When we launched The Quantum Space, our podcast was never intended to be an additional marketing channel. It was designed to become part of a wider editorial and communications strategy. A little over a year later, Innovating Trust has reached No. 9 in MillionPodcasts’ Cryptography Podcasts ranking, while generating more than 11,000 plays and downloads directly through The Quantum Space website across just 26 episodes. For a publication addressing a highly specialised technology audience, those results provide an opportunity to examine what happens when podcasting becomes a strategic asset rather than an isolated communications activity.
Organisations have become remarkably good at creating communications channels. Corporate websites, newsletters, social media, webinars, podcasts and thought-leadership programmes frequently operate alongside one another, each with its own objectives, publishing schedules and performance indicators. What they do not always have is a clear relationship with one another or a shared understanding of the wider communications strategy they are supposed to support.
A podcast might generate interesting conversations while the website publishes articles and the social media team promotes company announcements. All three may be professionally produced, but that does not necessarily mean they contribute to a coherent understanding of what an organisation stands for, what expertise it possesses or why its audience should continue paying attention.
At Krowne Communications, we have spent considerable time developing an approach we call Strategic Narrative Engineering (SNE). Its underlying principle is straightforward: communications should build a consistent, recognisable narrative over time, with each activity contributing to a wider strategic purpose. When we launched The Quantum Space in 2025, we had an opportunity to apply that approach to our own business and examine the results.
Building an audience from the ground up
The Quantum Space was created as an independent specialist publication covering quantum computing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, digital identity and the technologies underpinning digital trust. Its intended audience was never the general technology consumer, but rather a relatively concentrated community of technology providers, researchers, industry specialists, business decision-makers and policymakers working within these fields.
We began without an established audience for the new publication. Our objective was to develop a recognisable editorial position, establish credibility within a specialist market and create a platform capable of attracting both readers and industry contributors. That required more than regularly publishing technology news. We needed a clear editorial perspective, a consistent relationship between subjects and a way to develop ideas across different formats without fragmenting the underlying narrative.
The Innovating Trust podcast became an important element of that strategy. Rather than treating it as a separate programme, we developed it around the same questions being explored through our articles, features and research reports. Discussions with industry specialists could expand on published analysis, while developments emerging from interviews could inform subsequent editorial coverage.
The podcast also offered something written journalism cannot always provide: the opportunity for listeners to hear the people behind the technology explain their decisions, challenges and occasionally their disagreements. That additional dimension strengthens the editorial narrative by introducing expertise, personality and perspective while remaining connected to the subjects that brought audiences to the publication in the first place.
Recognition is useful. Engagement matters more.
In November 2026, Innovating Trust reached No. 9 in MillionPodcasts’ Cryptography Podcasts listing. For a programme developed within a relatively young specialist publication, competing for attention in an established international technology market, that recognition represents an encouraging milestone. However, the audience figures reveal something equally interesting about the relationship between our editorial strategy and the engagement it generates.
During 2026, The Quantum Space recorded 11,050 podcast plays and downloads through its own website alone, excluding listening activity through Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other distribution platforms. Over the same period, podcast pages attracted approximately 23,000 views, producing a ratio equivalent to roughly 48 plays or downloads for every 100 page views.
The timeframe makes those figures particularly significant. Innovating Trust has not been publishing continuously throughout the year. Season Two comprised 16 episodes, broadcast between February and May, while Season Three began in September and remains underway. Our current reporting covers the first 10 episodes of the third season, meaning that the figures reflect just 26 episodes across the two seasons, rather than a full year of continuous publishing.
For a specialist publication operating in a highly focused professional market, generating more than 11,000 website plays and downloads across just 26 episodes represents a substantial level of audience activity. More importantly, that engagement has developed progressively as the podcast has matured. While earlier episodes were building their audience, Season Three has seen a noticeable increase in listening activity, with recent episodes approaching 1,000 plays and downloads. That upward trend is particularly encouraging given the highly specialised nature of the subjects we cover and the relatively short period in which the publication has been operating.
The specialist nature of the audience makes these results particularly relevant. Quantum computing, cryptography, digital identity and industrial cybersecurity are not subjects that routinely attract mass-market audiences. They are technically demanding disciplines, often involving relatively small professional communities whose members have specific reasons for seeking information. Within this environment, reaching the right audience and encouraging meaningful engagement is considerably more important than accumulating large numbers of casual visitors.
The relationship between page views and podcast consumption is especially encouraging. Although the figures represent different measures of activity and cannot be treated as a verified conversion rate among unique visitors, they indicate that podcast consumption is substantial relative to the attention the episode pages receive. The audience is not simply encountering our content; a significant amount of listening activity is taking place alongside that engagement.
There is another important distinction. The 11,050 figure relates exclusively to plays and downloads recorded through The Quantum Space website. It does not include Spotify or Apple Podcasts, where additional listening activity extends the programme’s reach beyond our own platform. The website figures therefore represent only one part of the podcast’s overall distribution and audience engagement.
