Blogs: How To Increase Sales Through Streaming Audio
Many studies have proven that radio is a good medium for product advertisements. People listen to the radio for entertainment, usually to listen to the latest music or to their favourite radio program.
During breaks in the program, advertisements on products and services are being played.
For many years, this has been the trend in advertising. But now that radio
has virtually been overtaken by audio-visual medium, TV
and the Internet, other marketing strategies
were employed to continue the benefits of advertising through audio.
Prior to the advent of streaming audio, music on the Internet was
only available in downloadable forms
such as mp3. It was found that simply
by hosting downloadable music on their servers, companies were able to
increase traffic on their sites.
Business owners were also discovering that website
and blog traffic plays a big role in boosting product and service sales.
One major problem facing businesses wanting
to use use music on their websites was the issue of illegal music downloading in which artists, musicians and record companies
were losing millions
in revenues.
In solving this problem, technology allowing
Internet music to be "streamed"
instead of downloaded became popular. Unlike the
earlier method (mp3's etc) radio streaming does not allow download of the music files. Thus, the copyrights of the artists and record label owners are protected.
So, how can this be done? There are several ways to stream audio from your site.
Radio Programs: One option is to stream a radio program from your site or blog. You can find free affiliate programs that allow you to stream their radio content from your site.
What will this mean to you? This means that your site or
blog will have new audio content every time it is visited. What's
really cool about this option is that the content is being updated
with virtually no effort from you.
All that's required is to signup with an Internet radio station and have the link embedded on your blog or website.
Streaming Mp3's:
Another way is to stream mp3s. To do this, you upload your mp3files
to a server and add
a link to the file on your page. When the link is clicked, the browser opens a media player window and plays a file.
Care must be
taken with this option, since the file is in mp3 format,
and it may also be downloaded. Downloading music files without the authorization of the copyright owner is illegal. Therefore, if you will be using this type of streaming, make sure that you have the appropriate permit to do so.
Playlists:
A third way to add audio to you blog or
website is to stream music through playlists. Playlists are m3u files, which
will not play music offline. Using this process
can be complex for the beginner. Here is a short instruction on how to do it.
1. Save your mp3 or wma file on the server. You may skip this step if you know that the file exists on another server and know the link to that file. Make sure that the link has a .mp3 or .wma extension.
2. Open your text editor and type the path to the file. Include the http:// and the file extension. Repeat this step until you have included all the links to the files that you would like to be included in the playlist.
3. Save the playlist with a .m3u extension.
4. Upload the m3u file on the directory where the music files are hosted or to
your web server.
5. Open your html editor and embed the link to the m3u file.
You can also set the playlist to autoplay if someone visits your site, or
if you want your visitor to control playing the music.
Volume level can also be controlled in this
way.
After the code is embedded on the html file, and whenever your site is visited, the songs in the playlist will be buffered, streamed and played one after another. If your playlist has several songs, the user can skip forward or go back a song in the playlist using the media player controls.
Using playlists works
well for many website owners.
Using this method you can customize the type of music being played on your
website or blog. You can even play recordings related to your product to boost product awareness.
Having audio on a website is a proven way to increase sales,
so it is well worth your while to investigate the options which
would suit you best. |
