When you think about what's driving your content marketing strategy, I'd place a bet that traditional forms of content—blogs, e-books, whitepapers—are what come to mind. And although those things should still make up an important part of your overall strategy, using them as the central engine of your efforts is a plan of the past.
What if I told you there's an easier way to produce engaging, high-quality content without having to constantly spin your wheels for fresh ideas to fill your website's resources page?
Consider this: Somewhere in the early days of the 21st century, the Internet stepped into the spotlight, and the concept of brand blogging emerged with it. Now, as marketing teams prepare their content strategies for 2021, they're pulling ideas from the same old bag of tricks marketers used 20 years ago: relying on the blog to engage their audience and drive pipeline.
But buyers, technology, and marketing tactics have drastically changed over the last 20 years, and the way we produce content needs to evolve as well.
Today, marketers have an important opportunity to place conversations—in the form of podcasts—at the center of their content marketing strategy.
With podcasting, we have a world of content at our fingertips: It has given brand marketers the power to captivate their audience through conversations. Modern marketing teams can use conversations from podcasts to drive their entire content marketing strategy: blog posts, whitepapers, e-books, social media posts, sales emails, and more.
By unlocking the goldmine of content within a podcast, you can provide your audience with an engaging experience with your company; moreover, it's an experience that's proven to drive better awareness, purchase intent, and more.
Here's why you should capitalize on podcast content to improve the results of your content marketing efforts.
Conversations establish connections
The conversations happening in each episode of a podcast create a connection not only between the people speaking to each other but also between the audience and your brand.
When people tune into your show, they form a bond with the speakers; and since those speakers are associated with your company, they inherently form a connection with your company as well.
Connections fuel conversions
Within a brand podcast, the brand stands out. When audience members have established a connection with the voices behind the podcast, they are more likely to become a customer of the associated brand.
The intimate and conversational nature of a podcast has a strong effect on the listener's perception of brand. In fact, according to a BBC study, podcasts improve brand awareness by 89%, brand consideration by 57%, brand favorability by 24%, and purchase intent by 14%.
Because of such proven results, many content marketers have already dipped their toes into the waters of podcasting. But few B2B marketing teams are using that channel as their content engine. That's where the real opportunity to differentiate your B2B brand lies.
Unite your content marketing through podcasting
When you use the conversations regularly taking place on your show, you don't have to worry about where your blog, social, or email content will come from because there is so much content to pull from one podcast episode. Even better, that content can be repurposed across other channels.
Instead of constantly heading back to the drawing board for another brainstorm session, your content team can act as conversationalists. And you don't have to hire a podcast professional. Your own team can become successful conversationalists by following these five simple steps:
- Find an industry leader whose expertise aligns with the topic or keyword you want to target, then record a conversation on the topic with that subject-matter expert.
- Edit the conversation for flow and publish the interview through your chosen marketing channel (your website and podcasting platform) for your audience to listen to and engage with.
- Push the interview to other marketing channels by cutting and clipping the conversation to meet each channel's needs.
- Measure the metrics around the episode from a holistic perspective, and reflect on how those results can fuel your future strategy.
- Pick a new expert and repeat steps 1-4!
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Today, buyers expect to have an engaging experience with your company. If you don't deliver, they will quickly move on to a competitor who can.
When your podcast is at the center of your content marketing strategy, you're guaranteed to provide an intriguing, connected experience that will drive better awareness, favorability, and purchase intent for your brand without your team sacrificing hours of precious time to re-create the content wheel.
