The Single Most Important Reason Why You Should Start a Podcast

What are the most intimate activities that you do on a daily basis?

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up. Not those activities. Okay, so I walked right into that one. My bad. Let me tweak that …

What are the next-most intimate activities you do each day?

Probably bathe and dress, drive to and from work, walk your dog, work out, etcetera.

These are activities that are important, often routine, and you typically do them on your own. You don’t broadcast them to the world or share them. If you do share them with anyone, it’s a spouse, a significant other, or a very close friend.

So … then why are Demian and I talking to you about content marketing while you shower?

And why is Robert Bruce telling you a story while you take your pooch for an afternoon walk?

And why is Sonia Simone answering juicy questions while you sweat and struggle through a treadmill workout?

Because you invited us.

That’s the power of podcasting.

The superpower of podcasts

Podcasts can perform so many functions:

• They can educate.
• They can entertain.
• They can inform.
• They can inspire.
• They can garner laughs.
• They can gather tears.

But there is one grand function podcasts perform that arch above all of these and more. And it is the single most important reason why you should seriously consider starting a podcast.

Podcasts connect.

They connect content creators with content consumers, and they do it in a way that cannot be duplicated by any other content medium.

The reasons for this are simple.

First, podcasts have a voice. Not the “voice” of a blog post, like we often talk about. But a real, live, human voice, with subtleties of inflection, emotion, and emphasis.

It’s this voice that breathes life into the content.

Second, podcasts go where you go, when you want to go there. You don’t have to plan your life around podcasts. You plan podcasts around your life.

Podcasts are convenient. Which is why you invite them places other content cannot go. Which is why podcasts connect in ways that other content cannot do.

How podcasts trump videos and text

Contrast the power of podcasting with videos, which can also connect. But videos have the most demanding egos of any content medium out there. They want all of you.

Videos shout, “Stop whatever you’re doing and focus solely on us! Eyes and ears over here!” Prideful bastards.

Podcasts, on the other hand, don’t need every ounce of your attention.

They ask, “What topic would you like to hear about? When? Where? By whom? Just hit play, go on about your normal business, and we’ll be happy to oblige.” Like a humble friend.

That’s why podcasts are there while you brush your teeth, while you wash the dishes, and while you mow the lawn. Because they work on your schedule. They move with you.

If it were up to videos, you’d never move from your desk. (Or you’d keep your eyes focused down on them while you move … which is a good way to move yourself right into a wall, a door, or another human. Eyes up. Come on.)

And text isn’t much better. You can’t read and do something else; you can only take a break from the something else and read.

Don’t get me wrong, text and video have their time and place … and it’s when you’re in one place.

But life is lived on the move. Podcasts move with you.

Which is why podcasts present such a great opportunity for you to move your audience.

The power of connection

I cannot tell you how many times my mind has been blown by a connection I’ve made thanks to podcasting.

I could share so many stories. Here’s one …

Sitting at my home in Dallas, Texas, where I podcast about a sports team based in Bloomington, Indiana, I’ve received emails from Romania and Brazil over the past few months from people who feel intimately connected to the show’s community.

You surely don’t care about Indiana University basketball like our audience at The Assembly Call does, so read these emails more for the sentiment than the specifics. They were sent unsolicited, and there are scores of others like them in my email archive:

When I first got to Romania (1991), I couldn’t find out ANYTHING about how my beloved Hoosiers were doing for weeks or even months! To paraphrase Fitzgerald, it was like moving from the warm center of the universe to its ragged edges. God Bless the Internet! I have been actively following my deeply beloved Hurryin’ Hoosiers for more than 53 years. I say this as preface to this: it means A LOT to me what you guys are doing. And I want you to know I appreciate it very, very much. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

– Michael K.

I am retired and live in a small city on the northeast coast of Brazil, and I tell you, you cannot imagine what a luxury it feels like to be in a place like this, where soccer is THE only sport, and be able to watch IU games streamed live, and then immediately afterward listen to you guys on The Assembly Call. Just awesome. It takes me back to my ‘as a student at IU’ days, from which some of my happiest memories are watching the games on my TV in my dorm room. Great job, keep up the good work …

– Chuck J.

These are just two of the many hundreds of people who show up for each of our live broadcasts, which then get turned into podcasts that are listened to by thousands of Indiana fans across the globe.

Let’s see … a Dallas-based podcast about a sports team in Indiana that has audience members in Brazil, Romania, and elsewhere across the globe, including handfuls of folks who have now started requesting the ability to donate so they can support our work.

That’s connection.

God bless the Internet indeed, Michael.

Podcasting makes it possible

All of us who create content online sell something.

And no matter what you sell — a product, a service, an experience, information, an idea, yourself, something else — you need your target audience to know you, like you, and trust you before they’ll buy it.

Podcasting is the best way I have found to build the know, like, and trust factors online across a broad audience.

What better way can you think of to get people whom you don’t know to know you, like you, and trust you, than to get your voice into their heads during some of the most intimate moments of their days?

This is the unfair advantage of connection that podcasts possess.

It’s why I recorded an audio version of this post in addition to the text version, because I know it will create a better connection between you and me than you just reading my words on a flat screen.

Click here to download the mp3 | 17.2 MB | 8:55

And it’s why you should consider starting a podcast, if you haven’t already: so that you can connect with your audience on an entirely new and more intimate level.

Stop letting someone else speak directly into the ears of your audience. That voice should be yours.

The benefits are clear.

And fortunately for all aspiring Showrunners, so too is the path.