To podcast effectively is not an easy thing to do. To podcast ineffectively is incredibly easy, costly and time-consuming. While I continue to be absolutely bullish on the marketing and PR benefits of corporate podcasting, I can’t say that I see many organizations getting it right yet. If your company is planning to podcast, avoiding these common mistakes can mean the difference between huge success and utter disaster.

1. Let the “Computer Nerd” do it. Sure, Dale the computer guy is the only one in your organization that knows what “RSS” is. Sure he understands the difference between an mp3 file and a .wav file. But Dale doesn’t bathe, he’s not particularly good at talking to people and he CERTAINLY doesn’t understand your marketing message. Corporate podcasting is a marketing and PR effort. Dale needs Brenda.

2. Let the “Marketing Nerd” do it. Brenda in Marketing is certainly on top of the message. She understands your customers and what makes them tick. She understands how to get your customers emotionally involved in your products. But Brenda just blew a fuse for the fifth time this month by plugging her desktop Mr. Coffee and her flat-iron into the same power strip, and she’ll accidentally do it again several times next month. She will never understand setting up an RSS feed or tweaking the audio file’s kilobytes-per-second sample rate. Brenda needs Dale.

3. Don’t bring in help. Even if Brenda and Dale work together, which they must, this still leaves a gaping hole in the collective knowledge of your team. Although Dale is a nerd’s nerd, he likely knows nothing about audio cables, microphones, sound production etc. Brenda won’t have any clue about on-air vocal technique and proper mic usage. A good Podcasting Consultant can help plug the holes in your collective knowledge of Corporate Podcasting and get you to the finish line with much less pain than you otherwise will experience.

4. The single-episode tryout. “Let’s just try one and see how it goes” says the big boss. Well, podcasting doesn’t work that way. It’s a low-level investment that builds up steam and return on that investment (ROI) over time. Trying one episode out to “see how it goes” will gain you nothing. Try it for six months. If you’re not willing to give podcasting a serious place in your marketing plan, then forget it. Save your money. Stick it in some bold-faced lettering on your Yellow Pages listing this year (and watch the world pass you by) instead of one podcast episode that will net you nothing.

5. Don’t Promote Your Show. A corporate podcast is not a perpetual motion machine. Listeners don’t “grow on trees.” You have to market your podcast consistently just like anything else. Promoting a podcast is vastly different than most other marketing approaches. At the very least, set up a blog and an RSS feed. Here again is where a Podcasting Consultant can save you scads of time and money.