Podcasts are growing; we are all going to make millions, get on it, quick! This seems to be the general consensus at the minute.

Now, I can understand the excitement, I’m excited too. A passionate, engaged audience, an intimate environment, niche targeting opportunities; it’s hard not to be interested. So, it’s absolutely no surprise that 75% of brands expect to spend big in the podcast realm this year.

How you do it is the important thing. Fundamentally, you have two options - either to advertise in the space or make your own branded podcast.

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Podcasting has enormous potential for publishers, given the mobile portability of the format and the possibility of converting text content into a spoken-word format listeners can consume while doing other activities. The IAB estimated the podcasting advertising market in the United States may exceed $1 billion by next year, a tenfold increase since 2015.

That estimate is encouraging, but podcasting needs to catch up to the needs of sponsors to become more viable amid a crowded media marketplace.

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We have seen how the radio industry has steadily increased its digital revenue, crossing the $1 billion mark in 2019, according to the RAB. As radio stations look to generate new business, to battle digital monsters Facebook and Google who are coming for their local ad dollars, could podcasting be radio’s next revenue star?

Radio has certainly gotten into the podcast content game, with big companies launching their own networks, some creating original content and most stations converting on-air shows to on-demand podcasts. Revenue has been somewhat elusive so far.

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Spotifys continued investment in podcasts appears to be paying off, after the company reported that podcast listening has increased by 200 percent year-on-year in its fourth quarter earnings today. The company says it now has over 700,000 podcasts on its platform, and that over 16 percent of its users now listen to podcasts. Spotify says the amount of users paying for its premium tier increased to 124 million.

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A tool called Headliner is solving the discoverability issue in podcasting in a couple different ways, for both consumers and creators.

On the creation side, Headliner allows podcasters to upload snippets of their podcasts, which Headliner transforms into videos, complete with automatic captions and spiffy images or clips of your choice. The resulting files, called audiograms, can be uploaded to the social media site of your choice (unlike audio files, which no major social network allows to be uploaded).

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Podcasting is becoming the fastest growing audio platform in the world, with new shows created each week.

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The decision to implement a private podcast is a critical first step to improving your business communication, but there are a number of other important decisions you have to make before the show becomes a reality. In this article, we’ll focus on one unavoidable decision: what type of equipment should you buy?

The answer, perhaps unsatisfyingly, is that it depends. However, here are the questions you should be asking yourself as you begin the search for podcasting gear.

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Apple Podcasts reported to have 800,000 shows and over 30 million episodes as of December 2019. According to Edison Research and Triton Digital, there are currently 62 million Americans who listen to podcasts each week.

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Advantage: Convenience

With podcasting, you do not have to worry that your audience is busy offline when you make your sales pitch. A listener can download the file and replay it at whatever time is convenient for him, even while jogging or driving to work. If someone chooses to subscribe to your podcast feed, he can get any podcasts of interest downloaded automatically. If you want all your employees to hear what you have to say, podcasting is often easier than trying to get everyone together for one meeting.

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Public media have a real lead in the podcasting arena — which is burgeoning. But can public media hold that edge?

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Like so many people throughout the country, we at NPR's Student Podcast Challenge are working from home right now. And after months of teaching students how to make a homemade podcast, we put our skills to the test: The latest episode of our podcast was recorded from our bedrooms.


Host/producer Lauren Migaki recorded a podcast from her home/pillow fort studio.

We used pillow forts (just like in our how-to video!), bulky headphones and special, professional-grade microphones. But don't let the equipment discourage you — with just a couple tweaks you can use essentially the same setup: Replace the headphones with earbuds, and the mics with a mobile device like a cell phone or tablet, and you are ready to go!

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Like blogs and social media, podcasts are democratizing the way people share their thoughts with the world, with the episodic audio series continuing to gain traction with listeners seeking both entertainment value and educational dialogue.

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Podcasting accommodates individuals who prefer to passively consume information (meaning they choose what they want when they want it).

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What are the biggest digital marketing and branding trends shaping the year ahead? How will marketers approach increasing brand awareness, attracting new customers and growing revenue in an always on digital world where the only guarantee is change?

2020 will be like nothing we have seen before in the digital landscape.

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Podcasts have transitioned from niche to mainstream. As Deloitte, Edison, and Nielsen, etc. all agree, audience growth for podcasts has been nothing short of phenomenal over the past year.

The global podcasting market will grow by 30% in 2020 to USD 1.1bn, Deloitte predicted, topping the billion-dollar mark for the first time. Now, a podcast producer can pull in revenue any number of ways, as the same report pointed out; advertising, content marketing, subscriptions, contracts for branded podcasts, events, and so on. All this hinges on audience reach, and a surefire way to widen that is, naturally, to go multilingual.

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Podcast marketing is on a roll in 2020 with many companies releasing audio content to build trust, connect with their audience on a personal level, and boost brand awareness.

1. Ease of production
2. Low entry costs
3. Language is no barrier
4. Repurpose your blog and video content as audio
5. Less competition than blogging and YouTube
6. Easier to grow a following as a podcaster
7. Successful podcasters make millions of dollars a year
8. Build connections by interviewing influential guests
9. Showcase your speaking skills
10. Build high-DA links back to your website

With commuting on hold and everybody Zooming all the time, podcast consumption has taken a bit of a hit as listeners look for new ways to fit shows into their daily routines.

Last month, the analytics firm Chartable released research suggesting that podcast downloads were 10% lower on March 25 than they were on February 26.

Those numbers deserve to be taken with a grain of salt. Chartable, like Podtrac and other podcasting analytics services, is an opt-in analytics service, and many different podcast networks, ranging from Entercom to Vox Media, showed increased listening last month.

Storytelling is powerful.

With the influx of media—both social and traditional—getting consumed in a 24/7 news cycle can be overwhelming and optional. The concept of time seems irrelevant lately leaving our fingertips free for endless scrolling, a particularly slippery slope for mental health during this global pandemic.

Individuals, families and communities worldwide are learning how to grapple with the effects of a changing social paradigm, seeking ways to stay connected and safe.

Adaptability during this new paradigm is key and many tech companies are stepping up to the plate to perfect, iterate, and improve on products to keep up with a new normal and compete in an evolving landscape.

If the music industry is worried about podcasts eating into music’s share of the American audio diet, new survey data suggests that such worries are unfounded: Podcasts’ share increased at the expense of music a couple of years ago but has held steady ever since. Instead, the rising number of podcast listeners are coming from AM/FM radio. That’s what the numbers in new research from Edison Research, Triton Digital and National Public Radio show.

The Infinite Dial from Edison Research and Triton Digital is an annual survey that has been published for over 20 years. It originally covered listenership to digital radio such as Pandora and Sirius XM, but it has expanded to include other types of streaming music services, social media, podcasting and most recently esports; it has also tracked trends in consumer ownership of devices such as smartphones and smart speakers. The Infinite Dial is highly respected because of its methodological rigor and its year-to-year consistency over a long period of time. The 2020 edition of the Infinite Dial was released last week.

The podcast industry as a whole is expected to produce more than $1 billion by 2021, according to a new report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

With that much money floating around, you have to wonder what is stopping you from getting your share.

Since many people are still stuck at home, craving connection and entertainment, there is really never been a better time for podcasting. And, contrary to what you might think, getting your own podcast off the ground is not just possible, it’s quite easy thanks to resources like

New Sony venture. Sony Music Entertainment announced another podcasting venture today, this time in the shape of a partnership with U.K. audio company Somethin Else. This continues a recent run of Sony investments in audio — previous examples include Jonathan Hirschs Neon Hum Media, Adam Davidson and Laura Mayers Three Uncanny Four and Renay Richardsons Broccoli Content.

