How to build a profitable podcast.
The Power of Podcasts: Craft Compelling Educational Content for Your Audience!
Let's welcome our guest writer Nicole Hardy
The podcast industry keeps gaining momentum.
Surveys reveal that a whopping 42% of US adults had listened to a podcast within the last month of 2023. This number has more than tripled in the course of the past decade. And it keeps growing as more and more monthly listeners tune in.
The podcast culture is expanding rapidly, reigning over the world. Yet, with over 500 million listeners projected to be there by the end of 2024, there are still only 3.2 million podcasts.
For a quick comparison, there are already more than 600 million blogs in the world right now, meaning that the multi-billion dollar niche of podcasting is still quite loose.
If you are still doubting why you should be rushing to fill this huge (but still not fully taken) niche yourself, there are quite a few reasons for that.
First of all, it’s an excellent way to influence people. Many listeners prefer to consume podcasts on the go. Hence, this kind of content accompanies them in a variety of their daily routines, creating a deeper sense of trust and intimacy with hosts. So, if you want to create a personal brand, establish your voice, and gain a trustful and loyal audience, podcasting is a good choice.
Also, given that the expected worth of the podcasting industry will hit $4 billion in 2024, more and more businesses recognize it as a pivotal medium for their marketing and revenue-generation efforts.
Wrapping it all up, podcasting can be an invaluable tool both for individuals and businesses that can benefit you in a variety of ways. Most importantly, getting started with it isn’t all that hard.
If you eventually decide to give the podcasting industry a try, the first big question you might have in your head is – which specific field should you target in your podcasts? Although the options are nearly endless, we believe that educational content is the future!
Research finds that as many as 74% of podcast fans are out there to learn something new. In comparison, only 26% tune in to entertain, relax, or find inspiration.
This fact alone proves the huge power of educational podcasting. And if it got you interested, you’ve come to the right place! Read on, and we’ll guide you through the process of creating educational podcast content for podcasts.
To get started, you need an in-depth plan. You must consider a huge number of factors and prepare well during your pre-production stage to create an engaging podcast that helps you achieve your goals and also deliver real value to your listeners.
In order to produce high-quality content and have the motivation to carry on with your podcasting efforts, you need to have a clear goal in mind.
There might be many reasons why you want to start podcasting in the first place:
Whatever it is, determine your objectives early on to let them drive the process.
Next, you need to define a specific topic for your podcast. This is the step that you want to pay the most attention to because the topic you pick can either make or break the entire process.
The formula for a perfect topic is the following:
Your deep passion for the topic + Your understanding of the topic and a solid knowledge base that you can share + Relevance and value to the audience + Monetization opportunities
If you find a topic that has all these factors, you should be able to launch a successful podcast and grow your audience. So take your time.
Pro tip: Apart from simply brainstorming the topic yourself, feel free to draw inspiration from existing shows. Listen to popular educational podcasts to see what they talk about and how they retain their audiences. This should give you an idea of what niche you can fill in. Yet, it’s crucial that you are genuinely passionate about it.
Once you’ve picked a general direction for your podcast, you need to research your audience and understand what it craves. This is the secret to reaching the right people with your content and building a loyal community.
To make informed decisions about your content, you need to determine your IDEAL LISTENER persona:
The more data you collect about your prospective listeners, the more accurately you will be able to shape your message to them.
Once you understand your target personas, you should be able to plan what types of educational podcast content they will be interested in the most.
For example, if you are targeting college students, in particular, they might be interested in nearly everything related to studying well. This can include content types from lengthy lectures on different academic topics and bite-sized short podcasts explaining specific concepts or terms to how-to podcasts like “How to conduct in-depth research for an essay” and even student-related podcasts-reviews like “What are the best services to write my paper for me.” That’s how your audience can guide the choice of content type. So be sure to plan it thoroughly.
Next, you must identify the perfect duration of your episodes. Here’s a quick overview to help you decide:
Finally, as the last stage of your pre-production process, you must find the ideal name for your podcast and create a tempting description.
A perfect name must be:
Don’t hesitate to get creative with naming to drive attention and make your podcast memorable. Do your research and study the names of other podcasts in your niche for inspiration. Here are a few names of the popular educational podcasts to help you generate ideas:
Once you have the name, write a description that tells listeners what your episodes will be about and encourage them to listen. Be sure to make a call to action to drive more listeners.
Pro tip: Research keywords relevant to your topic, and don’t hesitate to integrate them into the name and description of your podcast. This can make you rank higher in search and help potential listeners find you more easily.
When you’ve gone through all the pre-production steps, you can finally move on to the most exciting part – preparing your first episode.
To get started, you need to find a narrow topic for your episode that fits into the overall niche of your podcast. Ideally, find a specific topic for the entire season and then break it down into the number of episodes that you want to include.
When you have all your topics planned, you need to write a script for your episode. The good news is that you don’t really have to be an expert educational content writer to handle this stage on your own.
Here are the tips that should help:
Pro tip: Don’t neglect practicing reading your script multiple times before you start recording.
When the script is ready, you can record your first episode.
First of all, you must equip yourself with the right tech tools to make quality recordings. Then, you also need to set up a dedicated place where you will be able to record your podcasts. It must be quiet, absolutely distraction-free, and offer the right settings for quality sound.
Additionally, you must set up your microphone and learn about the best recording techniques to avoid harsh sounds on your recordings.
When ready, start recording following your script. But always remember that even serious educational content providers don’t have to be too serious or boring in their podcasts. Otherwise, they will likely lose their audience. So here’s the most important tip for recording – keep your episodes lively by adding dramatic pauses, jokes and laughs, and other conversational elements to your podcasts. Leave some room for riffing, too. Even with a script, you don’t have to follow it strictly during the recording. It’s okay if you get off-topic sometimes to add more value or personality to your content.
And most importantly, be yourself!
Even once you record your content, of course, the work doesn’t stop there. When the recording is done, you must edit it thoroughly, prepare fascinating artwork for your podcast, and prepare show notes and multimedia resources to enhance the impact of your podcast.
Lastly, you will also need to spread awareness about your podcast and work hard to gain your audience. Stay tuned with bCast to explore additional tips and tricks on handling different stages of your podcast development efforts. And good luck with your first show!
