Types of Podcast
From serial dramas to daily newswires, how to choose a podcast format can seem daunting. Let’s break down some of the most common podcast formats and their pros and cons…
Serialised Stories
When a lot of people think of podcasts, they think of something that just goes on forever — but the beauty of the podcast format is that it can be considered as ‘modern radio’, and self-contained stories with a finite number of episodes are some of the most popular and memorable cultural touchpoints in art. The great thing about serialised stories is that they’re evergreen; it doesn’t matter when a ‘limited run’ podcast is discovered, it’ll always be relevant and always has the potential to grow in regard. From fiction to true crime, there’s a very broad scope for serialised stories, but how they’ll work for your business in terms of communicating your message will require careful consideration and integration into a broader communications plan. Furthermore — and especially in the case of true crime — to stand out in quite a crowded market listeners have an expectation of more planning and production value, from sound effects and music to a variety of voices and original research.
Series Stories
In contrast to a serial, long-term series have no end in sight. Whether it’s a soap opera style drama or an ongoing exploration of a broad topic, the goal for a series is for listeners to tune in regularly to get the latest updates on your story. Because of this, it’s important to have a regular, largely unbroken release schedule; being reliable is very important with series stories, and the rewards in listener loyalty can pay dividends. Whether fiction or human interest, a story series (just like a serial) will require careful consideration as to its place in your communications plan. For many podcasts that successfully implement this style, the podcast itself is the product and revenue from advertising and sponsorship — even product placement — is the goal.
One-off Documentary
There’s no rule that a podcast has to be drawn out over multiple episodes, or even particularly that it has to be a certain length. Deep dives into a single topic over the course of a single long form listening experience can be very effective ways to communicate something important to your brand, providing listeners with a neatly packaged, authoritative view on a subject. There’s less of a requirement to get your listeners on board with the concept of podcasts with a one-off, too; no need to worry about listener drop-off, or persuading them to subscribe. An evergreen, exhaustive single episode documentary podcast can be a great way to develop your brand’s opinion leading objectives with a tightly defined project length and budget.
Chat Series
Whether comedy or current affairs, the chat format is the largest and most recognisable podcast format. Two or three people engagingly talking into mics and drawing in an audience is what many people picture as what a podcast is, and for good reason: they’re relatively simple to achieve from a technical standpoint and when things are established they’re very quick to turn around, and so there is no shortage of them in the marketplace. With all this popularity comes a need to stand out, though, and so it’s worth considering what your expertise is and why you’re worth listening to. Considering who your hosts will be is crucial, too; with the right training most people can be an engaging presence, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to have a known name as a draw either. Done right — and reliably regularly — you’ll be rewarded with audiences that come for the subject and stick around for the hosts. Chat podcasts aren’t by any means the only podcast format, but to many they’re the holy grail as the closeness they develop with an audience is difficult to replicate with any other communication tactic.
Interview Series
The chat format between regular hosts is handily self contained, but discovery can be an issue. By implementing an interview podcast format, bringing in relevant external voices to your audience and subject matter, you can leverage the interviewee’s network reach whilst ensuring things stay fresh and relevant for your audience. What’s more, the interview format is great in and of itself for networking in your industry — we’ve found that our clients have had doors open and valuable relationships created off the back of their interview podcasts. Managed remotely, interview talent can come from anywhere in the world, too; as long as your podcast’s aims are well defined and your scheduling managed appropriately, the interview podcast format can provide a regular, never-ending source of content that can position your brand positively.
Newswire Reports
As we’ve said, there’s no set-in-stone rules for podcasting formats. Considering your audience’s needs should always come first, and if your industry is fast-paced and ever-changing, the newswire format might be ideal. Twice a week (or maybe even daily), a short roundup of the latest relevant news and information is perfect for the morning coffee or commute of audiences that need to be ahead of the curve. Newswire podcasts can be low on resource intensity and even help your own process, as they can be as simple as a ten minute digest of the publications you scour in the mornings. As long as you’re set up effectively for fast turnaround having a newswire is a very effective way to position yourself as an opinion leader and expert voice in your industry, and because of the specificity in audience, an established newswire can be a potentially lucrative revenue generator for sponsorship and advertisement too.
Educational
Being able to provide your audience with evergreen, valuable content is one of the strongest ways to establish yourself as a leader in your field whilst managing the amount of resource you can dedicate to podcasts. If your strategic goals involve positioning your brand as an oracle and showing you understand your subject matter and audience’s needs deeply, then educational podcasts can be a fantastic tool for achieving them. From short lectures to longer serialised courses, the advantages of educational podcasts is that the ‘content’ is already there for you: the value you can bring is your ability to communicate it effectively to your audience. Whether this involves expert educational speakers, pedagogically supported teaching techniques, interviews, or even short dramas to illustrate your points, there’s a huge opportunity in educational podcasting to prove your value to your audience.
