B2B Podcasting Ultimate Guide

This page is filled with literally everything you would ever need to know about launching and producing a business podcast.

The information you’re about to take in is not hypothetical. The Sweet Fish team has produced over 1,500 episodes of our flagship show, B2B Growth (which gets 150k downloads a month).

We have highlighted some key steps to follow when planning, recording, and growing your B2B podcasting.

What is B2B Podcasting?

What is a B2B podcast? A B2B podcast is a podcast produced by a B2B company with the goal of content marketing, content-based networking, and building industry authority.

While there may be loads of B2B podcasts out now, it is not too late to start yours. Half of America is listening and the landscape is still wide open.

Choose Your Format

We recommend business podcasts stick to solo, panel, and one-on-one interview formats.

Solo Podcasting

We don’t recommend doing a purely solo podcast because you will experience way more success from an interview-based show.

That being said, you should still mix in solo episodes to talk from your own experience.

Occasional solo episodes will be way less stressful than a solo podcast. You can sprinkle them in instead of relying on them.

Panel Podcasting

A panel-based podcast is a show where the episodes are regularly hosted by the same group of people recording together.  

For the same reasons as solo podcasting, we recommend you use this method once in a while, but not as the main format.

Once you’re ready to mix in a panel episode, gather up your Chief Evangelist, Head of Marketing, and Head of Sales. Get on a call together and talk about a topic you each have differentiated, helpful points of view on.

Interview-Based Podcasting

Because you get so many benefits from interview-based podcasting, and you can and should absolutely still do solo and panel episodes, the majority of this article will assume your show is interview-based.

A lot of people believe that podcasting is a great audience-building platform. The reality is that podcasting shines as a relationship-building platform. Not only that, but interview-based podcasting allows you to generate original content without creating all of it yourself.

You Should Have Multiple Co-hosts

I talked about doing panel episodes, but there is actually a much better reason you should have multiple co-hosts for your show.

See why:

Outline Your Goals

Audience Growth

The number of downloads your show has per month is a pretty accurate metric for measuring the size of your listenership.Our team has thought this through and come up with how to grow your podcast using 14 steps.

Industry Authority

The goal of your B2B podcast should not be to establish yourself as an authority in the industry of what you do.

In other words, if you’re a company that sells software to CIOs, you SHOULD NOT brand your show around:

• The software
• Why it's needed
• You
• Your company
• Your expertise
• Anything else they’re never going to subscribe to

Your buyer isn’t listening to that show. Your buyer isn’t going to be a guest on that show. You're not going to reach your buyer. 🤷

Your podcast should be the go-to resource for the industry you serve. So, if you sell to CIOs, this is about you becoming a go-to resource for CIOs. This is about you becoming a CIO’s favorite podcast.

You might say…  

“I don’t know a whole lot about how to serve CIOs outside of the product I make.”

No problem. The guests on your show do. This is why your show needs to interview your ideal buyer.

All you need to do is highlight their expertise and draw out of them the helpful content that you can repurpose for others like them. By doing this your show becomes the center of the helpful content hurricane.

Brand Your Show

Choosing a good name is key to success with B2B podcasting. It’s also the main thing podcast players use to pull up search results for listeners looking for a show. Type “b2b” into Apple Podcasts and B2B Growth is the first podcast to come up.

Your name’s always there, and people will use the title to make rapid decisions about whether or not to listen.

The 6 Commandments of B2B Podcast Naming

1. Thou Shalt Be Authoritative
2. Thou Shalt Be Concise
3. Thou Shalt Be Clear
4. Thou Shalt NOT Use the Word “Podcast” In Your Name
5. Thou Shalt NOT Name the Show After Your Company, Personal Brand, Core Values, or Marketing Tagline
6. Thou Shalt NOT Name the Show Around YOUR Expertise

Creating Podcast Cover Art

Podcast cover art makes up a huge part of the success of your show. A few best practices when creating B2B podcasting cover art include:

• Consider the purpose of your cover art
• Create a mood board: Look to Pinterest or Dribbbler for inspiration
• Keep the right dimensions: Ensure it is no smaller than 3,000 x 3,000 px
• Choose an effective background color: Have a strong contrast with the font and only use white if *absolutely* needed
• Limit the copy and content 

How To Be a Good Host

Hosting skills need to be refined for two reasons: building relationships and uncovering great content from the guest. In this section, we’ll cover both.

