June 30, 2023

HRA 41: Podcasting Advertising Requires Patience

4 minutes

Having been in podcasting for 15 years, some agencies and brands do not understand that podcasting requires patience and you must be in for the long game to succeed. Here are three reasons why you need patience:

Podcasts are on demand, and hardly anyone simulcasts. TWiT.tv has been simulcasting for years as we do all of our shows "live to tape," which means you can watch our shows while we are recording episodes, and we do not bill our advertisers for our live stream, meaning a fan may see an ad viewing our live stream and we do not charge our sponsors for it. And since they are on-demand, not everyone is listening to an episode immediately after downloading it. These are not TV commercials or radio ads that are dropped and seen immediately. Therefore if you do not have patience, do not buy podcasts.

Agencies, even trained in podcasting, do not fully understand how it works. Agencies are horrible for podcasters to work with because they expect results in a week or two, they never implement best practices (for example: they ignore ad tech, they do not wait for ads to be fully delivered before making decisions on effectiveness, & they do not have their client implement post-purchase surveys) and if you are a brand wanting to be successful in this space, I recommend hiring in-house to buy successfully by going direct or only work with agencies who do not take a cut of what you are buying and know how to buy podcasts.

Brands have to allow for people to download podcast episodes, listen to them, hear their brand elsewhere, or see it and then make a purchase. There is way too much impatience with podcast advertising in that brands take way too long to be on podcasts and then expect results in a day. You have to have frequency, the right messaging, and have to be elsewhere to solidify purchases.

Lastly, if a brand is a high-priced item or an expensive B2B purchase, frequency is key. Brands need to leverage podcasting as one platform and should have a bigger marketing strategy with patience built in, as it can take 10 - 20 touchpoints to win a conversion. If you cancel your podcast buy after two weeks of ads, then you're only wasting money. Commit to a quarter, six months, or a year to gain real traction and conversions. If you start/stop on podcasts, you diminish trust with their audiences instead of growing your brand.

If you are interested in advertising with TWiT.tv because you want the gold standard in podcast advertising, then please email [email protected], and we will get back to you ASAP.

Host: Lisa Laporte

Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/host-read-ads

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