We're sharing data and analyses from our annual research report, ideas from the experts we feature on our podcast and events, and case studies of how businesses are leveraging podcasts to grow.
Are Your Podcast and Business Goals in Conflict?
Published 3 months ago • 8 min read
Podcast and Business Goals Don't Always Mesh
And it's usually because of using the wrong episode format.
There’s nothing quite like talking shop with another business podcast producer.
First you compare tech stacks, and complain about how Google is getting rid of their podcast player, then you maybe gloat a little about a recent client success and pass some tips back and forth, but before long comes the traditional Venting Of The Frustrations.
A recent conversation with a colleague unearthed a common one in the Podcasting for Business Space:
When you talk to a business owner about their future podcast and the first question is: “How Do I Monetize it?”
Friend. Brother. Fellow Business Owner.
Your business is the monetization.
Your podcast is going to be a tool that helps you do it more effectively.
But, all too often, new company shows are started and created with the intent to monetize via sponsors - this usually means an interview style show with the highest-profile guests possible.
And that’s fine when your podcast is the business.
But if your business is your business, your podcast needs to serve IT, not operate separately.
I could go on and on and on about why sponsorship should not be the first and biggest goal of your podcast (although there are absolutely ways to integrate sponsor relationships into a podcast business growth plan!), but that is a topic for another day.
Today is about aligning your podcast’s format with your businesses goals.
Because you know what’s better than having a top 100 show that advertises underwear and accounting software?
Having a podcast that:
Gets you more speaking opportunities (Thought Leadership)
Cuts down your labor costs (Audience Engagement)
Connects you with potential clients and referral partners (Relationship Building)
Speeds up your email list and community growth (Conversion)
Feeds the rest of your content marketing channels without additional effort on your part (Content)
You pick the business goal, then you choose the most appropriate format for it, and optimize the different elements of the show for the specific things that make an impact in your business.
A miss-match between your goals and the format of your show is going to put you at a real disadvantage when it comes to making progress towards your business objectives. It’ll be like trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole. You might be able to make it work eventually, but it’s going to much much harder and less effective than it needs to be.
Here’s another example we see all the time: A Thought Leadership style podcast, and defaulting to an interview-style format.
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard someone say that they podcast for Thought Leadership, but when I listen to their show, it’s just Q and A with guests and few-to-none of their own ideas, I could make a real dent in my mortgage.
It is so common.
But if you’re not getting your own ideas out there, it isn’t thought leadership, and if establishing you and your company as innovative thinkers in the space is your primary podcasting goal, you’re going to be very disappointed if you create a show that focuses solely on the interesting things your guests have to say.
Not every format/goal mismatch is as extreme as mistaking interviews for thought leadership, or sponsorship with business growth - but smaller, less egregious mismatches leave value on the table - often enough to make or break podcasting as a strategy.
So when you’re starting a podcast, or when you’re reviewing the role of a podcast your marketing, the most important consideration is what do you need the podcast to be doing followed by making sure the format you’ve chosen is the one best suited to achieving that goal.
Looking at different podcast formats and what purposes they can serve is the topic of one of our recent The Company Show episodes - check it out right here!
What Does The Data Tell Us?
As we’ve just talked about, every company podcast should have a format aligned with the businesses goals - and we use the Business Podcast Blueprints to group the different types of goals podcasts can fulfill.
This is one of the elements we look at during the State of business podcasting report. Obviously we don’t have insider information about these shows, and weren’t privy to the strategic decisions that went on about them, but we looked at the external factors like format, sponsorship, website placement, CTAs etc. of each show we analyzed to identify which Business Podcast Blueprint they seem to be using.
It's important to remember that this is our opinion from looking at the externally available elements of the show - we could be wrong based on the priorities and plans of the people who created these shows. Understood? Then here's what we found in this year’s research...
(This graphic is from our State of Business Podcasting Report Webinar - you can watch it and see the full report right here. You'll just need to enter your email address to view the page)
Relationship Building podcasts made up a very small percentage of the top 100 - and that makes sense - these shows are mostly created by large organizations who launched a podcast when they already had years of relationship building under their belts - they’ve done that work so they can use the podcast for other goals.
I really think Audience Engagement is the unsung hero of podcasting - an opinion I can now say is backed up by math. ;-) As business owners, we spend so much time trying to get in front of people, and when we do, podcasts are a powerful way to take those new connections to the next level quickly. (This is also the best type of podcast to create if you want to monetize via sponsorship!)
Thought Leadership shows are also popular, and we identified them by a strong host contribution and focus on the IP of the company that created it. Generally, sponsorship is not an indication of a thought leadership style podcast, EXCEPT in the case of a ‘presented by’ show. (There is no reason your podcast can’t be presented by your own company - this gets you a little more wiggle room in your episode format choice! If the whole show is presented by your company, then as the host you can spend more time focusing on your guest because it’s all under the umbrella of your brand - but this is a nuanced strategy that should have very robust goal tracking associated with it!)
