At Pacific Content, we make original podcasts with brands. For a lot of brands, an original podcast done well creates a huge amount of value. However, there are several really good reasons why a podcast could be a really bad idea for a brand.

1. I want to make a show about my own product / service.

If your goal is to tell the world how awesome you and your products or services are, you should not make an original podcast.

Not many people will voluntarily download an infomercial. Even fewer will do it more than once.

People download shows that sound interesting and create value for the listener.

Think about your best dinner party memories. No one enjoys a dinner party where the host talks about themself all night. Similarly, no one enjoys a podcast where the host spends the whole episode talking about his or her company.

Podcasts from brands work best when their goal is to raise brand awareness and position the brand around a certain area of expertise or a certain set of values. In marketing-speak, podcasts are an amazing top-of-funnel strategy. They don’t work well as mid-funnel or bottom-of-funnel strategy because that’s when you start trying to sell people on your company. And that’s when you start creating infomercials.

Don’t do it.

2. I have a shoestring budget and want to make this podcast on the cheap.

If you have no budget and no dedicated resources to make the show, you probably should not make an original podcast.

The quality of your podcast will reflect the quality of your brand. Unless you want your brand to stand for being cheap, low quality, and not making good use of people’s time, don’t make a cheap, low quality podcast that wastes people’s time 🙂

Unless it’s on brand for you to shoot a network TV ad on your iPhone by yourself, don’t try to make a podcast by yourself in your spare time and assume it will be valuable for your brand.

3. I have no promotion budget for the podcast.

If your philosophy is “If I build it, they will come…” don’t make an original podcast.

They won’t come.

They won’t find out about the show, even if it’s fantastic.

The same way that every TV network has a promotional campaign to let audiences know about a new show, you need to work hard and find the right places to let your potential audience know about your new show.

So if your plan is to do nothing and spend nothing to tell people about your podcast… don’t do it.

4. I am not willing to use my owned, internal, and earned resources to build an audience.

One of the biggest values of creating your own podcast is to build your own audience. Unlike many other channels, you actually own your audience with a podcast. And one of the best ways to build an audience for a brand is to use your existing strengths — your owned channels, your internal channels, and your earned resources (PR and publicity teams).

If you aren’t willing to promote the podcast inside your own product, inside your own email newsletter, on your primary social media channels, and to all your employees, you are passing up your biggest advantage as a brand in the podcasting space — the ability to build an audience quickly. If you aren’t willing to dedicate time and resources from your earned team to promoting the show, you are again passing up another big advantage of a brand — that you HAVE an earned team who can help generate press coverage for your new show.

If you aren’t willing to use the ‘secret super powers’ that exist in your company to make your show a hit, then why are you making the show in the first place? You might not be that serious about making it successful, which means that it likely won’t be successful.

If you can’t commit to using your strengths, don’t do it.

5. I need short-term results. I want sales and new customers in the next quarter.

If you need to drive short-term business results, a branded podcast is one of the worst tools you can use. In order to drive sales or customer growth, you will need to try to sell to people. That means that you will have to talk about your own products and services in your podcast. That means you are essentially making your entire show an extended direct-response ad. And almost no one wants to listen to a giant ad for your company.

However, if your goal is a deep, long term relationship with your potential customers, a podcast is one of the best channels you can use. By creating an amazing show that creates value for your listeners (and that aligns with your business goals and brand values), you are earning trust, loyalty, and people who are opting-in to hear from your brand over and over and over again.

If you do a great job, your brand gets a large number of people to spend a huge amount of time (usually about 30 minutes) on a regular basis (every week or two) with your brand. And if they have spent months listening to your podcast, when the time comes for them to purchase a product or service in your industry, who do you think they are going to choose?

So if you’ve got patience, have a long-term vision, and want to build relationships, you won’t find anything better than a podcast. If you’ve got to make shareholders happy about sales growth in the next quarter and think an original podcast is the magic solution… don’t do it.

The Takeaway

As strange as it sounds, in many cases our job is to help brands understand when it’s NOT a good idea to make an original podcast. So before you decide to make your own show:

• Make sure a podcast makes strategic sense for your business goals.
• Get commitment for a show budget that will reflect your brand properly.
• Ensure buy-in from your brand to use your existing channels and strengths to support the show.
• Check your expectations and make sure your brand isn’t banking on instant results.
• Create a plan to be successful for both your brand and the listener.

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