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How a Major Ski Resort Uses Podcasts for Online Marketing
Podcasts are short radio-style
audio programs that users of online audio, mobile audio
and iPods (or other portable digital audio players)
can download and listen to whenever and wherever they
like. The Podcast medium is still in its infancy as
a marketing medium.
The most effective use in these early
days of marketing with Podcasts involves subjects that
appeal to tech-savvy listeners. Obviously, that includes
topics in computing, multimedia, and high technology.
Another smart approach is to match Podcast
marketing with the lifestyle of the target audience.
For example: skiers. The target market for a typical
ski resort includes young professionals in the 20s and
30s, with an adventure-loving attitude to recreation,
and plenty of disposable income so that they can afford
the sport. That's right on target for the core market
that buys iPods and other high-tech gadgets.
Marketing Sherpa reports that New England
ski area Killington Ski Resorts recently tapped into
this useful convergence of market niches to create a
Podcast-driven marketing campaign.
The challenge was to reach the ideal
demographic of young urban professionals, who are typically
hard to get at through traditional ski industry marketing
media such as radio, TV and magazines. Their lives are
cluttered with a blizzard of conflicting media, their
attention fragmented and hard to hold.
Killington Resorts communications manager
Tom Horrocks recognized that one unifying factor of
this demographic is their almost cultish love of iPods
and portable digital audio. He decided that Podcasts
would be an ideal way to connect with them on their
own terms.
Here's how he put the campaign together:
1) Bought software and digital microphones
that his team could use right in the office to create
Podcasts.
2) Hired a "snow reporter / media
writer" to act as a personable and enthusiastic
character, to become identified as the Podcast voice
of the resort.
3) Developed and produced 3 separate
Podcasts: a 3-minute "Snowcast" of daily weather
and snow condition reports; a 12-minute weekly "Driftcast"
that delivered interviews, tips and stories from the
mountain; and a 3-hour weekly music production, more
like and FM radio segment, with music appealing to the
target demographic.
4) Delivered the Podcasts regularly,
on schedule, through popular distribution services including
Apple's iTunes online music service, Podcast Alley,
and Yahoo!, as well as through the Resorts' own Web
site.
The results were impressive. Over a
period of 2 months at the beginning of 2006, the Podcasts
were downloaded nearly 30,000 times. The downside of
Podcast marketing is that it is hard to track results.
Once the audio is downloaded, there's no built-in way
to measure how the listener responds or takes action.
However, Tom Horrocks is sure the Podcasts
delivered a good return on investment. He credits the
campaign's success to the flair of the resort's Podcast
personality, known as Anna of the Mountain. "She
epitomizes Killington: young, passionate, crazy about
skiing."
1howto.com
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