Once I first launched my podcast, The Fractional C-Suite Retreat, I had no concept what would come from it. The precise course of of creating a podcast is surprisingly simple. The three key elements: a pc to report the podcast, a very good microphone to seize your voice, and a software program program to edit your audio. (Some say a fourth requirement is a pretty voice … but when I made it, so are you able to.)
The toughest a part of podcasting? It’s nothing associated to sound engineering or fancy advertising methods. It’s the flexibility to seek out that bedrock concept that ties all of it collectively.
A singular angle is important — and with the fast progress of podcasts as a media type constructed for communities, going area of interest and particular is essential. Nonetheless, a very powerful aspect I’ve discovered all through my podcasting expertise: figuring out a function for the podcast you wish to launch.
Podcasting is an train in longevity. Figuring out a giant mission or function — the rationale why you began this factor within the first place — will propel you ahead on the times you are feeling too busy or too low on vitality. Most definitely your function lies within the viewers you try to encourage or the sensation you get if you end up deep in dialogue with a visitor. Monetary good points will come, however lead technology and financial ROI can’t be the first motivators (cash alone is rarely a sustainable driver for something, I’ve discovered).
The outcomes and affect a podcast creates far outweigh the challenges. The advantages are so important that I imagine each entrepreneur, chief or fractional skilled ought to take into account incorporating a podcast into their enterprise mannequin. The explanations are simple.
Branding and advertising
Once I first started my podcast in November 2021, I knew I wished it to help the most recent enterprise I used to be constructing (yorCMO: a fractional CMO firm). I used to be shortly getting fascinated with the fractional mannequin of labor — and I wished a platform to share my pleasure for it whereas talking on to the viewers my enterprise was concentrating on.
A podcast is a advertising channel – and it may be a key a part of a strategic advertising combine. However there was one small distinction:
The podcast wasn’t a Fb advert being unfold throughout the web by a faceless company model. The podcast was me: my voice, my ideas, the kinds of visitors I felt enthusiastic about chatting with. It was my model.
What got here out was: The Fractional C-Suite Retreat podcast
The idea is straightforward: a present meant for an government viewers to take heed to whereas unwinding and studying about varied points affecting the C-suite. I had at all times cherished (nonetheless do) studying, listening to a podcast or writing over a cigar in my yard after a protracted day. I figured different busy leaders may already be doing the identical factor I did, and so they may wish to take part my cigar-fueled audio retreat.
Whereas branding the podcast, I used to be capable of model my firm and myself on the identical time to my listeners. Speaking about shared experiences with my visitors makes listeners affiliate sure emotions with me and, by extension, the corporate I based. The podcast started to behave as a supporting pillar of my company model’s advertising and my very own private model’s advertising.
What’s extra: a gentle move of episodes began to gas content material for social media accounts.
From a branding perspective, a podcast may be invaluable: it could actually create helpful on-line engagement in your model(s) whereas providing you with advertising content material in your different channels.
Viewers connection and authoritative presence
The title of the podcasting sport? Creating private connection in immediately’s disconnected world.
Podcasting establishes a extra direct connection to your viewers. Whereas blogs and posts on social media are used to attach together with your viewers, podcasting has a singular place within the social media panorama. Your viewers hears your voice and mannerisms in ways in which texts can’t compete with.
Do podcasts for a protracted sufficient time, and you’ll have an viewers who merely loves listening to your (and your visitors’) ideas. In case your voice is an genuine one, and if you happen to maintain again from the temptation to make the whole lot “good,” your viewers will see you as an authoritative determine in your core matter; they’ll get to know you, and really feel you perceive them; and inadvertently they’ll develop a way of belief.
The purpose isn’t to be a “thought chief”; it’s to be an unfiltered, attention-grabbing, dependable lighthouse standing out in a crowded sea of voices guiding your viewers dwelling. Be the lighthouse!
New avenues for on-line presence
Whether or not in your company model or in your personal brand (or each, if they’re interconnected), a podcast is a great strategy to attain audiences exterior of your instant business or community.
Podcasting helps your corporation attain an viewers disconnected from however adjoining to all of your different advertising channels. Conventional advertising rhetoric tells us to be on “each” social media platform — however as a rule we find yourself specializing in one platform above the remaining (possible a better technique). Mostly, it’s the one the place the largest focus of our audience is discovered.
Podcasting is, in some methods, natively disconnected from a singular social media platform – which implies it creates alternatives to achieve individuals you’ve got by no means met, recognized about, or marketed to.
In response to the Infinite Dial 2023 survey by Edison Analysis on digital media client conduct in america, 42% of the US inhabitants listens to podcasts month-to-month. In 2012, this share was solely 14%.
It’s a rapidly-growing section — one that’s diversifying when it comes to enchantment. The identical survey notes that podcast listeners’ demographics (gender, ethnicity, and age) are diversifying simply as quickly. The curiosity in podcasts is just not solely an American phenomenon: Latin America and Asia Pacific, for instance, have seen outstanding progress.
The purpose: podcasting creates new avenues for brand new publicity to new audiences — and regardless of what looks as if a “crowded” podcasting market, in some methods it’s nonetheless in its infancy as a channel to achieve and encourage audiences.
Constructing a discovered group
Nothing beats sincere mental conversations.
A foremost (and understated) good thing about podcasting: Attending to have conversations with good, attention-grabbing individuals. I’ve had many fantastic visitors of varied backgrounds on my podcast, from whom I discovered a lot about totally different sides of enterprise. One week I’m speaking to a world-class knowledgeable about modern-day advertising; one other week on firm tradition; the subsequent about the way forward for work.
Past ideas associated to my core matter (government enterprise management points), I’ve discovered a lot about psychology, philosophy, well being, strategic considering, relationship-building, and way more. The visitors I’ve had on my podcast constantly remind me and my viewers that regardless of how skilled chances are you’ll be in your discipline of experience, there are at all times new issues to study.
Furthermore, the easy act of internet hosting visitors on a weekly podcast builds a way of group: I’ve expanded my community and audiences exponentially; constructed actual relationships I’ll maintain onto; and have obtained messages on how I’ve impressed others to realize their objectives. Even when a podcast is by default a one-way dialog, a group will get created the place individuals can change, study and develop. It’s outstanding, actually.
Whether or not you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or a C-level chief, I imagine podcasting may help your corporation develop.
My suggestion: Give it a attempt. Begin with a mission and function— and who is aware of the place the podcasting journey can take you from there?
Contributed to EO by Joseph Frost, an EO Nebraska member, who’s a decentralized entrepreneur, college professor of entrepreneurship, public speaker, and a four-time founder. He’s the founding father of Guided Outsourcing, a people-centric outsourcing enterprise, and YorCMO, the primary decentralized management advertising system. Joe has written about causes to decentralize your leadership team, methods to lead globally distributed teams and the way technology empowers distributed teams to build culture.
For extra insights and inspiration from immediately’s main entrepreneurs, try EO on Inc. and extra articles from the EO blog.
