Making money with podcasts

Michael Olatunji at Outset Studio outlines the business benefits of creating a podcast

 

There are around five million podcasts worldwide. They range from the much mocked one-man-in-his-shed setup to those with big budgets and high production values fronted by poached-from-the-BBC top tier journalists. It is the broadest of churches. But unlike actual churches, podcasting has an increasing number of people interested in what’s being said. 

 

Smart speaker sales surging during the pandemic lockdowns boosted podcast audiences, but the most popular type of device for podcast listening is the mobile phone. The number of global podcast listeners already exceeds 460 million, with the 500 million mark expected to be met before the end of 2023. In the UK alone, over 21 million people regularly listen to podcasts.

 

Most popular with people aged between 12 and 34, podcasts are also listened to by 22% of people over the age of 56. And by the end of the decade the podcasting market is expected to be worth more than $130 billion.  

 

Podcasts may have once been treated as a bit of a joke, but there is serious money to be made in this fast-growing sector. 

 

Of course, generating profits directly from podcasting requires particular skills, experience and knowledge, but businesses of all shapes and sizes, from many different sectors can benefit from becoming involved.   

 

Marketing communications

Successful podcasting requires navigation of a significant learning curve. Content needs to be interesting and engaging, and technology and production skills need to be at a sufficiently high level. And that’s just for audio. While podcasts started as primarily audio content, many now combine audio and video content. 

 

But podcasting provides the potential to put your business in front of hundreds of thousands of potential customers. Research reveals that roughly half of all podcast listeners tune in to learn and develop their understanding, so podcasting can be an effective way of demonstrating industry knowledge and positioning yourself as an expert. 

 

Podcasts are borderless. If you publish to Spotify or Apple Music, global audiences are achievable. The trick is finding your tribe. But if you can do that, podcasting can be an incredibly powerful form of marketing. 

 

One way of getting noticed is to demonstrate commitment. If you release five episodes at once (à la streaming services like Netflix) in one go, your podcast is much more likely to be featured in the ‘New and Interesting’ sections of Spotify and Apple Music.

 

Engaging

Podcasts are one of the most interactive forms of content, and subject matter is pretty much unlimited; be it an incredibly tight niche or broad and generic, there will be people interested in listening and learning more. They will also have opinions.

 

And that presents the opportunity for real interactions with potential customers. These interactions tend to happen in one of three ways: instant interaction via livestream commenting; asynchronous interaction via comments; or real-time interaction via call-ins.

 

By finding ways to include interaction within a podcast you create audience engagement that far outstrips the impact of classic marketing tools such as leaflets. Would you rather put money into printing your message and hoping for more than a few casual glances, or would you prefer to have potential customers choosing to hear what you have to say?

 

Cost effective

Podcasting also offers more bang for your buck. Podcast content can easily be edited and transformed into shorter-form content to service a variety of different formats for different channels. A long-form podcast can be chopped into clips for YouTube, for social media platforms, for advertising, or even turned into blog posts. AI powered programmes such as Descript—which can quickly transcribe podcast audio—allows blogs, articles and copy for websites to be created very easily. 

 

This multi-purpose aspect makes podcasts really cost-effective with a single episode of around 30-minutes possibly providing dozens of pieces of content for social clips, soundbites, and blogs.

 

Making contacts

Guests are a fantastic way to boost a podcast, particularly if a guest has their own podcast. Their profile can act as a draw to pull in more listeners and there is also the benefit of cross-promotion – piggybacking on a guest’s existing audience. Featuring guests also heightens perceptions of you as a thought leader.

 

Making contacts via content creation also opens up business networking opportunities. 

 

An amazing marketing tool

Podcasts can be an amazing marketing tool for businesses. They do, however, take a lot of planning to get right. Between production, content, marketing, hosting, guests, and editing, there are many pieces that need to align. Production quality really does matter.

 

Although once upon a time (not so long ago) reserved for niche interests and gamers, podcasts have flourished into a global phenomenon. The main reason to consider starting a podcast for your business is the simple fact that people like listening to them. The challenge is how to cut through the noise.

 

To gain traction fast, it is really worth considering advertising. Create some short clips and trailers for your podcast and funnel some money into advertising on YouTube, Spotify and/or Apple Music. Make sure your ads are no longer than 15 seconds in order to grab interest. 

 

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Michael Olatunji is co-founder of Outset Studio, a full-service podcast and video production studio in London, specialising in pod- and vlog- casts, live streams and live shopping

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com