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Consumers like podcasts because of their convenience and flexibility. To help you kick off podcasting in your business, we’ve prepared a list of considerations that you need to work through.

1. Content is king

Create and repurpose highly polished content and use devices like an editorial calendar to help plan and complement your content, identifying the well credentialed experts that you might like to involve in discussing the topic of choice. Naturally get your experts lined and synced up and briefed well before your podcast.

In the case of a podcast of a discussion, map out a framework of discussion points but do not follow a script word for word. Alternatively, if you’re providing information or research data, the podcast should be more heavily scripted.

2. Avoid the sales pitch

A podcast is not the medium to make a sales pitch. The content has to be entertaining or informational - it has to have value. For the content to work, it’s got to be relevant, suitable and indeed compelling for your audience.

3. Don’t say ‘blah blah blah’ when ‘blah’ will do

Make sure you keep to the point and don’t ramble on. Of course, you can edit out your ummmmms, errrrrrrs and duhhhhhhs, together with any undue silences, but you want your content to be fluid and professional. Importantly, you need to sound convincing, knowledgeable and that you are passionate about the topic.

4. Frequency and duration

It makes sense to break up the podcast into bite-sized grabs. That way your audience can dip in and dip out as per their needs. Whether you produce weekly or monthly casts - it depends on urgency and relevancy of the information that you’re providing.

5. Provide quick and easy access

Don’t make it hard for people to listen to your podcast. Putting up a barrier like asking them to register is a definite no-go. Podcasting is all about quick, easy access which should be free.

By all means provide a transcript of the podcast and request registration details for that download, but the premise of the podcast is a quick click and download.

6. Measuring effectiveness

Podcasting is still in its infancy. It’s not about the numbers it’s the quality of those listening. Forrester Research says that podcast users skew young, male, and affluent.

7. Take criticism on the chin

Build a response mechanism in your website or blog so that listeners can comment about your podcast. Naturally some of the feedback will be positive, but some will not. Ensure that you have the framework in place to handle negative feedback.

8. Entice your audience to come back for more

Naturally the quality of the content is paramount, as is the regularity of the podcast. Without doubt you’ll need to provide some prime real estate on your site to promote the podcast, along with using other channels (like an email newsletter) to drive traffic and build the number of listeners.

9. Create an audio logo

It’s important to use an audio logo or jingle at the beginning and end of your podcast. An audio logo makes your podcast more memorable and sound more professionally produced. The audio logo serves as a professional way of introducing the podcast and imparting or defining the personality of your brand. If you’re considering using existing music, ensure that you obtain the necessary permission and rights.

10. Up close and personal

Remember, podcasting gives you a powerful opportunity to communicate with your consumers at a time when it best suits them. Get your podcasts right and this niche but influential audience will be at their most receptive and you’ll be able to increase the depth of your relationship with them.

What’s involved in making podcasts?

There are three basic steps that you need to follow:

Record

In terms of equipment, along with your computer, you’ll need an external microphone to create that clean, professional-quality sound together with a pair of headphones.

For the software, you can use any that lets you record, digitize and edit sound. Podcasting News has an extensive list of software that you can use.

However, for PC owners, Audacity and the LAME MP3 encoder is proving to be popular and relatively easy to use.

For Mac users, the GarageBand Podcast Studio, seems to be the software of choice.

Once you have recorded your podcast, you need to edit out any long silences, ummmmms, errrrrrrs and duhhhhhh, and add any music such as your audio logo or other sound grabs. Then you’ll need to convert the files to MP3 and upload it to your website.

Upload

Podcasts are delivered online via RSS. So when you upload your MP3 files, you need to include an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) file to your website or blog so that your audience can download them.

Given the nature of podcasting, it often makes sense to break up the podcast into bite-sized chunks that your audience can snack on.

Feed

Set up an RSS feed pointing to the site where new episodes will appear. Once you enclose your MP3 in a RSS file people can automate the download of the audio you made.

Great resources

Here are links to two excellent step-by-step guides:

CNET: Create your own podcast The Yahoo Podcasts Publishing guide

Call it viral marketing, buzz marketing, connected marketing or whatever you will, marketing messages spread by email have been around long enough for management and measurement techniques to come into play, as Simon van Wyk writes.

