Why 30-Minute Long Podcasts Are the Top-Rated Branded Shows
Check out the findings from CoHost’s latest study to understand how your brand can leverage podcasts to connect and engage with your audience.
Podcasts are growing in popularity. Many brands have recognized this and started leveraging them to connect and engage with their audiences. But before a business plans to jump onto the bandwagon, it should understand the landscape. CoHost recently conducted a study to gain insights from brands already using podcasts. Check out the findings.
Podcasts have been popular for a while, and their popularity continues to grow. According to a recent study by Edison Research, about 62 million Americans had already listened to a podcast this year, compared to 57 million people last year. And the number is expected to reach 177 million by the end of 2022. With this growing popularity, brands can no longer ignore the power of podcasts. Podcasts seem the obvious next step for brands to reach out to their audiences after blogs and videos.
However, before jumping on the podcast bandwagon, businesses and brands should understand the landscape and the competition well. CoHost recently conducted a study to gain insights from brands already leveraging podcasts. Here are a few findings from the survey.
Most Top-rated Shows Are B2C Podcasts
The study found that 70% of the top ten branded podcasts were from B2C brands. B2C podcasts often try to reach wider audiences, while B2B podcasts look for niche, targeted audiences. It is unsurprising that B2C podcasts had more reviews, leading to higher ratings.
The study also found B2C businesses having a 95% more average number of Apple Reviews than their B2B counterparts. That said, the latter had a little higher average Apple Rating (4.6) than the former (4.5).
While reviews and ratings are vital metrics to understand a podcast’s engagement and popularity, sophisticated marketers use diverse analytics and data to measure a podcast’s success. For example, the average consumption rate indicates how much the audience engages with the content.
See more: Why Podcast Advertising Should be a Part of Your Marketing Strategy
Interviews and Discussions Are Common Podcast Styles
Brands usually lean toward content formats that help them engage with their audience and credibly position themselves. Brands can use several creative ways to improve and add unique elements to a standard format.
The study found that when it came to podcast formats, interview/discussion formats were the most chosen ones by brands, with 63% using them. Interview formats followed this. The least popular format was discussion/journalistic (1%).
Most popular branded podcast formats
Source: State of Branded Podcasts: 2022 Report
These percentages may be for a reason. The interview/discussion format came out on top when looking at the top-rated podcast formats. On the other hand, the journalistic format was the lowest rated.
Tip: Here is a quick tip for choosing a podcast format. Before starting a branded podcast, ask your team members to remember their favorite podcasts and the reason they like the format. This can help you define the podcast format you would like to work with. Then, you can add unique elements to it.
Podcast Formats Vary in Length
Different formats of podcasts run for different lengths of time. For example, interview/discussion formats clock in at an average of 33 minutes, while journalistic and fiction formats are shorter (an average of 20 minutes or less). It may be hypothesized that these two podcast types are resource-intensive, so brands opt for shorter lengths. Further, it was also found that the solo discussion format had the shortest episode length at six minutes.
Mid-length Podcasts Are Top-rated Among Branded Podcasts
What should be the ideal podcast length? At the outset, it boils down to your capacity, podcast format, and audience preferences. The best practice is to study podcasts the audience listens to and observe the podcast lengths. From there, consider your audience profiles to understand when they are listening to the podcast, and the time they can spend listening to it. Lastly, test episode lengths to understand what length your audience prefers.
The study found that podcasts with an average length of 21-30 minutes were the top-rated branded shows. Podcast ratings increased and peaked for this length of time. The ratings were also slightly high for the length of 41-50 minutes and then gradually declined.
Podcast rating by length
Source: State of Branded Podcasts: 2022 Report
The study also found that the average length of a branded podcast episode is 30 minutes, which coincides with the top-rated length.
Business-related Genres Have Top-rated Categories
There are several different categories and subcategories of podcasts. When determining a branded podcast category, consider what your audiences are likely looking for and the kind of podcast you want yours to appear with.
The study found that, overall, business-related genres had the most top-rated categories. About 40% of the top-rated categories were in the Business category (entrepreneurship, investing, management, and marketing). About 20% were in News (business news and news), and another 20% were in Arts (fashion, beauty, and arts). Category-wise, Business News was the top-rated category. This was followed by Fashion and Beauty and then, Investing.
The most popular category was Business, with about 50% of podcasts using it, followed by Technology (26%) and Society and Culture (11%).
Branded Podcasts Live On
Podcasts are becoming a successful marketing medium for businesses. The study found that 69.2% of branded podcasts are still active, and the active ones have been producing podcasts for an average of 3.5 years.
Podcasts should focus on not only phenomenal content but also consistency. Most brands with active podcasts seem to have understood this.
See more: How Advertisers Can Win Over Podcast Audiences With Targeted Content: Nielsen Data Reveals
Most Branded Podcasts Post Weekly and Without Seasons
The study found that 35% of branded podcasts post once a week, with 23% posting once every two weeks, as it keeps the audience engaged and gives the business enough time to produce new episodes. Daily and bulk drop are the least common posting schedules. The thought behind a bulk drop schedule is that the audience can binge-listen to the series. These brands may also not be planning on consistently producing podcasts.
Most podcasts (73%) also don’t offer seasonal breaks for their shows. Only the remaining 27% added seasons to their shows.
Branded Podcasts Will Stay for the Foreseeable Future
The findings from the report show that branded podcasts are a strong sector in podcasting. More brands leverage podcasts’ power every year to drive reach, engagement, and revenues. As effective storytelling remains the key focus for most brands, podcasts offer a powerful way to achieve it. Because of their convenient, intimate, and authentic nature, podcasts can bring the human element back to brands. It can be safely predicted that more brands will adopt this medium in the years to come.
Are you branded podcasts to reach and engage your audiences? What best practices are you following? Let us know on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Image source: Shutterstock
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