Fifteen years after Apple first offered 3,000+ free podcasts on iTunes, the medium has become mainstream.

Basic Facts: According to Edison Research and Triton Digital, there are now 62 million Americans listening to podcasts each week, up from 19 million in 2013. One reason for the growth is the number of choices podcast listeners have today. There are now over 800,000 active podcasts with over 54 million podcast episodes currently available worldwide. Because of a low cost of entry, in the first ten months of 2019, a record 192,000 new podcasts have been launched.

Podcast Advertising: Another reason for the growth in podcasting is the potential income a popular podcast can earn from selling advertising. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PriceWaterhouse, ad revenue is expected to reach $679 million this year, increasing to $863 million in 2020 and over $1 billion by 2021. Popular podcasts can charge advertisers between $10 to $50 for every 1,000 listeners, approximately two or three times the ad rate for broadcast radio.

Before the emergence of television and more recently smartphones as the primary medium for communicating sports news, radio was the main conduit for receiving the latest information. Those analog days have been converted into zeros and ones in our current digital age. However, the advantages gained by apps and channels have their drawbacks. The largest problem is that these digital mediums cant recreate the local community cultivated by radio anymore. Kevin Jones, a seasoned sports reporter, understood the gap between younger audiences and sports discussion and built Blue Wire to bridge the chasm. Blue Wire is a sports podcasting startup bringing together local creators to build a wider audience of fans. They have raised $1.2 million from a variety of investors.

Starting a new business can be exhausting. From crafting an effective content marketing strategy to making sure the whole SEO is perfect, if you do it all yourself without some guidance you will soon find taking the marketers role full time, and doing no actual work.

There is no denying that creating adding-value content like blog posts, videos, e-books, webinars, or anything that allows you to share your experience and knowledge, can surely help you jump-start your business. The options are seemingly endless, and there are thousands of pieces on the kind of content that works best for your specific niche.

However, there is one solid format that’s been proven to increase conversion, boost sales, and drive more qualified leads to almost any kind of website.

I am talking about podcasts.

Blubrry has released its new Private Internal Podcasting service for businesses looking to lock down their podcasts to protect them from public distribution.

The hosting service is offering three levels of security based on three hosting plans, simple (limiting private podcasts to 50 user-seats), standard (additional security and 200 user-seats), and enterprise (500 user-seats, most secure).

Theres good news on the horizon for podcast revenue growth, and presumably for radio organizations that are active in that space.

With expected growth of 14.7% through 2020, the stage has been set for podcast revenues to hit $1.1 billion in 2021, according to the IAB/PwC report.

While it remains to be seen what long-term impact the pandemic has on podcast revenues, IAB/PwC still predicts a 15% jump in 2020. This comes after podcast ad revenues soared 48% between 2018 and 2019, a stunning growth rate.

After Spotifys recent string of podcasting deals, it is kind of weird to see a podcast acquisition where Spotify is not involved. E.W. Scripps has been shopping around its Stitcher podcast platform for a couple of weeks, and it looks like it found a buyer in SiriusXM.

Sirius will pay around $300 million for the unit. That is a hefty return for Scripps. It originally bought Stitcher in 2016 for $4.5 million, combining it with its $50 million Midroll Media acquisition from the year before.

Still, $300 million is a good deal for the premium podcast platform, a specialized podcast advertising network doing sales for over 300 podcasts, and the owner of two podcast content networks, Earwolf and Stitcher Podcasts.

That compares to Spotifys acquisition of The Ringer earlier this year, for which it reportedly paid between $141 million to $196 million.

Sirius XM Holdings Inc. is near a deal to buy E.W. Scripps Co.s Stitcher Inc. podcasting unit for around $300 million, according to people familiar with the matter.

The satellite-radio giant is working to expand into the rapidly growing podcasting industry, following similar moves by media and tech companies including Spotify Technology SA and iHeartMedia Inc.

