The Three Layers of Podcasting
Photo by stevegarfield.
After the recent report that podcasting is on the rise in terms of both a larger listening audience and ad dollars spent on the medium, there's been significantly more chatter about how to start a podcast.
First and foremost, podcasting is about the content, not the technology. It's easy to get overwhelmed with technical details and special equipment, but it's really not that complicated.
Today, we're going to break it down into three simple steps; production, distribution and monetization.
PRODUCTION
Planning topics to discuss, possible guest interviews, and your show's length in advance will go a long way when producing a professional sounding podcast. Since you'll be recording your project in an almost live fashion, you will have the flexibility of going back and re-editing sections prior to committing your show as "podcast-ready".
Since nearly everyone has heard a radio program, you should expect that your listeners have grown accustomed to hearing material produced in a certain way. Here is a suggested framework for mapping out your production.
For best results, each podcast episode should be recorded at the same location using the same microphone and microphone positioning. This will create a consistent sound for your podcast episodes from week to week.
The best way to start your mix is think ahead with the end goal in mind. You most likely have a vision of what you want your finished podcast to sound like. Your goal is to maintain that sound from the beginning to the end of your podcast.
Balanced the volume levels of the voice-over(s), music and sound effects. You are now ready to export your podcast recording into an MP3, then upload the file to your web host for distribution.
DISTRIBUTION
Hosting
The purpose of web hosting is that you need somewhere to store your MP3 files, making them available to the world wide web. Look for a web host that will provide you with sufficient disk space for at least a years worth of podcasts. This would be 500MB of web server space.
A few good options include Libsyn and even WordPress has a podcasting solution now.
You can read more about podcast hosting options here.
Syndication
Inclusion in iTunes is a must as it's currently considered the default place to look for finding new podcasts. The Zune marketplace is growing quickly and Odeo is set to make a come back with it's relaunch within the next few months.
A service like Feedburner, which is owned by Google, is a smart way to ensure that your podcast RSS feed is formatted correctly for all the pod-catching software.
MONETIZATION
Once you've developed an audience and are getting some traction in terms of number of downloads per show, you can explore monetizing your podcast.
There are two primary ways that podcasters generate revenue from their podcasts, and they are ads and subscriptions.
Ads
Everyone loves free content and the no-cost element makes consuming to your podcast easy for new listeners and encourages word-of-mouth activity that's not typical of its paid counter part.
The ads could be audio ads embedded at either the beginning or end of your podcast, or ads known as inserstitials where the host of the podcast promotes a specific podcast.
Leo Laporte, host of This Week in Tech is currently running a campaign for Audible that is really more of a segment. Guests on the show share their favorite audiobooks and then they settle on the audiobook of the week. Naturally, it's very informal and comes across in the form of a book recommendation, rather than a sales pitch which is extremely effective.
Subscriptions
For more sought-after audio content such as training material, subscriptions are a great way for podcasters to monetize their programs.
The Project Management Prep Cast is a series of 80+ shows that prepare project managers to take an exam. It shares exactly what they need to know without all the irrelevant material. In short, this podcast is a time saver and maximizes the listening experience for project managers.
Similarly other training material can be packaged and sold a e-courses for distance learning, an approach to education that's been on the rise in the past decade.
Summary
Now that you've released your podcasts and are gaining a listenership, you can now take steps to measure and evaluate your success and take your podcast to the next level by expanding your audience.
There are plenty of great Internet marketing resources out there. Ebooks are great, as well as Internet marketing podcasts.
And, if you haven't yet, download the FREE Small Business Podcasting Kit.
