Promoting Your Business by Starting a Podcast

Launching a podcast can be a fun and effective way of increasing customer engagement while promoting your expertise and your small business.

Some very successful podcasts generate revenue and become businesses in their own right. However, it is probably more realistic to focus on the promotional benefits that podcasting can provide your small business and the ways it can increase your company’s market presence.

A podcast can help you become more visible to prospects and clients, establish you as an industry expert, and increase the number of people who know, like and trust you.

Similarly, a podcast can help you expand your network. Depending on your industry in your social media focus, you can invite listeners to connect with you on LinkedIn or to follow your company on Facebook or Instagram.

Even a modestly successful podcast can provide ancillary benefits such as increasing your search engine visibility, providing content for your social media feeds, and increasing traffic to your company’s website.

Getting Started

An important first step in launching a successful podcast is thinking about the audience you’re trying to reach. Since that audience aligns with your customer and prospect base, you will have a good understanding of their common challenges.

For example, talking about industry trends your clients face shows that you know what they are going through and, by extension, how you can help them. Think about the types of advice you can offer on a regular basis. You can also provide information to help customers get the most from your services or products, or to answer common questions that customers ask you.

Remember, good content isn’t talking about your company and how good it is. Instead, it’s more helpful to focus on customer issues and provide insights they find valuable.

Then you will need to decide on your show’s format. The most common podcast formats include a solo show with one expert discussing a topic, for two people (perhaps you and a business partner) discussing an issue and offering advice.

Another popular format is conducting interviews with industry experts, which gives you the additional opportunity to expand your network and to potentially broaden your reach within your guests’ audiences.

Whatever format you choose, remember that authenticity and sharing your expertise will combine to provide value for your listeners. This is more important than paying too much attention to your production values, especially as you get started.

You don’t need to worry about investing in expensive equipment as you begin. Podcasting apps such as Anchor allow you to create basic shows using only your smartphone. Over time, as you become more comfortable with preparing a podcast, you can purchase a USB microphone and hosting through a service search such as LibSyn that will distribute your podcast to the most popular platforms.

If you want to get involved in basic editing, such as removing filler words such as umms and ahhs from your podcast, those skills are easy to learn. If not, you can outsource the show’s editing to a service for a reasonable investment that allows you to focus more on your business than your podcast.

Whichever approach you take, creating a small business podcast can provide a number of benefits to help increase your marketplace presence and, ultimately, your small business success.