How Corporate & Financial Podcasts Work

A study carried out by the St. Pölten UAS examines how different generations react to corporate & financial podcasts, what constitutes good podcasts, and how corporate & financial podcasts can be designed. To do this, the students interviewed more than 230 podcast listeners before discussing their results with successful podcasters and receiving practical tips from them.

Podcasts are among the preferred media of younger generations in particular. They like the format’s authenticity and listen via smartphone whenever and wherever they want: “on the go”. By now, one in three persons in Austria and Germany listens to podcasts on a regular basis.

Growing market

The market of podcast creators and consumers grows every year. At the moment, there are approximately 2.5 million podcasts worldwide, roughly 63,000 in Germany, and about 1,300 in Austria. Companies also increasingly recognise the potentials of podcasts and adopt corporate podcasts as elements of their communication strategy.

“Together with the agency junicorn consulting, we gathered information on the attitudes and wishes of podcast listeners in this study, especially with regard to corporate podcasts. As a consequence, our results offer companies and their communication departments in particular real added value – first, in the form of in-depth insights into the growing market of podcasters, and second, as a basis for designing their own podcast”, says Monika Kovarova-Simecek, Academic Director of the master degree programme Digital Business Communications at the St. Pölten UAS.

Podcasts in Corporate and Financial Communication

By offering insights into corporate culture, interviews with board members and staff, glimpses behind the scenes, and strong storytelling, corporate podcasts can spark an interest in the company among all stakeholders, thus producing an effect that they could not achieve with other formats”, explains Julia Stoezel from junicorn consulting, co-author of the study and a successful podcaster in her own right (“Street Tweets”).

According to the study, financial topics are not very strongly represented in corporate podcasts yet, but numerous “Finfluencer” podcasts prove that both these and investor relations topics can be well transported by means of podcasts.

In the German-speaking world, 29 percent of Finfluencers create podcasts in order to convey information to their listeners which would otherwise be neglected on social media.

High Potential

More than half of the interviewed persons (56 percent) said they were already listening to corporate and/or financial podcasts. Especially podcasts on financial topics have gained a lot of popularity in the past few years and reach more and more listeners. We see that financial topics can actually reach a broad audience and arouse interest if the format is right.

Out of the 44 percent who said they did not listen to corporate & financial podcasts yet, however, 43 percent indicated that they would, provided that they found interesting podcasts of this kind.

Tips: Good Financial Podcasts

The study, in which students of the master degree programme Digital Business Communications were significantly involved, also tried to find out what constitutes a good podcast. These are the most important features:

• A good podcast should offer both audio and video formats.
• The content should focus on financial education.
• The ideal length for podcasts is between 30 and 40 minutes.
• There should be episodes coming out on a regular basis. Once per week is ideal.
• Good content can be destroyed by bad technical quality, so podcasters should not be stingy when it comes to equipment.

Basic information on the study

The study “Hören, Lernen, Investieren: Corporate & Financial Podcasts” was carried out between December 2023 and January 2024 by the St. Pölten UAS’ master degree programme Digital Business Communications in collaboration with junicorn consulting. 233 persons were interviewed on their attitudes towards corporate & financial podcasts as well as their listening behaviours. The study’s results reflect the podcast listeners’ perspective, show their preferences and wishes concerning corporate & financial podcasts, and thus provide companies and communication departments with detailed insights into this growing market and a basis for designing their own podcast.

• Comprehensive summary with link to the full study (in German)