A hype or here to stay? How and why companies use podcasting as a Content Marketing tool An exploratory study on the use of corporate podcasts

With the rapid growth of podcasts over the past few years, the medium has not only gained attention from the public, but also from marketers. An increasing number of companies are including podcasts in their content marketing strategies, whether as a medium to advertise in, to sponsor or to produce themselves. Although more and more companies are releasing their own corporate podcasts, little research has been done into the use of this medium and what drives marketers in the creation of this audio content. The purpose of this study is to gain more insight into this phenomenon and to map out how and why corporate podcasts are currently used in light of the six elements for effective Content Marketing identified by Du Plessis (2015). In so doing, this study attempts to contribute to the field of knowledge surrounding corporate podcasts and to provide more insight for professionals in the field in the creation of their podcast content. The research question that will be answered in this study is: How and why are corporate podcasts used as a Content Marketing tool? Through a qualitative mixed-methods approach using two types of data, both in-depth interviews with experts in the field and their corporate podcasts, a thematic content analysis was carried out in this study. From the data, 13 parameters with corresponding key questions were formed that marketers need to answer when they want to implement corporate podcasting as a tool within their Content Marketing plan. Furthermore, the results of the research showed that marketers have mainly used corporate podcasting in recent years as an experiment, driven by personal interest and changing media consumption of the audience. This experimental nature and lack of expectation sometimes resulted in little strategy behind the podcast in terms of implementation with other content from their calendar and the customer journey for listeners. In general, marketers are convinced that a minimum brand exposure in this medium is sufficient to achieve a positive effect on brand image, although the data showed that this depends on the choice of format. Although conversational podcasts currently account for most of the market, the future of corporate podcasting may call for more creative development of content towards storytelling and other formats.