4 Reasons to Integrate Podcasts into Your Content Marketing Strategy

Podcasts offer a unique marketing opportunity because they don’t offer a commercial break. While there are video podcasts with the chance for visuals, most fully rely on audio. This platform makes any advertisement messages a part of the show.

With the lack of traditional breaks for advertising as you would hear, for instance, on a radio show, podcast advertising requires their advertised messages to be highly relevant to their topics.

By advertising on podcasts, you can ensure that if your listeners are interested in your topic, a related product may fare just as well.

While this form of advertising is relatively new, consider the following reasons when deciding whether podcast advertising could be right for you and your brand.

People can listen on-the-go

Podcasts can be downloaded to any electronic device, which means your audience can listen to your show at their greatest convenience. Due to the relevance of ads to the program, ads become a part of the story and can be enjoyable.

Rather than being bombarded with tacky advertisements that interrupt their podcast, they can listen attentively as these ads are weaved seamlessly into the program.

In a study of over a quarter of a million listeners, 63% went on to purchase something they heard over a podcast.

An opportunity for new, targeted content

Most businesses have their hosts read their advertisement, and then attempt to make the information relevant to the show. Podcast ads need to be crafted, from the beginning, with the listener in mind.

Think about the format of podcasts—they are typically audio. Graphics that you’d typically rely on for a regular advertisement is no longer viable.

Audio podcast advertisements will rely heavily on text copy. Delivery will also be the sole responsibility of the host. Make sure that your podcast host can present your content in a way that you want your audience to receive.

Think about the following when crafting a podcast advertisement:

• How does your product fit in with the theme/topic of the show?
• Why do listeners tune in to this podcast?

A different marketing channel for added exposure

With podcast advertising, there’s no way for listeners to skip the commercials, so they’re most likely to listen through what you have to say. Don’t spend a great deal of time on the ad so that listeners can continue through the podcast without negative emotion toward the speaker.

In addition to podcast advertising, creating a podcast for your business is always an option. Remember to ask your listeners to sign-up and subscribe so they’re altered every time you post a new one.

Study our audience to know what content they’ll find interesting. Conversations and interviews have the highest listening for podcasts, but you can also try:

• Discussion of hot/controversial topics in your niche
• Expert insights
• Research findings and case studies
• Educational shows about processes in your niche
• Up and coming trends in your niche

Do not use your podcast as a platform for a multi-minute commercial. This is not the place to bombard your listeners with a list of your new products and services that you offer.

Not many people have realized the untapped market that is podcast advertising

Podcast listening grew 23% in the past two years and is expected to continue this rise. Podcasts offer interesting audio content in the form of:

• Personal stories
• Professional and educational lessons
• Debates

With podcasts being a new form of media, not too many people are aware of this opportunity. Advertising is inexpensive in comparison to more popular forms such as pay-per-click (PPC).

Podcasts are revolutionizing the media marketing landscape as a new way to deliver messages to a broad range of highly engaged listeners. Experiment with this new way to reach your audience and develop new content for this untested platform.

3 Hot Marketing Trends You Need to Try Now

Keep innovating with your marketing strategies.

Marketing is constantly evolving, and while things like email marketing and content marketing will continue to be viable strategies, there are some other, growing trends worth exploring right now.

You will never know if something is going to work for your business unless you test, optimize and adjust. If you are looking to make adjustments to your current marketing strategy, consider looking into these three red-hot strategies that are currently on the rise.

1. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is exploding, and there is no sign of it slowing down any time soon. My influencer agency receives inquiries from brands located all over the world on a daily basis, eager to learn how they can benefit from the hottest marketing trend.

Of more than 200 marketing professionals surveyed by Chute, 66 percent used social influencers as part of their marketing strategies in 2016. That number is going to continue to climb as more brands launch campaigns to determine whether or not influencer marketing is a right fit for them.

It’s only going to get bigger, and with mega-influencer costs going through the roof, you need to seriously consider launching a micro-influencer campaign. They often have hyper-engaged followers and with the increase of ad-blocking software use, you need to find creative ways to get your message heard and your brand seen.

2. Video blogs

A video blog (vlog), and more specifically a daily vlog, allows you to build a large following of loyal brand supporters. Consumers love video content, and YouTube’s 1.5 billion logged-in monthly users watch more than one hour per day on mobile devices. The audience potential is obvious there, especially on mobile devices.

Videos also make you appear more human, allowing consumers to associate a friendly face with a brand’s name. This helps build immediate trust, and the more you put your vlog and out yourself out there, the more trust you will create.

Vlogging allows you to pump out content that isn’t staged or reeking of an advertisement. It gives you the opportunity to let your potential customers get to know you, your team and everything about your business. Create an interesting daily vlog that attracts a large number of subscribers, and business exposure and growth will follow.

3. Podcasts

Podcasts are becoming increasingly popular, and they offer a great opportunity for you to connect with your target customer while they are commuting to work or exercising.

“From an entrepreneur’s standpoint, podcasts are appealing because they're a form of content that can be consumed while doing something else, allowing you to multi-task and learn. Listening to a podcast while you do morning cardio allows you to indulge in self-education,” says Jim Parrish, founder of Parrish Law Firm.

You don’t want to create a glorified sales pitch or a long-winded commercial, though. They are most effective when you tell a story and let the listener into your world. Consumers want to engage with content that is compelling, and deemed to be interesting. A great example is The GaryVee Audi Experience, which is a collection of Gary Vaynerchuk’s keynote speeches, interviews, #AskGaryVee and DAILYVEE show highlights, as well as current thoughts, all made available on every podcasting platform imaginable.

