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In this episode, we discuss the article that appeared recently in Forbes.com by Eric Hadley called “Why Podcasts Should Be Your Top Marketing Priority Next Year.”
As we have seen with other discussions in the media, many articles are admitting that podcasting is a key element of marketing; and that marketing your podcasts should be an important part of your overall business strategy.
For startups, entrepreneurs, small business owners and those who wish to monetize their podcasts, this is consistent for suggestions to treat the podcast as a marketing tool — as well as include it as an important element in your marketing strategy.
As a captive audience, those consuming a podcast are listening to nothing else while the podcast is playing, and they are ripe for any kind of advertising or messages. Thus, the “bang for the buck” is great if podcasting is used to deliver messages and calls-to-action.
But the podcaster and entrepreneur should realize that there is a difference in delivering the message — and its reception — in the podosphere: “Just because it works on TV or on social media doesn’t mean it will work on a podcast, which boasts a rare mixture of both scale and intimacy. In that regard, it’s a unique opportunity to nail your brand voice.”
So now BRANDING is also a key component for a podcast in order to be successful for your marketing strategy. And this component can be affected by the nature of ads within the podcast episode. As the article states, the host-read ad can be much more effective than a programmatic ad delivered by dynamic insertion. As a matter of fact, many listeners are turned off by the dynamic ad insertion content — and this may lead to unsubscribing from a podcast show (which can be a death-knell to the message bearer or the entrepreneur). It is the direct connection with the podcast episode host that strengthens the relationship created with the listener and the podcaster. And, yes, although it takes more time, effort and work to deliver host-read ads, the results can be much more positively significant: “Being able to command listeners’ attention is crucial here.”
The podcast consumer is a listener who can become a loyal subscriber and a faithful target for ads that directly relate to the subject matter. It has been stated by different professional podcasters that your brand can be negatively affected by your audience hearing once again the GEICO ads that are used and plainly thrown around by podcasts that have absolutely no relation to the ad content. And the result can be a turn-off to what could have been a targeted prospect.
The summary is quite powerful in this article: “Marketers are seeing the results: Brand recall in podcasts is higher than other forms of digital advertising, according to Nielsen. Listeners often engage with podcasts in their entirety, and that presents a truly compelling opportunity to integrate your brand into a podcast’s storytelling.”
Now, my perspective on this is very much along the lines of the author. Although I have chosen NOT to include ads in my podcast episodes (for reasons of not wishing to alienate my audience), I can see how powerful a host-read ad can be for those who become “podcast junkies” and consume a great deal of content from their favorite podcasts. As a matter of fact, it is because of the host-read ads that I did contact and hire a podcast consultant in 2006 to assist me in getting my podcast shows created and published in the early days of the podosphere. And the consultant that delivered those host-read ads was none other than Dave Jackson in The School of Podcasting. And years later, I did join a membership site from a call-to-action delivered by Daniel J Lewis of The Audacity to Podcast in a host-read ad that promoted his own product, Podcasters Society.
So, yes, I have seen and acted and acknowledged the results of good host-read ads that related directly to the podcast episode content. And my perspective is that more entrants into the podosphere as podcasters will pursue the host-read ads more, and thus, the programmatic ads will continue to decline. But the amount of revenues from such a stream of ads can be downright annoying if the ads become too numerous. For example, in This Week in Tech, the host (Leo Laporte) reads his own ads; but for me, the amount of the ads detracts from the impact of the episode. And this has led me to stop listening to the content and pursue other podcasts where the ads are minimal (or none at all), so that my enjoyment of consumption is not interrupted several times, regardless of the host reading the ad. This is a danger that the entrepreneur-podcaster should be aware — because the podcast audience can be fickle and annoyed with what seems to him to be a deluge of ads.
Thank you for your attention.
Copyright (c) 2020, Matrix Solutions Corporation and Forbes.com and Eric Hadley. All rights reserved.