‘Scale gets you reach, but relevance gets you impact’: The push beyond podcasting’s biggest shows

Last month saw the launch of SoundBridge Media, a specialist sales partner set up to help independent podcast production companies unlock commercial opportunities.

Co-founded by Howard Bareham and David Cooper – who have previously held senior commercial roles at Global, Spotify, GroupM, and Mindshare – the pair noticed that many independent production companies were joining larger sales houses where the commercial focus tends to be on the biggest shows, leaving them commercially underserved despite building highly engaged and valuable audiences.

According to Bareham, the top quartile of podcast shows – those attracting more than 100,000 listeners a week – are able to draw in advertisers. So what happens to those podcasts that are successful, with a respectable listener base that is engaged and loyal, but simply doesn’t have the same reach?

It’s this lack of infrastructure for independent mid-size podcasts that Bareham and Cooper wanted to address. At SoundBridge Media, they believe they can act as a dedicated and proactive sales partner, allowing them to be more “nimble and dynamic” in matching advertisers with podcasts, while also simplifying the process.

And it’s not just independent podcast production companies that have been looking for this kind of representation, Bareham also argues that there is appetite from advertisers who want to tap into smaller shows. He says they want to reach new audiences, find different content environments, and unearth new opportunities – it’s just they can’t find them.

“We have to help them discover these new shows,” says Bareham.

Simplifying discovery

For Nicola Martin-Smith, head of publishing and audio at Zenith, discovering podcasts can be a challenge.

When buying podcasts, the media agency’s approach involves seeing where it might fit within the wider media plan and client objectives, making a podcast’s audience demographics integral to the process.

Martin-Smith says that Acast’s self-serve platform does a good job in aiding podcast discovery. It breaks down a podcast’s content and audience, rather than just showing the headline numbers, but sometimes her team still find themselves going directly to media owners, explaining the client brief and seeing what they come back with.

“I do think there’s a bit of work to be done in making it easier to discover [podcasts],” she says.

It’s a similar challenge faced by the creator economy, where the discovery of micro- or mid-size creators can be a struggle, suggesting that this type of infrastructure is needed beyond just podcasting.

Zenith’s audience-first approach is also key as they try to educate clients to look beyond podcasts that fit in their category. “Brands will assume that they need to directly relate to their category, but understanding what their audience actually spends time with will uncover much greater opportunities,” she says.

She notes that connected audience intelligence can help with this, as it offers an understanding of where people are, what their behaviours are, and how podcast investment can work alongside the whole media mix. Martin-Smith says this context allows you to be “much cleverer” about reaching the client’s audience and can often be more effective, “but clients can still be nervous”.

Other barriers at play

It’s these nerves that can sometimes cause advertisers to lean towards podcasts that are in the top quartile.

“Sometimes [clients] choose the bigger podcasts because they feel safer, because it’s bigger and they know it’s definitely hitting their audience,” Martin-Smith says.

But discoverability isn’t the only barrier to buying independent, mid-size podcasts – it’s also efficiency.

Martin-Smith explains that a £5,000 host-read on a smaller podcast can require the same level of client sign-off on script, talent, and creative as a larger show, which can make it feel inefficient for larger advertisers.

“Sometimes the bigger shows can be easier to work with, just because they’re set up with the bigger players,” she says. “It’s sometimes weighing up whether it’s worth it for five or 10k for the amount of effort that it takes.”

Flexible partnerships

“Surely someone is doing this?!” Geoff Jein, founder and creative director at independent podcast production company BiscuitJim, recalls thinking this for years before becoming SoundBridge Media’s first client.

The company runs a number of podcasts with big talent, such as Call the Midwife‘s Helen George. Many of its projects involve seeking brands to get on board with an idea from its inception, rather than advertisers buying into a ready-made audience.

He explains that the process of “selling on potential” doesn’t fit the standard model for large sales houses, where it’s often a matter of adding up all the listeners they have and selling it as a bundle. Instead, the bespoke nature of SoundBridge Media was much more appealing.

Martin-Smith similarly expressed a desire for more insight into future episodes of a podcast series. “If we sponsor a podcast, it would be really good to see what other content they’ve got coming up over the series, what guests they’ve got, and then it’s easier for the brand to think ahead on what’s going to align,” she says.

Strong brands and the commercial appeal of video

Matt Hill, founder and managing director of podcast production company Rethink Audio, also believes that sales representation can only solve part of the problem – having a strong brand is also integral to drawing in commercial opportunities.

For Hill, a strong brand involves having recognisable artwork that communicates who the show is for and why it is a success, as well as using the IP of great talent and leaning into video podcasts.

For example, he cites Rethink Audio’s work on the Private Eye podcast. Despite working on it for a decade, Hill says it’s only in the last three years that it has started to see commercial impact, with the team noticing an uplift in programmatic advertising.

Hill believes the shift may have been driven by making the publisher’s masthead a more prominent part of the artwork, featuring Private Eye‘s editor, Ian Hislop, in more episodes, and by developing the podcast into video.

Nonetheless, Hill believes a sales partner like SoundBridge has been “long sought after” in the industry.

Martin-Smith also identified the shift to video as being a great chance to unlock more commercial opportunities.

“Podcasters are in a really unique spot at the moment where they can offer so much more when shifting into the platform of video podcasting.

“That’s the thing that advertisers, particularly beauty advertisers who wouldn’t naturally sit in an audio space because you think it’s visual, but they’re really tapping into the social content and creator collaboration.”

Podcasting will inevitably continue to shift and evolve over the next few years, and with it, the advertising infrastructure will also need to develop.

But for independent podcasts, it seems the challenge is not simply proving they have an audience. It’s making that audience easy to discover, commercially compelling and straightforward for brands to buy.

As Martin-Smith puts it: “Scale gets you reach, but relevance gets you impact.”