January 2006
Best Practices: Launching a podcast
The ad:tech Connect family of products experiments with interactive marketing technologies
By Cathy Chatfield-Taylor

If you thought Web logs were trendy, listen to the “ad:tech Connect” radio show live, Thursdays at noon EST, on WebmasterRadio.FM (www.webmasterradio.fm), a free, Internet-based radio network for the business-to-business community. Better still, download the podcast from iTunes (www.apple.com/itunes), where a search on the phrase “interactive marketing” yields this series as the No. 1 choice.

Hosted by ad:tech Conference Chair and Cendara CEO Susan Bratton, the podcast is part of a multi-channel marketing experiment launched by ad:tech’s new owner, dmg world media (www.dmgworldmedia.com), in September 2005.

“It’s truly a unique way for ad:tech to extend the brand,” says ad:tech Expositions Vice President Don Knox. “It’s like a radio blog. We don’t want it to be one-sided.”

The one-hour format gives Bratton ample time to engage industry luminary guests in “intimate conversations” designed to be entertaining, informative and educational. In the near future, listeners will be able to call in to join the dialog.

“We’re gathering listener statistics via WebmasterRadio. It’s early in the game to have a call-in show, but Internet radio is a burgeoning territory in the B2B world,” Knox says. “We need to know, are they listening to the archive or the live broadcast, and has distribution through iTunes been advantageous?”

These metrics remain to be measured as ad:tech rolls out its new 10-city regional one-day conference series, “ad:tech IMPACT: Key Metrics for Marketers,” beginning in March 2006. Though not the stated goal of the “ad:tech Connect” campaign, registrations for the news series will be one measure of success.

The campaign’s stated goal is to connect business people at a “deeper level,” says Marketing Director Meredith Medland, “in a way that gives them the ability to tell the truth to one another about where their business is going, what the facts and figures are about the ad investments they’re making, and to reveal both the successes and failures of their marketing.”

The campaign comprises a family of products that includes the radio show podcast; RSS (really simple syndication) feeds for buzz on media, marketing and technology; ad:techblog, produced by MarketingVOX and Adrants; and the ad:tech Connect network, an online community that invites the audience to interact by joining interest groups, posting personal profiles, sending messages and searching for like-minded people. 

Pushing interactive marketing to its logical limit, ad:tech Connect LIVE! debuted at ad:tech New York, Nov. 7–9, 2005, as an experiential event intended to bring community members together for some kooky fun.

“People can connect with each other by wearing outrageous costumes and hats, getting photos taken with each other and answering questions that can be uploaded to their profiles,” says Medland.

Photos from ad:tech Connect LIVE! are incorporated in an e-mail marketing campaign, to promote the weekly radio show. As the official radio network of the ad:tech conference, Webmaster-Radio.FM podcasts the radio show in exchange for the exposure and underwrites the cost by running two to three 30-second advertising spots. The spots run across the radio network as part of integrated marketing packages that start at $2,100.

“It’s a minimal investment on our part,” Knox says. “Podcasting and RSS are moving at light speed. People don’t know yet how effective they will be, but ad:tech has to be the leader in experimenting with these technologies.”