We get this question on every sales call. It’s a fair question. We are asking companies to invest $100k+ per year so, of course there will be serious questions around what kind of value they will see in return.
Here’s how we think about measuring the impact of a niche B2B podcast — based on our experience launching 100+ shows over the past 4 years.
But First, Strategy
Before we dive deep into the ROI, let’s first get on the same page with how we think about the strategy behind the B2B podcasts we launch.
There are two key pillars behind the strategy:
Pillar 1 – Go insanely niche
Even though 90% of podcasts never make it past the third episode — there are still lot of shows out there battling for attention. The only way to stand out is with a show that’s laser focused on serving a niche better than anyone else can. Your goal should be to build the go-to podcast for this niche.
When we say niche, we don’t mean marketing. That’s too broad, too competitive.
We don’t even mean SEO marketing. That’s still too broad, too competitive.
We mean: SEO VPs and Directors at enterprise tech companies.
Instead of creating a general show about SEO news and tips, you would create a show hyper-focused on serving an audience of SEO leaders at enterprise tech companies.
This show would explore topics that other shows can’t cover in-depth because their audience is so broad. Topics like how to manage a team of 25+ SEO practitioners or how to manage SEO on a global scale. These are topics that an enterprise SEO leader would find useful but wouldn’t likely be covered by any of the general SEO podcasts out there because they are so niche and so specific.
Our clients Future of Application Security show is a good example of this in action. They interview VPs and Directors of AppSec at enterprise companies — SAP, Twilio, Cloudflare, etc. There are many other AppSec podcasts but very few that are hyper-targeted on serving the niche of enterprise AppSec Directors/VPs.
Pillar 2 – Interview your champion
Once you decide on the niche – you need to decide on your guest persona. While it’s tempting to focus on the economic buyer, our advice is: don’t do it.
Economic buyers are less likely to be able to speak in-depth to the niche topic of the show. Imagine the enterprise SEO show discussed above, would a CMO be able to speak to the unique SEO challenges? Could they get into the nitty gritty? No. Most importantly — they are less likely to really care about what you are doing.
Instead you want to interview your champions. This is who you want to build a niche audience of over time.
Let’s imagine you are selling an enterprise SEO platform to large B2B brands. While the Chief Marketing Officer is the final decision maker, they also have a million other things to worry about, the SEO tools their team uses is probably low on that list. At the same time, if you were to target the end user, the individual SEO practitioners on the team, they likely don’t have enough influence to get a new tool embraced and adopted. So who do you target to bring on the show? You’d want to go after the VP/Director of SEO.
Now assuming you are going to execute a strategy that aligns with these two core pillars, we can now dive into how to think about ROI. If you have a different strategy, for example, you are going to stick your two co-founders in a room and have them talk, you will need a different approach to measure success.
The Direct ROI: Guest Conversions
The most simple and immediate way to get an ROI is by converting podcast guests into customers.
This doesn’t mean you bring them on then immediately try and sell them your product. The podcast is simply the beginning of a relationship that you will need to nurture, grow, and invest in, just like every other business relationship.
50% of the time, we find guests become curious themselves and will ask more about your product after the interview is done or sometimes even before it happens. This all happens to us multiple time per week. We reach out and invite them on the podcast, they explore the site, and ask to learn more about the product.
If guests don’t directly ask for more information about your product, you can simply use information you learned during the interview to tailor a hyper-personalized and thoughtful email to them asking them for a call to get their feedback on your product.
The Indirect ROI: Pre-Buying Awareness
I recently had Quentin Scrimshire on Category Visionaries where we explored Modo Energy‘s podcast strategy (they aren’t a client – they produce their show in-house).
Here’s how Quentin and his team think about ROI:
They don’t ever try to convert guests. Their goal is to raise awareness with buyers so by the time they are having sales conversations, the buyers are familar with their brand and what they do.
This aligns perfectly with Ehrenberg-Bass Institute’s 95-5 rule: Only 5% of your target market is in market to buy at any given time. 95% are not.
This means they will be largely immune to your traditional sales and marketing efforts. Podcast creates content to serve the 95%. The content builds and nurtures a relationship with that audience so when the time is right, your primary company brand is the top-of-mind and obvious choice.
The Long Term Goal: Owning an Audience
In the long term, your goal with the show should be to build your own audience.
This is an audience you own and control. You don’t need to pay Facebook or LinkedIn to get in front of them. You don’t need to convince a journalist to write about you to get in front of them. It’s your audience and you have a direct relationship with them.
Going back to our enterprise SEO podcast, imagine if every week, 5,000 Directors and VPs of SEO tuned into your show. Mr. Beast may laugh at that small of an audience but for enterprise B2B products, having your own audience like this can transform your entire GTM.
Tracking Progress — Metrics to Measure:
Now these metrics aren’t going to directly tie back to ROI but they aren’t just vanity metric: you are measuring them as a way to learn what topics and formats your niche audience is interested in.
As a warning, be careful to not just chase growth for the sake of growth. You don’t just want engagement, you want engagement from your exact audience persona. You don’t just want more listeners, you want more of the right listeners.
Metric 1: Audience Size
The total number of people who listen (Spotify, Apple) or watch (Youtube) to each episode.
Metric 2: Social Engagement
Number of clicks, impressions, and engagement on each episode and supporting asset (carousels, audiograms, video clips, etc)
Metric 3: Newsletter subscribers
Number of newsletter subscribers (as mentioned in our post 14 Lessons Learned From 1000+ Podcasts in 2023 – every podcast needs a newsletter!).
Metric 4: Website Views
Number of website visits from podcast related content (episode, micro clips, etc.)
Metric 5: Sales Call Mentions
Number of times the podcast is mentioned in the sales process.
The ROI of Trust and Awareness
As Quentin said in the video clip above, it really does come down to a gut feeling. In a world where everyone wants to measure everything, the reality is, some things are simply hard to measure.
Buyers know your brand exists before your sales team reaches out to them.
Buyers trust your brand more because they perceive you as industry experts: they’ve been listening to you for the past 6 months speak with other people just like them.
What is the exact measurable impact of that? It’s impossible to measure but ask yourself, would that not benefit your GTM efforts?
You are really making a bet on one thing: solving your trust awareness problem will help make everything you do from a sales and marketing perspective easier.
That’s the true ROI of a B2B podcast.
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