It’s that time of year when we hope to get some time off and when we naturally turn our thoughts to looking back on the year and making plans for the year to come.
Who would have thought that Covid would still be dominating our lives so much - and for a considerable while to come it seems.
So, what does it mean for digital media and how it has become wrapped up in our lives since the first enforced lockdown back in 2020, and will the podcast explosion continue as a result?
Here at LastCast Media we’ve certainly seen a huge uptick in businesses and organisations embracing digital, forced to in many instances because of Covid, and what they are seeing in terms of engagement and sheer numbers of listeners/viewers versus digital costs has been an eye-opener for them in terms of ROI.
For the podcast landscape we’re going to see more podcasts being launched and with over 2 million already in existence, discovery will be one of the key drivers to any podcast success.
Short-term series, unless backed up with a strong social reach and marketing budget, will struggle to make an impact. It is the podcasts that are already releasing episodes on a consistent basis around true, authentic voices and expertise, proving they’re in it for the long haul that are holding their own.
Without an existing wide reach and engaged audience under your brand it can prove extremely difficult to hit high KPIs and this is where knowing your audience is all-important.
The real secret sauce of podcasts is that when you get the attention of the right audience engagement with podcast shows of 20, 30, 40 minute duration it is 80%+. Get the right content in front of the right audience and they are with you for most, if not all, of what you’re releasing.
That is the sweet spot for podcasts. Engaged earbuds and attention rates. But it’s also not about the massive numbers of video. It’s about your right audience, even if it’s 100, 200, 500 people.
Imagine, I tell clients, a conference venue with 500 people in it. Now imagine you’re reaching those same people every single week for thirty minutes at a time. That’s your audience right there engaging with you in terms of numbers that you would be delighted with every week at a conference.
Better to have 500 people listening and staying with you for all of your and their time than 500,000 three-second views I say.
So for 2022, as we see even more podcasts being released, take a step back first and ask who your listener really is, and be honest about that. Then target the low-hanging fruit and build from there.
Here’s to another great year of podcast development in 2022, producing the content people want and helping them to find it.