Vaynerchuk isn’t directly pitching the listener on his agency’s services, nor is he pushing his listeners to a call-to-action to buy his books. He just provides value across all of his podcasting channels, listeners automatically Google his name, his books and his companies. Ultimately, he's rewarded monetarily for that value without having to directly ask for it.

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/297577

Create Quick, Easy and Effective Content With This Simple Technique

Don't reinvent the wheel; learn to upcycle your content.

Everyone talks about how content is king, but everyone is wrong. Content isn't king -- only really engaging and information is.

So, you keep putting out great content like a never-stopping machine. You're always looking for new ideas to make your content interesting, useful and engaging, and probably growing frustrated with an ever-growing to-do list.

Now, I want to introduce you to upcycling -- repurposing content.

With upcycling, you don't have to reinvent the wheel with every post. By taking advantage of a few easy tools, you can cut your work in half and engage your audience on multiple levels (while also making it easy to manage multiple social accounts).

Why repurpose content?

Content marketing and storytelling is a full-time job in its own right, but repurposing preexisting materials alleviates a lot of the work. Plus, an effectively repurposed piece engages your audience again and again. Another huge benefit of recycling content is that it has the potential to give your old blog posts new life, making your marketing arsenal much richer and much more immersive.

We all like to consume information on our own terms. Some people prefer to read long-format articles, while others like listicles. Some like videos or podcasts. Other types of media like infographics, whitepapers and ebooks make for great presentational materials for both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) companies.

By allowing your audience to choose their preferred material, you show appreciation and understanding of their needs. This will only make your company more likable and relatable.

What content should you repurpose?

The best place to start is by looking at your analytics and identifying the best-performing content. What materials get the most traffic, likes and social shares? This is a great indicator of relevant, useful information that grabs attention. Chances are it will be even more popular in a variety of formats.

I personally prefer to repurpose visual content. People are very visual creatures and a lot of us learn best by visualizing data. Besides, in a fast-paced world with fragmented attention, visuals grab and increase our interest. They also tend to be easier to comprehend.

There is a good chance you have written at least a few tutorials or how-to guides. Give these posts a new life on Pinterest by repurposing them into images and checklists that are both engaging and useful.

Creating infographics becomes very easy with a few amazing tools. I recommend Piktochart and its pre-loaded templates. Piktochart offers freemium services, so you may start from scratch or customize their free and premium themes.

I also love Canva, a great freemium tool that lets even the least design-capable of us create beautiful visuals. The app has some stylish templates that are easily customizable, or, if you prefer, you can start from scratch.

I use Canva to create blog graphics and quote posts. Since it saves all of your work automatically, you can create a consistent branding by editing the same visual with new text or background image.

Turn written content into video.

Video content has been rising as a medium of choice. YouTube is still the second largest search engine in the world. Facebook gives a special attention to native videos. Do you need any more reasons to start utilizing the power of video in your content marketing mix?

Give your most popular blog posts a makeover by converting the information into a video. A lot of content can be turned into how-to demonstrations or talking-head videos that viewers can follow along. Even if your offering is not very visual or your company is service-based, you may well employ videos by sharing knowledge or using this medium as a blogging tool.

The best part is that you now have content you can upload to Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and Instagram. If you're not on those platforms yet, this is a perfect opportunity to add another network to your arsenal and reach new audiences.

Be sure to upload these videos to each network you are present on because social networks give special treatment to native videos. Plus, you're creating a rich content library on each channel.

Make podcasts -- you're not too late.

Podcasting is another growing category of content marketing. While there are lots of great podcasters, there is a still lot of opportunity in the field. Compared to other forms of content, a lot of niches are still underserved with podcasts.

This medium is great because people are able to consume information on the go, whether it's while working out in the gym or commuting to work. Your podcasts don't have to be long, either; some podcasters choose to create 5- to 10-minute episodes, enabling them to create more episodes in relatively the same amount of time.

If you choose to use video as a sort of replacement for traditional blogging, you could also easily convert videos to audio-only formats and upload them to iTunes or SoundCloud as well.

Turn reports into whitepapers and ebooks.

If you have a long and in-depth industry report, cut it down to its most important parts and conclusions and create a whitepaper or an ebook. Once you have it ready, promote it on all the social channels you have and drive traffic to your website. Better yet, create special conversion-driven ads on Facebook and Twitter, where people can share their email address without leaving the social sites.

You can even design a pictorial ebook with lots of photo examples using tools like Canva -- or, if you're short on time, by creating a PDF file from a Word document and including a few charts might suffice.

Slideshows are a good idea, too.

People love statistics and data that will help them make better business decisions. If there is a PowerPoint presentation you are proud of, upload it to SlideShare. If you are in a B2B company, you've got to try SlideShare.

SlideShare is a great platform for sharing whitepapers, presentations and other related things, so you can easily champion one more social platform. It is easy to use, easy to share and can be embedded just about anywhere. It's also integrated with LinkedIn.

Even if you're in a B2C company, SlideShare still provides an amazing way to connect with your consumers. The content you publish doesn't have to be all educational; inspirational quotes, fun facts and surprising statistics will work well on SlideShare. Plus, because of its integration with LinkedIn, you can share your new piece with one checkbox and share it on other networks as well.

Are you making the most of your content?

Content marketing doesn't have to be daunting. Remember, it's not always about the volume of unique content you're producing. It's about engaging your audience with the content you already developed. There is only so much you can cover in every industry, but if you're being creative about it, your knowledge can really shine in a variety of formats.

Start by identifying what types of media your audience prefers, what networks they are on and a few old blog posts. With just a little effort, you'll be well on your way to a much richer content library.

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/297582