Establishing Audience Needs
It’s marketing 101: success relies on delivering something that an audience wants. Figuring out what type of podcast you want to make isn’t just about gravitating toward what’s easiest for you but instead being realistic about the value to your audience… with your audience being the key word. If you decide to create a laid back weekly chat about the week’s TV in order to fulfil the criteria of “we need a podcast”, you might find it difficult to gain any traction in competition with the thousands of other podcasts doing exactly the same thing. Then, even if you do, what is the crossover between your target market and the audience you do manage to generate? If you’re a property firm, it’s unlikely you’ll get any greater density of your target audience compared to a random sample of the population — which might call into question the value of the endeavour in the first place when considering the opportunity costs. If instead you create a newswire focusing on industry developments with occasional interviews with leading figures in the industry, you will immediately have a hook specific to other organisations in the industry. If you focus on human interest based location information and an “what to do when buying a house” series, you’ll be able to attract consumers in the housing market.
The format of your podcast is crucial, and a creative and needs-based approach will maximise the value of the resources you put in to podcast creation.
Resources: Being Realistic
There’s no getting around it: there are a LOT of podcasts. Over 4,000,000 in fact, with over 700,000 currently active. And that number means podcasts as analogous to ‘shows’ — each of those could have one, ten, or a thousand episodes (check out our white paper on The State of Podcasting in 2024 for some must-know information!). So… your podcast needs to be good to stand out. But realistically, it also needs to be promoted as part of your marcoms plan, and it needs to be regular if you’re planning a series and highly polished if it’s a single or limited serialisation.
It’s absolutely possible for a podcast to generate income to support itself and provide a living on its own merits, but to get to that scale almost always requires time, investment, and dedication. Let’s take a look at some of the ways podcasting can be resource intensive to help you figure out the approach that works for you:
Location
When you think of great quality audio and an eye catching set, you might immediately think of a studio. For the cream of the crop, where production values are part of the brand, then a dedicated studio space might be the way to go… but studios are expensive. Really expensive. Not only that, they require people to be onsite and technical production to be on hand.
At Remote-CTRL we pride ourselves on making a penny sound and look like a pound, and have developed methods to deliver content that approaches the visual appeal and audio sheen of a studio podcast remotely, at a tiny fraction of the cost. Travel time? Gone. Having guests? Suddenly your pool is worldwide. We can even work on a hybrid approach, where our experts will kit out an on-site recording space and remotely produce for you.
A dedicated studio podcast with its own set, or even booking a shared studio space that allows limited branding, will always have a higher cost associated with it than a remote or on-site podcast. It’s up to you to consider how those costs fit in with the goals of your podcast and the communication to your audience.
Technology
It doesn’t matter how polished a podcast is, the content is key… but at the same time, quality of audio and video is important. Poor quality video — and especially audio — can confuse, annoy, and ultimately alienate listeners, but the good news is that professional fidelity doesn’t cost the world. In fact, just getting to the point where quality is good enough not to turn people away can be done with a very small equipment and software budget; here at Remote-CTRL we have a deep understanding of how to install cost efficient technology and workflows into podcasts, with an eye on incremental improvement and investment once a concept has been proven.
There’s a surprising amount of technology consideration with a podcast, from which microphones to use for podcasts (and which types of podcast benefit from which types of microphones), podcasting audio mixers, remote recording and production software, computers and hardware for recording, room treatment for the best sound… and that’s just audio. Selecting and setting up cameras, lights, and video mixers is a whole other can of worms, and for many clients the additional complexity of video podcasting is actually a helpful brick wall for them to consider whether they actually need video (and certainly to what extent) to communicate effectively with their audience.
The more professionally focused the technology, the less beginner friendly it’ll be; a professional microphone and camera kit in inexperienced hands will often deliver poorer results than a beginner focused one. At Remote-CTRL we work with clients based on their needs and skills, as well as any of the myriad corporate IT based headaches we’ve seen a thousand times, to recommend and install the best possible solution for any given budget and goal.
Frequency and Content Costs
All too often we’ll speak to people that start off saying “we need a podcast”… but they’re not quite sure what or why, and crucially they haven’t considered the resource costs. In order for a podcast to be an effective marketing communications tool, it’s vital to consider the intensity with which you can resource it. If you can’t comprehend committing to a day or two’s work a week, then a weekly podcast is a tall order. If your network doesn’t extend to 20 or so people who you can tie down to a recording session during planning stages, an interview format is going to be tough.
Of course, at Remote-CTRL we specialise in taking care of all that. We take care of production needs for our clients ranging from scheduling and recording with hosts and guests, to delivering the research and talking topics for each podcast, all the way through to a 100% managed service where we source hosts and guests — and this is done alongside our discovery phase where we help clients figure out what type of podcast is right for them based on their goals and budget in the first place, from twice weekly newswire formats through to one-off evergreen deep dives.
Wrapping Up
Figuring out what type of podcast is right for you involves examining your goals, your audience’s needs, and the time and money you can invest in making it valuable for you. Whether you’re hoping to hit the top charts and become a household name or you need to become an authority in your marketing niche, we can help you at Remote-CTRL. Why not get in touch and have a chat about how we can help?
