The Power of the Podcast: Unlock Your Brand's Marketing Potential
Are you looking to leverage the power of podcasting to elevate your brand and connect with your audience? Welcome to The Power of the Podcast, brought to you by Pedal Stomper Productions where we understand the unique potential of branded podcasts.
We delve into the essentials of creating effective branded podcasts that help you connect with people by going beyond the hard sell. You don't want to be one of those podcasts that sound like one giant sales pitch or offer bad information. Instead, we focus on helping you to deliver the right message and achieve your marketing goals without sounding like, well...marketing.
Here’s what you can expect to learn:
- Building a Strong Foundation: We cover the basics of branded podcasting, including defining your brand's educational niche and developing consistent content pillars that will keep your audience coming back for more. We emphasize the importance of defining where you excel in educating your audience.
- Strategic Planning: Discover how to build out a strategy to make your branded podcast successful. We guide you through conducting a brand audit by looking at your podcast purpose, brand values, mission, and target audience.
- Audience Connection: Learn how to identify your ideal listener, who often aligns with your ideal customer, and understand their pain points and informational needs. We believe in addressing those needs and providing value to ensure your podcast resonates.
- Content that Converts: We explore how to develop content that aligns with your marketing goals and maps to your sales funnel. We discuss strategic calls to action that are more of a soft sell, like offering free resources or inviting listeners to your online community.
- Standing Out in a Crowded Space: We provide insights on how to differentiate your podcast by focusing on your unique value proposition and ensuring high-quality production. Learn the importance of engaging storytelling to connect with your audience.
- Building Know, Like, and Trust: Understand how podcasting is particularly effective at developing that crucial "know, like, and trust" factor with your audience. By offering consistent value and educating your listeners, you can build deeper connections than other ad formats.
- Leveraging Podcast News and Trends: Stay informed with our take on podcast news, particularly how advertising works with smaller podcasts and the effectiveness of branded podcasts as a marketing tool. We discuss how smaller, targeted podcasts often have a more engaged audience.
- Measuring Your Success: We touch upon the importance of understanding your podcast analytics and determining the return on investment for your branded podcast. Learn how to look at listener retention and website click-throughs.
- Community Building: Discover how to use your podcast to build a community around your brand, encouraging interaction and fostering a sense of belonging among your listeners.
Whether you're just starting your podcast journey or looking to refine your existing branded podcast strategy, we offer valuable insights and practical advice drawn from our experience in podcast production. We believe that a well-executed branded podcast is a powerful marketing asset that can help you reach a targeted audience, build brand awareness, and establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry.
Tune in to learn how to make your branded podcast a successful and effective marketing tool for your business!
If you want to connect with us, sign up for our No-Pitch Podcast Consultation
The Power of the Podcast: Unlock Your Brand's Marketing Potential
Is a Branded Podcast Right for Your Business? | Must-Know Tips Before You Launch
Thinking about starting a podcast for your business? Not so fast. In this episode of Pedal Stomper Productions, Josh breaks down the essential framework to help you decide: Is a branded podcast really the right move for your company?
From common misconceptions (“I’ll go viral overnight!”) to strategic questions around audience fit, marketing alignment, and resource management—this episode is the ultimate gut check before you hit record. You’ll learn:
✅ The 4 core goals a branded podcast should serve
✅ How to assess whether your audience actually listens to podcasts
✅ Time vs. money: What podcasting really costs
✅ Why realistic expectations matter (and what happens when they’re ignored)
✅ How AI is transforming podcast production and making it more accessible than ever
Josh also covers why more media companies (including us) are leaning into AI tools for production, audio quality, and personalization—without losing the human touch that makes podcasts powerful.
🎯 Whether you're a small business owner, marketing manager, or entrepreneur, this episode is packed with practical advice that can save you time, money, and a whole lot of stress.
