When I first started offering transcription services as part of my Virtual Assistant business, transcribing podcasts was not something I considered. In all honesty, I never thought about the fact that there would be a benefit to having a podcast transcribed. Once I began receiving requests on a regular basis I began to learn why people were choosing to do this.

There are some people that like to have text to read so they can follow along as they listen to audio and there are also people out there that would prefer to just read the transcript than listen to the audio. By having their podcast transcribed they were providing that option to their listeners. This is probably the most common reason why people choose to have their podcasts transcribed.

Aside from the reason listed above, there are other benefits to having a podcast transcribed. Once it has been turned into a text file you can add it to your website. This provides new content and we all know how the search engines like fresh content.

Another benefit of having your podcast transcribed is that you can use it as part of a package deal. For instance maybe you have a special report to offer to your target market and you interviewed someone really cool for your podcast that goes along with the information in your special report. You can offer the audio and the transcript as a bonus to go along with it.

You can also turn the transcript into blog posts, articles, mini ecourses, etc. These are just a couple options of how having your podcast can be beneficial to you. You can get as creative as you want and use the transcript however you see fit.

A friend of mine is a relatively new podcaster, Tsoniki Crazy Bull. Her podcast is CrafterCast.

Tsoniki isn’t an intentional dabbler, but she is a busy military mom who faced a big move right around the time that she was launching her new podcast. Because of this she wasn’t able to stay consistent with her publication schedule (She had intended to publish weekly but after the first handful of shows, she ended up with a rather long hiatus) and that had definitely stunted the growth of her listening audience.

If your life is in a jumble, take a tip from Tsoniki and wait to launch your new podcast when you’re better able to make a firm commitment to your budding group of listeners.

How often you decide to publish your podcast is entirely up to you but I will say that a show published more often tends to grow an audience faster. I personally enjoy a weekly schedule but I have a couple of podcasting friends I’ll introduce you to later who have embraced a bi-weekly schedule and done ok with it. Whatever you choose - stick with it

The good news for Tsoniki is that she has recently ‘re-launched’ her podcast with a fresh new website theme and renewed commitment to a steady publishing schedule. I have no doubt that she’ll regain the ground she lost during her hiatus.

Podcasters who “testâ€? things out with one or two podcasts and then give up may think that they’ve given it a try but in truth, they’ve only dabbled.

It takes time for a podcast to build an audience and it takes a dedicated effort to promote a new podcast. I wouldn’t even try to measure whether or not a podcast is doing well until I’ve been working on it for about six months. The main think I look for is growth. Am I reaching more listeners this month than last month?

I’m a niche podcaster. I don’t reach hundreds of thousands of listeners like big dog podcaster Leo LaPorte or podcast daddy Adam Curry. I don’t even try to compare myself to high profile podcasters who reach a wide audience. It would be nuts to do so but I’m afraid that is just what many new podcasters do.

They hear about how millions of people have iPods and are hungry to feed them. (It’s true!) They think if they launch a show they’re going to quickly tap into those millions, but for the most part - unless you have a great marketing plan, you’re going to be a drop in the bucket in the podcasting directories at first and you’ll have to work to earn your audience.

Sometimes a new podcast catches a break early. Cara Mirabella of The Household Helper found her brand new podcast featured prominently in the iTunes podcast directory for several weeks and enjoyed a wonderful burst of subscriber activity, quickly reaching upwards of a thousand downloads per show.

Now when I say ‘catches a break’ I don’t want to suggest that Cara won her featured spot only by chance. No one really knows for sure how one podcast gets chosen over another but we do know that you’re more likely to be chosen when you have completed your meta deta well and have taken the time to create an attractive ‘album art’ image for your iTunes directory listing.

The good news is that you can make a very good living with a niche podcast. You don’t need a hundred thousand listeners to make money. You just need the RIGHT listeners for your content and a good marketing funnel they’ll enjoy tumbling into.

So don’t just dabble. Make up your mind that you’re doing to be in this for a full season.

Do you Twitter your podcasts?

I outsource all of my transcription work to my trusty Virtual Assistant, Tishia Lee of Tishia Saves Time. For some unfathomable reason, Tishia actually likes doing transcription work so I’m pleased to leave her to it.

Tishia isn’t the only VA that I outsource work to. I turn to Christina Lemmey of MultiMedia VA for the creation of simple podcast promo audios, short commercials, etc. Christina also does podcast production for a few of my clients, releasing me to focus on other projects.

Outsourcing is a powerful business building tool. Without some level of outsourcing your business is only going to be able to grow so far. Let me introduce you to a couple of outsourcing resources that could be just what the doctor ordered for your business and podcasting growth efforts.

Outsourcing Sweetie

Outsourcing Sweetie is first a resource that teaches you how to outsource effectively. If you opt for Platinum Membership you actually tap into a crack team of service providers and project management consultancy for a monthly fee. You receive a certain amount of ghostwritten content, technical script work, virtual assistance and graphic/web design work each month - plus you can strategize with the Sweetie herself, Alice Seba.

