BCBS of Michigan draws new listeners with podcast updates

In the summer of 2018, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan launched “A Healthier Michigan Podcast” as an extension of its blog to educate and inform listeners about better health practices. In each episode, host Chuck Gaidica and subject matter experts delve into topics around health, nutrition and fitness. Entering 2019, the goal was to increase traffic to the BCBS website, downloads of the podcast, and improve retention of listeners over the course of the podcast.

The team, including Brandon Burbank and Bridget Leahy, used a variety of tools to improve performance, including social media promotion, an e-newsletter, digital ads, cross platform promotion and more. In terms of content, the 2019 season of the show went from 18 episodes to 30 episodes, sourced topics through audience feedback research and increased accessibility through published transcripts and more.

Downloads in 2019 were just shy of tripling downloads in 2018 and weekly downloads grew by 39%. Pageviews grew by more than 10 times their previous totals for 2018 and measures of podcast retention were also improved.