10 Reasons Why Every Small Business Owner Needs To Podcast

I asked a professional in the field of Small Business Podcasting, Dan Dashnaw, what he considered the top ten reasons that all Small Business Owners should be Podcasting regularly. His answers are consistent with what I've been reading in different trade journals and Small Business publications for awhile now. In a competitive environment where you're dealing with tech-savvy Generation X and Y clients on a daily basis, having the kind of Technological edge that Podcasting can give you may be the "X-Factor" you need!

1. The power of rich media. Your business is a dynamic medium, which implies a need for the capacity to deliver compelling marketing materials in order to effectively showcase your business and services. Podcasts (either audio or video) allow for a level of interaction and user experience that fulfills this need directly, giving prospective clients a rich medium to advertise their interests across the internet very effectively.

2. Economic Relevance. Today's consumers are more liable to be broadband internet users then the general populace. Podcasts leverage broadband connections in order to make rich media content available to stream and deliver online, making them highly reachable and an attractive feature for your small business.

3. RSS Subscription Technology. Podcasts serve as an easily distributable form of content that can be updated immediately and instantly consumed. If a small business owner wants to advertise a new product or service, a podcast could be produced and published the same day, making the content to all of the subscribers, listing sites, and aggregators immediately. The dynamic nature of the Small Business 'information exchange' is a perfect fit for the quickly adaptable medium of podcasts and RSS.

4. Technological Relevance. Entrepreneurs have always been on the 'cutting edge' of technology. With availability as a mantra as well as a competitive imperative, you probably had cell phones before the masses of teenagers in the mall. Podcasts are most certainly 'the hot new technology' right now for many reasons in terms of internet communications, and as such they can be an effective competitive weapon for small business owners.

5. The numbers. The majority of consumers looking for products and services begin their search on the internet. Since the web is now transitioning to podcasts and video as the content formats of choice, what better place is there to focus your marketing initiatives?

6. Time-shifting. Podcasts are marketing tools that potentially never stops working. They can email them, download them, and users can subscribe to them via RSS feed technology for free. You can literally be advertising your company 24 hours a day anywhere in the world.

7. Distribution of content. Podcast technology combines the benefits of enhanced business information with tremendously wide syndication and distribution to the target markets as well as to the leading search engines like Google, AOL, Yahoo, MSN, iTunes TM and all of the web's podcast directories. By aggressively embracing the latest advanced technology tools like podcasts, it allows you to increase your marketing and sales success.

8. The online experience. Today's consumers want an experience, and they want it online. With podcasting, you are able to deliver marketing content and property listings to these consumers directly. This gives the potential customer a better view of your business, market, and even their specific needs - making you and your company much more marketable online.

9. An increased pace. Today's market is characterized by increasingly tech-savvy consumers looking for detailed, on-demand information, so putting podcasts to work can be the difference needed to get your company advertised quicker and more effectively.

10. The buzz. Experts predict that the number of online will multiply dramatically over the next couple of years due to several factors, including competition for business and increasingly affordable and easy-to-use technology.

Brett Miller, the founder of HoopJumper WebSystems, is the creator of Webepreneur, an easy-to-use website building program for small business owners and individual service professionals who want to save money and time by building and editing their own search engine optimized Web 2.0 websites. If you're a Small Business Owner and you want your websites to work for you, go to http://www.webepreneur.com

For more information on Small Business Podcasting, go to http://www.hoopjumperpodcasting.com