Mar 12 2007
Possible reasons for the slow take up of Corporate Podcasting
Are there any key reasons for the slow take up of Corporate Podcasting ?
I’m only saying this because of recent conversations I’ve had with some CEOs
and Strategic Directors.
Last Friday I was at the Institute of Directors (IOD) in London.
For international readers, this is just off London’s (UK) famous Trafalgar Square.
The IOD has been described as a good place to network. It is quite interesting when you enter the large room that they have allocated for face-to-face meetings, it reminds one of parents evening. The only exception is that you do not move between desks when the next subject tutor or teacher meeting/ review is due. At the IOD staff are on hand to serve you Tea/Coffee, biscuits or a light snack.
Anyway, back to the meeting. I was meeting the UK Strategic Director of a major US firm specialising in Best Practice business consulting. These guys are both massive in terms of their international presence but also in the way that they build effective partnerships. I was with a good friend of mine Jon Vanags. We started talking about how Corporate Podcasting could be turned into a commodity or packaged. Interestingly, I’ve recently seen an interesting organisation announce that they are the first to offer what they describe as ’simple pricing for podcasting’. In some ways they are to be commended in helping to make podcasting services easier to understand.
However, as I’ve said on a number of occasions, podcasting is not just simply recording and hosting it requires a culture shift. In addition, a firm without anything interesting to communicate could rapidly lose the value of this communication medium – I prefer to call corporate podcasting a mechanism that must have a ‘meaning for the message’.
My advice would be to select a particular area within an organisation and trial it with pre-agreed effective return on investment criteria. This concept could also apply to those corporations that wish to use podcasting to earn revenue, for example: supporting product sales or targeted marketing.
The Strategic Director we were talking to shared the same thoughts with regard to Corporate Podcasting - For example:
Listener -> Reaction:
1. Mention Corporate Podcasting to a CEO, likely reaction, too technie - Good night
2. Mention Corporate Podcasting to a Marketing department’s PR partner, likely reaction - Who is listening and why is it better than our traditional routes to feeds? Ironically, the PR budget for many major corporations is huge.
3. Mention Corporate Podcasting to a Publication house, reaction - Prove to me that it can be complementary to my physical publication and will my time and cost investment really bring in more subscribers or even advertising revenue? Again, ironically, Podcasting gives you the ingredients for a niche and forms the basis of the ‘attention economy’. I read recently that a celebrity magazine’s online strategy had delivered a 1000% increase in new subscribers!
In summary, although a lot of the potential appears to be lost and in the short-term, it is only the early adopters that start to set the trend and standards. On that note, maybe simpler pricing is a good route.
What we can do is learn from the early days of Web 1.0. Remember in the early nineties when hardly anyone had a website. Now even a South Indian Dosa house (rice pan cake based food) that I visited in the Greenbelt part of Maryland, USA had their website listed on every disposable placemat menu. i.e: It appears that it is only when Corporate Podcasting is proven to ‘pull in’ clients and also your nearest competitor has something that you do not have, will this technology and its use get any respect.
How and When will this happen?
1. Production of simpler service descriptions
2. Ease of technology use
3. Good case studies from early adopters
4. A cost benefit matrix!
5. A high profile project trialing the technology
6. The provision of practical examples that are better than manual approaches.
In terms of a CEO being convinced of the investment and in an effort to not make him or her fall asleep at the very thought of Corporate Podcasting, there has to be courage from internal managers to start blogging and sharing thoughts. The latter is difficult with corporate politics.
A better place to start is if Corporate Podcasting helps to both win and retain customer - maybe Sales is the first place to start.
CEOs have enough on their plate, maybe in the not too distant future they will need to consider what to do if no one is listening to them!
i reckon you’re absolutely right on looking at the impact of podcasting on sales as a starter point.
starting the conversation with ‘let’s look at how it’ll impact on bottom line’ will make any private sector organisation’s ears prick up.
i’ve found that trialling inside the firewall is the easiest experiment with corporate podcasting. once they seem demonstrable results (e.g regional sales offices using the podcast content to start cross divisional partnerships etc), everything else will follow. another good reason for starting with sales people is that they’re often well self motivated to succeed in bottom line terms. it doesn’t get much more raw than when performance is predominatly judged on numbers!
good post.
cheers,
Thanks Matt. The $/£ seems to be a gr8 corporate motivator. I wonder if short sharp motivational msgs from the Sales Director, incentive competitions and sales celebrity status could form the foundation for useful podcasts. All of those suggestions/initiatives could become phonecasts - a bit like centralised voicemail.
Another place of application could be for dealer/channel updates.
i reckon the key to listenership in the corporate context is involving staff in the production of the podcast itself.
setting up a comments line where staff can feed into the main podcast is a great motivator. for those who don’t regularly feature in any form of ‘media spotlight’, I know it’s a real incentive to participate when you know your views will be included.
as for phonecasts, i’m not entirely convinced. yes, maybe as a channel to receive podcast material amongst others, there’s validity. but on its own… hmm need to think about that one more.
good conversation.