Digital marketing: The push to podcast:

Not too long ago, broadcasting was reserved for media moguls like the Packers or Murdochs. But these days, every mortgage broker can be a self-styled Kerry or Rupert.

All you need is a computer, a microphone, a website and a bit of time.

Podcasting is a way to transmit your own television- or radio-style series via the internet to build up a loyal client following, and to set your marketing apart from your competition.

Craig Ashley Russell, founder of Sydney-based company Next Big Thing, which specialises in podcast creation and consulting, explains how it all works. "A podcast is an audio or video file that's delivered to your computer, so you can listen to it or watch it whenever you want," he says.

However, as Russell points out, there is nothing new in that. Instead, the "really cool thing" about podcasting, is that once a client subscribes to your show, new episodes are downloaded automatically to their computer, without them having to go to your website to download it again.

"From that point of view, it's just absolutely fantastic. It's like putting someone on a drip," he says.

The process is achieved through a tool called Really Simple Syndication (RSS), which scans the content of a website for updates and then broadcasts those updates to subscribers via a feed.

The term 'podcast' was first coined in 2004, a combination of the words 'iPod' and 'broadcast' (the iPod reference is due to the fact that listeners can download the content onto their iPods or indeed, any other digital music player).

Since then, podcasting has grown exponentially in popularity.

"If you typed podcast into Google in January 2005, you would have got 3,786 responses. Twelve months later it would have got 9.8 million responses, and 12 months after that, 39.1 million responses," Russell points out. These days, the word brings up about 115 million responses.

"The knowledge of the word is increasing, as well as the number of podcasts available," he says.

Why bother podcasting?
The internet now dominates as an information-gleaning tool for mortgage clients.

According to last year's MIAA (now MFAA)/BankWest Home Finance Survey, almost two-thirds of people are likely to use the internet as a source of mortgage information. This puts the internet ahead of all other sources of information, including recommendations by friends and relatives, newspapers and financial advisors.

Podcasting is a way to bolster your internet presence, provide useful, detailed information to your clients, 'touch' your clients regularly, and showcase your personality. All of this can be carried out in a relatively cost-effective manner.

"If you're educating your market, or if you have news or an interesting opinion to bring to someone, then podcasting offers a great vehicle for people to do that," Russell says.

However, don't throw out your e-newsletters and fliers just yet.

Podcasting is best used in conjunction with other forms of marketing, such as websites and e-newsletters, Russell believes, with each medium reinforcing the other. For example, your e-newsletter could point to your podcast, which can in turn direct traffic to your website.

"I wouldn't recommend podcasting exclusively to another medium - it's really in addition to your marketing mix. It's a very cost-effective one as well, as most people can do it themselves," Russell says.

The big plus for clients is that they can download the podcast onto an MP3 player and listen to it while they are on their way to work or going for a walk. "A lot of people don't have as much time to read as they used to, but with an MP3 player you can listen to it when and where you want. I listen to all of my podcasts between 6am and 7.30am at the gym," Russell says.

Another advantage is that you can send any type of file to your client via an RSS feed, not just audio or video files. This can be extremely useful if you are trying to distribute training materials or information to your clients.

For example, Russell says he has just finished a series of shows for a networking training company called BConsulted. For BConsulted, podcasting offers a cheap and easy way to make its courses available to regional and international clients, and a way to distribute course materials and work books to clients before their courses began.

Quality of podcast counts
Russel emphasises that in the podcasting world, quality really counts. Listeners will simply switch off if your podcast is not entertaining or if they feel it is simply a marketing plug and they are not getting something out of it.

"If your podcast is rubbish you're wasting your money," he says bluntly. "When I say rubbish, I mean that from two points - both the content and the quality.

"The most unsuccessful podcasts were listed in Wired magazine in early 2006 or late 2005. One of them was a Ford podcast, and it was a 30-minute ad. No-one is going to listen to a 30-minute ad."

Podcasting also requires a reasonably long-term commitment. It is not worth going to the trouble of making a podcast if you are only going to do it as a one-off, Russell maintains.

"If you do a podcast once, that's ridiculous, you have to do them regularly. Just like you'd want to see Lost or Heroes or Desperate Housewives for 22 weeks of the year, people want to hear your podcast frequently as well. They get used to it."

