Let’s face it, podcasts are growing these days like wildfire. Unlike in the past, many business leaders are embracing podcasting as a tool to expand the conversation on topics they deeply care about. With 383.7 million listeners recorded in June 2022, that number is expected to grow to around 424 million listeners at the end of the year.
What you were not told, however, is that most podcasts fail – perhaps even worse that the disturbing statistics on new businesses. Yet, most of these pitfalls are avoidable. So, here are four reasons why business podcasts fail and how to keep yours sold, successful and sustainable.
Remember, it’s not always about PR – Ever heard the phrase that people don’t like to be sold? The same is true with podcasting by business leaders. Most businesses or their executives believe podcasting is another tool to build a ‘positive reputation’ in the eyes of their publics. Or, a tool to articulate your point of view before a sceptical world.
Not only is this a flawed approach to successful podcasting, it repels a section of your (potential) listeners. Nobody would spend 10-30 minutes of their busy, convoluted lives listening to PR-nuanced conversations that neither educate, inform, entertain, or challenge what they already know in an engaging way.
While a podcast can be used as part of a thought leadership strategy, this objective should not be shoved on the faces of listeners. Just like in advertising where storytelling has replaced what we always knew to be marketing, embracing subtlety and tact in your podcasting allows you to retain the attention of listeners while shaping your narrative.
Podcasts are designed by humans and for humans – In 2018, former Yahoo and Autodesk CEO Carol Bartz argued that most business leaders are boring. Even though there was no data to back up that unpleasant claim, even till now, what we cannot shy away from is the fact that most chief executives have advisers who unwittingly curate their brand narrative to be boring, disconnected, and robotic, even.
This robotic experience also feeds into how many business podcasts are conceived, so that we are unable to see the human in the conversation – authentic and vulnerable in a good way. Designing your podcasting strategy like an automated machine kills the originality of the story, sucks the life out of the conversation and further pushes your listeners away.
Authenticity may be cliched, yet it helps you build a podcast that addresses real (and the right) people in a language that resonates with them as humans.
Unrealistic expectation is the Enemy – It’s understandable that nobody runs a podcast just to hear their own voice. But the inordinate quest to quickly amass streams and grow the subscription base could ruin the entire adventure.
No matter how rich, compelling, and interesting your topics and conversations are, the world won’t suddenly come knocking on your door as though yours is The Joe Regan Experience or Michael Barbaro’s The Daily.
Podcasting takes a great deal of time, commitment, and consistency to scale both in impact and traction. Knowing this empowers you to embrace podcasting with a long-term view rather than a quick fix to your thought leadership agenda.
All business is showbusiness
Podcasting is like building a new product for a market. You spend considerable time in ideation, research, planning, prototyping, sourcing, costing and commercialisation. Just like every new product, part of your goal is to onboard as many listeners and subscribers as possible. Call this marketing!
Sadly, many business podcasts fail to approach podcasting with the same energy they use to market their new products. Virtually every channel is an opportunity to spread the word – email marketing, blogs, social media channels, paid advertising, etc.
Creating a podcast without a clearly articulated promotional strategy is like winking in the dark. In fact, you not only need a promotional strategy, but you also need one with a clear call to action.
To cut a long story short…
Three things are priceless today in defining what constitutes meaningful thought leadership in today’s hyper-connected world – clarity, succinctness and meaning, and there is a legion of reasons to justify why this is so, considering the dizzying decibel of our noisy world.
According to Domo, the world’s largest initial cloud-based business intelligence platform, every minute of the day, Google processes 5.9 million searches. Think about that for a minute. In one day, that’s about six times the entire population of Africa.
In one minute, 575,000 tweets are shared on Twitter; YouTube users stream 694,000 hours of video content and 2 million users share their snaps on Snapchat. From Instagram to Facebook, TikTok and a slew of other channels, we live in a world suffering from an attention crisis.
Brand messaging risks oblivion in the face of these realities, except its handlers are meticulous enough to push the frontiers of innovation to sustain attention and leverage it for growth.
Your business podcasts don’t have to fail.
Gilbert Alasa is a versatile, Communications professional with over seven years of experience that cuts across Strategic Communications, Mainstream Journalism, Sustainability, Public Relations, and Content Marketing. He’s one of Africa’s leading voices on insights-led measurement and evaluation frameworks and data-driven communication models that deliver optimal value for organisations.