Posts Tagged ‘Podcasts’

3 Reasons Small Business Podcasts are Successful

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

There is a move toward putting more multimedia content on websites and blogs and there is a very good reason for this. Even if you aren`t interested in doing video, small business podcasts are a great way to get started in the multimedia field.

Podcasts are great for a number of reasons, here are a few:

  1. They`re portable. People can download your small business podcasts and listen to them on MP3 players and chances are, a large number of your listeners will do just that. It`s usually easier to listen to podcasts while you are doing something else.
  2. They offer another way to reach your audience. People are busy. They don`t always want to take the time to read long articles or information, but if you offer them the option of listening to the message you have to impart, then you will be able to reach those hard-to-get audience members.
  3. It`s more personal. There is a bond that occurs when someone gets used to your voice by hearing it repeatedly. This is the reason radio DJs get so famous without ever showing their face. You`ll find that your listeners will feel closer to you and tend to trust you more because they feel they have a chance to really get to know you.

There are some very good reasons for doing small business podcasts, as you can see. It doesn`t mean you have to record daily, even a couple of podcasts a month can really help expand your audience.

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Podcasting for Email Addresses

Friday, December 19th, 2008

Email addresses are what you need if you want to really capture people`s attention and maintain it. Everyone knows that the money is in the list and it doesn`t matter what business you are in, you can always benefit from an email list.

Podcasting is an excellent way to gather email addresses. You can give your visitors a small clip of audio, plus a run down of what will be included in the full podcast. All they need to do in order to listen to this educational and any other useful podcast in the future is sign up with their email address.

You`ll need to be sure not to abuse this email address, since that`s a sure way to lose your potential clients. Keep emails short and informative and you`ll end up with far more people who stay subscribed to you. Podcasts on a regular basis can also help maintain subscribers.

Keeping your podcasts informative and not particularly long (15-20 min.) is the best way to ensure people stay interested. Make it worth their while to hand over their email address.

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5 Great Podcast Tips for Small Business

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

Podcasts are a handy way to connect with your clients or potential clients, but many small business owners aren´t sure how about starting with podcasts. It´s really a great idea, though and one that visitors to your website will enjoy. In fact, many more people are likely to subscribe to a podcast than to a blog!

To make your podcasts even better, here are a few tips.

5 Podcast Tips

  • Keep it short. While some podcasts of an hour do well, the majority of people simply don´t have much time to listen to you, so keep your podcast below 30 min. to attract more listeners.
  • Make it useful. No one wants to listen to chitchat on a regular basis, though there is certainly room for this in a business podcast. Offering information and tips that your listeners can use will keep them coming back.
  • Speak clearly. If you are normally a fast talker, it might take some practice for you to get to the point where you can speak nice and clearly so everyone can understand you.
  • Plan it out. You don´t need an exact script, but having a plan for your podcasts is a good idea to keep you from getting drastically off track.
  • Watch the noise level. If you are recording at home, make sure you find a quiet room to do so. Phones ringing, kids yelling and the TV blaring is not only distracting to you, it can lower the quality of the podcast.

Podcasts don´t have to be very complicated. You can simply record a 15 minute one to your computer and put it up for your website visitors to listen to. As long as you keep it short and informative, with a good dose of your own personality, everything should go just fine.

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Should Podcasts Be Part of Your Marketing Strategy?

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

Podcasts can provide your customers and website visitors with more value when they visit your site. But not every business is suited to podcasts, right? Well, you could actually turn any business into podcast material, if you know how to spin it!

Let´s say that you are a florist . . . you could easily do podcasts on how to choose the right flowers for special occasions, the meanings of flowers, how to care for your cut flowers, the advantages of live vs. cut, the possibilities are endless. What you need to do is put yourself in the mindset of your customer and then record information they can use to use your services or products better.

The advantage of podcasts is that people tend to subscribe to them (via iTunes or another distribution method), so you have repeated chances to get your marketing message to them, a big advantage, no matter what your industry. However, podcasts shouldn´t be pure advertisements. It´s fine to mention your business or website throughout the podcast, but keep it in context, otherwise give a little “ad” at the end of the episode.

People like newer mediums of communication like video and podcasts, so bring your business up to date by adding in a podcast or two. You can do them on a regular basis, if you like, or just whenever you have something valuable to say. Your visitors and clients will appreciate the additional information.

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