Should You Add Video to Your Podcast? 

Podcasting has become wildly popular. And while very few of us may have seen podcasting’s meteoric rise coming, the medium’s current level of popularity does make sense — people are busy, have ever-shortening attention spans, and are increasingly comfortable with multi-tasking. One very unique attribute of podcasting is that individuals can consume podcasts passively. Meaning they can listen while doing other things: working, commuting, cooking, at the gym — pretty much anywhere, anytime. 

Podcasts are also relatively low-cost to produce — around $1,000-1,500 per-episode — an absolute bargain for most professional organizational comms & marketing buyers. For such a relatively small investment, podcasts can be extremely powerful because they create a recurring engagement mechanism for an organization’s customers, stakeholders, and even staff. 

Listeners tune in to learn something, for entertainment, or both. But what they also receive is a lengthy advertisement for the podcast’s sponsor. Even if a podcast’s sponsor is the organization publishing the podcast, that organization reaps the benefits of creating marketing and advertising for itself. 

So what are the benefits of adding video to this equation? Isn’t a podcast good enough on its own? 

The intent of any podcast is to attract listeners for whom the podcast content will be interesting, valuable, and/or entertaining. Like any comms/marketing initiative, most organizations embark on a podcast to attract and engage their target audience in an effort to attract customers, engage stakeholders, and raise brand awareness.

While podcasts have become powerful tools for value-added engagement (the only kind that works,) audio-only podcasts are limited in a couple key ways. First, audio-only podcasts can’t be uploaded to YouTube, which is the second largest search engine in the world. 

Second, audio-only podcast content is not easily repurposed for the promotional secret weapon that is social media marketing. It’s fairly easy (read: inexpensive) to isolate a great clip from a video podcast, slap some flashy motion graphics on it, and distribute it widely as direct, organic, and paid marketing/advertising content via web and email, and on social platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn — sky’s the limit really since, unlike audio, video can be distributed almost anywhere and outperforms every single other type of promotional content. 

Why is YouTube Important?

YouTube serves audio-visual content to searchers both on-platform and in-browser. Being part of Alphabet (Google) means YouTube results are ported straight into Google search results. Know what isn’t? Podcasts. Including YouTube in podcast distribution strategy is game changing and we always recommend every single organization producing a podcast adopt YouTube immediately. Run, don’t walk. 

Podcast Promotion  

The reason behind posting your full-length video podcast to YouTube seems obvious. What’s less obvious is the immense power of using audio-visual content from your podcast to promote the program elsewhere. 

It seems counter-intuitive, but using audio content alone is not the best way to promote a podcast — podcast marketing which is audio-only relies almost exclusively on radio, PPC advertising, partnerships with other podcasts and podcasters, and free promotion on networks like Reddit. 

There are many platforms a podcast without video cannot reach with native content — Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube of course. These platforms have become the world’s largest gathering places for consumers of all stripes. And so while there are certainly many marketing tools in the podcast marketing tool chest, few are more effective and far-reaching than video. 

Audience Data Garnered from Video Marketing/Advertising

In addition to gaining traction with video content marketing/advertising, a treasure trove of target audience data may also be both acquired and utilized on native video platforms. In fact, your options for delivering content expand exponentially by adding video — now you can post the best bites from your actual content on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and of course you’ll want to post both highlights and the content in its entirety on YouTube. 

Doing so unlocks a bounty of data which organizations may use to hone in on (and potentially reduce) customer acquisition costs, optimize advertising spend to deliver the best return per-dollar, and even gain key insights into your customer demographic profiles. It’s quite possible that the data culled from video marketing/advertising may be even more valuable than the content itself. 

Cost Comparison: Audio-only Podcast vs. Video Podcast

Believe it or not, adding video to your podcast can be relatively inexpensive — audio production is generally included in the price of video production, so video production makes audio production redundant. If your podcast uses remote production (whereby each participant joins virtually,) adding video to your podcast can surprisingly be only marginally more expensive than producing an audio-only podcast.

On the other hand you’re using a physical studio for your podcast production, it’s already costing a pretty penny just to be there. If you’re only recording audio you should really consider how cost-effective it may be to simply add video capture to the mix. After all, if you’re going to spend hours and hours booking guests and lining up schedules, and of course spending your own time to show-up in-person, you really should consider if you’re getting the absolute best bang for your buck. 

A good video production partner will be able to get great shots even if you’re crammed into a small, dark podcast studio or recording it yourself in a conference room. Ask your studio or production partner what it would take to set up video service and they will be more than happy to give you a quote. Or, you can reach out to us and we’ll make it easy. 

Conclusion

If you’re spending time and money producing an audio-only podcast you’re missing out on key traffic sources and the built-in secret marketing weapon that is video promotion. Marketing and advertising on native video platforms is game changing not only for growth, but also for understanding your target audience and how much they cost you per click.