7 Reasons to Add Podcasting to Your Business Marketing Mix

by: Rodney Rumford
Copyright 2005 Rodney RumfordLeveraging podcasting technology can give you a marketing edge that will allow you to increase your online visibility, increase your client acquisition rates and improve customer loyalty. The smart businesses and marketing companies will add podcasting to the marketing mix for their business. Adding podcasting to your marketing mix can have tremendous positive impact on your business.Many small and large businesses are still trying to understand the basics of podcasting technology. There are many articles and white papers that can educate people on the basics of podcasting 101. If you are looking to educate yourself more on podcasting for your business you can read the 6 blogs that are available at http://blog.podblaze.comSo exactly how does marketing with podcasts work? Think of podcasting as a communication tool for your business. How do you currently use marketing tools such as: your website, newsletter and email marketing? You probably use these mediums to communicate messaging to your target audience. But there are some problems with trying to market through these communication channels.People don’t always get your email due to overly aggressive Spam filters. They don’t come back and visit your website, or read your newsletter. People actually have to make an effort to read your content. If you have a podcast, they can actually stream the audio and let it play while they are doing other tasks at their computer. People tend to multitask in order to be more efficient with the use of their time. Additionally, most users tend to prefer value added audio content that is specific to their areas of interest. Your quality audio podcast content also tends to have a higher perceived value by your target market. Providing value added content is what your business should be focusing on. Podcasting is only a communication tool, and your podcast is only as good as the content that you provide to your audience. Make sure that you produce relevant content and not just a rambling piece of audio. Follow the best practices that I wrote about in my last article.Most businesses need to be made aware of the increased online visibility that podcasting can provide. Your podcast could be in front of 40 million iTunes listeners if you have made an iTunes compatible RSS podcast feed; multiple Blog directories or specialized podcast ping directories such as http://www.freshpodcasts.com or http://audio.weblogs.com Verify that the major podcast ping directories receive a ping every time you add a new show to your podcast RSS feed. Additionally, the search engines will look at the RSS podcasting feed and spider the show notes that are tied to your podcast as well.Here are 6 of the 7 reasons that your business should be podcasting and some of the business benefits that you could derive from a properly executed podcast...1. Increase your marketing reach and online visibility2. Improve your sales & conversion rates3. Regular line of communication with subscribed listeners4. Value added content increases loyalty5. Industry news and trends sets you apart from the competition6. Interviews with leaders in your particular niche will establish your business as a respected leader in your niche or industry.You can get the 7th reason and learn even more about using podcasting as a business marketing tool by reading these 6 podcasting business blogs at http://blog.podblaze.comSo don't wait any longer; start podcasting today and leverage this audio technology for your business