Benefits of Podcasting and Web Video

Owning your own new media program is now possible due to advances in technology and doing so has many benefits. First of all, there is no limit to the number of channels you can create. You can use new media for outreach so that you are constantly driving a fresh supply of prospects to your website. Third, you can use the program to place ads for your products. Proctor and Gamble wanted to sell their soap products, so they created a number of television programs within which they could advertise. The Soap Opera was born: Guiding Light, As the World Turns, Search for Tomorrow.

Harness the Power of Vision

“It would take all day to explain it, let me just show you.”

Video is so powerful because it showcases charisma and communication skills, allowing for transparency, which can lead to trust. Video is powerful because it’s demonstrative, clearly depicting procedures, techniques or visual information such as charts and graphs. A web page can take a lot of text to explain a proceedure or concept where if you just show them it’s quick and easy, plus it is retained longer because it's visual. Images stick better than words. Besides, it takes effort to read. Customers and prospects would much rather you spoon feed the information to them via multimedia. The solutions are broken down into benefits below for online video, video podcasting and audio podcasting.

Online Video Benefits

- Increase sales
- Lead generation
- Makes your website sticky and a repeat destination
- Can be used to educate
- Can be used in directories such as YouTube to drive customers to your website
- Can be used on your website to further qualify leads
- For online sales, video can close the sale
- For complex sales a video can take move prospect closer to closing
- PR vehicle for motion video news and announcements

Video and Audio Podcasting

Video and audio podcasting allows you to take advantage of Apple’s wild successes with the iPod and iPhone! Podcasting allows you to publish audio and video content to these devices via podcast so that people can consume on the go.

Video podcasting works together with online video. Frequently, what is published in iTunes is also replicated on the web site podcast landing page. Alternately, videos published on iTunes, YouTube and other directories can be used to drive traffic to the website so prospects can further engage in the sales process. Once on the website, a different set of videos can be used to take the prospect through the rest of the process.

Video Podcasting Benefits

- Drives traffic to your website from iTunes, iPod, iPhone
- Educates prospects on differentiators and benefits
- Builds audiences via subscription, automatically distributing new episodic programs to your audience
- Video messages stick better compared to audio or text because they use imagery
- Reaches mobile devices where users consume on the go – on airplane or commuting
- Supports higher quality for users on slow connections
- Reaches a different, frequently younger audience, versus online video

Podcasting allows your company to participate in Web 2.0 social media because podcasting is less susseptible to commentary and backlash. Companies that do not want to try blogging are having great success with podcasting. Blogs are made for quick commentary and crosstalk. Podcasts are more difficult to produce making it more difficult for such commentary and don’t allow for people to hide behind written words.

Audio Podcasting Benefits

- Audio costs less to produce when compared to video
- More appropriate for simple, long running lectures and speeches that don’t involve visuals
- Carries warmth of the human voice
- Audio without visuals allows the listener to use the imagination
- Frequently better for invoking emotion and passion
- Audio takes advantage of those with verbal charisma
- Like video podcasting, audio podcasting builds audiences via subscription, automatically distributing new episodic programs to your audience

Each company and person has an optimal medium for communication. For some people, audio is ideal. Audio was the best medium for President Franklin Roosevelt and he used it to bring the nation out of the Great Depression. Audio works particularly well in the world of ideas and is ideal for education and conveying concepts and facts.

Because there is no imagery with audio podcasting, the content creates sights and sounds in the listener’s imagination. Audio podcasts have the advantage of being played in the background while completing household tasks, or on the go while working out at the gym or commuting.