1. What is Wells Park Communications and what service do you provide?
We are a full-service editorial house for corporate clients. Traditionally that has meant producing marketing materials, articles and interviews, website copy, newsletters and all the other written materials that big brands demand to meet the needs of their customers. With the advent of broadband, we apply the same in-depth editorial understanding to multimedia, producing podcasts, flash demos and video to the same standard. In that sense, podcasts are no different to traditional media.
2. What has been the most satisfying and/or successful aspect of any corporate podcasting projects you have been involved with?
Probably the most satisfying podcast we have been involved with is "Beermat Radio", produced for the authors of the bestselling book series, "The Beermat Entrepreneur"
We're also very pleased with Smartphone Radio, produced for mobile phone platform Symbian around the Smartphone Show. We conducted a series of 20 interviews within 6 weeks, with industry luminaries; all of which were delivered on flashdrives at the conference. Not only were these highly relevant to the audience, they were well received and represented excellent branding to the sponsor.
3. What do you believe are the major roadblocks for both internal and external podcasting as a business?
This is a developing business. Not all the technologies we'd like to have for measurement/
4. In your experience, how are organisations measuring the impact and effectiveness of their podcasting campaigns?
This is a huge issue, and I believe we have to be rigorously practical. Just as in the early days of the internet, when it was realised that "website hits" was an unreliable measure of site profitability, so "downloads" is liable to overestimation, even though it remains the best index we have. There are already improvements in the pipeline, for example techniques for measuring how much of a podcast has been listened to. Until formal metrics improve, we advise clients to look at the bottom line. Also, use practical techniques to measure effectiveness. Are you generating more enquiries, selling more products, or generating a better customer relationship?
5. What one piece of advice would you give to a company or organisation that is beginning a podcast campaign with a blank sheet of paper?
Podcasting creates a direct and engaging link with the listener which written communications can only dream of. The business models and practical implementations of podcasting are bespoke to the client. When we sit down with a blank piece of paper, we ask: "how could we engender the same delight in the listener on behalf of a corporate client as Radio 4 achieves for the general public". That's a very good place to begin!
An online content specialist and serial internet entrepreneur, Nick Saalfeld co-founded MoneyWorld, the UK's first personal finance website, which sold at the height of the Web-1.0 boom in 1999. After a three year stint as an editorial director at AOL UK, he founded Wells Park Communications to help companies make the most of emerging online marketing opportunities. Today, Wells Park Communications produces written content, podcasts and interactive features for clients in many editorial areas including technology, travel, gaming and the public sector.
At the Corporate Podcasting Summit Nick Saalfeld is giving the presentation "Podcast content in the corporate context". You can register to attend the Corporate Podcasting Summit at
www.podcast-
The early bird discount is set to expire on 2 February 2007.
