Podcasts are an extremely powerful tool for marketing and establishing a reputation. However, they have one weakness. They aren’t interactive.
Getting your audience truly involved in your podcast requires some element of interactivity. They need to be part of the podcast to have a stake in it. But podcasts are pre-recorded so how can you involve your audience?
In this article I’m going to show you how to make a podcast interactive. While you can’t make a podcast interactive directly — that would involve a live podcast — you can make it appear interactive. Since a live podcast is a contradiction in terms, the trick is to include delayed live interactions. Here are four examples:
1. Always ask for emails comments and questions.
No matter what you teach it’s always a good idea to ask for questions. After all, no one is going to completely understand what you have taught during a podcast. If they do then you probably shouldn’t have made the podcast so comprehensive in the first place. Questions not only help you increase the interactivity of your podcast but they’re also a great source of topics and market research. The best place to discover new topics and related products is to ask your customer base. In the case of a podcast, that means your audience.
2. Have an “Our listeners ask” column.
This is the other side of the question and emails. If you have a column format podcast you should always — maybe even must — have an “Our listeners ask” column. This column will allow you to answer questions your audience has asked — or should have asked. Even if you to make them up yourself!
3. Have a recorded Q & A session.
While the podcast itself can’t actually be live and still be a podcast, there’s no reason it can’t be recorded live. One of the techniques you can use to increase interactivity is to record a live question and answer session. This is a teleseminar in which your audience and customers can call in and ask questions. In return you’ll do your best to answer those questions. A coaching call is a great source for this as your coaching clients are already primed to ask questions.
4. Have a listener interview the host.
One of the great techniques for creating a podcast is to interview an expert. But what happens if you turn that around. What if you are being interviewed? The temporary host will be perceived as someone who is on the same level as your audience. It will be as if they were interviewing you. The result will be an interactive recording. Quickly and easy!
