Don’t underestimate the power of the human voice

Today, the competition in business is so vast that acquiring your target audience has turned into a real nightmare. Everybody is working like crazy on growing their visibility and their brand. If you want to stay in this competitive race and extend your reach, now is the time to consider podcasting.

Yes, I know it’s not a talk of the year in the domain of email marketing and it’s not an entirely new strategy either, but its popularity is rapidly growing.  And why is that? The answer is simple – there are not many things more personal than the sound of the human voice and people have finally become aware of this audible connection with the audience.

The bottom line is: people are listening and they want to hear from you, too. To be honest, they want to hear everyone because every person will share their unique perspective on the current conversation. So what you basically need to do is to just get involved – by active participation where you challenge the status quo and share new insights you will get yourself and your business introduced to a new audience.

The power of voice

So almost all the power of podcasting lies in your own voice. The key is to make it recognizable above all the others that audience hears on a daily basis. If you’re skeptical about this just take a look at the fact that only two words are enough to distinguish the voice of a relative or a friend among other voices.

It is like in the old days when the family gathered around the radio on quiet evenings, everyone was doing their own thing – the father may be reading the newspapers, the mother may be ironing, and the kids would be playing. Listening to podcasts allows you to multitask, making it very popular.

What’s it worth?

First things first, and we all know what you want to hear about at the very beginning – the cost of creation.  All you need is a small studio. To be honest, your biggest investment will be a decent quality microphone and a podcasters’ favourite, the Blue Yeti USB, is available for around 100 bucks.

Along with that, you’ll need a set of headphones and probably a pop filter in order to reduce or muffle unwanted ambient sounds. This is basically everything you’ll need to invest and, as you can see, it’s much smaller investment than a video equipment.  If you don’t have enough space in your home for a studio because it’s crowded with the stuff ‛you’ll need one day’, a very reasonable monthly storage costs will persuade you that you can always free a small amount of space that this kind of studio requires.

As far as the editing is concerned there are a lot of free editing software out there, such as GarageBand for Mac or Audacity for PC. Now that you’ve checked your wallet let’s get to the benefits part.

Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere

First of all, you need to know precisely what you want to talk about. You’ve probably noticed that there isn’t ‛Anything’ in the title above, and there’s a pretty good reason for it. Your brand is not about anything and it has a target audience, so your podcast needs to be a niche just like your blog.

Actually, your blog can be really helpful in finding your podcast niche – just take a look which posts on it resonate the most with the audience. What questions do they pose? Social media is also a very good source.

The point is that you need to know your audience and to be aware of the things they want to know the most. That will help you set the goal in your mind and help you determine what exactly are you trying to accomplish with the podcast, enabling you to become more specific with every step you take.

Ok, now let’s take a look at that ‛Anyone’ moment. The whole point is to position yourself as an expert. That’s not that hard as it sounds – your authority will rise just with the consistent hosting of the podcast, but you’re going to need to build some of it in the beginning.

Also Read: [Podcast] The Jay Kim Show with Commutifi CEO Rich Schmeizer

That is also easy enough – all you have to do is to learn as much as you can about a specific topic. It’s all about who has the most of the information – if you’re able to fill up a series of a 15-minute podcast you will already be considered an expert. The fact that you’re providing the audience with your valuable insight for free will make them see you as an authority, that’s guaranteed. It’s not about spending half of your life doing something, the point is just to know a little more about the subject than the average listener.

Nonetheless, including real experts in your podcast is always a plus. If an interview is a part of your podcast format a guest expert will always make things more interesting because people love two (or even more) voices in the conversation. On top of that, the experts you invite will share your podcast with their audiences, too.

Don’t be reluctant to invite a really big name expert – the worst that can happen is them saying ‛no’, but often the answer is positive. Once you get it just remember to represent it accordingly to its name in order to attract the audience.

And, finally, that last ‛Anywhere’ is not connected just to the multitasking we mentioned before. At least not directly. The point is that people don’t have an infinite amount of time for a podcast, either. That’s why you can’t make it go on for hours. You need to keep it short, meaning up to 30 minutes. On the other hand, there are people who just can’t handle the multitasking. They would rather free some time to sit in front of the computer and read.

That’s why it’s very important to provide people with written notes from every episode, or just simply turn your podcasts into blog posts. This repurpose will reach people that prefer the written word and make sure you won’t lose your blog audience. It is an easy process and with numerous transcription options, you won’t even have to invest time to type.

As you can see, for on a relatively modest budget, you’ll be able to reach a relevantly wider range of audience. To attract them and keep them engaged all you need to do is to inform yourself and follow the latest news and trends. Don’t be afraid to invite some real experts from time to time and keep in mind to provide transcription if possible.
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