You ask yourself why your podcast is not working properly, what you should be recording all the time and whether ...
You ask yourself why your podcast is not working properly, what you should be recording all the time and whether podcasts are (still) worthwhile for your business. Are you thinking about dropping your podcast? Here are some aspects you should think about before you finish your podcast.
© Photo by Gerd Altmann on Pixabay
As a podcaster, you’re probably aware of the benefits that podcasts offer. However, we would like to remind you of them before you give them up.
Podcasts are for entertainment. Or also to impart knowledge. But for companies and entrepreneurs they are above all one thing: an authentic marketing tool.
If you use podcasts for your marketing, you can reach your target group through the spoken language in a much more personal, confidential and authentic way than with the written word alone.
But the best thing about a podcast is that your listeners make a conscious decision for you. They specifically choose your podcast. They want to listen to you. This is a marketing advantage that you should definitely secure for yourself.
If you really want to end your podcast, please remember that you will miss out on many audio benefits. In a podcast you can introduce yourself, your product or your services in a targeted way. A podcast is easy to consume and you can reach your people anywhere at any time, for example in the car or while jogging. An advertising jingle, TV spot or ad placement is temporary. A podcast, on the other hand, offers you the opportunity to present yourself and your company permanently. A few minutes with enough time for explanations. Your podcast can be saved and also archived. No other (advertising) medium can do all this.
If the following questions make you decide not to continue your podcast, please read our tips so that you can (still) take full advantage of the benefits described above.
No problem, inform your audience that you will not publish anything new for a short time. That way you won’t alienate them completely and they know your podcast will come back. For example, you take a summer or winter break. Or you announce a creative break and consider relaunching your podcast. Your people will be excitedly waiting for you and looking forward to your next podcast episode.
As with other communication appearances, it is always advisable to structure your topic pool in addition to good ideas. This means that you create an editorial plan for your podcast and think carefully about which topics you would like to cover and record, when and in what frequency (for example once a week, every two weeks or once a month). This helps a lot and gives you planning security. Of course you can always insert spontaneous topics.
If you really can’t think of a new topic, take a look around and see what your contributors, competitors or friends are talking about in their podcasts, blogs or social media profiles. I’m sure you’ll have an opinion on this that you can podcast. Surely you also have an opinion on this, which you can podcast. Or orientate yourself on current topics that interest you, your listeners and your customers the most. Questions about your product or service can also be answered easily in a podcast. For example, you can pick up on them in an interview with someone and explain them in more detail in a clever question-and-answer game.
You are not alone with this phenomenon. Whether it’s your own blog on the website, the likes in your social media profile or even comments on your podcast: numbers are good, but not necessarily the only thing that counts. There are a lot of them, the “invisible” listeners (or readers) who follow you but don’t comment. They listen to you silently - right to the end - but don’t necessarily press “I like it”. So your question remains: How do you increase your reach? Our answer: quite clearly, with marketing. To make your podcast known, even to shape it as a brand, there are various marketing measures that can be taken. If you are on the move in social media, this is easy to do by using your channels effectively to make not only you but also your podcast better known. In addition, it is also advisable to (occasionally) place ads in social networks, or even on Google. But the most important thing is the description of your podcast. This is where you should formulate it specifically and use SEO to strategically increase your reach.
These are all just a few sketched suggestions on how you can drive your podcast marketing. You can find more in our blog, for example here.
Keep in mind that marketing should be long term oriented to reap real success.
You are aware of all this and you still want to end your podcast. In case you have already gone through all the considerations and checked off all the options, there is still the possibility to archive your podcast. You can retrieve an archive at any time and then restart it.
Please note that if you cancel your hosting subscription, your podcast will continue to flounder in the directories and be listed as a “podcast corpse”.
But most important of all are your listeners. Be fair to them, because they won’t know about your move until you inform them about it. Your fans will want to hear a new podcast from you, but will only ever find the same old episodes. The last episode was quite a while ago - without any explanation? This can have a negative impact on you and your company and only leaves room for speculation à la “the company is probably not doing so well anymore, he or she probably has nothing more to say” - you can prevent this. Above all, you offer all those who regret your last episode an explanation for your finale and are not offline “from now on”. If your last podcast episode is coming up, think of a few sentences for your listeners and say goodbye to them. Because that is also marketing, customer proximity and customer loyalty: Thinking the beginning and the end and making it customer-oriented.
Finally, the technical conditions should be clarified. When archiving an externally hosted podcast, you should consider how to move the feed and episodes to a regular web host and set up a forwarding or “redirect” the feed to the directories. This way, your podcast will remain accessible without incurring monthly podcast hosting costs.
Of course we hope that you do not want to cancel your podcast. But if you do, we want to be sure that you are well advised. Podcast consulting from start to finish is naturally part of our service. If you have any further questions, we are of course here for you.
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