The Power of the Podcast: Unlock Your Brand's Marketing Potential

6 Podcast Formats That Build Brands

• Pedal Stomper Productions - Josh Troche • Season 2 • Episode 13

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Sick of the same old interview or solo podcast episodes? This week, we flip the script.

Join us as we dive deep into 6 innovative podcast formats designed specifically for business podcasting, branded content creation, and small business marketing. Discover how you can use podcasting not just to speak—but to connect, educate, and convert your audience.

Whether you’re a marketing manager looking to strengthen your brand’s presence, or a small business owner ready to expand your digital content strategy, this episode explores powerful ways to make podcasting a core piece of your marketing funnel.

What You’ll Learn:

How to leverage brand storytelling to establish trust and build authority

Ways to structure limited series and themed seasons to boost listener retention

Tips for leading expert panel discussions that inspire diverse perspectives

Behind-the-scenes episodes that humanize your brand and build loyalty

Customer story formats that act as engaging and authentic testimonials

Creative hybrid approaches that combine storytelling and strategy

🎯 Perfect for professionals exploring podcasting for business growth, content marketing through podcasting, and brand-building through audio content.

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. 
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Join our Discord Server and let's chat about your podcast https://discord.gg/CWk9aUuNtM

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When it comes to podcasts, there is a lot of focus on the solo one, where it's just someone talking to a camera like this. Or where there's. Guests, but there are a ton of different ways that you can. Market and brand your company. Through a podcast that may not be exactly like this. What are they? That is what we're going to dive into this week. Stay tuned. Thank you for tuning in this week. I'm so excited. You are here. Do me a favor like the follow the subscribe by all means, please leave a review while you're listening to. This would be hugely helpful. Any comments? Would love to hear what you guys would like to hear about. We're diving. In and there's all sorts of. Different. Ways to do a podcast besides just the hey, I'm going. To sit here and talk. To you about stuff and educate you. Or the. The interviews style. That is a bulk of a lot of podcasts, but especially when it. Comes to Branded. Podcast. There are a ton. Of other great, great. Ways that you can do things and work with things that are maybe a little bit outside the norm, that might fit. Your brand a little bit better. One of the first ones that we're going to. Get into here. Narrative storytelling. This is kind of like. Brand journalism. Talking about like you're going to you're. Going to create the stories that are related to your brand or your brand's. Industry. A couple of ways that you could do this is one is a lot of companies, especially older ones. Have very interesting histories on how they were founded. The struggles they went through, the the principles that are behind the things that happened. Those can make. Great, great, great stories. Now, once. Again, we talk all the time about how making. Sure something is the right fit for your brand, your host. All of those things. It doesn't fit with everything. But this. Is a great way to. Talk about like the. History of your brand. And you can work in. Those details about like. Hey, our founder believed. That success is a shared thing, and to this day we hold. That core value very strongly. There's those types of things that you. Can work in for the branding. Aspect of it. So many companies have interesting. Stories in. The way they started and the way they came to be. So covering that is huge. The big piece with that, this is it's it's it's emphasized. You need to put the emphasis on that authentic. Storytelling. Rather than like product promotion. You don't want to constantly be talking about like, hey, our founder looked at this, but by the way, you can order that today. At our website. For only 1995. That's people are going to lose interest on that. We talk all the time about how podcasting is just this. It reaches people because it's authentic, and you need to stay authentic with. Your storytelling on. This. Make sure that. You are telling that good. Story. What are some examples of like, what would. Be the narrative storytelling. Like. Part of a. Podcast? Well, let's say a tech company, they can talk about so many things with this, like where their technology evolved from what it evolved out of. There's I mean, when you look at the evolution cycle of of technology, there's so many interesting pieces to that. There's so many interesting. Stories. To that. Maybe. I mean, talk about a history of the internet. If you're a. A software. As a service company, or if you're a company. That helps with SEO, any one of those things that's like internet based. You can talk about the history. Of that work that. In there and that will a couple of. Things. First off, it put your brand out there. Second off, it shows that you're an expert in this. You can tell. A story if you're an expert. If you're not an expert, it's tougher to tell that story. Another thing a travel agency. Share stories. Of, like different. Cultures. Do like, A history of a certain culture. And then say, look, here's, here's how this started. Here's where they're at today. It's a great place to visit. By the way, we know a travel agent that you should use for that. Those are the types of things that can pan out and. Work very, very well. The other thing that would be, I mean, just phenomenal to do is one that I mean, we've done video series on this, but a nonprofit highlighting like the impact. Of their work. We've worked with a number of companies where. They've got a. Success story. We work with. One that does mental health items, and they talk with people that. Have come from dark. Places that have wonderful lives. Now, that are very proud of where they're at. I mean, you you essentially you tell. The story of that person. And not only are you telling like people what you do and. Why you're an expert. But holy cow, that's also a pretty good testimonial at the same point. So really, I mean, this. Narrative storytelling, you're you're. Not selling. Anything directly, but. Boy, are you building. Your brand. You're building your expertise. And you're showing this. The other thing that I will say is you can add some sound design and other items like that. In order to really add some, some gravitas to the story. Sound design is one of those things we always talk about in class where it's, you shouldn't notice the added sounds, you should only notice them if you listen to it a second time and they aren't there. Make sure that you're. When you do this, the thing that the pitfall that we we talk about with people find an ideal length for this. Don't make. Don't make what could be a ten minute story. Go for 45 minutes. Tell that story. In a fairly short amount of time. Now with that, you can do it. As a side note, kind of the next thing that I would suggest the next. Chapter in. That would be like a limited. Series or a. Themed seasons. This is popular with a lot of other like. Non-Branded where it's. Entertainment style of podcasts. Obviously true crime really dives into this. They like one. Season, they're covering serial killers, the next season they're covering scorned lovers. The next. Season they're covering. Just. Whatever. The those types of series or that type of themed season can be really good and a. Business branded. Podcast in one, I mean one you can talk about how the company like came to be. Then you could talk about the company as it's matured. Then you can. Talk about where you see the. Company heading in the future. Remember, a podcast is meant to build and. Support your marketing efforts. So if you do this as an added thing, you can have this off to the side. That's just added content. That really helps support your mission overall. With that, I mean, the limited. Series, the. Themed seasons that is just dedicated, the definition of it is, is dedicating a. Set number of. Episodes to a specific, relevant topic. Take some time. Go off on that tangent, but make it its own separate season. You can really you can do. A deeper exploration. On things when you do these separate seasons. Once again, this is a great way for. Someone personally. To establish thought leadership. So if it's this is. Your. Business. What a great way. To do this. As an example, because I'm, I'm hot on the examples on this one because. Sometimes they're hard. To imagine what you would do with this. Like let's say. A marketing firm. They're they could do a season on the evolution of social media. Where did it start? It started I mean, everyone thinks the 2000, the late to to late 2000. I get that, but what were some of the things before that? What are some of the other pieces like? How did YouTube and how did Facebook start to compete with each. Other for the. Views with like. Shorts and. Reels and things that you can dive into all sorts of stuff like that. Additionally, like, different approaches to investing. You could if you're a financial institution or something like that, you could look at, okay, hey, this season is primarily going to be. For young investors. The next season could be. For middle aged investors. The next season after that. Could be for older investors. Once again, you're building that database of information. That's going to work really. Well to give you that. Search. Engine optimization. The other piece, let's let's say health. Care provider. Talk about different aspects of wellness. Or care or things. Of that nature. So maybe one season you focus on food, maybe the next season you focus on exercise, maybe the season after that, you focus on sleep once again, it's finding something to focus on for a season where that way you can kind of. Group everything together. The big thing that I'm going to say with this is you really have to plan that series arc, and it's amazing when you can take the one season and just kind of guide that. So it ends up. Pushing directly into. The second the next season behind it. So if you take and say, hey, look, we're going to talk about food. And but when you end the food. Piece, you're talking about. Foods that give you energy. For the exercise. Piece. That would be next season. And after you're done exercising, what are you going to want to do? So we're going to talk. About how to exercise so you can rest up. So you can do the exercise and the the food. Again. It's once again it's if you can find ways to move one season into the next season. That works just. Brilliantly because then once people are hooked. They're in and they're ready to come. Along with you for the entire ride. The thing that I. I'm going to warn with this, you want to. Make sure that any brand. Messaging is subtle with that. This is once again, this is about showing the expertise. This is not about like. Putting the brand. Right in front of people. Once again, show that expertise, build that know, like and trust. Those are the things that you're going to want to focus on with this. Now let's go ahead and take a left turn, because as we work into this next piece, we are going to talk about panel discussions with industry experts. Panel discussions are sometimes things that can get kind of tough, especially when when they're. A remote. Podcast and you've got four people. Across the country. And of course. Inevitably everyone's going to start talking at once, and then everyone's just going to sit there and look at each other. This is where some of the editing comes in, but you need to make. Sure that you're direct in who you're asking. The thing that I love about this is I always tell people to try and get. Diverse. Panels with. Diverse. Perspectives. The it's always tough when you have when you ask one. Person a question on your panel, let's say you've you're the host and