Podcasts - A New Territory for Marketing
Podcasting is a medium in search of a "business model." We believe it is more likely to involve advertising than subscriptions - although we'd much prefer our listeners to tell us different. As young as we are, school Improvement Industry may be one of the oldest commercial podcasters on the supply-side of k-12 education. Podcasts could become a viable advertising medium for School Improvement Industry if our "commercials" are brief, reinforce our message of quality, and do not interrupt individual programs.
The bulk of our downloads occur during the first week of a podcast's release, but every podcast in the School Improvement Industry library is still downloaded many times every day. Our oldest podcast is also our "most downloaded."
Both podcast-specific and comparative statistics are hard to assemble. The medium is in its infancy and disorganized. Podcasts can be downloaded by directories as well as individuals and then rebroadcast ad infinitum. Our hosting service and others are working on the statistics problem. We are listed under "k-12 Education" on the major podcast directors, including the largest, iTunes and ipodder.
We do know the audience is both smaller and more narrowly definable than for TV, print or typical website advertising, and it is also far less expensive per intended "target" reached. Most of our known listeners sign up for regular downloads - a sign of their interest in the focused topic of school improvement in a market setting. Advertising on our podcast would be reaching the intended audience. In our Marketing Relationship, we offer clients a way to direct their customers and prospects to the podcasts in which they have advertised.
We will further develop the medium with clients as part of the Marketing Relationship offered by School Improvement Industry.
