Podcasting has long been a popular, low-cost pursuit for independent storytellers, with bedrooms, kitchens, and garden sheds often doubling up as makeshift recording studios.

It’s only really in the past few years, however, following podcasts’ migration from iPod to smartphone, that brands and publishers have started to sit up and take notice, with impressive podcast audience data beginning to surface.

In October 2014, we brought Acast from Sweden to the UK, and set up in a small room in Kings Cross. As a dedicated, full-service podcasting platform, our plan was to revolutionise the format; moving it away from the perception of being a niche form of media, and to take it into the collective mainstream. With proper monetisation, original content ideas, and improved production values, we believed podcasting held untapped potential – indeed, the fact that you can’t read while you’re listening to a podcast means it is unrivalled as a premium audio product.

It was the arrival of Serial, coincidentally within weeks of our UK launch, that ignited the podcast explosion. The untold true story of high schooler Hae Min Lee, her murder in 1999, and her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed’s conviction, became a phenomenal global success, and the fastest ever podcast to reach five million downloads and streams on iTunes.

Two years down the line, we are finalising our third office move, as we continue to scale up in response to the steep growth in podcast popularity, while advertisers are becoming more aware of the value of immersing themselves in audio.

So what’s changed? Media agencies are now fully on board. Most of our initial revenue came from direct clients, which meant there were fewer decision-makers in the process, and therefore fewer people that needed convincing of the value in using podcasts. Now, everyone in the chain from audio visual buyers, through to planning, strategists and the clients, appreciate the power of the spoken word.

But it’s not all direct response and E-Commerce. A great strength of podcasts is the ability to attribute sales and sign-ups to individual podcasts, as the hosts endorse a service or product, and can offer a unique code for their podcast. In our first year, the majority of advertising revenue was host-read sponsorship. Although that increased in our second year, it has almost been caught up by dynamically-inserted ads, and even this is now under threat by branded content, alongside programmatic audio, as we look towards 2017.

Today, podcasting is attracting much larger branding campaigns, from motor companies, film distributors, TV Networks, phone manufacturers, and finance clients. Brands are realising that podcasts are the perfect place to tell a story, where you have a deeply engaged, on-demand audience hanging on your every word. Why rent space in someone else’s podcast when you can create your own content? That’s the message now getting through to brands.

We’re delighted to see the number of female podcasters on the rise. Female-led podcasts now represent over 50% of the content that we currently sign. Another emerging trend is that of social influencers entering the space – YouTubers and Instagramers have realised they can use podcasts to engage with their audiences on a more intimate level. Shows such as Ctrl Alt Delete from Emma Gannon, and Deliciously Stella from Bella Younger, are paving the way for this transition, while TV personalities can take encouragement from the success of Dawn O’Porter’s debut podcast, Get It On.

Recent audience research points to the overall growth of podcasting in the UK. We have experienced a rise in monthly ‘listens’ from 450k in October 2014 to 11 million in September 2016. Furthermore, our most recent audience survey, conducted over August-September 2016 (distributed by podcasters and which gathered over 5000 respondents), revealed that the average UK podcast aficionado is, by and large:

• Affluent (one in five earns over 100k per annum)
• One in five run their own business
• 76% listen to BBC Radio, 62% do not listen to commercial radio and 81% can’t be reached by advertisers on Spotify
• 85% listening on mobile, 90% on headphones, as they are constantly on go

This audience demographic is undeniably appealing, but it’s the overall effectiveness of podcast advertising that is particularly striking to brands and marketers. The survey also told us that 53% of listeners have visited a website or searched online for a brand heard advertised on a podcast. Subsequently, 12% have bought a product heard advertised in a podcast.

Promising conversion rates indicate that podcast advertising holds significant revenue potential for brands of all shapes and sizes. Whether its through consultation, production and hosting, distribution, and even promotion, podcast platforms can offer brands a way to tap into new audiences previously out of reach. If you work with brands that have a story to tell, then perhaps podcasting is for you too.

 

By Ross Adams, UK country manager for Acast

 

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