What Is a Podcast and How Does It Work?

Podcasts can be an effective method of developing traffic, attracting customers and building your credibility. It can turn you from a want to-be to a true expert in the eyes of your customers and prospects.

But what is a podcast?

The term itself is a contraction of two words - iPod and broadcast. The Apple iPod of course, is an MP3 player. An electronic version of the old tape recorder if you will.

What Is a Podcast and How Does It Work?

So the term itself would indicate that a podcast is some form of a regular broadcast using MP3 audio format and portable players -- the Apple name being optional. But a podcast is really both more and less than this.

For the purposes of this article I'm going to deal with what a podcast is on four levels.

1. A podcast is an audio file. In theory it is provided in MP3 format. MP3 format is a very capable, yet very compact format used for audio recording. It is also manufacturer independent. However, podcasts can also be provided using either the Windows native format (WMA) or Apple's Quicktime audio. In fact, there are a large number of audio formats available and podcasts can be found in any of them. However, MP3 is the most popular format.

2. It is intended to be retrieved from a website (e.g. iTunes or the creator's website) and downloaded to an MP3 player such as the iPod or one of many other manufacturers products. This recording can then be played back at any time while the audience is busy doing something else. Cars are a frequent location for the playback of these files. Busy commuters can listen to something useful while traveling to and from the office.

3. Content is whatever the podcast creator wishes. Like any radio broadcast. However, typically they tend to be focused on spoken content rather than music. This content can be provided in a number of different forms including teleseminars, interviews and readings.

4. In theory podcasts do not have to be regular. However, in practice they fit into two types. One time podcasts are usually not referred to as podcasts. The repeating podcast is repeated either once per week or once per month or daily. In short, they are meant to be a regularly re-occurring broadcast of opinion, information or news. In practice, audio files which are one-time only are referred to as MP3s. The term podcast is usually restricted to broadcasts which repeat on a regular basis.

What Is a Podcast and How Does It Work?
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Glen Ford is an accomplished consultant, trainer and writer. He has far too many years experience as a trainer and facilitator to willingly admit.

How Podcasting Works

Podcasting is one of those tools that should be in every learning content marketer's toolkit. Podcasts help to bring targeted traffic. They help to establish your reputation. And they help to build credibility.

But how?

How does podcasting work? In this article I'm going to try to give you an overview of how podcasting works. More specifically, I'm going to focus on what podcasting is and how it goes from a simple idea to being a traffic generation tool.

How Podcasting Works

Podcasting is a first and foremost a form of learning content. It is possible to make it a pure entertainment product however, unless you are selling entertainment that isn't going to help you. So for the information marketer a podcast is a form of learning content. And like any learning content it follows a particular process.

The process begins with the identification of an audience. Who is going to buy the product line? Who is going to want to learn what is being taught?

The next task is to determine what motivates your audience. What are their immediate problems? What are they worried about?

Once you have a motivator you need to provide a solution. How can your product solve their problems? How can your topic help them achieve their goals or avoid their concerns?

Of course a solution by itself is very difficult to learn and to teach. So you need to turn it into a system which can be followed easily. It needs to be simplified into a set of steps that anyone can follow.

You now have a solution which can be packaged and sold. But there are many ways to package it. In fact to make a profit you're going to need to create various packages of your solution. Some will be entry level products. Some will be high value products and some will be free products. Some will even be used for marketing.

Podcasting is one of these latter products.

Once you've determined that podcasting is one of the tools you are going to use to market your product line, you need to start creating the actual podcasts.

Like any audio learning content the process for creating a podcast starts with an outline. Unlike most of the audio learning content products you are going to need, podcasts are a repeating product. You're going to need a new one each week. And each podcast may actually consist of several smaller segments each of which can be produced independently.

In theory, you should be structurally editing and then converting your outline into a script. However, generally, podcast segments are too small and simple to justify this effort.

The next task instead is to record the podcast. This may take several attempts which effectively fulfill the same purpose as a formal edit.

You now have a raw recorded podcast segment. These segments are then edited to remove errors, add transitions, introductions and concluding credits and combine the segments into a final podcast usually in MP3 format.

The podcast is uploaded to either your own site or to a podcasting site. If you use your own site you will need to drive traffic to the podcast.

At the end of each week, the podcast is cycle repeats and a new podcast is uploaded to replace the previous podcast. Frequently a podcasting service is used for the current podcast and an archive of prior podcasts is maintained on the producer's site.

Traffic is driven to the podcasting service -- or your site -- and audience members select the podcasts they wish to listen to. They then download those podcasts to their own computers. From there they listen to them on the computer, copy them to CD or copy them to their MP3 players.

Typically podcasts are squeezed into other activities. This is why they need to be entertaining and a fairly light examination of their topic.

The concept is that the audience will enjoy the podcast so much that they will visit the producer's site to obtain past podcasts and other available information. This is why the producer's website needs to be featured prominently in the podcast.

Since the podcasts is a weekly, repeating contact with your audience it becomes a great way to develop a relationship with your potential customer. It then is up to you to convert, anyone who visits your website as a result of the podcast into a true customer.

How Podcasting Works
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

Do you want to learn how to create information products (learning content)? Check out my new free eBook "7 Myths and Seven Tricks in Nine Steps": http://www.learningcreators.com/myths.htm

Do you want to read more free information like this? Go to my blog: http://www.learningcreators.com/blog/

Glen Ford is an accomplished consultant, trainer and writer. He has far too many years experience as a trainer and facilitator to willingly admit.