Your B2B Podcast: What’s the Point?

The point of your business’ podcast isn’t to have people download it. That’s an output. The point of your podcast is to do something helpful for your business.

The key metric a podcast creator relies on upon releasing an episode is its total number of downloads. Certainly, downloads can be a measure of the podcast’s quality. Often, though, the volume of downloads is generated through good old fashioned marketing tactics regardless of how strong the content is: by committing dollars to paid, earned, and owned media. The bigger the company, usually, the more downloads their podcast receives. Inherently, they have larger social reach, distribute email newsletters, and are more likely to receive press coverage. It’s not necessarily because they’re telling a better story; it could be because they have more resources and broader reach through which to promote that podcast.

What this boils down to is a conundrum for B2Bs as podcast creators: you can have thousands of downloads on your podcast and drive zero utility for the business. On the flip side, you can have just 100 downloads on your podcast, and, if designed and measured correctly, they can be an engine for your business.

So how can B2B podcast creators ensure that their podcast has a point and not just a target number of downloads?

First answer the following questions:

1. Whom are we trying to reach with this content?
2. Why should they care about it?
3. What channels do we use to communicate with this primary audience?
4. What do we want a listener to do after listening to the content?
5. How are we defining success?

Let’s use an example. If a B2B podcast’s point is to drive employee recruitment, then maybe the way to achieve that goal is to recognize top performers in episodes and share them as examples of a culture of employee recognition. Share the link to your careers page in the episode description on Apple and Spotify.

You can use a player from Vennly to customize a call-to-action button that links to your “apply” page or an email. The Vennly player can be shared to LinkedIn, email, Stack Overflow, Comparably, and other channels. This player will not only inform listening behaviors but it will also show clicks connected to plays on that given piece of content.

Identifying the point of the podcast will help you better design, distribute, and measure the content. Start there and you’ll better arrive at what ROI looks like for the initiative.