Serial. Dirty John. Stuff You Should Know. My Favourite Murder.
Chances are, you’ll already be an avid fan of some podcast or another. And if you’re not, you’re likely to be in the minority, as podcasts continue to be one of the fastest growing media formats in the world.
It’s not hard to see why. Podcasts have essentially done to radio what Netflix did to TV - showed it up to be an outdated mode for consumption. Because podcasts are, essentially, radio shows, packaged up for listening on your own terms, whether that’s binge-listening the latest true crime series in one go or turning your morning drive into an lesson on astrophysics.
This, in fact, is one of the beauties of the podcast format. In a world where the screen is god, a hundred different messiahs vie for, and divide, your attention every day. Your TV, your laptop and, of course, your phone, each one cycling through countless networks and images minute-by-minute. The world of screen media is as clogged as that floating island of trash in the ocean.
But the offscreen world has become a new hunting ground for consumer attention. Whether commuting, ironing or working out, there are many times when listening trumps viewing. And maybe it’s because of the different context of the consumption, but the way people listen to podcasts also suggests that they have much more of an appetite - and patience - for long-form narrative.
As any public relations consultant or PR agency will tell you, this is FANTASTIC.
Podcasts provide a platform that you would struggle to get anywhere else. It’s a way to talk about your product, demonstrate your expertise and get across your key messages over 15-30 minutes.
The time and the space afforded by the podcast format means that your stories get the space to breathe.
Listeners get to go beyond headlines and thirty second soundbites. They get to understand the who, what, where, why and how in a medium that doesn’t rush or demand images.
In my role as a PR consultant I have worked with hundreds of thousands of people with a story to tell. I do a great job of facilitating that. I work with journalists across TV, radio and newspapers delivering coverage every day to highlight campaigns and issues my clients are passionate about. But these channels can be frustratingly limited.
With newspapers you are often limited to just a few sentences, on TV a 30 second soundbite. Things get dropped from the news agenda, you can get talked over and things might never even make air.
In 2019 I launched the first consumer legal podcast in the UK - The Case Files. And we just won a PRCA award for it.
Within a year we had nearly 100,000 downloads. For a branded podcast without celebrities this was phenomenal. And the numbers were higher than for podcasts with celebrities!
But to create a successful podcast you need to do a few things:
Be consistent - So many people create a podcast then after a few episodes run out of steam. Plan your first ten episodes before you even start.
Market it - As with anything you need to know who your target audience are AND how to reach them. There is no point producing a brilliant podcast if no one listens to it.
Work out your CTA - what is your call to action? What’s the objective behind creating the podcast? To entertain? To inform? Or just to sell?
It’s also worth considering that you don’t necessarily need to have your own podcast to use podcasts to promote your brand.
You could appear on someone else’s. I have done this a few times and it’s a great opportunity to promote your brand and reach a new audience.
If you want to explore whether podcasting is right for you then I’m happy to help you pull together a strategy for how to create interesting content and market it successfully. Get in touch at alison@enlightenpr.co.uk
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