Podcasting has become one of the marketing strategies business owners are using to reach potential customers, convert them, while building their brands in order to remain relevant in a world where swift adaptation to the ever changing technology is critical to the success of the business.

What is podcasting? What are the advantages of having a podcast for business? How can one start a podcast for business? Lets jump right in.

What is podcasting?
Think of an online radio show you’ve listened to and Podcasting is similar to that. Its the opposite of a blog post and while you read the content therein, in podcasting, it is audio based, hence, you access the content through your sense of hearing. Through an audio file accessed by devices, information such as latest news on business activities, products, services, industry related news among other things are easily disseminated to the end users by business owners.



Why is Podcasting Important?
People in different parts of the world are looking for content that will teach, entertain, inform them about things they don't know or are interested in knowing more while on the go, and business owners can leverage on this to link up and engage with their targeted audience. The age of smart phones, iPhones, tablets and other devices has made it easy to listen to podcasts of ones choice from the plethora of topics covering business, finance, entertainment, personal development, beauty, health and wellness, real estate, among others.
Hence, business owners can key into this to expand their potential reach with a view to converting over time.

What Are The Advantages of Having A Podcast For Business?

Soaring Popularity
Over the years, in a bid to put word out there about either ones personal brand or business in the emerging online market space, various platforms; blogs, social media, culminating into various digital solutions arose, thereby giving the opportunity to do so especially in the digital age. Podcasting is fast becoming popular because it allows one the freedom to listen while multi-tasking. Most people like to listen on-the-go through their mobile phones when driving, walking, working out, cooking, or engaged in house cleaning. According to Insider Intelligence, podcast listeners reached 117.8 million in 2021 in the United States.

Usually the duration of a podcast is between 15-30 minutes and sometimes 45 minutes. Imagine engaging listeners with an interesting business topic for that long? They'll definitely want to subscribe and look forward to listening again, thus, leading to brand loyalty. As a business owner, keying into the rising trend and the benefits that accrue before it becomes saturated, can help position your business strategically before your targeted audience.

Connects you with Potential Customers
Podcast offers business owners the opportunity of displaying their expertise over a given topic to the listeners. Not only are you adding value to their knowledge base, but you'll with time come across to listeners as being knowledgeable, an expert, in the business topic being talked about or discussed. This builds trust and solidifies your credibility, turning potential customers to paying customers, repeat purchasers and brand loyalists.

When it comes to the hosting platforms, these have podcast listings, searches, which further increases your chances of popping up in the face of new audience searching to be educated on something and your podcast might just be what they need. Founder of PodKick Media, Spencer Shaw stated in Forbes thus If you're a business in an industry that has a high customer value, then a podcast may be one of your most effective education and marketing tools I find podcasts work great in the legal, financial, and business services industries. It can work in other industries, like real estate, where the show is representing a geographic area or high-end services or products.

Good for Repurposing Content
Repurposing content is a strategy that many business owners have failed to deploy. Creating fresh new content regularly can be a herculean task, and that's where repurposing content comes in. It simply involves taking a content e.g. a blog post and converting to another format, in this case, a podcast while giving life to it via your voice. Now with the podcast you can cross promote it by posting the video (in case you did the video recording of same) on YouTube, social media (audio, video and images), show notes on the website among other things. This saves time and expands your potential reach.

Networking
Who doesn't love the extra opportunity for their personal brand or business to gain the desired recognition? Everyone loves it! Inviting guests for interviews or discussion on the podcast show is a win-win for both parties. Not only is the podcast host benefiting from the enlightenment the guest is dishing out to listeners, the guest has also increased his/her personal brand recognition via the podcast, not just locally but internationally as well.

People love listening to interviews and if you can get known experts on the show, that's a plus for your podcast. The more guests you invite on the show, the more you're expanding your business network.
If you run a beauty shop, you could reach out to a dermatologist to talk about the side effects of using bleaching creams, a nutritionist to talk about the types of healthy foods to eat that leads to one having a glowing skin, a psychologist to talk about how mental health can impact on ones beauty, a financial expert to talk about how you can look good on a low budget without breaking the bank, among others. Besides, a business relationship will be further established between the host and the guest which can lead to future business engagements.

Read more and also how to start a business podcast on https://justtawa.com/ng/podcasting-for-business-benefits-and-tips-for-starting/