Audio Marketing

Audio Marketing - Is Radio Dead?

We all know that radio has been a big hit and never went away when TV cameon the scene. Audio podcasting has its place in the world of the internet and in your strategy. Audio podcasts are simply audio files that can be heard on a computer ortransferred to another player like an mp3 player or other listening device.The growth in the area of audio podcasting has been huge and it is attracting attention.This is a great place to show your expertise, introduce your ideas, get your message out, display great content, and above all – send people to your website!People are ‘eating up’ podcasts and you can get in on it as part of your strategy tosend traffic to your site.

Purpose of Audio Marketing

Many people are turning to audio for their source of entertainment and information. As people become busier, they tend to multi task. For example, a person who does not have time to sit down and read an article may be very interested in listening to the same information during their morning commute, while doing dishes, or while performing mundane tasks at work. A podcast offers you a chance to
reach people who do not have the time to sit and read. It’s a great alternative method for reaching people.

Attract real people and attract the search engines. Make sure to tag your podcasts with your important keywords to keep people and crawlers properly directed.Then you can send them to a landing page especially made to address the concerns and interests of your target audience.

How to Use Audio Marketing

It is really quite simple. First you need to produce quality audio content.This needs to be completed with a decent microphone and equipment. Consider the many podcasts available to people. If your sound quality is poor, people will not stay around to listen.We all use a PC, laptop or even an iMac. Each one of theses items (new versions)comes with an in-built audio and web-cam system. If it doesn’t then it is really cheap to buy one.Anyway take enough time to make sure that the quality is adequate.You also need to consider the voice of your audio product. Make sure that it ‘matches’ the message you are trying to get across. A podcast for new mothers may go over better if the speaker is not a loud, sonorous man. Also, make sure that the language is clear and that any accent will not make it difficult for the target audience to understand.

Don’t know what to put in the audio?

Do you have any pre-content written? Do you think you can write a ‘decent’ enough article? Ever think about the converting an email message into an audio? Ever used

a PLR (private label right) content as audio or even video? Ever think about creating the content into a video with free ‘related’ pictures that you can get from sites like
http://www.iStockPhoto.com ? Hmmm … interesting! Audio Syndication and Strategies Develop a syndication strategy in order to get your audio dispersed with RSS feeds.

Through RSS, you can post once and end up being published multiple times.Read the section in this book on RSS feeds and you can apply it to audio podcasts.The first site you want to use when distributing your audio file is
http://podsubmitter.com/ .

This is like TubeMogul, but for podcasts, not videos.

With this tool you will be able to send your podcasts to about 50 directories.However, you need to link to them in exchange, so it’s not completely free, like TubeMogul. But a small link from your site or blog will not kill you; in fact out bound links from your site are a necessity, as some sites can even get penalized by search engines if they have no outbound links at all.

Audio Marketing TIPS

When you create a script you not only know what you are going to say before you record it but you also have a chance to correct errors and re-write more efficiently.Too long or too serious will bore the listener and your audio message will be shut down in the first 10 to 15 seconds
.
Create a specific audio track for a specific product. Do not cramp too many products into one single track. Listeners generally do not have the time neither the patience for anything more than a specific need of the hour.

Your volume has to be set right, your audio should not sound too loud or too soft, to avoid this you need to make sure the volume level is set so it’s not too loud or too quiet on your listener’s computer.

Your voice also has to be perfect but it depends on the market you are targeting.Record a test track and take opinions form friends and family, if you fail the test then
you better hire a professional to do your audio track. But ensure it’s needed in ‘your’ type of market place.

The perfect place to use audio in your website is to welcome the visitor to your site, to capture the visitors email address in your opt-in or squeeze page, to thank the visitor for buying a product or subscribing to your news letter, you could also post a link to an audio track in the emails you send them.

Make sure you tell your listeners what to do, make it clear to them what is it that you want them to do whether it’s buying a product, subscribing to your news letter or even simply reading the rest of the website or page.

Many visitors do not like audio or video on a website, they simply like to read the contents of the page so it is advisable to give the visitor an option to either read or to listen to the web site. Effectively provide BOTH!

Voice intonation must be appropriate. If you want your clients to be enthusiastic and buy your product, your also have to be enthusiastic, and your intonation should
reflect that state of mind. If you talk about an excellent product with a dull, boring voice, the ones who listen to your message will almost feel forced not to buy thatproduct.

Nowadays, people have a short attention span. Don’t make your audio files too long,because even if you have a lot of things to say, you need to realize that people tend to get bored very quickly. Make your recording about 30 seconds long, never more than a minute. If it needs more then do so!

Be confident and relaxed, yet give them good information.

Audio Marketing MISTAKES

Volume - Your recording may sound good on your own computer but no one is going to use your computer – the best thing you can do is to set all the audio control
levels to medium.

Your Voice - You think your voice is great and the way you talk is great – Ask your friends to listen to your recording and take their opinion.

Not Using A Script - Fumbling for words (“um”, “and”, or “uh”) is going to ruin your audio recording – take a little extra trouble and make a script it will turn out much more professional but this also depends on the target audience too. Being professional isn’t always the solution.

Saying Too Much - Trying to make best use of one audio recording by making it too long - Make sure to keep your script short and to the point.

No Call To Action - No proper message or no meaning to what you say – You have to be very clear with the purpose of your recording i.e. what do you want them to do after they have heard the audio.

Involvement - Not getting your listener involved in your website – Make your script attractive so the listener thinks, scrolls or clicks.

Background Music - Playing back ground music at high volume is a very common mistake marketers make in audio this reduces the clarity of your voice.

Serious Script - Making your script very serious is another big mistake made by many marketers this will bore the listener who will immediately close the window and look for something else.

Over bragging about your product - Nobody likes a guy who brags and brags about stuff.If you see a web page where half is bragging and half is good information,
you just scroll straight to the informative part. But with an audio message, if someone first brags about his product, and then gives some quality audio content, you can’t skip to the good part so easily, and frankly, nobody would be interested. Most people would just close that audio message.

Not attracting attention to the audio message – Some webmasters don’t want to set their audio file on autoplay, and that’s fine, but some also forget to attract any attention towards it, and many times, the audio file is ignored.

List of Sites

www.Podcastalley.com
www.Odeo.com
www.Ipodder.org
www.Podcastpickle.com
www.Digitalpodcast.com
www.Ipodderx.com
www.Itunes.com
www.Podcasts.yahoo.com
www.Allpodcasts.com
www.Audiofeeds.org
www.Blastpodcast.com
www.Blubrry.com
www.Castregister.com
www.Clickcaster.com
www.Getapodcast.com
www.Gofish.com
www.Hardpodcafe.com
www.Loomia.com
www.Ourmedia.org
www.Mypodcastcenter.com
www.Thepodship.com
www.Podspider.com
www.Podblaze.com
www.Podcastblaster.com
www.Podcastdirectory.org
www.Podcasthost.com
www.Podcastmania.com
www.Podcastready.com
www.Podcasting-station.com
www.Podcasterworld.com
www.Podcasts.com
www.Podnova.com
www.Podomatic.com
www.Podzinger.com
www.Vitalpodcasts.com
www.Vloglist.com
www.Podcastbunker.com
www.Audio.weblogs.com
www.Podcast.net
www.Podsites.com
www.Podfeed.com
www.Podcastpup.com
www.Podcastingnews.com
www.Podtower.com
www.Yakkyakk.com
www.Ibizradio.com
www.Mirpod.com
www.Speecha.com
www.Womeninpodcasting.com