What is Audio Marketing?
Audio marketing has a simple definition. It refers to marketing initiatives where the output is audio content, as opposed to written or visual content. Even though audio marketing has been used for a long time (think radio ads), it’s just starting to become a staple on the marketing calendar. Because of this, it’s beneficial to start considering your audio marketing strategy now while it’s still being underutilized by the competition.
What Categories Are Included in Audio Marketing?
- Podcasts
- Voice Search
- Podcast Ads
- Alexa Skills
- Voice-enabled Advertising
How to Create an Audio Marketing Strategy Based on Your Marketing Budget
Small Budget
Consider: Podcasts and Optimizing for Voice Search
If you have a small budget to dedicate to audio marketing, starting with a podcast can be an easy transition from traditional content to audio content because it’s a similar process. If you have the internal capacity to write blogs, it should be easy to add a podcast to the mix. Like blogs, creating a podcast can include keyword research, writing an outline and pushing live to your social channels.
Medium Budget
Consider: Podcast Ads
If you have a medium budget, there’s room to explore audio ads on popular podcasts. With this advertising medium, there are fluctuations in costs depending on the audience size and length of your ad. A 30 second ad can range from $22 – $28 CPM (cost per mille or cost per 1,000 listeners) and $23 – $30 for a 60 second ad.
Large Budget
Consider: All Audio Marketing categories
If you have a large budget, you should consider taking advantage of audio marketing in all categories because they each reach potential customers at different stages of the buying cycle. Podcasts are great as a branding resource, while ads are conversion focused.
While all these categories will eventually become as popular as channels like Google Ads, we focused on creating podcasts and optimizing for voice search since these audio marketing initiatives will be in most brands’ marketing budget. But if you have questions about any of the audio marketing categories, feel free to reach out to us!
How to Get Started with Podcasts
Phase 1: Keyword Research
If you’ve written SEO optimized blogs and resources, the keyword research phase will look familiar. The difference between the two is that when doing keyword research for a podcast, the focus is less on ranking and more on what is being talked about amongst your target audience. Your podcast topic should be interesting and relevant to who you are marketing to. A more appropriate name for this phase can be called content research.
Should I Create a Persona for My Audience?
The most important beginning to a podcast is knowing who you’re making audio content for because the end goal for podcast initiatives is subscribers. In the same way marketing teams make personas for their marketing initiatives, it’s also helpful for podcasts. Instead of a persona, you can create the perfect subscriber and research content that this subscriber would listen to.
Phase 2: Creating an Outline
In order to stay on track with the conversation, you should create an outline of how your podcast will be structured. There are many ways podcast creators make outlines for their shows from just topic points to writing word-for-word what they say. If you’re at the beginner stage, you can write exactly what you will say, but read it back to yourself. Does it sound like how you talk? The more natural the conversation the more enjoyable for your listener.
Phase 3: Recording a Podcast
What equipment do you need to record a podcast? We break down what you need to record your first episode.
Necessities
- For Talking: Microphone with USB or XLR Output
- For Recording: Computer
- For Music: Single Track License or a License Subscription
- For Editing: Consider a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) like Audacity (free) or Ableton
How Long Should My Podcast Episodes Be?
The sweet spot for podcasts is usually 20 – 45 minutes. But if you have quality content that is longer than 45 minutes, don’t cut it down to fit into these requirements.
How Should I Distribute My Podcast?
Platforms like Anchor.fm make it simple to upload your podcast audio and distribute it to popular streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and more. Anchor also provides some basic analytics about your listener audience. If you’re more focused on embedding your episodes on your website and not as concerned with distribution, an audio-hosting platform like SoundCloud should meet your needs.
How to Optimize for Voice Search
Do the Correct Keyword Research
The average amount of words in a voice search are longer than a text search. Voice searches usually have at least 4 words and can continue up to 8. So, long tail keywords will become particularly valuable when researching voice queries. Another difference is that voice queries use a lot of fillers words like the, of the, on the, to, for which are not usually present in text searches. When you’re tracking keywords, ensure to include these fillers words to have a clear picture of what’s possibly ranking for voice search.
Enhance Your Local SEO
The most popular queries for voice search are “near me” queries. This means that users prefer to use voice search for hotels, restaurants, places to visit – locations. In order to rank well for these terms, your site should have optimized local content. Google My Business will be one of the most important elements of Google returning your website for a location search so ensure that it is correct and up-to-date.
Prioritize SERP Features
SEMRush did a study on what factors affect rankings of voice search queries and they found that, “70% of all answers returned from voice searches occupied a SERP feature (with 60% of those returning a Featured Snippet result)”. This information reveals a powerful finding that should give marketers the answer to unlocking voice search rankings. When optimizing for voice search it seems to be more about optimizing for Featured Snippets.
Examples of Audio Marketing in Action
Here at Climb Marketing, we’ve taken advantage of Audio Marketing in the form of Podcasts and Webinars. We follow the same steps outlined in this blog to create our audio content.
Looking for Examples?
Below are our latest podcast episodes:
- Preparing for the Core Web Vitals
- Planning Your Marketing Budget for 2021
- Diagnosing Paid Search Accounts & Common Mistakes
If you’re looking for more guidance on audio marketing, please contact us for a free consultation. We’ll help you define audio marketing initiatives that work for your budget & team!