We’ve hosted some amazing guests since the start of our Casted podcast. We’ve chatted about everything from audience development to episode format to kazoo technique (yes, you read that right. Thanks, Jay!). But one theme rings true across them all: value. Our guests have impressed upon us all that there’s no point in doing a podcast unless you’re doing it well and dishing up incredible value.
So maybe it’s time to ask:
Is your brand gleaning enough value from your podcast?
If the answer is “no,” the solution isn’t to stop podcasting. You just need to get smarter about how you do it.
How to Measure Your Podcast’s Impact
You’ve heard it in your sales and marketing meetings, and the same applies to podcasting — you can’t achieve success if you don’t know what success looks like. Like the blogs, whitepapers, and videos you produce, your podcasts need helpful analytics so you can track your progress.
“It can’t just be listens or downloads, because you can’t pay your employees with downloads,” says Jay Baer, author, founder of Convince & Convert, and podcaster extraordinaire.
“Understand what you’re really trying to achieve and then measure the podcast and your satisfaction with it after awhile based on that.”
According to Jay, too many B2B podcasters are looking for the quick win, often forfeiting their hard work if they don’t see the numbers they’re looking for early on. But finding an audience and cultivating a following takes time. Instead of focusing on surface-level metrics, look deeper to find the true value of the show and see how it’s building a foundation for long-term success. Also, consider hosting your podcast on your own website to have better access and control over your metrics.
“Look at the spike in SEO. Look at the spike in people mentioning the show to your customer success team. There are all these other signals that indicate that the show is doing something for your brand beyond just how many people downloaded it.”
Forget “One and Done” Episodes
Podcast episodes do not exist in a vacuum. Are you gleaning the full value of every episode; every conversation; every moment? Jay views each episode as a “series of great moments” that just happen to be recorded at the same time. These meaningful moments can be extracted to showcase the brilliance of a show and create a unified series of content.
“Stop thinking of podcasts as an album, and start thinking of the episode as a series of hit singles,” he says. “All of a sudden, the way you merchandise the value of your podcast changes dramatically.”
If you break down each episode into the “collection of thoughts” that it is, instead of a single entity, you can spread that great content across various channels to promote your show, showcase your brand, and build deeper engagement. Or, consider pairing with other podcast clips to create stories around a particular theme.
Remember: there are no stunts or visual effects in podcasting to fool your audience. Your ideas and unique stories are what listeners want. Give them the golden nuggets they crave — in as many places and spaces you can.
Make Transcription Your Friend
You started exploring podcasting because it wasn’t a written medium — a channel that relied on a different sense and offered new advantages. So what benefit does translating your audio to the written word provide? For starters, a ton.
Transcription increases the value of each episode by:
- Creating a searchable database of words and topics you can more easily reference and pull content from later
- Making show notes quicker and easier to write
- Giving subscribers text they can consume with a quick skim if they’re not able to listen
- Amplifying your SEO power to show up in more relevant searches
- Providing written content to include in research papers, sales cadences, and other thought leadership arenas
But we get it. Transcription can be time-consuming, tedious, and pricey. A whole host of transcription services exist today, but they can eat budget, take too much time to turn around, and the accuracy can be questionable.
We were as annoyed with this dilemma as the rest of you, so we did something about it. Enter Casted, which makes transcription a snap. Once you publish a new podcast, the RSS feed is automatically pulled into the platform. From there, Google Transcribe API automatically transcribes the audio so you have a content to start reviewing for blogs, show notes, and more — helping you get more mileage out of every conversation in no time.
Creating Real Thought Leadership
If you’re having great conversations (be it with well-known thought leaders or employees within your organization), why not bring a microphone along? That’s the philosophy of Sangram Vajre, co-founder and chief evangelist at Terminus, and longtime host of the FlipMyFunnel podcast. Sangram launched the podcast after he realized the conversations he was already having with peers held snippets of tremendous wisdom. By simply pressing record, he began one of the most organic (and successful) podcasts to date.
Need to close new business? Can’t get time with your leaders or product evangelists to speak to your prospects? There’s an easier option than cloning or bilocation. Hosting your greatest subject matter experts through podcasts allows listeners to hear straight from the horse’s mouth, with a unique tone and spin on every idea. Thought leadership podcasts authenticate ideas instead of watering them down in a tired datasheet or lengthy whitepaper. And audio brings warmth and personality to your brand in a way that written words simply cannot.
Casted’s own Zachary Ballenger has been there before. (Check out his story!) With Casted, you not only get to present subject matter experts to influence deals, but you can do it at scale and with ease.
“This ability to broadcast innovative brilliance en masse is exactly how you spread knowledge and allow your account execs and SDRs to speed up sales cycles and increase close rates,” says Zach.
More Juice for the Squeeze
Casted was born from the idea that podcasts are more than just a string of audio clips. Like any worthwhile conversation, they hold tremendous value for influencing listeners and driving change. If you’re not maximizing your podcast’s value, perhaps it’s time to try breaking your episodes down into the “great moments” they are. Let’s work together to extract all the goodness you’ve worked so hard for and use it across your entire marketing strategy and organization.
Experience Casted for yourself and start creating more impact from each episode you record.
