In a recent webi­nar, Chang­ing Tides of Social & Con­tent in 2015, both Joe Pulizzi and Jay Baer includ­ed the rise of the pod­cast in their pre­dic­tions for next year’s mar­ket­ing trends. If they had giv­en that answer two months ago, I may have not agreed with them. Now, one pod­cast has me rethink­ing this medium’s poten­tial to reach con­sumers.

The first sea­son of the “Ser­i­al” pod­cast has kept lis­ten­ers anx­ious­ly await­ing the con­clu­sion of the grip­ping sto­ry of the 1999 mur­der of Hae Min Lee and the peo­ple wrapped up in this tragedy. But, it’s not just me – Ser­i­al has become a run­away hit, aver­ag­ing 1.26 down­loads per episodes.

I must admit that I have nev­er real­ly been a devot­ed fan to any pod­cast. Sure, I had sub­scribed to a few and lis­tened to episodes here and there when I had exhaust­ed my music playlists and was in between books.

So, what is it about “Ser­i­al” that has cap­ti­vat­ed audi­ences who may have nev­er pre­vi­ous­ly giv­en pause to pod­cast? And, what lessons can we take away for our own mar­ket­ing pro­grams?

‘Serial’ Scores With Storytelling

The answer is in the sto­ry­telling skill­ful­ly woven at the hands of the co-cre­ator and nar­ra­tor, Sarah Koenig.

Mar­keters who tune into “Ser­i­al” will dis­cov­er three sto­ry­telling prac­tices that Koenig has mas­tered.

1. Show Your Humanity

Koenig’s own grap­pling with the details of this crime as it unfolds before her make it that much more relat­able for lis­ten­ers. The murky moti­va­tions and ques­tion­able time­lines leave the audi­ence in lim­bo on what to believe, and Koenig’s waf­fling stance on these ele­ments show that she’s right there with us, expe­ri­enc­ing these same emo­tions.

When a nar­ra­tor (a per­son or a brand) is able to show that they under­stand and can relate to the audi­ences’ chal­lenges and feel­ings, the play­ing field is lev­eled and an inher­ent bond begins to form. Trust is built through this authen­tic­i­ty and shared expe­ri­ence.

For mar­keters this means it can actu­al­ly be good to admit that you don’t always know the answer, that you have had your share strug­gles, doubts, and mis­steps. Try to human­ize your brand to become more relat­able to con­sumers.

2. Build The Scene

From the per­fect­ly timed music sam­ples (queue K‑Ci and JoJo) to the grim real­i­ty-trig­gered Glob­al Tel Link inmate tele­phone dial-in intro, these ele­ments add tex­ture that bring the sto­ry alive. Even the most minute and tedious details, like cell phone record­ing and tow­er map­pings or wit­ness cross-exam­i­na­tion, are ren­dered cap­ti­vat­ing as the audi­ence is trans­port­ed direct­ly into the court­room scenes. This cer­tain­ly is one of the ben­e­fits of the audio for­mat as lis­ten­ers hear the voic­es of the peo­ple involved and can sense the frus­tra­tion, fear, and uncer­tain­ty in their tone.

Even if audio con­tent isn’t your out­put, the abil­i­ty to paint a com­plete pic­ture with the words and images you use is vital. As a mar­keter, you know your prod­uct or ser­vice inside and out, but remem­ber that your cus­tomer may not. The details that you can pro­vide to illu­mi­nate your offer­ing and the ben­e­fits in an inter­est­ing and approach­able man­ner will pro­vide clar­i­ty for your audi­ence.

3. Leave Them Wanting More

Each episode of “Ser­i­al” address­es a par­tic­u­lar com­po­nent of this per­plex­ing case. At end of each episode, Koenig is able to tie up some ends of the items intro­duced in the begin­ning, but at the same time, she’s weav­ing a big­ger, inter­con­nect­ed sto­ry that requires the lis­ten­er to tune back in. This way, the pod­cast is devel­op­ing a devot­ed fol­low­ing, rather than just pick­ing up some fair-weath­er fans along the way.

Not all pod­casts or con­tent types are set up to take advan­tage of this type of con­tin­u­al sto­ry­telling, so if that’s the case, estab­lish key themes and devel­op them out over a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent assets that point back to one anoth­er. This helps build up momen­tum and cre­ate that over­ar­ch­ing sto­ry­line that keeps your audi­ence on track and engaged.

To Podcast Or Not To Podcast?

As for the pod­cast as a deliv­ery mech­a­nism for con­tent, this for­mat has its ben­e­fits. Audio can help enrich sto­ries through the addi­tion­al of music or the con­nec­tion to a human voice, for exam­ple. For the lis­ten­ers, audio con­tent lends itself nice­ly to mul­ti­task­ing where read­ing might not oth­er­wise be an option – such as dur­ing a com­mute or a work­out.

Pod­casts require good plan­ning and prepa­ra­tion, and most impor­tant­ly, a com­mit­ment. When exe­cut­ed and pro­mot­ed with care, pod­casts can do more than just engage cus­tomers or prospects; they have the abil­i­ty to cre­ate com­mu­ni­ties. In 2015, why not con­sid­er explor­ing this medi­um to cul­ti­vate your brand’s com­mu­ni­ty?

For some great tips on get­ting start­ed with pod­casts check out this defin­i­tive guide.

If you aren’t ready to explore a pod­cast of your own, you may want to think about spon­sor­ing one. The main spon­sor of “Ser­i­al”, Mail Chimp, gets a ded­i­cat­ed call out at the start of each episode, and as the show has gained pop­u­lar­i­ty, a few more spon­sors have come on board.

The main ele­ments to weigh in this deci­sion include:

• Brand align­ment to the pod­cast top­ic and audi­ence.
• The podcast’s over­all qual­i­ty and reach.
• How the spon­sor­ship is inte­grat­ed into the listener’s expe­ri­ence.