Gary Reynolds, founder of New Berlin-based GMR Marketing, started talking to his corporate clients six or seven years ago about the potential to utilize podcast technology, specifically to facilitate stronger internal communication. At that time, he'd often get the response of 'Gary, that sounds cool, but what's a podcast?"
Reynolds retired from GMR Marketing in 2018 and has since been working on his latest business endeavor, the launch of FieldCast, a software company focused on internal corporate podcasting.
The conception of FieldCast first began about two and a half years ago. The company finished its last piece of podcast software in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020. FieldCast has been in a soft launch period, gaining several notable clients including Molson Coors Beverage Co., McCarthy Building Companies, Acura and CVS Health.
FieldCast stemmed from conversations Reynolds had with clients while working with GMR.
"Never once did any of those clients say that they communicate well enough with their employee base or with their sales network and nowadays with remote workers," Reynolds said. "That always stuck with me. I thought with a podcast, if they could use the power of audio and voice to bring the message, not another email and not another Zoom call that we have these days, but to actually bring audio into that internal communications process, that was really where the lightbulb started going off."
FieldCast works to provide studio recording software that simplifies the podcast process to around 15 minutes. The company also provides more extensive service for clients who may not want to work directly with the software. Currently, FieldCast has about 1 million active users.
FieldCast has a team of about 30 individuals, with Dana Elmquist as the company's president.
The greatest advantage of this company is that the technology was previously not available. Though some companies may have had public-facing podcasts, most did not have the means to utilize this software internally and, specifically, make it secure.
"We’ve been vetted by the most stringent group of IT folks from the Honda side of it to Molson Coors. Security is number one these days," Reynolds said. "We’ve run that gauntlet. We passed with flying colors, and we know our technology is really great especially if you’re in highly regulated industries. You have to have it. Companies didn’t have that option. Now they have the option, and we’re there to fill that need."
Currently, FieldCast has launched with a focus predominantly on premium clients where the FieldCast team does a fair amount of the podcast work for the client. With all of the podcasting software now ready-for-use, Reynolds hopes to have more clients sign up for the service and use the software directly within their organizations.
"We will have well in excess of 1 million active users on our platform," he said. "That’s that employee base that engages through our network. That is only going to grow into the tens of millions over the next three, four years. That’s going to require us to go out and sign new business.
"I think it’s going to be a great ride. We couldn’t have come at a better time. I think honestly the revolution for internal communications had already started before Covid. Covid just accelerated it."
