Fellow podcast host, Justin Steinman, CMO at Definitive Healthcare participated in a recent episode of the SalesStar Podcast to talk about the potential growth opportunity podcasts can offer B2B brands.
Podcasts can effectively be used to drive B2B sales and marketing end goals. That’s if brands learn to get it right.
Here are some quick takeaways from the conversation:
Fundamentals to Focus On When at The Early Stages of Starting a Podcast
Most brands today sport a podcast or two. While some may use to drive branding goals, others may use to tie into marketing and sales activities.
Definitely Speaking (the podcast by Definitive Healthcare) was created keeping in mind that the team had to work with limited budgets.
Not a lot of money on advertising campaigns were being allocated for online growth, (the brand’s CFO did not want to spend that kind of budget or money).
But when the team at Definitive Healthcare realized that they were sitting on a treasure trove of information when it came to the overall healthcare system, it made sense to repurpose all that data to drive conversations.
This is what led to the idea of having data driven conversations around health care via a regular podcast show.
It was not just about Justin getting into a conversation with people, but more about using the data to drive interesting aspects on healthcare, this is what further influenced the type of people who became guests on the show. The episodes commonly feature various aspects of health care from mental health to precision medicine and so much more today.
When Running a Podcast, What Not To Do and What To Do
Seasoned podcasters who use their podcasts to drive brand growth know that it does not make sense to ever pitch the actual brand in an episode. Justin for instance never talks about Definitive Healthcare on the podcast, he talks about the data and stats around healthcare.
This angle was used in order to raise the value of the brand, so most conversations always went forward with the theme, ‘’according to Definitive Healthcare…’’
Now the channel has taken a turn of its own and people reach out asking to be part of the show, therefore showcasing the effectiveness and popularity of the podcast around healthcare.
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How Podcasts Can Be Used to Trigger More ROI
Podcasts are commonly used to invite participants from a target account and target prospect list to participate in a conversation with the brand. However, different brands have used podcasting as channel to drive different types of goals.
The marketplace now has far too many podcasts (which can be a good thing in a way) but there can be downfall to this too. Most brands sport their own podcast today. Just like most have active blogs sections.
So what should brands do to increase listen rates but also grow their podcast audience and eventually use it drive sales and marketing goals?
- Brands should have interesting hosts!
- You need to be a people person and make every conversational relatable to grow a podcast.
- Understand what your podcast goal and objective is.
- Definitely Speaking by Definitive Healthcare is for instance meant to be a Wall Street Journal of sorts for healthcare stats and data. This is the core goal or theme of the show.
- Be regular and predictable, drop episodes on time every time, for instance, every Thursday, or identify a best-fit day
- Have a cohesive multichannel promotional strategy to boost listens.
- When promoting episodes, never product the brand’s actual product or service. Say things like we are bringing something interesting to you, here’s what xyz feels about today’s state of health care for instance, find another conversational hook to promote the podcast episode each time.
- You cannot go to readers or listeners and say ‘’buy buy buy’’ anymore. Your target prospects don’t want to be sold to.
- Podcasts should be integrated better into the overall Marketing and Sales strategy of a company.
- There are too many podcasts today, so it’s important to bring in the awareness that a particular podcast belongs to a particular brand. Brands should therefore create that unique identity and branding here as well.
- Ensuring the podcast is enabling ROI and not just being used for vanity metrics is key in a crowded marketplace.
- Definitive Healthcare has the Definitely Speaking Podcast. The branding is connected to the core brand’s look and feel. Then the promotion is tied into the key channels: LinkedIn, Twitter (X).
- In terms of regular promotions, the brand uses audio clips to further listening interest, then has their sales reps share the episodes as well on their LinkedIn.
- Another important point: Own the URL of the name of your show– you can choose to drive the URL back to the core brand website or maintain another sub section or sub-website in the podcast’s actual name.
- Make sure people understand who the podcast is ‘’brought to them’’ by.
- Lastly, keep podcast costs low. Don’t unnecessarily invest in a soundproof room or equipment at the start itself, it might make sense to use what you have first in terms of resources to get the show to kick off.
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