Podcasting experience of overseas brokers
In the United States, a few mortgage brokers have successfully used the medium to attract a groundswell of clients.

Two Wisconsin-based mortgage brokers in particular, Art Blanchet and Bill Quigley, have become masters of the podcasting domain - currently hosting a weekly 30-minute radio-style podcast.

The two got into podcasting after launching a weekly mortgage-focused radio show in Madison, Wisconsin. They found that as the show started to gain popularity, they received requests from listeners who had missed shows and requested a recording. Instead of sending people copies of the show, the two realised that podcasting would allow their listeners to tune in at whatever time was convenient for them.

Podcasts have also enabled the two to broadcast from the comfort of their own homes, and more importantly, to tap into a different, more interactive audience than the one they attract on the radio.

"The radio is a great marketing tool, but people have to be there and know you're going to be on," says Quigley.

Podcasting has also enabled the two to connect with their audiences better, using technology called TalkShoe, which allows listeners to interact with podcasters.

"A lot of times listeners are silent on the radio," says Blanchet. "With podcasting, listeners are more interactive."

Blanchet and Quigley determine a theme for each show that can be tied into a specific target market - a recent one being 'for sale by owner'. They then invite a guest to be an expert on the topic - usually a referral they have worked with in the past - and send out 'show postcards' to their database (which equates to approximately 5,000 people in their area). They also encourage their guest to invite his or her contacts as well - and direct them to the mortgage brokers' website.

Not only does the concept increase the credibility and the level of informative content of their show, but it also strengthens their database and relationships with their referral sources. Since they offer referrals a chance to speak in front of potentially thousands of listeners, they have so many knocking on their door they now have an opportunity to be picky about who they work with.

"We don't want to work with everybody. We want good, strong relationships with people...We're very particular," Blanchet says.

The two targeted the 'for sale by owner' market because it is typically a difficult one for mortgage brokers to penetrate by any other means.

Right now, Quigley and Blanchet have 15 to 20 podcasts listed on TalkShoe and, since it is also fed to dozens of other sites including iTunes, more than 70,000 people have downloaded them. The interest has improved the brokers' placement on internet search engines - if you Google either of their names along with the term 'mortgage', they are right at the top of the list. Their client base has also grown by 50% since offering podcasts.

However, both agree with Russell that podcasting cannot be a standalone form of marketing, even on the web, other forms of communication, such as blogs, are needed, Blanchet says.

"Search engines still only pick up print - not audio - so blogs are essential for pushing the podcasts."

Aussie podcasting experience
Stuart Bayliss, a Sydney-based mortgage broker, considers himself a bit of a podcasting pioneer when it comes to the Australian mortgage broking market.

Bayliss helped to develop a podcast when he was working for Liquidity Finance, and although he has since moved across to SGB Finance, podcasting is still a subject close to his heart.

Podcasting fit particularly well with Liquidity Finance's philosophy, Bayliss says, which was about helping clients reach their long-term financial goals.

"We were fairly different kinds of brokers, in that we used to help structure the finance. It was always about the net asset base for us, and building the most assets. It wasn't just about helping people find the greatest rate - that was probably the last thing we were interested in."

The idea to create a podcast came about during a brainstorming session, Bayliss says.

"There was a real thirst for information. People were interested in how we structured things and why we thought how we thought. So we just decided to put a little bit of the basic information out there."

Bayliss's idea was to train clients up off the website before they came in to see a loan consultant, so they at least knew the right questions to be asking.

The grand vision was never quite realised, especially as Bayliss left the company after only two podcasts had been created. However, he believes that there was plenty of potential to make it happen.

"What I found was that people who got onto it and understood it, loved it, and would be ringing us saying, when can I see you? They were made real advocates out of it. So with a little bit more advertising, I think people would have been very keen to come in and see us," he says.

In hindsight, Bayliss believes that the podcasts needed to be promoted in other media, rather than just placed on the company's website as they were done.

"You hear these extraordinary success stories of people getting 100,000 hits a minute. Well, that never happened," he chuckles.

Instead, Bayliss says he could verify 50 downloads of the podcasts by people who provided their e-mail address, and he estimates that an additional few thousand downloads were made on top of that.

