5 Helpful Podcast Insights for Small And Medium Businesses
A lot of the buzz you hear around the effectiveness of podcast advertising comes from big brands, but did you know there’s also a lot of opportunity in podcasting for small and medium businesses (SMBs), too? You don’t have to be a Big Box or Big Brand to leverage the effects of podcasts ads.
Here are 5 big reasons why you should consider podcasts if you are an SMB:
1. Podcast Advertising Helps Brands, Big and Small
The secret’s out: in many instances, research shows podcast ads outperform other media. When it comes to podcast advertising, big brands have helped build and shape what podcast advertising has become today. This is great news for SMBs! As podcast audiences continue to grow, local impact grows along with it. In fact, your favorite local radio personalities, news anchors, and lifestyle publishers may have their own podcasts along with engaged local followings your business can tap into for marketing.
Keep in mind that even though a podcast’s audience is loyal and engaged, you still need a minimum number of listeners to make an impact on your SMB. At Pionaire Podcasting, I always recommend local or regional advertisers work with a network of podcasts or shows that have at least 12,000-15,000 downloads a week in the markets or regions that matter most for your business.
2. Creative Ad Placements Can Help Tell Complex Brand Stories
As mentioned above, thanks to some early adopter big brands, we know a lot about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to podcast ads. Podcast inventory is abundant, and each podcast has its own standard ad units but also creative license to try new things. For example, one Pionaire advertiser chose to purchase our Podvertorial ad placement.
A Podvertorial is a unit we created at Pionaire to help brands and businesses that have complex stories to tell. It’s a sponsor branded podcast episode hosted by one of Pionaire’s talents and distributed on our podcast feed as a stand-alone episode. It’s not as long as a traditional podcast episode but serves the purpose of helping advertisers who need more than a :15, :30 or :60 ad unit.
3. Strengthen Your SEO Strategy With Podcasts
Some podcasts offer guest interviews as an ad placement to help promote a business’s products or services. This is a great opportunity to use the content published by a podcast to enhance your own SEO. Considering Google’s reason for being is to present the most relevant information possible, make sure if you choose to use podcasts to help boost your SEO, you choose shows, hosts and content relevant to your brand.
For example, if you are a law firm, seek out podcasts that covers legal topics you feel passionately about and you want to offer your expertise in. Also ask the publisher for permission to post a link to the episode on your website and social channels for your own marketing purposes.
4. Leverage a Host’s Influence Beyond The Podcast
A great podcast host can also be a great influencer! Take your audio message to the next level by threading together your audio message with an influencer’s social following. Ask the host to help continue the story from the podcast ad to their social posts, stories, highlights, and reels.
At Pionaire, we’ve seen advertising results significantly increase when adding an influencer campaign to accompany a podcast campaign. These increases are only possible when the influencer is trusted by their followers and authentic with their posts. Allow the influencer some creative license because at the end of the day, consumers relate the influencer first and then a brand.
5. Using Podcasts As Training Tools For Employees
Full disclosure, I hadn’t thought of businesses using podcasts as training tools for employees but when one of our advertisers shared this tactic with me, I just had to reshare! They chose to use podcasting as a training platform because their team members were often driving during work hours and they didn’t want new employees to feel tethered to a computer or smartphone after work hours to complete the training.
By offering training in a podcast format, new employees could listen in their car or truck to and from job sites, during normal business hours. Of course, employees could listen wherever they wanted, really but the option to listen during whatever timeframe worked for the employee was a win-win for both employer and new hire.
If you are an SMB and have felt podcasts were, “too big,” for a smaller brand or “out of reach,” for business like yours, you’re not alone. Hopefully this post helps you discover new ideas about podcast advertising. Pionaire podcasting has helped business of all sizes achieve exceptional results with podcasts and we’re confident we can help you, too!
