Podcasts are more than just a trend; they’ve become widely used as dynamic content marketing platforms. Brands use them to tell stories, share research findings, and discuss abstract, complex topics. They allow marketers to connect with a large audience, ultimately boosting awareness and establishing thought leadership.

As marketers become more hooked on them, podcasts are also gaining popularity among consumers. In fact, the podcast audience has consistently grown at a rate of 10-20% per year. However, with an increased pool of podcasters creating over 525,000 active podcasts, it can be difficult to inch your way in and gain loyal listeners. 

To help you start driving more audiences to your podcast, we’ve come up with these six topic ideas for your B2B business:

Host an Interview with Your CEO

One way to achieve a greater podcast following is to get intel from your c-suite team members, especially your CEO. You should leverage their experience in the field through a Q&A style episode. 

Throughout the interview, you can ask them how they started their business, what steps they took to get to where they are today, and where they foresee their business and the industry in the next few years. This type of podcast is an effective way to give your executives a voice and humanize your brand for listeners. 

Ask the Expert

While it’s critical to get exposure for your CEO, it’s also important to give voice to the other team members of your team. If you have several teams within your company, leverage their expertise to provide more in-depth insights into various topic areas that are relevant to your target audiences. 

A podcast with different episodes and narrators will be key to captivate users. This style ensures that they are hearing the perspectives of not one, but many different employees. Therefore, your audiences will gain a more holistic experience with key information from every team. 

Q&A Style

In the B2B space, it’s critical that your messaging resonates with the decision makers of your target audiences. This means you need to share content that identifies the reasons why your products and services will solve their business’ needs. 

To do this effectively, post an episode that lets your audience ask the questions. Let them lead the podcast by asking them for their input via email, mail, or social. Once you receive enough questions, you can have your experts give their best attempts at answering them. By letting your audience lead the podcast, you’ll have a clear direction for where to steer the podcast and any other marketing content moving forward.

A Chat with a Client: Why They Chose Us

Podcasts are an invaluable way to quickly share stories; and what better story to tell than a success story? Bring an existing client into your office and ask them questions about their relationship with your business. This will provide an authentic, real-time experience for listeners, while providing your B2B company with an invaluable case study for future work.  

The goal of this episode is to get your client excited about the partnership, which will work twofold – it will expose their brand and the success they’ve seen with your products and services, while also validating your own brand’s achievements with another business. 

Cover Industry Events

Events and podcasts are effective because they both provide an immersive experience for audiences. But bringing them together can create an even more profound experience. 

To achieve this, attend an industry event and comment live on what you’re hearing. When you take breaks in between sessions, you can share your own feedback and thoughts on what topics they’re covering and what insights they want you to know. By providing this event coverage, you’ll establish a point of view and provide audiences with an educational experience related to your industry. 

One Story in One Minute

With the rise of the internet and mobile, today’s consumers are overstimulated by distractions day in and day out. This has caused the majority of consumers to rely on platforms that provide information quickly, making podcasts the go-to source of information at home (82%), during a commute (78%), or while doing housework (65%). 

To keep their attention, provide shortened, brief episodes that tell a story in a minute. Or dive into a complex topic with quick snippets of information that give a good overview of what listeners should know. This will entice viewers to click, because they won’t be committing to a lengthy conversation, rather they’ll have time to listen and move onto their other tasks, all while gaining new information. 

With 19% of listeners increasing the speed of their podcasts, it’s evident that consumers want information – and fast(er). Therefore, your quick minute episodes are an effective way to attract these audiences in the short term to capture their interest for the long term.   

Keep on Podcasting

Podcasts are an invaluable way to provide a voice for your brand, humanize the experience for consumers, and share stories about your business. And just because you’re marketing in professional services, doesn’t mean you can’t share abstract ideas in a creative way. ‘A Chat with a Client’ or ‘Asking the Expert’ are just a few of many topic ideas that will captivate your audiences.

With a unique topic idea and a clever title, your podcast will start climbing to the top of podcast lists and to the top of consumer’s minds.