I recently saw a case study from BearingPoint that using podcasts tripled their response in getting prospects to download a white paper (CMO Magazine 10/3/2005 ). Add to that some estimates that anywhere from 12.3 to 56 million people will be listening to podcasts by 2010 (CNET News) and those are some compelling stats (no matter which numbers you choose to believe). It certainly looks like now is the time to add podcasting to almost any company’s marketing mix — before the competition does. In fact, by some estimates 35% of companies are either using podcasts or planning to use them in their marketing. (CMO Magazine 10/12/2005).

My own experiments with podcasting are still new. Technically, creating a good podcast is not difficult and not nearly as hard as streaming video. The challenge as I work with clients is to not only develop content that will be considered compelling to a business audience, but also to determine how to accurately track return on investment for the endeavor. After only a month, though, I’m pretty impressed with some early numbers:

• Requests to listen/download podcast episodes (the .mp3 files themselves) for one client increased more than 3.5x over the course of the month
• Visitors accessing the RSS feed for the podcasts increased more than 22x
  

For the moment, these first steps into podcasting are intended largely for branding purposes: to educate the target audience about the client’s business model, but I definitely see the potential to link podcast feeds to demand creation initiatives and draw prospects in further.

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