Ask an Electronics Technician Online

How do you get prospects to actually listen to your interviews?  You are always going to have some people who toss your information. Probably a majority of the people and it depends on how you distribute the audio. If you give them the choice and you’ve described the audio of what they are going to listen to and you’ve done a good job on the production there is a good chance they won’t toss it if they are in the market for what you have created for them in that interview.

They’ll toss it if you give them a poor interview, if you’re asking questions that they don’t want to know. If you’re not covering the information through your research that they need to know. All the mistakes we’ve talked about will get them to toss your recording. But if you’ve done it right and matched your message and your expert to your market there is no reason they should toss it. If you are taking your interview and mailing it to every name in the phone book, yeah, they are going to toss it because its junk mail.

If you give people the choice to download and absorb the information on their time, by their own choice and they’ve qualified themselves by the description, the headline, of what this interview is about and what you promised to deliver, they will listen to your interview and they will listen to all of it and whatever you can provide them. I have people who tell me they’ve listened to every interview on my site. They have listened to 100 hours of my interviews. So if your content provides value they will listen to it.

Many studies have proven that radio is a good medium for product advertisements. People listen to the radio for entertainment, usually to listen to the latest music or to their favorite radio program. In between the program, advertisements on products and services are being played.

For many years, this has been the trend in advertising. But now that the radio medium is almost behind the audio-visual medium, the TV, and the Internet, other marketing strategies have to be employed to continue the benefits of advertising through audio.

It is then that the benefits of using music on websites were discovered. Before, music on the Internet was just available in downloadable forms as mp3. Even through hosting downloadable music on their servers, companies were able to get much traffic on their sites. And everyone engaged in Internet marketing knows that website traffic plays a big role in boosting product and service sales.

However, there had been a problem with illegal music download in which artists, musicians and record companies have lost millions of revenues.

Then, came the popularity of Internet music streaming. Unlike the former, radio streaming does not allow download of the music files. Thus, the copyrights of the artists and record label owners are protected.

So, how can this be done? There are several ways to stream audio from your site. First, is to stream a radio program from your site or blog. You can find free affiliate programs that allow you to stream their radio content from your site.

What will this mean to you? This means that your site will have new audio content every time it is visited. What’s even great is that the content is being updated even without much effort from you.

In this case, what you needed to do is to signup with an Internet radio station and have the link embedded on your blog or website.

Another way is to stream mp3s. To do this, you just need to upload your mp3files on a server and add the files’ links to the page. When the link is clicked, the browser opens a media player window and plays a file. However, since the file is in mp3 format, it may also be downloaded. Downloading music files without the authorization of the copyright owner is illegal. Therefore, if you will be using this type of streaming, make sure that you have the appropriate permit to do so.

A third way to add audio to you blog or website is to stream music through organizing playlists. Playlists are m3u files, which if downloaded, will not play music if offline. Using this process, however, can be complex. Here is a short instruction on how to do it.

1. Save your mp3 or wma file on the server. You may skip this step if you know that the file exists on another server and know the link to that file. Make sure that the link has a .mp3 or .wma extension.

2. Open your text editor and type the path to the file.   Include the http:// and the file extension. Repeat this step until you have included all the links to the files that you would like to be included in the playlist.

3. Save the playlist with a .m3u extension.

4. Upload the m3u file on the directory where the music files are hosted or to your server.

5. Open your html editor and embed the link to the m3u file. Through this, you can also set if you want to have the playlist to autoplay if someone visits your site of if you want your visitor to control playing the music. You can also set the volume level.

After the code is embedded on the html file, and whenever your site is visited, the songs in the playlist will be buffered, streamed and played one after another. If your playlist has several songs, the user can skip forward or go back a song in the playlist using the media player controls.

Doing this setup works for many website owners. Through this you can customize the type of music being played on your site. You can even play recordings related to your product to boost product awareness.

It requires knowledge of html to be done. But if it will be the best way to increase traffic to your site, why not request assistance from programmers. After all, having audio on a website is a proven way to increase sales.

If I was just starting my information product business and had no profile, this is what I’d do in order to get started.

I’d quickly try to establish myself as an expert. But I’d leverage off the expertise of others.

Now the top guys in your industry or field may not know you. But they do know each other.

