Looking to drive more leads to your B2B podcast? Of course, you are. And if, by a slim chance, lead generation was not top on your agenda when venturing into creating a branded podcast, it should!

Podcasting is a gift that keeps on giving. As we mentioned in a previous lesson, making offers within your episode is a golden lead generation opportunity. It’s an entry point for prospects to start engaging with your brand.

The very nature of podcasts makes them a quintessential avenue to reach and convert qualified leads—with statistics backing this up.

According to a survey by Midroll Media, podcasts have huge lead generation potential. Around 8 in 10 survey participants reported paying attention to podcast ads. And another 60% bought a product after it was mentioned on a podcast—with this number soaring to 72% among long-time (4+ years) podcast listeners.

In other words, a branded podcast is a brilliant way to supercharge your brand awareness, brand engagement, and lead generation. It’s a chance to share expertise, insights, and your wealth of information with a target audience.

B2B podcasting shines the light on the true superpower of your brand – i.e., the humans behind it. And when you play your cards right, you could reel in leads by the masses.

But as potent as B2B podcasting is as a lead generation machine, you’ll still need to put in the legwork. You can’t publish episodes and sit back, waiting for leads to flow in. That’s not how it works. At least not in the beginning.

The best lead generation podcasts are proactive in implementing the best practices in the industry—and we’ll show you exactly how to take your lead generation efforts up a notch.

This post is the 24th in a series of “Podcasting Mastered” chapters designed to help you launch and grow an enterprise lead-generating podcast.

There has never been a better time to make your voice heard – and we’re here to help master the art of podcasting with step-by-step guides.

Get the new chapters sent directly to your inbox, as soon as they release.

We follow strict no-spam policy. Your information will not be sold.

Key Takeaways – Creating a Lead Generation Podcast.

1. Tap into B2B podcast guests
2. Make appearances on other podcasts
3. Tell a story that connects with prospects
4. Address customer pain points
5. Incentivize with your CTA (Call to Action)
6. Optimize your landing page
7. Create effortless opt-ins to your B2B podcast
8. Set up email capture systems
9. Repurpose your branded podcast episodes
10. Episodes and content should be easy to share
11. Cross-promote
12. Encourage backlinking
13. Get your customers/listeners involved
14. Constantly gauge your audience
15. Tap into the power of video

15 Tips and Best Practices to Get Leads from a Podcast.

Creating a great B2B podcast is only one piece of the lead generation puzzle. It would help if you had a plan or tactics to drive leads to your podcast—and eventually to your business. It would be best if you put thought and strategy into your endeavor to see sustainable, favorable results.

Wondering where to start? 

Here are some tips to get leads from a podcast and effectively move them along the buyer’s journey—drawing on our experience in the industry and in-depth research into the best practices. Implementing some of these ideas may give you the competitive edge you need to catapult your business to the next level.

1. Tap into Your B2B Podcast Guests.

Most people launch a B2B podcast with the goal of connecting to a target audience —and this is great! You ideally want to hold value-packed and compelling interviews with well-known guests to make your show as authoritative as possible. This makes your listeners more likely to seek your services or products.

But in the well-intended quest to appease your podcast listeners, it’s easy to forget that your podcast guest could be a valuable lead. 

Think about it: this is someone who is likely already invested in your niche. And if they have a good reputation in your industry, they also likely have connections with other prospects.

Each interview is an opportunity to get leads from a podcast. Go out of your way to make the guest’s experience as seamless and enticing as possible. Get them to trust you. Leverage the opportunity to learn more about their needs and wants. Show them that you’re an expert in what you do. Let them know you have what they need; that you can solve their problems.

The intimate setting of a lead generation podcast is a great way to build meaningful relationships with guests and their followers. So don’t be shy to ask your guests for referrals. It’s a brilliant way of expanding your network of contacts and driving leads.

