Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing two organisations who podcast regularly. One was a top UK financial institution and the other a small business in rural England. A great variation between them on resource and budget available but both equally passionate about what they were doing and why.

They are both presenting at the European Podcasting Summit in London next month. We have been asked by the organisers to interview some of the speakers at the event for podcasting to visitors before the event (I will provide links in a future blog).

Both had fascinating stories to tell on the success of their podcasting programmes. The critically important thing for both of them was to create programmes that their audience would become engaged with. For the Financial Institution it was advice and managing money and investments. For the small business it was sharing their passion for natural gardening and farming. Both had used feedback and comments to refine and improve the content and hence sense of community. Both were getting audiences of many thousands.

As 'soaps' on radio and TV have shown - audiences care (often passionately) about what happens. They feel a special relationship with the 'characters' and the programme itself - a sort of 'ownership'. Many companies spend large amounts of money of branding, Customer Relationship Management tools and 'loyalty' programmes. Whilst these marketing tools certainly have their place, the early pioneers of podcasting are finding that their audience engagement ROI is massive.