So, I’d try to position myself as a kind of public relations expert.

I’d go to each expert in the field I’m interested in and say: “I’ve got this idea. I’m putting together a book with a compilation of audio interviews on the world’s greatest copywriters”.

And if my field was something else, say music or health, I’d do exactly the same thing. I’d try to talk to them on the phone and really project a passion for what I was proposing.

But if I couldn’t get them on the phone I’d try to project it in an email. I’d say: “I’m planning on interviewing Bob Bly, Clayton Makepeace, Joe Vitale, John Carlton and Ted Nicholas. I’d also like to interview you”.

I’d explain that I’m going to turn the interviews into transcripts which in turn will become a book that I plan on getting up on Amazon. I’d tell them about a Web site dedicated to the book.

That I’d be doing joint ventures…And that “I’m going to promote this like you wouldn’t believe”.

They’d be crazy not to come onboard.

Why?  Because by grouping them with other experts in their field, I’m reinforcing the perception that they too are an expert.

Plus, I’m doing all the promotion and distribution that they can leverage of.

Think about all the experts who contributed to the smash hit documentary, the Secret; people like Bob Proctor and Jack Canfield.

How better known are they because of their participation in that film.

It’s a no-brainer when you think about it. Try it some time.

The first step to put up an audio file is to upload it onto your site. You can use your ftp and don’t forget the URLs for audio files. The size of your files matters and smaller files work better than larger ones. Midis work better than .wav files and .au files although .au files aren’t bad. You can put audio up on your website by linking it to your web pages. Html users have the code to create a link which is more or less:

{a href=”xyz.wav”}Text here{/a}

In this example “xyz.wav” is the URL of the audio file that you want to link to your site. “Text here” is something which will show up as the link. You must use < and > instead of {and} when you are actually forming a link through such a code.

Another useful way to add audio is to embed sounds so that a tiny control panel appears on your web page that the visitor can use. Your panel can also give the user the option to turn the sound on/off. Remember that having the sound automatically play will add on to a page’s download time. So, automatic sound loads aren’t encouraged because browsers prefer fast-opening sites. You can even change the size and volume of your control panel to suit your needs.

There are certain technical attributes that show what kind of audio you have. “autostart=”true/false” will determine if the sound will automatically upload. “True” means that the sound will start automatically with the opening of your webpage while false means the flip side. You can use audio on your site in three ways. Audio testimonials can be added with written statements to improve your content’s credibility. They’re also fun and interesting! Audio greetings that run automatically or play upon clicking make your site creative and personal. An audio version of your guarantee policy or other important content is also a good idea and lends the statements more weight.

When adding sound to your website, apart from all the technical aspects of it, make sure that it’s tastefully done and nothing becomes too annoying. After all, you want to keep your visitors happy. Automatic sound uploads slow your site down and can even be annoying to web browsers. Make sure that all sound playing has the option of being turned off. Your sounds or song clips should be relevant to your web content, don’t add sound for no reason. If the sounds aren’t gelling with content, they’ll become as memorable as elevator music. At the same time, you don’t want blaring ‘too memorable’ sounds that practically induce head aches.

Digital audio books have rapidly gained in popularity over the last few years due to their convenience. In the past listening to audio books meant having to deal with multiple cassettes. Tapes were cumbersome and made it inconvenient to listen to a long story. Also cassette tapes could be troublesome due to the fact that they were so prone to damage from heat, etc. When CDs entered the picture they certainly changed the world of audio books for the better. However CDs were still cumbersome and inconvenient albeit less so than tapes.

What has truly revolutionized the audio book industry is downloadable digital audio books. You just can’t beat the convenience of a digital file for a good number of reasons. For one thing, you no longer have to worry about storing and caring for a bunch of cassettes and CDs. You certainly can’t scratch a digital file or break it! Now you can listen to your audio books anywhere you like with an iPod or other mp3 player. You can even listen on your PC or Mac if you like. And for listeners who occasionally require CDs (such as car stereos that don’t have an iPod input) digital audio books are the best of both worlds as they can be easily converted to a standard audio CD.

Nowadays you can find nearly every genre in audio format, from fiction to business to children’s books. And with publishers rapidly releasing both new titles and old classics you’re sure to find nearly all of the titles you would want.