With 464.7 million podcast listeners today, B2B marketers are looking for ways to enter this exciting medium to build brand awareness. However in order to stand out in a huge sea of podcasts, companies don’t need to look further than employees and customers, aka their strongest advocates.
Podcasting provides a unique opportunity to tell your story, authentically build your employee and customer experience, and establish the people who make your business possible as a thought leaders in your industry.
But podcasting is more than just a performative marketing channel. It can be a truly comprehensive business strategy that all your stakeholders can benefit from and enjoy!
The power of podcasting lies in its ability to connect with people on a personal level through the power of storytelling. By sharing their experiences, challenges, and successes, you can build trust and establish an emotional connection with your guests and listeners. This connection can translate into increased brand awareness, customer loyalty, and even new business opportunities.
But the benefits of podcasting as a business go far beyond content marketing. By involving stakeholders from all areas of your business, you can use podcasting to uplift all aspects of your company. Here’s how:
A Comprehensive B2B Content Marketing Strategy for Growth Across Your Business
Podcasting can be a powerful tool for shaping your marketing effort. By bringing together key stakeholders from customer, partner and employee groups, your B2B podcast can discuss industry trends, share insights, and brainstorm new ideas in your collective marketplace.
As a purpose driven brand, your B2B podcast gives you an opportunity to invite your team, your network, and your heroes to show off their expertise. It’s a great way to engage your target audience or potential customers and showcase different voices and perspectives.
Tip: Once you develop your show premise, brainstorm an interviewee list on who you’d love to invite to your show. Don’t forget to look internally! You have different perspectives on your team that can share insights and help you develop your content marketing strategy moving forward.
How Branded Podcasts Help Sales
Podcasting can also be a powerful tool for sales. By inviting guests who represent potential customers or partners onto your podcast, you can build relationships with them in a low-pressure setting.
Consider this an exercise and research in your buyer persona. You can see what’s most important to them and what they would need for their business to succeed.
This also can help to establish trust and credibility, which potentially translates into new business opportunities down the line. New or relevant episodes are great content for your sales team. They can use it in outreach, leveraging guests, themes, and more when relevant in their sales funnel.
Tip: Work with your sales team to develop content. What topics, pain points, or thoughts do their leads have that can inform future episodes.
Level Up Your B2B Marketing and Ignite Employee Advocacy
Of course, podcasting is also an effective digital marketing tool. By producing high-quality content that speaks to your target audience, you can build brand awareness, generate leads, and drive traffic to your website.
This can help to establish your company as a thought leader in your industry and increase your visibility to a potential customer or partner.
Podcasting offers a treasure trove of content to distribute. Consider how you can re-purpose your podcast content into your social media, paid ads, a blog post, or email marketing. More important, how are you sharing this content with your different departments?
Make it easy for your employees to share your content. Send out an example post or copy they can use. Share a summary of the podcast. Have your managers set the pace and ask them to share on their profiles too!
Brand Advocacy and Customer Experience
With 116 million people in the U.S. tuning into a podcast every month, we’re seeing podcasts effectively create brand recognition and conversations. Duolingo and Trader Joe’s have some of the most popular shows for their audience, and while branded they still have a personal touch point with their customer.
Podcasting can help build stronger relationships with your customers. By providing valuable content that speaks to their needs and interests, you can establish yourself as a trusted expert. But take it to the next level and work with your customer experience team.
What feedback are they hearing (good or bad) from your customers? How does your brand set itself apart in terms of customers?
“Stakeholders want to be invited in. When they are asked, listened to, and heard, they become advocates who want to see you win.”
– Patty Knap Tucker, Founder & Senior Strategist Treehouse Counsel during an episode of the Chat with Leaders podcast.
B2B podcasting fosters a deeper connection by offering a unique platform for open conversations, interviews, and discussions that not only address their pain points but also humanize the brand, showcasing the company’s expertise, authenticity, and commitment to their success.
You can also use your podcast as a platform for showcasing customer success stories and highlighting your company’s commitment to delivering value.
Tip:Look at your mission, vision, and values. It guides how your team executes on projects but also what content you develop. Aligning everything will create a through line for your content.
Spotlight Your Employees & Their Thought Leadership
Podcasting can also be an effective team building tool. By involving team members from different departments in the production of your podcast, you can create opportunities for cross-functional collaboration and build stronger relationships among your team members and in the public arena.
Podcasting is also a helpful internal communications tool, allowing you to share updates, insights, and best practices with your team in an engaging and informative way. Showcase that teammate’s expertise or encourage your team to share the post on their own social.
Showing support to your organization not only helps your show’s reach but shows your trust and investment in their own career paths.
Tip: Showcase your employees’ hard work and insight on social media sites like Linkedin. It’s a wonderful way to publicly recognize and celebrate your people!
Podcasts Provide Additional Research and Development
Finally, podcasting can be a powerful tool for research and development.
Engaging in B2B podcasting with your audience of potential customers presents a valuable opportunity for research and development, as it allows companies to gather direct feedback, gain insights into market trends, and uncover new ideas or solutions that can drive innovation and enhance their products or services.
Aligning your R&D with your show is not only a good practice but ensures your podcast is an effective tool and speaking to your customers.
Are you ready to step up to the mic?
Podcasting is a powerful tool for growing your purpose driven B2B brand and uplifting all areas of your business.
If you’re interested in starting a podcast for your business, reach out today to learn how we can help you get started!
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