Smart Podcast Marketing

Thinking about how people think about it, and how they approach it, and what kind of comparisons can be drawn between this infant technology and the world in which it finds itself...

Whenever I talk about podcasting with people, they usually respond with the attitude that it's a novelty, that it's something brand new, that it's not really essential... that it's more of a curiosity than a viable medium. So much of our lives has already been conditioned around the written word, when it comes to online information, and audio's place in the online world is still very much in the camp of music and entertainment. The idea of putting audio out there for people to use, in the form of podcasting, is still a foreign one to most people.

I think this may have to do with the fact that the primary form of access is perceived to be the iPod -- after all, the medium is "pod-casting", which implies the use of an iPod (tho' the majority of podcast subscribers listen to podcasts on their computers).

That perception does two things.

First, it puts podcasting in the camp of eary adopters, and the people who can afford iPods and the time to fiddle with 'em. It makes podcasting into a novelty, luxury item -- like an iPod, which is the expensive newcomer to the portable media scene (cassettes and 8-tracks and CDs being the predecessors).* iPods are not cheap, and you have to have a computer to download music. iPods are definitely commodities for the technological "haves", leaving the rest of the poor slobs who only have CD players, in the dust. And podcasting, while it is intriguing, is even more of a commodity of the "haves", in that you have to have a good enough computer to access the audio, download it, and listen to it -- be it on that computer, or on a portable media device. What's more, to consume podcasting you need to know where to find podcasts, and you need to invest time and energy in deciding whether you want to listen to such-and-such a podcast. That's another activity of the "haves" -- those who have enough time and energy free to browse, analyze and discern what they're looking for in a podcast.

Second, it makes podcasting platform-specific, and it ties it to a particular medium, i.e., the iPod. Not many people think of "pod" as standing for "personal on-demand" -- Apple's publicity campaigns have been too thorough and pervasive to allow anything other than an iPod to be associated with podcasting (at this point). By tying podcasting to the iPod, the medium has been isolated to those people who have iPods, who know about iPods, who are iPod-savvy. And while this population is probably going to dramatically increase after this holiday buying season (everybody wants a new iPod! -- even me), still, the people who have-not are left out of the action, if not in reality, then in perception, which is even more problematic and difficult to overcome.

Tying podcasting to the iPod, defines the population of podcast consumers, both by inclusion (those who have the gadget and are clever enough to discover where interesting podcasts can be found), as well as by exclusion (those who haven't got an iPod and are resistant to new technologies, like the iPod, and summarily reject the newness because they perceive it to be part and parcel of Apple's bid to dominate the technical landscape).

And while that may make it easier for marketers to define and exploit their target audience, it doesn't do much for the medium overall. If anything, it just holds us back.

I'm inclined to think about people's adoption of podcasting, at this point, with the reference point of photography, when it was on the rise about 150 years ago. People had been painting for aeons. Rich people garnished their homes and lives with portraits painted by real-live people. Artists, though sometimes maligned and socially suspect, had a place in the cultural landscape. When photography came along, suddenly painting seemed like it was irrelevant. There was a backlash against painting, from what I understand (and I could be wrong), and folks feared it would fade away as the years passed and the technology improved to produce far more accurate renderings, than painting every could or would. Painters, of course, evolved and found ways to infuse their work with a spirit you can't get from photography, and their work (in my opinion) became much more art, than craft. Styles changed, the reason(s) for painting changed; painters went from producing a likeness of all that you possess, to producing a "slice of spirit" that demonstrates the more etheric qualities one possesses. Artists adapted.

With podcasting, the same challenge exists -- but this time the onus to prove its worth is on the emerging art form (and I do think podcasting is an art, as well as a craft). Podcasting is able to convey information in a whole new way -- a way that isn't immediately apparent to those who haven't used it yet. But like painting 100 years ago, there are other media which appear to do the same thing as podcasting -- convey information electronically (the web) and entertain audibly (the radio and cassettes and CDs, say what you will about their limitations). What does someone need to listen to a podcast for?

That is the question all podcasters need to answer, these days. And we need to answer it well. Granted, I do think that the sheer numbers of people who are buying iPods and receiving them for presents and incentives (open a bank account, get an iPod), will push the critical mass of podcast consumers ever higher, over time. But that process will be slowed, if people can't come up with compelling and meaningful reasons for people to listen to their podcasts.

Podcasting, by inference and association with iPods, is still a luxury passtime. It's a luxury to produce, it's a luxury to consume. And until people find specifically needful ways to serve the interests of their potential audience with their podcasts, it will continue to be so.

Podcasting has huge potential for adoption, over the coming years. Various analysts are quoting listenerships in the tens of millions in 5 years (and I think that's being conservative). But for the time being, until podcasters can find ways to communicate their ideas in novel and specifically meaningful ways, this medium will languish in the doldrums of hobbyists and curiosity-seekers. Not because the podcasts available aren't worthwhile and fill a need, but because popular preference tends to side with the tried and true. And let's face it -- finding, downloading, and listening to podcasts takes time and energy -- the two things a whole lot of people don't have much of, these days.

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* Since 8-tracks are among the portable media predecessors, it just may be that our collective experience with 8-tracks (they were really cool and cutting edge, but they didn't last, and now they're a kind of nostaligic joke that dates you as a media consumer) has put us off embracing cool new media when it comes out. I suspect that within our collective consciousness, there's a corner reserved for our memories of all those stacks of 8-tracks we loved, which will never be listened to, again... and there's always the chance that somewhere, sometime, that experience will be repeated with another form of new media.