Making Corporate Podcasts That Are Actually *Good*
Adorable pug with adorable microphone.
Podcasts matter. According to Edison Research and Triton, more than one-third of adult and teenage Americans listen to podcasts at least once a month. Podcasts are increasingly what we listen to in the car instead of the radio, the background noise we listen to at work, and the shows we use to unwind at home.
Which, naturally, means that many businesses and brands want to create podcasts of their own. Corporate podcasts are slightly different from their homegrown counterparts: They typically have more levels of approvals, more stakeholders, and look and feel different because they represent brands instead of individuals.
But corporate podcasts done right can be really, really good.
Here are a few tips:
Be realistic about your goals: List the top five goals for your organization’s podcast and rank them in order of importance. Do you primarily want to impress executives further up the ranks? Is your main goal acquiring new customers? Retaining existing customers and building goodwill with them? Building your brand’s profile and getting its name out? Create a strategy around achieving your podcast goals within a reasonable amount of time.
Understand your technical abilities: In an ideal world, every organization would have someone who’s produced a podcast before and someone who’s hosted a podcast before (And if your organization has that talent, great!). If it doesn’t, there’s a certain learning curve involved. Hiring an outside consultant who can train your employees in podcast creation and production or working with a white-label podcast production firm can make the process significantly cheaper and easier.
Give it time: While creating a podcast may be easy, creating a good podcast is hard. There’s a learning curve to both podcast production and hosting. Working with a consultant or white-label firm shortens that learning curve; however, putting together a good podcast will still take time. Budget time and money for creating rehersal episodes, experimenting with formats, and going through educational materials.
Figure out your organization’s storytelling strengths: Not all podcasts are created equal, and the most successful podcasts understand both their audiences and what they have to offer. Do you have a large business with multiple offices that wants to keep far-flung employees up to date with what’s going on internally? Do you sell a software or service and have customers who would benefit from better understanding the product? Do you have a unique vantage point on your industry? Is your product used by well-known figures who’d sit down to speak with you? Be honest about what your storytelling strengths are and build a strategy from there.
Packaging matters: There are lots of podcasts out there and—let’s be honest—getting new podcasts on listeners’ radars is hard. Create metadata for your podcast (things such as episode titles, descriptions, etc.) that are detailed, well-written and encourage listeners to put every new episode on. Devote just as much attention to your podcast logo and thumbnail image as you do to the audio contents and episode metadata; a unique logo or photo that catches positive attention will draw in more listeners than just using your organization’s logo. Also think about how you can use your existing social media, email and even direct mail marketing channels to attract new listeners.
Starting a podcast takes time. Gaining an audience for your podcast takes time. But once you’ve created a podcast, it doesn’t only open new doors for your organization… It’s also fun. And these days, we need all the fun we can get.
For more info check out the Neal Ungerleider Newsletter.
Photo credit: zoomar on VisualHunt.com / CC BY-NC
