Are you struggling to increase your credibility, establish yourself as an authority in your niche and get enough business? What if I tell you there is a new technology that allows you to dominate your competition by having the first mover advantage and become the media that others refer to?

Businesses of all sizes are beginning to realize the advantage of podcasting and what that activity can mean for their businesses.

Despite still being in its infancy, compared to other more mature marketing technologies, podcasts have significantly begun to affect how people do business online. Podcasting invents an entirely new way to reach potential customers.

You see, instead of boring static text and images, marketers can now add multimedia content to their conversation, including but not limited to audio, video, animated pictures, and so on.

One of the best things about integrating a podcast into your marketing mix is that it can be used in a variety of applications. You can certainly think of a podcast as streaming audio, but add the on-demand and time-shifting benefits, and you soon realize how powerful the tool becomes.

So what can podcasting do for your business?

1) Keep in touch with prospects and customers.

Keep the interaction flowing and let them know you better. Instead of a static website, demonstrate that there is a human behind your business. Podcasting lets you connect with your audiences closely through voice and video.

2) Position yourself as an expert in your niche.

You can feature business events, news, share thoughts, new innovations or even provide customer service on your podcast. It is the next best thing to talking directly to your listeners. Your audiences get the closest interaction with your organization.

3) Capture leads.

Engage them with content, delivered regularly through websites, podcast feeds, and syndicated through other sites.

Podcast directories make it easier for people to locate content that is most appealing to them. If you carefully write your podcast description, they should be noticed quite easily.

Once a visitor comes to your site, it is up to you to let her go or capture her name and e-mail for follow up. Hint: e-mail marketing still works greatly in combination with podcasting.

4) Generate revenue.

You can educate your listeners about your product or service. Since they are interested to the content, most likely they want to hear the solution you have to offer. You can easily increase your sales this way.

Advertisers began to notice the unique value of reaching people through podcasting. Audio and video advertising lets them deliver their message more effectively than merely text or image.

Through a podcast, they are able to reach a unique target market that otherwise can't be reached through traditional channels.

5) Boost business productivity.

Podcasts have been used internally within corporations to increase communication and effectively increase business productivity.

Standalone conventional websites used to adequately deliver information, but nowadays customers want more than that. We live in an information age where there is enormous amount of data being generated every single second. That has meant that end-users (clients) are beginning to shift their information consumption habit. As a result, they now demand more control over the medium, and they prefer to choose when and what information they're going to process.

As part of the shift, consumer generated media is set to take on older web models, especially as consumers also want to participate in the market, not just as passive readers.

That's why having a podcast and a blog on your website at the same time can be a very good idea. A blog also makes podcast publishing simpler.

Everyone is busy nowadays. Your potential customers demand more dynamic content, which they can bring anytime and consume anywhere.

iPod and other media devices help streamline the lifestyle. That's where podcasting fits perfectly into the mold. It allows people to carry the content and consume that at their own time (timeshifting).

One of the interesting things about podcasting, is that it forces people to become participatory. You find that you have no choice but to jump into the conversation. Listeners who make solid points won't resist to leave a comment on the podcasters' blog. The conversation starts with a podcast.

In this age, instead of just sitting and watching, customers want to have a conversation, where they can tell you directly what they think about a product or service that you offer. That can be scary, but it's also valuable feedback.

Copyright 2006 Hendry Lee.