Webinar vs. Podcasts: Choosing a Format That Works Best for Your Business
Should your business create a series of podcasts or host a webinar session to showcase your products or brand? Webinars and podcasts can help your business reach consumers and achieve your business goals. But which content format can help you communicate your message better? This post looks at various things you can consider before deciding on which one to use.
Identify Your Needs
What do you want to accomplish with the content you share in either of these formats?
Both can help you reach your audience in different ways, and determining your purpose is the first step towards choosing a format.
To better understand this, let’s examine the various ways in which you can use both formats. Let’s start with webinars.
You can use webinars to:
- Teach your audience how to use a strategy, tool, or software solution.
- Interact directly with your audience by talking through their needs.
- Host a panel of experts to offer your audience various perspectives on a topic.
- Hold meetings with team members not available for physical meetings. It can help keep employees informed on projects, goals, and company growth.
What about podcasts? You can use podcasts to:
- Host a panel of different guests for each episode to discuss a topic or various topics.
- Hold one-on-one interviews with various guests. Doing this can attract fans of your host to your podcast.
- Publish solo commentaries where you share your experience or opinion on trending topics, products, or software.
- Tell stories by guiding your audience through fiction or non-fiction narratives. You can use each episode to tell a unique story or stretch one across different chapters.
Identify Your Subject Matter
Does your audience or topic require visuals to help consumers understand the subject matter better?
Incorporating visuals into webinars can help you clarify or reinforce your topic or subject.
If your audience or topic does not require visuals, then podcasts may work great for you. You can use them for entertaining conversations, stories, or thought leadership.
They are also convenient for your audience since they can listen while performing other tasks. However, this poses a problem since they may not give you full attention while listening.
So, which one should you choose?
The choice will depend on the format that effectively helps you communicate your message to your audience better.
Measurement Metrics
Do you need to track whether your audience converts into customers?
Most webinars require your audience to fill out a form with their personal information when registering. You can then easily track people who register for the webinar and ultimately convert into customers.
Podcasts may not offer you an opportunity to capture listener information. You may have to find this out from the audience.
For example, you can have question forms where you ask your audience how they heard about your brand. If you include podcast as one of the options, then you can track those numbers.
Podcasts and webinars have different limitations and strengths that can help you decide on the best format for your message.
The infographic below from FLOW offers additional strengths and limitations you can consider. Check it out now!
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Image Courtesy: FLOW