Podcasts! Everybody’s listening to/already has one, but what if there were audio content marketing alternatives to the traditional “podcast?”
Find out how Branded Sound Experiences, Audioblogs, and Commercial Musicals might help your brand make the right kinda noise, in your marketplace.
State of The Podcast Nation
Recently the marketplace for audio content has become saturated with podcasts, and the numbers just keep going up.
If the numbers from the Edison Infinite Dial surveys are accurate, more than half of America knows what a podcast is and has listened to one, and 37% of Americans listen to podcasts monthly.
This trend in podcast listening is significant to marketers looking to add an audio component to their mix, but it does nothing to inform you on what type of podcast you should launch.
Should your podcast be like a radio show? On YouTube, no video, weekly, daily….hourly?
Should you have interviews, or just monologues, or start collecting random jokes about your cat?
Let’s explore a few audio content marketing alternatives to podcasts.
1) Sponsored Podcast
The average lifespan for a podcast is 174 days.
Everyone says that consistency is key in marketing – but the stat above shows that most marketers and brands don’t have the attention spans, or budgets, to keep long term projects, like a traditional weekly podcast, afloat.
So, a possible answer is, A Brand Sponsored Podcast; a limited-run show, that works more like a Netflix series, than a TV news program.
We show up to TV for different types of content, that serve different entertainment needs. For instance….
TV News is a temporal, quantitative, attention fix.
Audiences build a relationship with the anchors, the format, experience the content in repetitive, time-based packaging, and takeaway novel things, in a standard way.
Netflix/TV Series are a temporary, qualitative, attention fix.
Audiences build a relationship with the characters, the story arch, experience the content in finite, seasonal packages, and takeaway standard things (romance, drama, comedy), in a novel way.
Audio dramatic content – like the radio shows of years past – connects with audiences in ways that can’t be duplicated by any other medium.
Just like soap operas started out on radio as content marketing vehicles for brands, our Branded Sponsored Podcasts associate brands with content and audio experiences that reinforce positive associations, and align with current marketing efforts.
With brand sponsored podcast services from Audio Content Lab, we develop a podcast for you that has a unique and memorable format, that sounds exceptional, is consistently published and promoted, and engages your audience in an unforgettable way.
2) Audio Blogs
PROBLEM – A brand that has been blogging for years, is now looking to expand into podcasts.
ANSWER – Record your blogs, and distribute the audio blogs on podcast platforms, as well as on your own site.
Most people do not have time to read long-form content.
That’s why Atlantic, New Yorker, WIRED, and hundreds of other publications/media companies have partnered with Audm, and Curio, to feature their top stories in audio form, read by quality, human narrators.
So – does it work? Do audio blogs increase engagement with content?
In my own experience, the Time on Page (TOP) analytics for blogs that feature an audio option at the top, are typically 2-4x the TOP of text-only blogs.
One truth about content marketing is that you don’t always need more, new, stuff, you can syndicate & distribute what you already have, in new formats.
3) Commercial Musical
From the 60s-80s, companies like General Electric, McDonald’s, Ford, DuPont, Xerox, worked with musicians, composers, choreographers, to create *their own branded, Broadway-style musicals!*
HUGE original stage-productions, about soap? A compelling song-and-dance-based narrative about motor oil? These all happened!
In the AMAZING Netflix film, “Bathtubs Over Broadway,” Steve Young discovers the vinyl records of these musicals, and tracks down the composers that wrote the music, and stars that got their start, in these musicals, (Martin Short, Chita Rivera, Cloris Leachman) and it is an amazing glimpse into what “content marketing” used to look, and sound, like.
What if, instead of another boring podcast, there were a way for a Grammy-nominated composer & musician to create a Commercial Musical for your brand or business?
Of course, I had to try this out for myself, so in an attempt to better explain the function of marketing, how sales and ROI, data, and strategy all intertwine to guide business development, I wrote “ROI: The Musical”
“ROI: The Musical” is a musical audio drama, in which, the leadership staff of a fictitious company, after a journey of transformation, discover that investing in marketing the business isn’t about ROI, it’s about RO-Why.
The question business leaders should ask in regards to marketing & ROI is not “what will we get out of marketing,” but “why are we even doing this?”
Beyond just getting more leads & business, why choose marketing?
The WHAT of marketing, the tactics & measurements of marketing can be mishandled, misinterpreted, crammed into square holes with circular logic; you want ROI, I can get you ROI.
The WHY of marketing, the strategy, is about more than a return on investments, it’s about the purpose for being in your brand’s marketplace. RO-Why.
LISTEN to the soundtrack –> https://whalehawk.bandcamp.com/album/roi-the-musical
LISTEN to the show –> https://posmarketingblog.com/2020/03/24/roi-the-musical/
In Conclusion
As of 2020, the podcast universe has over 1,500,000 titles to choose from globally, and 75 million listeners in the US alone, so, what will set your audio content apart?
Are you going to make another interview podcast, or are you going to make content worth hearing?