Are you ready for podcasting? It’s a commitment, I’ll admit, but the loyalty you gain from an audience that returns again and again to hear what you have to offer can’t be bought at any price.
Welcome to today’s lesson – Podcasting to Increase Loyalty. Podcasts don’t only bring about fierce loyalty but they also allow you opportunity to create income through advertising, product promotion, affiliate offers and more. Read on to hear how you can set up your own podcast in a matter of hours.
What is a Podcast?
A podcast is a series of audio or video files that are released on a schedule, for audience members to listen to or view online, or to download to their computers, iPods, iPads, iPhones, etc. Every podcast is attached to an RSS feed, which allows the audience member to subscribe and receive automatic updates anytime a new episode of the podcast is available.
Podcasting is a Free Way to Build Relationships
If you’re not sure if podcasting is for you, ask yourself if your website or blog can benefit from:
- repeat visitors
- an open, free forum for marketing
- building relationships within your market
- attracting new potential customers
If you’re not sure if you can commit to the process, ask yourself these questions:
- Can I come up with new content in an audio or video format on a regular basis?
- Can I speak in a clear and easy to follow manner that will connect with my audience?
- Does my market and topic fit with an ongoing multimedia release?
Setting Up Your Podcast
We’ve covered a lot of different ways to add audio and video to your website in this course. I hope you’re starting to see a clear pattern here. Again, creating a podcast is not unlike adding audio or video to a website. What you need is:
- an audio or video file
- a place to host your media
- a place to play your media
- an RSS feed
The only different step here from what we’ve discussed before is making sure you have an RSS Feed for your podcast.
One of the easiest ways to get an RSS feed for your podcast is to start a blog. A blog automatically includes an RSS feed. Readers can then subscribe to that RSS feed through feed readers (such as Feedburner) that will automatically notify people of a new media file.
Here are two easy ways to set up your podcast:
- Podpress – If you use WordPress for your blog, you can easily use Podpress to add your audio recordings to your blog. Podpress will also submit your blog to iTunes, giving you even great exposure.
- Audio Acrobat – You’ve heard me talk about this program over and over again in this course. The reason I recommend it so highly is that it can do so many things. Podcasting is another task easily handled by this program. Use Audio Acrobat to record your audio, host it, create your podcast, create your RSS feed AND submit to iTunes. It really is a one-stop shop for podcasting!
If you’re passionate about your topic, ready to commit to building long-term customer relationships and are ready to add another source of potential customers to your business then it’s time to start podcasting.
See you tomorrow when we talk about using videos for testimonials, reviews and case studies.
Joanne
