As a marketer, you know how important it is to reach your audience on their level by creating content that they connect with. You know it’s also important to invest your time and budget into communication methods that work so you’re not wasting valuable resources. This has some marketers questioning if either podcasts or webinars are a good way to help a business attain its goals. But instead of thinking in terms of one or the other, it’s time to think that both podcasts and webinars can work in conjunction to help your marketing objectives become a reality.
What Can Podcasts and Webinars Do For Your Business?
Both podcasts and webinars are popular ways to offer your audience multimedia content options. Not everyone wants to read a blog post or article, so it’s important to offer a solid mix of written, audio, and visual content so you can reach the widest audience possible. Webinars are often held live to an audience who sign up for them in advance, while podcasts are available to download on several platforms for listeners to enjoy at a time that’s convenient to them. Because webinars are both audio and visual content, they’re great for teaching hands-on skills, while podcasts are better for going more depth about a topic.
When creating any type of marketing content, it’s essential to have a good picture of who your audience is and what they want. If you find that your potential customers are looking for lots of high-quality information, it’s beneficial to create both webinars and podcasts so that you can offer them the info they need in the form that’s most convenient and useful to them.
Why Use Both Podcasts and Webinars?
Both branded podcasts and webinars are useful tools for marketers who are trying to reach their audience. Here are nine great reasons to add both to your marketing mix:
1. Nurture Buyers Along Their Journey
The potential customers you’re trying to reach may be in different stages of the buyer’s journey, and certain types of communication work better in different parts of the journey. Branded podcasts are great for top of funnel awareness, as well as:
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Capturing an audience’s attention and keeping them in the funnel. JAR Audio sees engagement rates as high as 95% for our podcasts.
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Increasing your authority on a topic.
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Increasing consideration.
If you can get someone to subscribe to your podcast, it signals that they’re really interested in the company and your offering.
Webinars can be good for 1-on-1 interaction and answering any questions that the customer might have during the interest stage of the funnel.
2. Offer Multimedia Options
While webinars offer audiovisual content, podcasts are primarily audio. However, it’s important to remember that the human voice is very intimate. Podcasts can offer your audience a more intimate listening experience that feels like the brand is speaking to the listener 1-on-1. Webinars offer multimedia engagement to small groups. Both are important because your potential customers want different content at different times and for different reasons.
3. Engage Your Audience In Different Ways
Sometimes you want your audience’s undivided focus. This is the best time to engage them with a webinar. Include your most important messages when you know they’re watching and closely engaged. Podcasts can be better for building trust and showing your authority in your industry. People also have the ability to listen to them while they do other things, which is actually a great thing. In fact, the BBC Audio:Activated study showed that 94% of listeners consume podcasts while performing other tasks. This multi-tasking mode of listening actually elevates engagement with the brand.
4. Podcasts Offer A Deep Dive…
While podcasts offer you an opportunity to dive deeply into a single topic or story, webinars are great for offering an overview of a few different topics or telling shorter case study stories. It’s unlikely that people will sit and watch a webinar that goes into depth about a single case study for an hour. Podcasts, on the other hand, are great for going further in depth, because people love to listen to stories.
5. Educate Your Audience
Think about what message you’re trying to get across to your audience. As a brand, it’s important to provide plenty of expert knowledge in easy-to-digest forms. Webinars are great for teaching practical skills. You can show a hands-on demonstration of something more easily in a webinar, while you can tackle the theory behind why something works with a podcast.
6. Entertain and Inform
Webinars can be used as a hands-on teaching tool. However, podcasts can be used to teach while offering an element of entertainment that people may not be looking for in a webinar. However, audiences often want both entertainment and education from a brand.
7. How Big is Your Audience?
Webinars are great for reaching a smaller audience at one time, while podcasts are better for a larger audience over a longer period of time. Reaching both specific and broad audiences is important for a brand because you can better cater to certain demographics on a smaller scale.
8. Be Interactive
Webinars are often used to engage audiences in real-time, which allows a lot of interactivity. They can ask questions, interact with other audience members and the person hosting the webinar, and can interact with any materials you may offer them. Podcasts, on the other hand, are more passive, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. At the end of your podcast, you can offer a call to action or tell your audience about ways they can get in touch with you.
9. Synergize Your Communications
Both podcasts and webinars can support one another. Talk about upcoming webinars during your podcast to attract an engaged audience to your webinar. And then during your webinar, mention topics of previous podcasts and prompt them to listen to that podcast to learn more. By using both forms of media to engage with audiences, you can promote your other forms of content easily to an already interested audience.
Roger Nairn is the Co-Founder and CEO of JAR Audio
