Sales and marketing tactics are constantly changing. This is due to buyers’ behaviors always being in flux and because attention is hard to come by so this forces you to continuously experiment with new tactics. Most of these tactics will revolve around some kind of content. I like to think of content as a digital salesperson. The more content you have, the more a person can learn about your product without talking to anyone on your team, which is a good thing! You want your potential customers to reach out to you when their intent is high: meaning they have a pain point and they already have most of the information to solve it. You don’t have much control over whether or not potential customers have a problem or pain point that they need taken care of but you can control how much they know about you and your solution.
In order to create informed buyers, you need to feed them content and LOTS of it! You need to give them all forms of content so they can learn about your business on their own time and in their preferred channel. A channel that is grossly underutilized right now is audio, and by audio, I mean podcasts. Podcasts have a huge amount of momentum behind them with the number of listeners growing 40% over the last three years so you should consider ways to stay in front of the trend. Below, I’ve listed 5 reasons why your company needs to use audio as a sales channel.
1. Sales is storytelling
Any great salesperson knows you have to alter the reality of the person buying your product by convincing them their life will be better because of your product. In order to do that, they have to picture that altered reality for themselves. You make that happen through storytelling. Good salespeople can confidently speak about numbers and features, but great salespeople wrap a story around those numbers and features.
When a person turns on a podcast, they are wanting to learn something new or listen to an entertaining story. Give them both. To start, consider doing a simple series about your product. You don’t need to launch an ongoing podcast brand. You could create a one time series about what your company is building, why it started, who is involved, and how it can help the listener. Think of it as an audio version of a website someone can listen to during their commute or in the gym.
2. Podcasts can Serve as Pillar Content
A podcast is not just a podcast. It can be turned into a blog, social content, or a Youtube video. Use a transcription tool to turn the audio into text in order to generate blogs and social graphics.
3. Demonstrate Authenticity
There is nothing more authentic than having a free-flowing conversation. People want to hear undoctored, authentic audio. That’s what resonates with people most. Doubt that? Consider the fact Joe Rogan has hundreds of millions of listens every month due to the fact he’s authentic. People trust him and trust is one of the most important aspects of a sale.
4. Establish Thought Leadership
There is no better way to establish a reputation and thought leadership in a given subject than talking about it a lot. The breadth of a person’s knowledge about a subject comes out best in a conversation. Not a quote, not a presentation, not a short video, but a conversation. When you speak about something in an unscripted fashion, people can tell you know what you are talking about more easily. Get your most knowledgeable teammates on a podcast and just riff with them about the problems you are solving and get guests involved from the industry. Make it entertaining and informative!
5. Network without the expectations of a sale
Podcasts will allow you to reach out to potential customers and influencers in your space to have a conversation person to person, not seller to buyer. Pick their brain on the broader industry and trends. It is mutually beneficial for you and them. They get to use your platform to share their thoughts and they get content that their marketing team can share on their own channels. Win, Win.
We encourage you to just get started! Companies like Slack, Shopify, Sephora, and McDonald's are already seeing great success with their podcasts. These companies are constantly finding new ways to engage and build their communities and if they are creating podcasts, you probably should too…
We are here to help!
If you need help getting started, don’t hesitate to reach out! We have just begun to help businesses outsource their podcast production. After having numerous people and companies ask about starting a podcast, we figured we'd make it easy for them. We will help you get started by managing the setup, audio production, and we'll even create social graphics using quotes from the podcast. All you have to do is hit record and send us the audio. In return, you'll get a professionally produced podcast ready to be shared with your customers, friends, and employees. To learn more, click HERE!