Joseph believes that tech is lastly catching up with the world of podcasting.
“There’s numerous innovation proper now and lots of people are creating cool know-how to help this massive group of creators,” she says. “So, I really feel optimistic that a few of these issues might be solved.”
Range in Voices
Whereas this problem isn’t particular to podcast advertising and marketing, it does have an effect on the trade as a complete.
Joseph mentions that there’s nonetheless numerous work to be performed concerning the range of voices in podcasting.
“To start with [of building the HubSpot Podcast Network], extra so than now, that was the massive problem that I confronted,” she says, “How do I create a community that is reflective of the American workforce?”
That is very true within the enterprise style, the place top-ranking exhibits are usually not led by BIPOC creators. As a community, you need to have an inventory of robust exhibits however you additionally need to make certain it’s balanced in illustration.
“I would like to see extra ladies and extra folks of shade rise to the charts in our style particularly,” she says. “That is one thing that we’re actively making an attempt to work via and have been for some time.”
There’s little doubt that there are nonetheless numerous challenges inside podcast advertising and marketing, as platforms and search engines like google catch as much as this thriving trade. Nevertheless, there are nonetheless many workarounds that manufacturers can leverage to succeed in their goal listeners and develop their subscriber base.
