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Avoid these podcast advertising mistakes for amazing results!
Let’s break down what not to do, and what to do instead.
MISTAKE 1: Run a podcast ad once
Hitting an ad spot once or on one day, and then hoping for conversions, is just wishful thinking! Especially if you’re a new company, or its a new product, to the listening audience.
This podcast advertising mistake will limit your reach. Going by the marketing rule of 7, you need to expose customers around 7 times inspire an action. (Note: this is not to say every exposure needs to be through podcasts. Podcasts will be part of your mix).
The key reason why, you need to have a longer campaign period for podcasts is, almost 60% of monthly podcast consumers download their podcasts to listen at a later date. This means it can take several weeks for consumers to download and listen to that episode and its ads.
Do this instead!
Plan to have a campaign period of 6-10 weeks. This maximises exposure and allows for the download listening lag. For most typical campaigns six weeks will be enough time to gage the impact of podcast ads in your marketing.
MISTAKE 2: Cherry pick one or two podcasts or episodes
Running your ad on just one or two shows is way to small of a sample size to see if podcast advertising is actually effective. And you’re seriously limiting your reach!
The podcast advertising mistake here is picking just the top show because its got a lot of listeners. Or similarly running on one small show because its cheap. This isn’t the approach you need to take.
You need to prioritise audience targeting and the content of the show first. Podcast ads are not like social media ads or Google ads, where people stumble upon your company in their feed. It is an intentionally consumed medium. Listeners purposefully pick what you want to hear, which is great as that means audience engagement is much higher. It also means, when you get the alignment right potential interest and conversion is going to be much higher too.
Do this instead!
Lead with targeting! Use demographic, geographic and context parameters. Test a number of combinations, across different categories and contents, to give you insight into your audience. Then optimise when live to get the best results.
MISTAKE 3: Reusing the same ad for podcasts
The final common mistake we see are businesses not creating something unique for their podcast ads. Because the podcast medium is a lean in environment, listeners are much more sensitive to ads.
You won’t engage or inspire listeners with a generic ad or offering the same promo they see elsewhere. You should take a unique creative and sales approach.
Do this instead!
Avoid shouting, cliches and complex messaging. Create an exclusive deal for podcast listeners. This will make your ad more effective, especially if you’re a relatively unknown company. Furthermore it helps with measuring success.
Avoid these podcast advertising mistakes and you’ll see great returns. Get more great advice based on your marketing objective:
