Use online voice to make a more personal connection

Audio can be an ideal medium for business owners – especially speakers, trainers, consultants, coaches, and other entrepreneurs – to spread their message and promote their business. It makes for a stronger communication than just written text, and it’s easier to produce than a high-quality video.

In the past, providing voice over the Internet was expensive and difficult. The internet was slow, special software was required and the quality was poor. But this is no longer the case. It’s now easy to deliver high-quality, fast-loading audio content to your website.

Why the sound?

Here are some of the benefits of using audio on your website and in other ways:

• Make a personal connection: Audio creates a more personal connection than a written text, because the audience hears your voice.
• Create an experience: Combine music, voice, sound effects, and more into an experience that is richer than typed text.
• Portable Audio Devices: People don’t have to listen on their computers, and they can do so while multitasking.
• Easy to create: It’s easy to record audio – all you need is a microphone.
• Teach something: Some of your teaching materials may well translate into audio.
• Take Control: It’s relatively easy to record, edit, and publish audio yourself.
• Gaining a Competitive Edge: Despite these many advantages, most businesses do not use VoIP effectively.

why now?

There are three things that make VoIP possible and attractive:

• Better tools: There are easy tools to create and publish high-quality audio clips online. You no longer need specialized complex hardware and software.
• Broadband Internet: The cost of broadband Internet has come down, and more and more people now have access to it. In the past, the problem with audio was that downloading and streaming audio was bad for some time – jerky stock audio. Broadband has now enabled higher quality audio streaming and easier downloading of large audio files.
• MP3 Players and Embedded Players: In the past, there were many different audio formats and players. So it was very easy to see if users can listen to your audio clips. Now this has sorted itself into two standards: MP3 as the de facto standard for audio files; And HTML5 or Flash as a technology commonly used to play audio on websites.

What content works best in audio?

There are many types of content you can post – here are just a few:

• ArticlesRead newsletter articles out loud.
• teleseminars: Record your webinars and publish the recordings.
• Webinars: If your webinars are too invisible, you can publish them as audio as well.
• CD excerpts: If you have already created products on CDs, convert them to downloadable MP3 files.
• interviewsInterview other experts, or ask them to interview you.
• Book reviewsWhen you finish reading a book, record a brief review of the book.
• presentations: Record workshops, seminars and other presentations.
• Consultation sessionsRecord of coaching, mentoring or private consulting sessions.
• audiobooksRead your book out loud to turn it into an audio book.
• New materials: Create a completely new material!