“You just need one person to listen, get your message, and pass it on to someone else. And you’ve doubled your audience.” – Robert Gerrish.
Want to get new customers and dominate your niche with podcasts? Podcasting is a fantastic opportunity for individuals and businesses whether you’re online or offline, established or still setting up. So, what exactly is a podcast? A podcast is simply a digital audio broadcast that you can download to a computer or mobile device.
I’m going to write a couple of blogs on podcasting because setting one up could provide you with an extra lucrative income steam. You could then create your own podcast whilst working on other projects too.
With more than 65 million unique monthly listeners, the podcast audience has trebled in the last few years. As well as must-listen sensations like Serial, growth has been certainly driven by the boom in smartphones. They make downloading and listening to podcasts so much easier. So, the only limit potential podcaster listeners encounter is how many free hours they have in a day!
As you’d expect, music, comedy and documentary genres are popular podcast choices. However, podcasts are springing up in all kinds of smaller niche areas too. These include how to start a business, beer-making, coffee appreciation, model railways, motivation and inspiration, fitness, cookery, Trekkies, travel, video gaming, book, and film reviews.
If people are interested in a subject, you can guarantee there will be a podcast that caters for that interest. So, whatever your passion or business, a podcast is a brilliant way to build an audience. All it takes is a microphone and some free software to get started.
Podcasts offer you a quick, easy, and cheap way to find an audience, build up your credibility and drive them to your website, products, and services.
With a podcast you can market your business using the same techniques that have worked in the written form. Things like offering free advice, views, news, and opinions that attract potential customers and build trust. Except this is an audio version.
It’s amazing how few businesses use this medium compared to blogging, article writing, eBooks and social media posting. Believe it or not this free content advertising platform is surprisingly underdeveloped as a business marketing tool. And yet, just look at the advantages.
With a podcast you can…
Differentiate yourself from the competition
Who else in your niche/industry is doing a podcast? If there’s nobody, then the very fact you are the first will get you all kinds of attention. And if your competition ARE podcasting, it only goes to show there’s an audience there for you to cultivate. Devise a better, more interesting version. Put your own spin on it and you can take your share of the interested audience.
Give your business an authentic, unique human personality
With a podcast your prospective customer can hear your voice. They will know you’re a genuine, real person. Not a faceless corporate entity. This is a valuable shortcut to building trust. What’s more, nobody can copy your voice and personality. So, this will be a totally unique hook for your business.
Make your content more interesting
You can link to a podcast in your emails and social media too. Use this to offer something different to your competition. Having audio on your website gives it another dimension on top of the visual. It’s making it more credible and interesting.
Build loyalty
Regular podcasting is like email marketing in the sense that you create regular pieces of content that tell a story over time. This helps build trust and establish loyalty. It also encourages people to keep tuning in again and again.
Get free content
You can create podcasts by getting experts, CEOs, influencers, writers, and bloggers to contribute their time and advice for free. This is effectively high-quality content from other people that you can use to grow your business. This also gives you more credibility.
Website traffic
By promoting your podcast, you can start to pull in website visitors who might not have otherwise found you. When you share podcasts, you’ll then find that they get shared with a wide group of people on social media who might not already be following you. More social media followers mean more clicks on your website. Invite an influential person with lots of social media followers on to your podcast. Then post it on your site and watch the traffic flow in as they share it with their legions of fans.
Boost your Google ranking
Through syndicating your shows via various podcasting directories, you can build valuable links back to your website. Google’s algorithms value links as ‘Internet votes’. Therefore, the more links your content has, the better it will rank.
Revitalise old content
If you’ve been online for a while your website will likely contain many old blog posts, articles, reports, and information that aren’t being read or shared. You can take this content and turn it into an audio podcast. This allows you to re-use old material in a fresh, interesting way, and get it out there onto a new platform.
Diversify and repurpose
Every time you create a recording, you have a new product or gift that you can package up to utilise in a different manner at a later date. You may wish to sell it, give it away as a bonus or offer it in return for an email address. You could even transcribe the content of your podcasts and turn them into an eBook. Thus, making the most of your content in a different medium.
Sell products
On a podcast it’s possible to recommend your products and services and get your sales message across. It’s also a great arena for dealing with feedback. In addition to telling product success stories or encouraging people to visit your premises, website, and sales pages.
Affiliate advertising opportunity
Once you’ve built up a podcasting audience of regular listeners, you can approach businesses whose products and services are relevant to your listeners. Then you can offer them sponsorship of your podcast. Or you could just sell advertising space.
It’s good to know that there’s far less competition in this medium than in blogging and social media. It’s also easier (right now) to get noticed and become dominant.
This is something you can do whether you’re a solo entrepreneur, a small start-up, or a successful business looking for new customers. It works for any kind of business, from internet marketing to publishing, crafting and hobbies, to food and drink.
I hope you found some valuable information in my Get New Customers and Dominate Your Niche with Podcasts post. In my next blog I’ll give you some ideas to get you started, so remember to tune in.
To Your Success!