2. Make Appearances on Other Podcasts.

Here’s an out-of-the-box idea… Put down your podcasting equipment and close up your recording studio once in a while. Forget your mantle as a podcast host and switch camps to the guests’ side.

Throughout the course, we’ve talked about running your show and entertaining guests. But sometimes, the grass is greener on the other side; sometimes, the lead generation opportunity lies in being the guest.

You’re tapping into a new audience by making an appearance on someone else’s podcast. An audience that may have never heard of your product or services. An audience that was probably out of your reach as a podcast host on your show.

Both the host(s) and the podcast listeners in the new show your making an appearance on can be potential leads. You just need to make the most of the opportunity.

So, how do you get leads from a podcast as a guest? 

Making appearances on other podcasts is a great way to amplify your brand awareness and spread the word about your offering to a larger and ever-changing audience. But it’s not as straightforward as reaching out to random podcasters and dropping by their shows.

You must be strategic with your approach. Take time to identify shows whose target audience aligns with your podcast listener avatar. Think about the type of people who would see value in your products/services and likely turn into customers. The more specific you are, the better.

3. Address Customer Pain Points.

Focusing on customer pain points is arguably one of the most important podcast lead generation tips you can implement in your show. The sooner you understand that people mostly care about how you can make their lives better, the sooner you’ll drive qualified leads to your podcast and business.

Think about the picture your conversations paint in a potential customer’s mind. Does your content come out as helpful or conceited?

Put yourself in the prospect’s shoes for a moment. Which of the two statements appeals more to you:

Scenario 1: “We are the best marketing agency in the finance industry — having achieved double-figure growth in the last quarter.”

Scenario 2: “We are a digital marketing agency dedicated to leveraging cutting-edge technology and best practices to help your finance firm stand out in an increasingly crowded and ever-changing online industry.”

If you’re like most people, scenario 2 will get more of your attention. The statement addresses a common customer pain point – i.e., the struggle to make a mark in a crowded digital world and stay up-to-date with developing trends. It speaks to the prospect in a way that they can picture themselves benefiting from working with you.

Apply the same idea to all your conversations and interaction with your target audience. Give them free solutions to some of their pain points. You can subtly sneak in “sales” elements into the conversation but ensure the content is about them—not you.

By educating your listeners and showing them how they can make their lives better, you get to build trust and loyalty with your fanbase. This leaves them more receptive to your offerings and inclined to buy your products/services.

4. Tell a Story that Connects with Prospects.

When attempting to get leads from a podcast, it’s easy to assume that pushing your products and services to prospects is the best way to go about it. But it’s not!

You might get lost in the hustle and bustle of highlighting the features and benefits of your offering—forgetting that your prospects are humans who tend to connect through story.

History suggests that your leads are more likely to respond emotionally and strongly to stories than product pitches. So whether you’re hosting your own B2B podcast or featuring as a guest on another show, you need to learn how to tell relatable and compelling stories.

Feel free to share how you got to where you are. Give listeners the impression that you are one of them. What are the challenges you faced along the way? How did you circumnavigate the obstacles? And how does your product or service tie into all this?

With a relatable story, your leads and potential customers can get to know you and your business more personally. You can create a stronger connection and deepen the listeners’ interest in your offering—leaving them more likely to look you up and take steps further into the buyer’s journey.

5. Incentivize with Your CTA.

Whether you’re hosting your own B2B podcast or appearing in another show, it goes without saying that you need a CTA (Call to Action) to get leads from a podcast. But you should not expect prospects to take you up on your request blindly.

While great content and a simple CTA can work wonders at driving leads to your podcast and business, you have better odds of success by nudging them with a ‘juicy’ incentive. 

Don’t assume potential customers will automatically look you up after an episode. You need to guide them and reward them for completing the desired action.

How you ask? 

One word: freebies! We all love free stuff. If you want people to respond to your CTAs, give them something valuable in exchange. Give them a tangible benefit for subscribing or going to your landing page.

