His podcast has been downloaded over 2 million times, and is currently downloaded 85,00 a month. His key is his credibility.  Who is he? Bob Cartwright the man behind theoutdoorsation.co.uk

Bob has found podcasting success by following a passion for ultra lightweight hiking gear. They didn’t sell it in the UK, so he set up deal to get distribution. The problem was he would need to educate his potential customers – enter podcasting. In 2005 he started producing videos that reviewed gear .  He explained the gear using himself as a benchmark for interest. The podcast morphed into more general topics as well. These included interviews and more general pieces.

In reading an article, Bob said, “It is absolutely critical for us to maintain high professional and journalistic standards.  Lots of equipment manufactures now send out products to bloggers for review – but it quickly backfires on them because most bloggers have little or no credibility.  What distinguishes us is the quality of our output – listeners are always telling us how much they appreciate it”, says Cartwright.  He and his wife do most of the work, with a handful of friends also contributing to the site, unpaid.”

If you’ve ever wondered how effective podcastin could be to your business notice this from the article:

The business, which supports Cartwright, and his wife sells around 1,000 items a month and sales of any given line generally jump by around 20% when the are mentioned on the general podcast.

So let’s review. He picked a topic he was passionate about, and began creating content that interested him. He uses the podcast to build credibility, then uses his product sales to promote his podcast (A CD of past episodes go out with each order). This grows a larger loyal audience, which then leads to more sales.

Notice his podcast is not a commercial. The intent is to educated people on products, not sell them.

One other note should be that he is delivering his content in multiple formats. You can get it as a downloadable podcast, or stream his videos at you tube.