B2B Podcast Production: In-House or Agency?
Producing a podcast can be a great way to build brand awareness and engage with customers. Producing a high-quality podcast takes time and effort. Many businesses try to produce their podcasts in-house, but this often leads to poor quality episodes that don't resonate with listeners.
In most cases, it makes sense to work with an agency - check out this list of the best, if you're interested.
Now, let's explore why you should (or shouldn't) outsource your podcast production to a professional team.
Reasons to consider in-house production
You’re producing narrative driven, highly scripted content for entertainment purposes
If you’re trying to produce a show that’s mostly scripted entertainment, and not so much about marketing your organization, then it might make sense to keep things in-house. Scriptwriting is a service that some agencies offer, however this process can be expensive (upwards of $10,000 per episode), and is a heavily creative process that you may want to be more collaborative on than you would be with an agency. Not to mention, if you can afford that kind of scriptwriting, you can afford to hire for it.
You have a full size, state of the art studio
If you already have a full studio at your office, it makes sense to record in-house. Especially if you’re part of a larger organization and there’s already someone on staff whose job it is to manage this kind of space and equipment. It may still make sense to work with an agency on post-production and content repurposing, but handling recording in-house would likely be the way to go.
Reasons to work with a full service podcasting agency
You have other high-priority responsibilities
The time investment of producing a high quality podcast can be significant. You want to focus on your core responsibilities. If you team trying to produce a podcast while also executing existing marketing plans, it's likely that neither goal is getting done in the most effective way possible. It's also likely that your team consists an excellent marketers, and those existing plans are the core strategies for your organization's continued growth. Everything runs more smoothly if your team is able to focus on those responsibilities while podcasting is handled by a separate team of dedicated experts.
Hiring for podcasting roles is expensive
Hiring a separate team of in-house podcasting experts can be expensive. Consider the cost of salaries, benefits, and overhead for this new team. Plus, do you have a hiring manager who is a podcasting expert and knows what to look for when considering applicants? In many cases, it's more cost effective and sensible to outsource your podcast production to an agency.
Successful podcasts require expertise
Outsourcing your podcast production to an agency gives you access to a team of experts. This team has the experience and knowledge necessary to produce a high-quality podcast that will resonate with listeners. Strategy, production, and promotion are part art, part science. If done properly, the benefits can be game-changing. If done poorly, you'll end up with a podcast black hole - one that sucks up time and resources but never spits anything back out for you.
It's always good to remember: producing a bad podcast is easy. Really easy. Producing an impactful podcast requires a dedicated team of experts.
Faster time to market
If you hire internally, you'll be moving through a multi-week (or multi-month) long recruiting and onboarding process. Add in time for getting the team organized, developing repeatable systems and processes, and then beginning show development with a team that has never worked together is not going to get your show out into the world very quickly. In other words - you'll be paying more and doing more, but getting less. With an agency, you can be generating content in a matter of days.
Repurposing content is a complex, labor intensive process
If done correctly, repurposing your podcast content can be an extremely effective way to get more mileage out of the time and resources you've invested in your show. Often times it is critical to the success of a show. But it's not as simple as just taking the audio file and posting it online. The best practices for repurposing include creating blogs and articles based on each episode, producing video clips, pulling the best quotes from each episode and designing them to be posted on social media, creating audiograms, and syndicating and promoting all of the content you produce.
When it comes to producing a brand's podcast, there are pros and cons to both in-house production and working with an agency. In most cases, agencies are the way to go. They're more efficient, give you access to a team of experts, and can get your podcast up and running faster. If you're thinking about starting a podcast for your brand, be sure to consider working with an agency.
Looking for an agency to produce your brand's podcast? Check out this list of the best agencies and companies to work with:
Podsicle Media Team
Have any questions about B2B podcasting? Drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you.