by Megan
One of the most popular services we offer is a coaching service for small and big businesses. If you haven’t been paying attention to the trends in content creation and branding, podcasts are the next big movement on the rise. Here are some quick facts you should know about the podcast movement.
Right now, as of 2019, there are 700,000 active podcasts and over 29 million podcast episodes! According to recent numbers from Apple, this number was at 550,000 and 18.5 million respectively just one year prior in 2018. This shows you how quickly podcasts are popping up and developing new episodes. If you’re afraid that your business won’t be able to find a niche in this ever growing market, think again! The five most common types of podcasts listened to right now are: society and culture, business, comedy, news and politics, and health. Fear not if your business doesn’t fit into these categories because there are hundreds of other categories out there that it will fit into!
Podcasts are reaching areas all over the world and are published in over 100 different languages across the globe. Our podcast, The Megan James Show right now has listeners in: The United States, Canada, Switzerland, The UK of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Romania, Spain, Bahamas, South Africa, Australia, and Italy. We are based out of a small town with a population of just over 24,000 people. Crazy, right?!
Over 70% of the population within the United States if familiar with the term, “podcasting”. This equates to roughly 227 million people that know about this field. The majority of the podcasting audience (67%) consists of 18-44 year olds and most of these are educated and reside in the wealthier sections of society. Out of the podcast listeners out there, it is 45% more likely that a podcast listener will have a college degree and 68% more likely for a listener to have a post-graduate degree. This group of people are also more likely to fall in the high net-worth category of individuals, due to the fact that the listener is 45% more likely to have an annual household income of over a quarter million dollars ($250,000).
Where are people listening to these podcasts?
This means, podcasts give you the perfect method to reach people who will likely know and understand what your category is about AND having the financial means and willingness to spend money on a service or product they understand and believe in! It is more commonly understood that with the growth of networks like Netflix and Hulu, television goes mostly unwatched in comparison. So things like television advertisements are predominately, a waste of advertising funds.
If you have taken to social media advertisements but you spend a majority of your funds on banner advertisements, you are also at a loss. Don’t believe me? Please tell me the last time that you, as a person, actually clicked on a banner in hopes of learning more about the content its advertising? I’ll be waiting. Most times, we click the banner because it irritates the piss out of us and we want it to go away. Others are terrified to click the banner because it might result in some technological equivalent of a Herpes infection to your computer.
There has been a 157% increase in podcast listening from a mobile cellular device since 2014. 6 hours and 37 minutes are spent listening to podcasts by most podcast listeners. That’s almost 7 hours of FREE advertising for you and your company. The purpose of a podcast is not to put your entire company’s product line or sales pitch, or services on an audio platform for people to listen to. Because honestly, that probably wouldn’t be listened to.
The purpose of a podcast is to distinguish your company’s BRAND from another company. With the digital age growing at a substantial pace, most brick and mortar stores are falling behind to online internet retail establishments. So this begs to question, how are you supposed to keep up with the trend? How do you compete with that? Easy, define what sets you apart from other companies. Define what sets you apart as an individual from the other individuals that run companies.
What things make you, uniquely, you? When you aren’t at work can you be caught singing in your car? What books do you read? What shows or music are you a major fan of? Are there any celebrities you fan girl for? With the way that the digital age is progressing, people are buying more online, sure. But, they place more emphasis on TRUST of a company. In order to earn a customer’s trust, you must first earn their interest in you by publishing your own personal brand.
Show your potential customers who you are at your core. The videos that go viral aren’t the ones of sales pitches, Facebook ads for a business, or anything business related. The viral videos are things like dogs dancing for cookies, a dentist rapping at a dentist office about clean teeth, nurses in dance competitions in hospitals. Why? Because these people are authentically being themselves, which allows future clients to see the real people behind the business. THAT is what sells.
Podcasts give businesses the opportunity to talk about niches within your own business. Give out information that most people wouldn’t readily know. But it also gives you the opportunity to talk about the things that interest you! Mix it up! If you’re a garage mechanic with a podcast about true crime, there’s a decent chance that some people will come to your specific shop to get their car worked on, just so they can pick your brain and talk about your show. It gives people the vibe that they are meeting with a local celebrity and by you taking the time to simply discuss your passion for free, makes them feel important. Your business will blossom as a result as long as your mechanics are halfway decent at fixing cars.
I don’t care who you are, how much you personally don’t like your own voice, or whether or not you think you have anything to say. Your voice is fine and you ALWAYS have something to say. Maybe you don’t feel comfortable running a podcast yourself and you would rather hire someone to order the equipment, do the research, and set it up for you. Great! There are people out there that do that! LIKE US! Contact us if you’re interested in this option. The first consult is free and we offer monthly subscription packages if you are satisfied with your initial consult.
Or maybe you don’t want to have your own podcast, that’s fine. You can still take advantage of this massive boom in podcasts by buying 30-60 second pre-roll and mid-roll advertisements in other people’s podcasts! Podcasts are extremely under priced at the moment and advertising on podcasts will cost a fraction of what it will for social media advertisements and you will likely receive more customers from this type of advertisement. Interested in learning more about how this works? Contact us, we would be happy to point you in the right direction!
Looking for more information, reach out to us!
Looking for some audio and visual resources? This podcast episode on The Megan James Show that provides a wealth of information.
Here’s the episode on Apple Podcasts.
Find it here on Spotify as well!
Would you rather watch it on YouTube? Check the video below!
Check out these cool links as well!
Data Sources:
- Edison Research (bit.ly/edison-infinite-dial)
- Nielsen (bit.ly/nielsen-podcasting)
- IAB (bit.ly/iab-podcasting)
- PwC (bit.ly/pwc-podcasting)
- Pacific Content (bit.ly/pacific-content)
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