Conversion shows are the newest blueprint on our list, and they exist within funnels. There were two major ways we saw this presented in the top 100:
Shows were partially (or fully in the case of archives!) behind email or payment gates.
Shows had a live element that requited an opt-in or payment to access.
Content podcasts are hard to identify - with podcasting comes content, but for the shows we analyzed, the content-focused ones had beautifully prepared, well laid out and SEO optimized show notes. Content isa blueprint most often paired with another, because if you’re doing all that work anyway… might as well invest the time in repurposing it!
Latest on the Company Show
Case Study: Growing a Media Business Through Podcasting with Rayna Rokicki
Our guest on last week’s Case Study episode of The Company show is someone who has perfect alignment between her company’s goals and her podcast format.
Relationship-building is one of the most popular and effective podcast goals for companies. This helps them create and nurture the connections they need for different kinds of business growth, from new leads to educating and serving existing customers, to referral partners, to potential collaboration partners, and dare I say, maybe even new friends too.
Rayna created a great show and strategically uses it to grow her media business, Ladies First Digital Media by connecting with potential clients, refining and experimenting with formats to use within the business, and creating awareness of the many amazing women in her area, herself included.
One of the things I liked most about Rayna’s strategy is that she’s done the math on exactly what amount of financial value she needs to be able to attribute to her podcast in order to justify the costs of production.
Listen to the full episode to learn (and take notes on!) her strategy. We’ve also prepared the content as a blog post if you’re more of a reader. Get both right here.
What's New In Podcasting?
Book Launch: Tell Me My Story
Those in caring professions know how much pressure there is to sacrifice everything for your work, your time, your relationships, even your health - but it doesn’t have to be that way.
I’m delighted to share that OSC friend and client Dimple Dhabalia has published Tell Me My Story: Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self. This book is also “…an invitation to consider how our decision to pursue a human-centered career path, and our susceptibility to experience various occupational mental health traumas (vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, moral injury, etc.) may have been shaped by more than meets the eye.” RootsIntheClouds.com
In the lead-up to launch (this week!!) Dimple created a Limited Podcast Series called Service Without Sacrifice where she and expert guests explored the different themes found in Tell Me My Story - it is a beautiful podcast, and we were thrilled to have the chance to be a part of it.
The show is available on her blog, Dear Humanitarian - which is well worth subscribing to - and anywhere else that you enjoy podcasts.
Grab a copy of the book, and enjoy further discussion on the sometimes challenging, but so necessary, ideas Dimple is putting forward on the podcast.
Do you have an un-audio-ed book?
Have you been thinking about turning your book into an audiobook, but keep putting the project on the backburner? You wouldn’t be the only one.
Audra Casino, cofounder of One Stone Creative, is a huge audio book fan - both reading and creating. She has made 3 spots available to produce non-fiction audio-books for members of our community, and can help you take care of the project from voicing or coaching you on the best possible read to doing all of the formatting necessary for all major audiobook platforms.
Hit reply to this message to learn more.
Podcast Marketing Trends Survey
At some point or another, you’ve probably wondered how well your show is doing compared to other similar shows.
Unlike YouTube and social media, where followers, views, and subscribers are publicly visible, we as podcasts have little data to measure ourselves against.
This lack of transparent data makes it hard for us to:
Set realistic growth goals
Gauge the effectiveness of our content and marketing
Identify fast-growing shows in order to deconstruct their marketing strategies
And more
As you’ve probably experienced, podcasts are notoriously hard to grow.
And this lack of data is one of the big reasons why.
With your help, we’d like to change that.
It’s not to late to add your experience to the most comprehensive podcast marketing survey going.
Want to take one action to make a difference in your show and how well it’s working for you? It’ll only take 5 minutes.
Take a look at your podcast archive, and try to pick the two or three episodes that have brought your business the most value. That could be from the relationship you built with the guest, the traffic the post generated for you, the times you’ve been able to refer people to it - any type of value that matters to your company.
What made that episode so effective?
Figure out why that particular episode was so successful for you and try to replicate the conditions that made it so in the next one you record.
I’d love to hear about your most successful episode! Hit reply to share something amazing that has happened as a result of your podcast - let’s celebrate!
Thanks so much for reading - I hope you've found something here that makes the podcasting part of your job a little easier.
Until next time!
Megan Dougherty And the rest of the team at Podcasting for Business
Strategy, data, insights and process improvements for when podcasting is jut *part* of the job.
We're sharing data and analyses from our annual research report, ideas from the experts we feature on our podcast and events, and case studies of how businesses are leveraging podcasts to grow.
