4 Reasons to Add a Podcast to Your Content Strategy

If you’re looking for a way to expand the reach of your content strategy, starting a podcast could be a great addition for your company.  As a business owner, demonstrating your expertise is a critical part of sustaining a strong reputation, and there is no better way to do this than to teach others from your experience.

Using a podcast as an opportunity to hold interviews with others in your field and educate your audience is a great, cost-effective way to produce new content and stand out as a leader in your industry.  One option is to interview your clients about their success stories.  Not only is this a great testimonial for your business, but your listeners can also use it as a case study to learn for themselves.  If you’re well connected in your line of work, you can also bring in other professional resources from your network to interview for your podcast.  The leading people in your field most likely don’t have a lot of free time, so getting them on your show is another great indicator of credibility for you and your company.  If you can get high-quality guests on your podcast, it is another signal that you are among the top people in your area of expertise, since these VIPs wouldn’t waste their limited time with someone who wasn’t worthy of it.

Here are four great reasons to start a podcast:

1. Podcasts are relatively inexpensive to make, and if you don’t go overboard with postproduction can also be quick to produce.  This is especially true if you do them as interviews, because you will have to do it all in one take which will greatly reduce your editing costs.  If you decide not to take the interview approach, or at least not all the time, you can still run a successful podcast.  In order to avoid having to do multiple takes and lots of editing though, prepare to record your podcast as if it’s a live broadcast.  Have a script or an outline ahead of time so that you can record it in one pass.
2. Attention is the most valuable resource people have in this age of information.  Because you listen to a podcast instead of reading it, they allow you to target a different segment of your audience’s schedule.  There is already so much written content for your audience to process on a daily and even hourly basis that there’s a good chance your material could get buried.  But the time we have free to listen is a lot less scarce.  You can listen to a podcast while you drive, or mow the lawn, or walk your dog — but you can’t read while doing those activities.
3. Podcasts, especially interviews, can easily be re-purposed into additional content as well.  You can use an overseas outsourcer to transcribe the content of the podcast, which costs very little, and then post the written version along with the media version.  You could even record a video of the podcast to post to YouTube, which will give you yet another audience touch point for the same amount of creative effort to come up with the material.
4. Podcasts are commonly syndicated, which means that whenever you post a new episode your listeners are automatically notified.  For iOS users, it can be as simple as subscribing to the podcast in the iTunes store.  Once they’ve subscribed, whenever they plug in their device to sync, if there is a new podcast it will be automatically downloaded and a notification will show up telling them there is a new episode to listen to.  This makes it incredibly easy for your audience to consume your content, and keeping the barriers to entry low makes it much easier to attract and retain subscribers for your show.

Let us know how you’ve successfully used a podcast as part of your content strategy in the comments!