It’s been 10 years since the first viral online marketing campaign. It’s a campaign that’s still going, and just about everyone who’s ever used the Internet has been exposed to the virus.

It was back in July 1996 that the founders of Hotmail, Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia, added a signature line to all messages from their email service, alerting anyone who received a Hotmail message that they could come to Hotmail and get a free email account. Nearly 250 million Hotmail members later, that campaign is still running, and it has been followed by tens of thousands of online campaigns, according to a recent MarketingSherpa report.

However, MarketingSherpa reckons viral marketing has settled into a rut, despite the fact that creativity is the essence of a successful viral campaign. In fact, in its report, based on a survey it conducted of 790 viral marketers, MarketingSherpa said, “it’s getting hideously same-old, same-old boring. Which spells trouble, because viral’s all about not being boring”.

Compared to last year, the first time the survey was conducted, there are some striking differences in viral marketing activity. Looking at the metrics used to determine campaign success, new email opt-ins was cited by 63% of respondents and value of new email opt-ins was mentioned by 31%, both up 10% on 2005. This indicates that marketers are now starting to focus on the quality of their email lists, rather than just the size.

Not surprisingly, the value derived from video clips has soared, up to 47% compared to 31% the previous year. (MarketingSherpa attributes most of this growth to two industries- automotive and pornography!)

The report declared that social networking-related activities (driven by sites such as MySpace and YouTube) have had the most explosive impact on the growth in viral marketing during the past year, because blogging has finally hit household-name status.

According to Nielsen/Netratings, seven of the top 10 fastest growing Web brands online for November 2005 were user-generated content and social networking sites, which boasted the monthly unique visitor growth rates of up to 1500% over the previous 12 months.

From revolution to maturation

While MarketingSherpa warns of viral marketing being in a rut, marketing consultants Justin Kirby and Paul Marsden argue that the viral revolution has just matured. Kirby and Marsden are editors of the recently published book Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz and Word of Mouth Revolution, in which 17 experts in the area discuss a range of, as they call it, “scalable, predictable and measurable solutions for driving business growth by stimulating positive brand talk between clients, customers and consumers”.

In an excerpt from the book published recently on MarketingProfs.com, Kirby writes that they coined the term “connected marketing” to cover viral, buzz, word of mouth and any kind of marketing (from product research and development through production, to promotion by any means, including traditional advertising) that “creates conversations in target markets that add measurable value to a brand”.

Kirby highlights the crisis in advertising effectiveness which has helped fuel the viral revolution. A 2004 study Deutsche Bank in the US consumer packaged goods sector found that only 18% of TV advertising campaigns generate a positive return on annual investment, while the Harvard Business Review reported that for every dollar invested into traditional advertising for consumer packaged goods, the short-term return on investment is just 54 cents. The HBR survey also quoted a study that showed that an astonishing 84% of B2B marketing campaigns actually result in a fall in market share and brand equity.

One response to the problem has been reducing media costs by using free media - word of mouth connections - to deliver marketing messages. As well as being free, word of mouth connections are influential: Kirby cites a 2004 UK survey by consultants CIA:MediaEdge which found that 76% cite word of mouth as their main influence on their purchasing decisions, compared with only 15% for traditional advertising.

Kirby writes, “Many brands are now finally realising that the most powerful selling of products and ideas takes place not marketer to consumer but consumer to consumer.”

Although most viral marketing campaigns look as organised as a men’s weekend away, Kirby argues that managing successful viral activities “is possible through an organised series of decisions and approaches; it’s not a hit-or-miss quest for that one groundbreaking idea.”

Circles of influence

Integrating the viral, buzz, and word of mouth techniques with the whole mix of marketing - advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion, PR, etc. - is essential for successful campaigns.

According to Kirby, successful integration starts with listening to what customers are already saying about your brand and identifying and involving your most influential customers.

“With connected marketing,” Kirby writes, “the aim is to profile and recruit customers who represent the 10% of society that helps influence the majority of all purchasing decisions. These influencers are not necessarily the customers who spend the most money with you, but they are the most important people you can reach, because they are the ones who can help amplify and accelerate positive word mouth about your brand.

