Should My SaaS Start-up Launch A Podcast?

One of the questions I field most often from other start-up founders and companies I help with content strategy is, “Should I start a podcast?” Podcasting is undeniably hot at the moment, especially with younger consumers—according to the New York Times 40% of people between 12 and 24 years old listened to a podcast last month, up 10% from 2018. Droves of people and companies are launching podcasts, but just as with any new marketing channel many of them are simply following the trend rather than thinking critically about whether a podcast makes sense for their business.

My objective with this post is to provide some practical advice on whether a podcast is right for your business. I’ll share why we’ve decided not to start one, and will assess the relative opportunity podcasts, blogs, and video content offer to SaaS start-ups.

The benefits of podcasting

Podcasting comes with many benefits, aside from the simple fact that more listeners are tuning into podcasts every day. Here are a few of the most significant.

Podcasts are easy(er) to produce

Generally speaking, podcasts are easier to produce than video or written content. I know that this comment will draw ire from some folks, and I’m the first to agree that writing, podcasting, and producing video content all come with their own unique challenges and requisite skills that must be developed to do them well. I’m certainly not in the camp of, “podcasts are just two people talking to each other for 20 minutes.” That’s a naive perspective that’s disrespectful to the people who have worked hard at perfecting the craft of podcasting and growing their audiences.

While that’s the case, I do believe that podcasts are generally easier to produce than written or video content. Video is without question the most difficult, as the actual substance of the content, the audio, and the visual elements all must work together in harmony. But I believe truly writing well is more difficult, too—for most of us “writing” is a process reserved for bad memories of drafting essays in some long ago forgotten English class. I know many more people who can carry great conversation but can’t write to save their lives than vice versa.   

Also, consider the relative time involved in creating a podcast episode versus written or video content. Some points of reference:

1. Noah Kagan’s podcasts typically last 45 minutes to an hour—he says each episode takes 8-10 hours to produce.
2. Nathan Latka’s Top Entrepreneurs podcast features short, 15-20 minutes episodes. He books two six-hour long recording sessions each month where he records the content for 30 new episodes, and has outsourced the rest of his process (including editing, which he pays about $1 per minute for).
3. Paul Stephenson’s SaaS Marketing Insights podcast features 20 minute episodes that take about four hours each to produce.
4. Justin Jackson and John Buda’s Build Your SaaS podcast features episodes of 45 minutes to an hour—Justin estimates each episode takes just over two hours to produce.

For sake of comparison, many of the blog posts that I’ve written for Outseta focus on our own company and entrepreneurial journey. Because I’m writing on a topic I know well, where I’m the expert, it’s routine that I’ll spend 4-6 hours in total on these posts. But when I’m writing similar length content (2,500-4,000 words that takes 15-20 minutes to read) that requires interviews, research, and several rounds of revisions it often takes me 12-18 hours to create a great post.  

"In my experience as a writer I can either write a story that leverages my existing skills or expertise in a couple hours or I can write a story that requires new research and interviews that can take anywhere from 10-40 hours,” agrees Michael Thomas, Founder of content marketing agency Campfire Labs.

Video content—assuming you’re not making selfie-style Linkedin videos—typically takes even longer to produce.  

Podcasts can be consumed while multi-tasking

Podcasts can be consumed while performing other activities in a way that video or written content can’t—for example, you can listen to a podcast at the gym, while cooking dinner, or while driving. I think many people glaze over this benefit far too quickly.

That’s too bad, because in my eyes this is the single greatest benefit of podcasting! As marketers we are all competing for the attention of our audiences and there’s a limited amount of our audience’s mental real estate that we can occupy. Everybody has time throughout their day whether it’s in the car, at the gym, or while you’re simply walking down the street where you can listen to a podcast but you can’t watch a video or read written content. That’s a very real marketing opportunity—there’s a bigger lot of time that you can potentially occupy, as well as less competition for a listener’s mental real estate. Go fill it!

Podcasts are more personal

The auditory nature of podcasts ensures that personalities, point of emphasis, sarcasm, and other nuances of language aren’t lost in translation. We’ve all read a text message and misinterpreted it without the benefit of these important contextual triggers, so this is significant in communicating your message and points well. Hearing someone’s distinct voice and tone makes podcasts more personal than written content, which helps brands build a more authentic connection with their audience.

