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Not sure if podcasting is for you? By the end of this article, you might think differently.
Whether you’re an independent creator or a full-on business, podcasting offers several benefits you might not have considered. From additional income, greater brand awareness, and global reach, podcasting is definitely a medium that promises a return on investment.
And the greatest thing about podcasting? It’s easy, budget-friendly, and long-form - so you have all the space you need to make your podcast completely your own.
In this article, we’ll show you why you need to be podcasting (though we don’t think you’ll need much convincing).
TL;DR
- The biggest reason to start a podcast is that it’s easy and budget-friendly. Platforms like Riverside make creating a professional podcast super easy.
- Podcasting benefits both independent creators and businesses
- In a short-form content world, podcasting stands out as an invaluable long-form content type
- In 2022, there were 100 million active podcast listeners in the US alone.
Why should you start a podcast?
Podcasting is an incredibly versatile medium that’s unlike most other media outputs. It’s a great way to create your own personal or business platform, establish your voice, harness a captive audience, and cultivate a loyal community.
Whether you’re an individual creator or a business, podcasting has invaluable potential to benefit your work in a number of different areas.
Perhaps the biggest reason to start a podcast, though, is just how easy it is. You don’t need any prior experience or expertise at all to start a professional podcast. And you certainly don’t need a big budget either.
What do the stats say?
If that’s not enough to convince you, let’s take a look at some podcasting statistics and trends and let the numbers do the talking:
- 2023 was a record year for podcasts with 150 million active podcast listeners in the US alone. That’s a huge audience that you could tap into by starting a podcast.
- According to the Infinite Dial 2022 report, 209 million people in the US listened to online audio monthly.
- 226 million people were familiar with podcasting.
- People listen to podcasts in the car 32% of the time.
- Weekly podcast listeners averaged around 8 podcast episodes each week.
- US podcast ad dollars are projected to increase to $4 billion by 2024.
- Podcasts enjoy a balanced listenership between men, women and non-binary/other folks.
- Podcast listeners are evenly split in terms of age, with 36% listeners aged between 12-36, 30% between 35-54, and 34% 55 and above.
These numbers speak for themselves. Podcasts offer huge potential exposure, reach, and a pre-existing captive audience. Let’s take a close look at the benefits of podcasting in the next section.
7 Benefits of Podcasting that Make it Worth Starting
We’ll start by looking at the broad benefits of podcasting:
Huge potential audience
As we saw above, podcasting gives you access to a huge potential listenership. Crucially, if you can tap into even just a small portion of the avid podcast listeners worldwide, you’ll gain an invaluable captive audience. Even with a niche and small audience, you will be able to monetize your content with ads, partnerships or, even branded merch.
Global reach
Secondly, podcasts are an international medium. So even if you’re based in the US, your content could reach ears across the globe. This is a really excited prospect for both individual creators and businesses looking to build their international presence.
Easy & budget friendly
Another huge benefit of podcasting is that it is easy. There is almost no barrier to entry when it comes to podcasting. And you have the freedom to make your podcast your own. Moreover, you really don’t need a huge budget to create a podcast worth listening to.
Long-form
Nowadays, it seems like short-form content rules the game. But podcasts seem to trump this limited attention-span culture. Podcasts allow you to make the most of long-form formats without worrying about limiting your length to a mere 30 seconds.
Establish a brand identity & voice
Podcasts also give you a unique outlet to hone and create a brand identity and voice. Whether you’re an individual creator or a business, you can really build out your brand through your podcast. This extends both to the tone of your podcast and its visual identity.
Repurposed content
Another huge benefit of podcasting is how easy it becomes to repurpose your content. You don’t need to reserve podcasts just for audio or video channels, you can also repurpose your podcast transcripts into blogs or other social media content.
Tip! Did you know with Riverside you can download highly accurate transcriptions straight after recording? You can easily turn these into podcast captions, or you can repurpose them into a blog. Plus, Riverside's Magic Clips tool repurposes your long-form podcast into short shareable social media clips at the tap of a button! Learn more, or start podcasting seamlessly.
Evergreen content
Finally, in the same way that podcasts stand apart from short-form social media content, they also don’t disappear. Podcasts are evergreen, meaning your audience can go back and enjoy your old content whenever they want. Plus, this also means you can continue making money from previous episodes.
4 Podcasting benefits for businesses
If you’re thinking about launching a business podcast, here’s why you definitely should take the leap:
Generate leads
Even if you’re not explicitly plugging your business, podcasts are a very powerful lead generator. According to Edison Research, 51% of listeners pay attention to podcast ads more than other media and 56% consider purchasing after listening to a brand’s podcast ad.
