4 Methods to Leverage Podcasting to Develop Your Enterprise

After I first launched my podcast, The Fractional C-Suite Retreat, I had no concept what would come from it. The precise course of of constructing a podcast is surprisingly easy. The three key elements: a pc to file the podcast, a superb microphone to seize your voice, and a software program program to edit your audio. (Some say a fourth requirement is a lovely voice … but when I made it, so are you able to.) 

The toughest a part of podcasting? It’s nothing associated to sound engineering or fancy advertising methods. It’s the power to search out that bedrock concept that ties all of it collectively. 

A singular angle is important — and with the speedy development of podcasts as a media kind constructed for communities, going area of interest and particular is vital. Nonetheless, an important aspect I’ve discovered all through my podcasting expertise: figuring out a objective for the podcast you wish to launch.

Podcasting is an train in longevity. Figuring out a giant mission or objective — the explanation why you began this factor within the first place — will propel you ahead on the times you are feeling too busy or too low on vitality. Probably your objective lies within the viewers you try to encourage or the sensation you get if you end up deep in dialogue with a visitor. Monetary good points will come, however lead era and financial ROI can’t be the first motivators (cash alone is rarely a sustainable driver for something, I’ve discovered).

The outcomes and affect a podcast creates far outweigh the challenges. The advantages are so vital that I imagine each entrepreneur, chief or fractional skilled ought to take into account incorporating a podcast into their enterprise mannequin. The explanations are easy. 

Branding and advertising 

After I first began my podcast in November 2021, I knew I needed it to assist the most recent enterprise I used to be constructing (yorCMO: a fractional CMO firm). I used to be rapidly getting fascinated with the fractional mannequin of labor — and I needed a platform to share my pleasure for it whereas talking on to the viewers my enterprise was concentrating on.

A podcast is a advertising channel – and it may be a key a part of a strategic advertising combine. However there was one small distinction:

The podcast wasn’t a Fb advert being unfold throughout the web by a faceless company model. The podcast was me: my voice, my ideas, the kinds of friends I felt enthusiastic about chatting with. It was my model. 

What got here out was: The Fractional C-Suite Retreat podcast

The idea is easy: a present meant for an govt viewers to take heed to whereas unwinding and studying about varied points affecting the C-suite. I had at all times beloved (nonetheless do) studying, listening to a podcast or writing over a cigar in my yard after a protracted day. I figured different busy leaders would possibly already be doing the identical factor I did, and so they would possibly wish to take part my cigar-fueled audio retreat.

Whereas branding the podcast, I used to be capable of model my firm and myself on the similar time to my listeners. Speaking about shared experiences with my friends makes listeners affiliate sure emotions with me and, by extension, the corporate I based. The podcast started to behave as a supporting pillar of my company model’s advertising and my very own private model’s advertising.

What’s extra: a gentle move of episodes began to gasoline content material for social media accounts.  

From a branding perspective, a podcast may be invaluable: it may create beneficial on-line engagement to your model(s) whereas providing you with advertising content material to your different channels.

Viewers connection and authoritative presence

The title of the podcasting recreation? Creating private connection in right now’s disconnected world. 

Podcasting establishes a extra direct connection to your viewers. Whereas blogs and posts on social media are used to attach along with your viewers, podcasting has a novel place within the social media panorama. Your viewers hears your voice and mannerisms in ways in which texts can not compete with.

Do podcasts for a protracted sufficient time, and you should have an viewers who merely loves listening to your (and your friends’) ideas. In case your voice is an genuine one, and in the event you maintain again from the temptation to make the whole lot “good,” your viewers will see you as an authoritative determine in your core subject; they’ll get to know you, and really feel you perceive them; and inadvertently they’ll develop a way of belief. 

The purpose isn’t to be a “thought chief”; it’s to be an unfiltered, fascinating, dependable lighthouse standing out in a crowded sea of voices guiding your viewers dwelling. Be the lighthouse!

New avenues for on-line presence

Whether or not to your company model or to your personal brand (or each, if they’re interconnected), a podcast is a great approach to attain audiences outdoors of your fast business or community.

Podcasting helps your online business attain an viewers disconnected from however adjoining to all of your different advertising channels. Conventional advertising rhetoric tells us to be on “each” social media platform — however most of the time we find yourself specializing in one platform above the remainder (probably a better technique). Mostly, it’s the one the place the largest focus of our target market is discovered. 

Podcasting is, in some methods, natively disconnected from a singular social media platform – which implies it creates alternatives to succeed in individuals you may have by no means met, identified about, or marketed to.

In keeping with the Infinite Dial 2023 survey by Edison Analysis on digital media client habits in the USA, 42% of the US inhabitants listens to podcasts month-to-month. In 2012, this proportion was solely 14%.

It’s a rapidly-growing phase — one that’s diversifying by way of attraction. The identical survey notes that podcast listeners’ demographics (gender, ethnicity, and age) are diversifying simply as quickly. The curiosity in podcasts shouldn’t be solely an American phenomenon: Latin America and Asia Pacific, for instance, have seen exceptional development.

The purpose: podcasting creates new avenues for brand new publicity to new audiences — and regardless of what looks like a “crowded” podcasting market, in some methods it’s nonetheless in its infancy as a channel to succeed in and encourage audiences.

Constructing a discovered neighborhood 

Nothing beats trustworthy mental conversations.

A important (and understated) advantage of podcasting: Attending to have conversations with sensible, fascinating individuals. I’ve had many fantastic friends of varied backgrounds on my podcast, from whom I discovered a lot about completely different sides of enterprise. One week I’m speaking to a world-class knowledgeable about modern-day advertising; one other week on firm tradition; the subsequent about the way forward for work.

Past ideas associated to my core subject (govt enterprise management points), I’ve discovered a lot about psychology, philosophy, well being, strategic pondering, relationship-building, and way more. The friends I’ve had on my podcast repeatedly remind me and my viewers that regardless of how skilled chances are you’ll be in your discipline of experience, there are at all times new issues to be taught.

Furthermore, the easy act of internet hosting friends on a weekly podcast builds a way of neighborhood: I’ve expanded my community and audiences exponentially; constructed actual relationships I’ll maintain onto; and have obtained messages on how I’ve impressed others to attain their targets. Even when a podcast is by default a one-way dialog, a neighborhood will get created the place individuals can alternate, be taught and develop. It’s exceptional, actually.

Whether or not you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or a C-level chief, I imagine podcasting may help your online business develop.

My suggestion: Give it a strive. Begin with a mission and objective— and who is aware of the place the podcasting journey can take you from there? 

Contributed to EO by Joseph Frost, an EO Nebraska member, who’s a decentralized entrepreneur, college professor of entrepreneurship, public speaker, and a four-time founder. He’s the founding father of Guided Outsourcing, a people-centric outsourcing enterprise, and YorCMO, the primary decentralized management advertising system. Joe has written about causes to decentralize your leadership team, methods to lead globally distributed teams and the way technology empowers distributed teams to build culture.

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