Podcasting is one of the most effective channels that most B2B brands are missing out on.
● Podcast listenership in the UK reached over 16.5 million in the UK in 2020
● 44% of monthly podcast listeners have a household income of over £65,000
● 70% of monthly podcast listeners have a university degree or above
● Three in four podcast listeners say they tune in to learn new things
In addition to hosting Fox Agency’s ClientSide podcast, I am the host of Agency Dealmasters. Every week I interview world-class agency owners, authors, and marketers to find out how they grow their businesses and deliver exceptional results for their clients.
We have built a large and engaged audience. The show has been downloaded over 30,000 times and has listeners in 65 countries. It has established us as a well-known brand in the global agency community.
We have won new business directly from the show, been invited to speak at prestigious conferences and events, built great relationships with senior agency and marketing decision makers and thought leaders, and attracted talent to work with us.
Here are some of the reasons I think every B2B brand should have its own podcast.
Win new business
Podcasts are a great way to win new business from new or existing customers. Inviting prospective customers to your podcast to discuss an important topic for them builds and deepens the relationship as customers love being asked to appear on the show and share their experience.
You will find that when you use podcasts to start a conversation with a prospective customer, they are much more receptive to your communications and more likely to work with you as a result.
Differentiation
With many of us suffering from webinar fatigue due to lockdowns and the pandemic, finding another way of reaching your ideal audience is crucial. A podcast is not as restrictive as a webinar, since the latter consumes your auditory and visual senses., which means you cannot do anything else while watching one.
However, with a podcast you can be doing your daily chores, driving, or exercising and still learning something new. This flexibility and freedom are the main reasons why podcasts have grown in popularity so quickly.
Podcasts still have a massive ‘cool’ factor too. As most brands are not producing one, creating your own could be just what you need to separate you from the pack.
New sources of revenue
In 2019, eMarketer found more than half of podcast listeners are either somewhat or much more likely to buy from a brand after hearing it advertised on a podcast.
Once you have an engaged audience of listeners, you can monetise that attention in lots of different ways. For instance, you can create adverts on your own show driving people directly to purchase, or drive your audience to landing pages to sign up for new product offerings to come in future. You can also charge advertisers and non-competitive brands for advertising that gets right in front of your audience.
Lead generation
Podcasting is amazing for B2B lead generation. And probably it is best-kept secret.
We all know how hard it is to get access to senior decision makers. Traditional channels like email, social and the phone are not as successful as they used to be. Podcasting is your way to start speaking to your ideal audience.
Senior decision makers are much more likely to accept your offer of appearing on your podcast to share their views about how their industry is changing than respond to your email marketing campaign.
Through our podcast, Agency Dealmasters, we have built great relationships with agency leaders and CEOs that would have been almost impossible to get access to via traditional comms.
Internal and external communications
Our ClientSide podcast for Fox Agency has been excellent in educating our people on a whole host of topics, from how to handle client situations and the latest onB2B marketing trends, to how clients like to be treated and much more.
When you have an organisation of hundreds or thousands of people, getting important information to all of them can be challenging. Creating engaging audio content can be the solution.
There is still a lot of opportunity out there
You may look at the many thousands of podcasts already out there and think there is no point starting a podcast now – it’s too crowded. You would be wrong though; there is still a massive opportunity to create a successful B2B podcast in the niches.
Yes, many of the biggest topics have been taken. So, if you want to create a podcast around entrepreneurship, sales, or general marketing, then you can forget it because shows like Tim Ferris and ‘How I built this’ have that space covered. But if you create a show around the entrepreneurial community in AI and Machine learning among women and minorities, you can build a good base from there.
Here is a (not definitive) list of reasons we think you should create a B2B podcast
1. Win new business, directly and indirectly
2. Generate leads with senior decision makers much easier
3. Improve client and prospect perception
4. Educate prospective and existing employees
5. Widen and expand your network of partners and collaborators
6. Improve your knowledge and skills
7. Better understand what clients want
8. Understand how your market is changing
9. Reduce your sales cycle and cost of sales
10. Increase awareness and brand perception
11. Generate new sources of revenue
12. Employer branding – improve how you look to prospective employees
13. Differentiate from competitors
If you need help in creating your own podcast, then why not collaborate with Agency Dealmasters and Fox Agency? Get in touch.