News
Find a New Audience With Podcast Advertising
Still a Growing Category
We’ve covered podcasting here previously, and with the release of PodPoll 2024 (free registration required for full access) there’s now more up-to-date information to explore if you’re considering running ads in the podcast space. Let’s look at some key points, and what it means for you.
Predictably, podcast audiences are still growing. Interestingly, just 8% of those surveyed say they ‘don’t know how to listen to a podcast’. This is great news and means accessibility is realistically no obstacle. Looking deeper, it reports that
25-34 year-olds are more likely to consume podcasts (60%) than news or talk radio (57%) or audiobooks (26%).
This is also a big plus: a demographic marketers find hard to reach is here – and listening.
Driven to Action
You’ll find some significant responses on page 30 of the survey. Asked the question
What actions have you taken after listening to a podcast?
the results show a huge 50% researched a ‘topic, person, product or service’, and a very healthy 46% were inspired to mention ‘a topic, person, product or service to someone else’. You still can’t beat word of mouth!
When it comes to ROI for an ad spend, 14% report purchasing ‘a product after listening’ while 13% claim to have taken some action ‘for a cause or purpose’.
If that’s not enough for you, 24% claim to have ‘made a change to something at home’ and 15% at work, after hearing something in a podcast. Take this as evidence that podcast listeners are still a highly engaged audience, and compelling information will see them act.
Complementing Traditional Media
The results are definitely encouraging when it comes to the ability of podcasts to reach a wide audience. Even better is the fact an opportunity’s there to expand your audience by combining a marketing spend in podcasts with traditional media.
Listenership is shown as mirroring a typical day on radio: Breakfast (37%) and Drive (42%) are the most frequent times of day podcast audiences report listening. The benefit here is you’re not paying the premium you would expect to for breakfast spots on radio.
If you’re already using radio and it works for you, fantastic – don’t stop.
Consider the viability of using podcasts to open up a different audience, bolstering the number of people hearing your message. And as the figures above show, this is an audience predisposed to action if they like what they hear.
Fish Where the Fish Are – And Bring the Right Bait
The full PodPoll 24 report has more data on audiences and their relationship with podcasts, so it’s well worth a download. In a growing category, it seems there’s still room for even more podcasts; which should attract more listeners.
Read the report, identify your target audience, fish where the fish are, and our article on effective podcast ads is here if you’re interested.