The ROI of podcasting.

“I think of the ROI of a podcast in two ways. Number one is that it’s a kind of the Trojan horse for creating [and capturing] content. And then number two is that it’s a way to build an audience…”

Lots of companies are interested in podcasting, but aren’t sure how to measure its ROI.

And that makes sense, because (at least in our minds) podcasting is really more a “brand marketing” play (vs. a “direct” one). In other words, it’s primary use is to build an audience, build trust, and establish yourself as the expert in your industry.

And we were encouraged to hear that DG’s thinking on this wasn’t far from ours. In the episode, he gives a nice breakdown of the 2 main benefits podcasting gives:

#1 – It provides a way to produce a lot of content. Each episode could yield 10, 20, or 50+ pieces of content (long-form articles, social posts, etc.).

#2 – It lets you build an audience that trusts you, and is more likely to buy from you when they’re ready to make a purchase.

Oh, and he talked about this concept for both B2B  and B2C brands.

Using your podcast as a core part (or “anchor”) of your marketing strategy.

Another helpful insight DG pointed out was that, if you _already _have a strategy, and are producing content on a number of channels, you might find it difficult to know how or where a podcast would “fit in”.

At Privy, their podcast is the strategy. It’s an “anchor” or a core part of their marketing efforts.

What this means is that instead of them figuring out when and where to share podcast episodes amidst all the other content they’re sharing, they draw content from the podcast, and add miscellaneous audio content to the podcast.

In other words, they start with Privy’s podcast and draw inspiration from that, which translates into long-form articles, webinars, interviews, social posts, and more.

This is why DG sees content production as one of the biggest reasons every brand should be podcasting. If you start with the podcast, and capture the content in audio form, you can both:

1. Draw social posts, blog posts, website content, etc. from the show, and…
2. Take other content (recorded webinars or YouTube videos), strip out the audio, and add it to your podcast (provided it fits the “feel” of the show), to add more value to your listeners.

This is a pretty helpful concept for a lot of companies, who otherwise are just recording episodes, not doing anything with them, and hoping that people just “show up”.

It also helps to give you an idea of what “place” a podcast might have at your company.

You don’t need thousands of listeners, or “viral” growth to be successful.

“If you were Salesforce, and you did a podcast, and that podcast only had 250 downloads per month… but the 250 people listening were all marketing ops people at enterprise cloud companies, the ROI on that podcast would actually be huge! Because you’re literally in the ears of your dream customers while they’re at the gym, cleaning the house, going for a walk on a drive. I don’t know how you could think of a better marketing channel than that.”

Lots of companies who are considering starting a podcast think it’s only worth it if the show gets thousands of listeners, or grows by 25%+ every month. They think that if they don’t have thousands of downloads and subscribers, it’s not worth the investment.

DG breaks down how that’s absolutely not true. Instead, he shares how reality is that most shows won’t attain more than 5-10% growth each month, and most shows get tens of thousands of downloads, ever.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not valuable. Far from it.

If you’re a B2B brand, you could top out at just 500 listeners (and most anyone could scratch and claw their way to 500 listeners), and provided those listeners are you’re target audience, that means you literally get to talk to them every time they tune in.

The two biggest factors to growing your show are content, and consistency.

“It really is about guests and content. At the end of the day, that’s all I’ve seen.”

While there are a lot of specific tactics you can try to share your podcast with your ideal audience, DG is confident that, at the end of the day, growing your show boils down to having on great guests or creating amazing content, and being consistent with it.

While it might not be what a lot of companies want to hear who may be looking to podcasting as some magic bullet, it’s what we’ve found at Lemonpie as well. Don’t get us wrong, you can definitely do certain things to reach more listeners. Heck, we’re writing a book about that.

But at the foundation you need to be patient, and persistent. In fact, that’s why we wrote this article on how your podcast isn’t that different from your website. You didn’t launch your website and expect thousands of visitors overnight, right? You were committed to letting your audience know about it, and getting it in front of them to prompt consideration. Your podcast isn’t any different.

Check em’ out

• Privy’s website
• DG’s private podcast for marketers
• Or follow DG on LinkedIn or Twitter for more of his thoughts on parenting and marketing