Podcasts are very guest friendly

Having been a guest on several podcasts now, I can say that being a podcast guest is pretty great—it’s quick, efficient, conversational, and typically less involved than co-authoring a blog post or producing a video with somebody. When someone asks you to be a guest on their podcast, it’s very easy to say yes.

When you’re on the other side of the table and you’re the one recruiting podcasts guests the ask is simple and straightforward—show up and have a conversation with me for 30 minutes or an hour. The conversation is the product—it will need some editing and production polish, but it tends to be closer to the finished product than you’d be if your were writing a blog post or producing a video.

Podcasts are an easy way to produce long form content

Podcasts are a fast, direct path to creating the long form content that search engines love. While I don’t profess to be an expert on the extent to which podcast content helps with SEO, I do know that Google wants podcast content to be searchable. If there’s a north star that’s served me well when it comes to SEO, it’s that Google’s intention is to surface the best and most relevant content in response to any given search query—of course that content could be delivered in the form of a podcast (or a podcast transcription).

“If there’s a north star that’s served me well when it comes to SEO, it’s that Google’s intention is to surface the best and most relevant content in response to any given search query—of course that content could be delivered in the form of a podcast (or a podcast transcription).”

A 15-minute podcast transcription tends to be about 2,000 words—try writing a 2,000 word blog post 15 minutes. Podcasting is a much more efficient path to generating long form content for search engines to crawl.  

How do I decide which form of content to invest in?

Now that we’ve covered the benefits of podcasting, the question for start-up founders remains; which form of content should you be investing in? For bigger, less resource constrained companies the answer is often “all of them” and that’s totally appropriate; serving up content in a variety of formats likely makes sense. But for more resource constrained SaaS start-ups, this can be an important strategic decision.

My leading piece of advice is to follow the skills that you have on your team—if you have a savvy writer on your team, write blog posts. If someone on your team is a great conversationalist or interviewer, launch a podcast.

When it comes to the content we’ve produced so far at Outseta, I’ve primarily chosen to invest time and effort into generating long form blog content. While I can film a Soapbox or Loom video, I’m definitely not a videographer. And while I have a lot of experience conducting interviews, I’m much more effective taking the rough output of those conversations and weaving it into a compelling narrative than I am leading an interviewee intentionally and smoothly through a conversation. I’m no Bob Costas, so written content has won out for us.

Aside from the skills on your team and the content consumption tendencies of your audience, you also need to consider your product and the market that you’re trying to reach. For example, if your company serves the travel industry listening to a podcast that speaks about “the cool blue crystalline waters of Bora Bora” probably isn’t going to be as compelling as watching video content showing those waters gently lapping up on the island’s shores. This sort of market probably lends itself to more visually oriented video content, just as a company building word processing software might lean more towards written content.

Why blogging will make a comeback

I’m personally betting that blogging will have a resurgence of sorts, as the market for both podcasts and video content continues to expand. Why? Because whether we’re talking lead capture forms, or blogs, or bell-bottom jeans these things are largely cyclical—especially in the world of B2B SaaS.

As more content producers focus on channels aside from blogging, I also see the number of capable writers dwindling. We’re living in a time where written communication is increasingly taking the form of emojis and shorthand, where technology bootcamps are generally more interesting to students than English classes. Google’s smart reply feature is even trying to write our email responses for us.

While consumption patterns are undeniably growing faster for video and podcast content, movement in that direction will result in an even shorter supply of writing talent—providing an opportunity for companies that choose to invest in superlative written content.   

Why video content is king

Writing and podcasting aside, it’s very clear to me that video content will eventually reign supreme. I thinks this is the case for two reasons:

1. The barrier to entry with video content is the highest. It’s simply more difficult to put together well produced video content than written or audio content.
2. Video is as engaging, vivid, and rich of a format as content can take. For these reasons it can more effectively build brand authenticity, appeal to the emotions of buyers, and move an audience to action.

Because the barrier to creating video content is highest, there’s less of it out there. Type almost any search query into Google, then specifically search Google Videos for the same search terms. The difference in the quality, number, and relevance of the responses is significant. This is why SEO experts like Neil Patel have chosen to go all-in on video content recently—there’s simply more real estate and top search positions easily up for grabs with video.

There’s no simple answer to whether your company should be investing in video, written, or podcast content—but if you understand the unique benefits of each format, your target market, and your team’s internal skill set you can deliberately build your audience by investing in the content format that makes the most sense for your company.

‍

If you decide to start a podcast, I highly recommend checking out the post How To Start a Podcast from our friends at Transistor.fm.