Radio, television, and Internet promotion are all well established media channels for marketers, but podcasts still tend to go underutilized, even as their effectiveness for value-based marketing grows.
By using a combination of advertising, sales promotion, and PR, marketers can reach a highly targeted audience of enthusiasts (who also happen to be the best people to spread the message even further by word-of-mouth to their friends and family). In addition, the marketing messages are endorsed by podcast hosts that listeners and viewers trust, so it is more likely that the message will reach the “Desire” and “Action” stages of the AIDA model.
Advertising and PR
As mentioned above, advertising is particularly effective on podcasts as they are often supported by endorsements for the podcast hosts as well. Not only can the advertisers tailor and customize their messages, but they also gain the PR benefit of sparking a positive conversation on the podcast following the ad about the product. In addition, many companies will not even have to pay for the hosts to talk about their product, and can provide press releases for podcasts to discuss as they go over the weekly news.
Sales Promotion
In addition to advertisements, marketers can also provide special limited time offers and coupons to listeners of the podcast. For example, Audible advertises on TWiT, but also offers TWiT listeners free books and a free trial if they sign up at a customized link (www.audible.com/twit2).
The true pioneer in this space is Leo Laporte, founder of the TWiT Network and host of a number of podcasts including This Week in Tech, and The Tech Guy. He founded his entire company podcasting, and has been extremely successful in building a loyal listener base, and enticing marketers into this new field. In the recent episode of This Week in Tech below, there are numerous examples of these promotional mix elements including the sponsors at the beginning (PR) and the breaks in between segments for endorsing advertisers’ products.