If you're looking to talk podcasting and get more information on how to make your podcast shine, our 30-minute "no pitch" podcast consultation is right for you! Click the link to sign up for a time.
https://pedalstomperproductions.as.me/no-pitch
Staying up to date on the latest podcasting news and trends doesn't have to be difficult. We can deliver them right to your inbox.
https://www.pedalstomperproductions.com/
Want to start your own podcast? https://www.pedalstomperproductions.com/contact-bedford
Book your time in our state of the art studios: https://www.pedalstomperproductions.com/podcast
Join our Discord Server and let's chat about your podcast https://discord.gg/CWk9aUuNtM
Want to read about this? Check the blog!
https://www.pedalstomperproductions.com/blog
We're going to ask the question. That is a tough one to answer for a lot of people. Is a branded podcast right for your business? I mean, you've been thinking about it. Maybe you've been a guest on a few podcast and you really like that and you thought, hey, I want to get on the microphone. I should do a podcast for my brand. There's a ton of potential with it. Or is there that that's what we're going to talk about this week. Hopefully we can help you figure out if it's right for you or not. Stay tuned. Welcome back to the Pedal Stop production studio. I am glad that you are here along for the ride with me. I'm kind of excited to talk about this one because we've had a number of people contact us recently where we started to talk about doing a brand podcast, and when it came down to it, it wasn't the right fit. And I thought, you know, we should. We should talk about this in a podcast, because just for whether it be the business, the person, whatever, in some cases it isn't the right fit. But in a lot of cases it is. So I want to give you a framework to start looking at like why that is, does this work for your business or maybe not. So that is what we are going to dive into today. I'm like I said, I'm excited about all these. You guys know I enjoy being in the studio. I mean, that's one of the reasons why we kind of do podcasting. That that being said, no further ado. I'm going to jump into it. The first thing we've got to understand some foundational things about you and your business. So with that, what are you looking to do with the podcast? Is this for lead generation? Is this to position you as a thought leader? Is this for relationship building, or is this just specifically for branded content creation? All of those are different now. If you fall outside of that reason for wanting to do this once again, that's you don't have to have one of those one to do for reasons to start a branded podcast. But those are very, very great. Those are good bases to start off with. If you don't fit in one of those four, then we should look at this from a from an angle of like, okay, what are we trying to accomplish with this? That is going to help the business? Because once again, as a branded podcast, it is there to help the business. So what piece is going to be that it's going to do that? It's all about making sure that your podcast and goals align with some piece of your overall marketing strategy. Because if you just expect to release a podcast out into the world, then that's part of the problems that we've run into with some people recently is they're just like, I'm going to do a podcast, and then I'm going to be famous and my business is going to make a lot of money. And I have to tell them, no, which is disheartening because you can just like if we're on a zoom call or if we're in the studio here talking, you just watch the smile disappear from their face, and I don't I don't want to be that guy. So look and see. Like, is the podcast specifically going to be supporting one of those four things? Now, the other piece that I want to talk about with this is we really want to identify your specific audience to find out, are these podcasts people? Now, I realize there's podcasting people of all walks of life, and I love that. I mean, it's one of the things that I love about podcasts like if you go through and look at a list of guests and a list of hosts, you're going to find everyone. There's some groups that are more likely to listen to podcasts than others, though, and those are the groups that really would say those can be a deciding factor. If you're in a heavy podcast listening group, then by golly, that makes this decision decision a whole lot easier. If your target audience is, let's say, 80 year old women, maybe. Maybe they maybe want to look at another way of reaching out to people. There's there's subsets and groups of people that we all know that listen to podcasts more than others. Younger audiences typically listen to more podcasts. Now, does it mean that people I'm not going to date myself here, but people of my age don't listen to podcasts? No. We're like Generation Xers. We are voracious podcast consumers. But realize that if your target audience may not fit into that, a lot of the people that listen to podcasts are one that are that are looking to for that, to find that entertainment, to go out and or find that information. It's in many cases people that are looking to grow. It's people that are looking for that better information. So kind of figure out who your target audience is and are they a podcast listener? When I say, and you guys have heard me say this ad nauseum, when I say figure out who your audience is, make an avatar, make one person and think, boy, is this someone that's going to listen to a podcast. In many cases, I think you're going to find that it probably will be. But there's some that don't. We get a lot of people that I mean spend a lot of time in vehicles. I know I spend quite a bit of time driving around. That's why I listen to my podcast. If you get people that walk a ton, those are people that listen to a lot of podcast, people that I mean, once again, vehicles are great. So if you if your target audience, you think, okay, the mom audience, well, they they may not be out and about listening to the podcast know when they're waiting in line to pick up the kids. That's when they're that's when they're going to listen to a podcast, when