Podcast advertisements are by no means new to the marketing world but they are often overlooked by the leading mediums such as tv, radio, print, and online/social media ads. However, recent statistics in podcast trends are leading more businesses to consider adding podcast advertisements to their media mix.
With over 550,000 podcasts currently active and genres of every type, audiences are growing exponentially (Podcast Insights). In just one year, listeners increased by 12 million. In other words, from 2017 to 2018 12 million new people listened to a podcast for the first time (Convince & Convert).
So what are the benefits of podcast advertisements? Here are a few highlights.
- Direct Endorsement From Host: A podcast advertisement is naturally conveyed as a direct endorsement from the host of the podcast. People that listen to podcasts have high respect for the host and put trust in them. Therefore, when the host supports a brand, the listeners are more likely to accept the brand as well (Single Grain).
- Segmented Marketing: As mentioned before, there are thousands of podcasts currently active and a plethora of genres and topics. With this much variety, marketers have access to countless demographics from which they can choose a targeted segment.
- Drive Leads to Social Media Accounts: According to Podcast Insights, podcast listeners are much more active on every social media channel (94% are active on at least one – vs 81% of the entire population) most likely because they are already utilizing smart devices, such as a phone, laptop, or other device like an Amazon Echo in order to listen to the podcasts. Furthermore, listeners are more likely to follow brands and companies on social media referred by the podcast.
Due to advances in smart technology, increases in accessibility, and continuing popularity of podcasts as a form of both entertainment and education by users, rapid growth of the podcast medium is not expected to decline anytime soon. If podcast advertising isn’t in your media mix, maybe it should be!