Podcasting Listeners Are Paying Attention

I just love it when the data weighs in to support something I have witnessed anecdotally and intuitively known long before research could prove it. Podcasting does the heavy lifting of finding niche audiences and capturing their attention in a way that is otherwise unattainable to marketers. Be sure to read all the way down to Rox's 4 L's of Podcast Success.

I am presenting here the results of two studies, one by Arbitron/Edison Research and one by PodTrac.

I was lucky to be on a panel of experts who spoke at ad:tech san francisco two weeks ago, on behalf of the Association for Downloadable Media. In our session, we released the latest survey data from Edison Research addressing both the size and the behavior of podcast audiences. Their data is oriented somewhat towards audio podcasts, and IMO video podcasts are audio podcasts on steroids.

Here's the takeaway from the lead analyst, Tom Webster

The audience for downloadable media is not only growing, but also represents a very attractive target for advertising...and those 23 million Americans are affluent, spend lots of time (and money!) online, and are increasingly more difficult to target with interruption advertising. I would love to see more and more partnerships between mass media broadcasters and independent content producers. You need each other.

You can download the full PDF here from Edison Research. (PDF)

The second study gets down to the nitty gritty: so what if there are more podcast consumers, are they paying attention? Yes, and in ways that are unheard of in traditional advertising and marketing.

• Average unaided ad recall of 68%
• Average aided ad recall of 89%
• 73% average increase in likelihood to use/buy vs control group
• 69% having a more favorable view of advertiser due to ad exposure

How is this possible? PodTrac CEO Mark McCrery summarizes it this way:

Narrowly targeted audiences, appropriate ad formats, content relevance, and show host involvement are some of the factors which come together to produce highly effective ads in online shows and podcasts.

I would describe it as Rox's Four L's of Podcast Success:

1. Love: Podcast producers deliver authentic, topic-specific content and do the heavy lifting for attracting a unique, targeted, and interested audience. People who love Hawaii watch Beach Walks with Rox.
2. Loyalty: Podcast hosts, who by virtue of sharing their expertise and some personal details, create very loyal audiences. Over 60% of Beach Walks viewers tune in every day.
3. Location: Podcast audiences largely consume the content at the physical (not geographic) location of their computer (60-70% on average) and can take immediate action when presented with offers from show sponsors. When listening to traditional radio or TV, they are not in a physical location to be able to respond on impulse. (Being able to take podcasts on the go is an added bonus of podcasts—not available to radio or TV. We show Beach Walks episodes to our seat mates on the plane coming back home to Hawaii, and that combined with a good old-fashioned postcard generates new viewers and gives travelers a personal connection to the vacation of their dreams)
4. Leadership: Podcast hosts serve as a filter for their audiences, as most will not accept sponsors for products and services they do not support. This is the best of leveraging word-of-mouth advertising with scale.

I didn't include it, but another L could be the Luxury market. Podcast users are far more likely to have attained at least a college degree, are more likely to live in households earning in excess of $75,000 per year, more likely to buy online, and more likely to use pop-up blockers. But heh, it doesn't always have to be about the Benjamin's!
What do you think about podcasting? I'd love your feedback.

Are You Addicted to Big Numbers?

I love math. It has an uncanny way of teasing apart the truth, but alas, it can also just as easily be used selectively to manipulate or create false impressions. And if we get addicted to a certain type of math - tracking eyeballs and households for example - then we can be inadvertently wasting time and money on our way to building brands and selling stuff.

In the old days of business, it was not possible in most cases to communicate with just the people who were a good fit for your products and services. So your agency developed campaigns for you that involved sending out millions of mailers or commercials broadcast to hundreds of thousands of households.

Typical rates of return? Less than one percent. We all know that. But those big campaign numbers are still so addicting. "I need the big numbers in order to get the rates of return to justify this expense." Well, you only want the actual end result numbers.

The point is that now with technology, new media aka podcasting or downloadable media and social networks, you can actually reach the precise people who are most likely to buy from you, on the first round. You don't have to bother interrupting or shouting at gazillions watching a mainstream TV show knowing that in there a few customers (who are probably fast-forwarding the commercials anyway...) You have other more powerful ways of having "private" conversations with your target audience instead of hoping your target finds you in the midst of all that noise.

