As a marketer, you’re used to setting your sales folks up with content to drive opportunities. But the task can be daunting with sales constantly looking for the latest and greatest stories to tell — not the same old whitepaper everyone’s read before. Have you ever considered a podcast as the perfect solution?
Podcasts provide fresh, creative, evergreen content that not only engages new audiences, but helps grow relationships by featuring both prospective and customer audiences. If you’re constantly being asked “How does your podcast impact the business?” or “What leads are you driving?,” then partnering with sales could provide the ROI you’ve been looking for.
So where to start? Try these creative ways to energize your podcast content, drive listenership, and set your sales team up for success.
Invite Prospects to Contribute as Podcast Guests
You’ve heard us talk about how podcasts allow you to bring your biggest subject matter expert to every deal. But have you thought about making a subject matter expert out of a prospect instead?
A great way to engage sales prospects in a non-traditional way is to invite them onto your show as a guest. This creates a win for both sales and your podcast by:
- Deepening the prospect’s involvement with your brand, positively impacting the relationship
- Providing your show with more expert content from a valuable outside source
Prospective customers will walk away flattered that their input is valued, while getting a taste of how hard your brand works to be a thought leader in the space. It’s truly a win-win!
It's important to note that not all prospects will make great guests on your show. Work with your sales team to identify guests who would bring value and insight to your audience first and foremost. You don't want to lose sight of your most important podcast asset - your audience.
Glean Customer Testimonials
At Casted, we’re obsessed with our customers’ podcasts and sharing what they have to say with the world. (If you haven’t checked them out, there are some SERIOUS nuggets of wisdom in there!) When you feature customers in your podcast, it goes a long way, providing:
- Outside brand names to draw podcast attention
- Transcripts to repurpose in other marketing channels
- Rich customer testimonials sales can share with prospects
The best sales content is when your customers do the talking for you, giving their firsthand experience with your product/service and advocating for your brand. If you already transcribe your podcast episodes, it’s easy to unearth these powerful testimonials there. And you can also create powerful clips or audiograms of these customer conversations for use in social media posts, prospecting, and inbound/outbound marketing (with permission, of course).
Map Podcast Themes to Your ABM Strategy
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a marketing/sales duo at its finest. Together, the two teams collaborate on a strategy that creates personalized selling experiences for a mutually-decided set of high-value accounts. (If you haven’t checked out our good friend Sangram Vajre’s podcast, ABM-focused FlipMyFunnel, you must take a listen!)
Podcasting fits in perfectly with an ABM strategy. First, you identify and understand the pain points your company is solving for. Then, simply map topics and clips from your show to those pain points for sales to use. This personalizes the account-based model even further, providing relevant content for sales to easily use in a new and different way.
Podcast pro and Casted pal Jay Acunzo knows the value of good podcast content in the marketing funnel.
“When your audience feels like they actually know you, [you] turn low-probability events into higher-probability outcomes,” he says on his Marketing Showrunners blog.
Always Be Casting
The next time one of your marketing or business leaders asks how your show is contributing to the bottom line, here’s what you can say:
- Podcasting creates a unique opportunity to build close-knit relationships with prospects, allowing them to see first-hand what your brand is all about.
- Podcasting creates a cycle of customer engagement by inviting current customers on the show, showcasing their love for the brand and generating new fans and loyalists.
- Podcasting supports an ABM strategy with more tailored thought leadership to insert at just the right opportunity.
Your podcast content has the potential to go a very long way, my friend. So the next time your sales team pulls you in, be ready to impress.
At Casted, we bridge the gap between marketing and sales, helping you maximize your rich show content through the world’s first B2B podcasting platform. Showcase your podcast’s value with tools to engage your audience, align with sales, and quantify the value of your show. Drop us a line, and we’ll show you how!
