I started reading the Business Podcasting Bible to determine how Podcasts can benefit a company’s public relations efforts. The authors of this book, Paul Cooligan and Alex Mandossian, set out to help readers determine if their business is ready, and has the right fit to be Podcast producers. Their goal is to ultimately help their readers to make money through the use of Podcasts.
According to the authors there is some correlation between the two ways to monetize and promote a business, and they are confident that companies can use Podcasting to expand their business. In fact, they cite a series of Podcasts for which users pay $4,000 for the opportunity to listen – and there are a number who sign up for the service.
Cooligan and Mandossian contend that businesses should endeavor to be early adopters of Podcasting, as they see it as the next Internet. They feel that those businesses that familiarize themselves with Podcasting and become experts early on are more likely to make money through the use of Podcasts when it becomes more of an accepted medium – much like companies today are making millions by taking full advantage of the business opportunities the Internet presents (think Google, Amazon, etc.).
The advantages that Podcasting has over other mediums, like radio and TV, are that consumers can listen to a Podcast anywhere and any time they want. Just download it to an iPod or other MP3 player and you can listen to content on your trip to work, at lunch, on a flight, while jogging, in the bathroom—giving the Podcast consumer control over the where, how and when they want to tune in for the program.
In addition to this time-shift access, Cooligan and Mandossian say the Podcast consumer is set apart because he/she has editorial control over the content. If they do not like your content, they will not download your program. And when there are no customers to listen there is no need to produce the Podcast. I don’t really see this as an exclusive benefit to Podcasting, as this holds true throughout all mediums – I believe all consumers have editorial control on all mediums because if a show or publication isn’t popular, it’s not going to continue.
One of the benefits of Podcasting for businesses is that it helps companies maximize business intimacy. According to Cooligan, intimacy has been redefined for businesses "by our ability to accelerate and strengthen the relationship.” Podcasts also accelerate communications and help to boost bottom lines.
What is more, businesses can use Podcasts to communicate internally and externally. When communicating with internal employees, businesses can take advantage of the time-shift nature of Podcasts by giving their staff the opportunity to listen to important meetings they are unable to attend. They can simply download a Podcast and listen to it at their leisure. Corporate executives can also distribute staff-wide Podcasts to share news of corporate initiatives or to lay out daily or weekly goals established for the staff. This can save money by freeing up staff from attending daily meetings, costs on paper used for internal memos, and more. While these are great ideas, I’m not sure at this time if it’s feasible. For a business to do this effectively they would have to give iPods (or other MP3 players) to everyone on staff, and I don’t think many businesses will be willing to do this any time soon.
Turning a profit on Podcasts requires external use of the communications technology, namely as a marketing tool for a business’s new products and initiatives.
Before launching, Cooligan says you have to determine the following:
1) Why you are doing it
2) Goals associated with the Podcast
3) What the message will be
4) Is the sought-after audience ready to consume
5) Does the audience know how to consume the content
While Podcasting has been around a few years, my guess is that there are more Americans out there who are unfamiliar with how to download and listen to Podcasts then there are who know. That means the last two determining factors above will require some research by any business interested in launching their Podcast.
Once you decide to launch a Podcast, Cooligan says it is important to take a ready, aim, fire approach, as opposed to the fire, aim, ready tendencies of today’s Podcasters. It is essential to hit the right target audience; once that is secured you continue firing messages at the audience until they become habitual listeners – the holy grail of any Podcast effort.
Having read the book, I think that Cooligan and Mandossian provide some very good advice on what businesses need to do to launch a successful Podcast. They explain that before you decide when to launch a Podcast you first have to determine the who, what how and why.
One of the more interesting pieces of advice they have, though, is: “You will never truly understand Podcasting until you start consuming them yourself.”
I decided to follow their suggestion and visited podcasts.yahoo.com. At this site, you can subscribe to Podcasts for virtually any topic in which you are interested. For me, it was This Week in Tech, MLB Radio Daily, Cubcast (about the Chicago Cubs) and DreamStation (video game news).
Having done this, I disagree with the authors that Podcasting has the potential to do what the Internet has done for businesses. The problem is that the onus is put on the consumer to take full advantage of the medium. The Internet is there for anyone who has a PC or laptop, and if you want to surf the Web to look for news (or information on anything for that matter), it is a pretty elementary process to do that using Google or news sites like CNN.
I think I am more interested than the average consumer in finding the latest news on the topics I am interested in. However, I am much more likely to do that through the Internet than Podcasts. My attitude may change, but that’s just the way I see it right now.
That being said, I am no futurist, so I would recommend that any business interested in launching a Podcast pick up this book. Cooligan and Mandossian provide a lot of great advice, and anyone who buys the book gains restricted access to more tips on their Web site at www.BusinessPodcastingBible.com.
To check out some podcasts for yourself, visit the podcasts.yahoo.com site I referenced above, or check out www.dailysourcecode.com or www.optimizationseries.com. Cooligan and Mandossian say these sites are two of the best examples of Podcasting.
