The New Marketing: December
How Is It Done?
There are a number of ways to podcast. Visit our Prosper blog zone for links to free descriptions and downloadable ebooks. The simple version is this: Know what you want to say, find a computer with a microphone and an internet connection and you are close to being in production. Really. Even more simply, there are services that allow you to make a phone call. What you record is then posted as a podcast.
Countless websites have sprung up to serve as podcast search engines of sorts, making it easier to offer your audio show to an audience with the stroke of a few keywords. There are many software titles that make it easy to put a professional edge to your production ranging in price from free to $100.
What is the potential audience? No one really knows yet. However, Arbitron/Edison Media Research reports in its “Internet and Multimedia 2005: The On-Demand Media Consumer” that the monthly internet radio audience represents an estimated 37 million Americans, and the estimated weekly audience is nearly 20 million.
When I spoke with Sacramento Bee New Media Director Ralph Frattura about the Chris Macias podcast series PodNonStop offered at SacTicket online, he told me the numbers are small, but the offering is very young.
“When we did the first one, we simply took a wait-and-see attitude. Frankly, we didn’t know that there would be a second show.” Now there are five listed and advertisers are approaching The Bee, seeking opportunities to place audio ads into the stream. Frattura’s not talking on the record, but the numbers might be better than he is letting on.
According to Pew Internet Reports earlier this year, “More than 22 million American adults own iPods or MP3 players and 29 percent of them have downloaded podcasts from the web. That amounts to more than 6 million adults who have tried this new feature.”
If you are an expert in an industry where consumers thrive on detailed or specialty information, podcasting to your target audience can be another affordable, and ever more effective, arrow in your quiver.
For a list of Northern California companies that are podcasting, log onto Prosper’s blog.
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