Just like a great spread at a party or your favorite album, really great marketing content will keep your audience coming back to your brand again and again for more. Of course, there will naturally be ups and downs in engagement, but as long as you really aim to understand and serve your audience, you’ll see that loyalty and brand affinity grow.
So, how can your team keep your target audience engaged with your content? Here are a few tips to create a flywheel effect that keeps your audience coming back to your content again and again.
Stay connected to your audience’s wants and needs
If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that we should focus on connecting with our audience and building relationships before we focus on conversion. If you find that your audience is waning, it may be time to take a step back and dial back into the wants and needs of your target audience.
The brands who are winning at content marketing aren’t focusing on gated content that will garner them a few hundred email addresses. Instead, these brands are focusing on the content that their audience wants and needs to succeed in a world where all the normal marketing rules have basically gone out the window.
When thinking about your podcast efforts, focus your strategy on where your audience needs the most help. Podcasts are uniquely positioned to build a connection with your audience by giving your brand a real human voice. It’s like inviting your audience into an intimate conversation where you’re getting amazing insights from industry experts that your audience might not otherwise have access to.
When you create content for your audience that educates them and is truly helpful, you begin to build trust and connection that will eventually (and authentically) lead to conversion.
Stay dialed into podcast metrics
One mistake a lot of marketers make with their content – including, but not limited to their podcasts – is trying to please everyone. But when we try to create content for the masses, it rarely ends up adding any value to anyone. So start by asking yourself, who is this content for? How are we serving them? Then, pay attention to your target audience and how they are responding to your show.
By taking a deeper look at your brand podcast’s metrics, you can determine which episodes are performing the best and why. Is it the guest, the topic, or something else? Then, you’ll have a better idea of what your audience wants more of so you can deliver it.
Also, look at what people aren’t saying. If your podcast isn’t receiving comments, likes, or shares, you’re likely not capturing their attention in the way you hoped. Taking the time to do pulse checks on your show allows you to take a step back and determine what your audience needs from you.
Naturally, these needs will change over time so staying agile and aware of what your audience is currently experiencing is important. You don’t want to come across as tone-deaf and insensitive. If you are receiving feedback, pay attention to it. You may find that you should revisit a topic you’ve covered already because it speaks to your audience in that moment.
Diversify your content across channels
If you want to create a flywheel of content that will continue to bring them in again and again, look for ways to diversify your podcast content throughout your marketing strategy. For example, use soundbites from your podcast on your social channels. Use quotes from episodes in your eBooks. Use episode transcriptions on your blog. This creates multiple points of entry to bring prospects in and multiple ways for them to engage with your brand. Not everyone loves to read company blogs or eBooks or even podcasts! So using episode content in diverse ways appeals to a variety of audience preferences to keep them engaged.
The goal is to bring your audience to your brand through one channel and then keep them engaging through other channels and types of content. This is the flywheel of content working.
Look for opportunities to reuse, repurpose, and remix your content
As marketers grapple with more work than ever before, it’s essential you be as efficient as possible. That means not re-creating the wheel when it’s not necessary. Like I noted earlier, podcasts are goldmines of evergreen content that shouldn’t be retired after one episode “play”.
I digress. When any podcast is getting off the ground, its listenership is going to be small. But, once the show starts gaining traction, its audience grows. This is a great opportunity to recycle old episodes. Record a new intro for the episode and drop it into your feed again. It’s still relevant to your new audience even though it might be an older recording! Just like you might recycle written content in your social strategy, you can reuse podcasts, too. A final example for you; let’s say you’ve got three episodes on complementary topics, you could splice and dice them into one new episode.
As we head into 2021, it’s essential for your brand to create content that not only resonates with your audience but engages them too. By staying connected to your audiences wants and needs and keeping a careful eye on what’s resonating, you can create a content flywheel to accommodate all types of audience preferences. Finally, always be on the lookout for ways to reuse, repurpose and remix existing content to maximize its value. This will keep your audience engaged and make the most of your marketing efforts.
About the Author: Lindsay Tjepkema is the CEO and co-founder of Casted, the first and only marketing platform built around branded podcasts. With more than 15 years of experience in B2B marketing, including running her own consulting agency, she’s a dynamic leader who’s had tremendous success building and growing marketing teams on a local and global level. After launching a branded podcast for a global marketing company, Lindsay realized her passion for authentic conversations. This led her to founding Casted to help marketers unlock the full potential of their content by harnessing the power of podcasting. The company has since gained rapid traction among brands that wish to create greater connection with their audiences through authentic conversation.