Podcasting has been around for more than a decade, but the medium hasn’t truly hit its stride yet. That’s because, until recently, there were limited options for listening to podcasts—and even fewer that were effective.
That’s all changed as of late, with a host of new podcast-listening apps and the best podcasts about social media issues on the market that make it easy to discover new shows and manage subscriptions. Apple’s new Podcasts app for iOS 8 is one example; there are also popular options such as Pocket Casts, Overcast and Stitcher Radio.
The result? The number of active podcasts and listeners has increased dramatically over the past few years. A recent study found that 28 percent of Americans have listened to a podcast in their lifetime, up from just 21 percent in 2013.Podcasts are extremely popular and easy to listen to. We’re telling you why your business should be using podcasts to distribute content.
In the past few years, podcasts have become a very common way of discovering new content. They’re easily accessible, you can listen to them anywhere, and it’s an easy way to learn something new while doing mundane tasks like commuting or cooking meals.
But there are a couple other reasons you want to consider starting a podcast in your business:
1. Get in front of your target audience
There are plenty of ways to get in front of your target audience, but one of the best is by starting a podcast. Your ideal customers have specific pain points and questions, which you can answer on your podcast. For example, if you own a gym, you could start a fitness-related podcast where you answer common questions about fitness, nutrition, etc.
2. Build authority in your industry
If you want to be viewed as an expert in your industry and gain authority in your field, starting a podcast is a great way to do so. You can share advice, tips and tricks with people who are interested in learning more about what you do. Podcasting can also help establish you as an influencer in your niche without having to spend thousands of dollars on marketing campaigns or other initiatives.In fact, Edison Research found that 51% of Americans aged 12 and older listen to podcasts on a regular basis. If you break it down to age 18-54, that number jumps to 64%.
While 2017 was considered the “Year of the Podcast”, 2018 is shaping up to be even more exciting for podcasters and listeners alike.
If you’re looking for opportunities to grow your business in 2018, starting a podcast might be one of the most underutilized ways to reach new audiences, build your brand and generate leads.
3. Podcasts Can Be Repurposed
The great thing about podcasts is that they can be repurposed into other mediums. This helps you get more mileage out of your podcast creation efforts, which makes it easier to justify the time and money spent on producing them.
For example, you can use recordings of your podcast episodes to create social media posts that are longer than what Twitter or Instagram allows. You could also use these posts to share on platforms like LinkedIn or Facebook.
You can also take snippets from your podcast episodes and turn them into blog posts. And then, once you’ve created enough blog posts, you could put them together into an e-book or eBooklet to sell or give away.
In this way, creating a podcast is similar to writing a book — which means the content marketing benefits are similar as well!
4. Podcast listeners are very loyal
Almost all podcast listeners stick with a show they enjoy, and do so on a regular basis. In fact, 67% of podcast listeners consume all or most of each episode they listen to. And the average listener subscribes to 6 different shows.
If you’ve got a great podcast, your listeners will love it just as much as they love their favorite television show, and they’ll tell all their friends to tune in too!According to Podtrac, there were 304 million global podcast downloads in December 2015, up from 95 million in January 2015. This is an increase of 220% over the course of a year!
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