Are Podcasts Worth Time and Effort?

A look at lessons learned from people in the offsite industry who are using podcasting as an inbound marketing tool.

• A podcast can build trust and credibility by sharing knowledge, advice and industry insights. This can position your company as an expert, generate leads and improve conversion rates.
• Podcasts need a regular schedule to capture and keep an audience, so it’s best to plan several episodes before launching the first one.
• A joint podcast produced by industry partners, such as a builder and a manufacturer, can be effective for both companies.

In the US, it’s estimated that 135 million people listen to podcasts each month (as of 2024). Some podcasters have built huge followings, and have and gained influence over the country’s culture and politics. The best known of these is comedian and UFC color commentator Joe Rogan, with 17.3 million subscribers, according to the website Backlinko.com.

Rogan is at the summit of a massive iceberg: PodcastIndex.org estimates the number of active podcasts worldwide at more than four million. They cover every topic imaginable, including a seemingly endless number of business-related podcasts, many of which are produced as marketing tools.

Is this a passing trend, or should you consider using podcasts as an integral part of your inbound marketing strategy?

Before we start to answer that question, let’s first define what we’re talking about. Podcasts are audio broadcasts that are streamed over the internet. The most successful podcasters post episodes on a regular basis (weekly or biweekly, for instance), each covering a specific topic and featuring a host and guests. The most successful podcasts offer both information and entertainment. If a podcast is available via an app such as Apple Podcasts or Spotify — as most, but not all, are — listeners can download and listen to episodes on their personal devices, whether phones, tablets, or computers.

While podcasts are primarily audio, many do include a video component that is uploaded to a YouTube channel.

Businesses use podcasts to give educational insight into their company, and to discuss their operations and industry. Just like political podcasts, business podcasts can be topical and can feature interviews with one or more guests.

In recent years, modular manufacturers, builders and trade associations have all jumped on the podcast-producing bandwagon with varying degrees of success and benefit.

If you’re in the offsite building industry, you will likely have many questions to answer when considering starting a podcast. Why would you want to do a podcast? How will you measure its success? What challenges and opportunities can you expect? What part should podcasting play in your social media strategy, and how can your podcasts be repurposed?

The following modular industry experts, who have embarked upon their own podcast journeys, offer some insights.

Informing the Industry

John McMullen, Marketing Director of the Modular Building Institute (MBI) in Charlottesville, Virginia, had little knowledge of podcasts in 2020 when he pitched MBI Executive Director Tom Hardiman on the idea of starting one. It was during the COVID pandemic, and McMullen saw it as a way to add value to the association and its brand, and to provide educational content, advice and commentary to MBI members, affiliates and the industry as a whole.

In the beginning, McMullen knew that he wanted to poll MBI’s members to find out what ideas and stories they had to share, and what challenges they were facing. He would focus on learning how they overcame those challenges and what they learned along the way.

Armed with a meager $500 budget, he learned the ins and outs of podcasting as he went. He taught himself how to use off-the-shelf audio editing software, purchased microphones with USB ports, and learned how to record from Zoom calls.

Titled Inside Modular, MBI’s podcast offers expert advice on topics that range from commercial modular architecture to energy-efficient modular affordable housing. The Institute offers members the opportunity to be a guest on the podcast to talk about aspects of their business.

Initially, the podcast’s audience grew through word-of-mouth, with McMullen seeking out guests for each episode. Today, guests come to him, and he has a backlog of guests and topics.

As a relative newcomer to housing, the podcast has also helped McMullen learn about the industry. After booking an interviewee, but before recording the podcast, he does background research, writes questions to ask, and conducts a pre-interview. He says he has grown more knowledgeable and comfortable with each episode.

Since its launch, McMullen has recorded more than 70 episodes of Inside Modular. He sees it as a value-added content service to MBI’s membership, so he isn’t concerned about building up to a specific number of followers.

