Audio and video podcasting can be used in a myriad ways to connect with your audience. One of them is providing customer service to your customers and prospects. The fact that you have the most complete set of knowledge base for your product doesn’t always mean that all of your customers will refer to the documents before they ask a question.

Probably a good example is Inside AdSense, the official blog for Google AdSense contextual ad network. It is not a podcast, but still perfectly shows how video could be used in marketing and business. Here are some of my thoughts about it, and how you can improve for better.

The blog from now on will feature videos — of course, hosted by Google Video — as part of regular question and answer in the text format on the blog.

If you watch the video, it was pretty well done, albeit amateurish. The content is by no means new. In fact, it is the basics all publishers should have known before placing AdSense ads on their page.

What are my points to bring these up?

1. Diversify your marketing tactics

Just because you do email marketing, or start blogging for years, doesn’t mean you have an ultimate solution to your marketing and business. Far from that, some people prefer to learn and watch, others like to read. Still how you structure your content and your visibility on the Web matter.

Let’s give an example. I always assume that Google AdSense help center is quite accessible. I think you will agree. If you log into your control panel, you will see the help link. Also, just to satisfy my curiosity, I search Google using the keyword “how many ad units adsense on a page, which was one of the question answered in the first Inside AdSense video.

The results is… surprise, surprise, the Google AdSense Help Center tips page ranked the first. I didn’t even have to click to get the answer. See the screenshot, the answer is in the summary. May be if you want more complete answer, then.. click.

This concludes one point. If Google don’t provide the video, chances are more people didn’t have their questions answered. You too, can extend your reachability if you provide more alternatives other than text to communicate with your target market.

2. You don’t have to be an expert in production skills and own expensive equipments

Don’t get me wrong, I believe what they have at Google is quite good for video casting. The voice is clear and I have a pleasant viewing. But still none of us will nominate those as the best video ever made. I partly believe once more and more people jump on vodcasting, consumers will demand better quality. Still I don’t think this is a problem. Video equipments become more sophisticated too.

You can certainly buy a relatively inexpensive equipment to produce your video. In fact, most of the time you have to compress the video, hence reducing the quality of what was produced originally by the equipment.

As a sidenote, if you are not in the entertainment industry, people are generally more forgivable. I particularly don’t seek for anything other than solid content, at least for now. I got no research results to back up, but most of people online are like me, this is another reason to start your video or audio podcast now. Take the first mover advantage while you still can. You can learn along the way and become more professional very rapidly.

3. You, a star? Not likely

Most businesses don’t own the budget to hire an artist or voiceover artist to do their podcast. A podcast is served in a way that is different than TV station, and people don’t expect the next Hollywood artist in it. Ok, may be one or two artists will do their own video or audio podcasts. But for your business, you can start nervously. Believe me, it’s fine. And then progress as you are more comfort with the whole production and publishing.

Due to the nature of podcasting, people might appreciate a staff from the customer service to speak to them through a podcast more than an outsider. When they are to seek entertainment, they don’t go to your podcast.

Other thoughts and recommendations
I don’t get it why Google haven’t tried podcasting yet. Using the same video content, they can publish a podcast and post a streaming video on their blog. It is nice if people have more choices to consume their content.

Finally, I don’t see any summary of what they deliver in the video, right on the blog post. I don’t want to waste any time to watch the entire video just to find it doesn’t answer my question. Pointing to the Help Center real quick helps those who prefer text content.

Link: Video mailbag from Inside AdSense.
See also: Video Podcasting Guide.

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