If you get to know podcasts and what they have to offer, you'll want to add them to your marketing mix. Here's an introduction from Personal Life Media's CEO.
Podcasting, or downloadable media, is the latest darling in a string of digital blind dates being offered up to marketers.
The traits of the medium certainly make it alluring. A hundred thousand unique shows demonstrating an explosion of creativity are available to consumers, providing a quintessential example of the power of the long tail. The portability of the content is profoundly personal. The channel is still uncluttered with competitive messages. And engaging early gives a brand a disproportionate "tech-novelty" lift and a short-term opening to lock up the best real estate.
"The core podcasting community is all about creative expression, and when it's good, it builds passionate audiences," says Mark McCrery, Podtrac founder and CEO.
Thus, like the domain name land rush, keyword wars and viral marketing one-upmanship, podcast advertising programs are on the cusp of exploitation, providing an opportunity for marketers to create one of the big ideas of the media year, another BMW films.
Here's a rundown on the various ad models most common in today's market. Use this as the dance card for your creative planning.
Dress to impress
You can advertise in both audio podcasts and video podcasts, also called vidcasts. These are unlike web radio and interactive broadcast web video in that all podcast content is portable. Shows are untethered from the internet.
Advertising creative can be run in the front (pre-roll), middle (mid-roll), end (post-roll) or anywhere within the content of either an audio or video podcast. In video, the content can also include a "bug" of your logo laid over the top of the content, much like the station identification on TV.
Since podcasts are on-demand, rather than broadcast, your ads may be any length that feels reasonable for the situation. Sure, you can run the standard :10, :15, or :30, but you can also be creative. For example, you can run an ad in a show and then run a two to four minute advertorial at the end for those die-hard fans who love both the show and your contextually-relevant and evocative brand messaging.
Surround sessions are another option. Start with a simple sponsor message in the pre-roll, expand to an offer in the mid-roll and have one last call-to-action in the post-roll. Book-ends are being used effectively in shows of shorter lengths.
Another manner of delivering your oh-so compelling message is through simple sponsorship of a show or network of shows. Listeners appreciate advertisers supporting their favorite shows.
There are all kinds of ways to get your brand incorporated into a podcast: from "dry voice reads," for which the host uses your talking points, to host endorsements during the show that are off-the-cuff, to your product integrated into the show to sweepstakes or giveaways of your product to listeners. Hosts can also produce a dry voice commercial based on your copy that is then under laid with a pod-safe and royalty-free music bed for the intro and conclusion.
"In order to fully activate the long tail, don't choose media by the biggest audience, choose it with a fundamental understanding of your customer's interests," says Chris MacDonald, IndieFeed founder and VP business development at Wizzard Media.
You can also hire the host of a show to create a podcast for you that represents your brand. Often they make excellent consultants and can handle the RSS feeds and get your show into iTunes. Think about using a particular show host to create a spin-off series about your brand or even a single amazing episode. The audience has a lot of passion for the talent, so the halo effect can be palpable.
Make the introduction
The most straightforward and scaleable way to buy across many podcasts to aggregate an audience is to furnish finished ads and to buy based on CPM. You'll buy by length of the ad and by the impression/ download/ file access. Typical CPMs range from $20 to $50 and the most common ads are :10 and :15 seconds.
If you have a strong offer, you can also negotiate affiliate or direct marketing CPC or CPA deals with podcasters. You will need to provide a trackable URL and/or a custom promotion code for the show. You can offer a fixed fee per sale or negotiate a revenue share on the percentage of sales generated. Offering a guarantee or draw-against-sales in an upfront non-refundable payment gives a great incentive to the podcaster because you have skin in the game, not just the podcaster. This is a very fair business practice and can result in significant goodwill and better overall results.
"You must leverage the psychology of the listener rather than succumb to the temptation of traditional direct response," says Jonathan Cobb, founder of Kiptronic.
Another great way to scale a campaign is to buy from an ad network or podcast publisher that offers many shows that fit your demographic or psychographic target or has related content. Podshow, Podtrac, Kiptronic, Libsyn, Blubrry from RawVoice, Podango, Personal Life Media (my company) and others aggregate or create their own content and sell programs across shows. You can also buy podcast advertising from your traditional media partners such as NPR, Discovery, Washington Post, NY Times and many more.
Another simple option is the CPD "Cost per Deal" format offered by some ad networks where you pay a flat fee to a group of podcasters to run the campaign for an allotted time.
Clearly, flexibility still attracts in this category of debutants. But it will standardize quickly and follow the industry in offering keyword targeting based on spoken word in shows and behavioral targeting against audiences, leaving the forever single, "hot linkable video" gal still looking for her soul mate. Is it you, podcasting?
Susan Bratton is co-founder and CEO of Personal Life Media Inc., and co-founder of the Association for Downloadable Media. Read full bio.