3 Reasons You Should Stop Paying for Ad Space On Podcasts
Picture yourself: A small business owner, an entrepreneur, a content creator, or a marketing professional… Honestly, the list of professions and people who could utilize podcasting to further their business, career, or interests is endless. But just imagine yourself listening to your favorite podcast. What is it? WTF with Marc Maron? No, you’re more of a Serial, murder mystery, kind of listener aren’t you? Nope! I got it… you’re slowly making your way through the television show, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” with the creators and stars of the show on, “The Always Sunny Podcast,” aren’t you? Whichever show it is, right in the middle of it you hear an incredible ad for a product or service like yours and you think, “I should spend some of my marketing budget on a podcast ad!”
What If I told you that I think you are absolutely wrong? What if I told you that for not a whole lot more than it costs to get an ad on a top tier podcast you could be creating your own great show, coming up with engaging content that will attract listeners, and turn them into customers?
Here are three reasons to stop buying podcast ads from a podcaster:
1. Skip Buttons and Other Time Saving Tools
As podcasting has gotten bigger, and more diverse, the apps we use to interact with the podcasts we love have gotten smarter and smarter. I remember the days of having to just listen to everything. Podcasts were in early days and were little more than what people would describe as, “radio talk shows for the internet,” ads and all.
I don’t hate ads. In my opener I even referred to hearing an, “incredible,” ad. I have paid my rent selling ads on my shows, and have benefited many other ways through relationships with my advertisers. I think advertisements can be art, and are often some of the wittiest content produced in whatever medium it’s in. But I would be lying if I answered yes to any advertiser who asked me if I thought podcast ads were the best use of the money they’ve earmarked for it. It’s a resounding, “NO!”
While I don’t hate ads, I think most podcast power users would describe them as a nuisance. I don’t remember the last ad I didn’t use the skip button in Pocket Casts to skip. In Pocket Casts I can even adjust the length of my skip buttons. I find that 45 seconds is best, because more and more there are now multiple minute ad breaks during shows, and the 30 second skip no longer feels efficient. If it’s a show I listen to frequently, and I know their ad break music, or have gotten comfortable enough to feel the energy of where the show’s going, that skip button is at the ready. Even if I’m away from my phone, all I have to do is raise my watch and the same button is there.
Not only do podcast listening apps offer skip buttons, as you can see above, they also offer tools that allow listeners to completely customize their listening experience. Listeners can trim the silence (think of that dramatic pause from your ad that made the whole thing come together), they can set specific shows to start after a set minute mark (listeners do this to skip intros, ads, and other stuff they consider to be unimportant so that they can get to the meat of the show), and they even set the playback speed higher than normal so that they can speed run through shows (again, pacing of an ad can be very important). Imagine spending the time to craft the perfect ad, spending money on getting it to air, only to find that it wasn’t heard by a large percentage of users who have no tolerance for ads.
2. Podcast Ads Aren’t Forever
The ads aren’t forever, because podcasts aren’t either. It’s the sad truth that a lot of podcasts are launched and fizzle out. Even big shows sometimes just go away without ever really having an episode that ends it. A listener might go back to listen to a favorite episode of a podcast only to find that the files are no longer there. If you’re an advertiser who bought an ad on that podcast under the guise that, “podcast ads are forever,” then you’d be out some of what you paid for.
Podcast ads are really attractive to businesses when they hear about the metrics that show podcast listeners as being loyal to shows. If you buy an ad on a podcast in the early days of the show, you might have been sold on the idea that it will be there forever. If that show takes off, anybody who goes back to listen to the whole show will find it. That’s not unheard of. Any podcast I have gotten into that has a back catalogue, I have gone back and listened through the whole thing (while using the skip button for no ads, mind you). It really is a smart selling point for podcasters to bring up. It’s just that the logic gets more and more flawed as time, and technology, marches on.
It’s the unending marching of time that leads most podcasts to fizzle out. A lot of people set expectations with their audience right away and eventually find that these expectations that they set, are too tough to manage and they cut back on the release schedule. You set out to do an episode a week but when you cut back to every other week, you lose a huge chunk of your audience. Missing a single scheduled day without warning can tell an audience, truthfully or not, that the show is over. That’s why it’s important for podcasters to set a realistic expectation for themselves first, and then translate the expectation to the audience.
When a chunk of audience leaves, for any reason, it is discouraging. This is when you’ll start to see the shows end. A lot of shows will paddle along for a while after a big audience departure, but eventually the discouragement can be too much. What if you bought an ad on that show? And now the entire show is off the internet.
We haven’t even begun to mention the fact that we’re seeing more and more ad integration into podcasts, where advertisers are partnering with podcast hosting services that integrate their advertisements into the shows hosted on their platform. Most podcast hosting services that offer this make it an opt in program for podcasters, and it’s a great way for podcasters to get some money without having to do the legwork of finding advertisers. It would take a lot of faith for me as an advertiser to trust that a different company is going to find the right fit for me; and more importantly, the integrated ads are the ones that are easiest to spot coming. There are aspects about integrated ads that make it very easy for a seasoned podcast listener to have pre-set rules about the show that uses them to simply never hear them. It’s a waste of money, again, in my eyes.
