While there are many ways to grow your business, one of the best ones we know of is through podcasting.
Whether you’re promoting a product or service, looking for new customers, want a new way to grow your reach, are interested in positioning yourself as an authority figure in your niche, or you want to make sure you’re continuing to provide value to your existing customers, podcasting offers opportunities unlike any other platform or medium.
In this post we’ll review exactly how to make it happen with podcasting.
But first, let’s just focus on business growth.
How to Grow Your Business
When you think about business growth, the obvious ways you might do that include:
- Get more visibility
- Increase your reach
- Grow your audience
- Attract new customers
- Retain existing customers
The list could go on, but essentially, the growth of business happens when more of the right people know you exist.
There are several channels that can help you accomplish this, including social media, blogging, videos, speaking from stage, and podcasting.
So of all the mediums available, why podcasting?
Why Podcasting
Unlike social media, blogging, videos, and speaking from stage, podcasting affords you a connection with your audience and customers via a medium that can be consumed in a variety of scenarios.
While consuming a piece of content on social media, via a blog, through videos, or from a seat in an auditorium requires an individual to be focused on the actual medium or platform that’s serving them the content, podcasting allows an individual to consume content while also doing other things.
Podcasting is on-demand
Podcasting is on-demand audio content. Your audience gets to consume it when, where, and how they want.
Simply download the audio file on your mobile device, transfer it to your mp3 player from your desktop, tune in via the Internet, listen via your favorite podcast mobile app, or stream it directly from your car stereo!
Podcasting has a very low barrier for consumption. No matter what time of day, where you are, or how you want to consume a podcast, all you need is at your fingertips!
You can tune in any time
You can listen to a podcast while driving in the car and receive great value from that content. But you cannot consume any of the other pieces of content mentioned while driving in the car (well, no safely anyway).
The same goes for working out, washing dishes, kayaking, along with many other activities one might enjoy (or be required to do) on a day-to-day basis.
Bottom line: you don’t need to say “no” to what you’re doing right now in order to listen to a podcast.
These are just a few reasons why podcasting is such a powerful medium to get your message across and help grow your business.
In addition, podcasting allows you to build a powerful connection with your potential customers (allowing you to build know, like, and trust faster than most other platforms), and it also helps you create a big impact. In today’s connected world, on-demand audio is easier than ever to listen to for almost anyone in the world.
So if you combine the ways you might find business growth and use podcasting as your medium, big things can happen!
How to Grow with Podcasting
The benefits of podcasting are many, and we mentioned several of them up top.
You’ve also just learned why podcasting as a medium is so powerful.
If you’re looking to achieve any (or all) of the following:
- Promote a product or service,
- Get new customers,
- Grow your reach,
- Position yourself as an authority figure in your niche,
- Continue to provide value to your existing customers…
…then podcasting can help. Let’s dive deeper into each of these strategies for your business.
Promote a product or service
Let’s say you’re a small business that offers dog training in the New England area, and you’ve just launched a new service where you’ll train and board a dog for one week.
You have an existing customer base and they already know about your new service thanks to your email newsletter and the marketing you’ve done in your store and on social media.
Now for the tough part: get new customers in your doors.
So you decide to start a podcast as a new marketing channel for your business. You know you can provide great value to people worldwide with your knowledge around trainings dogs, plus this will give you the opportunity to promote your new service on every episode that goes live for those who are tuning in and live in your area.
Get new customers
Carrying on with the same example from above…
You start publishing weekly episodes, and in each episode you share one key training tip for new dog owners.
Your audience is loving it, and thanks to your tips dog owners and their furry friends are seeing big improvements in their relationship and communication!
Suzy is one of your newest listeners, and while she lives in Arizona (so it wouldn’t make a ton of sense for her to bring her dog in to your business), she has a friend in Maine who is only 1.5 hours away from your small business location!
Suzy can’t wait to tell her friend about you, your podcast, all the incredible training tips you’ve been providing, AND about the new service you offer for training and boarding! She knows her friend will be visiting your office ASAP!
Grow your reach
We might as well keep the same example rolling!
Your podcast sharing one dog training tip per episode to help new dog owners has been live for 3 months now, and you’re getting some great engagement and feedback from your existing listeners.
Because you already have a small business, your first hundred listeners came just from you sharing your podcast with your customer base and those who come into your store front.
But with the help of social media, your existing customer base telling their friends about your podcast, and the incredible content you’re creating on a consistent basis, your reach is starting to increase month over month.
You’ve also had the opportunity to team up with other dog training businesses outside of your geographical area. After inviting a few other dog trainers on your podcast to share their best dog training tips for new dog owners, you noticed an increase in listeners.
And because the dog trainers you had on as guests shared their episode with their customers, friends, and followers, they all now know about you and your podcast, too!
Position yourself as an authority figure
As a local business owner, it’s important that you position yourself as an authority figure. Back before running your business from online was even an option, the numbers of ways to accomplish this were pretty slim – and hard to obtain.
Being featured in a print magazine or landing a spot on your local news station as a business owner was no small feat.
But now, because you have a podcast that has been live for over 3 months with hundreds of listens per episode, you’re able to reach out to dog training publications and pitch yourself as the host of the dog training podcast.
You’ve not only gained authority by being a person of value and publishing great content on a consistent basis, you also have something to offer a publication in return: promotion and a shout out on your podcast!
In addition to the opportunities you have to pitch yourself to other publications and platforms, you also have the credibility that comes from someone being able to Google your business or your name and find reputable sources like Apple Podcasts featuring YOU!
Provide value to your existing customers
The customer service you provide to your existing customers is top notch already. Imagine being able to offer them even more great support with your podcast!
Imagine a customer, Nate, who has just finished a 1-hour paid training session to practice having his dog walk on leash with you. Nate’s dog, Gigi, seems to be catching on, and Nate definitely appreciates being able to watch your professional training in action.
But now what?
Sending Nate home with a link to your episode with reminders that will help him in the moment while walking Gigi on leash is going to come in handy for sure! And Nate is so appreciative he’ll have this audio resource he can listen to while walking Gigi!
Growing a business isn’t easy, no matter what industry or niche you’re in.
If it were easy, everyone would be doing it – and doing it well! Whether you’re a new business, small business, or huge business, podcasting has the power you need to make a difference.
The Power of Podcasting
Hopefully by now you realize the power of podcasting.
In addition to the individual ways a podcast can help support the growth of your business, it also allows you to create a strong connection with your listeners, provide incredible value to a wide audience, and its built-in ease of consumption beats any other medium out there.
Regardless of whether you’re a new business or have been rocking a business plan for years, adding a podcast to your marketing mix can help your business grow. Period.
Need help getting started?
If you have every bit of evidence you need to start your podcasting journey today, then yay! We have two completely free resources to help you get started with creating and launching your podcast.
If you like consuming training in smaller chunks, check out our Free Podcast Course. It consists of 8 video modules that will walk you through every step you need to create and launch your podcast!
Prefer a longer-form training? Our Podcast Masterclass is a 1-hr masterclass that breaks down every step you need to create and launch your podcast. Plus, get the scoop on the top 5 ways to grow your podcast, and the top 5 ways to monetize your podcast!
