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Benefits Of Podcasting

by etvuk

Table Of Contents

8 Benefits You Immediately Receive If You Begin Podcasting Today

The future lies in podcasting.

Let me explain why.

According to a recent Case Study on Podcasting Audiences, three interesting statistics are on the rise.

  1. Smartphone ownership tends to correlate to a greater likelihood of listening to a podcast.
  2. Consumers are more likely to listen to podcasts on a mobile device than on a computer.
  3. Podcast listeners are more likely to listen to streams or podcasts through their car audio systems.

What does all that mean? Well, it all points to a mobile consumer on the move, who’s looking at podcasts as an additional or perhaps alternative source of information. Podcasts stand out for their practical information type of format.

For your brand, podcasting is the new powerful, inexpensive and easy new medium then to reach out to this mobile consumer on the move who wants practical, concise and dedicated information. You already have a focused and passionate audience. It’s now much easier to become a recognized expert in your field of interest or expertise to this group through podcasting, without having to counter the normal conventions of radio, nor the limitations of blogging.

Build your credibility, your sales, your list of customers and gain a fan base very quickly and without the limitations of blogging. Does that sound good?

If these three key indicators listed above are anything to go by, podcasting is the way to go.

Here’s why:

1. Podcasting is still relatively untapped

Armed with positive growth indicators and the move by Car Manufacturers to install podcast players in their New Models, people are gearing up for the future of content marketing and it lies in podcasting. This is a market on the growth curve. Yet it’s still relatively untapped and brimming with opportunities. In the same Research study ‘Podcast Consumer 2015’, by Edison and Triton, they reveal that the age of podcast listeners is evenly spread across almost all age groups. You get an average of 15% listenership among the 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54 age groups.

15% may sound low right now, but consider the impact when podcast players become more accessible and within your reach. And this is across all age groups! What that means is that if your brand will instantly get an dedicated audience, irrespective of whichever age group you are targeting – a nice thing to know as you plan your marketing budget. Slow and steady wins the race. If these are the statistics we are seeing today, as access to podcasts becomes even easier with smartphones and our latest vehicle comes equipped with a podcast player, your audience footprint will naturally grow in the coming months.

Smartphone ownership isn’t going to die anytime soon. We are always updating, improving and searching for a better smartphone model. As you constantly upgrade your phone; and as App builders continually design new entertainment apps, the trend of listening to podcasts on your smartphone will grow by leaps and bounds.

2. Podcasting Adds Value to your current marketing effort.

Even better is the realization that podcasting complements your current marketing efforts.

You don’t have to replace any of your current social media activities. Continue with your Facebook, Twitter, blogging marketing efforts. You can even turn your latest blog post into a podcast episode, add a spin on it and it’s fresh content. Podcasting just increases your footprint and adds you a totally new audience.

3. You will find customer conversion easier with Podcasting

Someone searching for a podcast in a particular topic is already very clear about what they want to listen to. Unlike radio, where the conventional radio listener subconsciously tunes off when the next commercial airs, with a podcast, you have a dedicated listener and one will listen to listen attentively to everything you have to say, as long as you say it well. Because listeners subscribe to podcasts, they have chosen to receive your content. They have already shown interest in your message by subscribing. In addition, a podcast does not get lost in SPAM like with e-mail. You can be sure your message is reaching a focused audience. That gives you a greater likelihood of customer conversion.

4. Become ‘The Voice’

I’m not talking about the popular TV Series. Suppose you have a blog on diet and nutrition. There are over 30 million bloggers competing in that niche and your only chance of recognition is either expensive marketing, or patiently growing your blog audience over months, maybe years, until you reach cult-like status. Plus, you have to learn the essentials of SEO optimization, create fresh content frequently and guest-blogging. Now suppose you focused instead on podcasting? Since its still relatively under-exploited, you can quickly gain that audience you’re looking for much faster and develop credibility as an authority by being one of the few podcasters doing what you’re doing. What would initially have taken you months to achieve, you attain in a matter of weeks. Become ‘The Voice’ in your niche.

As Tom Tate says, “This “first to market” approach to podcasting may be the opportunity you have been searching for to catapult your online marketing to the next level. If you can develop the go-to authority podcast in your niche, you may eventually drive enough traffic back to your site or blog to become the authority on other mediums as well.”

When you hear or see someone on Radio or TV, they have instant credibility. As a podcaster you will enjoy the same credibility. People will value your opinion. You can leverage this position to influence your audience, promote yourself and even make money. The trick is to leverage on a specific niche and do everything possible to dominate that niche. If you have an audience that is interested in that topic or interest, they will come back repeatedly.

