September 19, 2022
If you are thinking about starting a podcast for your company, here are seven considerations:
- Benefits of podcasting
- Time commitment
- Pre-launch checklist
- Production checklist
- Promotion checklist
- Dealing with expectations
- Integrating with corporate marketing
1. Benefits of a company podcast
A podcast is more intimate than the printed word. Most people listen to a podcast with ear buds. You are, literally, in the head of your target audience.
One never hears of “binge blogging,” where a person reads all your company’s 150 blog posts; however, we see “binge” podcast listening. Just last week an aerospace engineer said he had binged listened to all the episodes of a podcast on satellites and space, the Constellations podcast.
A person may decide to drive cross country and listen to all the episodes of your company podcast. In the patois of podcasting, previous episodes are called the “back catalog.” These can bring value to a company.
A person you are trying to recruit may listen to see if your company is any fun. Writers can research topics by listening to previous episodes. When you do a fantastic job with a guest, they can promote the interview at their own expense, exposing you to a wider audience at no cost.
Podcast listeners tend to have higher incomes and more education than average. You cannot watch a video while jogging. Further, video work is expensive and time-consuming; by comparison, podcasting gear is low cost.
What if you are successful? From a corporate perspective, should a company podcast have its own brand? This seems like a minor detail when you are in the middle of a fight trying to get budget for an audio producer, but it is a valid corporate marketing concern, make sure you have an answer.
A company podcast can position the moderator as an expert. They could get invited on other podcasts, increasing your company reach at no expense. You can invite customers and potential customers into the studio to deepen relationships.
Further, a transcript of the interview can serve as a basis for an article and a source of quotes to use in social media promotion. If you have a great guest, other publications can refer to the interview in their story.
When you hire a photographer for the face-to-face interview, you can get great images for social media as well as your company website.
We can list benefits all day long, there are tons of articles, podcasts, and videos extolling the virtues of a podcast. Your company marketing department may intuitively know this without realizing the costs involved, like the time.
2. Time Commitment
The real-time commitment is not the hours of scheduling, producing, and promoting. The real commitment is grinding through the slow start. The first six months will be torture. Downloads will be flat. Doomsayers will be pointing fingers at the podcast champion.
Hang tight. There is light at the end of the tunnel in the first year, then steady growth from there. You will go from a zero to a hero in a couple of years, then have that gold mine of a back catalogue to leverage.
3. Pre-Launch checklist
Get a list of fifty dream guests. Figure out who will be the moderator and audio engineer. Somebody will be expected to take a produced audio file and place it on the hosting service. Cut out time for people on the team for weekly stand-ups to see what has been done. Look at services that provide transcripts.
Figure out the intro and outro wording and music. Have someone on the web team cut out a boilerplate show notes page with room for a player, an image of a guest, a summary, a transcript, and a call to action. The fulcrum of a successful podcast is an email list. Make sure there is a way to develop an email list and send a notice each time a podcast is released.
4. Production checklist
You have a full-time job right now, correct? Well, if you must cut out time for a podcast, you will be eliminating other activities. Do not forget the opportunity cost of a podcast, especially if your marketing department is charged with the boom-and-bust work cycle of trade shows.
For the sake of argument, let us pencil in ten hours a week for a podcast. This is too much to pull from one individual, you will need to split up tasks.
0.5 hours scheduling guests and moderator. Request logo, publicity photo, release, and topics.
1.0 hours for an interview. Usually, the first ten minutes are level testing an setting expectations for the guest. A good moderator will make the guest feel relaxed and conversationsal.
1.0 hours to produce the podcast. If you select a moderator with experience, the editing process will be a breeze. The audio engineer will bolt on the bumpers, level the sound (called normalizing), then toss the audio file to the marketing team. You may be tempted to have staff do this artistic task of editing, it is a fool’s errand. There are tons of free lance audio talent out there.
