Sound Solutions: North Bank Audio Solutions

Podcasting is big these days and I get a lot of questions on this topic. One of them is how to get your podcast to show up in the iTunes directory. The iTunes directory is the most obvious place to submit your feed. It’s the biggest podcast directory and being in it is a definite legitimizer and a good way to get some visibility.

All-in-all, it won’t likely get you a ton of new subscribers, but from a position perspective, there’s no reason not to be on this network.

I’ve created a little tutorial on how to submit your podcast feed to the iTunes directory in about two minutes. It’s straight out of my product Repurposing Essentials.

If you like the video, but aren’t quite ready to purchase Repurposing Essentials, I’m guessing you like free stuff. If I’m right, make sure to check out my audio program and transcript, Leveraged Marketing Basics and learn how to turn one hour into a successful marketing plan.

I’ve recently been using the questions feature on linkedin.com to find out what people are struggling with when it comes to their audio and video in their businesses.

This week I had one particular response that I think exemplifies a lot of people’s concerns. They want to get into podcasting and things like that, but aren’t sure how to get started when on a tight budget.

My question:

What questions do you have about using audio or video in your marketing or product development efforts (info products, podcasts, online videos etc).

Linked In response:

I would like to know how with a limited budget my marketing team (i.e me!) could put together podcasts in house. I want to use this to market to customers (newsletter type format) and potential clients. I also work with a large channel partner and I need to keep their field sales abreast of our propositions.

My advice:

Hi Rik,

Podcasts are great because they hardly require a budget at all.

You can go as low tech and low price as recording with your phone on a free bridge line like http://freeaudioconferencing.com or as high tech as building a full recording studio in your office.

I would suggest starting off with your phone or a USB microphone (http://www.zzounds.com/a–993997/item–ALEUSBPODCASTMIC) and playing with the audio with Audacity (download the software for free at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/).

You can then publish your podcast with wordpress, a blogging utility. Either use wordpress.org and install on you own hosting account or simply use wordpress.com and have them host it for you. If you use wordpress.com, you’ll want to purchase two upgrades: custom domain and a hosting upgrade so you can have your own domain name and upload mp3 files. Either way, you can have this all for about $30-40 per year!

You’ll want to set up a feedburner.com account too. This helps you track who subscribes and gives you all sorts of cool tools.

Then, submit your feedburner feed url to directories using podpusher.com and submit to the iTunes directory by installing the free iTunes software and clicking on the “podcasts” button and entering your feed url from feedburner.

If any of the above makes your head spin, you can email me at caleb@northbankaudio.com and we can either set up a consultation or you can simply delegate the work to us so you can focus on your content.

I hope this helps!

Caleb Scoville
North Bank Audio Solutions
http://www.northbankaudio.com