The past few years have seen podcasting take the world by storm. This is largely due to the ever increasing number of people hopping on to the podcast train. And why not? After all, this is an extremely effective tool to get the message both effectively and quickly across the marketing spectrum. Let us take a quick look at what podcasting is all about and how even a novice marketer and entrepreneur can benefit from learning the tricks of the podcasting trade.
A podcast has often been described as an “episodic series of digital audio files that a user can download and listen to”.
By and large, many, if not most podcasts are usually available to listeners for a nominal subscription. Once a user decides to subscribe to any particular podcast then all of the new episodes from that podcaster will be downloaded automatically to the user’s media payer or smartphone app or even personal computer. The process through which this is accomplished is generally referred to as ‘web syndication’.
There was a time barely a short while ago when virtually all podcasting was relegated to the fringes of the marketing world. But that was then, and this is now and what had been considered to being an activity that had merely been restricted to only to a few tech-savvy people at most, has now reached the marketing mainstream. And now it has gone way beyond the mainstream, as it gathers steady momentum of its very own.
This is primarily because there are very a lot of advantages to podcasting, both for the podcasting community as a whole, as well as listeners as well. Let us take a look at a few of such benefits in some detail:
o The ability to generate revenue and attract a large audience with minimal investment
Yes, it is quite possible for a Podcaster to earn revenue, and sometimes they do end up earning more than they could have possibly dreamt off before starting on this venture.
If we were to take even a cursory look online, we would easily see that there are many podcasters who started small and have now signed lucrative five and even six-figure advertising contracts with many of the globally known brands. Massive brands are extremely eager to link their names with those in the leading lights of the podcast industry. Giving them an alternative way to reach people in a new and fresh way.
This is primarily due to the fact that this is an untapped industry, in every sense of the term. And here it is pertinent to note that it is not just the big names that are making the big bucks. Even the so called small-time players are able to acquire contracts and sponsors on a regular basis. However, this is where the question arises as to exactly, why do many sponsors ever even bother with podcasts at all? Especially when there are many different avenues that are currently available for them to spend their advertising budget on?
They do so for some of the following key reasons:
o The convenience of easily accessible audio content for the end consumer
Just about all marketers have one key factor in common with each other, and that is the fact that they are trying to catch their target audience’s attention. This is the single most important objective of the entire marketing effort, as a whole.
As a matter of fact, today’s increasingly net-savvy generation has a tremendous amount of information available right at their fingertips. This means that there is often a whole lot of distractions, and all of them are competing for the attention of the end consumer.
This makes it really difficult for any individual to give his one hundred percent attention to the same medium at any given point in time.
Let’s consider the example of a television advertisement to better understand this situation. If you are in the middle of a particularly enthralling show and it takes an advert break, odds are that you will quickly switch channels till you come across something more exciting than the ad in question. Now, this is clearly a loss to the erstwhile advertiser who has spent a whole lot of money to place that ad in any popular prime time program. All his valuable resources go down the drain, the moment the channel is changed.
Much the same holds true for print media and even the internet as well since it is possible to just simply gloss over different newspaper ads and website banners so that one is able to read the content that matters to them, the most.
o Ability to multi-task
The main reason behind this is that focusing on one thing at a time, while dealing with multiple different distractions is virtually impossible. This is indeed exactly why the great thing (from the point of view of the sponsor that is) about any podcast is that the content is in an audio format and furthermore, it is available on just about any online media player.
This way the target audience can easily listen to it while simultaneously doing other things as well. They may be jogging or driving a car, cleaning their house or even doing something as tedious as working out at the local gym.
Listening to an interesting and knowledgeable podcast is a really good way to take care of all such boring and otherwise mundane tasks. This unique ability to multitask makes podcast fans basically ‘tune in’ whenever they are working on other stuff.
Listening to a popular podcast does not create a distraction. Instead it creates more of a diversion from their present routine activity. This often times ends up inspiring the listeners to increase their productivity along side listening to the podcast.
In the light of the above, we can safely conclude that podcasts are a really inexpensive and effective means of getting your message across to an appreciative audience.
by Bobby J Davidson
We love our company and we love what we do. Check out the ‘Why Percento‘ page to learn more: Love of Technology and Business! As the President of Percento Technologies International, I provide day-to-day leadership to the company’s senior management and I am personally involved in the strategy, business development and sales activities of the firm.
The company was founded in 1999 with the purpose of providing a one call source for organizations in need of Enterprise IT Consulting and Management. We also provide a line of products in the boutique Cloud Server space with a touch of high-end website strategy consulting and design services. We personalizes the IT Service experience with a team approach, working with clients from diverse sectors of industry, including energy services, financial, legal, entertainment, healthcare, hospitality, retail and general and/or corporate business. percentotech.com/contact
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