Podcasting is about to celebrate its second birthday. It is obviously gaining momentum over those period of time. MarketingSherpa has a special report on Practical Podcasting Guide for Marketers where they give demographics data, rules, mistakes to avoid and tips to create commercials that get results.

From the podcasters’ side, according to MarketingSherpa, podcasts are one of the fastest growing media in the history, after being invented in August 2004.

Here are the summary of the report:

Basic Podcasting Demographics Data

1. Total listenership: Arbitron/Edison Media Research reported that as of June 2006 only 11% had ever listened to a podcast, while according to Nielsen//NetRatings 6.6% of the online population in July his year recently downloaded an audio podcast.
2. Specific demographics: The biggest demographic slice of listeners is 35 or older (45 percent).
3. Listening platforms: You don’t need an iPod.

Tips on Creating Podcast That Works as a Marketing Tool

Successful podcasts have these 3 best qualities:

• Strong individual tone - not just the voice but the style.
• Frequency of publication - a continuing series like a regluarly published email newsletter.
• Variety - different guests-start, different “articles” — topics.

Common Mistakes Podcasters Should Avoid

Credit goes to Rob Walch, co-author of the book Tricks of the Podcasting Masters for three most common mistakes:

1. Shovelware. Content for website or blog doesn’t suit for podcast.
2. Sales pitch. It is about long time investment, building trust and better environment for selling.
3. Testing just one to start. It is not a one-off medium. See the characteristics/ qualirties of successful podcasts above.

Content and Production Rules

These tips might be different from industry to industry but think of them as basic rules, especially if you are just getting started:

1. Keep it short. 10 to 20 minutes. Break into smaller chunk of content. Note this duration of podcast has been considered good practices by several corporate podcasters in Portable Media Expo and Podcast Conference 2005.
2. Don’t drone from a script. Just like blogging, don’t dictate. Inject some personalities.
3. Copywrite your podcast title carefully. Think about search marketing keywords as visibility.
4. Schedule a calendar. The best according to many podcasting experts is weekly, but test with limited-series if you don’t know you can stick to the schedule.
5. Best time of day may be nighttime. Many podcast consumers download podcasts at night and listen to them the next morning.

Four Tips to Advertise Within Your Podcasts

Remember the basic rule of podcasting is great content. It should never contain only ads. I have seen podcast feed which inserts what in the email newsletter and marketing world called solo advertising.

That could be annoying at times especially after the subscribers having good faith and subscribe to the podcast feed, and automatically download the podcasts, they get nothing but ads.

Here are the four tips to make advertisements work best in podcasts:

1. Keep them short and in-context. Listeners can fast-forward or skip if they find the ads too long. Contextual advertising is on fire for a reason. People view that as recommendation — as a complement to the content — rather than just ads.
2. Offer phone and online response devices. Consider easy to remember 800 number.
3. Make your ad offers evergreen. Once published, the podcasts are there forever, unless you take them down. So, make the ads fresh by including timeless offer if possible.
4. Place ads at the middle and end. Podtrac’s May survey says 88% of podcast users listen or view the entire broadcast. Hook them with content first so they take down their sales protection shield and use the soft selling approach.

It also helps if podcasters could see their podcasts as their own product to promote within email newsletters, website, email signatures, and other ways.

Even for experienced podcasters, it may not always be obvious about the basics like keeping regular podcast schedule. I know everyone is busy, but sometimes an article like this could help regaining the basic foundation.

Source: MarketingSherpa.
Read also: Marketing with Podcasts.

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