When you sell something that is a “necessary evil,” like accounting, insurance, mortgage, and even real estate to an extent, I haven’t seen a lot of evidence that people are interested in long-form audio content.
HGTV shows with pretty homes and pretty hosts? Absolutely, people vacuum it up.
But notice what’s happening. In shows like House Hunters, the hard parts of the transaction are glossed over. The emphasis is on the homes and the fun of speculating what home these idiots are going to pick and yelling at the TV about how dumb they are.
Then you have flipping shows, which actually do show the hard parts, but play them up for drama and in the end, the house still ends up selling and they usually turn a profit.
So if I’m advising someone who is selling a professional service to the consumer, check the search traffic on Google and YouTube for the content you want to put out.
Which brings me to a good rule of thumb I just made up:
If you can’t find evidence that people are actively searching for the content you want to put out, then long-form podcast content on the subject probably won’t be a winner.
Look at Dave Ramsey. At first glance, this is a long-form show about finances, saving and getting out of debt. But look closer and you have several things going on.
He runs a radio show, which means fast paced, constant switches in topics, pattern interrupts, and the voyeuristic element of listening to other people’s problems and his advice.
It’s not really long-form content in the same style as a podcast.
It’s a ton of bite-sized chunks of content back-to-back. That’s a whole other animal.
Consumers often aren’t interested in a professional service until they need them.
Most people don’t care about real estate in a meaningful way except for those times every 5-7 years where they are looking to make a move.
Here’s another good rule of thumb I just made up: If people only need your service once every few years, long-form podcast content on the subject probably won’t be a winner.
In those scenarios, people aren’t interested in new beliefs, taking new actions and getting results.
They want to pay for the results they want.
There’s entire professions that exist specifically because people don’t want to know the details of something, even though they could do it themselves. Real estate, tax prep, 401k investing are all good examples.
So long-form content on 401k investing might work, but short-form content is better.
We have a client who is a Top100 financial advisor in the US as well as a tax attorney. Many of her clients are entrepreneurs, business owners and high income professionals so it’s a savvier audience than a typical consumer audience.
So she does 10-15 minute, fast-paced episodes where she’s able to rant on the latest political and financial news and explain how that affects her clients.
(The show is called Crashes & Taxes, by the way, check it out!)
It’s the perfect format for a podcast whose primary audience is a blend of consumers and entrepreneurs, who can use her service any time of the year, but don’t necessarily have an urgent need in the moment.
Which brings me to my next point: If your typical client has an urgent need, a bleeding neck, so to speak, they aren’t looking for long-form content.
So create short-form content that speaks directly to their urgent needs, and make it easy to find in the places they’re looking.
This is why we’re very, very selective on clients we take on, and tend not to take on clients who sell services or products B2C. It’s just a different world from the business thought leadership world I run in.
B2B buyers, especially those looking for coaching or consulting, they ARE online looking for long-form content, they have a need but it’s not so urgent that they hire just any old warm body, and they typically have that need more than just once every few years.
So it’s worth it to them to seek out people they come to know and trust before pulling the trigger. Those are the people who it’s worth creating long-form content for.