If you think your business is creating all the content it can, you’re wrong. Only three percent of marketers use podcasting in their social media marketing strategy – which means the chances are your business isn’t onto it yet. Because of its untapped value, podcasting has been called the ‘dark horse of online marketing’ with a huge unrealised potential.

With only a small amount of people using podcasts to reach their audience, you might be wondering why you need to bother. Apart from being first on the ball to a new market, it’s reported that 67 percent of podcast listeners admitted to not minding adverts – compared to 6 percent of television or radio listeners.

When it comes to making your own podcast, you’ll find that sponsors will be more liberal with their money because of the return they will gain from their investment. Make sure you pick sponsors who are relevant though; podcast users tolerate sponsorship because it is relevant to the podcast they are loyal to.

What is a podcast?

A podcast is a form of digital media that can be downloaded from a website to a media player. Podcasts are recorded in series which can often have themes. They can work for, well, pretty much everything. There’s no strict rules as to topics, industries or who can listen – meaning the prospective audience for this type of digital audio can be huge.

The increase in smartphones and Bluetooth-enabled cars also mean podcast popularity is on the rise. This is a huge advantage of podcasts for online marketing. Audiences watching videos will stick around for roughly five minutes before leaving, and blog readers will skim articles as quickly as possible to find what they’re looking for.

With a podcast, however, listeners will put it on when they’re completing another task such as driving, completing housework or cooking dinner. Or, what would be wasted time. This puts the podcaster at an advantage as you have more time to win over the loyalty of your listeners.

Why is it important for business?

If you want to get your online marketing game ahead of everyone else in 2016, you should definitely be considering podcasts – if not already doing it! Not only will you be widening your target audience for your content, you’ll also be creating shareable content which is great for social media channels.

Depending on the expense you’re willing to stretch to, podcasts can be cheap to record, making them perfect for small businesses hoping to gain a bigger online presence. Unfortunately, podcasts aren’t quick to make, but you should have faith that the time you’re putting in will be worth it when you see your growing number of podcast subscribers.

How frequently to post

If you decide that making a podcast is a good move for your business (and why wouldn’t you?) you should start thinking about when and how often to post. It can be tempting to post as few and far between as possible in order to have time to provide a good quality podcast. The fact is, this might work for some businesses, but certainly not for all of them.

Choosing how often to podcast is dependent on each sector, and deciding how long they should be is dependent on how much you have to say each week. You don’t want to repeat yourself, and you should avoid rambling.

If you’re reporting on weekly events in your sector, then obviously you should post once a week. If you’re in the technology industry, doing a daily podcast could be more worthwhile as news will go out of date more quickly. Consider who your podcasts are for and what other people in the industry are doing in order to determine how often and how frequently you should post.

How to advertise with a podcast

It’s all very well being able to report on industry related news in your podcast, but you might be wondering where your business advertising comes into the grand scheme of things. Being one of the first to report on industry news will be invaluable when it comes to driving traffic to your website and getting your name heard. You’ll also be the ones pushing the conversation so you’ll have plenty to add.

If you’re not keen on making a podcast yourself then you might be interested in putting sponsored content into someone else’s podcast. This is an effortless way of getting your brand noticed with less than half of the hard work it takes to produce a podcast.

Podcast topics

When you can’t come up with a podcast idea during your content marketing planning session, there are plenty of generic templates that work for every industry, and that can be as in depth as you need them to be. (These templates also work well for blog posts and video marketing in case you’re running out of ideas on those fronts!)

• Top 5/Top 10. Personality in a podcast will always go down well, so picking your top 5 or top 10 products will help you build a relationship with your audience.
• X vs. Y. Choosing two products and detailing their pros and cons won’t just be useful for your listeners, it will also show how much knowledge you have of the industry – which can be helpful when your audience decides if they want to listen to more of your podcasts.
• Having an interview with someone else in the industry (preferably someone with more followers) can be a good way to pool more information.
• Hold a podcast contest to get new listeners interested. Having an incentive to make people sign up to your podcast can also be great for getting people interested.
• Cute factor. If all else fails, you can rely on fluffy kittens to get people interested. Cute animals is the kind of content everyone is interested in, so don’t be worried to lean on it in times of need.
• Ask the audience. Many podcasters get their audiences involved and interacting by asking them to name a podcast. These should be few and far between as most audiences will be looking for something specific from your podcast.

Has your small business got a podcast? Or are you hoping to start one? Let us know in the comment section below!