_This article is by Guest Contributor Kate Trgovac, reporting on the recent “BlogOn”:http://www.blogonevent.com/blogon2005 conference in New York._
Cameron Reilly, founder of “The Podcast Network”:http://www.thepodcastnetwork.com/ moderated a great session on using “podcasting”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting as a marketing channel. Reilly started the session by asking about the panel’s experience with podcasts.
Cydni Tetro, VP Marketing, NextPage described “her company’s current use of podcasts”:http://blog.nextpage.com/ as a brand builder using 10 to 15 minute interviews with experts in their industry. They work with “PodTech.net”:http://podtech.net/ as their podcasting partner. As measurement, they track all stats regarding subscriptions and downloads, but they are not concerned with monetizing it.
Randy Silver, a producer from SIRIUS Satellite Radio, uses podcasts as a teaser for his subscription product (“sample iTunes link”:http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=80629824&s=143455&i=1042680) as well as a brand builder (e.g. podcasting Lance Armstrong after each leg of the recent Tour de France). Podcasts are a very small audience for them [Me: There is huge potential conflict with their subscription service; it will be interesting to see how SIRIUS addresses this going forward. Or how podcasts will become paid feeds. You can already purchase an audiobook of an issue of the New Yorker on iTunes; I can’t believe it will be long before they have an audio RSS subscription.]
Michael Geoghegan is the President of “Willnick Productions”:http://willnick.com/, a firm specializing in podcasting. He shared two examples – the “official Disneyland podcast”:http://www.disneyland.com/podcast and a podcast series for “Grape Radio”:http://graperadio.com, a niche blog and podcast for wine aficionados. Geoghegan shared great numbers from Grape Radio. They use a sponsorship model for their podcasts. Each episode is $1000 (USD) to sponsor; they have sponsors signed up through next year. So, they currently make enough to cover costs, but not to quit their day job. Geodhegan sees the sponsorship model as being a viable model for advertisers.
_Kate Trgovac is currently Manager, Web Evolution for Petro-Canada. Prior to joining Petro-Canada, Kate spent eight years developing user experience strategies for clients at several interactive agencies in Toronto. She writes about technology, branding, user-experience and other topics of note on her blog “mynameiskate.ca”:http://www.mynameiskate.ca/ ._