Podcasts are all the rage in Q1 of 2020. Influencers big and small are starting podcasts, listener ratings is growing rapidly across Europe as well as north and south america, and subsequently more and more businesses are seeing the value in placing their advertisements on podcasts.
Podcast listeners are often generalized as young, well educated and affluent which is a hard to reach niche in and of itself. However, the ability to go even more targeted based on specific interest level is what is truly making people pause their Facebook campaigns and get placements on podcasts.
So if you are not already including podcasts into your marketing mix we are laying out the best reasons to placing advertisements on podcasts.
Podcast Listeners are Growing
Infinite Dial reported in 2019 that 51% of the people in the USA have listened to a Podcast at least once. That statistic was up from 44% in 2018. Research from Voxnest released in March 2019 noted that growth was up by 83.9% in Chile, 55.28% in Argentina and 46.84% in Mexico.
Podcast Listeners are Active
So on top of the ever growing listeners that podcasts are receiving they are also attracting very reliable and regular listeners. For example Radio Joint Audience Research (RAJAR) reported that 11% of UK based adults 15 years of age or over listen to podcasts on a weekly basis and that number has grown from 6% in 2013.
Infinite Dial noted that the US has seen 22% of people listened to a podcast in the last week. This number is up from 17% in 2018.
Regular podcast listeners have been found to 7 different shows and 8 hours of content weekly! This basically doubles findings made in 2016 with listenership of regular podcasts listeners at 4 hours of podcasts weekly. And what makes podcasts more important than radio is that 50% of listeners strongly agree that the ads that they hear over podcasts they listen to more carefully than those that they hear over radio.
Podcast Listeners are Targeted
Because podcasts are often based around very specific, niche topics they can be a great way to connect to a specific, niche audience that your brand wants to target. In some the culture related categories like ‘Music and TV’ or ‘Movies’ podcasts, 61% of listeners consider themselves extremely interested in the topic. In addition, college-aged students and young professionals are a big target for the podcast industry. However, since 2018 we are beginning to see more and more podcasts targeted towards children and family audiences.
Improve Podcast collected some great data amount podcast demographics, unfortunately their search was limited to just the united states however with upward trends across the globe they can be used as a framework for approaching European markets as well.
- Age Range – The 12-24 age group is the largest is the surpasses all other age listenership at 40%. It is also the age group that is growing at the fastest pace. However 25-54 year old people also listen to podcasts regularly.
- Education Level – The majority of podcasts listeners (69%) have a four year college degree, postgraduate degree or advanced degree.
- Employment – 80% of regular monthly podcasts listeners are students, full-time or part-time employees.
- Average Household income – the largest group from income perspective are listeners in households with annual income between $100k-150k (17%). And total listenership in households with annual income above $75k is 41%.