Online Marketing Strategies From Online Marketing Expert Nick Smith

Today I’ll reveal just 3 of the 10 ways detailed in Podcasting for Fun and Profit, you can use podcasting for, to help you make money whether you own a big business or small one. It’s a great way to boost your business with a very small investment of money and time and add value to your customer’s lives.

Remember: If you are not ready to make the leap to full-time podcaster, there are other ideas included in Podcasting for Fun and Profit …

For example, you can podcast on an area of the industry you currently work in as an employee. Show yourself to be interested in learning more about the business and you could find yourself considered as an up-and-comer when the next round of promotions happens at your office.

Alternatively, you can moonlight outside of your job as a podcaster. You can do this on a free basis as a hobby or in the capacity of an entrepreneur looking to eventually build your part-time business into a full-time career.

More than ever, the Internet has allowed people to become entrepreneurs. If you already own your own business, podcasting is an excellent way to boost business. If you do not already own your own business and are looking for a way to become an entrepreneur, there are many ways you can do so.

Money making Tip # 1: Advertising

On radio, television, newspapers, or the Internet, advertising is the mainstay of marketing. Companies will pay to have their name and/or product included in the program. Radio and television first started advertising by having the show “brought to you by…” and by inserting commercials into their programming. Newspapers and the Internet have placed advertising all around their medium in banners or classifieds or display ads. Even text-based e-newsletters delivered to your email account usually have at least one advertiser buried in the text.

Money making Tip # 2: Direct Marketing

Another opportunity to make money is to offer podcasts that directly market your product. For example, General Motors offers podcasts that talk about specific makes and models of vehicles. This type of podcast is good for manufacturers who have specific products that they sell. This can be done in a couple of different ways:

a) At the end of your podcast mention the product just like you might advertise in a commercial-form for another advertiser.

b) Spend your entire podcast talking about the product. This is particularly good if your product is easy to describe and talk about. If your product is a little more difficult for people to visualize in their minds, you might have a harder time accomplishing this. You might also have a tough time getting listeners to listen to this kind of podcast if it does not offer them real value.

Money Making Tip #3: Indirect marketing

What we have called “direct marketing” is basically advertising your own products or services in a podcast in the same way you might advertise for someone else. What we are calling “indirect marketing” is an increasingly popular way of doing business and that is this: do not advertise at all! At first this might seem like an unusual idea but since consumers are inundated with advertising they have become savvy at identifying it and sometimes being repelled by it.

Please note, there’s nothing wrong with advertising, but it surrounds us all day long and people are desperate to find good information that does not contain advertising or have ulterior motives.

Aware of this, many companies are moving to a format that has been espoused by service providers for decades. That idea is to simply provide value to people through good information which establishes you as an expert in the field without actually promoting a product. People will turn to your podcast for information, be thankful that it does not have huge amounts of commercials in advertising and product placement in it, and then they will turn to you when they need to make purchases because you’re the expert in the field.

To do this well, you’ll need to have your web site set up so that people can easily see your podcast but can also get to your products if they want. During your podcast you’ll probably want to adopt a format of one who advises, or interviews industry experts, or analyzes and compares, as these formats will lend themselves to people looking to you for advice.

And when you set yourself up as the expert, they will turn to you for products or services when they need them down the road, even though you never advertised in the first place.

These are just 3 ideas to get you thinking about the opportunities that are out there.

What will tomorrow bring?

Currently, there are 10 ways listed in the book, but it won’t be long and this list of 10 ways to make money podcasting will need to be updated to “the 25 ways to make money podcasting” then “the 100 ways to make money podcasting.”

As new technologies and new ideas are developed, new ways of combining them and integrating them will be developed as well, and now that you know about podcasting, you’ll be better prepared to take advantage of those new developments and make big dollars!

Watch your step

Don’t quit your day job until you’re sure you can “make a go of it.” Podcasting is still such an unknown industry that your town or city may be a year or two away from having an aggressive freelance podcaster roaming the streets looking to provide podcasting services. It’s okay to take risks, but think them through carefully with your loved ones to make sure they are calculated risks.

Tomorrow in the final part, I’ll reveal the free and low-cost tools you need to get if you’re serious about podcasting …

See you then …

Cheers

Nick