Why branded podcasts are good for business
By Ann Chesterman, Strategist
What's a medium dominated by true crime investigations and celebrity chat shows got to do with brand marketing? The podcast opportunity for brands is much greater than you might realise.
1. Available audience
You’ve probably noticed conversations about what podcasts your friends are listening to are becoming as frequent as what shows they’re watching on Netflix. That’s because podcasting in Australia is more popular than ever. For the first time, according to the latest Infinite Dial Report released by Edison Research, 40% of the Australian population over 12 are now listening to podcasts each month. That’s up from 37% in 2021 with growth continuing year on year, pushing podcasting firmly into the mainstream.
2. Stickiness
Have you noticed how many people have earbuds in as they commute to work, walk the dog, and do the groceries? Aussie listeners are tuning into an average of 7 podcast episodes a week. With most podcasts lasting roughly 30 minutes, that’s well over 3.5 hours spent listening every week.
That’s a lot of time spent with content. 30 minutes of audience attention or engagement with your brand is a very attractive proposition.
3. Emotional engagement
The real strength of podcasting is its intimacy – the power of the human voice and storytelling to grab onto the heartstrings or the curiosity in each of us. Humans are hardwired to seek out stories and podcasting provides audiences a deep connection with the storyteller, straight into their ears. According to the BBC Audio Activated report in 2019, brands with podcasts saw 89% higher brand awareness.
How can brands take advantage of this?
Be clear about your target audience
With podcasting, reaching the right audience is far more important than reaching a broad audience.
Work out the ‘jobs to be done’
What’s the role of your podcast? What purpose does it have in someone’s life? Podcasts can play a key role in the lives of your audience to entertain, teach, provide companionship, connection etc. A podcast like Hamish and Andy is made purely to entertain – to distract and delight while doing something like commuting, whereas a show like ABC News Daily serves listeners who want to keep up-to-date with current affairs.
The ‘job to be done’ can really be anything, but the more specific and niche that job is, the more thoroughly you’ll serve your audience’s needs – and the more loyal they’ll be to your show.
So what does a great branded podcast sound like?
The best brand podcasts provide a great experience for their audience; delivering them something of value in return for their time and attention. And the best use sophisticated storytelling to do this. Take software company Atlassian’s show, Teamistry, for example.
The purpose of the podcast, from Atlassian’s perspective, is to build brand awareness and fortify the company’s reputation as one of the world’s most savvy and forward-thinking tech companies. That’s a great internal objective, but stopping there does not a great show make!
Atlassian finds an element of their brand that goes beyond what they sell: in this case, “the work of teams”. Now there’s an enormous pool of stories to pull from, captivating listeners while fortifying the importance of teams (and in turn, the importance of the kind of collaboration software the company makes).
If you think your brand needs a podcast, think of this as the golden rule: nothing’s better for business than a great podcast. If the show’s fantastic, listeners will seek out the brand behind it.