Who We Recommend Hosts Your Show

Sales Leader - If you’re doing B2B podcasting right, you are regularly interviewing decision makers of companies that match your ideal buyer. Sales leaders already possess so many of the same skills required to be a great podcast host:

• Asking the best podcast questions
• Active listening skills
• Making people feel at ease

Marketing Leader - By regularly interviewing your ideal buyers, your marketing team is getting valuable insight into buyer personas and how to best market to these folks.

Typically, companies are already investing in data collection on their ideal buyer. In this case, you are able to podcast with guests (ideal buyers) and gather data as an offshoot of creating content.

Company Evangelist - We believe you should be turning members of your organization into evangelists by investing in the personal brands of those individuals.

They become distribution channels of your company’s content. By investing in personal brands of those at your company, you are then able to have a new, fresh, and relevant face of your company.

Things to Consider

Your show is your spotlight, your guests are the experts.

To shine the spotlight on the guest doesn’t require outstanding speaking skills or a radio DJ voice.

Do this:

1. Be a great listener: Make it your mission each episode to have them unpack their expertise.

2. Be naturally curious: How did that work? How did that feel? What was that like?

3. Equip yourself with great questions: Combine curiosity with the strategy of asking questions that will always pull amazing content from guests.

4. Learn over time how to steer the conversation: When your guest goes on a tangent, don’t ask more about it. Lead the conversation to the next question. Don’t be afraid to interpret. Your guest may stumble upon something where you can stop them and ask, “What’s a recent example of that?”

Don’t Do this:

1. Try to sound fancy: Keep things simple and down to earth.

2. Try to sound smart: The best thing to say when the guest says something you don’t understand is, “For anyone listening who’s less familiar, what did you mean when you said…”

3. Make it about you: Don’t try to take the mic from the guest. Don’t repeat everything your guest says just to hear your own voice.

Create Content Based on Your Guest

Everyone has specific, helpful, experience-based content to share. We can draw out of them the experience-backed content they have with simple question techniques.

Here's how:

8 POV Questions for Interviews:

• What is a commonly held belief [about expertise] you passionately disagree with?
• What should everyone [in guest’s role] stop doing?
• What should everyone [in guest’s role] start doing?
• What’s something everyone is trying to do that you’ve discovered a better way to do?
• What’s a failure you’ve experienced that you think many are headed for?
• What’s a resource/tool/channel people aren’t using correctly or to its fullest?
• What’s a recent thing you tried in your company that you were surprised by the result?
• What’s something you or your team have recently achieved that you’re really proud of?

Once you’ve pulled from the guest their distinct POV in the pre-interview, the episode itself is as simple as journalistically what/why/how-ing the guest’s POV.

Build Relationships With Your Guests

The most powerful thing about podcasting is its use as a relationship tool. When you create content with somebody, it is a powerful bonding experience.

Our entire business has been built by using our flagship shows to build relationships with our ideal partnerships.

Building Rapport

If you’re doing original research questions they are GREAT for warming up the guest.

Sneak in questions that will make your guest laugh. I was interviewing a guest who was a professor at a college, and in the middle of POV I asked, “Do you realize you have one of the highest scores on RateMyProfessor.com?”

It had nothing to do with what we were talking about, but it made her laugh and feel awesome.

Ask questions that will get the guest talking about themself, what they like/hate, their home life, etc. Try to do this in a not-creepy way.

