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Looking to launch a successful podcast?
In 2022, 51% of the population had listened to a podcast and about 78% are familiar with the medium, so now is definitely a good time to get involved.
That being said, if you’re looking to have a successful podcast there’s a lot to think about. From strategy through to production and actually marketing the podcast, it can seem like a never ending and incredibly daunting task. That is why we at Auddy are here to help you on that podcast journey. Today I will be covering two important aspects that come before a podcast is even recorded or released.
Finding your purpose
Whether you are making a podcast for internal or external audiences, it’s critical that you are clear on your purpose. In order to start defining that, ask yourself:
- What audience are you trying to reach?
- Who are you speaking to?
- Why are you making this podcast?
- What is your tone of voice?
If the answers to these questions aren’t clearly defined from the get go, the foundations of your podcast won’t be set and it will be difficult for it to be successful.
Understanding who your audience is will help you tailor your content to them. This is critical for the success of a podcast as it will define how you move forward. Are you creating an internal podcast to update staff on key announcements, or are you speaking externally to an audience who already cares about your brand?
“There’s a huge difference between somebody standing on the stage with a microphone or a loudspeaker and shouting at a crowd, and somebody sitting at a pub table and talking to you.”
Podcasting gives you the opportunity to immerse your listeners in a story and really connect with them, but you can only do this by having that purpose clearly defined from the start so that you know how to proceed.
Once you understand who your audience is, you can start to think about people at an individual level. By doing this, it becomes easier to define how you might choose to talk to them, the tone of voice you’d take, how formal the podcast should be, what music and soundscaping will be used, how often episodes will be released or what social media platforms you will use to promote it. If your purpose isn’t clear, you will probably end up putting a lot of effort into areas that don’t impact your success.
It can also help you decide whether to capture video and put your podcast on Youtube or not. If you want to find out more about putting your podcast on Youtube, have a read of our article ‘Podcasts on YouTube – 4 Mistakes to Avoid’.
Defining success
What does success look like to you? If clear goals aren’t set from the start, what are you quantifying your podcast’s success as? Most importantly, how will you track your success without knowing what you’re looking out for?
If you’re going to be making an internal podcast, you might be looking for a certain number of employees to have listened to each episode. If that’s what you’re after, we would recommend using a private network as you can manage who has access to it, you can narrow it down to people in particular teams and you can really closely watch who’s listening and engaging.
On the other hand, for an external podcast, you might be looking to have it published in the charts, to have a certain amount of weekly listeners, or to drive listeners down a funnel. This will affect the analytics you will be tracking, as well as the tools you will need to do so.
In podcasting we often focus on tracking listeners and time listened, however releasing a business podcast is often content marketing as opposed to pure entertainment. With this in mind, if the end goal is to drive business, standard podcast measurements such as chart positions or download numbers may become less meaningful than KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) such as Brand Awareness, Customer Loyalty & Engagement.
Once you have a clearly defined outlook of what success looks like for your podcast, it’s time to make sure you are able to track the analytics that really matter to you. For more information on this, watch our video for more tips on everything we’ve discussed.
