Increasing customers is always a good sign for any business. It shows growth and bright future for the business. For Small and Medium Enterprises which are growing up and every business is a growth push for them.
The challenge attached along with growth!
While growth can never be adverse on the business. One experience which almost every small and medium enterprise goes through is maintaining constant communication with customers (both internal: employees and external).
While the top management becomes busy with business strategy and handling growth and the execution team becomes engrossed with maintaining flawless execution for the existing customers and scaling up to provide a wow experience to the new customers on board, what takes a back seat generally is the personal touch being extended by smaller companies to their clients and employees.
How to go past this challenge and win, while creating inclusive growth with customers and employees?
For any emerging enterprise inclusive growth with its stakeholders in terms of employees and customers is extremely important and to maintain the same, the enterprise needs to keep both its internal and external customers engaged. Though there might be many ways of doing the same, like sending Emails, sending Newsletters to mass emailing lists while using a software to personalize each message with the recipients name. But nothing works better than a personal communication with either your voice OR yourself.
Source: http://podcasts.ctap10.org/uploads/Podcast_CTAP_small2b.png
Start a Monthly Podcast and keep your customers energized about your business!
Sound being one of the most crucial mechanism for the human body, what if you are able to communicate with your customers, speak to them infact and engage them in your conversation?
Podcasting is the way!
What is a Podcast?
The Wikipedia article on Podcasting defines the service as follows: "A podcast (or non-streamed webcast) is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication. The word replaced webcast in common vernacular due to the fame of the iPod and its role in the rising popularity and innovation of web feeds."
How do I now start my own podcast?
Creating a Podcast is as simple as recording your voice and hosting it online and deliver it to subscribers through either RSS feeds OR as downloadable files online.
Since you are going to initiate this Podcast as a means to connect with your customers and engage them in your conversation, you know what you are going to talk about and in which context. Hence the script for your Podcasts is all ready and hence you won't need to create external content.
Infrastructure you need:
Infrastructure you need:
- Recording instrument
- Microphone
- Audio Software to edit sound bytes (if need be)
In the most basic manner a simple Podcast can be created by recording your voice using your PC's/ Laptop's microphone, though for better sound quality and clarity of voice an external microphone will be of better use. If you are a PC user, all you need to do is, use a recording software like Windows Sound Recorder OR better use Audacity: download (which works well with both PC and Mac).
Once you are done with the recording, you might want to redo a certain section OR might want to edit the sound byte a little (may be enter a sound before your voice and after) as a call to action to make it more professional.
Once you are through with the recording, save your file as an MP3. Audacity as a program does not automatically save a file as an MP3 and hence you would need to convert it using an MP3 converter like LAME.
The next and one of the most crucial steps is to convert the podcast into an RSS file. You will need to do this only if you hosting the Podcast on your own and not using any other hosting service like iTunes. If you are using a Podcast hosting service like iTunes, you will not need to worry about converting into RSS feeds. Example of such a host could be Podbean.
How does it benefit my business?
Not only are you engaging your audience while creating a personal touch with them, you are also creating a growing culture of information creation and spreading information online.
To know more about how you can leverage the power of online tools and methods of knowledge creation like Podcasting, drop in a comment to this post OR touch base with our team of experts at IndiaMART Knowledge Services.
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