If you're a B2B business leader or entrepreneur, consider launching your own podcast. The podcasting industry has experienced significant growth over the past decade. In the United States, the number of podcast listeners is projected to reach 114.7 million by 2025, marking a 5.1% increase from the previous year.
This surge presents a valuable opportunity for B2B companies to engage with a growing audience through podcasting services.
Companies that incorporate podcasting in their marketing strategy are strengthening their brand identity, increasing levels of engagement and growth, and allowing them to reach new customers.
As the popularity of podcasts continues to rise, it has never been a better time for businesses to embark on this journey. This guide will help you along the way. By the end, you’ll have a clear strategy that will help you reach your goals.
What is a B2B Podcast?
As the name suggests, a B2B podcast is a podcast that is produced by a B2B company. It allows these companies to engage with their target audience through meaningful and educational conversations. It is an excellent way for businesses to expand their content marketing strategy; it helps strengthen their brand and provides a chance to stand out from their competitors.
Do Podcasts Work for B2B?
Yes, especially considering the growth in podcast listeners. In fact, 43% of decision makers listen to podcasts as a means of consuming business related content. So, if properly executed, B2B podcasting can help your company grow and become more reputable. In order to produce a successful podcast, you’ll need to have a clear strategy and focus on producing quality content.
Benefits of B2B Podcasts
Podcasting can benefit your B2B company in a variety of ways:
Create a reputation as an industry leader
Attracting new listeners
Building relationships and deeper connections with your audience
Humanize your company’s brand
Network with prospective clients or reputable leaders
Converting listeners into customers
Now that you know why you should start a B2B podcast, it’s time to explore how to bring it to life. It requires careful planning and consideration, meaning time and resources will need to be allocated.
If that feels like a lot to take on, working with a B2B Podcasting Agency could help ease the process. They can connect you with your ideal clients, help streamline the recording and editing, and ensure you can focus on having valuable conversations.
Plus, they can assist with marketing strategies and develop content systems designed to produce a higher ROI. This way, you can enjoy all the advantages of B2B podcasting without the extra work.
5 B2B Podcasting Strategies
Before you start your podcast, you’ll want to develop a clear strategy. You should base your decision on what you wish to accomplish.
While you are considering your goals, you may want to ask yourself what is most important to you: whether you wish to focus on attracting customers, to network and build relationships, or to communicate internally (with your team)?
1. Customer Success
A customer success strategy focuses on retaining existing customers, while simultaneously attracting new clients.
To accomplish this through podcasting, you should host interviews with your customers. Your guest can help you speak to the value of your product by sharing their perspective. You can also address customer concerns or frequently asked questions in order to educate your listeners.
These conversations will help you build relationships with your customers and instill trust in your listeners. You’ll be able to track your success by measuring your customer churn rate.
2. Demand Generation
With this podcast strategy, your goal is to grow your audience and increase the demand for your product/service. You’ll want to create content that is both conversational and educational. Discuss topics that will highlight your brand identity, the value of your product/service, and build trust with your listeners.
Keep an eye on your sales trends and audience engagement (the number of views, likes, or comments you receive). This will indicate whether your content is working!
3. Account-Based Marketing
This strategy allows you to host interviews with your potential clients. Throughout your conversation, you can learn more about your ideal customer by discussing their pain points and needs. When different areas of concern or hesitation arise, you should be reassuring and offer appropriate solutions.
The success of this strategy is based on how many relationships you build with your prospective customers.
4. Industry Influence
If you wish to create relationships with influencers and thought leaders in your industry, this would be an ideal strategy for you! It will help you establish yourself and set you apart from your competitors.
By interviewing big names, people with titles, or authority figures, you will be seen as an expert in your market. You can measure your podcast’s success by the amount/depth of relationships you create with these figures.
5. Internal Communication
This type of podcasting will help to increase the channel of communication amongst your team. It is an excellent way to connect with your team while sharing important organizational information.
For example, interviewing your employees will help to familiarize your team with each other. This can help achieve a close knit team that works together cohesively. You can measure the success of your podcast based on feedback from your employees.
Creating a Successful B2B Podcast in 11 Steps
This guide will help you create a successful B2B podcast, it considers all crucial aspects of podcasting. Make sure you check in after completing each step so that you aren’t missing something important!
1. Outline Your Podcast’s Strategy
As we mentioned earlier, before you start a B2B podcast, you should choose a strategy. This will help you to identify the purpose of your podcast and what goals you wish to accomplish.
2. Identify Your Target Audience
With B2B podcasting, you need to identify your target audience. Once you determine which groups of listeners you wish to capture, you’ll need to conduct some research.
