Investing Time and Resources in a New Podcast
Q. We have been approached by leadership to create a podcast as a tool to help educate the public while highlighting our providers and services. I am hoping to get some insight from those already creating podcasts. How difficult are they to create and manage? Is it worth the investment of time and resources?
A. I think the biggest challenge centers around whether you can build a steady stream of content that will truly engage enough listeners to build a following and make it worth the time of the contributors. That probably requires a commitment of doing at least one podcast a month at minimum and ideally more. If you are going to do it, I think it has to come with additional resources and/or a tradeoff of something else.
A. We are starting to hear from consumer marketers about "podcast fatigue," as major national figures and causes, and media organizations are adding more podcasts. Some consumers also report signing up for multiple podcasts but then not having time to listen. I have heard some good discussions about whether consumers see hospitals as the kind of service that they contact often enough that a podcast will be useful, versus a more regularly used service.
A. We have had mixed success with podcasts. In the cases where they were successful, the hospital marketing staff produced podcasts that gave consumers the kind of information they were looking for about diseases, conditions and treatment options. The less successful podcasts tended to be too self-promotional and not consumer-focused. If you outsource it, be sure to use a company that has a lot of experience. There is a lot more to podcasting than just recording the audio.
A. I actually just got back from a great conference on women in podcasting and it showed not only that podcasts are still a growing market, but that there is a need for more voices of women and people of color. The podcasts that do best are not just informative; they also have personality. People listen in stops and starts, but what keeps them coming back is not just a love of the content but a feeling of connection with the host.
A. A new study indicates that new podcast listeners skew heavily female and that more women are becoming podcast listeners. Sixty-three percent of weekly podcast listeners who started listening in the past seven to 12 months were women. As far as length of podcasts for health care subjects goes, we've found that about 8 to 12 minutes hits the sweet spot for attention span.
