You Ask, I Answer: Podcast Marketing in 5 Years?

In today's episode, Lauren asks, what will podcast marketing be like in five years? Lauren, if I had the answer to this question, we wouldn't be having this conversation because I'd be retired, right? I'd have cashed out on what was going to be hot and uh and and we're all set. Uh no, in all seriousness, if you look back at podcast marketing over the last you know, 16, 17, 18 years, what has remained the same is the concept of the show, right? The the show itself is this entity that you tune into, and and uh there's presumably some type of entertainment that you can't get anywhere else by uh maybe it's a friend uh or respected colleague or an entertainment personality.

There is a way to subscribe to it, to have it delivered to you. That's unlikely to change, right? Because it's built on the RSS format. Um Beyond that, those things about podcasting are are pretty much the same. Uh podcasts, one of the neat evolutions in 2014 that serial brought around was the concept of seasons.

Uh and I think that has been very successful for a lot of shows. Uh obviously not just podcasts, but also YouTube series. Uh certainly do things like that. Uh my friends uh Katie and Carrie uh put together the punch out podcast, and that has seasons, uh hot ones, the the YouTube interview show um has different seasons and stuff. So I think that's uh a concept that's probably gonna stick around.

What has changed when we think about the the matrix of uh create, distribute, activate, and measure for podcast marketing. Uh, creation's pretty much the same, right? So there are different tools that have gotten better and and make it easier to create rich content. Um, I do see that more and more shows are also simulcasting as a YouTube series, uh, as a live stream, etc., so that there's more opportunity to reach more people with more formats. I don't see that changing.

I don't fully expect podcasts to you know make their way into the metaverse. Maybe they will, but given that Facebook gave up on supporting podcasts on their primary platform, I wouldn't hold out too much hope there. But beyond that, um, it's the channels. The channels would have changed the most over the years. In the the first age of podcasting, the RSS feed and podcast directories really were how people found shows and word of mouth, of course.

In the second age of podcasting, which is about 2010 to 2015, um, you start seeing stuff, you know, basic stuff like search engine optimization, a ton of social media usage to promote shows and things, um, some advertising, uh, podcast ad networks themselves. In the third age of podcasting, we do see a lot more collaboration, a lot more grouping up podcast networks and things to keep in particular for independent shows to just to keep them alive compared to the the big bucks that major media companies are spending on shows, you know, Spotify paying gazillions of dollars to various podcasters to be on their pro uh platform. So where we are today is the format's pretty much the same. The distribution channels are different, the activation channels for influencers and stuff are very different. Uh, again, YouTube being one of the biggest platforms for podcasters to share that stuff.

And I don't see that changing a whole lot. I do think there's the possibility for more community-based stuff, um, podcasts and shows in general starting to figure out that having a persistent community is a valuable thing. Having a Discord for your podcast, having a Slack instance for your podcast, things like that will continue to be important. Lots of folks figuring out from the first age that having a newsletter is a good idea. The ability to find a targeted audience for your average advertising company is gonna get harder, right?

You will not have as much third-party data, increased privacy restrictions, make it more appealing to simply choose a podcast that has your niche or your audience, right? If you want to talk to marketers, you can try to target in increasingly unreliable ad tech systems, or you can sponsor the marketing over coffee podcast. Full disclosure, I do that show with my friend John. There's a baked-in audience that you, if you do your research, you can say, yeah, this is or is not our audience. And I think for a lot of shows, um, there's a strong opportunity to improve sponsorship by showcasing how well you know your audience, how focused your audience is, um, and how engaged they are.

Again, this is again where things like a newsletter are super handy, a Discord community, super handy as ways to show the persistence and the engagement of your community around your show. So those are the kind of things I see happening over the next few years. More community, uh, more interesting podcast audiences by advertisers, but the format itself probably, you know, it's it's been a stable format really since about 2005. It's it's internet radio. It's it's internet radio on demand.

It's a point, you know, that's that's really what it is. And for the people who love them, I I don't think it's going to change. So that's the answer. At least that's my answer. Um good question.

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