The marketing industry moves quickly. What worked last year might not work today, and what works right now could be obsolete in just weeks.
Marketing is also creatively challenging. There are countless channels and platforms you need to master, each with new audiences in new formats.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur or a digital marketer, if you want to stay competitive you have to keep up with the latest marketing trends, strategies, and tactics. You have to stay fresh. You have to stay motivated.
You can read industry blogs, of course — but podcasts offer more context and more value overall. They dig deeper.
And they’re more convenient. You can listen to podcasts while you do other things. While you’re taking a walk, or even lying in bed at night, you can be brushing up on industry insights.
So where do you start?
Don’t worry we got you covered. Here are 8 must-subscribe marketing podcasts that will help you grow your business in 2021:
1. Smart Passive Income
The most efficient marketing you can do is the kind that steadily builds up passive ROI, building momentum until you can dial it back and still benefit. Think about the difference between SEO and PPC: SEO pays off for a long time, while PPC works only while you’re funding it. The Smart Passive Income podcast is all about efficiency.
Understanding how important it is to have diversified income streams that keep going whatever you’re doing, host Pat Flynn gives you tips on how to reduce your reliance on active marketing. This is so valuable for marketers because it lets them cut down on their workloads, allowing them to put more time, effort, and creativity into the promotional efforts that really matter.
2. Traction
It’s easy to lose sight of the value inherent to the steady struggle of getting marketing results, particularly after you’ve achieved some level of success. You can forget about how hard it was to get there and start to feel like a fraud with diminishing skills. The Traction podcast is all about the early days of startups, and it provides a compelling look into how entrepreneurs develop.
Because it’s created by investors, and features entrepreneurs willing to give broad insight into their triumphs and mistakes, this podcast gives frank and entertaining accounts of startups struggling to get off the ground. While listening to it, you might just find that you rediscover your passion for facing and overcoming daunting challenges.
3. Marketing Speak
Plenty of podcasts focus on general trends, but there’s a lot of value in assuming a more technical perspective, which is exactly what SEO guru Stephan Spencer achieves through his Marketing Speak podcast. In every episode, he discusses a topic in the marketing world with a relevant expert, and the discussion gets very in-depth.
For example, you may have created promotional videos before, but do you understand the core techniques of how to optimize their performance? That’s the kind of actionable information you’ll find here. The episodes are usefully segmented by topic, so you can rapidly pick out the installments that are most suitable for you.
4. Marketing School
Marketing school is a daily podcast by entrepreneurs/digital marketers Neil Patel and Eric Siu. What makes it one of the best marketing podcasts is its formate. Every episode is a bite-size digital marketing lesson you can digest and apply right away. It covers SEO, content marketing, social media, email marketing, conversion optimization, and general online marketing tactics that work in any industry.
Whether you have a new website or an established business, Neil and Eric’s actionable advice will keep you up-to-date on the latest trends, strategies, and tactics you use to keep your business growing. If you want to cut through the fluff and this insanely useful marketing podcast is for you.
5. Copyblogger FM
Everyone in the digital copywriting world knows about Copyblogger. Its reputation for painstaking optimization precedes it, and anyone who wants to sell more through content improvements can find something helpful there — but the value doesn’t begin and end at blogs and training courses.
Copyblogger FM is hosted by Sonia Simone, chief content officer and co-founder of Copyblogger Media, and has already built up a significant archive of episodes (having been around since 2010). Each edition features a set of experts discussing news stories and tips, and the short-form pacing makes this podcast ideal for commuters.
6. Hack to Start
The best marketers in the world know that experimentation is essential if you wish to achieve exceptional results, but it isn’t always easy to commit to that kind of boldness. Hack to Start is a love letter to the innovative entrepreneur, concentrating on people who took risks and did things differently in charting their paths to success.
If you’re running a stagnating business, feeling somewhat stuck in your approach, and possibly repeating the same tactics over and over again, this podcast will give you something new to think about. Learning about how so many others have hacked new routes to achievement will get your creative process running, and there are nearly 200 episodes at this point, so there’s plenty in the archive to discover.
7. The Influencer Podcast
Despite being hugely important in today’s digital world, influencer marketing remains a confusing area for many marketers used to more traditional methods. Whether you’re entirely unfamiliar with what it brings to the table, or simply curious to get some more information about how it functions, this podcast (from host Julie Solomon) is sure to help.
Throughout the episodes released so far (well over 100 at this point), Solomon has interviewed numerous influencers and influencer marketers, each time concentrating on a specific topic: for instance, “What a Brand Manager Looks for When Hiring Influencers” with brand communications expert Amanda Mueller.
8. The Science of Social Media
Buffer holds a lot of sway in the social media world, playing a significant role in many companies’ promotional scheduling, and it happens to have an excellent weekly marketing podcast called The Science of Social Media. Even businesses that embrace social media likely don’t do everything they can with it, so there’s no doubt room to pick up new things.
Additionally, every edition of this podcast is also available as an article, making the material extremely easy to consume however you like. Listen to a podcast when you’re on the move, and read through an article when you’re able to pay close attention — you’ll be mastering your Facebook performance in no time.
Keep Learning
Each one of these incredible marketing podcasts offers something slightly different for entrepreneurs and marketers. You don’t need to listen to all of them (and likely don’t have the time), but even if you just check out one or two, you’ll be ahead of the game.
And if you’re looking for even more good stuff, here are some of the best business podcasts to tune into on your commute to work, while you’re working out, or cutting the grass. As a marketer or an entrepreneur, you should never miss an opportunity to learn and grow.
Editor’s Note: The article is part of the blog series Grow Your Business brought to you by the marketing team at UniTel Voice, the virtual phone system priced and designed for startups and small business owners.