Growing Your Audience

Organic Audience Growth

Organic podcast audience growth is easier than it sounds. It all starts with the name!

1. Your show’s name

Landing on the best name for your podcast is a great concern to us because we’ve seen the most success with B2B Growth due to its name. No, seriously.

It’s straightforward, there’s no cutesy fluff, it’s named after what our ideal audience gives a crap about, and it makes it super easy to find on podcast players. All you have to do is type in “B2B” and *poof!* there’s B2B Growth.

2. Plan out your content

The second way to grow your podcast audience organically is simply to plan out helpful content. Determine the industry topics your audience is into through b2b thought leadership and start matching topics to experts you can interview.

Furthermore, avoid choosing sales-y topics. No one wants to listen to an infomercial. They want to know how to get better at their job.

3. Prepare a launch promotion strategy

Our team suggests having a queue of 8-10 episodes ready upon launch. This increases the likelihood of listeners choosing your show and subsequently bingeing all your episodes.

4. Cross-promote with other shows

The awesome thing about podcasts is that listeners aren’t devoted to only one show per industry. In fact, when people hear quality content, they’re probably going to look for more material on that subject.

Therefore, cross-promoting with other shows in your space is a tactical move. They plug your show, you plug their show. Easy as that!

5. Set up a podcast tour for your host

A fifth way to grow your audience for free is to schedule your host to be interviewed on other similar shows. With most interviews happening virtually, this shouldn’t be too hard to swing.

The more industry podcasts your host is featured on, the more exposure your show will receive.

6. Go, go SEO!

When you map your content out, plan to create blog posts based on your interviews. We use Google alphabet soup to turn podcast episodes into ranking articles.

Paid Audience Growth

Paid media is a tried and true way to grow your podcast audience. There are several ad platforms that make it easy to target specific audiences. Here are our top three recommendations:

• Podcast Advertising: There's no better way to reach new ears than advertising on another podcast. Advertising on a show that's similar to yours is extremely effective (particularly when it's a host-read ad). To get the most out of podcast advertising, check out these podcast advertising agencies.
• PPC Retargeting: Facebook and Google (for the most part) have ad platforms that make retargeting simple. With Facebook, you can boil your campaign down to super-niche segments.
• YouTube Advertising: If you're not using the world's second-largest search engine to advertise yet, get goin'. You can choose from skippable and non-skippable, video discovery, overlay, and banner ads.

When you create a paid advertisement campaign for your podcast, it isn't all that different from writing an optimized article.

Syndication

Podcast syndication lets you distribute your podcast across multiple platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, expanding your reach and making it easier for listeners to find and engage with your content.

Hosting

Setting up your podcast, you have a few different options. For all-in-one, super easy recording, editing, hosting, and publishing, Anchor (recently acquired by Spotify) is amazing. It’s super simple. Other great options for podcast hosting are Blubrry, Buzzspout, and Podbean.

Be sure to have your podcast description ready and then get your first episode ready to launch!

Launching

Once you’ve got hosting set up, you’ll need to submit an RSS feed to Apple Podcasts for your show to be accepted and available on the platform.

Launching on TuneIn Radio, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts also requires some extra steps. For what to do on all of this, look at #25 on Podcasting for Business: A 26-Step Process.

If you’re using Anchor, all of that is as simple as hitting publish and waiting on the podcast players’ respective servers (usually a day or two).  

For Libsyn or most other hosts, once you’ve filled out your show information and uploaded your first episode, you have to get your podcast information to the podcast player. With Apple Podcasts, this means you have to log into Apple Podcasts’ Podcast Connect site (with your Apple ID).

[RELATED: Wanna start selling subscriptions on Apple Podcasts? Here are 5 critical things to know about Apple Podcast subscriptions.]

Then you need to find and copy your RSS feed from the host you’re using and enter it on Podcast Connect along with the right information.