He recommends developing ongoing, two-way relationships with influencers, doing things such as letting them trial your product before it is released, or getting them involved back in the research and development process. This will help increase the chance of success even if the product or service itself isn’t particularly innovative.

One thing Kirby warns against is jumping into bed with marketing specialist who claim they can monitor blogs, forums etc. to gather data on mentions of your brand. He points out there are plenty of free tools available that you can use to monitor your brand ‘buzz’.

Measuring the full impact

Kirby wisely recommends that traditional, cost-per-thousand-eyeballs types of measures should not be relied on to measure the success of viral campaigns. He also argues against relying on recommendation rates as the only measurement. However, he doesn’t offer an iron-clad solution for measurement techniques - he simply says that further research is needed to help marketers be more scientific about success measures.

The MarketingSherpa report, while it also doesn’t solve the measurement problem, includes some useful tips for successful viral campaigns in today’s social networking-driven online environment. Suggestions include: building a campaign specifically with a networking site like MySpace in mind; adding secrets or codes your campaign that only insiders of your demographic might notice; get celebrities involved, even if it is a parody or imitation of a celebrity; brand your creative in such a way that cutting your offer or logo out of it is next to impossible; and always add hotlinks such as ‘forward to a friend’, ‘add a permanent link’ or ‘add to my favourites’.

As social media becomes an ever potent force for marketers to understand and fully engage in, US based web-analytics firm Cymfony has formulated the “Influence 2.0″ initiaitive and is writing the rules in a social media e-book.

And talk about practising what is preached - in true web 2.0 form, the book is being released as a “wiki”, inviting industry thought leaders - and anyone else for that matter - to detail consumers’ incredible new influence over the marketing process.

It seems that Volkswagen in the UK has been winning a bit of kudos for its new Eos website for potential buyers - allowing them to experience the new car in an innovative way, as well as inviting them to customise and select their own vehicle ahead of its on-sale date of 14 July.

Whilst the site is touted as using the latest online interactive technology, and whilst it does look pretty, the site does not offer what are fast becoming essential functionality components on car sites like inventory searches and vehicle comparisons.

New York, NY (Sept. 20, 2004)  Today, during Interactive Advertising World Conference and Expo, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers released the Internet Advertising Revenue Report covering Q2 and the first six months of 2004. Internet advertising revenues (U.S.) for the first six months of 2004 were approximately $4.6 billion - a 39.7% increase over the first half of 2003. Internet advertising revenue totaled approximately $2.37 billion for the second quarter of 2004, representing a 42.7% increase over same period 2003. Q2 2004 revenues represent a 6% increase over Q1 2004. This report replaces the previously announced Q1 2004 estimate of $2.27 billion with the actual of $2.23 billion. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) sponsors the Internet Ad Revenue Report, which is conducted independently by the New Media Group of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The full report is issued twice yearly at the full and half year, and top-line quarterly estimates are issued for the first and third quarters. “Internet Advertising is without question taking share from the other media at this time and for good reason- marketers have figured out that online advertising is often the most cost effective medium for influencing both branding and sales results. This data is fuelled by recent public announcements that online ad budgets are dramatically increasing, for instance approximately 25% is going online for Fords Lincoln Mercury and approximately 50% for Vonage, said Greg Stuart, President & CEO of the IAB. “Not surprisingly, search continues its popularity, and his been embraced by advertisers due to its innate relevancy, the simplicity of the results and because advertisers can determine more precise response rates. In addition, for the first time in a number of years, we see a 25% growth rate collectively in Rich Media and Display Advertising, said Pete Petrusky, Director, New Media, PricewaterhouseCoopers. “The industry has been experimenting with different formats since the beginning, and while search has been the strongest format recently, we think that evolution process will continue. In fact, as broadband begins to reach critical mass in the home we think the number of traditional advertisers with branding objectives will further increase as it provides a better platform for more compelling media ads and video formats, said Tom Hyland, Chair, PricewaterhouseCoopers New Media Group. The following highlights key revenue data breakouts comparing the second quarter of 2004 with the same period in 2003: Ad Formats  As compared to 2Q 2003, four formats experienced significant year over year growth. For example, Search has grown 97% in absolute dollars and Rich Media has grown 27% in absolute dollars.