How Long Should Your Corporate Podcast Be?

It has become a cliché that each generation has a shorter attention span than the one that preceded it. But are podcasts bucking this apparent trend?

Here is a medium that is growing from strength to strength, seemingly contradicting the common wisdom that micro-content is the only sure way to reach an audience for creators and advertisers alike. 

The length of your episodes may seem trivial, but it is precisely that lack of strategic planning that leads hundreds of thousands of podcasts to never make it past a first episode.

With that in mind, let’s get to the bottom of some questions that can help you decide the episode length you want to aim for.

What is the Goal of your Podcast?

Let’s be clear; your podcast should have an end goal, even if it is just to become a popular podcast. A more likely one is to build an audience that will help promote the services that you or your company can provide. 

Corporate podcasts will often have one of two broad goals in mind. An internal podcast can be used for a variety of purposes within a company. New hires can learn about the inner workings and culture of your organization, leadership can leverage the platform to build that all important sense of community with their staff, and workers can use the lessons as a resource to help develop their skills.

Public-facing company podcasts focus on the external audience and aim to develop an ongoing relationship and sense of community with the end consumer. These podcasts are an excellent and efficient way for a company to display their knowledge and services, increase name recognition, and convey what the organization stands for - all with a human element for that increased sense of connection.

Individual podcasters should take a similar strategic approach to their content and goals.

A self-help podcast should seek to better its audience so they in turn can highlight the motivational talents of the host, while comedy podcasts might aim to showcase a comedian’s talents to a new and bigger audience.

Once you have established your goal, the format and desired length of your podcast should be clearer because you can outline how long it’ll take to achieve what you are setting out to do. 

How Long Are Podcasts, Generally?

So, what is the average length of a podcast? There are always outliers, as the research by Pacific Content shows. In 2018 some podcast episodes clocked in at 10+ hours, while others lasted mere seconds. Removing these extreme cases, the median length of a podcast was found to be 38 minutes long. 

The same research was carried out again in 2019 and the median had dropped to 36 minutes, suggesting that in general, podcasts are getting shorter. It is far removed from the 15-60 second video time limit on TikTok, but this trend shows that shorter form podcasts may be the future.

How long are popular podcasts?

It is interesting to note that even though the median length across all podcasts is around the 30 minute mark, when it comes to the top 400 podcasts in Apple Podcasts (as of 2018) you are more likely to see episodes clock in closer to an hour. 

Of course, the top podcasts often feature well known celebrities or are backed by a huge marketing budget, but it once again shows us that there is no secret formula to success in podcasting. 

What is your Subject Matter and Who is Your Audience?

An analysis of podcast categories from Pacific Content shows that the recorded average length of podcast episodes varies greatly between categories as listed in Apple Podcasts; in other words, the data suggests that subject matter and genre correlate with podcast length. 

This makes sense, as show duration will depend on what you are sharing, who your target audience is, and how your audience listens. 

For example, pre-2020 podcast creators may have had to consider the commute length of their audience. This, obviously, may not be a factor for a lot of listeners in an ongoing remote working environment. But there will be other factors to consider now. 

Entrepreneurship and Careers podcasts both had a median length of 28 minutes in the above 2019 study, meaning, pre-COVID, they were probably made to be easily listened to during most commutes.

Returning to our earlier examples, the goal of a self-help podcast is probably to motivate and teach the audience new techniques. Therefore, it is best not to overload them with too much information. As such, as seen with other podcasts that fall under the ‘education’ category, a self-help podcast will usually be shorter.

Corporate podcasts, meanwhile, will generally need a little longer to establish what the episode is about, put it in context, and then get into the meat of the subject. 

Remember, there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to podcasting, so the existing average length of a business podcast may not reflect the content you want to create, or indeed the intended consumers. Your show length should be unique to you and what works for your listeners. 

While a strategy is important, the data shows there is no hard and fast rule, so set out your aims, don’t overthink small changes, and constantly iterate to find what works for you and your audience.

If you need help launching, producing, or scoring your show, get in touch with us here.