I call it the phenomenon of having people actually self-enrolling themselves and it's one step faster and juicier than "targeting." Though there were dozens of companies here at ad:tech promising better and better targeting of audiences, wouldn't you rather be able to just show up with your stuff knowing that people had already organized themselves around a related "something"?

I have a couple of examples for you.

iPhone Users and Web Software
On Monday, the Wall Street Journal wrote about a new iPhone software:

Earlier today, we wrote about new software that lets businesses customize Web sites for visitors with iPhones. Our take: Businesses that sell to other businesses shouldn’t rush out and buy this software because iPhones only account for 0.18% of Internet traffic...

That's a really small number. 0.18%. Who wants to bother with such a small, even microscopic group of people? Well what if you knew that iPhone users as a group are high income and highly educated phone users, and as early adopters they are also trend-sensors as well as trend setters? They are the people who have the money and the intellect to detect smart moves in the marketplace and tend to have others who follow them.

Now, not every company wants to meet the smart, rich, trendy, 24-7 movers and shakers, but if you do, iPhone users have already identified themselves as such, and making your web site i-Phone-compatible is an incredibly easy way to say to them: hey you! over here. My company wants to make it easy for you to play with us.

Mainstream Media Placement or Podcast Placement?
There's a local girl band here in Hawaii, MighTyJ. During the production of their album, they set up a blog and filmed a vidcast aka video podcast with their recording engineer, Doctor Trey. When it was time to start promoting themselves, they used a combination of approaches. For one they got booked on the CBS-affiliate morning show (about 25,000 households). After that appearance, there was zero uptick on their web site traffic and no increase in downloads or subscribers to their vidcast.

Then they made an appearance on our daily Internet TV show, Beach Walks with Rox, average daily download of about 2500 or one-tenth the reported size of morning network TV. Their site traffic jumped enormously and they doubled the number of subscribers to their podcast.

So do you want to waste your time contacting 25,000 and get no response or contact 2,500 and get an enormous response?

Welcome to the new new math people. Fall in love with small numbers. Be willing to pay a higher CPM/CPA because other things (technology) and other people (podcast creators) are doing the heavy lifting for you.

Video Podcasting for Unconferenz 2008

Here is my talk at Unconferenz 2008 in Honolulu on Jan 12, 2008. I am using the social networking site for slide shows, SlideShare.net. It does not play the embedded video — for that you'll want to be live! UPDATE: Ryan Ozawa has posted this video compilation from the day's events.

Links from the talk
Hardware & Software
Elgato Turbo USB encoding device
Sanyo Xacti Digital Underwater Video Camera
Flip Digital Video Camera
The Poor Man's Steady Cam
Visual Hub Batch Encoding Software
Quicktime Pro

Video Clips Used in Presentation
The Clip Show - Jim Kirks' Video Podcast Reviews
Levelator Audio Software by Bruce Sharpe
Todd Cochrane of Raw Voice
Laura Athavale Fitton of Pistachio Consulting

Other Useful Links for Video Podcasting
Blip.tv - free and almost free hosting for serialized video content
TubeMogul - batch upload your files to multiple sites and get viewership stats
Show in a Box WordPress theme for Video
Freevlog - Tutorials on Video Blogging

Our Internet TV Show
Beach Walks with Rox

Old Media and New Media Working Together

I just love it when this happens.

We do a daily video podcast aka internet TV show called Beach Walks with Rox. Last weekend, YouTube featured us on their Travel channel page. We had over 80,000 views in less than three days. (We will eventually be rotated off this page...)

The episode was about a tree and mulch blessing (or oli in Hawaiian) the was conducted by the Lani-Kailua Branch branch of one of our clients, The Outdoor Circle. It featured awesome chanting by Haunani and ʻIlima Stern of Aloha Blessings.