you've got three people on your panel. If you ask. One person a. Question and then the next two people. Go, yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree. Well then that's not a great panel. You typically want a panel to. Start a. Discussion with these panels. What that does is that shows that once. Again first off you're going to get information from a number of. Of people in the same setting. Additionally, you're going to get a number of diverse perspectives. The thing that I'm going to warn you about with that is you want to make. Sure that. Most of these perspectives don't go against what you do. So it's good to have some discourse. It's good to have people that think about things slightly differently. Just make sure that they arrive. At your brand or. What you do as a good. Answer to. Examples of this, a design company hosts a discussion on current trends in like. User interfaces or user user experience. On things. Always kind of a hot topic, but if. You're a company. That's website design. Boy would that be great. Like, hey, look, we just had a panel discussion on how user design you. They use good design and user experience can lead to more sales and getting those opinions from different people. People are going to have like, hey, we we feel that you only need two clicks to be able to order. Someone else says, hey, we want to make sure we educate. Was long as those all. Fall under your umbrella, you're. In really good shape. Maybe we talk about. If you're a manufacturing firm. Maybe you make widgets. Of course, there's a ton of widget. Makers out there right? When you're making those widgets. What about a panel about supply chain innovation? That's huge. And that's something that other manufactured other manufacturers would want to listen to. Also, the big thing that I'm going to say is too many people take a panel and they. Talk very general. The people on those on a panel should. Be very focused and very. Specific. Make sure you stick with that. The other thing that you're going to want to do is make. Sure that whoever's moderating it. Is a skilled. Moderator. That's good at keeping these things on task. Unfortunately, I have seen a lot of panels go way. Off the rails. I mean, I know we've all been through webinars where that has happened. In the worst way. You want to make sure that as. A moderator, you're. Willing to speak up, that you've got the ability to speak up, that you've got maybe the ability to mute someone's microphone. Maybe they're yapping too much. Maybe they're just making a noise. In the background. You need to make sure that you've got those capabilities as the. Moderator, because no matter what, if you're the one. Hosting the panel, it's all a reflection of you. And of. Course, with this being. A branded. Podcast type of set up. Your brand. So keep all of those things in mind. Something else that's kind of cool, that is one that I like in, in a lot of cases where people make widgets. Or design. Things or whatever behind the scenes or making of you can do that as a podcast. We've all seen, I mean, we've all been. Scrolling through like flipping through channels years ago. On the. Discovery. Channel, and you come across how it's made. And of course, you stop on that. You got to see how the thing is made, right? We all are curious about that. You can provide people with a behind the scenes look at how things. Were. Done, talk to. People that were involved. In the process of. Designing your product or. Doing the thing that you do. Give them that behind the scenes look, or pull back. That curtain. And say, look, here's how we came to this being. The best product. That we feel that you can buy today. When you show people. That first. Off, in most cases, that's going to. Be a very, very interesting story if you. Do it correctly. But second off, now you get to tell people like why you made the decisions, which in a way is very much its own subtle sales pitch. The big thing that I love about this is when you start talking about the things that went right, and especially the things that went wrong. In your. Processes. As you were starting to. Build this piece, that really gives transparency, that's going to. Foster that stronger connection. With people. They're going to see that honesty. I mean, authenticity is 100% the name of the game when it comes to podcasting. And when you talk about, hey. We tried this. Prototype and we found out it did, that it. Didn't do the thing right or it did the main thing right. But there's this other piece that it didn't do right. When you talk about that honestly, it really builds that trust. It builds that connection because people realize once again, you're building that authenticity. You're speaking from an authentic place. Like I said, the examples that I want to give for this, a. Product. Company documents the development process of the new widget in the same sense a service based business may talk about, like their team and like who's who's part of the client, the the client journey with this from all the way from the salesman to maybe the design team to the the implementation team, to the installers. If it's a if it's a physical item, talk to those people along the way and talk about that process. That can 100%. I mean, first off, I mean, if I'm a client looking to buy like a big machine, if I feel like I know the people that designed it and I know the people that are going to come install it, it makes it so much easier. For me to write that. Check at the end. To to really do. That, because once again, we've built that know, like. And trust. Another good one that's always interesting is customer stories. This goes back to I mean. This is a great thing. When you talk to some. Customers. About how they've done things. Or. How like how how the relationship has gone. First off, you're going to. Build that authenticity. Second off, they're going to show how you've you've built up that you've. Built that brand. Connection. The other big. Thing with this is once again, one of the most powerful things is. Word of. Mouth and testimonials. You're basically