Start by becoming a Gold Member for only $10.00.

Shelancers

Shelancers is a new resource for finding online service providers. Exclusively created to showcase women providers, Shelancers is a refreshing alternative to the big freelancer directories.

Enough of an expert?

‘Who get’s to decide who knows enough to be an expert?‘ but a better question to ask back would be ‘Who says you have to be an expert to talk about something?‘

Hosting a podcast puts you in a position to distribute industry news and share your views, but all podcasters are not experts. They don’t pretend to be and many really don’t even want to be. They just want to share their passion with others and hopefully turn a profit in the process.

I was certainly not a work at home expert when I launched Work at Home Moms Talk Radio. I was just a work at home mom wannabe with a mouth.

Interestingly enough, somewhere along the last four and a half years that I’ve been hosting my WAHM podcast I have built a reputation as a WAHM expert. What can I say? If you devote your attention to something long enough you pick up a thing or two.

Still, I don’t represent myself to be an expert on all things to do with being a work at home mom. I draw on the expertise and skill of a wide variety of other WAH experts, bringing them on my show to fill in the gaps and give my audience access the fullest range of knowledge.

What about you? If you are an expert and don’t mind saying so - good for you! But if you’re not, don’t let a lack of expertise keep you from becoming a voice in your industry.

The challenge of creating more and more content is a difficult hurdle for many web business owners. If you love to write and have lots of ideas on what to write about you can churn out articles, blog posts, product descriptions, etc. But all do not love to write and most people eventually finds themselves running a bit dry on ideas for new content.

I’m a fairly prolific writer and I have lots of ideas - but don’t always have a lot of time to sort through my ideas and develop them into articles, etc.

But - ask me to talk about my ideas and I can be off and running. Writing requires focus. Talking is so easy.

This is why having a podcast has been a major boon for me in creating content for my websites, blogs, newsletters and information products.

I take the audio content generated on my own podcast and have it transcribed on a regular basis by my virtual assistant. I then take this text content and scoop out chunks that are easily molded into blog posts, newletter snippets, articles for distribution and extra content for info products.

I’ve generated over 200 episodes of Work at Home Moms Talk Radio. That’s a LOT of content available to me and I’ll admit that I have not tapped nearly as much of it as I could. But don’t worry, I intend to!

But when the web visitor subscribes to your mailing list or subscribes to your blog RSS feed or subscribes to your podcast RSS feed - you have the beginnings of a relationship.

Now, for a relationship to grow - you need to communicate. You have to send emails, blog regularly and podcast - podcasting being my personal favorite form of communicating

Podcasts provide a consistent line of communication between you and your subscribed listeners and that is a powerful benefit for being a podcaster.

It has been proven over and over that regular communication with your customers improves both your overall relationship with them and has a strong influence on buying frequency. A regular podcast strengthens your relationship with your subscribers and help to build a real sense of community.

People who feel like they have a relationship with you are more likely to spend money with you.

I see this in my podcast. Some relationships warm up quickly but others develop over a period of years. Many of them eventually pay off in some form of purchase whether it is for coaching, an info product or taking my advice on an affiliate product.

By the way, don’t just stop at Podcasting.

Thinking outside of the box of podcasting, simply adding audio or video of you to your website and email messages, enables customers and prospects to access information from you in a more personal way. You can add video or audio testimonials from customers and invite others to0 share quick “how to� segments. This all helps to entice new visitors into a new relationship with you.

Well they do.

Ipod owners and others log onto iTunes every day. They are looking for something interesting to listen to. They actually search for, subscribe to and download podcasts on topics that they’re interested in.

Do you realize how awesome this is?

People who may never find you any other way, could end up finding you via your podcast.

That is increased market exposure.

I know for a fact that this happens. It happens for me all the time.

A man wrote me an email a couple of years ago telling me that he accidentally downloaded my podcast and put it in his iPod because he had been looking for affiliate marketing information and grabbed my show along with some others on that topic. He’s not my target market, but after listening to one of my shows he became excited about the prospect of his wife starting a work at home business. He subscribed to the podcast feed and asked his wife to listen to the shows. She has become one of my most active fans today - and yes, one of my customers.

Now he would never have searched for me, but he found me.

Another story, a gal gets an ipod for Christmas and her teenage daughter hooks her up to iTunes and teaches her how to search for content in the music store. She searches for mom topics and stumbles on Work at Home Moms Talk Radio. It had never occurred to her that such a thing existed (a podcast about WAHMs) so she subscribed out of curiosity. A month later she has registered a domain name, signed up for hosting (with my hosting company) and bought one of my information products to learn how to do article marketing to promote her new site.

Would I have perhaps connected with her some other way? Possibly. But how awesome that she found me while looking for something to fill her iPod with.

If you’re not podcasting, you’re not putting yourself in the path of your potential customers.

I’ve been both slow and sometimes nearly stumped but have enjoyed the challenge so far. I’d love to hear what alphabet words you’d add to the list

Read what has been done so far here.