Podcasting in the Digital Age

In this ever-expanding digital world, we’re all constantly looking for the next wave of marketing tools that will help us stand out from the crowd. And there’s one tool that can revolutionise a business’ marketing strategy, which can be very simply executed and distributed – the ‘podcast’.

A ‘podcast’ is the ability to send an audio or video presentation to your clients and contacts. Instead of them trawling through the text of a long email, they’re actually watching you, or hearing your voice speak directly to them. This helps you to build rapport with your client base and helps them relate to you the person, rather than the company. This is crucial in business– people buy from people, not companies.

Podcasting is rising up the ranks in marketing as everyone from one-man-bands through to multi-national Blue chip companies uses them. And the best thing is that now they can be cheap and easy to produce. Every aspect of the process is benefitting from technology coming down in price and rising in quality. Video cameras that can achieve results that were only the province of the professional a few years ago are available for just a few hundred pounds. The video version of a podcast is sometimes referred to as a ‘vodcast’ but in my view, ‘podcast’ is fine and says it all.

Your subject matter can be anything you want. How about sending a message to existing clients thanking them for their business; sending out this month’s special offers or services; demonstrating a new product visually in a way that a mere description + photo cannot convey; showing really credible testimonials, given directly to camera by the customer; or just conveying a useful piece of information which you feel your contact base would benefit from knowing. The list is endless.

We all live in a visual world, so you’ll find that messages built around a visual medium are absorbed by your audience far easier than just reading text – obviously important when sending out promotional or marketing messages. Provide a memorable ‘call to action’, and get them to forward it to other people they know.

Achieving the right distribution is crucial. The file size of a decent quality video clip, even of short duration, is large, so ensure you use a system which streams the video on a remote server, avoiding the need to take up bandwidth. Until recently, many companies made significant charges for streaming, but now you shouldn’t need to pay for this. Ensure also that the compression system used doesn’t drive out all the quality and resolution from your original video masterpiece. For this reason, and for the reason that you don’t know what is potentially sitting right next to your clip, I recommend avoiding the use of a certain brand-leading video hosting site. It may be tempting to use hosting that is free of charge, and for jokey footage taken on that stag weekend it’s fine, but for a professional piece of promotional material for your company, you need to think twice.

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