Local Podcast Advertising: 3 Benefits of Using Podcast Ads

Podcasts are an advertising medium you not have considered for your local business campaign—but you should. They can be a powerful tool to expand your reach, connect with the local community, and, ultimately, grow your business. Learn about the benefits of podcast advertising for local businesses, how to maximize your podcast ad performance, and what to remember when assessing the results of your campaign.

What Are the Benefits of Local Podcast Advertising

Podcast advertising offers some advantages that might be difficult to achieve with traditional local advertising. Here’s how podcast advertising helps local businesses reach new customers and build lasting connections.

Authentic Storytelling

Podcasts are something else when it comes to how genuine the audience perceives them to be. To give an example, almost one in two listeners state that podcast hosts are more authentic than other public figures. For this reason, podcasts can be a great medium to advertise on if you want to build a strong relationship with your community—something any local business covets.

Precise Targeting

People are listening to podcasts all over the country, but what does it matter if you own a small yoga studio in the suburbs of Chicago? Luckily, this is where targeting kicks in. First, you can focus on geo—targeing your ad only for people located in a particular area. From there, you can use listening patterns and behavioral data to pinpoint the ideal audience for your ads and choose the shows or categories that would align with their interests. 

Cost-Effective Solution

Some local business owners may choose to avoid new advertising formats, with campaign costs being a big concern. But podcast advertising has solutions for every taste and budget. While you show-level buys and host-read ads might not be the right fit to advertise your local restaurant, there are tons of options available with the SiriusXM Podcast Network. For example, at our service AudioGO, there is plenty of flexibility to align your advertising budgets and objects with your podcast ad buy.

How to Maximize the Performance of Local Podcast Advertising

If you are new to podcast advertising, setting up your first campaign might feel overwhelming. We’re here to give you a few pointers on making your campaign deliver the desired results to help you achieve your business goals.

Embrace Geo targeting 

Geo targeting is a powerful instrument for any advertiser, but it becomes even more important for local businesses and brands. After all, advertising your Brooklyn-based pet store in Miami is likely a waste of your money, even if the podcast listeners are the perfect audience of pet lovers. Luckily, modern geo targeting capabilities allow you to choose plenty of options to reach listeners in your area. 

Use Audience Segments

We touched on location, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg when we talk about audience segmentation. Businesses can find their perfect customer-to-be based on their demographics (age, gender, income, etc.), interests, and lifestyle preferences. Podcast advertising offers a great mix of audience segmentation capabilities, giving every brand an opportunity to reach a highly targeted listener base who will want to hear what your business has to offer.

Don’t Be Afraid to Experiment

The work doesn’t stop when you launch your ad. And, using a trial-and-error approach can increase your chances of creating a campaign that will win the hearts of your audience. For example, you can test various ad lengths (15 seconds, 30 seconds, and 60 seconds) and placements to find what works best. In our case study, we talk about how different ad lengths have different advantages. Long-form ads work better to boost upper-funnel metrics, and shorter ads are very effective for the bottom of the funnel, such as purchase intent.  

Measuring Local Podcast Advertising Performance

Tracking ad performance can serve a few purposes for local businesses. It can help fine-tune a campaign to achieve better ROI, find ads that have the best audience response, and gain some insights about your listeners. Here are some basics of performance analytics that could come in handy if you’re new to podcast advertising.

Track Engagement Metrics

Keeping an eye on metrics is one of the best ways to see whether your campaign actually works. You can say much about the ad's success by analyzing a completion rate, click-through rate, or conversion rate. Use promo codes in your ads or unique URLs to see how many people this medium (or particular campaign) will bring to your business. While some of them are easy to find and interpret, you can get other information from a podcast network you work with. That’s a reason to choose a partner who pays attention to the quality of their data.

Know Your Campaign Objectives

Select your metrics and measurement techniques based on your advertising goals. For example, if your objective is to raise brand awareness, you might want to focus on a brand lift study or monitor your website and social media for an increase in visitors/followers. And, if you want to increase sales, an indication of the campaign’s efficiency would be the number of listeners who used promo codes or unique URLs created for this campaign. 

Local Podcast Advertising with SiriusXM Media

With more shows in the top 50 than any other network and 59 million monthly listeners, we proudly call ourselves experts in anything podcasts. And, we are ready to jump in and help you with your podcast advertising strategy no matter the size of your company or budget.

Want to take your local business to new heights? Let’s talk.

Learn More About Podcast Advertising