5. You Quickly Gain a Very Focused Audience

With the right content, you will gain listeners fast. Your audience is potentially worldwide. You can offer quality content to keep in touch with your customers and keep yourself, your product or your service in the front of their mind.

6. Break Through The Clutter

Podcasting is a great way to cut through the clutter and reach your audience. You overcome probably radio’s greatest barrier with this tactic. This makes podcasts very effective for promotion, marketing and growing a focused audience.

7. You can define and express your own unique style without limitations

Marc Maron interviewed President Obama at his home in Los Angeles, earlier this week. While that’s impressive, it’s the fact that President Obama mentioned the “n… ‘ word during that podcast interview that created headlines.

Wait…

You mean President Obama did an interview on someone’s home? Mark Maron, 51 years old, has a podcast show called WTF. You don’t need much ingenuity to figure out what that stands for. His unique interview style on his podcast can be either comforting or uneasy, which makes it even more interesting that President Obama agreed to the request. But, it’s a style of communication that seems to draw in listeners by the dozens.

“I think what resonates with people is kind of raw honesty and authenticity,” says Maron. “If anything defines whatever the brand is, or if anything defines the success that I have in talking to people in interviews, it’s that there seems to be something very personal and raw in how I engage with people.”

8. Podcasting is a Convenient, Automatic and Inexpensive Way to Reach Your Audience or Customers

Getting started in podcasting is relatively inexpensive. All you need is a good computer, a strong microphone and a broadband internet connection. Later, you can buy nicer gear if you want. For now you can get started with minimal cost. In fact, all the equipment you need at start-up will approximate $ 500. The Blue Yeti USB microphone for example costs an affordable $128. Invest in a good ShockMount, Mac laptop, recording software like Garage or Audacity and you’re good to go. In a later article, we’ll show you this cost breakdown. All you need is something to say and a desire to say it. If you were to try and do the same thing on the radio, you would have to face all sorts of FCC regulations, and unnecessary expenses. Consider how much you currently spend on radio ads. More than $2,000 per campaign? In many cases, this is not even a fraction of the radio budget. Podcasting removes all that cost and trouble. One reason that podcasting has become so popular is that it’s automated. Listeners subscribe to your feed. This means they don’t have to remember to return your site to check for new content. When you post new content, it’s automatically downloaded to your listener.

It’s so easy to get started. In less than a day, your podcast can be on the air and available to millions all over the world. All you need to start your podcast is a computer, a microphone and a broadband internet connection.

If you have any questions about how you can leverage podcasting as a new blogger or as an established brand, let me know by posting a comment below. We will get right back in touch with you! Make your voice heard! Start a Podcast!

Will Podcasting Replace Traditional Radio?

Only a handful of the”elite podcasters” actually get money for their unique content. Even though sponsors often times pay on a “cost per listener” in order to advertise on those podcasts, the primary emphasis is on how big their audience is. But whose fault is it that this is the dynamic being looked at?

One reason many sponsors give as to why they only sponsor the elite is that it’s too time-consuming to sponsor small and medium-sized podcasts. That’s why they often set the minimum number of listeners at 50,000 or possibly 10,000 downloads PER EPISODE!

But whose fault is this? We can identify, basically, four different areas in the podcast industry that we can look to in order to answer this question.

1. The sponsors.

2. The podcast hosting / listening platforms.

3. Podcasters themselves.

4. The media / sponsorship companies.

Is it the sponsor’s fault? Not really. It is true, though, that it does take a lot of time and resources for them to research, find, reach out to and negotiate prices with many podcasters. Smaller podcasters may have a great relationship and very high trust factor with their audiences. Since they many know their listeners in real life (or the listeners have actively found their podcast), they are often ignored by the major sponsors.

But the focus for the larger companies is usually on the “return on investment” (ROI). The traditional podcaster just will not produce the ROI these companies are looking for.

Is it the podcast platforms? Well, they are much to blame for the discovery part. So yes, in a way, it is the fault of the platform companies. They make it harder for some podcasts to grow and they tend to keep the elite money makers at the top of their search results. It almost seems like an old monarchy type of society, where the rules are rigged to keep the elite in power. But that really does not provide us the information on “whose fault it really is?”

