Entrepreneurs are often upon the lookout for new effective ways to acim podcast can be one of them. Increasingly popular in the recent decade, podcasts have become attractive to a great number of enterprises doing business online. If you’re willing to
upgrade to a new level of communication with our audience, increase outreach and acquire loyal customers, podcasting is the right option for your business.
The number of active podcast listeners is growing year by year. In the US only, the podcast audience is estimated to reach 57 million people by the end. This can be compared to a number of monthly active users of a huge social network, like Twitter. A new study has shown that nearly 65% of podcast listeners are likely to buy a product after hearing a call-to-action. All this makes podcasting a really smart investment for business. The following 5 milestones will help you to get started with your business podcast and make it a success.
1. Define your podcast format
At the initial stage, you need to map everything out: what will be the format, the length, and the consistency of your podcast? It can include several types of content, such as solo, interview, co-host, and video podcast (vidcast). For better effect, you should mix different content that corresponds with the subject. Recommended podcast length is not more than 60 minutes, since more information can be difficult to memorize. Create a list of 5-6 key topics and split them into a few episodes. This will help to keep your audience excited and motivate them to visit your podcast again when the next episode goes live.
2. Get sound recording equipment
Although podcasting isn’t typically too expensive, it still requires some voice recording equipment and software. What’s really great is that you can get started even with your smartphone, which has a built-in microphone, and free sound editing apps. As a beginner, you’ll need to test the waters in podcasting before increasing your spending. Moving forward, it’s recommended to purchase a professional microphone and mixer – good quality should be your top priority!
3. Start your first recording
Before starting the first recording, revise the text you’ll need to say. Don’t worry too much about doing the show. Be confident that your audience knows what to expect. Speak slowly and clearly and don’t panic if you make a mistake. Even professionals can get puzzled from time to time. Once the recording is ready, listen to it several times to make sure that nothing was missed.
4. Publishing to podcast hosting platforms
To maximize audience outreach, make sure to publish your content to at least one of the most popular podcast hosting platforms like SoundCloud, iTunes, Archive.org, Amazon S3, Ourmedia.org, Podomatic, PodBean, Buzzsprout. Sometimes, finding the right hosting platform for podcasting can be a tricky task. The choice may depend on the audience size, functionality, ease of use, and pricing. Since podcasting platforms take care of hosting your content, you don’t need to buy large storage for your website in order to make it available online. Popular podcast hosting platforms have hundreds of thousands of monthly active users, so you’ll definitely find the audience which will be interested in your content. Some podcasting websites even allow recording and editing audio online, thus helping to simplify and streamline the time-consuming process of editing podcast audio at home.
5. Adding a podcast player to your own website
When you run a podcast about your business, it’s important to add it to your own website as well, so that customers who are already familiar with your brand can listen to your audio content, and new website visitors are motivated to spend more time on it. This can be done with an embedded podcast player. Don’t worry; you don’t have to be a technically-advanced person to add a podcast to your website. In most cases, it’s enough to simply copy an embed code from a podcast hosting platform like SoundCloud (where you have already started publishing) and paste it on your website right where you want the podcast player to show up. If your website uses a CMS like WordPress, you can install one of the numerous podcast plugins available and publish podcasts right from your website dashboard!