Podcasting: A hot topic for direct marketing conferences?

This Business Week article on podcasting's viability as a marketing tool offers some insight into how a tier one brand marketer like General Motors might use podcasts to enhance marketing efforts.

Without doubt, it is useful to look at effective utilization of paid and organic search when considering how podcasts might compliment existing branding and direct response campaigns. Consumer use of Search can be viewed as a barometer for Podcasting efforts with respect to variables including product category, buying cycle considerations and customer call-to-action.

Consumers that use search as a research tool for big-ticket transactions (auto, real estate) may very well be inclined to actively seek out and collect product/service information for their review "on-the-go." (Other categories, with shorter, impulse-driven buy-cycles will use podcasting for brand development and extention, but let's focus on a big-ticket item for now)

At IAB's Leadership Forum: The Performance Marketing Imperative, Jack Bowen, General Director of CRM for GM, showed a DVD which served as an interactive brochure. Mr. Bowen didn't utter the word podcast during his keynote. However, it's certainly possible to imagine a group of direct marketers listening to someone who can combine the "How to's" of portable infomercial creation and distribution with proven database marketing practices. Suppose an auto podcast includes a visual representation of next years model, key competitive differentiators, product information and special offers, or any combination of information and images that align with existing customer/prospect segmentation strategies. Certainly, podcast producers will have to explain issues inlcuding cost, flexibility, scalability and accountability to brand marketers, particularly those with highly fragmented customer segments.