Strategy
20/12/2024
Branded podcasts: give your company a unique voice
Microphone check 1, 2 ... 1, 2... Here we go! Your branded podcast is created, the voice is smooth, the audio track is quality... Time to broadcast!
Do I post it on social networks? Stream it on Spotify & Co? On my blog? Do I spread it in specialized groups?
Ah yes... Yes... It's not as simple as it looks.
A key factor in the success of a branded podcast, distribution is a key stage(think Père Fouras in Fort-Boyard) often neglected once the original audio programs have been designed and produced.
Just like any other media (articles, videos, visuals, etc.), podcasts MUST(and we can't stress this enough) be accompanied by a distribution strategy adapted to the podcast's objectives.
Whether it's to capture a new audience of listeners, build loyalty among existing listeners, or establish your legitimacy on a particular topic or theme... The question is: how do you get your branded podcast heard?
Shall we see it together? Let's do it!
Distribute your branded podcast to make it accessible to your listeners
- Own media" = ecosystem and media available on your own
On-demand meal delivery (Deliveroo), on-demand video (Netflix), on-demand transportation (Uber)... The customer has never been so much the king as today.
And the same goes for the branded podcast!
We want to consume this audio content:
- Whenever you want (in the morning on the metro or in the evening before going to bed),
- Wherever you want (at the office or on the abandoned shellfish beach),
- As you wish (by wifi or via already registered on the smartphone without 4G)
Edison Research 2019 Share of Ear® study
So, if we put ourselves in the place of the listener, the web surfer or the mobinaute, we realize that they want to be able to :
- Pause / play at any time
- Fast forward or rewind +10 seconds or 30 seconds
- Download the podcast in one click (if he wants to listen to it later without worrying about the quality of his wifi or the limit of his 4G data)
These options - essential to a positive user experience - can be performed via the functionalities of an integrated audio player (iFrame) just like Youtube videos.
Often bundled with your hosting provider, this player can be integrated into :
- Brand website
- In a mobile application
- Within the company intranet
Advice from the Calliope team:
Integrating with the existing ecosystem allows you to move fast, enrich your content strategy and offer your communities a new experience.
But don't be too brutal! Your audience needs to be accompanied as they move to a brand-new medium.
Don't skimp on pedagogy. Explain the format, how to play it now and later, where to find all your audio content, etc.
It's thanks to this pedagogy that, over time, you'll turn your readers into passionate listeners of your branded podcasts.
- Audio streaming applications
As for social networks, each individual has his or her own preferences...(Personally, I love Linkedin)
So, when it comes to listening to a podcast - although listening is always a two-ear affair - some audiences will be more receptive to Spotify than Youtube, or to Stitcher rather than Apple Podcasts.
Enabling your audience (professional or otherwise) to find your brand's podcast on their favorite app is a real plus for your program's performance.
Indeed, your community may discover your podcasts via a recommendation, your website (and SEO), an ad on Instagram,... But when it's time to listen, offering them the possibility of being on their favorite streaming app allows you to increase the conversion rate from visitor to listener.
In this way, you offer your customers a well-established usage, an ecosystem that they know and appreciate, and increasingly advanced features to enhance their sound experience.
On the other hand, you don't have to do this; you have to adapt to your target. As with any good marketing strategy, you need to be where your target is. So if your target is not identified on these platforms, or you want to create content with exclusive access, for example, put your efforts into other, more efficient channels in your strategy.
By adapting to your listener's usage, you increase your listening rate for maximum comfort!
Tip from the Calliopé team: keep in mind that broadcasting your podcast on major audio platforms like Spotify and Deezer doesn't automatically mean attracting a maximum audience.
Recent figures show a +26% increase in the number of listens during confinement.
But the market is reporting +90K podcasts created - mostly by freelancers who have launched their own podcast (User Generated Content is exploding) - at the same time during containment... So it's becoming difficult to emerge.
Acast study https://viuz.com/annonce/2020/06/29/lecoute-de-podcasts-en-france-durant-la-pandemie-infographie-acast/
- Augmented players
"Player augmented"?(So that's it? Is thisthe part of the article where we fall into Anglicism?)
Rest assured, I'm not going to launch into a "franglais" monologue(I'll leave that to Jean Claude Van Damme).
On the contrary, to put it simply in Molière's language, what we call "augmented players" are audio players that enable :
- Enhance listeners' experience,
- Turn Internet users into listeners.
