Blog vs. Podcast: Which is right for me?

What’s the difference between a blog and a podcast from a business strategy and marketing perspective? 

Second, only to reading books or quality time with my husband, my favorite thing to do is answer questions like those, so let’s dive in, shall we?

What’s the Difference Between a Blog vs. a Podcast? 

Blogging and podcasting are both powerful marketing tools.

• A blog typically exists in written form
• A podcast is content delivered via audio.

They both can deliver fantastic results and turn followers into leads and sales with the right content plan and strategy in place. 

Here are some questions to ask yourself when considering a blog vs. a podcast for your business: 

• Who’s your audience? 
• Do you enjoy writing? 
• Do you enjoy speaking and/or interviewing others? 
• What are your calls to action? 
• Do you have enough content ideas for consistent output?

Who’s in Your Audience? 

Do you know who your audience is? If you have a good grasp on your ideal client, you can start to understand their listening preferences vs. reading preferences and what they’re looking for as far as information, stories, tips, tricks, inspiration, and more. 

Podcast statistics to help you understand who listens to podcasts: 

• 32% of Americans listen to podcasts on a monthly basis
• Males make up 51% of podcast listeners
• The age group with the highest percentage of podcast listeners is 35-54 (40%)
• Reasons for listening to podcasts range from entertainment, to staying updated, and learning something new.

And some quick blog statistics to help you see the benefits of blogging: 

• 77% of internet users read blogs
• Businesses that blog get more website visitors and receive 67% more leads than those that don’t
• 34% of people read blogs to learn something new, 20% for entertainment, and 12% to learn about news and trends in their job industry.

When determining what your audience likes and what kind of content they’re looking for from you, you need to be listening to their wants and needs, researching your ideal client, and asking them!

Questions I love asking my She Built This community (which is full of my ideal clients of creative women entrepreneurs) are these: 

• What are your favorite podcasts and what do you like about them? 
• Which blogs do you subscribe to receive in your email every week? 
• What do you wish you could find more information and resources on? 
• How long do you typically spend reading a blog? 
• How many podcasts do you listen to in a week? 

Both blogs and podcasts work to nurture customer relationships, show off your expertise and can generate leads. So, we still haven’t fully decided, have we? Time to take a closer look at the pros and cons of blogging and the pros and cons of podcasting.

Pros and Cons of Blogging

I like to start with the positive, so let’s look at the pros of blogging first:

1. PRO: Blogs can help support your SEO efforts. 

With just enough SEO knowledge to be dangerous, blogs can help increase your discoverability on ye Olde Google or other search engines, leading people right to YOUR website and consuming more of your content. 

2. PRO: Not much tech know-how is needed. 

Writing a blog isn’t too challenging. If you’re able to navigate the backend of your website (or have your web developer do it), you simply need to hash it out in a Google doc, upload it, add some pretty pictures, hit “Publish” and it’s out there!   

3. PRO: You can draw new leads. 

If you include clear calls to action, opportunities to work with you or sign up for your emails, a blog can work as a lead magnet. 

Ready for the cons of blogging?

1. CON: Time-consuming. 

I’m one of the world’s fastest writers (not literally, but pretty damn close) and this blog still took me over an hour to research and write. Not to mention, then I got another idea and had to write another one to link it to. If you’re any bit slower than me and committed to doing your legwork from an SEO perspective, a blog can take upwards of two hours. If you’re staying consistent at one a week… eep! 

I mean, between you and me, that’s why people hire me to write for them!

2. CON: SEO takes work! 

See above. Good blogging that includes SEO best practices and some primo keywords requires time and research. 

3. CON: Lots of competition. 

A pretty common topic for me to blog on would be a “Content Plan for Social Media” – guess how many searches a month that topic gets? Somewhere around 880 (and it’s not exactly an easy one to rank for to boot). With over 70 million blog posts being sent forth into the Internet universe a month, it’s tough to rank for some of the things we really want to be so we can stand out from the noise and let our audience know to “Pick me! Pick me!” 

4. CON: Must provide value. 

I know what you’re thinking… “Emily, I always provide value with my blogs!” Yes, and sometimes what we think is value, or is value for us, isn’t actually valuable to our potential clients.

Some examples: 

• I see people sharing about the Chamber of Commerce award they just won – how does that help serve their clients? 
• People sharing blogs about their new products and all the features – no offense here, but that doesn’t make for great blog material

It’s not that any of those things aren’t OK to write about, or share once in a while, or mean they’re terrible blogs… they just aren’t offering the value your clients are searching for online. 

I guarantee you no one is looking for the “Best Professional Consulting Business of the Year in the Souhegan Valley Region” or Google searching an ode to my dog, Clyde. 

Pros and Cons of Podcasting

Once again, let’s start with the pros of podcasting: 

1. PRO: Low barrier of entry.

It’s not that hard to get started as a podcaster! Learn some basic editing skills (or outsource it), get a nice microphone, map out your content plan, and hit publish. Ok, so there are a few more steps, but it doesn’t take a lot of work. 

2. PRO: They help build your brand connection

Podcasts help to build that human-to-human voice connection with your listeners as they hear your voice, inflections, turns of phrase, and conversational tone. 

3. PRO: SEO and Marketing 

With the right content plan and strategy in place, podcasts can also help your SEO efforts as well as get guests to do some of the marketing legwork for you if they get on your show and share the episode with their audience. 

4. PRO: People can multitask while listening. 

Considering a lot of podcast listeners are on the go (and increasingly, young people), podcasting is a great way to be by your ideal client’s side while they’re: at the gym, changing their baby’s diaper, cooking dinner, showering, driving to work, and cleaning the house. 

5. PRO: You can attract new leads.

Podcasts are also a great way to generate leads if you share with your listeners how you help, how they can work with you, and what steps to take next to do so. Reminder: This takes time and is not an overnight growth strategy. 

And now, for the cons of podcasting: 

1. CON: Time-consuming. 

Much like blogging, there’s a lot more to podcasting than just showing up and turning on a microphone. When done well, you need a content plan, show notes, and all the assets for sharing the episode to social media and beyond. Editing a podcast alone is estimated to take 4x the length of the episode. (Example 30-minute episode = 2 hours editing) 

2. CON: Lots of competition. 

Enough said. A podcast might be a good choice for you if you already have a loyal, steady, fan base who’s ready to take things to the next level with you! 

3. CON: Value 

Once again, your podcast has to offer value of some sort. Sheer entertainment, tips, resources, and inspiring stories -only you can decide what the value will be but you do need to ensure it’s relevant to what your ideal listener is looking for.