Make Some Noise for the Podcast Voice!

Drumming up visibility for your podcast property

June has been a month of firsts for me. From attending the first Indian awards exclusively for podcasts, to meeting some of you in person for the first time in Mumbai and then Delhi (after years of connecting virtually), to experiencing for the first time in my life what 40+ degree heat feels like on the skin. Glad for only the first two experiences though!?

The panel discussion I was part of at?HT Smartcast Podmasters 2024?was, mercifully, to the point—the beads of sweat on our collective panellist necks weren’t on account of Mumbai humidity ?? Roshan Abbas’s cool moderator manners helped us along as we grappled with the matter of making money off podcasts—something that, in the external podcast ecosystem, is directly linked to access to metrics, a painful subject given how little platforms offer of that precious commodity.?

Internal podcasts, on the other hand, are easier to assess. Or wait, are they now? Robust internal dashboards can often measure listens, engagement rates and a host of other numbers to draw inferences from. But as a post by Rachel Miller, who hosts the Candid Comms podcast , puts it,?“You need to measure what you treasure.”?Do you treasure clicks on a post or a drop in lost time incidents, she asks.?

A?compliance-themed pop culture series?was one of four we produced for?Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories?last month, and it garnered almost half the combined views on its own. While we were thrilled with the numbers, we realised the series had offered people a very relatable and fun take on ethics and compliance, and just like the?DEIB quizzers?in another organisation told us, the format is what made the message really stick. We’re certain the treasure in this case was a message driven home and clear.?

By extension, it isn’t as much about the number of listens, as it is about engagement, completion and listen-through rates. Are you treasuring these enough??

Of course, podcast strategy 101, whether internal or external, prominently features podcast marketing. Organic growth is wonderful, but slow. Questions I hence leave you with:?

? Do you have a?podcast marketing strategy? (Yes, this is a must, even for internal comms ones)?

? Is your podcast?accessible?enough??

? As a stakeholder, do you?bring up your podcasts?often enough in team meetings??

? In the case of internal company podcasts, do places where employees hang out offer?visibility for your podcast brand?

And seeing as there were absolutely no corporate podcast entries at Podmasters 2024, one more question: let’s make sure we win your podcast an award next year? That’s one treasure you won’t want to measure.

Seetal R Iyer

Co-Founder & Head of Content, Timbre Media