For Krowne, the significance lies in what these results tell us about the role of podcasting within a wider communications strategy. Innovating Trust was never intended to operate as a separate channel competing with the publication for attention. It was developed to reinforce our editorial coverage, introduce specialist expertise and provide another way for audiences to explore the subjects and questions that define The Quantum Space.
We cannot attribute every website visit or podcast download directly to that strategy, and audience behaviour is influenced by search visibility, distribution, guest participation and editorial relevance. Nevertheless, the results demonstrate that podcasting has become a substantial part of engagement with the publication, rather than simply an additional activity measured independently from everything else.
The No. 9 ranking is a welcome recognition of the programme’s growing profile. The more important achievement is that, within a relatively short period of active publishing, Innovating Trust has established a meaningful audience in a highly specialised field while contributing to the wider editorial identity of The Quantum Space.
One narrative, multiple opportunities to engage
Consider how a specialist organisation might traditionally use a podcast interview. A guest is invited, the conversation is recorded, the episode is published and a handful of promotional posts appear on LinkedIn. After a week or two, attention moves to the next guest, often without establishing any meaningful connection between the discussion and the organisation’s wider communications activities. There is nothing inherently wrong with that approach, but it leaves considerable strategic value unexplored.
Within The Quantum Space, a podcast episode can contribute to an ongoing editorial discussion. A related article might establish the background to an issue, while an interview adds practical experience or a contrasting assessment. A research report can examine the wider evidence, and subsequent reporting can test whether the underlying conclusions remain valid as technologies and markets develop. Readers and listeners encounter different parts of the discussion according to their interests and preferred formats, but they remain connected to a recognisable set of questions and themes. Each piece of content contributes additional context, rather than attempting to establish its own independent message.
Our recent State of Quantum 2026 report provides one example. Its examination of quantum computing’s industrial development and commercial maturity was supported by a companion episode of Innovating Trust, while subsequent articles have incorporated new developments and linked them back to the original analysis. The result is a connected body of editorial content in which individual publications continue to contribute value beyond their initial release. Rather than starting each new article, interview or report from an empty page, we are developing an increasingly substantial body of work that supports and extends our established editorial themes.
This approach also has implications for search visibility and AI-driven discovery. A subject developed coherently across articles, interviews and research gives audiences, search engines and AI systems more context through which to understand an organisation’s expertise and editorial position. That does not guarantee stronger search rankings or favourable AI-generated answers. It does, however, establish a more substantial and consistent information foundation than disconnected communications activities competing independently for attention.
A podcast should have a job to do
For organisations considering podcasting as part of their communications strategy, the first question should not necessarily concern recording equipment, distribution platforms or publishing frequency. It should concern the role the podcast is intended to play within the organisation’s wider communications objectives.
Is it designed to introduce expertise that customers would otherwise struggle to access? Will it support an existing thought-leadership programme? Can it develop issues that are too complex for conventional marketing content, or create opportunities for customers, partners and independent specialists to contribute to a broader industry discussion? Most importantly, how does the podcast connect to what the organisation wants to be known for?
Without clear answers, podcasting can become another commitment that consumes resources while struggling to demonstrate its strategic contribution. With those answers, it can become an effective means of building familiarity, reinforcing expertise and developing relationships over time. Success also requires editorial discipline. Guests should contribute something relevant to the wider narrative, episodes should have a reason to exist beyond filling a publishing slot, and the resulting content should remain useful after the initial promotion has finished.
That last consideration is particularly important for specialist communications. The value of a technically substantive interview may continue long after its original publication, particularly when it addresses challenges that remain relevant to an industry over several years. The objective is therefore not simply to produce more content, but to ensure that the content being produced contributes to a larger and more durable understanding of the organisation and its expertise.
Applying our own methodology
There is an obvious reason why the development of Innovating Trust matters to us at Krowne. We advise organisations on the importance of coherent narratives, sustained visibility and communications activities that reinforce one another. The Quantum Space gives us an opportunity to apply those principles in practice, measure the results and adjust our approach as we learn. Not every editorial decision delivers the expected outcome, and not every subject develops into a successful podcast episode. Building a specialist media platform requires experimentation, consistency and a willingness to question whether individual activities are contributing to the overall strategy. But the experience has reinforced our belief that communications become considerably more valuable when their individual elements support a clearly defined direction.
The No. 9 MillionPodcasts ranking is a welcome achievement, and we are pleased that Innovating Trust is receiving recognition within its specialist field. The website engagement figures provide something equally valuable: evidence that an audience interested in technically demanding subjects is actively consuming the content we produce. More importantly, the podcast has become an established part of a wider editorial platform, contributing to audience engagement, industry relationships and a growing body of connected expertise.
A successful podcast can attract listeners, but a strategically integrated podcast can contribute to something considerably more valuable: a narrative that audiences recognise, revisit and trust. That is what we have been building through The Quantum Space, and it is the principle behind our approach to Strategic Narrative Engineering at Krowne Communications.
