Corporate Podcasting: Developing a Corporate Podcast – Concept, Content and Duration (Part 1)
Developing a corporate podcast is a puzzle made of several pieces. Despite some myths and misconceptions, the development process itself can be broken down into two parts: strategic and creative.
Our co-founder Connie Steele and Yann Ilunga recently unpacked everything that is included in the first part of the workflow for creating a corporate podcast.
First Steps: How to Start Your New Podcast
The first step to starting your corporate podcast is simple, but often overlooked: create a plan.
Start by asking yourself these questions: How is the podcast connected to the overall business strategy? What purpose will it serve?
In an ideal scenario, your podcast goals should be aligned with or contribute to your business goals.
This is a crucial step. When there is a disconnect between your business goals and your podcast goals, it’s unlikely to become an asset for your company and you may not even know what metrics indicate success.
Just like for any other marketing initiative, developing a corporate podcast starts with understanding the objective you are trying to address and how it is tied to your overall marketing mix and business goals.
You also need clarity on what your brand is all about before you start a podcast. If you don’t have that clarity first, your podcast is not going to effectively reflect your brand or your values.
It’s about alignment — aligning your brand strategy, your marketing strategy, and your business strategy. The more clarity you get in the planning phases, the easier everything else will be.
The topic your podcast will cover, its format, potential guests that are going to be interviewed for it, and so forth, are all decisions that should keep your brand, marketing, and business strategy into consideration. Always.
4 Ways to Cater to Your Audience
Part of this strategic planning involves establishing who your target audience is and how you want your podcast to add value to their lives.
Typically, there are four ways you can engage podcast listeners:
Inform them. Think about keeping your listeners in the loop or bringing them up to speed about a particular subject matter, your company, or your industry. A news commentary or a podcast for internal communication are examples of corporate podcasts that focus on informing the audience.
Educate them. Is there something you want to teach? Or do you already offer some sort of information product? Your podcast can serve as an extension of the training and education you are already providing with other forms of content, products, or services.
Inspire them. If one of the things your company does is helping your customers undergo a transformation, you know that inspiration plays a huge part in motivating and pushing people to take action and create change. Guess what? Your podcast could serve as a source of inspiration for them.
Entertain them. A comedy podcast is probably the clearest example of what entertaining the audience means. However, this doesn’t mean that your company needs to create a comedy show. Despite this, it is important to think about how you might entertain the audience so that they are as engaged as possible. On average, people listen to eight podcasts each week — as per the latest The Infinite Dial research — and you’re competing with all of them for your audience’s time.
Value Proposition and Competition-Free Content
In addition to who you are as a brand and what value you provide, the podcast concepting process also includes steps regarding differentiation.
What is the corporate podcasting show name that really reflects what the company is all about? And how do you describe the conversations and overall content of the show in a way that, when people will hear about it, it will click with them?
Do this correctly and your audience will immediately be able to see your corporate podcast as an extension of your company.
If you think about it, working on your show concept really comes down to trying to nail the value proposition that you are trying to deliver with your business.
The content you are going to create will be a catalyst to delivering value and providing your audience with a unique listening experience. Thus, it is going to be a key piece you need to sit down and strategize about.
In his book "10x Marketing Formula: Your Blueprint for Creating Competition-Free Content That Stands Out and Gets Results," CoSchedule CEO and Co-Founder Garrett Moon discusses a particular type of content, which can really help your company stand out: competition-free content.
The idea itself is simple but it can have a long-lasting effect on your content and corporate podcasting strategies.
Simply put, competition-free content is the content approach in which you put emphasis on creating content that you, and only you, could create. Nobody else could do it but you.
Content that has to do with your company (e.g. its origin story), internal processes and tests that have been run, case studies and customer success stories: these are all examples of competition-free content.
Even if someone were to copy you, they wouldn’t be able to produce a piece of content that looks and delivers value in the exact same manner your piece of content does… because nobody knows your company, its value, what it does, and the results it produces better than you.
Hence, keeping the concept of competition-free content at the back of your mind when developing your corporate podcasting show is going to help you create something that really stands out.
To increase its impact further, pair it with an activity you are probably carrying out for other parts of your business to better understand your industry and others: competitor analysis.
Take some time to look at how others are expressing what they do, so that you know how to find your unique way to describe what it is that you do — and articulate what makes you better (than the competition).
Do your competitors have a podcast? And if they have one, how are they going about it – is it a short- or a long-form type of podcast?
What are they talking about, and from which perspective? Who are they talking to?
These are some of the questions worth exploring as you look at your competitors and start painting the picture of what your corporate podcast is going to look (and sound) like.
Podcast Format and Episode Duration
If you are new to corporate podcasting and are wondering about the different formats your show could have, you should check out this video where we went through various options — as well as some of the pros and cons for each.
As far as the episode duration is concerned, if you are looking for a black-and-white answer, you are going to be disappointed. There just isn’t a ‘best’ podcast length, like there’s no best length for a book or movie. The duration of your podcast episodes is going to be dependent on your content and what you have the bandwidth to produce.
While it is true that a podcast that is over an hour in length is harder to consume for your potential customers or employees (in the case of an internal podcast), it all goes back to the basics.
What are you trying to achieve with your corporate podcast?
A great story or a format like a round-table conversation are better suited for longer episodes. However, it depends.
When it comes to the duration of your episodes, ask yourself this: how can I deliver straight-to-the-point information in a reasonable amount of time? Whether that’s 10 minutes, 30, or more… but try not to get too hung up on this.
You may find that most of your competitors have relatively long podcasts episodes. And if you are able to deliver a short message that showcases your company and provides value in just five minutes — with a so-called “minisode” — then you should go for that.
Or maybe, through competitor analysis, you notice a trend in which many companies in your field host short-form podcasts where they rarely get into the meat of the story (e.g. how the organization created a solution for a particular problem). In that case, you could differentiate yourself through a longer-form podcast that dives deeper into backstories or unpacks concepts further.
Developing and hosting a corporate podcasting show is a recipe made of different ingredients and it does require some strategic thinking and groundwork, no doubt about that.
However, if you would like to jumpstart the process and get your corporate podcast ready relatively quickly, you can reach out to ask – we are just one message or email away!
In the second part of this two-part series, we are going to explore the more creative aspects of developing a corporate podcasting show, including picking music, choosing your podcast artwork, and establishing the show publishing frequency.
About the Authors:
Connie Steele is the Co-Founder of Flywheel Associates, a Business & Career Strategist, an Executive Consultant, Host of Strategic Momentum, and Author of the new book "Building the Business of You." Connect with Connie on LinkedIn.
Yann Ilunga is a Podcasting & Lead Generation Consultant and International Speaker. Dubbed ‘Podcasting Advocate’ by Forbes, he has produced over 400 podcast episodes since 2014. Connect with Yann on LinkedIn.