For example, suppose you’re appearing on a podcast where you plan to talk about the problems your SaaS product can help with. In that case, you can ask listeners to visit your website for a free trial. 

If the podcast conversation is compelling enough, you might pique the interest of prospects. This means they have one foot through the door. The offer for a free trial serves to ‘lure’ them into taking the next step into the buyer’s journey.

Other incentives you can offer in your lead generation podcast, along with your CTA, include eBooks, templates, checklists, discounts, samples, or anything else that would be of value to your target audience. And if possible, ensure your offers exceed expectations.

6. Optimize Your Landing Page.

A podcast website is a must-have! It’s a powerful tool for your lead generation podcast. 

• It helps boost your SEO, streamline your digital marketing efforts, repurpose content, and improve the listener experience. 
• It is also an excellent way to capture, generate and nurture leads—especially when you optimize your landing page.

A landing page is basically a standalone web page where people “land” after clicking on a link you provided (maybe as part of your CTA in the conversation or in your podcast show notes). Unlike other web pages, a landing page is specifically designed with the goal of nurturing prospects and eventually converting them into customers.

Here are some of the best practices for an effective landing page that maximizes your conversions:

1. Start off strong: The most important information should be visible in the upper half of the front page.
2. The content of the landing page should match what you promised.
   For example, if your CTA incentive was a free eBook, ensure there’s an eBook and content that matches the leads’ expectations.
3. Take advantage of design elements to give visitors directional cues to take the desired action. This may include arrows, bold text, or animations.
4. Remove unnecessary distractions. Don’t be tempted to cram too much information on the landing page.
5. Your copy should be clear and easy to follow for someone who is unfamiliar with your business.
6. Add an air of authenticity to your promises and claims by including the voices of happy customers. Social proof does wonders.
7. Ensure your landing page is mobile-responsive to cater to the viewing experience of prospects using smaller screens.

The Friday Habit podcast is an excellent example of what an optimized landing page should look like.

They start off strong with the upper half of the page highlighting how they can help solve your problems using text and visual elements. 

Scrolling down reveals content that acts as social proof and humanizes the brand—including relatable statements by the hosts and testimonials by real users. 

They also offer a compelling lead magnet (free guide + workbook) to collect contact information for lead nurturing.

7. Create Effortless Opt-Ins to Your Podcast.

Let’s say you were listening to an engaging podcast episode on your morning drive to work. After the conversation, the host delivers a CTA requesting you to visit their website and fill out a form for a free eBook and more information on their product/service.

You may feel compelled enough to respond to the CTA, but there’s one problem – you’re driving. Navigating a web page and completing a form is not practical when you’re behind the wheel. For this reason, there’s a good chance that you’ll move on without taking action.

This example highlights a common challenge faced by most podcasters. Research and trends show that podcasts are usually consumed “in the background” while people are doing something else.

According to data by Edison Research, 64% of podcast listeners tune in to their favorite shows when in the car, 49% while walking, and 43% in the gym. 

Such consumers are not sitting in front of a computer to fill out long opt-in forms. Their time is also limited as they’re preoccupied with doing something that’s higher on their list of priorities.

As a B2B podcaster, you may be losing a significant number of qualified leads simply because opting into your offer was not convenient for them. So make your opt-in process as convenient, fast, and easy as possible. Responding to your CTAs should be as easy as falling off a log.

To get leads from a podcast, consider using an SMS or WhatsApp opt-in—whereby potential customers can send a simple short message like “In” or “Yes” to an easy-to-remember number. You can then send them more details about the offer.

But if you’re set on sending people to a landing page and asking them to complete a form, keep it minimal and easy to find. Don’t ask for too much detail. The form should have at most three fields – e.g., name, email address, and company name. 

You can collect more information later if needed. For now focus on getting them through the door.

8. Set Up Email Capture Systems.

Regardless of the podcast lead generation strategy you choose to implement, you need to collect emails to help convert leads into customers. 

