How To Guarantee ROI on a B2B Podcast

Producing an interview-based B2B podcast for your brand will have positive results. In this article we’ll help you guarantee a return on investment (B2B Podcast ROI) for your podcast.

Podcasting is the gateway to meeting hard-to-connect and qualified C-suite leads. Integrating podcasting into your business development sales process makes it easy to build relationships and trust.

It’s a breeze to get qualified referrals by interviewing people, who know people. By people we mean, the right kind of people. They could be existing clients, media influencers, or a warm outreach to prospective clients. How do we do this? By requesting them to visit as honored guests. Let’s show you how.

Guests Not Listeners

Unlike traditional podcasts, the success of a B2B podcast isn’t dependent on the number of listeners. You’re not creating a podcast that will rival Joe Rogan or This American Life. Your podcast is designed to target a narrow focused niche.

Your ideal listener will be your ideal client.

Your ideal guest will be your ideal client.

That’s why some call B2B podcasts, branded podcasts. They align with your brand’s value proposition.

Hosting a podcast gives you an excuse to have conversations with people who may otherwise never talk to you. What would you do if you had the opportunity to meet the most important influencers or prospects in your business? Consider the doors that would open and the growth of your network. The possibilities are endless.

Who do you interview?

- Prospective clients
- Influencers in the industry and media
- Existing clients and their buyers journey
- Partners and their added value

Podcasting is networking on steroids.

Instead of cold calling to set up a sales call, consider inviting people as guests to visit your podcast. Think how easy that would be. Your guest would be honored to visit your podcast.

What Would We Talk About?

Guests love to talk about themselves. Think of it in terms of a discovery call. Consider these questions:

- Where did they come from?
- How did they enter the industry?
- What are their aspirations professionally?
- Where have they overcome adversity?
- What do they hope for the business?
- What drivers will move the industry in the next 5 years?

Discover their Hero’s Journey and make them an inspiration for others. Create content they will appreciate and want to share with their networks. This is more than marketing, this is friendship building.

For your existing clients, ask them:

- What was their buying journey?
- What was the problem they faced?
- How did they decide to pick your solution?
- What was it like working with your company?
- What have been the results?

Implicit in this conversation is a testimonial that recommends that you’re more than a vendor, but a cherished partner. At the end of the interview, ask them who they would recommend as a guest. These are referrals. You couldn’t get a more authentic and personalized introduction. Right?

Furthermore, when the recording is done, share a new product or service offering. This is an opportunity for an upsell.

Wherever there is conversation, great things can happen.

What’s happening during these conversations? Networking! What comes from this networking? Business.

How To Calculate B2B Podcast ROI

Ask yourself this. What is the size of your average deal size? What percentage of deals close when you’ve found that they have budget, authority, need and time?

If you’re targeting the C-suite, there’s a very good chance they have the authority. But let’s be conservative. These things are industry dependent.

Assume that 15% of your interviews will convert into a deal. Compare the lifetime average value of the deal to the total cost of the episode. For a two hour investment per month you can create 24 opportunities converting three to four of those guests into clients you will serve for years.

On top of that, you will have a year’s worth of high quality content that can be used by your sales teams, email marketing campaigns, social media campaigns and website SEO.

Quality not Quantity

Again, it’s not about how many listeners you have. It’s about the quality of those listeners. More importantly, it’s about the quality of your guests.

Podcasting is an opportunity to build your credibility, recognize valued clients, share their buying journey, nurture C-suite prospects and promote new products and events. Podcasts create evergreen content that can be repurposed for your marketing campaigns as well as your guests.

To further the conversation, learn how Habanero Media helps businesses:

- Design the sound of their podcast
- Define their ideal guest
- Create a sound that reflects their brand
- Provides easy-to-use audio recording tools
- Syndicates the podcast to all the listening apps
- Produces the podcast
- Saves the episode safely in a media server
- Produce transcripts

Click here to learn what it takes to launch a podcast and how Habanero Media helps!

How To Write a Persuasive Podcast Ad

You know you have a good ad when a podcast listener, without deciding, moves the cursor to the shopping cart, downloads the pdf, or answers a chatbot’s “How can I help you”. Getting a listener to take action is the golden ticket for crafting a persuasive podcast ad.

There’s no one formula to writing a good podcast ad. But if you follow these 5 easy steps you will soon have your ad published with listeners taking action.

#1 – Show Don’t Tell

Grab the listener’s attention by showing a pervasive problem they experience. Understanding problems your audience face is critical for crafting ads that evoke action. When you describe pain, or quench aspirations, you demonstrate you understand. When someone hears your description, it feels like you’re tapping into the conversation already going on in their head. This is the seed of trust.

#2 – Stir and Agitate

Once the scene is set, the next step is to stir and agitate the listener. You’ve identified a place of hurt. Now you need to make it painful by making it more emotional. This is where you pour salt onto the wound you’ve pointed out. Shed light on the ramifications of that hurt. Or if it’s a goal or pleasure, build castles in the air that inspire. It’s through emotion that people take action. They use logic to rationalize the decision once made.

#3 – Inspire and Transform

Once the problem is well defined, the trick is not to over agitate. Don’t let your reader wallow, show transformation by revealing a solution – your solution. Make it be “just the thing” they’re looking for.

#4 – Prove Credibility

Add proof to the ad with recommendations, testimonials and quotes from past clients.. Hearing people speak in their own words is a powerful motivator for listeners. They can relate to the stories your clients share. Don’t tell the listeners you’re great, let your customers show them you’re great.

#5 – Have a Call To Action

Now is the time to finish up the ad with a clear call to action. Some examples include:

- a signup for an upcoming event
- downloading a pdf
- requesting a discovery call
- “buy now” .

Now that the listener trusts you, it’s the time to strike while the iron is hot. Ask them to reach out. Ask them to learn more. Motivate the listener to take action and turn them into a qualified lead, or better still, a new customer.

Empathy is Power in a Podcast Ad

When taking all these steps into account, focus on pain, aspirations and emotions that swirl around it. You want your listeners to think,

“That’s exactly how I feel and I’m tired of it!”

Empathy is power.

Take take the time to understand your audience. Use this formula to structure your message. Design your beginning, middle and end. Read the ad outloud. Listen for the meter of the words. Search for words that will trip the announcer up. Give guidance to pacing, but always with an ear for the audience.

And oh, by the way, do this all in 60 seconds. You can and you will.

When you follow these steps, you can’t help but persuade listeners to take action. With action, you’ll grow revenue. With revenue you’ll grow profits.

Good luck.

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Category: Podcasting Advice