Podcasts are at a peak of popularity : millions of entrepreneurs, businessmen, consultants and business journalists around the world already have theirs. It is a great tool to increase the size of an audience and position a personal or business brand. The problem? The competition for the listener’s attention is getting fiercer .

Even large companies are betting on the podcast as part of a branded content strategy . This can be intimidating for projects with smaller budgets; but do not discard this powerful marketing tool for that. Rather focus on how to get your content to stand out and capture the first listeners . These are the six steps you need to take into account.

Step 1. Find your blue ocean

Your first task is to discover an original topic or approach that has not yet been covered by any program ; it must connect with an interest or need of the target audience of your personal or business brand. The more specific the content, the more opportunity you have to find a new niche. For example, if your specialty is corporate finance, instead of dealing with this topic in general, you could focus on finance for small and medium-sized companies or technology startups.

Step 2. Set clear goals

Like any content marketing strategy, starting and maintaining a podcast over time is very demanding. In order for it to have an impact on the reach of your brand —and thus be worth the effort and time invested— from the beginning you need to determine achievable, measurable objectives and aligned with your marketing strategy . Some you should consider are:

• Increase the visibility of your brand.
• Increase the authority of your brand, both personal and business, in its field of activity.
• Increase lead generation.

Step 3. Plan and respect the frequency of publication

One of the problems with content marketing is that we can bet on many channels at the same time, and end up wasting all the efforts due to a lack of consistency , both in quality and in the frequency of publication. In the case of podcasts —which have great potential to generate a community around a brand— , it is vital to upload a new episode on a regular basis; If you do it once a month, you won’t build an active community quickly, but if you don’t have many resources it’s better to start small. The ideal frequency is weekly ; in addition to maintaining active communication with your followers, by sending reminders by email and social networks.

Step 4. Collaborate with other podcasts

This may sound weird at first when the scope of your programs is short; but this “cross pollination” strategy is ideal for empowering yourself with other content creators with whom you share the same target audience. To apply it, you can mention other programs or invite their drivers to have a talk on a certain topic of common interest, where they can contribute more than you with their knowledge and experience.

Step #5. Work on a good digital marketing plan

As with any type of content, for a podcast to reach its target audience and have the desired impact, it is essential that you promote it through the appropriate channels ; especially at the beginning when no one has heard about it yet. Promote the blog through your website or business page and pay special attention to the keywords you will use. Generate content about it on social media, and ideally invest in ad campaigns to reach more people than those who already follow your brand on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.

Step #6. Stay focused

During the first months of a podcast we have to strive to capture the first listeners , so we can make the mistake of getting desperate and start making changes to the main theme and the contents of each episode. Do not do it! Well, the only thing you will get is to confuse your first audience, offer irrelevant content and, consequently, lose your opportunity. Stay focused around the interests and needs of your ideal client , on your marketing message and on the content you have defined , at least try to do so for the first six months.