Determine your topic, audience and format

Everyone has something they could talk about for hours on end. When deciding which of these things should be the focus of a podcast, you need to consider topics that you will never get tired of talking about. Brainstorm 52 show topic ideas, one for each week of the year. This will let you know if you have enough ideas to have a regular podcast of your own, or if you would be better off finding guesting opportunities on existing programs. Of course, a show does not have to be weekly, but it is a starting point.

Defining your audience will help to hone the direction of the show, as well. A show geared toward young mothers will sound much different than a podcast for mid-career professionals. Your audience is rarely everyone. Figure out who they are and talk specifically to them, their needs and interests. As you plan your show, consider what type of format will be most effective, as well. Will you host guests, have a co-host or fly solo?

Choose memorable, straightforward branding

When coming up with a title for your podcast, it’s best not to be too clever or obscure. Make it easy to remember and spell and also give some idea of what the show is about. Search potential names in Google and on iTunes to be sure your idea is not already an established podcast. You will also want to claim a custom URL and related social media handles. Again, searching for these items will indicate if the title is already taken.

Cover art for your podcast needs to be an exact square, sized at least 1,400 pixels by 1,400 pixels and 3,000 pixels by 3,000 pixels at the most. Remember that people will be viewing it on a small screen, so use large text for your show name and relevant artwork.

Assemble a digital audio workstation

Podcasting is a relatively small market, closing in on a $1 billion run rate. But the category is on fire right now. The New York Times scooped up Serial Productions for a reported $50 million this week in a creative and strategic alliance with sister company This American Life. Terms of the deal were not disclosed and depend on performance goals. The Times bought podcast studio Audm for $8 million in March and is hiring prominent journalists to host new programs. With Serial, the Times owns the 14th largest podcast production company with roughly 4 million listeners and the iconic Serial franchise that was the first breakout hit. Union Square Ventures also announced on Thursday that it is investing in the podcast studio and ad network Headgum.

Here are seven ways you can avoid common virtual sales meeting technology mistakes

1. Prepare meeting attendees in advance with clear instructions
2. Run a tech check
3. Increase your internet speed and bandwidth
4. Choose a reliable meeting platform
5. Invest in quality audio and video
6. Master your platform
7. Have a backup plan

1. Thou shall not do it for the money
2. Thou shall be a consumer
3. Thou shall reflect well on your brand
4. Thou shall be useful
5. Thou shall not be a salesperson
6. Thou shall note get personal
7. Thou shall create a consistent format
8. Thou shall release episodes regularly
9. Thou shall be professional
10. Thou shall be sociable

It is estimated that 32% of Americans listen to podcasts on a monthly basis. And the podcast industry is expected to be worth around $1 billion by the end of next year. Being such a booming industry, it makes sense why so many people are thinking about starting their own podcasts.

Luckily, we are here to help you. So continue reading and we’ll walk you through everything you need to know!

1. USB Audio Interface and Recording Bundle
2. Adjustable Microphone Arm Stand
3. Podcast Recording Software
4. Podcast Editing Software

1. Strive To Be Different
2. Pilot Your Idea
3. Do Not Do It Alone
4. Understand Your Audience
5. Do Not Think About The Audience
6. Help Businesses Solve Challenges
7. Establish Yourself as an Authority
8. Target A Specific Niche
9. Focus On Building New Relationships
10. Three Elements Every Episode
11. Bring In A Variety Of Voices
12. Define The Why Of The Podcast
13. Keep Your Podcasts Brief
14. Make It Fast-Paced And Entertaining
15. Be Careful Not To Niche Down

Americans are listening to more business and finance podcasts, with downloads and streams up 78% week-over-week since the COVID-19 pandemic began, iHeartMedia reports.

In fact, as of April 2020, there are more than 30 million podcast episodes on the internet with numbers climbing daily. According to the Financial Times, podcasts have become one of the fastest-growing segments of the media market.

