While social media remains one of the primary ways that users access and interact with digital information today, audio content is also on the rise — specifically podcasts.

According to a recent report released by NPR and Edison Research, almost half of the U.S. population listens to spoken word audio content, including podcasts, daily. With younger generations preferring to digest their content in more convenient formats, there has been a 214% increase in listening to spoken word audio among Gen Z, and those numbers continue to increase.

Therefore, now is the perfect time for brands to start including podcasts in their repertoire of digital marketing content.

Why a Podcast Should Be Part of Your Marketing Strategy

Not only are more people listening to podcasts these days, but they also admit to being influenced by audio content. 60% of listeners say they have searched for a product after hearing it mentioned on a podcast. This means podcasts are an excellent way to grow brand awareness.

No matter your industry, podcasts offer brands a way to create more engaging content that draws their target audience’s attention while also using it for product or service placement to boost sales.

Podcasts also create the opportunity for partnerships, which can further increase brand awareness and encourage listeners to invest in your products or services. As a whole, podcasts offer a range of benefits to businesses, including:

  • Building brand awareness
  • Increasing audience engagement
  • Creating content with a higher value proposition
  • Driving traffic
  • Amplifying messaging to reach a wider audience

Podcasts tend to feel more personal to listeners. They can get more invested when they’re listening to spoken audio than when reading a social media post, for example, which means they may be more likely to connect with your brand. Combined with other kinds of content, this helps build a loyal following of customers who could be more likely to choose your brand’s products and services over others.

Planning Your Podcast

Before starting a podcast, it’s important to map out your goals to create a solid plan that will lend more to the success of the podcast. If you want the content to do well, you have to create a solid foundation first with SMART goals and a clear outline of what you want to achieve.

  • Be Specific about your goals: What do you want to accomplish? Who will be involved? When do you want to achieve this? Where will you do the work?
  • Create Measurable goals: To ensure your goals with your podcast are achievable, make sure you have a method for measuring progress and success.
  • Push the boundaries of what is Achievable: It’s good to have achievable goals, but it’s also important to push your team by stretching your goals to motivate and improve efficiency.
  • Make sure the content is Relevant: Does the content for the podcast align with your company’s goals and is it relevant to your target audience?
  • Set deadlines to stay on Time: With any project, having a clear schedule and timeline to work with is important to help create accountability.

Beyond creating smart goals for your podcast, it’s also important to consider the attributes that make a good podcast. This includes:

  • Creating compelling content
  • Having quality audio
  • Maintaining a consistent schedule for listeners
  • Using hosts that help the content feel authentic and genuine
  • Leaving room for audience engagement (feedback, comments, questions)
  • Promoting and marketing the podcast to the right audience

Once you’ve created a solid plan for your podcast and know what it takes to make a good podcast, then you can actually start working to bring everything together.

Step-by-Step Guide for Creating a Podcast

This comprehensive guide will walk you through all the steps to start creating your podcast:

1. Develop the idea

This is where you will plan, strategize, and do any necessary research. This includes setting your goals and conducting SEO research to determine what content will be most effective for your podcast.

2. Identify the topic

As a secondary part of the planning phase, you’ll want to come up with a good theme for your podcast. In other words, what is the niche of your podcast? What is the thing that will make it stand out?

3. Brainstorm episode concepts and names

You not only want to have an overall plan for your concept, but it’s also important to map it out episode by episode. What will the schedule be and what will each episode be about? This is also where you can come up with a name for your podcast and titles for individual episodes.

4. Identify hosts and guest speakers

As part of the episode planning, you’ll also need to start identifying the speakers for each episode, which should correlate with the topic of each episode. Who will your hosts be? Will you have the same speakers for each episode? Will you have guest speakers?

5. Episode formatting and recording

Next, it’s time to start putting together the logistics for creating the podcast. This includes choosing equipment, a space for recording, and knowing the kind of audio and video you want. This phase should also include considerations for editing and processing the episodes.

It’s a good idea to videotape your podcast as well, that way you can also post it on channels such as YouTube. This means you’re not just a podcaster — you’re a digital content creator. The equipment you’ll need to do this includes:

  • Lighting and sound equipment
  • Headsets and cameras
  • Internet hardware, smartphones, tablets

Posting your podcast in more than one medium means you’re potentially getting more out of it by making the content available to a broader audience.

6. Create podcast art and branding

Podcast cover art and branding can play a crucial role in how popular your podcast becomes. When listeners are scrolling through available podcasts, you want your cover art to stand out and grab their attention.

7. Choose the intro and outro music

The music you play at the start and end of each episode is also a major part of creating the overall vibe of your podcast and setting the tone. Are you lighthearted? Upbeat? Serious? Comedic? The music should be a good match for the topic of your podcast and give listeners an idea of what to expect.

8. Choose where to host or distribute the podcast

This is where you’ll decide on the hosting service or platform where you’ll distribute your podcasts, such as Spotify or Apple Podcasts. You can also make your podcast available on multiple platforms to expand your reach.

9. Promote the podcast

Of course, once you’ve created your podcast you’ll need to start promoting it so people know about it and can easily find it. The same as any other type of content, you should promote it on as many channels as possible — your website, social media, email campaigns, etc.

10. Measure performance

Finally, once you’ve launched your podcast, it’s important to use analytics to measure and track your performance. This will help you get a good idea of how well your podcast is doing and if any adjustments need to be made to optimize and improve performance.

Final Thoughts

Remember, while a lot of planning and effort does and should go into making a podcast, it’s important to also have fun with it. If you enjoy the content you are creating it will be reflected and noticed by your audience, and they’ll be more likely to enjoy it as well.

While podcasts certainly can be more serious, listeners tend to enjoy when podcasts show a more authentic, friendly, and down-to-earth side of the brands they enjoy. That said, no two podcasts are the same and it’s all about finding the right topic and setting the tone that works for your brand and your target audience.