And a circle it is, as I then sent out a few press releases to local media. Erika Engle, author of "The Buzz" column in the Star-Bulletin Business section, called me for an interview and wrote a really terrific article, ostensibly because of the YouTube story but she delved deeper and we got into an interesting (IMO) discussion about how businesses, especially Hawaiian tourism businesses, can use these new media and social networking online tools.

After I gave her a boat load of examples, she asked, "Why doesn't every business upload their stuff to YouTube?" Great question, dontcha think?

What I don't get is why the online version of the article does not have links to our business website and the the Beach Walks site being discussed. It's easy to do, but traditional print media seem to be "link averse" as if they will lose a site visitor. More importantly, they provide an even better resource by including the link (which creates more customer loyalty) and they always code it easily enough to open in a new window - keeping the main media site alive and well on the viewer's computer.

Oh, and I sure wish I could have left a comment on Erika's page to thank her and add to the conversation. I wonder, does it get lonesome writing without response?? Leave your comment here for Erika and I will send her the link to this page.

But in any case, the article was written well, accurate, and managed to mentioned the many people involved. Mahalo Erika! And mahalo to Mary Steiner, CEO (and blogger) for The Outdoor Circle who emailed this morning after having read the article. Hmm, I wonder if she has a Google Alert that notifies her whenever "outdoor circle" gets mentioned online??

Surfing Tip: Right-click (or control-click) on all of the links in this article if you want them to open in a new window. It's a web surfing power tip that comes in handy frequently.

Why (text-audio-video) blog? A sample of one.

There is so much frenzy about video blogging these days!  And like most trends, there is incredible presuure and lure out there for people to jump on the bandwagon. It’s human nature 101: when someone finds something they love, they want “everyone else” to share the love too. Alas, it doesn’t always make sense.

Whether it's people pushing iPods or Bibles, the urge to evangelize is one powerful urge!

Jeff Pulver responded to Dina Kaplan's suggestion to "Do a Video Blog" with a sober and IMO realistic perspective:

This all said, working with video does require some level of full-time commitment and care and is more "work" than just putting together one's thoughts for a text blog on any given Saturday afternoon.

And Robert Scoble has a useful list of video blog considerations that is both inspiring (no, it doesn't have to be perfect) and yet practical (good sound matters). Devlon at Loaded Pun also weighs in, pointing out the grass roots power of this medium. It feels like something we the people are just not going to let go of! Video is so much more compelling. Remember all those arguments you've had, wishing someone had documented it with video, to "prove" your version of reality?? Well, now you can.

A Study of One:

Here is my history with (text/audio/video) blogging.

Even though I love to write, I so far haven't become a great blogger. I don't have much of the snoop and gossip genes that I think help make a great blogger. I've had many blogs, starting back in 2001, but none really stirred my pot.

Then I got excited about audio podcasting, because heaven knows I love to talk to people. But that didn't really stick either, tho not for lack of ideas. It seemed cumbersome and I wanted to write it out first, but didn't want to take/have the time. Me alone with my microphone in my office where I already spend too much time? Nahh.

Then along comes videoblogging, and I have truly found my home. It feels so natural to me. I love it, though it is considerably more difficult and more time-consuming than blogging or audio-podcasting. Especially since I choose to do my Beach Walks with Rox outside in the elements, every single day, generating content from my my own little heart and mind. Go figure!

As a consumer, I often prefer to read as I can get so much more in, in a short period of time. I love it when a/v podcasters have show notes as that helps me decide whether or not to go further. Even if I don't have time to listen/watch, I can still engage in a relationship. I am very loyal to the podcasters who "speak to me" - something I cannot yet define. But I won't wait for an ad that most MSM requires before it will show me their video. Especially when I have to wait several seconds for anything at all to begin to play - as all the ad-click tracking makes its database calls to report on my behavior.

But back to my original point, seems to me there are plenty of us who are seriously inspired by video on the internet and we can back off everyone else. I like that old AA practice: attraction not promotion. If it's as powerful as many of us think, it's only going to get bigger. You've got plenty of time to jump on this bandwagon. As for me, I have so many show ideas I can't sleep at night!

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