Anyone Use Podcasts Successfully to Build Their Business?

[Nightengale]

Hi Warriors,

Ok, this is a bit of a continuation of my previous thread but I'm going in a slightly different direction with this question and I didn't want it to get lost in the haystack. So, separate post.

I was asking about creating an online radio show, but what I really meant was a podcast I guess. Now, "podcasting" never interested me per se. It all seemed a bit techie to me, even though I have iTunes on my computer and an iPod and use both frequently. But I mostly listen to music I've downloaded and don't listen seminars, shows, episodes, podcasts or whatever you call it. I don't subscribe to podcasts either -- I don't even know how to go about looking for interesting podcasts in iTunes.

But that's recently begun to change as I've started loading the audio portion of business products I have into my iTunes library and onto my iPod. I thought that was cool and yes, I know I'm waaay behind the times. :P

Anyway, I'm thinking of recording a short audio tip (probably weekly or every other week) and making it available on my site and through various audio-sharing sites -- a podcast. It would basically be an audio version of my e-zine -- short and sweet. I look at this mainly as a marketing and list-building tool. I don't intend to sell things directly in the podcast.

In fact, I don't even intend to call it a podcast. I'll probably just say "audio tip" or something similar. Hopefully that will appeal to a wider audience and seem less techie (like it seemed to me).

So my question is two-fold:

1. How far-reaching and effective are podcasts as a marketing/communication tool? It would seem to me that podcasts would appeal mainly to a younger audience, but Jason Moffatt recently posted that his YouTube audience is surpringly mainly middle-aged males. So what about podcasts?

2. Have you done this sort of thing to build your business and did you see real, bottom-line results from it? I'm VERY interested to know.

Thanks,
Michelle

[TimRobinson]

Personally I love podcasts as I can listen to them while driving/on the train/on the plane. Podcasts are my favourite way to get information as I don't really like sitting on my PC watching an hour long video nor do I like reading a whole bunch of text on my monitor (books are good but huge Ebooks are usually too much for me).

The younger audience would rather listen to music than podcasts so I'd say JaMo is spot on with his market research.

[FrankRumbauskas]

I haven't really done much audio podcasting but I do get a lot of traffic and sales from having video podcasts on iTunes, typically they run 3-4 minutes each with a quick tip and I also post them on YouTube and other video sites using TubeMogul.com

I've been meaning to start an audio podcast one of these days, I'll report back when I do!

[Richard Tunnah]

My mate uses a weekly free podcast to bring in more members to his paid football (soccer) forum. I believe he has 10,000's of followers for it.


Rich

[Nightengale]

Thanks for the info.

Frank,

I've shied away from video as I really don't want to appear on video. However, is there a way I can simply and cheaply produce videos that are basically nothing more than screen shots (with audio and music of course!)?

That really is me on the left and I'm not ugly, but I just don't feel comfortable appearing in front of a camera. The hair and the makeup thing is just more than I want to deal with. It's just a lot easier to do audio! :P

Michelle

[Nightengale]

Rich,

That's encouraging to know. It's exactly what I'm thinking of!

Michelle