Launching a podcast can be a great idea for a lot of businesses. There are plenty of amazing podcasts that originated at companies you wouldn’t imagine, from huge brands like Microsoft and General Electric to smaller niche consumer or even B2B companies. But, if you want your podcast to help grow your business, it needs to feature a relevant idea and cohere with your overall brand.
That said, a branded podcast doesn’t need to be boring. You can develop an engaging podcast concept that will reach people even beyond your brand’s sphere of influence. However, to do that, you’ll need a roadmap of how to approach podcasting from a brand’s perspective.
Creating a podcast for your brand or business can increase awareness, improve engagement with your existing customers or audience, and even help grow your bottom line and serve as a full fledged marketing channel.
In this article, we’ll explain the concept of a branded podcast and the benefits of creating one. Then, we’ll go over the three steps to creating a podcast for your business. Let’s get to it!
What Is a Branded Podcast (And The Benefits of Creating One)
A branded podcast is an audio show that’s created by a business or organization. Some companies use podcasts as an opportunity to show a more humane side to customers.
Duolingo, for example, produces a podcast that focuses on true-life stories about people learning languages:
Meanwhile, Shopify uses its podcast to interview successful shop owners and provide tips on how to improve online businesses:
There are plenty of advantages to launching a branded podcast. For instance, companies can leverage podcasts to improve their image while simultaneously gaining access to a new marketing channel.
Plus, depending on the type of content your podcast features, it can also help build your company’s credibility. It can even bolster other aspects of your growth strategy, like search engine optimization (SEO), since a podcast and its accompanying content offer lots of SEO potential.
How to Create a Branded Podcast for Your Business (3 Steps)
Now, let’s go over how to create a branded podcast for your business!
Step 1: Develop a Podcast Concept and Name
The first step to creating a branded podcast is developing your concept and name. The show’s concept should be relevant to your product or services – something that will be interesting to your customer base.
For instance, your branded podcast could feature discussions about news in your field, interviews with experts, stories from your experiences, etc. Once you’ve decided on a podcast concept, you’ll need to come up with a name. Ideally, you’ll want to choose something catchy, memorable, and relevant to your concept.
One example of a branded podcast with a unique angle is Think Fast Talk Smart, by the Stanford Business school:
This podcast provides advice about communication strategies.
Another business that’s producing podcasts (surprisingly) is Goldman Sachs. In fact, it produces multiple branded podcasts, all with unique angles. One of them focuses on short, digestible episodes discussing market trends:
As you can see, your concept doesn’t have to be 100 percent related to your business. As long as there’s a meaningful connection, you’ll stand a good chance of building your authority and growing your company.
Step 2: Host your show and create a branded podcast website
Now that you have your name and concept, you’d need to publish your podcast and create a website for it.
A branded podcast can heavily benefit from having an official site. That’s because a podcast website gives you the space to engage with listeners, sell merchandise, and release news related to the podcast.
You can easily use a new, custom domain for the podcast, or have a subdomain for the podcast website on your main brand’s domain name.
You can use a platform like Beamly to host the show and publish a fully branded website:
During this process, you’ll be able to choose a theme, import existing podcast episodes, and customize the pages you’ll use. This way, you can feature your brand in the website’s design.
The Customize option in your Beamly dashboard will open a new page where you can see a preview of your site to the right and customization options to the left. Any changes you make using that menu will reflect in the preview:
To get started, you’ll want to upload and set your brand’s logo so it appears on the website. Go to General Settings inside the Customizer and look for the option that says Site Logo:
Upload your business logo and return to the main menu. Next, go to Subscribe & Social and enter the URLs for your podcast’s social media accounts. These can link back to your general brand’s accounts if the podcast doesn’t have any:
You may also want to use the Customizer to change the website’s style. If you want to make further modifications, here’s a more in-depth guide on how to use the Site Customizer. You can also try switching themes since Beamly offers a large library of options, and one of them might better suit your brand’s style.
Beamly includes a bunch of built-in podcast-specific features, like importing all episodes automatically, importing podcast reviews and transcripts, generating subscribe/follow links, and so much more.
Overall, the Beamly website builder offers a website building experience that’s laser focused on podcast sites. You get access to the advantages like easy customization, themes, and great tools for publishing content – as well as the essential podcasting tools. Plus, web hosting is included, so that’s one less thing to worry about.
Step 3: Generate Episode Topics and Set a Publishing Schedule
With a podcast idea, name, and branded website in place, it’s time to get to work on episode ideas. Unlike with a podcast managed by an everyday person, you might have to run episode ideas by someone in charge at the business.
In any case, remember there’s no rush to publish your first episode. It can pay off to bounce ideas off coworkers or brainstorm until you land on an idea you think is engaging enough for a first episode.
Then, you can get to work on fleshing out the idea into an outline and writing a script for it. At this stage, we recommend preparing scripts for multiple ideas so you can get right back to producing episodes after the first one launches.
To ensure your branded podcast remains consistent, creating a publishing calendar is also a good idea. When you release episodes on a set schedule, this can help build listener trust and loyalty.
Your publishing schedule can be as simple as an episode every week, every two weeks, or any frequency you prefer. Just make sure to leave enough time between episodes to produce them.
Conclusion
A strong brand identity can help drive growth and ensure that customers associate your business with positive traits. Podcasts are a perfect channel for branding initiatives because they can be about anything.
If you’re ready to get to work on creating a branded podcast for your business, follow these simple steps:
- Develop a podcast concept and a name.
- Create a branded podcast website.
- Generate episode topics and set a content schedule.
Beamly can help you create the branded website your podcast needs. It’s beginner-friendly (no coding skills required) and includes all you need to get started with a podcast site in just a few minutes. Plus, it comes with a powerful podcast player and features to help you manage your episode archive. Try Beamly today!