Another income stream
Podcasts can also become a lucrative stand-alone income stream for your business if monetized effectively. You can forge high-value partnerships and sell advertising spots in your content.
Establish expertise
Podcasts are a highly-valuable way to establish your business’ thought leadership and expertise. You can feature people from within your business or invite industry experts to talk about pressing issues in your field. This will cement your business as a vocal and trustworthy voice within your sector. This also helps deepen credibility and trust with customers.
Connect with customers
Using your podcast, you can start to ‘humanize’ your business and connect with your consumers. You can build out a strong podcast community, and include your listeners in your podcast by answering their questions or inviting them onto your recording. This is another effective strategy for cultivating credibility and loyalty amongst your customers.
Increase brand awareness
Finally, a podcast is a highly-effective way to increase brand awareness from a different angle. Firstly, you’re likely to reach new ears through your podcast, which is a great way to increase exposure. Additionally, you’ll have another outlet through which to convey more context and background to what it is your business actually does.
Read more: Best Branded Podcasts & What You Can Learn From Them
3 Podcasting benefits for individual creators
If you’re an independent creator, a podcast is a great option for a number of reasons:
Fun & easy
Again, podcasting is easy, budget-friendly, and, most importantly: fun! Podcasts are a truly unique creative outlet, and you can really make your show your own. Since there’s no set formula, you can launch a podcast that sits within a really specific niche.
Monetization
If you’re looking for a way to create a valuable side hustle, podcasts are definitely the way to go. There are several ways you can monetize your content, from subscriptions, merch, sponsorships, and ads. When you combine all of these, podcasts can become a lucrative income source.
Create a community
With consistency and determination, independent creators can create a loyal following and build out a really valuable community through podcasting. Your podcasting audience will support and complement any existing social presence you have.
Podcasting benefits for listeners
You’re not just podcasting for yourself but for your existing (and potential) listeners. From their perspective, here’s why podcasting is so great:
- Added value. Podcasts give your listeners the chance to access valuable, engaging, and compelling conversations in richly-detailed long-form format.
- Personal insights. Podcasts represent an opportunity to connect on a personal level with you and your voice.
- Empowered to choose when and where they want to listen. Finally, the biggest benefit of podcasting is that listeners can tune in when they want to, since podcasts don’t go anywhere once they’re published.
Tips for leveraging podcast benefits
If you want to make the most of all that podcasting has to offer, then follow these tips:
Use the right tools
You need to use the right tools to record, edit, publish, and manage your podcast. This is especially important if you want to create a sustainable podcasting workflow. Opt for a tool that makes the entire podcasting process seamless and easy, especially if you’re a beginner. With top-quality video and audio remote recordings, and an easy setup for guests, Riverside is a great place to start. You can also edit your recordings quickly as reading through a text doc. We use Ai ranscriptions so any text you delete in your transcript automatically deletes the matching video and audio in your recording. Learn more, or start podcasting seamlessly with Riverside.
Also, remember that podcasting doesn’t end when you hit publish. You need to be monitoring your podcast analytics. And if you’re going to be monetizing your content, look for a tool that lets you manage your various income streams from a centralized platform.
Consistency
If you’re looking for instant results and returns, then tone down your expectations a bit. Podcasting takes determination, dedication, and consistency. You need to be committed to a regular publication schedule in order to start seeing a return on your investment.
Proper branding
A consistent and coherent podcast brand is essential for building out an audience. This is especially critical if you’re launching a business podcast. Refine your tone of voice, topic areas, and visual identity to match your overall business branding.
Marketing
Publishing your podcast episodes on major listening platforms will only get you so far. You need to support your efforts with a proper and far-reaching podcast marketing and promotion strategy. This includes an active social media presence, as well as thinking strategically about the kinds of guests you invite onto your show.
FAQs on the Benefits of Podcasting
How do I start a podcast?
Starting a podcast is genuinely easier than it sounds.
In short, you'll need to :
- Plan your podcast topic, niche, and target audience
- Get podcast equipment and software suited to your needs
- Invite guests and prepare for your first few podcast episodes.
- Record and edit your first podcast recordings.
- Create brand artwork for your podcast cover and logo
- Publish your podcast show
- Promote and monetize your podcast
For an in-depth tutorial, follow our ultimate easy step-by-step guide to starting a podcast to put your best foot forward.
Can I make money from podcasting?
Monetizing your podcast is a great way to create an extra income stream. You can choose to make money from your podcast in a few different ways including: advertising, partnerships, sponsorships, subscriptions or merch. The biggest thing to note is that you don’t even need the biggest audience to start making money from your podcast. A niche and captive audience can often be as valuable as an extensive one.
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