In 2005, when podcasting emerged as an exciting new buzz term, it was a pool that few dared dip their toes into immediately. Perhaps because the technology was associated with costliness and the need for some degree of expert digital knowledge, it seemed that only the Goliaths of the marketing world used them at all; key business titles like The Economist and The Guardian were amongst the earliest adopters.
Four years on, B2B marketers still appear fearful of the medium. According to the latest B2B Marketing Insight report, only two per cent of B2B marketing budgets have been spent on podcasts in the past year. Yet many brands could be missing a major trick. Latest figures from RAJAR show that 4.2 million people listen to podcasts every week, and that the typical user subscribes to 5.2 podcasts, on topics they are interested in, every seven days. For B2B brands targeting niche audiences, this is a statistic worth noting.
A podcast is defined as a pre-recorded audio file containing specific information, downloaded directly from a website or accessed via streaming feeds like RSS. In essence, it’s like radio on-demand. The name might misleadingly suggest that you need an iPod to create and receive podcasts, but in fact any MP3 device or PC can be used to play the files. iTunes is by far the download software of choice – almost 70 per cent of podcast listeners subscribe this way (although there are other options out there, such as iPodder and Podcast Alley). Sixteen per cent also download directly from a website.
So why has it so far failed to capture the imaginations of B2B marketers? Toby Brown, marketing manager at Buffalo Communications, thinks the medium may have initially been misunderstood, and then abandoned by many.
“An initial mistake made by marketing podcasters was thinking a podcast was a mass medium,” he offers. “You can gather a good level of followers if you are engaging and useful, but you’re never going to be the Ricky Gervais of the marketing world – in business, it’s a niche audience you’re aiming at.
“Treat it like this for success – upload it to your blog, send it to key contacts in a newsletter, focus on a specific topic that isn’t addressed elsewhere, address your customers’ concerns. Keep it short, snappy and as useful as possible. Success isn’t going to be 1000 regular listeners, but 30 hardcore listeners that might ultimately buy something from you,” he advises.
Avoid the hard sell
Those that are doing it – and getting it right – generally use the medium to address industry issues rather than to directly advertise products and services.
“Content geared towards customer needs with brand messages communicated implicitly works more powerfully than a hard sell,” says Adrian Gill, digital director at TDA. He believes that B2B brands could learn valuable lessons from the way podcasting has been embraced by the training industry.
Meanwhile, Martin Talks, CEO of Blue Barracuda, stresses the importance in seeing podcasts as part of a long-term marketing strategy, rather than as a one-off gimmick. “People tend to listen to a series as they can build up a relationship with the content, presenters and podcast. For B2B companies it’s about giving your company a persona,” he says.
Without being able to take the hard sell approach, it might be difficult to see how podcast downloads can turn into actual sales leads. Gill admits that podcasts aren’t necessarily an obvious acquisition tool – unless you’re going to advertise them as a value add-on when encouraging customers to sign up for a service – but points out that their real draw lies in their ability to retain your current customer base. “If I know you are subscribed to my podcasts and are downloading them regularly, that you are repeatedly – and willingly – listening to my brand message – job done,” he says.
In the same vein, it can be hard to measure the direct return on investment that podcasting offers – it is most likely to be used as an adjunct to existing marketing – but as social media consultant William Buist points out, there are ways of measuring a podcast’s impact in line with other marketing activity. “By using appropriate keys and calls-to-action within the podcast, traffic can be directed to alternative web pages so that it becomes possible to measure when a call-to-action within the podcast has resulted in that action being taken,” he says.
Tuning into iTunes
Despite their still relatively low take up in the B2B industry, smaller brands are now taking a lead from business podcasting stalwarts, such as IBM, Deloitte and The Economist, which have all been podcasting for some years now. For example, public relations company Hatch PR – which touts for businesses from within the technology sector – is about to launch its first series of podcasts. The technology consultant working with Hatch, Chris Lee, explains that the distribution strategy you plan around the launch of your podcast series is key to driving listeners. This means, for maximum impact, not just driving targets to your website to download the podcast, but getting it onto iTunes, by far the most popular podcast software package – which is free to do. Doing this means interested parties will find your podcast via RSS feeds.
Lee is keen to point out that both this, and recording podcasts can be a relatively simple and inexpensive process for smaller brands looking to test the water. Meanwhile Emily McDaid, director at Hatch, adds that even some of the marketing strategy around making people aware of the content can be an inexpensive – yet effective – process. “We’ll be using Twitter – we’ve built up a following of over 1500 – to promote the podcasts,” she says. “And we can also generate direct sales leads by making sure people can search for our podcasts by key words in RSS feeds – so for example our podcasts will have words associated with them like ‘how to use digital media as a B2B brand’. This means anyone searching for information on those kinds of topics will find us and our broadcasts.”
Addressing the basics first
There are three key questions that will be at the forefront of most budding B2B podcaster’s minds:
1. How much will it cost? Depending on the sound quality you want to achieve, this can vary from thousands of pounds, to as little as nothing. “It’s possible to create a podcast using existing technological tools that most people own for no additional cost; recording the audio through the microphone of a sound-enabled PC or Macintosh, and doing some basic editing with software such as Garageband or Audacity,” says Buist.
For a professionally produced podcast, the costs will rise – depending on length, man-hours required to edit and produce content, and factors such as whether you’ll want slides or other visuals to accompany the content. According to Daniel Mohacek, director at podcast production company Podlab, £1500 is a ballpark figure for a top-end job.
2. How long should it be? This is dependent on the format your podcast will take. According to Gill, if a broadcast consists of one person talking, most listeners are likely to switch off after two minutes – which is why more often than not it is recommended that podcasts are discursive, and based around two or more people conversing over an issue. In this case, says Gill, a length of between five and ten minutes is the norm. If a podcast is to be used for training purposes, he adds, the length can be pretty much indefinite, as long as the content is broken down into bite-sized chunks or sections that listeners can dip in and out of.
3. Who will actually listen to them? Put bluntly, no matter how good your content, you’re still going to have a limited demographic of podcast users. “Subscribers are largely under 50 and tech-savvy,” points out Stephen Beasley, head of digital strategy at Euro RSCG KLP.
Beyond this, adds Buist, the largest group of business users who consistently demonstrate an interest in podcasts are those that are time-poor but interested in expanding their knowledge in their market, their segment, or about their competitors and partners.
“This group will listen whilst undertaking other activity, perhaps jogging or travelling, so target the podcast to meet their needs at that time. Requiring somebody to write stuff down when you expect him or her to listen while they’re jogging clearly won’t be as effective as a podcast that is targeted at embedding a simple web address for them to remember through repeated use in the audio,” he advises.
Even as podcasting continues its slow and steady trickle into business marketing strategy, the medium is fast evolving. Video casting – or vodcasting – is now popular in the consumer space thanks to the proliferation in mobile and digital technology.
But views as to whether it will become a popular medium in B2B are mixed, with some suggesting that it is a natural progression, and others purporting that podcasting will remain a faster, snappier way to put the message across.
