Archive for business
Podcasting For Business – 5 Unconventional Tips
Posted by: | CommentsPodcasts are a great way to help promote your business by showcasing your expertise, spreading the word about your company, products, and services, building community with your target market, and more. Here are 5 unconventional tips to help you along your way.
1) Sponsor a podcast whose audience fits your target demographic. You don’t need to start one yourself, just look for an appropriate one that already exists. A classic example of this is Dixie sponsoring the Mommycast. Dixie didn’t create a podcast themselves; instead they found one whose audience fit their target demographic and partnered with it.
2) Podcast on an unrelated topic to your business, but which has enormous appeal to your audience. An example of this is Whirlpool’s American Family on family issues. Hey, wouldn’t a podcast on dishwashers be boring?
3) Forget about the size of your listening audience! This isn’t radio. A small number of very passionate listeners are much more important than a large number of somewhat interested listeners. Since podcasting can target niche audiences (since it’s inexpensive unlike radio or TV), audiences tend to be passionate about the topic.
4) Take your podcast to your audience! Don’t expect your target audience to magically find it. For example the Financial Aid Podcast heavily promotes via MySpace, as the demographics of both are extremely similar, and RightLookRadio advertises in industry publications.
5) Don’t call it a podcast – the name confuses and/or scares many people. You could call it radio — people understand and are comfortable with radio. For example GrapeRadio is quite popular, and many of their fans neither know nor care that they are listening to a podcast.
And for over 100 more tips on successful blogging and podcasting, I invite you to grab your free copy of my ebook Secrets of Successful Blogging at www.SecretsofSuccessfulBlogging.com
By Ted Demopoulos, author of “Blogging for Business” and “What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting”
Article Source: Ezinearticles.com
My Favourite Podcasts
Posted by: | CommentsI was at a networking meeting this week and we began talking about our favourite podcasts. For the uninitiated, a podcast is an audio recording distributed over the internet. It’s like radio except you can download episodes, listen at your convenience, pause and re-listen at will.
For business people, business podcasts can be an invaluable learning tool. Instead of having to travel to attend a course, you can download a podcast on almost any topic and be learning at home.
You can listen in your office while you work or you can upload them to your MP3 player and multi-task – listen while you workout, commute or do housework.
If you’ve never listened to a podcast, here are some of my favourites:
1. The Podcast Sisters – this weekly podcast features discussions by Krishna De, Anna Farmery and Heather Gorringe. These three women discuss Web 2.0, social media and other technology for “non-geek” businesses.
2. Street Smarts Marketing – Marketing expert Kathleen Gage interviews a variety of industry experts on topics to help you run your business better. You have to register to get access to get the downloads but it truly is worth giving up your email address.
3. Wonderful Web Women – Janet Beckers interviews successful women on the internet to learn their secrets.
4. Marketing Over Coffee is a new podcast for me … recommended by an internet marketing colleague. Hosts John Wall and Christopher Penn record it every business Wednesday at 5:30am Eastern at a coffee shop in Natick, MA, just outside of Boston.
5. Andrea’s More Effective Marketing Podcast. Yes, this is a shameless plug for my own podcast. I interview people who have knowledge to offer on subjects that I want to learn about. I learn tons from these people and hope you will too.
Andrea J. Stenberg
Do you listen to any podcasts that help you run your business? Please share the links by leaving a comment below.
Five mistakes I made in the first year of business
Posted by: | CommentsMaybe it’s because it’s almost back to school time, but I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting in the past week. I’ve been thinking about what it was like during the first few weeks and months of being in business full time. It was an equally exciting and frightening time.
I had a business and marketing plan and was reasonably confident I would succeed. On the other hand, I didn’t really know I would succeed.
I was also venturing into new territory: creating a website from scratch; juggling business and family; having to be 100 percent responsible for my income – an income that was very unpredictable. And in spite of years of working in marketing and promotion, I found that marketing my own business was an entirely different kettle of fish.
Looking back at my first year in business, I see I made a lot of mistakes. If I had avoided them, I might have gotten to where I am a lot sooner. Here are some of my beginner mistakes:
Not being aggressive enough in marketing
People often say, “It’s just business. It’s not personal.” But when you’re a solo-preneur, selling a service, marketing yourself is personal. It’s all about you and the results you provide. And for many of us, this is very difficult. We’re taught not to brag, not to toot our own horn. And yet, as an entrepreneur we need to do just that. Read More→
