Are Podcasts the Next Big Sales Driver for B2B Brands?

The number of podcasts continues to grow year-on-year, and it offers a wealth of opportunity for B2B companies. As podcasts continue their climb and become increasingly popular in the B2B marketing space, it can be a perfect channel to reach potential leads. Its personable nature enables companies to increase their visibility, become an industry expert, and ultimately grow sales. Podcasts also have a longer shelf life than, for example, blogs, as past episodes are frequently revisited or listened to for the first time.  

As companies explore digital-first options, guesting or creating a podcast is a viable option for B2B companies. As conferences go digital and there is less opportunity to meet new, potential buyers, podcasts open the door to reaching a broad audience of active listeners. The medium provides a way to build trust and connection – essential in B2B sales.

Remember, the needs of the audience are the core and the foundation of every content strategy. And as our world evolves daily, deep customer relations provide the knowledge to create meaningful content that turns prospects into future customers and brand ambassadors.

Is it time to turn sales staff as industry experts, and could podcast be the next big sales driver?  

Highly successful solo entrepreneurs have used podcasts to build, scale, and grow their tribe of loyal customers for the past decade. Their agile business structure means they can easily hit the record button, distribute their content freely and pivot when necessary. 

The US market is ripe with entrepreneurs who have built international audiences using podcasts. In essence, it sparked entrepreneurs and companies to either better utilize or duplicate the podcast sales channel. These entrepreneurs use their podcasts to get to know their listeners’ pain points, develop audience personas, tailor content, and develop and drive sales of their products and services while leveraging referral and affiliate marketing. Notable American entrepreneurs such as Tony Robbins, Pat Flynn, and Tim Ferriss, to name just a few, continue to build their audiences with podcasting.

The beauty of podcasts is brands can start their own or actively guest on podcasts that align with their product and service offerings or potential growth markets.  

For example, a software as a service (SaaS) brand may want to expand into a new vertical market that doesn’t traditionally use its products. Linking with the vertical through influencers and getting on their podcasts provides the brand with the opportunity to build awareness, trust, and interests.

Unlike blogs, where readers tend to skim and drop off quickly, podcasts listeners multitask and spend more time engaged in the content. According to Edison Research’s 2019 study, 52 percent of podcast users listen to the entire audio episode. They listen to most of the shows they download on their smartphones and other mobile devices, and 58 percent of podcast listeners listen to between 76 percent and 100 percent of the shows they download.

Perhaps the most compelling benefit is that podcasts connect the listener on a more personal level and build more readily a relationship with an audience that prefers to listen to their content.

This might be the right moment to hit ‘record.’

Next in the Digital-First World series, we’ll look at how new marketing technologies (martech) is being used by companies to collaborate on campaigns and manage work.