While some executives say they are tapping the medium with good results, others say that is doesn't offer much as a business model.The beauty of podcasting may be in the eye of the beholder. Two separate expert panels in New York this week took different approaches to predicting the future of the new medium.
Both groups agreed that compelling content and good production values are important ingredients to any podcasting strategy, but the benefits often depend on the goals of the podcaster.
At the BlogOn Social Networking Conference at the Copacabana, a panel of corporate marketing experts found value in podcasting as a niche marketing tool for carefully selected audiences, but only sometimes is it a profit center in itself.
Cydni Tetro, vice president of product & corporate marketing at NextPage, a document management company, views podcasting as a long-term marketing vehicle. Her goal is to build relationships with thought leaders and early adopters who are likely customers of her company. Podcasting has a special appeal because "it enables us to create conversations with our audience in a different way … [It is] an opportunity to educate a broader market about things that are important to us and things that are important to them." Podcasts on the company's site include discussions with venture capitalists, programs relevant to the company's product, and even podcasts about why they're podcasting.
Michael Geoghegan, president of Willnick Productions, created Grape Radio, a wine education podcast that currently books sponsorships at $1,000 per episode. "We've been really fortunate in that we've had world-class winemakers who have flown to Southern California to appear on our show." Geoghegan built a full-fledged audio studio for creating broadcast quality content, as well as to create a professional image for sponsors. "We're not sitting on the edge of our bed with a microphone."
Randy Silver, a producer for Sirius Satellite Radio, said podcasting is a way for his company to give prospective customers a "free sample" of the service. "We have confidence that once people listen, they'll subscribe in sufficient numbers" to make the experiment worthwhile. He described the difference between his company's subscription service and the podcasts he's experimenting with. "Our music channels are 24/7, our conversation channels are 24/7. Some things can be consumed in discrete chunks … but you're not necessarily going to be able to replicate the timeliness, the instantaneousness that you can do with wireless audio."
Read the full story on PC Magazine.com: Assessing the Potential of Podcasts
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