Success today is all about connecting with your customers at a personal level. If you think you can put out the odd newsletter or the occasional blog post and clients will come knocking on your door, it's time to think again.
Here are some facts and figures about online Content Marketing:
- 71% of people don’t trust sponsored ads, 69% don’t trust advertisements, and 65% don’t trust press releases.**
- Content marketing gets 3x the leads per dollar spent when compared to paid search efforts. (Content Marketing Institute)**
- Publishing 16 blog posts a month will garner you about 3.5x more business**
- Over 50% of the US population have listened to a podcast, and in the UK, 5.9 million people listen to podcasts every week.#
- [podcasts] offer some of the highest levels of audience engagement of any format.#
- 86% of video marketers say video has increased traffic to their website.
A Midroll survey of 300,000 podcast listeners found that:
- 61% of people had bought something that a host had promoted on their show, and
- 71% said they had visited a sponsor’s website.
This is confirmation that today, more than ever, business is all about connecting, relatability and personality. It’s about building trust and relationships and the best way to do that is to allow people to get to know you.
Podcasts are a powerful method of building trust between the host and audience because they allow the listeners to get to know the host on a more personal level.
When you provide useful information in an informal and accessible manner like you do in a podcast, it helps you develop a stronger relationship with your target market, and, at the same time, distinguish yourself as thought leader in your area of expertise.
Having said all that, it seems like everybody has a podcast these days. In 2021, the number of podcast shows surpassed two million. That’s a lot of content, and you may be wondering what the point is of starting one yourself: after all, there are probably dozens of podcasts about your topic/area of expertise out there already and even if there isn’t, why will anyone care about what you have to say?
That's what we work out in the Speak Up Podcasting Academy or as a Speak Up client before you start.
** Info from Content Marketing Institute
