8 Steps You Can’t Afford Missing in Your Podcast Content Strategy

Podcasts have been a form of entertainment and education for years, with their popularity and consumption at new heights due to the pandemic.

In a recent Statista report, podcast listening has risen to 62% among US consumers – a 5% increase from the previous year. On average, listeners typically listen to eight podcasts per week, with 65% listening to the whole episode.

The demand is there, and listeners want more content.

Is your brand looking to dive into the podcast realm, or do you not know where to begin? Wherever you may stand on this podcast journey, there is much to consider. Here are eight key aspects that you need to include in your podcast strategy.

“The medium of podcasting and the personal nature of it, the relationship you build with your listeners and the relationship they have with you — they could be just sitting there, chuckling and listening… there’s nothing like that.”

-Marc Mason, Host of “WTF with Marc Maron

Define Your Audience

Sounds simple enough, right?

But one of the most common oversights of any strategy is not having a clear understanding of the target audience you are trying to reach. Determining that is knowing who you want to speak to and how you should speak to them. Are you delivering the type of content that the audience is seeking? Are you sharing that in a style and approach that resonates with them?

Developing an audience (or listener) persona is key to making your podcast successful. This will help define your target audience’s wants and preferences for more robust content around trends and topics that speak to them. Plus, you’ll build a solid and authentic brand identity.

Learn more about Ideas Collides’ market research + consumer insight services.

Build Your Network

In any form of brand marketing, having a network of partners and collaborators is fundamental to nurturing and growing your support system. There are several ways you can tap into your connections and further build out your network.

Leverage your guest’s audience.

Your guests will have their network – big or small. Use that to your advantage and let your guest bring awareness around their episode – and your podcast – through promotion on their podcast, social channels, and other marketing avenues. To make the most of this opportunity, give your guests all the tools to bridge that connection; graphics, soundbites, prewritten copy, and quotes.

Be a guest on other podcasts.

Being a guest on another podcast show can significantly impact your brand. Along with building your network of support and collaborators, you also have the opportunity to bring attention to your podcast efforts as a guest on their show. You will get to position yourself as a creator and thought leader within your area of expertise.

Join podcast groups.

To get to a point where you can join others on their shows and vice versa, you’ll need to make those connections first. Podcast groups on Facebook, Reddit, and LinkedIn, to name a few, are a great place to start. You’ll form relationships, learn from others, answer your questions, and build your pool for ideas and collaboration.

“Every company can find authentic stories related to their brands, whether those stories are revealed through interviews, investigations, or real-life demonstrations. With some serious thought about what kind of stories your brand can tell and a commitment to honesty, you have what you need to begin making an engaging podcast, no matter what industry you’re in.”

–Nichole D’Angelo, Associate Editor with Skyword

Get On Podcast Directories

Delivering your podcast to as many people as possible is every podcaster’s goal. And with so many podcast directories available, it can be overwhelming to know how to best tackle that. An easy way to maximize your reach with minimal effort is to connect your podcast hosting platform to the podcast directories. Whenever you update your podcast hosting platform with the latest information and audio, it automatically updates across numerous podcast directories – getting you in front of as many audiences as possible.

Release 3-5 Episodes On Launch Day

Releasing multiple episodes on launch day has been proven the most optimal way to hook listeners, engage with them, and motivate them to subscribe. Having a handful of episodes on the first day allows listeners to invest and digest your podcast and its content.

Plus, this can help you reach prominent homepage sections like ‘New,’ ‘Noteworthy,’ and ‘You Might Like’ on podcast directory apps.

Write Captivating Titles and Descriptions

As small as this one seems, it serves as the first impression between you and potential listeners. So, you want to make it count where it matters. Having clear, informative, fun titles and descriptions is a recipe for success. You don’t need to hit all three of those elements every single time, but being direct and detailed helps pull listeners to tune in weekly.

Experiment With Publish Times and Days

When it comes to finding the right time and day to release episodes – and consistently – the answer isn’t always right there, especially when starting with limited data. Select a day and time that generally does well for podcasters. After some time, when you have built up an audience and related data, you can revisit to see if you are pushing content out when your prime audience is searching and listening for podcasts.

“People are listening and want to consume all of the content there and available. There’s a level of dedication from podcast listeners that you don’t otherwise find. And now the numbers prove it. Podcasts aren’t a bubble, they’re a boom — and that boom is only getting louder.”

-Miranda Katz, Author at Wired

Build Your Podcast Community

Like building your professional network, you’ll want to create a community for your listeners.

From social media and online groups to email marketing – the work you do around your podcast doesn’t stop once the episode goes up. That is only a fraction of the work that needs to be done. Interacting and engaging with your audience is key to giving them the space they crave for connection and conversations.

Repurpose Your Podcast Content

Whether it’s evergreen content or conversations focusing on a specific time, there are many ways to repurpose and reuse your content. Resurfacing your content material throughout your podcast lifetime and finding ways to restructure it to live on as various forms of media is fundamental to your strategy.

Here are a few ways you can easily do that:

Graphics

Make graphics out of your episodes. If you shared data or fun facts during the conversation, convert those to infographics to highlight those pieces of information.

Blogs

Pull the most informative pieces out of the conversation for a quick, easy-to-consume article. Or, if there was a ton of information from the conversation you couldn’t include in the final episode, you can use that to create new but relative content.

Videos

Are you filming your podcast as well as recording it? You can make short or long-form videos for promotional purposes or circle back on fun and informative moments from the episode. And even if you aren’t filming your podcast recordings, turning your audio into a video is easy. You can pull key soundbites, overlay them with a graphic, and create a more impactful way of sharing audio content with audiences.
Data source: The Infinite Dial 2021, Edison Research

IC Streaming is the latest suite of services that Ideas Collide is proud to offer.

Our expertise in video creation, social media, content strategy, and digital marketing supports brand goals around podcast streaming and production. We look forward to helping you build and elevate your podcast to new heights. Ready to learn more? Let’s connect!