Digital content marketing has become an increasingly popular strategy for businesses looking to connect with the modern audience, especially for personal injury law firms. One channel that has become a very promising medium for content marketing that many law firms are utilizing is PODCASTING. And there is a good chance that you might have already participated in podcasts.
For those unfamiliar with the concept, a podcast is a simple audio program just like Talk Radio. You can subscribe to the podcast channels like YouTube and listen to them whenever you want.
Podcasting for law firms is different from other modern content creation strategies such as videos, guides, and blogs. Podcasting gives you the ability to reach a wider audience with great stories in conversational, mobile, and bingeable ways. The podcasting medium is only getting bigger and broader. How much bigger, you ask?
Let’s look at some stats via the Infinite Dial 2020 report from Edison Research:
- 68% of Americans (approx. 192 million people) listened to online audio last month. The online audio includes AM/FM stations online and listening to streamed audio content available only online, like a podcast.
- Americans spend 15 hours a week listening to online audio. That’s approximately 100% more than the average time spent in 2010.
- 75% of Americans age 12+ (Approx. 212 million people) are now familiar with podcasting, versus 70% in 2019.
- 55% of Americans age 12+ (Approx. 155 million people) listened to a podcast in 2020.
- In Feb 2020, around 37% (Approx. 104 million) of Americans listened to podcasts.
- “Podcasts now reach over 100 million Americans every month,” said Tom Webster, SVP of Edison Research, “and are attracting an increasingly diverse audience. Also, with 62% of Americans now saying they have used some kind of voice assistance technology, audio is becoming a bigger part of our everyday lives.” Copied From: https://www.edisonresearch.com/the-infinite-dial-2020/
So if you are looking to connect with a broader audience, the podcast might perfectly fit your audience and your marketing objectives; maybe you are ready to invest the time.
You don’t have to become Sarah Koenig or Ira Glass to get success in podcasting. All you need is a strategy, respect for the audience’s time, and willingness to invest time and effort in creating meaningful content.
In this blog, we will help you create a winning strategy.
Podcasting Strategy: Analyze your topic, Budget, and Goals.
If you have decided to start your podcast, it is important to think about your answers to the following questions. We recommend talking through each of your questions and answering with your team and making sure you have a detailed response.
Who is your audience?
You need to decide who will listen to your podcast. How do you know those people listen to podcasts? How will they get to know about YOUR podcast?
Do you have enough time to make this happen?
Running a law practice is not an easy job. It takes a unique personality to juggle multiple cases, manage countless meetings, and respond to dozens of follow-up emails and tasks every day. You’d be hard-pressed to find a professional with more on his plate than a lawyer.
To build an audience for your podcast, you need to create at least 1 episode every week for the first six months and two episodes every week after that. You should make one blog launch post for every episode and other promotional assets (We will cover this in part 2 of this series). And producing each episode requires time in writing, scheduling, and much more. You need to be sure if you can devote this time to your already tight schedule.
Do you have a budget?
Although producing podcasts is relatively inexpensive, you still need to chalk out the budget to have a clear idea of cash you need to keep aside from your total marketing budget. First, you will need podcast hosting services like Libysn (~ $20/month). You also need to buy original music and voice-over to give your extra podcast polish (~$200). You may also need audio editing services if you are not familiar with editing software ($80-$200/episode). And you will need some equipment of your own to record your episodes (Let’s say at $300).
This covers the cost of producing the podcasts; promoting the podcast will have its budget (We will cover this briefly in our next part of this series)
In addition, if you need to hire a host to conduct expert interviews, the cost of hiring the host really varies based on experience. If you don’t want to hire an outside expert, you can ask someone from your staff to be a host.
How will you measure success?
How will you know if you are getting returns on your investment? From your law firm KPIs. You will have to track KPIs such as the number of unique downloads every week or month. Downloads per episode, number of subscribers, and monitor your social media traction. Most importantly, you will have to measure the number of qualified leads generated from the podcasts and, thereby, revenue.
Ready to start podcasting?
We will talk about the logistics of podcasting and promotional strategy for law firms in our next blog. Stay Tuned!
