Last updated on January 29th, 2024

5 Ways Creating a Podcast Can Help Start-ups

Riley Rennie
Riley Rennie
5 Ways Creating a Podcast Can Help Start-ups

Once known by the term ‘audioblogging’, the world of podcasting has come a long way since its inception in the late 1980’s.

With over 2 million active podcasts in 2021, and US podcast ad revenue to surpass $2 billion in 2023, the podcasting scene has been on a steady rise since it began gaining traction back in 2004.

While there are several notable podcasters that have played significant roles in advancing the podcasting revolution, such as Joe Rogan (who is well known for smoking weed with Elon Musk), there are also many companies and start-ups that have made their own contributions to the growing industry.

As such, podcasts have become a useful tool for these companies to capitalize on this increasingly popular form of media communication.

Here’s 5 reasons why a podcast could help your business:

1. Podcasts help you reach out to high-value customers

In its most basic form, the typical podcast requires two things: an interviewer (host) and an interviewee (guest).

As such, this provides companies with the ability to invite potential high-value accounts onto their podcast (see our last article on how tools like podcasts can be part of your Account Based Marketing campaign).

These can be companies which would not otherwise know about your product or service, and therefore even if they decline your invitation, you still gain brand awareness from some of your biggest potential clients.

However, for those that don’t decline, you’ll be able to ask them anything you want. You can learn their needs, how your product or service fits into their business model, and even if both of your companies would be a good fit strategically.

Inviting existing customers onto the podcast can also prove useful if you turn them into enthusiastic advocates for your brand. Let them be the ones who tell your audience how good or useful your product really is.

2. Having a podcast can improve your search rank on Google

Similarly to writing blogs, podcasts have many positive benefits when it comes to boosting traffic to your website.

Having podcasts on your page can not only increase traffic, but they’re also likely to increase the average time spent on the site, and they can generate backlinks to your page as well.

Another trick to improve your search rank is to publish the transcript and/or show notes of each podcast episode. This helps your site rank for relevant keywords after its indexed by search engines.

3. A podcast can help position your start-up as a leading authority

Listening is the new reading. In other words, reading is clunky, and it often makes multi-tasking difficult.

Hence why people have slowly gravitated towards audio-based mediums of knowledge consumption.

Moreover, recent studies on memory have found that people are able to recall twice as much information from audio as they do from text.

Because of this, podcasts allow you to dive deep into a subject without losing a great deal of attention from your audience.

As such, by acting as an expert in the given subject, you can position yourself and your brand as a leading authority, enhancing your credibility in the process.

While having a large audience will be unlikely for most start-ups, it’s important to make sure that those who do listen to it understand that you actually know what you’re talking about.

4. Podcasts can help improve conversions

Podcasting is another way of reaching out to your target audience; allowing you to establish a greater connection with them.

By continuously placing yourself as an expert in the industry, your listeners will start to associate your podcast as a credible source of information.

Your audience is also much more inclined to trust you if they know what you sound like rather than just reading your blog posts.

Thus, as you release more episodes, you deepen your trust with potential customers, making them want to be associated with you.

When your audience perceives you as a friend as opposed to a stranger, there’s a higher likelihood that they will buy from you; ultimately boosting your conversion rate.

5. It’s pretty easy to get started

With low barriers to entry, the podcasting scene is very easy to get into for new companies. And for money-tight, bootstrapped start-ups, it requires very few resources.

A working mic, a computer, and a Wi-Fi connection is really all that’s needed to start. Including video is recommended but definitely not essential, especially if you’re just starting out.

For the start-ups looking to target specific high-value accounts, or simply to boost website traffic, podcasting can serve as a useful tool which won’t put a large dent in your balance sheet.

Riley Rennie
Riley Rennie

Riley works in Upscope's marketing team.