You need to define who they are, distinguish what industry they operate in, what job titles they hold, and what their pain points are. Track their patterns of activity: What types of podcasts do they listen to? What platforms do they use? What podcasting formats do they prefer?
After you pinpoint your target audience and have a thorough understanding of their needs and preferences, it’ll become clear how you can tailor your content to appeal to them.
3. Choose a Format and Stick to Your Niche
Consistency is key with podcasting, it is essential that you choose–and stick to–a consistent format. When you choose a format, make sure you consider what appeals to your target audience.
For instance, deciding whether you should host an interview or panel discussion, or if you should focus more on monologues or solo episodes. You’ll also need to decide whether you want to upload an audio file or if you’ll include video footage too.
You’ll also want to be consistent with the topics you discuss, make sure they align with your niche or industry segment. Stick to talking about the things you know best, leverage your expertise in the business. To keep things interesting, try to find a unique (but relevant) topic to discuss.
4. Plan Out Your Content
Creating a podcasting schedule will help you keep up with posting dates. If you stick to a clear schedule, your audience will know when to expect new content. This will also help to keep you organized! You should plan topics and secure guests a few weeks in advance.
Reflect on your plans and make sure your content aligns with your goals and strategy. For instance, if you want to attract more customers, make sure you are discussing how your product will solve your audiences’ problems.
5. Invest in Quality Equipment
If you want your audience to take you seriously, then don’t be stingy with your production equipment. In order to create quality content, you can rent/purchase recording equipment or use a remote recording software.
You’ll need to consider investing in high-quality microphones, headphones, cameras, lighting, recording/editing software, and a soundproof recording studio.
6. Create Engaging Cover Art and Branding
Though podcasting focuses on hosting meaningful discussions, you will also need to create eye-catching visuals. Each episode should have a thumbnail that relates to the podcast (as a whole, or the individual episode) and your brand identity (logo, company values).
In order to increase exposure and awareness of your podcast, you should also post content (images, graphics, or video clips from your podcast) on your social media platforms.
7. Record and Edit Your Episodes
Before you sit down to record a new episode, you should spend time conducting research. You’ll want to gather an understanding of who your guest is, what kinds of questions you should ask them, and what topics/discussions would be valuable to have.
Having a rough outline will ease the flow of the conversation and will likely reduce the time you spend with editing. When you are finished with recording you should review the episode and remove any awkward pauses or mistakes and improve the audio quality.
8. Publish Your Podcast
In order to stay ahead of the game, you should wait till you have a few completed podcasts before you post anything. When you're finally ready to publish your first podcast, you’ll have to decide where to upload it. You should choose a platform that is used by your target audience.
You can host your show on popular and reliable podcasting sites like Libsyn or Podbean. From there, you can then submit your podcast to popular directories like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.
9. Marketing Your Podcast
Now that you are a published podcaster, it’s time you let people know! You’ll want to create a marketing strategy that will help to promote your podcast.
For instance, you may want to post content about your podcast on your social media platforms. You can share video clips from your podcast, quotes, behind-the-scenes, or cool graphics! If you wish to take your marketing one step further, you can also invest in paid advertising or partnerships to help expand your reach.
10. Engage With Your Audience
It is important that you receive feedback from your listeners, so you should encourage your audience to interact with your content (through comments or ratings).
You’ll want to respond to this feedback regularly to ensure your viewers feel heard and valued. This will help you build loyal followers that would be willing to say positive things about your podcast and brand.
11. Keep an Eye on Your Podcast’s Performance
In order to track the success of your podcast and whether it’s helping you reach your goals, you should use podcast analytics tools to track key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics. By measuring the number of downloads/views, your listener demographics, or the rate of engagement (likes, ratings, and comments), you’ll be able to identify what is working best for your podcast.
Keep in mind: your podcasting strategy and target audience will affect which KPIs and metrics you should end up using.
Well, that’s it… That’s the complete list of everything you need to consider before starting your very own B2B podcast!
If you've made it to the end of the guide and are unsure about the next steps, don't worry, there are plenty of resources and services to simplify the podcasting process. By partnering with a B2B Podcasting Agency, you can leave the strategy and behind-the-scenes work to the experts, allowing you to focus on what matters most, connecting with your guests and hosting engaging conversations for your audience.
By: Emily Nyikos
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Jony Studios is a content marketing agency specializing in B2B podcasting and audiobook services. They have worked with many clients, from startups to larger organizations such as Penguin Random House, Amazon, University of Waterloo, Freakonomics Radio, and many others.
