We couldn’t be more excited to announce that (drumroll please)... Casted now offers podcast hosting!
But we couldn’t simply check the box with the status quo of hosting and move on from there. We had to do more. We had to deliver a new take on hosting that truly serves B2B marketers...
So why are we getting into hosting?
When we first set out to build hosting into the platform, we asked what could be improved from existing hosts in the space - specifically, what do marketers need that current solutions aren’t delivering?
Looking at what’s out there now, we found that all the major podcasting solutions are built to serve podcasters focusing on simply delivering their show to podcast apps. Some might offer marketing assets like a simple webpage, but that’s as far as these tools would go to help “market” the show.
As we started to unpack the idea of hosting, we realized these point solutions weren’t made with marketers in mind. After talking with customers, partners, friends, and industry experts we made some observations:
- Marketers tend to work with a calendar or schedule of the content they want to publish.
- The publish date sets an inflection point for each piece of content - content producers will work backward from the date to determine when their work needs to be started, ready for review, and ready to publish.
- On the other side of this inflection point is when “marketing” happens - the team will promote the piece, share it across channels, and integrate it into sales materials.
- This promotion is often planned or scheduled in advance to have all promotion ready before the publish date - so once the content goes live, so too does all the marketing.
With these observations in hand, we set out to build an experience that is tailor-made to the marketer’s workflow
How Marketers Work
We know that marketers plan their podcasting content in the same way they do everything else - traditional posts, white papers, videos, etc. In fact, the process to actually produce a podcast usually involves more players and partners than other content, so having a clear schedule is critical.
However - even if a marketing team has the most robust content schedule, there’s a breakdown when it comes to podcasts that makes publishing episodes more challenging than other forms of content.
Take a blog post, for example: a content writer will create the post and the team will schedule it to go live on the date set in the marketing calendar. Once the post is scheduled, the promotion team is free to take the link and schedule out social posts, emails, etc. This means all promotion is ready in advance of the actual publish date. So on launch day, it’s smooth sailing - the post goes live and all promotion kicks off with no drama.
With podcasts, though? It’s a mad rush.
Once the podcast has finished being produced, it lies dormant and waiting to be published. On the date the episode should go live, someone will upload the episode to the hosting software and a flurry of activity begins to share the episode, including updating blog posts with the new embed code, updating or creating social posts, etc.
Introducing - How It Should Have Always Been
The best solution, especially in software, is often the simplest one. We realized marketers need the ability to schedule their podcast content. It’s a simple idea, but a powerful one, as marketers can finally fit their podcast into their content calendar.
Casted lets marketers work with podcasts the way they do all their other content. Once the content producer has completed the episode, the marketing team can upload the file to Casted and set the publish date.
Of course that’s just the first half of the story. Once an episode has been uploaded to Casted, marketers can start cutting clips, select the key takeaways, and finalize their show notes.
At the same time, the promotion process can start too. Casted provides embed codes and shareable links that will become active on the publish date, so marketers can create their blog posts and schedule social posts in advance.
On the publish date, it all goes live. No fuss. No rush.
This is only the beginning.
Hosting is just the start of a much bigger vision. To us, hosting sets foundations to help marketers work with podcasting the way they work with other content marketing mediums.
Now that we have built this foundation, we can continue adding amazing solutions with marketers and their sales teams in mind. We’re so excited to keep working with you to make Casted the best content marketing platform built on conversations.