5. Promotion checklist
There is a big debate in the podcast community about whether or not to automatically post your podcast to YouTube. A recent survey by Edison suggested that 20% of people search YouTube for podcasts; many debate that. An elegant solution is to have a YouTube Channel for your company and then another separate channel for your podcast.
1.0 hour Write the 250-word summary for the show notes page
This is your opportunity to shine. Include keywords in the summary that are reflected in your company corporate SEO profile. Include quotes from the guest. In the future, you will chart length of time listened (consumption) and downloads for each episode. The summary gives you a quick overview of the interviews to see what the popular topics were. A text summary is as much for your analysis as it is a target for a Search Engine Optimization crawl.
1.0 hour Review the transcript and pour it into a PDF format. Guests love to see a transcript. They can use it as a framework for an article or video.
1.0 hour Assemble images for social media and produce creative hooks to get people to listen to the podcast. The best interviews are face-to-face. Start with photos of the guest in front of a microphone with a visual logo (microphone flag) that reinforces the brand of the podcast.
1.0 hour Schedule social media targeted engagement. Go to LinkedIn and send a message to the CEO of the company and five others from the company for a similar engagement. Phrase it like this, “Billy Biggs did a wonderful job articulating the company differentiator. Please share the link with your team.”
1.5 hours Schedule Tweets and LinkedIn status updates. No shouting, informational. “Here is a topic you may have interest in, click here to listen.” People scroll for relevant topics. The classic Tweet formula is a text hook, company handle, a trending hashtag, and an eye-catching image . . . don’t forget the link.
Here's your Bonus
2.00 hours Bonus time: creating 20-second video for promotion on LinkedIn. Separate from that, prepare audiograms for LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
Remind your technical team they should submit the URL to Google Search Console so the page can be indexed. You may want to run a utility like Screaming Frog to make sure the web team has alt tags and meta descriptions correct.
Monthly, run a speed test on something like GTMetrix to make sure your show notes page loads faster than one second.
6. Great Expectations vs. Sobering Reality
How will you measure success? Downloads? Connections with guests? Developing personal relationships? Brand awareness? Every company will have a unique approach to evaluation. Sometimes, they want a podcast because their competition has one.
A key decision maker may not return the phone call of a company representative; however, they may cherish a podcast invitation to toot their own horn. An excellent opportunity to meet a prospect face to face.
How will you measure success? Downloads? Connections with guests? Developing personal relationships? Brand awareness? Every company will have a unique approach to evaluation. Sometimes, they want a podcast because their competition has one.
A key decision maker may not return the phone call of a company representative; however, they may cherish a podcast invitation to toot their own horn. An excellent opportunity to meet a prospect face to face.
If you do not have evaluation hammered down at the beginning, then you will be subject to a moving goal line. As a rule, the best result of a corporate podcast will be increased reach and improved brand awareness. Do not expect any sales from the podcast. Do not expect millions of downloads out of the gate. Expect to position your company as a thought leader in your market.
7. Integration with Corporate Marketing
Conclusion
After launching five podcasts, I have made all the mistakes humanly possible. I once authored an article for HubSpot titled, “I failed at podcasting, and so can you.”
You will have to commit for a year to see any value, and it may take another year for smooth sailing. Your moderator can make or break the podcast. Rotating hosts violates one of the unwritten rules of podcasting: developing a relationship with the host.
Please have each guest sign a release. Ten hours of per podcast is a reasonable number to start. Social media is not shouting, it is listening and developing relationships with targeted guests and audience.
A podcast will need a champion to succeed. This person will need a record of success in another area to give them the gravitas to endure the first year.
Remember Rob Walch’s figures: there may be millions of podcasts, but only 389,000 have more than ten episodes. Make sure you avoid podfade by listing guests and topics far in advance.
Have reasonable goals, have aggressive promotion, and have fun.
If you enjoyed this article, you may want to read “How to Become a Guest on a Podcast.”
John Gilroy
Has been in front of a microphone since 1991. He can help you structure, launch, and promote your company podcast. johngilroy@theoakmontgroupllc.com
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