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Corporate Podcasts: 3 Examples of Successful Business Podcasts

People love podcasts! So, it makes sense for businesses to start corporate podcasts to reach their customers. Of course, starting a podcast is easy. The challenge is creating a successful podcast that will actually help your business achieve its goals. In the following, we’ll look at three companies that have not only created popular podcasts but have also managed to connect with their customers and build their brands through their podcasts.

Podcasts have become increasingly popular with the general public. According to Edison Research, the number of people listening to podcasts more than doubled from 2014 to 2019. In the U.S. alone, 57 percent of people above the age of 12 have listened to at least one podcast. Given the popularity and reach of the format, it only makes sense for companies to start podcasts as well.

Connecting with your customers

Podcasts are a great way to communicate with your customers and position your brand. Unlike branded social media posts, which people might just scroll right past, people actively choose to listen to podcasts through an app or streaming platform. And once they start listening, they stay engaged. 93% of people who start listening to a podcast episode will finish most of it.

There’s also another advantage to podcasting: people can listen to podcasts anytime and from almost anywhere. This makes the format perfect for getting your brand’s message out there.

However, how do you get people to listen to your corporate podcast? And how can you use your business podcast to really connect with your customers? The following three examples of corporate podcasts can give you some great inspiration for creating a podcast that people will love and that will bring customers closer to your brand.

Umpqua Bank: Understanding your target audience

Umpqua Bank is not your conventional bank. The quirky company targets Millennials and markets itself as a bank that doesn’t treat their customers like customers, but like people, and that wants to make sure that their service fits their customers’ lifestyle.

So, it’s only natural that their marketing strategy is somewhat unconventional as well. They run poetry ads and organize traveling art exhibits—and they also started one of the most popular corporate podcasts of all time, Open Account.

Open Account is a podcast focused on money and finances, but Umpqua Bank’s approach to the topic is as unconventional as their brand. Open Account takes finances to a personal level and talks about success stories as well as struggles.

The host, SuChin Pak, is not afraid to ask her guests uncomfortable, personal questions, which often lead to very open and honest discussions about money. This style really appeals to the Millennial audience, a generation that is ready to break with the taboo of not talking about money problems.

Open Account is a very clever corporate podcast because it not only represents Umpqua’s image as a bank of the people but also shows that the company really understands their Millennial customers.

Sephora: Connecting with customers by featuring them in your podcast

How can you use your corporate podcast to really connect with your customers? By featuring them in your podcast! This is the approach the beauty brand Sephora took with their limited podcast series #Lipstories.

In each episode, host Kristina Zias is joined by a rotating cast of female guests who are essentially Sephora’s customers. The women come from all walks of life, and they talk about beauty, self-image, being bullied, and feeling powerful, among other topics.

The goal of the podcast is essentially to encourage women to be more confident and to feel better about themselves, which is exactly what Sephora stands for as a brand.

#Lipstories doesn’t talk directly about Sephora’s beauty products, but it offers the company’s target audience a podcast that appeals to them and that links the company’s brand to the positive message of encouraging women.

General Electric: A branded podcast that doesn’t sell the brand

Most businesses will, in one way or another, talk either about their brand or industry-related topics in their podcasts. The electricity provider General Electric (GE), however, tried a different approach.

They wanted to create a podcast that was not about their brand but would represent them as a brand. So, they hired playwright Mac Rogers and created a scripted science-fiction podcast called LifeAfter/The Message. It involves aliens, futuristic technology, and a desperate FBI agent, and it essentially takes listeners to the limits of technology.

The Message was so popular with listeners that it even hit number one on the iTunes podcast charts. The key to the success of the branded podcast was that it wasn’t created like an ad, said Andy Goldberg, GE’s CEO. “It’s a science fiction story to connect listeners with what the GE brand is about, without selling the GE brand.”

Marketing your corporate podcast

These examples show that before launching a branded podcast, it’s important to think about your target audience and what content they would be interested in, and then find creative ways to deliver that content by linking it to your brand’s image.

The less your podcast sounds like an ad and the more value it offers your customers, the more successful it will be.

Don’t forget to promote your corporate podcast!

Aside from creating great content, you also need to make sure that your customers know about your business’s podcast. So, don’t forget to promote it on social media, on your company’s website, or on whatever platforms where you can best reach your target audience.

One way to make your corporate podcast really stand out online is to create audiograms. Audiograms are short video clips that combine images, the wave form, and a short audio bite from the podcast episode. They are real eye-catchers, which makes them perfect for promoting your company’s podcast.

Audiograms make people stop scrolling through their feeds and check out the podcast. By using web tools such as Audiocado, you can create your own audiograms in just a few minutes.

Try it out for free now!

Tobias Manroth Author image
Tobias Manroth
CMO at Audiocado

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