Copyright 2005 Rodney Rumford
Leveraging podcasting technology can give you a marketing edge
that will allow you to increase your online visibility, increase
your client acquisition rates and improve customer loyalty. The
smart businesses and marketing companies will add podcasting to
the marketing mix for their business. Adding podcasting to your
marketing mix can have tremendous positive impact on your
business. Many small and large businesses are still trying to
understand the basics of podcasting technology. There are many
articles and white papers that can educate people on the basics
of podcasting 101. If you are looking to educate yourself more
on podcasting for your business you can read the 6 blogs that
are available at http://blog.podblaze.com
So exactly how does marketing with podcasts work? Think of
podcasting as a communication tool for your business. How do you
currently use marketing tools such as: your website, newsletter
and email marketing? You probably use these mediums to
communicate messaging to your target audience. But there are
some problems with trying to market through these communication
channels.
People don’t always get your email due to overly aggressive Spam
filters. They don’t come back and visit your website, or read
your newsletter. People actually have to make an effort to read
your content. If you have a podcast, they can actually stream
the audio and let it play while they are doing other tasks at
their computer. People tend to multitask in order to be more
efficient with the use of their time. Additionally, most users
tend to prefer value added audio content that is specific to
their areas of interest. Your quality audio podcast content also
tends to have a higher perceived value by your target market.
Providing value added content is what your business should be
focusing on. Podcasting is only a communication tool, and your
podcast is only as good as the content that you provide to your
audience. Make sure that you produce relevant content and not
just a rambling piece of audio. Follow the best practices that I
wrote about in my last article.
Most businesses need to be made aware of the increased online
visibility that podcasting can provide. Your podcast could be in
front of 40 million iTunes listeners if you have made an iTunes
compatible RSS podcast feed; multiple Blog directories or
specialized podcast ping directories such as
http://www.freshpodcasts.com or http://audio.weblogs.com Verify
that the major podcast ping directories receive a ping every
time you add a new show to your podcast RSS feed.
Additionally, the search engines will look at the RSS podcasting
feed and spider the show notes that are tied to your podcast as
well.
Here are 6 of the 7 reasons that your business should be
podcasting and some of the business benefits that you could
derive from a properly executed podcast…
1. Increase your marketing reach and online visibility 2.
Improve your sales & conversion rates 3. Regular line of
communication with subscribed listeners 4. Value added content
increases loyalty 5. Industry news and trends sets you apart
from the competition 6. Interviews with leaders in your
particular niche will establish your business as a respected
leader in your niche or industry.
You can get the 7th reason and learn even more about using
podcasting as a business marketing tool by reading these 6
podcasting business blogs at http://blog.podblaze.com
So don’t wait any longer; start podcasting today and leverage
this audio technology for your business
Rodney Rumford has 18 years of sales, marketing and technology
experience and is the founder of http://podblaze.com
