Last week I blogged about fresh alternatives to the B2B marketing lead generation trinity (webinars, whitepapers and tradeshows).  While few parts of your marketing mix can help you tell your story, share a demo or answer questions like a live web event, I feel like the medium has become tired.  How many sessions about “Best practices in…” or “X Ways to improve…” can your prospects bear?

The format has become as predictable as a “Friends” rerun. You begin with a short intro, followed by a customer or analyst testimonial, then a demo, shameless plug and finally an interactive Q&A.  Your prospects may or may not listen to the audio in the background as they get caught up on email or checkout Perez Hilton.

So, what can a software marketer do? Sales is still going to breath down your neck for leads.  My suggestions is to take another look at streaming radio.  I know this is technologically similar to webinar audio but has a few advantages.

Costs:  Unless you are using one of the low-cost, higher-risk webinar providers (ie Gotowebinar or Dim Dim), streaming radio can be significantly less expensive.

Sound quality: A 128K audio stream typically sounds better than the overburdened VOIP or conference call connections from the major webinar services.

Scalability: Webinar providers also often have a different pricing schedule for bigger events (ie over 1,000 people).  Streaming radio on the other hand can use a CDN which typically scales to much great levels without arbitrary limits imposed to maximize revenue yield.

Freshness:  Who wants to be a webinar attendee?  An Internet radio show just sounds cooler.

Podcasts: It is pretty easy to create podcasts from most streaming radio software.

Here are a couple things I have learned:

• You need an alternative plan for chat.  I’ve dabbled with Twitter and a custom hashtags. You could also consider Skype or some other chat platform for less social media savvy crowds.
• You need to find a registration system.  I’ve used Eventbrite.  It is free and easy to configure.
• Live demos are a challenge. You would need to find a screensharing solution.
• You’ll want to build a custom page for radio show URL.
• People can access the show without registering, costing you some leads.

Anyone else have experiences with streaming radio they would like to share?

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 16th, 2009 at 2:38 pm and is filed under Innovative Marketing Management, Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.