September 21, 2012

Put simply, a podcast is your personal radio show that you can update every day. With millions of iTunes listeners and web users downloading, creating, and listening to podcasts every day, podcasting is emerging as one of the best marketing tools for small businesses. It scores better than conventional marketing tools like e-mails and newsletters. Podcasting lets you put your message in a way that is actually heard and not directed to a spam folder.

Considering that an average podcast is 15-20 minutes long, it is important to make sure that you are talking about something that is informative. It should keep your listener engaged and desirous to know more from you. Once you find a topic and style that you are good with and one that appeals to your target audience, you have won half the battle of using podcasting as a marketing tool for your business.

The reason why podcasts are so popular among internet users is that they allow one to multitask, not requiring 100% attention. Moreover, a podcast can be heard from anywhere, right from a waiting room to a car, while driving. Some podcasters choose a format where they interview various experts in the field of their business, hence ending up with content that scores high on rhetoric. By gaining a user base on your podcast, you earn the reputation of being a reliable figure in your business, who is an expert in his field. This plays a great role in raising customer loyalty for your company.

Once you have laid the basis for your podcast by deciding the subject, target audience, format, etc., the next step is to promote it correctly. You can do this by making your RSS podcast feed iTunes compatible, and registering for multiple blog feeds and specialized podcast ping directories. By doing so, all the major directories will receive a ping each time you upload a podcast.

Another way of making use of podcasting as a marketing tool for your business is through “podvertizing”, which basically means advertizing on a podcast. To do this, you do not even need to own your own podcast, but simply have to look for someone within your industry who uses the podcast as an advertizing medium. Average advertizements last for 10-20 seconds. Since the major population of podcast listeners falls in the age group of 20-35, it is not advisable to use this medium if you are targeting older users.

We at Centex Technologies serve Austin, Dallas and other Central Texas areas. We provide customized internet marketing, SEO, Web development and designing solutions to our client.