Bolstering the Brand

Paul Dillie, Marketing Director of Boise, Idaho-based, multifamily manufacturer Guerdon, spearheaded the company’s foray into podcasting in 2021. The premise, he says, was to provide listeners with fresh, open and honest conversations with guests from the modular multifamily building industry.

The podcast, titled Mainstream Modular, offers conversations with principals, developers, general contractors, project managers, architects and experts to shed light on the offsite building process of multifamily residences. Dillie seeks to interview his guests while they’re in the middle of their projects in order to get candid, fresh impressions.

Like McMullen, Dillie was also new to podcasting, so he enlisted a third-party podcast agency to provide end-to-end production, which included researching, interviewing, scripting, editing and designing audio.

However, what he received turned out to be different than what was promised. The agency didn’t provide a turnkey service; Dillie was still responsible for most of the legwork, which included finding and scheduling the guests, conducting pre-interviews with guests, researching and writing questions to ask, and educating the third-party host.

During the podcast’s tenure, which ended in 2023, Dillie says he went through four different hosts. In two years, Guerdon produced 18 podcasts which were distributed on platforms, including Apple, Spotify and YouTube.

Although it took more work than he expected, he considered the run a success. All the guests who participated were “great,” Dillie says, adding that he appreciated their participation.

The podcasts helped Guerdon amass more content for its website and help with “branding and positioning itself as an industry thought leader,” he says. And the fact that the show was widely shared convinced him that it had built a community.

Armed with lessons from that first run, Dillie plans to bring back the podcasts in 2025, but will not use a third-party entity. Instead, he plans to produce the podcasts in-house with an on-staff host.

Generating Website Content

Rochester Homes of Rochester, Indiana began broadcasting its On The House podcast in 2019. It featured Rochester Homes’ Co-Owner Alex Berlin as the primary host and was produced and edited internally by the company’s marketing department.

Between 2019 and 2022, Rochester produced 24 episodes on a wide range of topics including everything from product reviews, insurance, financing, appraisals, construction methods and HVAC.

“We treated our episodes more like blogs,” Berlin recalls as they began podcasting. “Now I think we should have seen the big picture of what we were doing. We needed to be more intentional with our planning.”

Berlin says when they first began, he thought it would be a great way to educate potential customers and help with their website’s search optimization. “What we didn’t consider, however, is the time and planning involved, knowing who exactly we were targeting, and how we could repurpose content,” he adds.

In the end, Berlin says the podcasts were a good experience that added meaningful content to their website, but that he “would not start another podcast without having a year’s worth of planned content.”

Strengthening Credibility

Westchester Modular Homes Inc. of Wingdale, New York, partnered with longtime builder Paul Scalzo of the Scalzo Group of Bethel, Conn. for its podcasts, which are available online on the company’s podcast channel.

The goal was to combine their efforts and produce a podcast that educated people about modular construction from both the manufacturer’s and the builder’s perspective, says John Colucci, Westchester’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

The podcasts are produced and recorded at the Scalzo Group headquarters, in a soundproof room with state-of-the-art equipment and technology.

Colucci and Scalzo brainstorm content ideas and choose topics to cover. “We focus on what is happening now in housing and what questions are affecting people’s buying decisions,” Colucci says. Topics have included everything from home financing to the dearth of affordably priced homes. The discussions are also video-recorded and posted on Westchester’s YouTube channel.

Colucci and Scalzo both believe the real value of podcasts is that they establish builder and manufacturer credibility and aid in branding. “In the past two years, the podcasts have been a major factor in our brand recognition,” Scalzo says. Not only does it drive people to the company website, but Westchester also posts video from the podcasts on its other social media channels, including in 90-second edited reels on Instagram and Facebook.

Overall, Scalzo regards his podcast partnership with Westchester Homes as a success. He suggests that anyone thinking about going into podcasting should consider hiring an in-house marketing person to lead and oversee its execution.

Reed Dillon is a content brand specialist, marketing consultant and freelance writer who focusses on offsite and new construction. He is the owner of Creative Brand Content in Moneta, Virginia. Contact: [email protected]