Podcasts Yield High Return on Investment for Businesses – Part I
Part 1: What are business podcasts?
Podcasts have become one of the fastest growing media of all time. According to eMarketer.com, February 2009, almost 22 million U.S. Internet users are listening to podcasts. eMarketer.com is forecasting the number of U.S. listeners to nearly double by 2013. For those of you that are new to podcasting let me explain what podcasting is and why it has become so popular.
Podcast Basics
In general, podcasting is the method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio programs or music videos, over the Internet for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. In the recent past, a “mobile” device meant owning an iPod or a laptop computer. Today, almost every “smart” mobile phone being sold is capable of downloading podcasts for future playback.
So what does this all have to do with business? In a word: Everything! Podcasting gives businesses a new and highly effective way to communicate with their target market. By using podcasts, a business can provide their target market (i.e. the listeners/viewers) the convenience to listen to or view the “show” when they want, where they want, and how they want. Let’s just look at few of the ways businesses can use podcasts.
Sponsorship – First, a business can sponsor a popular podcast, similar to a sponsored ‘old-time’ radio show. For example, this could be a pre-roll commercial (i.e. before the podcast starts), or be mentioned by the podcaster during the podcast (i.e. a testimonial), or a post-roll commercial (i.e. at the end of the podcast). These types of commercials have been the bread-and-butter of terrestrial radio since its inception and easily translate to podcasts, which is often described as “time shifted radio”.
PodfomercialSM – Another way businesses can use podcasts is by providing content and essentially creating a podfomercialSM (i.e. podcast infomercial). This is the format used on our weekly podcast Internet radio program, Radiospectives (www.radiospectives.com). Our methodology is a simple one. We interview some of the nation’s top business and community leaders, subject-matter experts, and people in the news who bring you into their circle of expertise and give you the inside scoop on the important topics in business today. This is win-win! The listener gets valuable business information and insight. The interviewees get valuable exposure. For those of you that haven’t visited Radiospectives, let me invite you to do so. It will not only give you a good feel for this type of business promotion, but I also think you will find the content highly resourceful. The Radiospectives 2009 podcast schedule is currently focusing on businesses surviving and thriving in a tough economy, going green, and using Internet Web 2.0 technologies to get a leg-up on the competition.
Business can also use podcasts to document corporate events, such as a stockholders meeting or a grand opening. In fact, they can be used for any type of business communication, internally or externally.
Now that we’ve covered what podcasts are, their amazing popularity, and some of the ways businesses can use them, let’s address the real question. Will a business get a return on investment using podcasts? I’ll address this question in our next post, Part 2: How can businesses monetize podcasts? Stay tuned!
This article is true and factual as it goes. However, I was disappointed in that ROI is mentioned but not quantified. How does a business measure podcasting return on investment.? Indeed, podcasting is highly affordable and effective but until one can measure the costs to podcast against savings realized or margin gained, it’s a difficult “sell” to business and organizations tenaciously bound to traditional methods.
Yet, even with this situation the very fact that podcasting is growing in popularity should be its own appeal and cause for consideration. Business leaders who are sit back with arms folded trying to figure out how podcasting will benefit them are falling behind competition who are finding creative means to exploit podcasting.
Considering the case where a business-to-business company replaces just one month of ad placement in one print medium and, with the savings, spends it on a full year of monthly video podcasts that reach nearly all of its target audience, it’s not hard to imagine how podcasting can be so compelling a communication medium for business. That’s a return on investment that any business leader can understand.
Dave Burckhard
National Podcasting System
http://www.nationalpod.com
Thank you Dave for your thoughtful comment and insight. We measure the ROI on audio podcasts using trackable phone numbers. On video podcasts we use unique landing pages and trackable phone numbers. This allows us to measure the number of leads and/or sales generated by the podcast. Since we know the production and hosting cost, we can calculate the cost per lead, cost per sale, and return on investment (ROI). Obviously, the ROI increases with time as more people find the podcast and respond to the call to action. I hope this provides further insight into how ROI may be calculated.
Hi Louis,
Importance of Podcasting is very well explained. I agree that Podcasts have become one of the fastest growing media and as an online marketing personnel, I believe online marketing efforts should increase the focus on podcasting.
Best Regards,
Nipa Shah
http://www.jenesysgroup.com/
I enjoyed the article. I like the idea of a “podfomercial”. I hadn’t heard the term before, but just reading about it stimulated some ideas in me about how that might be a very effective marketing tool.
Hi Louis,
Yes, the idea of ‘Podfomercial’ is absolutely new to me and interesting aswell. However I second to what Dave said, the ROI is measured but not quantified. I think today every marketeer wants to have some ROI. While the calculation you mentioned definately throws some light on ho to generate ROI but could you please elaborate.
Thanks,
Aashish Washikar