It’s not just the PR and agency folks having fun with podcasts. Small businesses are climbing on board as well and are using podcasts to accomplish very specific goals.
Meet Shonnie Lavender & Bruce Mulkey. A married couple who just recently launched a podcast called I Do! I Do! geared to brides and grooms-to-be to help them write - and stay committed to - their wedding vows.
Why did they launch their podcast? To raise awareness about their product called The Wedding Vow Workbook and of course, to sell a few copies.
Here’s what they did to get to Episode 001:
- They planned their strategy, understanding who they want to target with their podcast, what topics they’ll cover in each episode and how many copies of their workbook they’d like to sell
- They’re using Wordpress to publish their podcast and podpress to make it easier for people to listen to and download their podcast
- Their podpage has the same look and feel of their website
- The audio quality of their podcast makes it sound like they stepped into a studio (and I know they didn’t)
- The outro has 1 call to action asking listeners to go to http://marriagevowworkbook.com/
I’ll report back in a few weeks how many copies of their workbook Shonnie & Bruce sold. This is a great example of a small business taking advantage of podcasting to help spur on sales. Can this model work for your own business.
Disclaimer - Shonnie purchased my Plan A Killer Podcast bundle and used the steps in the workbook to launch her podcast.
Technorati: podcasting, Marketing, weddings, wedding vows
November 12th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
[…] Firstly for those who aren’t sure what Podcasting is you may fall under the name category of a Blinking 12. A Blinking 12 as I learned from http://www.podcast411.com/f12.html is someone who when you walk into their living room, you notice that the clock on their VCR is still Blinking 12:00 because they have not figured out how to program it to the correct time! These people are not exactly technically savvy and so explaining something such as Podcasting could prove to be a challenge.For all of you Blinking 12’s, Podcasting is something like a radio show that plays off of your computer, or if desired, your MP3 Player. How it works is you must subscribe to your show, which usually costs nothing. After you subscribe, the Podcast automatically downloads onto your computer when it is made available by the producer. All you have to do is press play to listen to it while sitting at your computer, or, transfer it to your MP3 player and listen to it while tackling other tasks such as taking your dog for a walk or hitting the gym. You see, it is Multi-tasking at its finest for people like us who live in a day and age where we have so much to do and so little time. This is probably one of the greatest tools that a PR representatives can make themselves familiar with. Firstly, as PR and Communication reps we are expected to stay ahead of the wave in trends and technologies. We can subscribe to podcasts that will help us keep on top of our research and listen to them while in the car driving to the next meeting, or whenever it’s convenient! Secondly, this is probably one of the easiest ways to get our messages out to our targeted audiences. People will search for the topic that we discuss and subscribe to it. All we have to do is write and produce our Podcast show and the people will come. “If you build it, they will come” is a line from a great movie called Field of Dreams. Listeners love Podcasting because of the convenience of being able to listen to it whenever they get a chance to! Can it get much easier for us as Communicators trying to get our messages out? Life just got that much easier! Let’s take advantage of this cost effective tool and get our messages out there.If you would like to do further research and see how Podcasting has helped in the sales department for a small business, go to: http://podonomics.com/i-do-i-do-podcast/ . It’s a great case study that shows how it can prove to be beneficial to any business. Fellow PR People and Communicators, jump on the band wagon before the wave hit’s hard. Start learning about podcasting and how you may be able to use it to your advantage. It proves to be the next biggest thing in our industry! […]