Not convinced you should be investing time, effort, and money into creating audio?
We get it.
Creating audio is WORK.
Hard work, even. In fact, you're normal if you‘ve sometimes considered pouring hot coffee directly into your keyboard to avoid dealing with what it really takes to make podcasting work.
But if you’re considering investing in audio for your business - then leave that coffee mug standing.
Because the rewards from making audio content for your business are worth it.
When you invest in branded listening experiences, you start building a loyal audience through audio.
Take a look at the four biggest rewards and see if they don’t fit your business goals.
If we compare how much time your average Instagram follower spends on a random post with your average listener, then it’s easy to spot the difference.
How much would you guess?
On Instagram: Would you say 45 seconds on a good day?
Versus, say, 45 minutes on a podcast episode?
The listener (not the follower) is paying attention over a far longer period. Compared to how fast we all blow through the Facebook wall, a LinkedIn article, or a video on TikTok; isn’t that a ridiculously large amount of time for the listener to spend with you, if you think about it?
That’s what we’d call dedicated listening.
And even though it’s not exactly a one-to-one time with you, it’s also NOT not one-to-one time with you.
If you think about your favorite podcast host, don’t you feel like you know that person? Aren’t you more connected to that person and in a different way than the people you follow on social media?
Your listeners will have that same experience listening to you.
That’s your dedicated listeners.
And speaking of...
Kind of like with books, audio lets you imagine the visual parts of the story. But unlike books you hear the storyteller’s voice, not your own inner-reading voice.
The listener listening with earphones (and most do) literally has your voice inside their head, and your voice alone. If you want to create intimacy connecting with your listeners, it doesn’t get much better than this.
Let’s say, for instance, you invite collaborators onto your show or in some other way tell people's stories as part of marketing your business. Because audio is intimate, you are able to relay insights to your audience that they wouldn’t otherwise have access to. No one can deny it’s different hearing someone's voice cracking when they talk about the relationship they had with their grandmother than reading about it while scrolling through.
That type of connection also occurs when your listeners listen to your voice.
Let’s elaborate on that one a little bit…
Have you ever noticed that when you listen to someone's story you instinctively just like them without really being able to pinpoint exactly why? Their story itself wasn’t the only reason. You just liked them.
Right?
You have made a decision to like them based on a number of different reasons. Maybe they made their points in a certain way that made you smile, or the pauses and pacing in their storytelling just suited your temper, or maybe a slight fragility in their voice touched something in you.
That’s how easily your listeners make connections to you.
Listening only to someone's voice is a super-intimate, feeling-rich, and personality-driven experience - which doesn’t really happen anywhere else, if you think about it.
(Okay, fine. In old school radio it does happen. The exact same thing happens. This is the point. Only now you’re broadcasting from your own, branded radio channel and you’re the storyteller. How cool is that?)
And because audio is super-intimate, feeling-rich, and personality-driven, it makes for creating bonds between the listener and the storyteller in a very effective way.
Okay.
Let’s move on to the last one.
As humans, we tend to (consciously and unconsciously) categorize and label. It’s natural. We all do it. We do so to try to understand - and through understanding - create some kind of order of the highly unorganized and uncertain world that surrounds us.
As we know, unfortunately, that tendency to want to understand sometimes becomes judgment and those judgements can become prejudices and soon everyone loses.
The good thing about audio is that it doesn’t let us judge other people nearly as fast.
In fact, when we spend time listening to another person’s voice without having the visual information (like the shape of their nose, color of their skin, or look in their eye) our tendency to judge is automatically slowed down.
And the slowing down of judgements actually creates more empathy from the listeners to the storyteller than would have otherwise been possible.
And there’re so many audio creators who are using their platforms to do exactly that. Even if it’s not their primary objective, they’re expanding everyone’s empathy.
So… If that’s you, keep it up.
If that’s not you yet, we appreciate you just as much.
Here’s where most new podcasters and audio makers start out with Audiorista.
