By Robyn Sachs, President & CEO of RMR & Associates

Marketing your business in a digital landscape requires new channels and methods to engage target audiences and convey your message. If you’re not familiar with podcasting and the tremendous benefits it can offer to your business, there’s never been a better time. Far from a new tool, podcasting has become a central strategy to build brand awareness and thought leadership positioning. Don’t wait any longer and miss out on what having a podcast can do for you and your business. Here are just a few of the benefits you’ll likely see.

Brand yourself as a thought leader and build trust

Incorporating podcasts into your larger marketing strategy is a great way to cement your status as an expert and luminary in your industry. You have the ability to speak on a specific topic on a platform that you control, and the continued visibility you establish by regularly podcasting on timely topics affecting your industry and customers earns you recognition and trust that can lead to growth through new clients and referrals, as well as other related opportunities to build your brand, such as contributed articles and press interviews.

Make more personal connections

One important distinction podcasts offer over blogs and print media is the ability to foster more personal relationships with your audience using your voice. The style and tone you establish can endear listeners to you and this again helps build awareness for your brand and leadership in your key areas.

Flexibility means enhanced listenership

The podcast format has increased flexibility built-in. The listener can join in from anywhere, anytime and can be doing other things while they interact with your message. This allows you to build a larger listener base since there are multiple “entry points” for your audience to participate.

Easy, cost-effective brand awareness

Setting up and recording a podcast is fairly easy to do, and that makes it one of the most accessible, cost-effective vehicles to enhance your business’ brand visibility. All you really need is a computer, most of which have microphones built-in that are suitable for recording purposes and a program to edit audio files to ensure everything sounds smooth and professional before you post it. A simple investment in these tools is all you really need to get off and podcasting — for a fraction of the price of traditional advertising.

Final thoughts

In addition to its clear benefits for expanding your thought leadership authority and allowing you to promote your business and expertise in a dynamic, personal channel that you control, podcasts deliver countless other benefits for your organization’s growth. Benefits include the ability to enhance your search engine optimization (SEO) visibility through posting new content, build a community around issues that matter to you and your work, and drive additional traffic to your website, just to name a few. Podcasts also enable you to fully execute on an omnichannel marketing approach that gets your name out there in front of more audiences, with content you control, that achieves real results in the form of engagement and lead conversions.

If you’re still on the side of the podcast pool thinking about dipping your toe in, it’s never been a better time to jump right in. Your business — and your current and future audiences — will thank you.

To read more of Robyn’s articles for the Washington Business Journal Leadership Trust, please visit: