For all of the podcast fans out there — trust me, I know how easy it is to be sucked into the throws of S-Town, My Favorite Murder, or This American Life, entertained by the comedy, mystery, and wit that these highly-rated shows provide. But picture this, what if you started working some professional development into your podcast rotation?

With over 660,000 podcasts at your disposal, there’s bound to be a winner that can break you from your typical podcast routine. And for all of the listeners looking for your next subscription-worthy show, look no further. With the average podcast listener listening to 7 different shows per week, the following list could make up your weekly repertoire.

Broken into three different areas: digital, marketing, and public relations, take this time to brush up on trends in your industry space, or learn about a new realm of marcom that you’re not as familiar with — though many of these podcasts rightfully acknowledge the cross-over between the three. From social ad targeting to brand equity to interviews with strategy experts, challenge yourself to switch out one of your weekly podcasts for a professionally-focused show that can help you productively prepare for your next meeting or project with relevant insights and tips.

Digital:
The Art of Paid Traffic: Hosted by Rick Mulready, this podcast has a large focus on Facebook advertising, but peppers in helpful information on overall business development, lead generation, and professional coaching. The different show lengths are helpful, as they’ll produce some longer case studies and interviews, and also  “Quick Tip” episodes that are 5-15 minutes with a short update or benchmark standard. A recent Quick Tip, “Facebook Ads Campaign Budget Optimization,” offered specific, realistic, and actionable advice for making the most of your budget campaign – all amazing tips for any budget-conscious business or client.

Digiday: Basically a polar opposite to the podcast above, this show looks at the entire digital industry on a more macro scale, talking to top executives from companies like USAToday, Vox Media, and Conde Nast. For gaining context on overarching industry trends or seeing how successful companies approach their business model, Digiday is an interesting weekly listen that lets you learn from experts and thought-leaders in advertising, print, and the digital space.

Social Pros: Social Pros focuses on speaking with social media professionals who are “in the trenches” working with the platforms everyday. These shows come across as case studies about strategies, successes, and insights into certain platforms, content, and uses. Focused solely on social media, Social Pros adeptly discusses using multiple social platforms to execute an overall business goal, mixed with more technical, tactical advice.

Marketing:
Marketing Over Coffee: Marketing Over Coffee introduces snippets of new trends, platforms, and best practices, all wrapped into one, 20-minute episode. Meant to be an overview, I’ll find myself looking up articles about certain topics they discuss to get more details and context — which gives you can pick and choose based on interest, as opposed to sitting through a long episode going into the background of an unrelated category.

Marketing Smarts: An interview series by Marketing Profs, Marketing Smarts focuses on one marketing area each episode, based on the expertise of the professional on the show. In the context of these interviews, the show gives advice and insights that are inherently practical and applicable, as they’re coming from the mouth of someone that has put them into practice. Also a helpful tip — on their website, you can easily filter the podcasts by topic, which is super helpful if, say, you’re interested in learning more about e-commerce and don’t want to search through every show.

Duct Tape Marketing: Focused on small business marketing, Duct Tape Marketing, is highly applicable for businesses and agencies working with smaller budgets and figuring out marketing strategy and tactics on a manageable, realistic scale. Between 10-25 minutes in length, they focus on topics ranging from the customer journey, to website optimizations, to content strategy, which are top-of-mind for almost any marketing professional, no matter the specific industry.

Public Relations:
Talking Points: Hosted from a news perspective, this show aggregates top stories for the month into one digestible podcast. Broken into Quick News, Talking Points Spotlight, and the main Talking Points, hosts Arik Hanson and Kevin Hunt break down current events, trends from the top PR agencies, and platforms on-the-rise. It’s refreshing that the show doesn’t shy away from interviewing in-house PR professionals, bringing on top executives in education, insurance, and television, whereas a known PR trend is to favor the well-established agencies.

For Immediate Release: Longer-form episodes ranging from 1-2 hours, For Immediate Release with host Shel Holtz takes a deep dive into communications and PR, while creating an inclusive audience, saying the podcast is for “all communicators.” A recent episode discusses current events, and then uses half of the episode to interview Katie Paine, author of the book “Measure What Matters,” about why PR professionals shy away from measuring their efforts and looking critically at their ROI. Every episode has been immensely relatable, useful, and interesting — definitely a must-listen that truly is for any “communicator.”

PR Week Review: The podcast of PR Week, a leading source of media and news for the public relations industry, discusses interesting articles published by the media outlet, mixed with current events, interviews, and commentary from notable industry professionals. A notable aspect of this podcast is that they don’t shy away from politics, and listening to a debrief of the Michael Cohen testimony through a PR lense was immensely compelling. The cheery english accent of host Steve Barrett doesn’t hurt either!

Hopefully this list has broadened your podcast horizon and you’re ready to trade in the melodic voices of MFM hosts Karen and Georgia for a career-oriented listen — even if it’s only a few times per week.