they're commuting to work, when they're doing those other types of things, that's when they're going to listen to a podcast. So realize that, like I said, if you're looking for the if your target audience is the 80 year old man or woman, maybe, maybe you'd be better off looking at another method to get in touch with people, but figure out who you're reaching for. And are these people podcast listeners? Because once again, they may not be there. I want to put one last twist on this. If you think your audience is the people, the scrolling population, you know, the ones that sit there. And I mean, it could be you that sits there on the toilet with your legs asleep because you've been scrolling for 45 minutes on Instagram or TikTok or YouTube shorts or any one of those, or we've all sat on the couch and we've turned something on TV that we were very excited about, that our spouse or partner was not excited about. And you look over ten minutes in and they're scrolling. That's another opportunity for you to get in touch with those people. So are they podcast listeners or are they scrolling? If so, you've got a good chance to reach out to these people, but make sure that they're probably going to be doing one of these things. There's another piece to this that deals less with audience and more with you. And this is a big one that I have to talk to people about, because let's be real, doing a podcast well takes resources. It takes. And there's a balance of this. It takes time and it takes money. It takes less money. If it takes more of your time, it takes more of your money. If it takes less of your time, hopefully that starts to make a little sense with this. But to do a podcast, well, if you want to represent your brand well, there is a time commitment involved. I do research before doing these, as you can see. I mean, and I encourage people have notes with you. It's okay to have a screen in front of you, make sure you're engaging with the camera, but it's okay to have notes in front of you. I have those notes because I've done research. That research was time. There's time involved with this. There's if you're going to be posting, if you're going to be the one doing the descriptions, if you're going to be doing the one on one, doing the clips, there's time involved in those. So it's a cost. It may not be a financial cost, but there's a cost involved with that with the time. So do you have the time to do this? If you don't have as much time to do it, you're going to need to find the money to do it. And we can help. We help people all the time with everything from the topics, the questions, how are they going to present this? We've got a couple of clients where literally they we send them something a couple hours before they come in and say, here's the questions you're going to be asking. Here's the way you should ask them. They come in, they sit down, they open up their computer, bang. They're done. So they've got the time to get to and from the studio. They've got the time to open the computer and read that. They've got the time in the studio, but that's it. Then they know it's just going to be posted. On the flip side of that, like I said, if you're doing the clips, all those other items, there's that time investment. You have to find out if the budget can't, what the budget in terms of both time and financially will allow you to do. There's all sorts of ways to do this. There's all sorts of things, and part of it is the value in it. There's a couple of podcasters that we have that they do their own titles and descriptions because they really enjoy that process, and that's great. Go right ahead. We're happy that we're happy to let you do that. We can take that on, too. And they take on it like some of the more time consuming things. They let us do those. It's once again, it's about finding that balance. The other thing that I want to talk about in that resource, that resource assessment, is the expertise we have, the podcasting expertise. This is what we do. This is what we study. Make sure that what you're going to be podcasting about is something that you have some expertise in. It's your business. You should know it. But maybe there's something that the salespeople know better than you do. Maybe there's someone that's got just this amazing amount of charisma that just oozes out of them, that loves to talk about what your company does. Maybe they're the right person for that, but make sure that you've got the chops to talk about the topics and work on those topics and push those things through. That is the that other resource that you need to find is that expertise. The last piece of that is having the realistic expectations on this. So many people, once again, from a resource perspective, they think, okay, for $12 a month with a subscription to something like Buzzsprout or any one of those things, and 20 minutes. I have a podcast. You can, but is that the podcast you want representing your brand? Probably not. I'm willing to bet you want your brand to look good. You want your podcast to represent your brand. I very much spend time making sure that we look and sound the way we want to look and sound. That's intentional. Make sure that you have that that those realistic expectations for what it's going to turn out, what's going to turn out depending on the time and budget that you put in. Additionally, realize too, there are some companies that will say, hey, we will get you 10,000 subscribers or whatever. It's not a realistic expectation, it's just not. There are things that you can do to add to the podcast to help boost, and I mean, once again, the podcast should help your social media, which should help your podcast, which should help your social media. There's a circular effect to all of this, and I don't know why. This week I have hit the microphone twice already, and that's not something I normally do. But nonetheless there's this circular effect to it and they all support each other and they all work to build each other. But it's it's still work. So make sure you realize that people that promise you that, hey, we're going to get you X number of subscribers or X number of followers, they're probably more expensive because what