An email gives you access to a potential customer’s inbox—allowing you to pitch your offers to them directly. But you have to go about it the right way.

An effective email capture system starts right from the landing page. You need to convince prospects to give you their email.

Let them know that giving away their contact details is worthwhile—and this is where the earlier tips on incentivizing your CTA and creating a painless opt-in process come in.

Once a lead has taken action by giving you their email address, show your appreciation with a thank-you page. Do your best to relay genuine gratitude and provide them with the option to engage with you further (e.g., by sharing links to your social media handles).

And when it’s time to send lead nurturing emails to your contact list, don’t bombard them with one aggressive email after another. Similar to your podcast conversations, your emails should focus on offering valuable information.

Sales messages to promote your product services should come after value-packed content. The more people find your emails interesting or helpful, the more likely they are to buy into your offers and convert into loyal customers. You can also consider rewarding people in your email list with exclusive offers like discounts to boost conversion rates.

9. Repurpose Your Podcast Episodes.

You’ve done a great job with your podcast episodes. Your interviews or discussions were smooth, engaging, and informative enough to earn you tons of downloads.

But don’t stop there! Amplify the impact of your episode with repurposed content to get more leads from your podcast.

Take the existing content and rework or reformat it to reach a wider audience. Think of it as maximizing your return on investment (ROI) by squeezing as much value from each episode as possible.

There are several ways you can repurpose your episodes to get leads from a podcast—including: 

1. Audiograms (i.e., static images with transcriptions and audio waveforms) to be shared on social media.
2. SEO-optimized blog posts and guest articles.
3. Quote cards to be shared on social media.
4. Downloadable infographics or eBooks.

10. Episodes Should be Easy to Share

Sharing your B2B podcast episodes and related content on your social media channels is a great strategy that we highly commend. But it’s not enough! If you want to take your podcast lead generation efforts to the next level, you need to encourage your audience to share and reshare your content.

According to a survey by Olapic and Cite Research, more than half of social media users trust content from their peers more than brand-owned assets. The same study also found that 37% of social media users who enjoyed a product went ahead and posted an image referencing the brand. What does this mean for your branded podcast?

The survey findings suggest that a significant number of your potential customers don’t mind sharing your content if they find value in it. And when they do, their user-generated posts are likely to have a greater impact than your brand-owned content.

In other words, more social media shares = more traffic to your podcast and business = more engagement with prospects = more leads.

But how do you encourage your audience to share your content? 

First, you have to make sure your content is useful and valuable enough for them to like it. Another way to encourage shares is by creating content that validates the opinions of your target audience. 

Ask yourself, what do your potential customers like? What are they interested in? What do they believe in? If your content is something your audience could have likely posted independently without your influence, then sharing becomes a lot easier.

You can also consider jumping on emerging trends to boost your reach. But be careful not to come off as cringey by trying too hard.

And once you have something worth sharing, you want to ensure it is quick and easy to share. Consider optimizing your podcast website to include visible and easy-to-find social sharing buttons. This offers a one-click way for your listeners and potential customers to share content.

Finally, just ask for shares. As long as your content is value-packed, don’t hesitate to ask your audience for help getting the word out.

11. Cross-Promote! Cross-Promote!

Think bigger and maximize the exposure of your business podcast by promoting it across all relevant marketing channels at your disposal. 

Here are some examples of how cross-promotion can help you get leads from a podcast:

1. Double down on podcast social media. Post engaging content frequently, and consider increasing your exposure with paid social media ads.
2. Include details of your B2B podcast and social media handles in your online and offline marketing material.
3. Mention your podcast in your business’s email newsletters.
4. Use ad retargeting (e.g., on Google Ads) to promote your episodes to people who visit your business website.
   This allows you to build a podcast audience of people who have an interest in your business offering—meaning they’re likely qualified leads.
5. Mention your podcast in an appearance you make—whether on another interview or a guest post.

