How To Improve Podcast Ad Results By Diversifying Genres

This transcript has not been edited.

[00:00:00]

[00:00:29]Heather Osgood: [00:00:29] Hello, and welcome to the podcast advertising playbook. I'm your host, Heather Osgood. And today on the program, I'm going to be talking about different genres of podcasts and why you should consider genres of podcast when creating a podcast ad campaign. So what exactly is a genre of a podcast?

[00:00:48] Essentially, when we talk about genres, what we mean are podcasts that fit within a specific category. So are we talking about sports? Are we talking about comedy, true crime, lifestyle, home, and [00:01:00] garden, religion, politics, news, right? All of those different categories are going to be the different genres of podcasts that we talk about.

[00:01:09] And Apple has really created a lot of genres for us. Because with podcasts, still about 65% of podcasts listening happens on Apple and Apple has classified a lot of this for us. So a lot of the genres have come out of that. And sometimes I don't always feel like the Apple or the iTunes genre is really the right genre.

[00:01:33]It's sometimes it feels like it's a little bit off base, but it is important to consider the genre when you were considering creating your campaign. One thing to think about is who is listening to this specific podcast and is that your target customer? Now, when I first started in podcast advertising, I was very into the matchiness of the industry.

[00:01:58] If you had a cat [00:02:00] podcast, I thought you should really just advertise cat food. Or if you were a kitty litter company, then you should just advertise on cat podcasts. The problem with this is that limits the number of podcasts that you can be on, right? Because there's only a certain number of shows within each specific category.

[00:02:19] So I wanted to start by talking about what some of the most popular categories of podcasts are out there. Now according to Edison research, a study that they did the podcast consumer. This is a report that came out, here not too long ago. They found that comedy was at the top of the list.

[00:02:39] So when we look at most listened to podcast comedy charts, comedy tops, the charts with 36% of people who listen to podcasts on a weekly basis saying that they've listened to a comedy podcast. Next we have news at 23%. We have society and culture at 22% [00:03:00] sports at 15% true crime at 12 arts, business, religion, TV and film science, health and fitness history, leisure music, education technology is at the bottom at 3%.

[00:03:18] And then of course the list goes on, but we won't mention anyone who gets less than 3% of that weekly listener. So those are the categories that you might consider when you're creating an ad campaign. Now, as we think about creating a campaign, if you are a first time podcast advertiser, I would recommend that you identify the genre that most aligns with your product.

[00:03:44] If you have a health supplement, you probably are going to perform well on health shows. If you have a SaaS product that is created for businesses, you're probably going to perform well on business or productivity podcast. So if you are [00:04:00] new to the space, I would recommend that you identify the genre that does best align with your product or service and start there because in essence, that should be the low hanging fruit.

[00:04:12] What I do want to emphasize though, is allthough, that genre is a good starting place. It is certainly not the extent of where you should or could be. I think comedy is a really good example. So lots and lots of people are listening to comedy podcasts. And even though that comedy podcast is not talking about business, it's maybe not talking about health, it's not talking about what you typically would talk about as a company or what your product industry might be.

[00:04:46] We know just given the sheer numbers of people listening to comedy podcast, that chances are you're going to reach a good group of people who could purchase your product or service. Now, one [00:05:00] thing to consider is that when you go broad, you're going to be paying for people who aren't necessarily in your target market.

[00:05:08] Who maybe would never purchase your product. And I think about it, like TV advertising, if you're going to advertise on TV, that a certain percentage of the population is going to be in the market for your product or service at that time when you're advertising on TV and you're going to reach potential customers, but you're also going to reach a lot of people who aren't potential customers, right?

[00:05:29] So that's going to happen. And as you grow broader, as you get wider with your reach. You're going to be reaching a lot of people who maybe couldn't purchase your product or service, but at the end of the day, it isn't necessarily about anything but conversions. And if you can convert higher using a comedy podcast, because the reach overall is greater than using a business podcast, That is the goal, right? We want to look at your conversions and your cost per acquisition. And if that [00:06:00] is in line with what your goals are, it doesn't necessarily matter what the genre of the podcast is. What is always important is to consider your target market. Do you believe your target market is actually listening to this podcast?

[00:06:14] And as we dive into all of these different genres of podcasts, each specific show is going to have a very different target market. Just because we have a productivity podcast doesn't mean that it's going to have the exact same listener, demographics as another productivity podcast. We work with lots of productivity podcasts, and we have some that skew male.

[00:06:40] We have some that skew female. We have some that talk a lot about SaaS products. We have some that don't talk very much at all about SaaS products. So every show is going to be different. And you do want to dig into the particular podcast that you're going to be partnering with. And you want to make sure that audience is a good alignment [00:07:00] for actually purchasing your product right.

[00:07:02] And as I mentioned, if you're starting out, I would recommend that you try to get those genres that are going to be parallel with your product, but then really think about opening it up because you are going to experience more success if the quantity of podcasts that you purchase is higher, If the reach is greater, and if the offer is in line with that target market that you're trying to reach. So you do have to make sure that you are looking at setting up a campaign to be successful. And when we look at larger campaigns that reach more impressions, they do perform better. Podsights an attribution company recently did a benchmark study for Q3 and 2020, and they found that larger campaigns that reach larger shows have more success than smaller shows. And of course, that's the case, right? If you are reaching more downloads, then chances are that's going to [00:08:00] be delivering those impressions. And of course, you're going to convert at a higher rate than if you are reaching smaller numbers. So I think all of those things are really important to consider and to think about.

[00:08:11] And I wanted to make this episode for you today because I wanted you to think about what it is that is going to be a good fit for you. And a lot of times when I talk to people, I feel like they put themselves in a box. They feel that because their company is a certain way or their  target customers a certain way that they would never listen to a new show.

[00:08:37] And I'm like, of course they listen to news shows or maybe they would never listen to, a history show or, there's all kinds of different parameters that we put up and boxes that we put around ourselves. And I want you to really think about how you can broaden your reach within the genres of podcasts, because I do really believe you're going to see better results if you do that.

[00:09:00] [00:09:00] So first step again, identify those low-hanging fruit podcasts, go there, but then look to reach out and look to identify other genres of shows that could be a good fit for you. I hope that this information has been helpful for you. If you're interested in learning more about podcast advertising, you can always go ahead and head on over to truenativemedia.com.

[00:09:21] We are happy to chat with you. You can fill out the form and we love to talk to people who are interested in learning more about podcast advertising. You can also catch me on LinkedIn. I am there frequently every Wednesday at 10:00 AM pacific standard time, I do a LinkedIn live working on getting some great guests for you there.

[00:09:39] Okay. And also I'm just there. So if you have questions, it's a great place for you to pop on. Ask me a question. I'm always happy to answer. Thank you guys so much for being with me today. And I look forward to talking with you again next week. Take care.

[00:09:51]