Should Your Canadian Business Start a Podcast?

Canadians listen to podcasts. A lot. Roughly 16 million Canadians listened to one in the last month. (Source)

Mostly, the ones they listened to were about news and sports.

Business, Marketing, Education – the professional categories are lagging a bit. But is that because there isn’t any interest, or because tare fewer strong professional shows to listen to?

From my experience producing podcasts in both the Canadian and US markets, I’m convinced it’s the latter.

The demand is there, but the supply and the awareness of the supply is still catching up. It will catch up.

That gap is a really good opportunity for certain kinds of Canadian business owners to get in on the action. 😉

A Business Podcast Isn’t About Getting Famous

It’s more about improving systems that are already working.

When designed well, podcasts can:

• lead to faster deals closed with better-fit clients
• improve authoriy and visibility
• make professional networking really, really easy

This doesn’t require a big audience – most profitable business podcasts don’t actually have those. It just requires creating the right content for specific outcomes. and then deploying that content intentionally where it makes the most difference.

And that makes them a good fit for certain types of businesses. Not all.

The businesses that benefit the most from podcasting are those whose growth depends on trust, timing and relationship depth.

Trust is pretty obvious – do your future clients believe you can do what you say you’ll do?

Timing is about having the right content available for people when they really need it. Might be now, might be next season, might be in two years.

Relationship Depth is about your network and how many people you have who know about you and your company, and feel confident sending more busiess your way.

Practically, this means that the businesses who will benefit the most from having a podcast are:

1. Service-based businesses with longer sales cycles
If your clients don’t typically make decisions quickly, need a lot of information before making their choice, and usually compare a few strong options before commiting, different kinds of podcasts can smooth that process without you being a pest.

2. Businesses that rely heavily on referrals or reputation
If word-of-mouth already plays a role in growth, a podcast can be the foundation of your network building, giving you ample time to actually get to know the other business owners and colleagues who are in a position to make introductions.

3. Businesses where clients don’t care until they care a lot. 
No one needs a lawyer until they need a lawyer, right? Having a constantly growing archive of content that speaks to the situation people find themelves in NOW means that when people search for help nearby – you’re there. This goes double if you serve a specific geographic region.

So… Should you Start a Podcast?

Maybe.

I like to start that thinking with the outcomes a podcast can provide. If you need what a podcast can provide, and you have a little time and existing sales and systems that work pretty well, then a podcast can be a great choice – especially now if you want to beat the rush, as it were, to provide options for canadian listeners.

More specifically, if you:

• Find yourself answering the same questions all the time on sales calls,
• Have sales calls with people who are bad fits for you services,
• You have limited time for content creation, but need to feed the content machines,
• Want more two-way referral partnerships,
• Want to become more well-known to other experts in your space,
• Want search engines and LLMs to mention your business more,
• Want to support members of your community you can’t hire you, or
• Want to be top of mind when the issues you solve present themselves,

Then podcasting can be a very smart choice. Shows can be designed for specific things – they key to making them successful is knowing exactly what you want out of them.

If any of the above sound compelling – let’s chat! We can usually figure out in about half an hour whether podcasting is a good investment of your time and resources.