5 reasons why you should start your own podcast in 2020:
1. Podcasts are becoming more popular and relevant in day to day culture.
2019 has been a defining year for the podcast scene with numbers from Spotify indicating that over 53% of their users are monthly consumers of podcasts, this percentage grew by 32% from 2018. Moreover, in the US around 20% of the population have listened to a podcast in the last month while in South Africa, according to the Reuters Digital News Report 2019, 43% of the online population have listened to a podcast in the last month. These numbers make a convincing argument for people seeking to build a community around their brand to venture into podcasting. Should this trend continue, over the next few years, podcasting will continue be an integral part of building a personal, business or organisational brand.
2. Podcasts, if successful can generate immense revenue.
With an increasing listener base, podcasting is bound to attract agencies seeking to market their brands through popular podcasts. This is a good sign for podcasts that have grown to attract a large audience and has proven to be extremely successful for some e.g Joe Rogan, a podcasting veteran is said to make up to $16 Million from his podcast in a year. The advertising market in podcasting was also valued at $314 Million in 2017 by IAB. Hence, podcasting can potentially create a vast amount of revenue depending on the size of the listener base.
3. Podcasts are becoming more diverse.
Most people have seen a trend in podcasts focusing on self help, business, news and politics, however there is more to podcasting than just this. Google reported that they indexed over 2 million podcasts on their platform while Apple registered nearly 800,000 podcasts on theirs. Among this wide range of podcasts, you find that niche’s have developed on these platforms, with some podcasts covering topics such as conspiracies and others, education. Hence, if you thought that there is no space for you in the podcasting industry, you thought wrong. Podcasting is changing everyday and has the capacity to accommodate your niche.
4. They are easy to start.
Podcasts are usually seen as high tech projects that will cost you hundreds of dollars to start with barely any ROI to be seen for years to come. This is false. As technology has advanced, podcasting platforms have become more inclusive for content creators. Nowadays, creating, editing and posting podcasts has never been easier. With https://anchor.fm you can record your podcasts from your phone, edit it and post it within a few minutes of your final recording. The audio quality on some phones will surprise you and it would be great to test it out before you completely reject the idea of starting a podcast. If you are looking for something slightly more professional, you can buy a USB microphone on amazon for as low as $50 that will connect to any laptop and help you record your podcasts in better quality. Therefore, podcasting in the modern day is something that can be done anywhere by anyone.
5. Podcasts are convenient for the listener. One benefit of podcasting is the fact that it is an audio only experience. This means that unlike videos, you don’t have to be fully engaged with your sight and hearing, you can listen to a podcast while doing something else. The Podcast Trends Report 2018 showed that around 78% of all people who listened to podcasts did so while commuting. Such a model of content creation allows for greater ease of access for the end consumer because they no longer have to carve out time to make room for your podcast in their busy schedule. This can also be applied to settings such as Nairobi where the average person can spend up to 55.79 minutes in traffic daily, which is roughly 1.5 times the length of time it takes to complete the average podcast. Hence, this could be seen as a potential market that podcasters could target based on their context.
Sources: