Nick Saalfeld's Corporate Podcasting Page

Podcasting: The Agency story

Hi there,

This week for me has been a flurry of meetings with marketing, digital and integrated agencies around London.

It made me think that, to help them get their heads around podcasts, it would be nice to have a quick checklist as to whether podcasting is right for them. So here's my list, and it's as applicable to coporate clients as it is to agency folks. I hope it's of use to you.

Here are the questions to ask, to find out whether a podcast idea is a good idea:

• Will anyone listen? Simple, but often ignored just because podcasting sounds like fun. I often talk about a "contract": we are expecting a listener to contract themselves to devote, say, ten minutes to our message. If you can't convince yourself that what you are proposing is worth the listener's contracted time, go back to the drawing board.
• Is there a payoff? This is the equivalent of "What's in it for me?". If you can't express a clear payoff to the listener, a clear benefit for their effort, then start again.
• Can we engage? Nothing succeeds better than making an offer to the listener which is engaging, which makes them glad they were a part of the audience.
• Do we know our audience? In an internal comms environment, the answer is usually "yes". In a public-facing marketing plan, the answer is usually "sort of". The better you know the audience, the better you can target their specific needs.
• Is the audience podcast-savvy? They don't have to be Ipod owners, nor do they have to buy in to the mp3-player-carrying lifestyle. But if your target market is from the D&E demographic, there's every chance they might not even have a computer, let alone the impetus to download podcasts. If so, go back to direct mail...
• Do you have clear objectives? Some clients just like podcasting because it seems like a good idea. This is the way to a fall. I ask clients specifically what they want to get out of a podcast- perhaps it's sales, perhaps it's client knowledge, perhaps better customer service. Either way, if we don't have a clear objective, we have no way of measuring success. And then I look stupid six months down the line. Ask what you're trying to achieve, and how you're going to measure it.

These six questions may mean that 50% of podcast proposals fall at one or more hurdles.

But the remaining 50% are good ideas and warrnt further discussion- I hope these questions lead you to many successful podcasts.

The justification for podcasting and 'Web 2.0'

Hi all,

It's been a busy couple of weeks and I've finally got back to writing a few lines here- thank you all for your kind comments and trackbacks.

I'm in the middle of a stint of meetings with agencies and marketing companies, all of whom are excited about podcasting and other engagement tools, but who are also worried that this might all be just a flash in the pan.

A simple question they ask is, why do I want to podcast? Sure, we're all media owners now, but do we really want to be?

Good question.

I've often said here and elsewhere that podcasting sits in the 'Web 2.0' toolkit, but there are so many definitions of Web 2.0 that you could probably fill in your own blanks.

So here's my definition, and it puts podcasting in a pretty fundamental place.

If I want to buy something online, what do I do? I probably go to Froogle, Google's price comparison service. Maybe I go to Ebay. If it's a full moon perhaps I'll try Kelkoo. These are all superb examples of Web 1.0- superb manipulation of data and information.

The problem is, these bring commerce down to one factor: price.

So if you run a company that's proud of its service, proud of its people, proud of its ethical commitment, proud of its customer satisfaction, proud of its agility, proud of its responsiveness... hey, tough luck.

To me, Web 2.0 simply means web services that go beyond information manipulation. Whether it's engagement and participation, a fuller media offering, a deeper corporate insight or even just a few more points of audience contact, podcasting, along with blogging and the plethora of other new online developments serve to build brands and services which go beyond raw data.

So when clients say to me, "Why should I podcast?", I say: do you want to compete on price, or do you want to compete on all the other values your brand stands for?

Maybe podcasting isn't the only answer (or isn't the whole answer). That's fine. But to fail to add engagement media into the mix at all is to make price, or other basic data, the only differentiator in your business.