Marketing Trends 2006: Part 2

It’s official: The Web has come out of it’s text-only shell. The early adopters of podcasting and video on the Web have made it safe for others to dip their toes into the multimedia waters.

This episode of the Marketing Edge podcast is loaded with examples of how multimedia is being used and why to jump in. It uses the lightening rod of a Forrester report by Charlene Li, which estimates that only 1 percent of internet households use podcasting. Many critics raced to rebut the Forrester report, including Nicole Simon of Corante, and John Jantsch of the Duct Tape Marketing blog, who contributed reasoned responses.

Albert Maruggi of Provident Partners adds a key point in this podcat: Podcasting is about the quality of listeners, not the quantity. This is especially true in business-to-business uses of podcasting.

Multimedia continues to grow in terms of both audience and content creators, according to Comscore.com and eMarketer. Very recently, video was mostly out of reach for midsize businesses as a communication format because of cost and distribution. Now it’s a question of which format - audio or video - is the right one to implement in a marketing mix.

Rich media continues to be on the rise. The cutting edge applications include Camtasia and Acellacast, provided by Acella Communications. These applications and communications platforms enhance a company’s messaging and provide for greater interaction. Use of Flash, video, audio, animation, PowerPoint and several other technologies to communicate and engage the viewer can be incorporated into dynamic rich media presentations using these and other technologies. Any interactions in these applications generate and help qualify leads from your Web site.