3. Podcast Listeners Crave Detailed Connection
This one is simple. We live in a world where more and more, people want to feel connected to each other. Through the pandemic we utilized Zoom and other tools to stay connected, and the experience has left many people desiring all aspects of their life to have that connection. The pandemic was, and is, awful for a lot of reasons, but one bright spot about it is it forced a lot of people to re-examine how closed off they were. Now that these people see it, they want to live differently.
Audio based content is special. It’s unique in a way that other media forms aren’t. It may be because of the focused intent that a listener typically has, or it could just be that talking is the original way we gave information, told stories, and came to deeper understanding. There’s a mystical part somewhere in there, if you’re a little, “woo woo.” But, podcast ads are cold. Even the host-read ads intrinsically have a different feel to them than the rest of the show. Every host out there has a subconscious, “I’m doing this to pay the bills,” attitude that intrinsically impacts the tone of their voice, the presentation of the facts, and how relatable it can be to the audience. In this regard, podcast ads have borrowed too much from radio advertising.
Radio ads can be effective because the majority of radio listeners are listening in the car, for background noise, or to add a little rhythm to their day to keep their mood up. Most radio ads don’t hit listeners with the dissonance that podcast ads do, because people listening to podcasts are usually listening because they are interested in the subject matter. When is the last time you heard someone say they were headed home to listen to a radio show? The tone of radio advertisement can be completely contradictory to the immediate preceding content, because the the next song is also different, the host changes at 11:00AM, and they’ve grown accustomed to what to expect from radio. When advertisers try to bring the same approach to podcasting, it’s a turn off.
Podcast listeners generally aren’t tuning in for morning zoo content, and if they are, those shows are for very particular moments in their lives. The moments when they are just tuning in for some background noise. Again, in general, most podcast listeners are listening to a show because they are interested in the content, have set aside some time to be engaged in it, and more than likely have developed a perceived relationship with the host and want to hear what they have to say.
So, how do you find the right tone of advertisement for a podcast about a terrible, unsolved murder? How can you match the tone of the funniest host of the best comedy podcast? How do you solve the problem of listeners instantly being able to tell that this host they’ve “developed a relationship with” is putting on their money making hat, even when they feel like they know them?
Solution: Become The Podcast
The three reasons why podcast ads should be ditched listed in this article are the same reasons you, or your business, should be starting your own podcast. What looks like a lot of time or energy for you, does not look the same to someone who’s been podcasting for ten years. If you took your podcast ad budget and decided to start a show, you could solve the issues listed here.
Create engaging content that gives listeners no reason to use the skip button. If you’re a real estate agent in a community, start a show about the interesting people and businesses in that community. Make it detailed, with little known facts about it. Facilitate connection in the same way you do in your business. Regional alcohol companies can start shows where they review other alcoholic beverages in the region. Your audience will love that you’re not just drinking your own stuff, but are giving props to competitors who make great beer. There is an endless list of possibilities for every type of business, content creator, and entrepreneur to make incredible podcasts that keep listeners listening.
“But how does that help me as a business owner?”
If you are the one creating the content, you can ensure the skip button, and other time saving tools, won’t be used. You ensure that by crafting a show without ads that keeps listeners engaged, informed, and in the community you’re building. This takes care of problem two from above, as well. If the podcast ad isn’t forever because you can’t guarantee how long the podcast will be available, take over the control of that. If it’s your podcast, it will always be available as long as you want it to be. You can keep an entire 500+ episode catalogue live for less than $300 per year using hosting services. Much less if you host the show on your own server.
For the third and final problem, the coldness of podcast ads, and how you get listeners to become customers if you’re not advertising, it’s simple. Refer back to what I’ve said already. If you’re creating engaging content, especially content that is at least tangentially related to your business, that keeps listeners listening, and if you’re a great host who is able to build a community around your show you will convert listeners to customers.
When people have to buy something like a car, or a house, or even when they need to hire someone for a service of some type, they almost always want to go with someone they know and trust. Listeners build trust with hosts of podcasts; they feel that they know the hosts of these shows they listen to in a deep way. If you have listeners like this who know that you have a business or offer a service, you will be who they look to first. This is obviously dependent on a lot of factors, and often is a better strategy for local, and regional, businesses who are looking for a new and unique way to market themselves.
Large brands can also benefit from this strategy, though it is much harder for them to escape the appearance of the old shows from the early days of radio (think back to radio shows that had titles like, “The Philip Morris Radio Hour”). That tends to be a turn off to people in podcasting, but not always. It depends on the brand, and the culture of the industry you represent. Overall, your best bet for this strategy is to stay as separated from your business as you can, and to only bring up the specifics of it (at least once an episode) when it makes sense; and you have to be the one to craft the show to make it make sense for that opportunity.
If you want to know more about companies launching podcasts, and how your business might benefit from it, reach out. It’s what I love talking about most and I’ve spent years helping people and businesses come up with engaging content for podcasts that have helped them grow their brand.
