The Power of the Podcast: How to Amplify Your Brand in a Niche Market
Several years ago, when I was in a previous role, I was tasked with producing a podcast on the topic variable frequency drives (VFDs), which are a critical piece of equipment needed in most automated industrial environments. Essentially, they control the speed of an electric motor by varying the frequency and voltage of the power coming in.
At first, I was skeptical, the subject matter seemed too niche to really warrant a dedicated podcast series, but then I started to think about the nature of podcasts in general. Sure, there are the big ones that everyone knows about, and which might appeal to a broader audience, but in reality, the podcasting space is made up of mostly niche topics. Essentially anyone with a microphone and an idea can record and publish a podcast and achieve some level of success. Are you into finance? Relationship advice? True crime? You will find a plethora of podcasts around just those topics alone.
I started to think about our customer base as well. The VFD business made up a big chunk of our profits and we had a fully dedicated customer support team that would field questions and host trainings on a regular basis. People needed information on VFDs. People were seeking it out already, and we had plenty of content in other formats like blogs, interactive web demos, videos, etc. so why not a podcast?
I got to work.
Getting Started
First, we needed to identify topics for each show. We looked at customer support calls, industry trends, and upcoming product launches to generate a list of potential episodes. The harder part was finding someone to host the show. You want someone with industry knowledge and experience but who also has some personality and the ability to ad-lib and create real conversations on the fly – all while being recorded. I was able to recruit a couple people from the sales organization to host the show and off we went!
We launched the VFD podcast with a short introductory episode and then our first full length episode was around the topic of Drives vs Soft Starters. A hot topic for that niche audience, which was the most downloaded episode to date. Since my departure from that role, the podcast has continued, releasing a total of 17 episodes with thousands of downloads across eight countries.
Taking Niche Podcasting Further
When I began in my current role at Siemens EDA, I knew we were perfectly positioned to start a niche podcast of our own, called the Printed Circuit Podcast. We had a built-in host, an industry veteran and PCB design expert who had recently joined our team. He not only knew the industry, but he was well connected to other experts and designers who we were able to recruit to be on the show as guests.
We started with five episodes around a specific industry trend and interviewed guests from both within our organization and outside the company. The first series was an amplification of a marketing message we were testing out. The target audience was at the management and executive level. We saw some success, mostly due to targeted LinkedIn ads that showcased our episodes.
To prepare for the next season, we sat down and adjusted our target audience and proposed topics. We decided to embrace the engineering audience, the people out there in the trenches doing PCB design. We created an editorial calendar that catered to PCB design best practices topics, and we also aligned social media promotions and blogs with those same topics. We started to see more momentum.
In season three we looked at refining our editorial calendar even more by looking at social media topics that performed well, keywords we were trying to optimize for, and topics that were trending in the industry. We adjusted our calendar to align around a new set of topics based on these inputs – and we were still catering to the engineering audience.
We also started to take our audio files and turn them into videos that we could post on YouTube in a dedicated podcast playlist. This meant that a listener could find us on all the podcast platforms, on our own blog, and on YouTube. Between these three methods of distribution, we have now exceeded 10,000 total downloads/views of all episodes.
I was thrilled with that number, but how did this really compare to other niche podcasts in the industry?
I happened upon this article that listed the following benchmarks. If your new episode gets, within seven days of its release:
More than 32 downloads, you’re in the top 50% of podcasts.
More than 112 downloads, you’re in the top 25% of podcasts.
More than 443 downloads, you’re in the top 10% of podcasts.
More than 1,083 downloads, you’re in the top 5% of podcasts.
More than 5,097 downloads, you’re in the top 1% of podcasts.
Our record-breaking episode, EMI and EMC in Circuit Board Design | Printed Circuit Podcast Episode 23, had 146 downloads in the first seven days and continues to climb. We have surpassed 633 downloads and 585 views on YouTube.
Lessons Learned:
Embrace the niche audience: Really identify who you think would benefit most from your podcast. This is most likely the user of the tool/product/service. Go all in on speaking their language.
Use data to choose your topics: Look at customer support calls, industry trends, social media performance and keywords. These inputs can guide you to the topics people are most interested in and want to learn more about.
Find the right host: Find someone with technical acumen but a “radio” personality. When it came to the VFD podcast I had success looking at the sales team to find people who knew the products and trends inside and out and could also successfully create an engaging conversation. To be honest, I got lucky with the Printed Circuit Podcast, in that I had a technical expert with a friendly demeanor and well-connected network right on my own team!
Think about adding video: Adding our podcast to YouTube expanded our reach. Many podcasts are now releasing episodes with full video, so that you feel like you’re there recording with the host and guest. We plan to give this a try in 2025.
The Next Chapter
We continue to learn and grow with the creation of each episode. Based on downloads and views we can really tell if a podcast is resonating with our audience. We monitor our LinkedIn channel to see if people comment or ask questions on the posts that promote segments of the podcast. For us, it has been a valuable effort that has helped to grow overall market awareness but we still have plenty of growth opportunities. Our LinkedIn channel has more than 60,000 followers, so we know our niche audience is out there and ready to listen.
