Tax doesn’t have to be taxing – or staid. That was the view taken by HM Revenue & Customs earlier this year when it decided to launch a series of pilot podcasts on its website to see if new media channels could be harnessed as a new way of communicating with the public. By Jonathan Kinsella of HM Revenue & Customs.
While podcasts might be more traditionally associated with the dulcet tones of Amy Winehouse or Madonna, they have also been successfully used by the White House and 10 Downing Street to disseminate speeches or radio interviews. With this in mind, HMRC piloted podcasts discussing two broad-appeal subjects affecting two of its major customer groups – small to medium-sized enterprises, and the accounting profession – which would be available from its website.
As the first Whitehall department to launch podcasts, HMRC was acutely aware that a message about filling out your tax return wouldn’t hold the audience’s attention. The concept was to deliver ‘news you can use’, to inform, spark debate and call to action – and it was decided the podcasts would take the form of three to four-minute interviews, delivered in a conversational and accessible style.
For SMEs, the looming 19 May deadline for Employers’ End of Year Returns was chosen as a subject, to reinforce awareness of the deadline, encourage firms to file their returns online, and point them to resources which were available to them if they needed assistance. For the accountants, a probing discussion about how HMRC is promoting a ‘fresh start’ in its relationship with the profession was felt to be an issue which would encourage discussion and reinforce the department’s commitment to doing things differently.
As well as posting the podcasts on the HMRC website at www.hmrc.gov.uk/podcasts, the content was also made available on the Politics section of the Apple iTunes website, which is a popular source of information for Westminster-watchers.
The podcasts were launched on Tuesday 10 April, supported by a PR campaign targeted at business media and accountancy trade press. Traffic to the site spiked immediately in the first few days following launch, at one stage reaching 300 downloads a day. The importance of the supporting PR campaign became clear with the appearance of a small, two-paragraph story in the Metro newspaper on 16 April, which correspondingly drove a further spike in traffic that day.
In the space of a month, the podcasts had been downloaded almost 4000 times, and by the end of May more than 7500 had registered for a subscription service to automatically alert them when new content was added to the site. As anticipated, the majority of listeners have been from the UK, but there have also been downloads from as far away as Canada, Japan and New Zealand.
Interestingly, the podcasts continue to be downloaded at a rate of around 50 a day – unusual for a medium which in most cases tends to spike in demand at launch then tail gently away. Often podcasts are used in short-burst tactical campaigns, which carry a fixed end-date, hence traffic declines accordingly once the objective has been reached. HMRC’s podcasts have been unusual in that demand has remained static in the weeks and months following launch, perhaps demonstrating that the debate over how HMRC interacts with its customers remains a lively one.
The greatest measure of the podcasts’ success has been the amount and tone of media coverage secured by way of the supporting PR campaign. Media were intrigued at the prospect of a government department exploring ‘cool’ technologies, and trade press especially remarked on HMRC’s refreshing approach.
A headline in an often-hostile publication heralding a ‘new era’ for relations with the profession firmly underlined how the podcast pilot demonstrated its commitment to doing things in an accessible and consultative fashion. For one of the largest Government departments in the UK, podcasting has been an unqualified success.
HOW TO MAKE YOUR PODCASTING CAMPAIGN WORK
* Think it through – carefully consider who your audience is, what they want or need to know
• Keep it simple – a conversational and accessible style will keep the audience’s attention
• Don’t go overboard – it’s an interview, not an ad campaign
Jonathan Kinsella works on the News Strategy & Planning Desk for HM Revenue & Customs: Telephone 020 7147 0711.
The articles published here in the Thinking CEO are internet updates of the latest management knowledge and practice, which have been commissioned by Sovereign Publications for their bi-annual magazine, CEO Today, and will appear later in the first 2007 issue of this publication. To contact Sovereign and CEO Today, go to:
http://www.sovereign-publications.com/ceo-art.htm
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