The delivery of audio or video content via a Podcast or other channel of downloadable media, is one of the most intimate forms of communication possible, allowing you to make a unique and special connection with your audience.

This important, but largely overlooked, factor has a significant impact on how the potential value of using downloadable media (as a delivery mechanism for advertising) needs to be assessed.

As an example, let’s consider for a moment some of the special attributes inherent using the Podcast channel model:

Audience Commitment

To start receiving your podcast, the potential subscriber first needs to find your podcast. They are actively seeking the kind of content that you can provide, they are not passive consumers, they want your stuff!

Once they find your podcast, they need to opt in and subscribe to the podcast. Again, it’s not passive in the first instance, they need to commit to receive your stuff!

Whilst this may sound onerous, it’s actually not that difficult with the availability of podcast directories and one-click subscriptions for both iTunes and now the Zune marketplace.

No, the point I’m making is that to seek and subscribe is a conscious decision and requires definitive action (at least initially) by the subscriber. They’re on your side and want to consume your content. By the act of subscribing, they are making a commitment of giving up some precious free time to listen to you, one on one.

The content has not just been thrown out into the ether in the blind hope that the right people manage to watch or listen to it at the time of transmission. It’s available at any time and in the right place where people can find and download it automatically.

Your audience is hungry for the information you can deliver.

You are building a committed, passionate audience.

One on One Communication

Once someone has subscribed to your podcast, you’ve made an initial connection. You’ve established a communications channel to another like minded person or at the very least, to someone with a common, shared interest. This communications channel is now open, and you can push fresh content to your subscriber without any further invention. The content can be pushed right to their computer, to their mobile device, to their phone even to their TV - all automatically.

Without getting too visceral, a large majority of your audience will listen to your content via mobile devices, more often than not using earbuds pushed deep into the ear canal, blocking out all other distractions.

Do you realise just how powerful that is?

Do you appreciate how much of a privilege it is to get some pure undiluted one on one time with another person at such close proximity?

Distribution of content via a Podcast channel is unique in allowing you to get up close and personal with your audience and speak to them directly in the most intimate way possible.

Deliver Some Emotion

Now that you’ve got your open communications channel directly to your audience, consider the content you’re delivering and just as importantly, the format it’s delivered in. No, not the file format, the presentation format.

The spoken word can convey so much more information than the printed word.

By listening to your voice, they can hear inflections, emotions, passion, enthusiasm, gravitas, experience and many other subtle elements not possible via the printed word.

Not only can this bring information to life but it can also add much more additional value to the material and enable you to connect with your audience on a human level.

Building a Relationship with the Audience

One of the most powerful elements of producing and delivering content via a Podcast channel is the potential to develop a special relationship with your audience.

The common interest of the subject matter may mean that the audience already has an affinity with you. However, the reinforcement brought on by your commitment to deliver regular episodes and the gradual exposure of your true personality and personal values over time, enables you to develop a level of trust between you and your audience.

As well as the main content delivered via the Podcast channel, other communications channels can develop the relationship further. The creation and participation in community forums, the personal attention to email, the inclusion of audience feedback and attention to the smallest details all help foster a sense of community and belonging previously unobtainable through traditional media outlets.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility!

This relationship obviously takes time to nurture and can only be achieved through honesty and integrity. Full disclosure and truth are mandatory when building your relationship. Respect your audience and only act in their best interests or with the best of intentions.

This should always be second nature anyway, besides which, your audience will spot a fraud or insincerity a mile off!!

Conclusion

The unique nature of downloadable media as a powerful means of communication is only just starting to be understood. Add in factors not even touched on in this piece such as ease of entry, low production costs, low distribution costs, the global nature of the audience and the ability to return the control of media consumption back to the consumer, the future of downloadable media (from whichever channel it is delivered) can only be set to have supreme importance for the foreseeable future.

However, the relationship between the content producer and their audience is a critical factor in assessing the potential value of a delivery vehicle for advertisers or sponsors. Sure, media download numbers are a great metric to assess the geographic reach or the actual physical distribution of content, but the value of influence that is inherent in the model due to the special relationship between the content producer and their audience should not be underestimated.

That is much harder to measure but is likely to be much, much more valuable.

The growth of the various channels of downloadable media with the inherent benefits together with the nurturing of special relationships, gives unparalleled opportunities for the delivery of perfectly targeted, completely unintrusive and highly valued advertising.

Actually, I take that back, because just as Dave Winer says

“If it’s perfectly targeted, it isn’t advertising, it’s information.”