Special UB column about podcasting: Interview with Brian Niles from Target X

1) You use podcasts as a way to promote your practice. What kind of results in terms of downloads and feedback have you observed since you started to podcast? Has it become a channel of choice to reach/educate your higher ed prospective and current clients? How does it compare with blogging and more traditional marketing channels?

I’ve always been keeping one eye out for something new – especially something that our client’s target market is using. Certainly iPods are huge among this group (just walk on a high school or college campus and everyone seems to have white earbuds on!). So we started playing around with the idea of producing our own podcast at the beginning of 2005. I knew I was going to have a very busy travel schedule this year – busier than most – and thought that it might be interesting to post some thoughts of what I’m hearing and discussing with folks at conferences around the country. Most of the “episodes” were recorded in a hotel room but one was even recorded on I-95 in Connecticut while sitting in traffic headed to speak at a conference in Rhode Island!

We had a lot of feedback from folks who started listening to them – most seemed to want to get educated about podcasting so no surprise that the most popular episode was called “Introduction to Podcasting.” So far we’ve had over 7,300 unique downloads of our podcasts – considering our market is college admissions and marketing professionals, I’m surprised we’ve had so many! Of that amount over 500 have downloaded the enhanced podcasts I recorded at the Salisbury conference this summer which includes the slides for those listening and watching it on iTunes and/or their iPod.

Podcasting is a very minor part of our company’s promotional efforts. We do a great deal of “indirect” marketing that combines conference speaking, best practices workshops we run about four times a year, our very popular weekly “Email Minute” tips, and other traditional forms of marketing.

You asked about blogging. Biggest difference is that blogging is much easier to do – no production work, easy to edit, easy to post, etc. However, blogging is only text and it’s so hard to get your emotions and context into words that you can do with your voice. I think there is a place for both and that’s why I’m excited about our new “blogcast” that combines both of them.

2) How has podcasting evolved in higher education since its debuts? Can you tell me a bit more about the trend you’ve observed?

I think we’re still in an early stage of the medium but certainly with the advent of the mainstream media jumping on board, that hasn’t hurt! I can now listen to great NPR shows or The Weather Channel or the local news while also listening to specialty shows produced by individuals. Of course we’re now seeing video making its debut in mass form with the introduction of the iPod that provides video capability and video downloads from the iTunes store, but that’s still too new.

3) In your opinion, what kind of return on investment can colleges/universities expect from podcasting? Should they podcast because everybody talks about it or is there other tangible benefits to podcasting?

I’m not a big fan of jumping on the next thing that comes around in college marketing. For the most part, colleges do a terrible job at telling their story, explaining what makes them unique, and in basic terms their websites are just awful! So I always suggest before starting something new, colleges need to make sure they are doing the basics right first. And for probably 90% of them, podcasting is not something they should jump into yet.

However, there are some colleges who have started to play around with models that seem to be interesting, but probably too soon to tell if they are effective (of course, that implies that they also have identified how they will measure effectiveness when podcasting is only one of many things they will do to recruit a student!). I look at Ball State University and Allegheny College as two schools with different approaches to podcastings.

4) In your opinion, how will podcasting evolve over the next five years in higher education?

I’m sure podcasting will certainly evolve – society is evolving with this and other “on demand” media.

As for higher education, I think it all comes down to content. If this medium helps us tell the college story better – uncensored, raw and real – then it can succeed. But not by itself. Yes, there is a place for publications (maybe not the kind that are being sent now). Yes, there is a place for email. Yes for IM. Yes for Blogs. And certainly yes for the campus visit (in my opinion should be the call to action for everything!).

Podcasting will be only one component. But putting the communication plan together that embraces all of these with overlapping, earlier audiences is going to be the challenge.