So, is fault with the podcasters themselves? That’s a huge burden to put on individual podcasters. We can’t really expect hundreds of thousands of podcasters to be able to find sponsors who will want to sponsor just one small podcast. That won’t work in most cases. Also, that would take too much time for podcasters to get enough money to make the time factor profitable to reach out to sponsors. The “ROI” for individual podcasters would be lacking.

Is it the fault of the media / sponsorship companies? In my opinion, they are the actual ones to blame. When podcasting started to grow, so did the interest to make a profit out of the podcasters work. But the companies who were interested seemed to come in with the idea that the same model used for radio would translate to podcasting. But there is a problem with that theory, too.

The problem is, podcasting is not radio!

That is why podcasting is growing so fast! Podcasters do not need to pay so they can be on an individual radio station at a certain time. They can actually be on many different listening platforms, at the same time, listened to whenever and wherever by whoever, on-demand.

Podcasters do not need to have a media empire helping them produce or create their content. Podcasting truly is “by the people, for the people.”

We see many companies whose only focus is on the larger, more popular podcasts. They use the old obsolete radio model as their sponsorship guide. Not only with the podcasts they have on their platforms, but also with the dynamic ad system they insist on using.

Dynamic advertising is where the ads are changed over time, automatically. There is no input from the podcaster. It is all handled by the software at the company level.

Podcasters lose a key characteristic strength when they agree to dynamic ad inserts. The most popular (and most responsive) advertising for podcasters is where the host actually reads the ad during the recording process. This is done “pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll.”

Holding on to an old model might be why some of these companies lose tens of millions of dollars each year in advertising costs each year. Which is also why they are very particular in only dealing with the larger, well-known, podcasts.

Podcasting is truly about the creators. It could be called “grassroots journalism!” This is a new medium, with hundreds of thousands of podcasters, that needs a new model to generate advertising revenue.

Podcasting started off as an amateur platform where everybody could create and publish their own content. You didn’t need an editor in chief or a media publishing giant telling you what to do, what to talk about or how to go about promoting your podcast.

People from all around the world currently record, edit, and publish their own content. Their listeners can listen to their programs whenever and wherever they want to. Truly, citizen journalism in the audio space was created by podcasters and has grown exponentially.

I liken podcasting today to where FM radio was back in the early 1980’s. FM radio was “available” (usually in elevators or doctors offices) but was not widely distributed or listened to. Just as FM radio became a “standard feature” in new cars (instead of “special order”), podcast listening ability is now becoming a “standard feature” in new cars as well. Almost every new car has a USB port and the ability to listen to podcasts through the car stereo system!

To answer the original question, “Is Podcasting Going to Replace Radio,” the answer is “NO.”

However, podcasting is going to take a BIG market segment away from traditional radio. In fact, it has already started. That is why many, smaller radio stations, have gone out of business. It is also evident in the recent published statistics concerning podcast listenership! Podcast listening is growing exponentially!

There is a great example, using an “old saying.” It goes something like this:

“When is the best time to plant a tree? Answer: “Twenty years ago.”

“When is the second best time to plant a tree?” Answer: “Today!

Concerning podcasting, “When was the best time to start a podcast?

Answer: “Five or six years ago!”

“When is the next best time to start a podcast?” Answer: “TODAY!”

If you have ever considered starting a podcast, now would be the perfect time for you to do so. The exponential growth curve is on the rise. For the foreseeable future, it will continue to grow and the dominance of podcasting will only become greater. Get into podcasting today and “catch the wave!”

The World of Movie Distribution Is a Tough Place

The world of movie distribution is a tough place. After fighting and sweating to finish a movie you’re mentally and physically exhausted.

You just want to take a break and rest, but you can’t because finishing a movie is only half the battle. It’s time to enter the world of movie distribution.

Movie distribution is a tough place for filmmakers new to the grind. It’s hard to switch off the creative mind to deal with the business side of selling movies.

What I’ve learned the hard way is the movie distribution really starts with promoting and marketing a movie.

Social media is an inexpensive way to get the word out about your movie and create a killer viral buzz online.

It’s cool to go the film festival route to get your movie seen by viewers and potential film buyers, but over the years from talking to other filmmakers there is a common feeling that the film festival scene is too crowded now.

U.K. filmmaker Wayne Daniells from LiarDice Films told me his last trip to The Cannes International Film Festival was a ruthless feeding frenzy.

There were a glut of movies and producers were fighting to get the attention of movie distributors.

All in all Wayne expressed that it was a waste of time and money pitching his film there. I’ve heard the same opinion from other filmmakers that are frustrated with the film festival scene and no longer see it as a good way to secure movie distribution.

I personally like the direct route of contacting movie distributors to see if they’re interested in being sent a screener. This is where it helps if you have already been promoting and marketing your movie online using social media.

Movie distributors are more interested in acquiring movies that already have a strong online presence.

I’m strictly speaking from a true independent movie perspective. Studio budget movies are an entirely different animal when it comes to the world of movie distribution.

When it comes to movie distribution for an indie produced film the way it normally happens are independent producers and filmmakers take the risk making the movie without any guaranteed movie distribution deal in place.

They usually have to shop it around to sell it. That’s been my personal experience so far. I’ve never created content with a movie distribution deal in place.

It’s like writing a screenplay on spec, but you’re dealing with a movie. Promoting and marketing a movie through social media is an absolute must.

Start early before you’re movie is even finished. That way when you begin contacting movie distributors you’re movie will already have more appeal because people are talking about it.

Movie distributors that cater to releasing independent movies do very little marketing for most of the titles they release.

If you’re movie doesn’t have any actors or celebrity names attached to it then it won’t get marketed outside of the standard insert in a movie distributor catalog.

So once you do secure a movie distribution deal you’re already giving your movie a boost by promoting and marketing yourself.

My mind is all over the place today, so let me get back to finding a movie distribution deal. Hold up please. A nice Miller Lite would help me focus right now.

That’s much better now. There are different ways to land a film distribution deal. You can spend the money doing the film festival route. Deals get struck all the time at film festivals.

But honestly there is a glut of film festivals. The number of film festivals is way out of whack compared to the number of movie distributors that release independent films.

Skipping the film festival circuit works for many independent movie producers that don’t have name actors in their film or know their story won’t appeal to an art house crowd.

Hiring a film sales representative is a good call if you skip the film festival scene all together. A film sales representative or producer’s rep has contacts with movie distributors to get your movie screened.

Plus many of them can get you into magazines like Indie Slate and MovieMaker to make your movie look more appealing to movie distributors.

They also watch your back when it comes to movie distribution agreements. When filmmakers look at movie distribution agreements it can be overwhelming.

There is lots of legalese “mumbo jumbo” in there designed to lessen the amount of money you make from movie royalty payments or a straightforward buy-out of your movie.

Unless you have experience reading movie distribution contracts it’s easy to get taken advantage of. I’m in the habit know even if I have a films sales representative like “El Tigre” watching my back I still read all contracts completely.

You will be surprised at the hidden fees and costs some movie distributors try to get over on a filmmaker with in of all places, the contract definitions section.
My film sales rep and I once found a flat fee of $50,000 for marketing costs in the definitions section.

Hiring an entertainment attorney is another good move, but usually is too costly for a truly independent filmmaker. Plus from my own experience an entertainment attorney is not as helpful as a film sales rep with securing a movie distribution deal or getting you some press.

That’s not really the job an entertainment attorney. They’re great when it comes to negotiating your movie distribution contract. But most won’t get you a deal like a film sales rep. You can bring them in after you have a deal on the table.

I had two sharp entertainment lawyers that saved my ass from getting burned when it came to sell a reality show I produced called “America’s Wildest Bachelor Parties.” They got me a producer friendly contract and got me paid on time each quarter. I’m glad I hired them.

If it’s just not in your budget to hire a film sales rep or entertainment lawyer you can still secure meaningful movie distribution hustling hard yourself.

Promoting and marketing your movie online is followed up by putting together a clean and neat film package to send to movie distributors. Keep it simple with a DVD screener, one-sheet artwork, tight synopsis, tagline and very short bios for key cast or crew that have previous IMDB credits.

To get a list of potential movie distributors see what companies are releasing movies in the same genre as yours. The Internet makes it pretty easy to find contact information nowadays.

Movie distribution companies usually have a contact page for film submissions. Follow the guidelines and mail off your film package. They get a flood of film submissions, so be patient if you don’t hear back right away.

Movie distributors have certain times they are aggressively seeking films to fill their catalog and other times they have all they need for now. I have the buying months written down.

Once they get your film package they will Google your movie. That’s where having been promoting and marketing your movie online really stands out. It takes more than only having a website or blog.

You need some press and backing from online film bloggers to make your movie standout in the eyes of movie distributors.

I dedicated a chapter about movie distribution in a book on indie filmmaking I wrote. It might help you with more detailed movie distribution information. All the best with marketing and selling

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