With podcasts becoming almost mandatory for B2B marketing today, it’s frightening just how bad so many business-focused podcasts are. If I had to point to one overarching description of the problem, I’d say it’s a lack of focus on the intended audience — typically the company’s prospects and installed base.
As a longtime technology journalist who started his career in network radio, I jumped on podcasts early. (I created a weekly podcast series, called Internet World Radio, for B2B media company Penton in 1999.) In my experience, issues tend to crop up when marketing drives podcasts. The reason? These departments are manned by people who view customers quite differently than an independent journalist — or a prospective listener. We reporters see ourselves as representing that audience. We ask the questions your prospects would ask if they could.
Another aspect of this problem is that marketers tend to examine today’s most popular podcasts, and then model their offerings after them. That approach would be perfectly reasonable were it not for the fact that many of those popular podcasts are B2C. From a content perspective, that’s the opposite of B2B.
That all said, here are some topics to consider when creating B2B podcasts. These tips and tricks will help fine-tune your podcasts to mesh best with your audience:
1. The B2C and B2B difference
Although there are certainly exceptions, many B2C podcasts focus on entertainment, whereas B2B podcasts typically focus on information. That distinction colors almost every podcast decision. With B2B podcasts, the audience is most often employees in the trenches or senior executives. Either way, their love of a podcast will be based on how short it can be while still providing the data/insights they seek. That’s why a B2C podcast can be effective at 30 minutes or more, but B2B podcasts should top out at about 12 minutes.
2. Who is the audience?
This basic question gets some frustratingly vague answers from companies pursuing B2B podcasts. Some will say they want to attract CIOs, CFOs, CISOs, CEOs and programmers/developers — without realizing that those people all have very different informational needs.
What if the company wants to reach many different audiences? The answer might be to create a series of podcasts, each of which is crafted precisely for a specific segment. Isn’t that exactly what marketing execs at P&G or Kraft would do?
3. Why should anyone listen?
Think about the content from a potential listener’s perspective. Most of the podcasts I deliver are related to technology in some way, so the questions asked include “Why would the CIO care? Or the programmer? What about the CISO and the CFO?”
Too many B2B podcasts deliver information that the company knows much of the audience already knows —
or at least assumes. Why would businesspeople bother listening to a podcast that will merely tell them what they already know? Push for a surprise, meaning something that is not only unknown to your audience, but contradicts what these folks think they know or believe.
4. Converse, don’t interview
When I do a podcast, I familiarize myself with the topic and the guest, but I usually prep only one question. It’s the initial question, and it’s generally very open-ended.
The conversational approach truly lets the guest set the path, with the moderator questioning and probing along the way. Although this requires moderators to know the topic quite well — for instance, counter examples and the history of the space — they don’t need to be as much of an expert as the typical audience member. Still, moderators do have to be familiar enough to change course in real time if
the interviewee’s answers warrant that.
5. Video versus audio podcasts
I have found audio podcasts to be light years more attractive for B2B. Beyond the fact that it costs far more and takes far longer to produce, video is simply more restrictive. In a 12-minute audio podcast, I’ve sometimes had to make as many as 100 edits. In audio, these can be made easily and, if done properly, the result is seamless to the listener. In video, every edit needs to cut away to a visual or else the edit can appear jarring and obvious. That makes it impractical to do multiple edits. Plus, there are many environments where video isn’t practical but audio is. Think of prospects listening to your podcasts while working out or driving.
6. Consider adding a commercial
One of the biggest challenges with B2B podcasts is getting marketers comfortable with doing candid, informationally valuable discussions that don’t include a hard sell. It’s called thought leadership, and its value is well understood. That, however, doesn’t stop executives from pushing back. (We’ve all heard the question “Tell me again why we’re paying for this?”) By giving marketers a commercial in the middle of the podcast, it satisfies their desire for a hard sell and makes them comfortable with content that solely delivers thought leadership.
7. Hone your distribution strategy
A lot of companies deal with distribution as an afterthought, when in fact it’s one of the most important aspects. Let’s start with your audience strategy. Is this podcast series intended to talk to your installed base or your active prospects or both? Is the goal to attract new prospects, as well as folks who might never have heard of your company?
A successful B2B podcast distribution strategy has two parts: internal and external. Internal is your company’s sites and its social media. Place the podcast on your web and mobile sites, and make sure you communicate with all of your followers that it’s there. Giving the series
a dedicated space on your homepage is paramount. In addition, taking the name of the podcast, grabbing that URL and then mapping it back to your podcast page is essential.
But internal-only preaches to your choir. If this series is created solely for either your installed base or your installed base as well as your existing active prospects, internal distribution may be all you need. If, however, your goal is to attract new prospects, then you need to go external by placing your podcasts on iTunes, Google Play, TuneIn, Stitcher, SoundCloud and other podcast sites.
8. Let people sign up
At the bottom of your podcast page, be sure to say when you broadcast the shows and give folks a chance to subscribe. This will generate an email newsletter that tells prospective listeners before the air date the upcoming guests and topics. Make sure you capture that surprise element
we discussed in the descriptions. In short, give people a reason to download your podcast.
Given that the people who sign up want to know that information about upcoming shows, the open rate can be far higher than your marketing people are used to. Plus, if you’re already sending that email, there’s no harm in adding other select material. Deliver what you promise, and some of those marketing messages will be well tolerated.
9. Frequency
In my experience, getting people to subscribe to a monthly podcast (or, worse, an every-other-week podcast) is far more difficult than simply doing a weekly show. Blame TV. People are used to new shows appearing once a week.
Strictly following these tips and tricks won’t necessarily deliver a first-rate podcast series. That falls to the cleverness of your guests, the careful selection of surprising topics and skillful moderating and editing. But it can’t hurt.
Evan Schuman is a columnist for Computerworld, a blogger and a podcaster. This article is excerpted from a longer LinkedIn blog post. He can be reached at eschuman@thecontentfirm.com.
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