Can Podcasts be Valuable to Legal and Professional Service Firms?

Podcast consumption continues to rise as a result of the global explosion in smartphone use and the more recent move toward voice-enabled tech like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home. But should legal and other professional services organizations jump on the bandwagon simply because of the format’s growing popularity, and are podcasts the right marketing channel for these types of firms? The short answer is yes.

The statistics on recent podcast performance alone should be enough reason for your business to begin exploring how the medium could help you connect with new audiences and potential customers. Global measurement and data analytics firm Nielsen found that 51% of the US population had listened to a podcast last year, with 49% tuning in at home and 22% listening in the car. Equally compelling is the fact that, compared to the general population, podcast listeners were much more active on every social media platform and more likely to follow companies and brands on digital channels.

These stats are hard to ignore for any firm that’s serious about growing its reach and connecting with new audiences. Whether you’re looking to build brand awareness, generate new business leads or attract young talent to your company, we provide you with six additional reasons why you should consider adding podcasts to your organization’s content mix.

1. Diversify your marketing collateral 

If your business’s marketing efforts are concentrated on a limited selection of content formats, then the type of audience you attract will be equally limited in scope. The number of customers you reach, and consequently the growth of your company and brand, will be restricted.

Your audience can become fatigued and less likely to engage if it’s exposed to email and social media campaigns that rely too heavily on one type of content. Adding diversity to your content mix can help reinvigorate enthusiasm from an audience that has become apathetic and less responsive to the tried and tested communications formats that worked so well for your firm in the past.

The addition of a regular podcast focusing on your business’s specific areas of expertise can go a long way toward keeping things fresh for your audience. The medium also lends itself well to adapting and repurposing the content for additional channels, helping you sweat the asset with little extra effort and giving you more bang for your buck. For example, a podcast can easily be modified into a blog post or key quotes uploaded as tweets or LinkedIn posts.

2. Reach people on the go

The number of smartphone users in the US is expected to reach over 270 million by 2022. This means that content forms best suited to those devices will stand a better chance of attracting audience attention. For better or worse, people are now never far from their phones, but the trend does represent a real opportunity for marketers.

Podcasts give legal and other professional services firms a tool to reach increasingly time-crunched prospects when it’s most convenient to them — on the go. By creating podcasts, your business can provide helpful content to potential customers and advocates that they can access on their terms, such as on their daily commute or while working out in the gym.

3. Build trust and demonstrate value to your audience 

Podcasts can provide helpful information to potential new customers considering choosing your services. By educating people and providing answers to the questions they’re asking about a specific sector, your firm will quickly build an audience that trusts the brand.

In-depth audio content gives organizations the opportunity to answer FAQs, talk about trending topics and share anecdotal expertise that promotes them as leaders in their fields. A podcast episode that allows a company to own an area of thought leadership means that company is more likely to be considered “best in class” and therefore recognized as a trusted brand.

By becoming valuable to your listeners and having established your credibility, it’s much more likely you can then develop a business relationship with prospective customers. Informative podcasts can help to move potential buyers through the sales funnel by providing engaging information that helps with their decision-making process.

4. Boost your recruitment drive 

Podcasts represent an excellent resource for students to expand their knowledge of complex subjects and are especially relevant for those working toward careers in the legal or wider professional services sectors.

Studying for a future in law or accounting requires endless hours of reading textbooks and going over case studies, but students are increasingly looking to podcasts as a way of soaking up knowledge.

Providing regular content that offers educational value and insight into the way your company operates can go a long way to building awareness of your firm among the decision-makers of tomorrow. If the next generation of young talent sees you as a thought leader, you’ve already won half the battle in attracting fresh blood to your business.

5. Produce great content — even on a busy schedule

Internal stakeholders and third-party advocates are essential to the success of any legal or wider professional services marketing campaign. However, selecting a firm’s “content champions” can be far easier than actually getting them to contribute meaningful thought leadership when their day jobs take up so much of their time. Without support from these key contributors, plans to expand your business’s audience are doomed to fail before they can get off the ground.

Podcasts are a great way to navigate this problem and appease busy stakeholders, who often see requests to contribute to marketing campaigns as a hindrance and distraction from their day-to-day responsibilities.

The planning and production phases can take a fair amount of time and effort when we produce podcasts for our clients, but the spokespeople featured in the recordings only have to show up and talk! The most time-consuming aspects — such as booking guests, editing, publishing, transcribing, creating show notes, and promoting the podcast — can all be outsourced. It can be a lot easier to convince a member of your team to contribute to a podcast than to produce more time-consuming content, such as blog posts.

6. Stretch your marketing dollars 

It currently costs less to produce and deliver a podcast than most other popular formats, making the medium an attractive proposition for marketers looking to build brand awareness on a budget.

After a show is recorded, the podcast episode will remain online, unlike a radio spot, which although often archived, tend to be less well optimized and visible online. . You’ll also have backlinks in your show notes and opportunities to optimize the content, which can make it even more visible to search engines and, ultimately, your customers.

Starting your own podcast can be simple, with a smartphone, headphones and downloadable software your only major requirements (although could the finer details of your choices will impact the quality of your final product). Alternatively, there are a number of firms, such as Infinite Global, who can make adding podcasts even easier by planning, producing and distributing them for you.

To access more podcasting ideas, click below.