By Andrew Ballenthin
Consider Why Podcasting Is The New Form of Target Marketing
Talk Directly To Your Prospect – with the massive amount of advertising noise consumers and businesses contend with the challenge is to stand out from the rest. Traditionally this means spending thousands on well crafted messages to catch people’s attention and many thousands more on print (which is declining in public favor due to environmental considerations). With Podcasting consumers are choosing to tune in to your message. From an advertising standpoint you couldn’t ask for a more targeted way to gain your prospect’s attention.
Lengthen Your Captive Audience’s Attention To Your Message – radio and TV, due to cost and nature of presentation usually communicate their message in up to 30 seconds. With Podcasting, download statistics indicate most people will listen for 1-3 minutes. Print has a matter of seconds to capture attention to gain readership and then pull the prospect into more detail to take action. Podcasting due to it’s highly personal nature generally compels much greater interest in its content and holds the audience throughout the broadcast.
Build True One-on-One Relationships – compared to traditional advertising, which has it’s highly valid place, Podcasting brings a face, voice, and life to the target customer. If a Podcast is crafted even reasonably well, it gives a company true one-on-one face time with new and existing clients with only the initial small outlay of time to create and publish the Podcast. Consumers become familiar with the brand through that person and a higher level of trust can be established.
Create Anticipation For Future Communication – you only have to look at the explosion of YouTube to see the anticipation for more communication from the same author. Average people are generating thousands of views on sequential Podcasts and videos. Messages that are more creative can reach hundreds of thousands of people within days and have a viral impact that traditional media only dreams about.
Measurability – depending on the platform for hosting your Podcasts there ways to measure the consumer behavior in relation to the message. Similar to HTML email where links can be clicked and measured for follow-through to the main offer, Podcasts can be studied statistically to see how many people watched during what times. Unlike TV or Radio that has a passive audience receiving the message, Podcasts have an active audience that have chosen to engage your message and listen with captive attention. Measuring conversion rates is comparatively easy to other mass media.
Immediate Call To Action – statistics case analysis are still building, however, many anecdotal cases show a rise in sales, contact from prospects, people sought out for speaking engagements and increased mass media exposure due to Podcast communication. The rationale for these successes is that for the 1-3 minutes you engage your prospect you have the opportunity to create a compelling message that is not competing with any other advertiser.
What’s Next?
If you look outside of the box, Podcasting gives marketers and sales people the dream media they have always prayed for – that is, to talk directly to an engaged audience with nil competition, for the least amount of cost possible. Our prediction is that the businesses that engage in this form of marketing as a core strategy will have the potential to outstrip competition due to their ability to gain trusted one-on-one relationships. If you consider yourself a visionary and leader in your industry, in sales, in your marketing, this is a media evolution not to be missed.
This article has been inspired by Leesa Barnes, a pioneer in this field and after a few years of challenge (as all pioneers go through) has become one of the most noteworthy speakers on the circuit for lecturing about Podcasting. Check for information on her current [http://www.leesabarneslive.com/andrew]upcoming lectures
Article by Andrew Ballenthin, President of Sol Solutions. When you need to stand apart from your competition talk to Sol Solutions for your marketing, strategic planning, and operations streamlining needs. http://www.communitymarketing.typepad.com Passionate About Connecting Pieces. For more information contact [mailto:andrew@solsolutions.ca]andrew@solsolutions.ca.
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Andrew and Alex covered Forrester Research’s Marketing Forum 2008. During the forum, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff presented material from their new book, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.
Charlene and Josh quickly overviewed their POST framework for using social networks and shared a number of bite-sized case studies of how brands like Procter & Gamble, Ernst & Young, and Loblaws effectively use social media to talk with and energize their customers. They also used Dell to illustrate the importance of tackling social media one application at a time, with high level executive support, and getting it right before moving on to the next initiative.
In addition to covering the presentation at the conference,