they're doing is as they're buying those followers or subscribers, if you think that a cell phone farm in Singapore, if you think 5000 cell phones in a room and look it up, you will find pictures of this. If you think those cell phones, watching your podcast or listening to your podcast is valuable to you, then great. But we don't really see the value in that. We'd rather help you build that organically. And that to me is the big thing. This should be organic. It should be about you. It should be about building you and your brand with all that. That's what I've got on the is it right? Go through those individual steps and look, do I have the resources? Is this something that my audience wants to hear and what are my goals for this? If you go through those steps that will tell you, hey, look, this is something we should or shouldn't do. If you have questions on it, I would love to talk to you about it. We do our 30 minute no pitch podcast consultations. There's no pitch in it. Literally. I am here to help you. If we get the chance to work together. I am head over heels about it. If not, I am just glad that I was able to help move your podcasting journey forward. Even if it's like, hey, it's not the right thing right now. We've had a couple of those calls recently. I'm good with it. I'm glad I'm helping people figure out what's the right fit to me. That's a ton of fun. I want you to do me one quick little favor. If you could write a review for the podcast, that would be a huge help. Be it on Spotify, be it on Apple Podcasts, be it on Buzzsprout, being on any one of the platforms, or even YouTube. If you could give us a review, a comment, I would love to hear from you. And if you've got a question that you'd just like for us to cover, I would love to do that for you too. That being said, or some interesting news about a yeah, I seems to be a a topic recently who would have thought it? We are going to talk about that right after this. So for news this week we're going to talk about how more and more media companies are turning to AI to stay competitive. Frankly, we are one of those companies, that this shift has presented. I mean, there's some signif market opportunities for branded podcasts, because what we've been able to do is we've been able to take some other items, and we have been able to bring that cost down for you because we're using so many more AI tools. The it really there's, there's 4 or 5 articles that I have just gone through, like in the past week that just seemed to pop up about AI. There are a ton of ways that we have put it into audio production, distribution and monetization. We're using a lot of those tools to help make sure that we're getting brand voice, and correctly, we're using a lot of those tools to help us do research before podcasts. There's still got to be that human touch on it. We want to make sure that we are getting this human touch to it. But if I can have it go out and do some of that work for us ahead of time and get us that base information that then we polish up, that is what we've been doing a ton of it with. There's also some things that we have started to do in terms of some of the clips. We're able to add some AI, some AI animations into some of these clips, and it's turned out really, really well. There's been some audio enhancements that have come out too, that I've, I'm flabbergasted by. We use some tools that are reasonably advanced, but they are able to take something that I wouldn't say was unlistenable, but something that wasn't great and make it sound pretty darn good. To me, that has been a huge, huge benefit as we have had some we've got podcasters all over and we've got some that send us stuff from way far away, and let's just say they do not have the best microphone setup. We have been able to do that and work with that. The other thing, work with that very well to polish that up. The other thing that we have is there's some targeted advertising that we're able to help with, too. We're able to help look at and figure out what some of these audiences are. Who who are we speaking to? What, what, what do they want to hear? There's been a big investment in this as as the industry as a whole, and we've made sure that we've stayed pretty high up on that because we want to we want to make sure that we have the tools that we can offer the best service possible for you. We've been able to streamline production, improve audio quality. And the other thing is we can generate some pretty interesting personalized listening experiences. Leveraging AI for us is it really is. It's about helping to futureproof our business and help make sure that you are able to afford to get your business out there. The thing that we have heard over and over, and this is one of the reasons why I love being in the podcasting space. There's audio podcast that are I mean, you can go download that are fully AI things of that nature, I get it. Will that someday take over? Who knows. Right now? For me, what matters the most is we're able to help make you make that 1 to 1 connection. Once again, I'm right in your ears. I'm in your car. I mean, your AirPods. I mean your earbuds. I'm right here. This is something that is tough to replicate with AI, and it's one of the things that I absolutely love about it. We are getting that personal connection now. I am so glad that I was able to use AI to help me do these articles, to help me there, I mean, to help me get these bullet points set up, because to me, it's that type of stuff that we're able to accelerate in our business and once again, we're able to help you accelerate. That can make all the world of a difference. Once again. We're less expensive now for stuff like this because it's so much less time consuming. So we're less expensive than we were even two years ago for this. Additionally, we're able to make it so you're able to keep that human 1 to 1 connection. To me, that is that's one of my favorite pieces about podcasting. It is that 1 to 1 connection. I'm right here. That's probably a good place to leave it, don't you think that. That being said, do me a favor. As always, take care of yourself. If you can, take care of someone else too, and I will see you very soon.
