Top 12 Reasons NOT to Produce Podcasts for Marketing & PR

Many articles extol the virtues of podcasting for marketing and PR.

Here are some that I saved to my reading list in Pocket:

Top 10 Reasons to Podcast: Profit, Positioning and Promotion
PR Secrets / Susan Harrow

5 Reasons Your Business Needs to Be Podcasting
Inc

Six Reasons Why Marketers Should Bet on Podcasting
Hubspot

The Economics of the Podcast Boom
Columbia Journalism Review

Podcasting for Business
Social Media Examiner

What’s Behind the Great Podcast Renaissance?
New York Magazine

The CyberAlert blog has contributed a few positive views of podcasting within the past year:

The Power of Podcasts for Marketing & PR
CyberAlert Blog

Podcasts Could Be the Next Big Thing for Advertisers
CyberAlert Blog

Now, I’ll tell you my dirty little personal secret: I hate podcasts. They’re at the bottom of my list as a method to learn and gather information. Why? They take too much of my time to deliver too little information. I can’t scan the material to see quickly if it’s worthwhile.  Often, the hosts either have too little broadcasting skill or too little subject matter knowledge. And many podcasts are shoddily produced. In short, most podcasts lack sufficient education or entertainment value.

So …here are my Top 12 reasons why businesses should think twice about developing podcasts for PR and marketing.

1. In spite of the hype, podcasts have not yet achieved major market penetration. Only about 17% of people listen to podcasts on even a monthly basis.
2. Podcasting is second only to video in cost of production. Most every business doing podcasts has underestimated the time, technology, talent and other resources required to produce a GOOD podcast. They’ve also overestimated audience size (more on that later).
3. The business can’t produce enough interesting content to sustain a podcasting series. In developing a podcasting concept, a business must be able to map out topics for at least 12 monthly podcasts and the content of each show must avoid repetition. You should also produce at least three episodes before you air the first episode. That will educate you about level of effort required to produce a podcast.
4. The business doesn’t have a unique perspective or voice about its content area.
5. The business doesn’t have the storytelling skills to produce interesting and entertaining podcasts. Podcasting is part of the lineage of oral storytelling exemplified in scout campfires and radio. Unless you are convinced that your business can tell stories that captivate your target audience, avoid podcasting. Without strong storytelling and entertainment components, your podcast will bore the audience – never a good thing. Can you come close to NPR broadcasts for good oral storytelling?  That’s what audiences expect.
6. Your business lacks a distinctive personality to impart to the podcast or doesn’t have the talent to pull off a well-produced podcast series. The host of a radio program needs entertainment, interviewing and communications talents that few people possess – even skilled business communicators.  (Ideally, the host also needs a pleasing voice – and be able to read scripted radio copy smoothly and convincingly. Surprisingly few people can do that. See #1 if you plan to hire a celebrity as host.)
7. Your prospective audience is likely too small to justify the time, effort and investment of creating a podcast. That’s especially true in B2B promotion.  Your target audience is relatively small to begin with and it’s further diminished by people like me who don’t like and avoid podcasts.
8. It’s hard to find an audience for business podcasts. With rare exceptions, podcasts require intense promotion and persistence to create attention and attract an audience for niche topics.
9. Other PR and marketing channels are more productive and less costly.
10. Because it’s so hard to produce a really good podcast, you’ll subject the business to criticism for a poorly produced program – and take a hit to your corporate reputation.
11. Advertising seldom covers the cost of producing podcasts.
12. Your ego will seriously deflate when you look at the logs and see how few people have accessed your podcast.

Basic rule: If you can’t meet audience expectations, don’t do it.

Having said all that, podcasts may be appropriate and cost-effective for B2C marketing. Bear in mind that the content must be oral, not visual.  It’s unlikely a podcast on cooking would become wildly successful – especially since there are so many entertaining video productions on cooking.  On the other hand, could you do an automotive show that rivals NPR’s Car Talk, now in re-runs, for education and entertainment?  Or could you do an audio version of the Tonight Show which had few visual elements?  Could you hire a comedian to do man-in-the-street interviews about your product category?  Are you in the sports business with access to professional athletes who would appear on a podcast?

Podcasting does have potential.  Success requires a distinctive combination of content and approach/format that’s informative and entertaining. Podcasts need more personality than guy-next-door or well-meaning expert. Most podcasts for marketing and PR don’t meet those criteria.

Finally, as they say in Brooklyn, forget about it if you plan to use podcasts just to sell your product Educate and entertain first; sell only occasionally with case studies and customer testimonials.

What do you think? Is podcasting an effective and efficient marketing or PR channel?

Other Articles

Listen and Learn: A Guide for Creating Energized Podcasts
Contentmarketinginstitute

Why You Should NOT Start a Podcast
Nichepursuits