12. Encourage Backlinking.

Backlinking could be a game changer for your lead generation podcast. 

Podcast backlinks play a crucial role in helping your website rank higher on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

A backlink is basically a link on an external domain that, when clicked, directs a user to your website. Search engine algorithms interpret backlinks as recommendations or approvals from other sites that your website is an authority.

So the more backlinks you have, the better your SEO (search engine optimization). This may improve your discoverability and increase your podcast and website traffic—which means more leads.

The takeaway is that you should be proactive in encouraging backlinks. Consider linking your podcast website to as many locations as possible — including your LinkedIn or Instagram profile, social media posts, and guest posts. And don’t be shy to ask others to link to your website. 

For example, when you appear on another podcast, ask the host to include your website link in their episode description, show notes page, or even their promotion posts on social media.

13. Get Your Listeners/Customers Involved.

What would you say is the most trusted source of information to guide consumer purchasing decisions? Hint: It’s not your advertisements.

As rosy and captivating as your marketing messages may sound, a report by Kantar Media suggests that advertising is the least trusted source of information.

An overwhelming number of people trust family/friends (93%) and review sites (91%)—with advertising ranking last at 38%.

To rephrase these findings, consumers are more likely to be swayed by the recommendations of their peers and loved ones than brand adverts. While this may seem like a blow to your branded podcast promotion efforts, there’s a silver lining.

In addition to promoting your branded content, another way to get leads from a podcast is by sharing user-generated content. 

This can be a highly effective strategy to earn customer trust, showcase brand loyalty, promote brand authenticity, and drive purchasing decisions. 

They are several ways to go about getting your listeners and customers involved.

For example, you can occasionally feature your audience on your podcast. Dax Shepard’s ‘Armchair Expert’ podcast is an excellent example of how to go about this.

The show has a feature known as Armchair Anonymous, where they ask listeners to submit an answer to a couple of monthly prompts. Their favorite submission is then published as a podcast episode. This strategy encourages engagement and loyalty—both of which are key to improved podcast lead generation.

Other more subtle ways to leverage user-generated content include posting customer success stories, reviews, and testimonials.

14. Constantly Gauge Your Audience.

Collecting data is key to a successful podcast lead-generation campaign. It’s how you know where you need to focus your resources.

Knowing your target audience’s pain points, interests, and wants allows you to run a data-driven and highly personalized campaign to get leads from a podcast. Such information can be used to better address the challenges and fulfill the needs of potential customers.

There are tons of ways to gauge your podcast audience, including:

1. Contests
2. Surveys
3. Transactional records
4. Online tracking
5. Digital marketing analytics
6. Subscriptions and registration data
7. Social media monitoring

15. Tap into the Power of Video.

Video is an increasingly potent and popular way to explain your value proposition, communicate your brand story, and build relationships with potential customers.

According to 2022 research findings by Wyzowl, video content is rated highly as a crucial part of most digital marketing strategies. Around 86% of marketers have used the medium to generate leads. Another 81% have directly increased their sales thanks to video content.

When used correctly, video can help drive your podcast and business traffic, encourage engagement, and bolster your lead generation efforts.

Whenever possible, consider recording videos along with your podcast episodes. You can also record short random clips that you share on your website and social media handles.

All the Best with Your Lead Generation Podcast!

When it comes to podcast lead generation, it takes effort and strategy to get real results. And as more and more brands explore the lucrative world of B2B podcasting, a growth mindset that’s laser-focused on adding value should go a long way in helping your standout.

Start thinking about elevating your podcast lead generation strategy with these ideas/tips. Master the craft and keep exploring more ways to get leads from a podcast.

All the best from the team at PodcastBuffs!

Don’t know where to begin? Get started with our free B2B Podcasting course.

FREE EMAIL COURSE

B2B Podcasting Mastered

Learn how to launch a revenue generating podcast for your business in just 10 minutes a day, for 2 weeks.