doing that in a podcast. Hey, this week we're going to sit down with customer A, and we're going to talk about their journey. And how the. How they were helped. When they start doing podcasting with us. Those are the types of things that, once again, if. People are curious about your product, the customers, a. Lot of customers, we all know have a lot of the same questions. So if you do a podcast with a current customer, just they're going to answer a lot of those questions that maybe. Your future customer. Has. Getting those answers up. Front is just absolutely huge. And once again, rather than it just being a simple like Google. Reviews are great. Don't get me wrong. But rather than it just being this simple one. Liner, yes, working with them. Was awesome. Now you get a customer. That's. That's going to come on and they're going to say, hey, this is what we did. This is what we had. Not only that, but they're going to say, look, here was something that was a bit of a sticking. Point for us, but we were able to overcome. That, let's say. I mean, once again, I want to make sure that I'm giving examples on this. Let's say a. Software. Company, they're they're highlighting how. Customers. Have, Streamlined their workflow. Once again. I mean, come in and talk about that. How how did. We straighten this out for you? Let's say a coaching service. They get some stories of personal transformation. I started out and I was going down this path. And I recognize this wasn't the right path. And the coach got me on the right path by doing these items and. Working with. Me on these things. Hugely, hugely. Powerful. When it comes to testimonials like that, focus on that. Customer's. Journey. That is the big thing. That is the thing you want to watch out for. You don't want to get off of. Track and start talking. About yourself. You're your focus really needs to be on them. And their journey. The other thing is, is, I mean, make sure. That their. Voice and perspective on this, make sure it's it's it's the central hub of this. All of this should stem from that. None of it really should. Be about you. But it's about that interaction. Now, one more thing that I want to get into with this is there is a way that you can kind of do. Some hybrid formats. With this, combine that. Storytelling. Combine that the. Storytelling narrative. With that. Customer testimonial. Hey, here's what we did in order to get to this. Customer and then maybe bring the customer in. And talk to them. There's all sorts of ways to do stuff like that. Maybe do a. Narrative episode where you talk. About that, and then you get a question and. Answer from. Someone. The limited series that maybe takes some. Interactive. Polls, put some polls out there and say, hey, look, is this how you would have handled it? Is this something that you would be comfortable with as a customer? The big thing that I want to say is you need to like anything else in podcasting. You really, really need to carefully plan this out. There's always a chance for stuff to go sideways, but that chance is greatly increased if you don't have a plan from the get go. So how do we summarize all this? A couple of things that I'm. Going to encourage you to do. First off, embrace experimentation. Stay true to your brand. Always, always, always stay true. To your brand. But embrace. Experimentation. Try some new things with stuff. Make sure that you are delivering. Value and engaging with your audience. Once again. Every week that I show up here, I want to make sure that I'm educating you. This week we're talking about different formats that your. Podcast can take. Maybe you're bringing. In and thinking right now about how you can bring another piece in. But make sure. You are still focused on adding value to everyone's day. Don't be afraid. To learn and iterate. Small changes make a huge difference. The example that I always like to give to people is. The Porsche. 911. That car is just. Every generation. Gets a little bit different. There hasn't been like big changes. If you look at. A Porsche 911 from 40 years. Ago to one today, you can kind of tell if they are the same car. If you look at. A Ford pickup truck from. Today and a. Ford pickup truck from 40 years ago, there's not. Really any design elements that have stayed. There's big changes with that. You can do. That iteration. And get. Better every single. Time. The other thing that I like, I said this last time, compared to weight lifting. Small changes every single time are what add up over time. To make huge jumps. A word of. Caution. Consider your resources and production capabilities. Make sure that. A you are going to stay. On track with. These items, and be that you have the time and production capability to execute on them. If you don't have time. To write the story. Don't just sit in front of the. Microphone and try and. Riff it. It's not going to work. Make sure that you've got those items laid out and make sure you've got the time to lay those out in front of you. The future to me of branded. Podcasting is. Is creative. There's a creative space here. Make sure that you're, you're. You're poking your head in. Different doors. So that way you can find where you fit in this creative space. Now, I find it ironic that the last thing that I talked about here was how the future of podcasting is creative. Next week I want to make sure that you tune in because we are talking about what we see. That is really in the current. State of podcasting. That is giving us some really big hints to what is in the future, and. Of course. What you should be looking at to make. Sure your podcast. Is relevant well into that future. With all that being said, I really appreciate your time today. I hope. You're. Walking. Away or driving. Away with something. Something some tidbit that you pulled away from today. This episode. As always, do me a favor. Take care of yourself. If you can, take care of someone else too, and I will see you soon.

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Josh Troche

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