Once you submit, it can take a week for your podcast to be approved and then another week to show up in iTunes search results, but from there each episode will automatically appear when you publish.

Content Distribution

Each of your podcast interviews is the source of a raging content waterfall. If you aim to attract new listeners, creating a content waterfall is pretty much a necessity.

One interview can be repurposed into...

• YouTube videos
• Snackable micro-videos
• Informative blog posts
• Social media posts
• Slide decks or carousels
• Quote graphics
• Authentic case studies
• Engaging emails

So, no matter which channels your brand lives on, you'll have at least one piece of content to promote each episode. Outlining your episodes makes the content splintering process a breeze.

LinkedIn Evangelism

This is something a lot of companies are starting to do. Rather than marketing through the brand’s social media account, they’re using the real people from their team to get better access to other real people.

This performs especially well on LinkedIn: especially since that’s the platform most B2B companies’ audiences go to for work-related content.

How to do it:

How to Build an Evangelist Program for Your Employees: A 10-Part Framework.

Community Building

Building community is one of the most powerful ways to leverage ABM. Some marketers get community and audience confused, though.

To be clear, community building IS NOT audience building. A community for ABM purposes is an intimate group of about five professional peers. These people are dedicated to learning more about their field together.

As the facilitator of professional communities, you can build long-lasting relationships with your ideal buyers as they build relationships with each other.

At Sweet Fish, we've just onboarded a full-time community developer. You could say we're pretty serious about it. There's a ton to gain by giving people community. And, eventually, it should support your overall audience building.

James lays it out clearly in this LinkedIn post.

Measure Your Success

Guests to Customers

Measuring your podcast's ROI isn't always a simple task. However, it helps to remember why you started your show in the first place -- to land more customers.

That being the case, it makes sense to figure out how many of your interviewed guests have become your customers. Guests to customers is the metric you should use to measure podcast success (not the number of downloads).

This is an easy metric to analyze if you have a list of all the guests you've interviewed. Go through your list and compare the number of customers against the number of guests who have yet to convert.

Then, calculate the time and money spend on creating your show. If it's less than the revenue you're earning from guests-turned-customers, you're on the right track, my friend.

Your Podcast's Past Benchmarks

The number of downloads, although not as revealing as guests-turned-customers, can help you get an idea of your show's success rate.

Basically, you're just looking for an upward trend in monthly downloads. In the short run, the number of downloads is a vanity metric. But over time, it can be very telling.

Comparing your newly-launched podcast's downloads every week isn't worth your time. It isn't until around the 1-2 year mark that you'll see the number spike. This explains why a lot of new podcasters give up before they see any real growth.

Your Podcast vs. Other Channels

Comparing the success of your podcast with that of your other marketing channels might sound like comparing apples and oranges at first.

But it's actually a really useful way to make sure your marketing efforts are going to the right places.

For instance, say you got 10,000 views on your last LinkedIn post. Then, think about how long it takes someone to read your 150-word post -- maybe a couple of minutes.

Now, say your latest 30-minute podcast episode received 800 downloads. That's 800 people keeping their attention on your content for at least 10x as long as a LinkedIn post.

Keep in mind the quality of the "lead," too. Someone listening to every one of your episodes is likely a higher quality lead than someone scanning through your post.

Even so, it probably took you five minutes to write that LinkedIn post. It took a lot longer to produce your podcast.

This metric is all about weighing the effort against the effectiveness of your marketing channels over time.

Final Thoughts

There's a ton that goes into a successful B2B podcast. That's why we have a whole team to make all of the content for our customers. And with your help, together we can make a kick-ass business podcast that attracts ideal buyers like squirrels to a squirrel party.

Now that you have learned all about B2B podcasting, you might be feeling a little overwhelmed. Lucky for you, Sweet Fish Media is the preferred B2B podcasting agency. Our team of experts is here to help you every step of the way, from ideation to recording to publishing. Book a call with us today to kickstart your B2B podcast!