Business communication is a challenge that is faced by businesses around the UK and the wider world. Being able to communicate strong, effective and truly cohesive business messages both internally, within companies as well as externally, to stakeholders and relevant parties is crucial to any business’ ongoing and sustained success.
Utilising the medium of a well-planned and properly structured podcast can allow for reach on a scale otherwise very difficult if not impossible in some cases to achieve. Thus, employing the right podcast strategists to make sure the business in question in on track is key to the ongoing success of a business podcast.
Other marketing and communication methods, ranging from PR to other digital and traditional forms of marketing are of course useful and all serve a determined purpose in relation to business communication, but podcasts are a potentially uniquely powerful way in which to communicate.
Campaign Reach and Distribution
There are many different forms of marketing that all serve very laudable purposes when thinking about business communication and the messaging a business or brand wishes to convey.
For example, social media advertising and campaigns can reach people at home and on the go, whereas television advertising done properly and correctly can reach an audience waiting to be served a message.
Podcast however have the unique ability to reach people in places other methods struggle to achieve. Podcasts are more often than not, listened to people in their leisure time and are treated as something that is not strictly work-related. Therefore, it is highly likely that audiences will be more captivated than a traditional ‘work’ audience at their desks.
Podcasts will also by their very nature, be very widely shared both by the platforms upon which they are hosted (like Spotify and Apply Music) as well as the people tuning in to them amongst friends and colleagues. This allows both the hosting platforms as well as the listeners to act as distribution networks for the podcast in question; ultimately a free form of advertising and distribution.
Creative Nature
Podcasts allow people and creators to be incredibly creative. No matter the industry and no matter the area or areas of expertise to convey to the audience, because podcasts are much more conversational and often informal, there is a huge degree of flexibility both professionally and creatively.
A company operating in a particular industry will have a specific set of both company and industry-wide challenges.
The ability to communicate what these challenges are as well as the expertise learned from the challenges and overcoming them is in itself, a fantastic marketing tool. For example, a global healthcare provider can communicate specific challenges relating to medical compliance whereas an estate agency may talk about and discuss property markets and the challenges faced there.
Whichever industry a business operates in, the ability to coherently and succinctly communicate with a target audience is potentially magnified many times by a business podcast.
Internal and External Business Communication Potential
Businesses and corporations, particularly larger companies require both internal and external communications which can prove tricky. The messaging sent out internally and disseminated for example to a human resources (HR) department will differ from that which is sent out to external stakeholders.
A well thought through and researched podcast will allow businesses to tailor their content, offering and ultimate delivery to the target audience in question. With regards to internal communications, a company may seek to be more formal and address and discuss specific company issues and challenges, whereas externally the marketing and communication output is likely to be more promotional.
By putting out dedicated and specific podcasts, tailored for internal and external communications and audiences, a business can effectively communicate with a wider and far more relevant audience than they would otherwise be able to.
Expertise and Analysis
Sitting down and creating a well planned and thought through podcast allows a business of any nature to provide insights and analyses on their industry of choice. For example, if a company provides specialist building acoustic services, their knowledge within the building sector and industry ill be specific to their expertise and can help educate others on a particular niche (source: JosTec).
On the other hand, if a company has expertise in politics and business, they may seek to appeal to a wider audience, beyond their industry to educate and bring in the audience to what they do in a more relatable manner.
No matter the industry in which a business operates, the ability to provide insights and analyses through a podcast means that more information can be provided and therefore digested and considered by the target audience once they are successfully reached by the production in question.