The New Media Marketplace is bringing a host of supercharged buzz, branding, and connection benefits to businesses and politicians. Savvy business owners have been using business blogging and business podcasting for nearly two years now. And it’s not just podcasting for profit and marketing purposes that is making money and winning votes.

Shortly after a mastermind session with Mike Stewart (the Internet Audio Guy), my partner Deborah, myself, and a dozen of our clients back in January of 2005 — one client began podcasting weekly and monthly updates to their nationwide sales team instead of conference calls and CD distribution. That one move dropped nearly $36,000 to their bottom line in savings and showed a 8% sales closure improvement.

Podcasting for profit in business and for votes in politics is the next big trend to watch
Podcasting for profit in business and for votes in politics is the next big trend to watch for. Bloggers have had a significant impact on the political landscape since 2003. Predictions are that the 2006 US election cycle is going to bring a host of online action, including stepped up grass roots and campaign funded audio and video podcasting.

Video networks which were not even in existence in the last US election cycle will help give exponential exposure to creative campaign content. With 60,000 video uploads per day, 100 million video views per day (several dozen are mine :)) and a robust social networking community — YouTube.com is expected to be a hot bed for the many of those video podcasts.

But YouTube, Google Video, Revver.com and Metacafe.com are just one component in the New Media Marketplace. The real power of audio and video for both business owners and politicians is in podcasting. Podcasting from a campaign or business blog is the core of any New Media Marketing campaign.

Mass media has deemed the trend “newsworthy,” but don’t expect to learn much from their coverage and analysis. Their interest on the topic is based primarily on two things:

    1. A fear of the undermining of their elite control over spin

    2. Hopes (by a mostly left-leaning mass media machine) of a liberal advantage against the conservative tide that’s been sweeping the country since the 1994 congressional elections

The thing to watch, learn from, and jump ahead of right now is the growing trend of podcasting for business and political purposes. (All reference links below)

    Robert Scoble (Microsoft’s infamous cutting edge corporate blogger) left Microsoft last month and put his future on the line to move to Podtech.net.

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel is bypassing (the shocked) mass media and speaking directly to the people with her video podcasts

    Rush Limbaugh has over 600,000 subscribers plunking down $49/year for premium access to his weekday podcast

    Video podcasters AskANinja.com started a traffic swarm that’s been doubling every month since the beginning of 2006, and now they’re monetizing that traffic with their “NinjaMart Store” and soon to be announced upcoming movie release.

    Savvy business owners and marketers are using inexpensive “action” films as engaging and welcomed commercials to reach highly targeted audiences through their business blogs and niche specific video sites like StreetFire.net.

    Heck even Santa Claus is podcasting. If the jolly old Saint Nick is doing it, you know you better start paying attention.

Whether it’s internal business podcasts to reduce costs and increase team performance, marketing through buzz with podcasts, or premium content podcasts for subscribers — watch and learn from the business and political leaders jumping into the podcasting game.

We’ve been so busy wrapping up our book Secrets of Online Persuasion and helping clients implementing podcasting strategies that we haven’t had time ourselves. Now that the book is in the publisher’s hands, we’re putting together plans for a regular podcast over at (the under construction) PowerPersuasionProfits.com. We’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas for a audio and video podcast focused on effectively applying influence and persuasion.

The great thing about podcasting for profit is that you can start very small and still make a big impact on your profits and bottom line. Want some help brainstorming a good strategy for marketing and profiting from podcasting? Drop me an email at ‘communicationcommando-at-gmail-dot-com’ (just replace the dashes with periods) and we’d be happy to schedule a time to talk.

New Media Marketing Reference Links For This Article:

Copyright © RPM Success Group Inc. 2002-2006. All full copyright rights are reserved by RPM Success Group inc. Other bloggers and journalists are allowed to excerpt and link to posts (as is common with bloggers,) as full credit/attribution is given to AdvancedBusinessBlogging.com and RPM Success Group Inc.

Discover the only strategic online sales and persuasion system guaranteed to unleash the maximum marketing power of the New Media in your business — BLOG Interactive 360™.

John-Paul is a published author (Secrets of Online Persuasion, Morgan James Publishing/Ingram, Fall 2006) and weekly columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin. He is a New Media Marketing Consultant working with business owners and politicians to leverage online influence and persuasion for more clients, more profits, and more votes. He and his partner have developed a simple scientific code for maximizing personal performance and influence online and off-line. You can reach J.P. directly via [communicationcommando@gmail.com].

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