This surging level of interest and engagement in finance podcasts is a golden opportunity for financial advisors, especially those whose seminar and event marketing routines have been turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. During this transition into a new way of doing business, it is important for financial advisors to include creativity and innovation into their post-pandemic marketing and communication plans.

I think this comes down to treating your marketing campaign mix holistically. A lot of digitally native brands tend to think about each channel independently and think about, you know, how do I get my Facebook campaign working, or how do I get my Google AdWords campaign working. But on Google and to some extent on Facebook, our activity is really driven around intent. People effectively putting their hands up, saying, I am looking for a sofa! through some kind of signal we can pick up on.

Podcasts are completely separate. There is no demand signal. So it is about finding that target audience that you are after and really introducing and sort of familiarizing that audience with the brand. That requires a holistic, full-funnel approach to your entire marketing mix, understanding that people we introduce to our furniture via podcast will be converted down the line via some other channel. That is key to building out a proper marketing mix, instead of just running some Facebook ads and hoping they do all the lifting.

Building out a physical space associated with a podcast business used to be a really good idea. For one thing, it offers an alternative revenue stream — through studio rentals and in-person events, among other things — that could check against the growing but volatile advertising revenue pool. It is also a really good fit for any podcast operation built on a sense of community. Having a physical space for listeners to routinely gather can really strengthen that relationship between publisher and fan, expanding the notion of how that community can be served.

Podcast listenership in the US has been soaring in recent years and advertising dollars are following. Podcast ad spending is a bright spot amid lackluster digital radio spending. According to eMarketers latest forecast, US podcast ad spending will surpass 20% of digital radio ad spending this year and cross the $1 billion mark next year.

By the end of 2020, podcast ad spending in the US will reach $782.0 million, up 10.4% from last year, giving it a 21.0% share of the US digital radio ad market. And in 2021, spending will jump nearly 45% to $1.13 billion.    

COVID-19 has threatened the key communication channels corporations need to survive. Workers are displaced. National meetings have been cancelled. Town halls and offsites are viable only through online platforms. In the face of the storm, companies are turning to new channels to keep the lines of communication open. For many organizations, podcasting is a timely and effective way to unite a fractured workforce.

Even before COVID shuttered offices, and work-from-home directives became commonplace, large organizations were discovering podcasting was a worthwhile addition to their communication mix. According to Forbes, the majority of Fortune 500 companies in the US already use podcasting as part of their internal communications. Ideal for a geographically-distanced and mobile audience, podcasting seems purpose built for the modern lifestyle, bringing content where the audience is. Add to the mix a pandemic that has scattered workers across the country, and podcasting makes more sense than ever.

JD: Podcasting — then and now; what do you make of its evolution?

DC: It has gone from being passive to a very personal on-demand commercial work. We have the ability to totally integrate content and commercials - it’s a good mindset. It went from a Howard Stern read to a re-envisioned, re-engaged conversation. It is the new native, a really positive, advertorial. We have the ability to weave in the right message at the right time and see more organic growth for both the listener and the advertiser. If you can think of a subject, there's a podcast for it and more coming on daily.

The growing podcast audience in Canada has brands taking notice. It's a fixture in consumer media consumption and a sticky medium. Listeners consume podcasts heavily compared with other forms of informational media, and they are loyal to the hosts of their favorite shows.

In podcast penetration and usage, Canada ranks at the top of selected countries surveyed by Edison Research and Triton Digital in the latest annual installment of The Infinite Dial, which has been tracking podcast listeners in Canada since 2018. For podcast penetration, 37% of adults in Canada were monthly podcast listeners, the same as in the US.

Podcasting Continues Growing
Podcasting is mentioned above and has become a huge part of digital marketing. There are a number of different types of podcasts listed below:

Individuals or groups of people trying to build their personal brand. This could be a humorous podcast or professional one that helps a person establish themselves as an authority on a topic.