- Comprehensive tracking and statistics
StayTuned player example
The advantages of this type of player (we have no stake in StayTuned, of course! But anything that adds value and performance for our customers, we like at Calliopé):
- this player is independent of any streaming platform, which means it can go even further in terms of tracking and available KPIs (finally!).
We can now have: unique listens and not just "number of downloads", listening cities and not just countries, completion rates to analyze any dropouts, etc. (Not bad, eh?). - we add to this the ultra-simple integration on any web page, with a customized design to match the proposed interface.(At Calliopé, we like the fact that it incorporates well-integrated Chatbot features, such as the player sticker at the bottom of the page).
https://www.staytuned.io/decouverte-podcasts
PROMOTION in external Com
- On your brand's website
Do you have a blog? A case study page? A testimonial page? Let's see what we can do!
E-reputation, search engine optimization and audio players all work very well together for your brand.
The idea here is to integrate the player into :
- An article,
- A case study
- A testimonial
By diversifying the content associated with your branded podcast, you reinforce the sense of expertise, richness of content and feeling privileged in the mind of the listener/reader(Yes, that's right).
A technique that is bearing fruit, as demonstrated by the recent acquisition by the New York Times to transform its journalistic files into audio content(The New York Times buys the Audm application).
What's more, as Olivier Andrieu, the pillar of SEO in France, points out, Google is also a friend of this kind of approach.
Add embed
https://twitter.com/ZackRW/status/1126453541059612673?s=20
Once its algorithm has notified it of the presence of audio content on your site, combined with image, video or written content... It will do all it can to improve your ranking, since it now includes podcasts in its search results. (See article https://www.abondance.com/20190513-39722-google-propose-des-podcasts-dans-ses-resultats-de-recherche.html)
- On Social Networks
A Pinterest post to promote your fashion podcast, an Instagram story to promote your wellness podcast, a Facebook post to tease the podcast...
Trust me, when it comes to content, your community manager will have a lot of fun supporting your branded podcast and creating engagement. (In the words of a former community manager).
For example, it can rely on powerful communication tools such as :
- Video teaser,
- Visual "quote",
- Extracts from the podcast.
What better way to generate interest and increase the number of listeners and subscribers to your branded podcast?
Advice from the Calliope team:
Like all content, podcasts can't live on their own and promote themselves. We therefore recommend that you systematically accompany it with multi-format promotional material. The challenge is to attract your targets first: video, visuals and Gifs are excellent ways of captivating targets on social networks. Once the target is interested, you need to redirect them to the audio file with a well-crafted call-to-action that makes them want to click!
With this new medium, don't hesitate to innovate in your communication on your networks, make your mark and generate maximum curiosity. You'll gain in performance and therefore in visibility (the famous virtuous circle does exist!).
- Sharing by speakers
(Listeners will be attracted by these names.... (see next article on The importance of influencer marketing in branded podcasts)... But it also means benefiting from your reputation.
If your speakers, guests or hosts(yes we speak a little English!) already have their own community, it's a boon for your branded podcast.
It will give an organic boost to :
- Broadening the field of visibility
- Expand your audience reach
Don't neglect this element and CAPITALIZE on it as much as possible(capital letters are for emphasis, not to shout at you!).
Tip from the Calliopé team: Upstream, give them the tools to promote the podcast within their ecosystem.
A bit like before an event (trade shows, networking, etc.), propose different formats according to their own ecosystem:
- Types of tweets to post,
- Story formats for broadcast,
- Hashtags related to the podcast to be used.
The key is to make the task as easy as possible for them, and save them time in the process, to increase your chances of getting everyone involved in the promotion.
The other undeniable condition for their acceptance is that they have had an incredible time creating the content... So put all your heart, energy and good humor into offering them, too, a great experience!
Distributing a brand podcast for internal communication
Launching a branded podcast for internal communications means first and foremost leveraging an existing distribution network.
Not done yet? We invite you, like Aimé Jacquet in 1998, to "Put yourself in your best position".
Typically, to promote your podcast internally, the ideal solution would be to use :
- A teaser emailed to all employees,
- An article on the intranet with an integrated player for listening to the podcast directly on the page,
- Several varied posts on the company's internal social networks (Facebook Group, Slack channels...
Then, for the most discerning marketers among you, consider redirecting your podcast to a landing page, created especially for the occasion, which includes all the episodes.
But we'll tell you all about it in our article dedicated to podcasts for internal communication.
In the meantime, you'll find all the important info summarized visually in our infographic: the branded podcast guide.