In the end, the podcasts proved to be most effective at building and consolidating Liquidity Finance's networks, Bayliss says, rather than generating actual leads. Existing clients were excited about downloading the information, and like the Wisconsin brokers, he found it was also a good way to deepen relationships with referrers.

"One of our referrers came and spoke on one, and she was like, 'this is fantastic', and she put all of her clients onto it. That was really good for her - we did a lot for her business out of it. There was this real feel-good thing about it."

Bayliss is still keen to pursue podcasting as a way to educate his clients and generate leads, although this time he plans to go one step further, with a video podcast.

Aussie lenders and podcasting
A few Aussie lenders have also woken up to the potential that this medium offers.

Ashe Morgan Commercial in particular, is extremely excited about its imminent launch into the podcasting space. The company has been busily preparing an educational podcast to help brokers who work in commercial lending, or who are thinking about diversifying into this space.

"When we started Ashe Morgan Commercial, one of our core initiatives was to focus on improving the skills and knowledge of the brokers within our network in managing commercial property deals," says Ashe Morgan Commercial's marketing director, John Winter.

Many brokers simply did not have enough experience with commercial property to enable them to write as much business as the company believed was possible for them to achieve, he says.

"Lifting those skills had not only a social benefit for the industry as a whole, but obviously would be beneficial for us in that, as our extended sales force, these brokers were better able to find deals and handle them diligently and appropriately."

Until now, the company has relied predominantly on broker education days to boost brokers' expertise. Winter believes that podcasting will be an ideal adjunct to this program.

"It recently occurred to us that podcasting provides a unique way to scale up that educational commitment, with very low distribution costs and in a way that is much more accessible to brokers. The value is that they can download these instruction podcasts and listen to them at their own convenience. We don't think it will replace the face-to-face sessions, but it's both a powerful entre and a useful supplement."

For brokers who are out of the office, podcasting can be a way to use downtime between meetings or car journeys as productive learning time, Winter points out.

Ashe Morgan Commercial is planning to roll out its first podcast this month, which will be available on the company's website, www.amcommercial.com.au

"We're very excited about developing such a practical use of the technology. This isn't technology for technology's sake - we think it's a seamless fit," he says.

The aim is to then produce a new podcast every few weeks after that.

"We recognise that for a podcast to be successful it must always have new sources of information in it - it must remain newsworthy to keep people coming back and checking it. So we're extending our commitment to that," Winter says.

Podcast for consumers
Fellow lender ANZ has also been dabbling in the podcasting sphere. However, ANZ's podcasts are aimed at home loan customers rather than brokers.

The bank's first foray into online broadcasting was actually in 2002, when it began to make live webcasts of results and trading updates available to analysts and shareholders. It also began publishing the results as a podcast for those who missed the live feed.

But more recently, the bank has embraced podcasting in a different way, by developing a series of educational podcasts for its customers on topics relating to property investment and home loans.

ANZ's head of broker distribution mortgages, Glenn Haslam, says that the bank has been pleasantly surprised by the response. Although ANZ has made only three episodes so far, more than 11,400 people have visited the site, downloading the podcasts a total of 8,200 times.

The podcasts were a response to customers telling the bank they wanted simple, relevant information to help them make informed decisions about their finances, Haslam says.

"Customers don't always have the time to read through multiple articles or make countless phone calls when searching for information about their finances, and podcasts let them listen at a time and place that suits them."

If you visit the bank's podcasting site, www.anzpodcasts.com, you can see the radio-style podcasts for yourself. The most recent podcast features an interview with ANZ Mortgages' managing director, Michael Rowland. Haslam says this show came about in response to an online survey which asked customers what type of podcasts they would be interested in, and what they thought of ANZ's existing podcasts.

Podcasting an opportunity to stand out
Not too many companies are utilising podcasting right now, and especially not many mortgage brokers, so those that do launch into this space with a good podcast have a real opportunity to stand out from the crowd.

"I think the first to market with a good one will be the one that really gets the best benefit from it," Russell says.

So grab your microphones, warm up your vocal chords, and unleash your inner radio or television star. The future of internet marketing awaits.