~ Companies that are looking to reach and educate current customers. Attracting customers in the industry in B2B situations will work far better if looking to have work contracted out to your business.

~ The sporadic podcast is of a company that sees the value in podcasting yet hasn’t dedicated time or money to the process. This could happen once a month or a few times a year. Generating listeners is about putting out content that is informative/entertaining consistently. Being able to rely on a certain podcast on a specific day provides comfort to loyal listeners.

~ Question and answer podcasts could be a favorite regardless of the ultimate goal of the podcast. Being able to answer specific questions from listeners is important. This can earn new customers and provide a sense of comfort to current customers that know they are in good hands.

~ Keep in mind that your podcast should have at least an outline to provide some kind of structure. Transcribing these podcasts can be a great way to turn these in-depth conversations into a searchable document.

Media publicity has traditionally been a challenge for small businesses. However, the emergence of podcasts has made it easier now more than ever. Being featured on a podcast has numerous benefits, including an increase in credibility when being featured by a third party, the opportunity for listeners (potential clients) to create a personal connection with the business and show preparations force the business to clarify its pitch and value proposition. Finally, it can even catch the ear of an investor.

Spotify has leaned heavily into its foray into podcasts and rolling out features and announcements at a pretty swift clip. Last week, the company announced it is introducing video podcasts to the mix with support for multitasking, meaning you can continue to listen to a video podcast uninterrupted while doing other things on your device. And earlier this week, Spotify announced support for simultaneous podcast and listening streaming for Premium users and up to five friends—a hot tool right now in the streaming service world as well, as many of us are distanced from friends and family.

Starting a new podcast is a lot like starting up a new business from the ground up. There are steps you have to make sure that your podcast is entertaining while still being successful. You need to think about your content, your equipment, and your marketing plan. Will this be something people want to listen to? And how will you get them to listen? With so many small details that make up the massive project, we want to make it a little easier to get your podcast idea up and running!

A solid, standalone microphone will offer a wider frequency response range than a basic headset mic, letting it pick up all the nuance in your voice for a richer sound. With different pickup patterns they can also make it easier to cut down on the background noise that might be coming from your gaming PC or gaming keyboard. Some microphones can even let you switch between different pickup patterns, so you can focus on just your voice with a cardioid pattern one day while you might try to record you and a guest with a bi-directional pattern the next day.

With all that in mind, we will help guide you through a variety of quality microphones that can fit in a range of production environments. So, whether you just want to stream games on weekends or plan on making a half-dozen podcast series, you'll be able to find a microphone suited to the task.

1. Relationship Building
2. Infinitely Recurring Revenue
3. Securing Media

Today, podcasting has exponential reach. In the US, for example, The latest Niesen release notes that the number of heavy podcast listeners—those listening every day— has grown by more than 3.6 million. The total podcast audience is growing at a compound average growth rate of 20%. (source: Nielsen)

Similarly, in the United Kingdom, at the end of 2019 around 7.1 million people were listening to podcasts each week. That’s one in eight people and is an increase of 24% over the past year – and more than double over the past five years. Ofcom research also found that half of listeners have joined the podcast wave in the last two years. (source: Ofcom)

The Recount is a new platform that mixes politics and culture. A deal between The Recount and iHeartRaio will result in the two companies producing a series of new podcasts ahead of the 2020 election.

Sony Music has been signalling its podcasting ambitions with a series of partnerships over the past year. Now it has revealed nearly 40 new shows resulting from those deals – and they’re all launching this year.

The unveiling happened at the major labels first IAB Podcast Upfront presentation, with shows in categories including true crime, politics, current events, and social / racial justice, as well as music.

On the latter front, two of the new shows talked about at the upfront presentation were My 90s Playlist with hosts Tracy Clayton and Akoto Ofori-Atta, and a music/sports show from NFL reporter Lindsay Czarniak.