I found this interesting article about B2B podcasting on Brian Carroll’s B2B blog.

He suggests podcasting’s strength lies in it authenticity. If generating leads is the only reason why you are doing a podcasting, then you should rethink your podcast. The audience, especially a B2B audience, will immediately see the podcast for what it is and unsubscribe. Worse you might even alienate some of your audience.

ReadyTalk has an easy podcasting service that allows business’s to create podcasts with their recorded content. We have several customers who use our podcasting feature to distribute content to their employees. It is a great way to distribute meeting minutes, departmental updates and company bulletins. Everyone with a ReadyTalk account has access to these features, so check them out and give us a call if you have any questions.

Technorati Tags: podcast, marketing, lead generation

ReadyTalk Web Seminar Series in July

July is a very exciting month for the ReadyTalk Web Seminar series which features several speakers from a variety of disciplines.

July 10th – 21st Century Sales: Time Management for Sales Professionals
Townsend Wardlaw, Three Value Logic Sales Institute
In the second of our “21st Century Sales” series, Three Value Logic Sales Institute (3VLSI) presents “Time Management for Sales Professionals” to address the reality that today’s successful sales professional must coordinate a superhuman volume of activity. Participants in this web seminar will learn why multitasking decreases effectiveness and task-prioritization represents an inefficient method for organizing your work.

July 12th – Broadcast or Podcast:Creating Your Own Business Channel with Podcasting
Paul Barron, NetWorld Alliance
In this web seminar we will discuss the dos and don’ts of why and how you should create your own business channel through the use of podcasting.

• Learn when and why to podcast
• How to reach your perfect demographic
• What to do once you have a podcast
• How to get your podcast noticed

July 18th – Evaluating Your Marketing Mix: Marketing Analytics 101
Michael Lenzini and John Burnett, Scenario d
This Web Seminar is for marketing managers working at small to mid-sized companies who want a better understanding of the appropriate marketing metrics to employ in strategically assessing the various marketing tools that comprise their marketing mix. This web seminar will consider these tools both proactively and reactively.

July 24th – How to Develop an Investment-Grade Marketing Plan, Part II
Michael Lenzini, Scenario d
Michael Lenzini, CEO of Scenario d, LLC, will cover the top 10 ways you can market and promote your product or service online. Following the framework set forth by Dr. Burnett last month in Part I, Mr. Lenzini will expand on the concept of Framing Dimensions and how to get the right message to the right customer at the right time.

July 26th – Creating a Great Place to Work: Lessons Learned from the 2007 “50 Best Small & Medium Companies to Work for in America”
Hal Adler, Great Place to Work Institute
Join Hal Adler, President of Great Place to Work® Institute, to understand the essential ingredients and framework for creating a great place to work and what makes this year’s “50 Best Small & Medium Companies” so great.
Mr. Adler’s presentation will:

• Provide examples of workplace practices at “best companies to work for.”
• Examine the business case for building and sustaining a great workplace.
• Suggest everyday strategies for building a strong foundation of trust between managers and employees.
• Offer insight into how the Great Place to Work® Institute selects their annual “Best Companies” lists — including the “50 Best Small & Medium Companies to Work for in America”, recognizing companies with between 50-999 employees, and FORTUNE’s 100 Best Companies to Work For®, recognizing companies with more than 1,000 employees.
• Share what companies gain from participating in the survey and selection process.

If you wish to get updates about the ReadyTalk Web Seminar series automatically, you can subscribe to our feed here.

Technorati Tags: 3VL, Great Places to Work Institute, NetWorld Alliance, Scenario d, Web Seminar, ReadyTalk

In an earlier three part series, I talked about how ReadyTalk can make your content creation a snap. I also addressed distribution and promotion of your podcast in the series as well.

Today, in this post, I wanted to talk about some advanced techniques that will really make your podcast shine. While ReadyTalk makes content creation as easy as a click of a box, we are not a editing studio for professional podcasts. However, there are several tricks you can do in your office or home that will give your podcast a professional polish.

A consistent feel for your podcast is critical if you wish to retain your listeners and build your brand recognition. A great way to do this is to add an open and close track. For example, I frequently interview speakers for our Web Seminar Series before their event as a promotional teaser.
Background music is played while a short introduction about the Interview Speaker series is read at the beginning of each interview. The closing track features the same music and thanks the listener and gives a short promotion for our Web Seminar Series

While we had our opening and closing tracks professionally produced, you may choose to do it yourself. Either way, we make it easy to download the mp3 of your recording and edit it. A simple Google search for mp3 editor turned up these results. Some editors are better than others, I would suggest you trial a couple to find the one that works best for you.

To download your mp3 file, log into your conference center and click on the Manage Recordings link from the left hand side menu bar. Mouse over the recording you wish to download and choose download audio from the menu. When the download is complete, you will have the mp3 file on your computer.You may load this mp3 file into your editor of choice and edit until your heart is content.

The final step, after editing, is to re-publish the podcast. Remember that once you download the recording from our service and edit the recording, we no longer host it. You will need to host it on your website or use another hosting service like Switchpod. Finally, don’t forget to read my blog posts on distribution and promotion, if you have not already. They will give you some great tips on how to get your podcast out to your audience.

Technorati Tags: podcast, mp3, Switchpod,

In the first part of this series, I described how you can use the ReadyTalk service to make a podcast and generate a feed URL. In this segment, I will give you tips on how to use that URL to distribute your podcast.

The very first thing I recommend you do with your podcast feed URL is to burn it. Without going into too much detail, submit your feed URL to Feedburner and then read about all the things it can do for you here. Feedburner is an essential tool for anyone looking to distribute content and best of all it is free!

After submitting your feed to Feedburner, you will receive a unique URL that will look something like this http://feeds.feedburner.com/nameofyourpodcast. Use this URL on your website and to distribute your podcast to the directories. Podcasting News has a great list of podcast directories available. Each directory is unique in its own way and may cater towards one type of content over another. I suggest you do some research into the different directories and decide which ones you wish to submit your podcast too. As an exercise, I did some research in Google on podcast directories. I got these five from the first page:

• iTunes
• Yahoo! Podcasts
• Podcastdirectory.com
• Odeo
• Podcast Alley

Do some research on your own and you will never know what you turn up. Remember the more targeted you can be with your distribution the better chance you have of being heard over the noise.

This concludes the second part of the ReadyTalk podcast series. Stay tuned for the third part where I will give you tips on how to promote your podcast.

Technorati Tags: iTunes, Yahoo!Podcast, podcasting, Odeo, Podcast Alley, ReadyTalk

CNN Money had an article the other day outlining four of the best ways to market your business online. Some of the highlights are their prominent mentions of podcasting and blogging. If your business is not involved in any of these endeavors today, the article supplies some compelling reasons to jump into the social media pond. Our white paper on podcasting for business is also very helpful if you are looking to start you own podcasting endeavor.

Technorati Tags: CNN, Money, podcasting, blogging,