Having a written record of your podcast sounds counterintuitive. But transcribing your podcast has some real advantages.
A true podcast transcript is a word-for-word account of everything that was said during the episode. That means somewhere along the line you need to either have one made or do it yourself, which sounds time-consuming.
With that taken into consideration, is there really a benefit to getting your podcast episodes transcribed? And, more importantly, how can you make getting one as easy and inexpensive as possible?
Why should you transcribe your podcast?
While podcast transcripts do add more work to your schedule (even if it's just a few minutes), there are some serious benefits. From reaching new audiences to creating killer content, having a text copy of your episode audio is important.
1. Accessibility
Transcriptions can burst the accessibility door right open for your podcast.
The World Health Organization reports that 5.5% of the world's population — that's over 600 million people— experience some degree of hearing loss. While podcasting is an audio-first medium, providing a written record of what was said can help those that aren't able to hear well (or at all) access your content.
But it's not just those that experience hearing loss that benefits from having access to an audio podcast transcript. Non-native speakers can also enjoy your podcast on a more engaging level. And having access to a transcript helps clear up any parts of the discussion that might have been hard to understand.
2. Search engine optimization
It's 2021, and we find most things on the internet by asking search engines, like Google, for recommendations. While indexing the actual content of an audio or video file is becoming more available, it doesn't quite have the same impact text-based content does (yet, anyway).
Everything from your show notes and title to the metadata you input helps Google better understand what your podcast is about — but you've got to be selective when writing them. A word-for-word transcript though is a naturally keyword-rich text that's perfect for search engines.
Transcripts are easily over 2,500 words, have naturally paced keywords weaved in, and provide logical connections between relevant topics without trying too hard. Making this content available can ultimately help listeners weed through the millions of pieces of content that's out there to find yours.
3. Repurposing content
Repurpose, repurpose, repurpose — it's the easiest way to promote!
While you can repurpose your video and audio content into audiograms and short clips for Tik Tok and Instagram, there are plenty of things you can do with the text. A transcript is simply a bank of written content that can easily be broken up into smaller pieces of content that can be more easily consumed and shared.
What can you do with your fancy transcript, you ask? You can:
Pull the most interesting quotes for social media
Repurpose those same quotes into graphics
Create a short or long-form blog post
Apply captions to your video files
Build an interesting infographic (that's sharable)
Also, this one person on Reddit turned their podcast into a book. Perhaps you fancy yourself an author?
How to create a podcast transcription
There are essentially three ways to get a podcast transcription made:
1. Hire a transcriptionist
Between planning, editing, publishing, and marketing, podcasting is a lot of work. So when new tasks are added, outsourcing is a great option. There are plenty of skilled transcriptionists out there that would be happy to take on the extra work — but it can get pricey.
Manual transcriptions tend to be the most accurate, which is also why they're the most expensive. You can expect to pay anywhere from $0.75 to upwards of $1.50 per audio minute. That's
$90 to $180 monthly for a 30 minute podcast published weekly. Yikes!
2. Do it yourself
Your cheapest option dollar-wise is going to be doing it yourself — isn't that always the case?
The distinct advantage of the DIY transcription model is it should never cost you a penny. Plus the assumption is you were there while the recording was taking place and you're familiar with the speakers so you should be looking at close to 100% accuracy.
But while that accuracy costs you nothing in money, you do take a hit with time. The general rule of thumb with transcription is 3:1 — that means you could easily spend 90 minutes transcribing a 30 minute podcast. With a weekly episode you're looking at adding another six hours to your schedule.
3. Use AI to transcribe
The quickest, least expensive way to get your podcast episodes transcribed is having an AI transcript created.
This is essentially where you hand over a finished audio recording and artificial intelligence that's specifically designed to convert audio into text does just that. In comparison to manual transcription services, it's done for a fraction of the time and cost.
The best news? You can do this on Zencastr! In fact, our podcast transcript generator is so easy to use, it's almost criminal.
You simply record an episode like you normally would and — there really is no and, that's all you do. Transcripts are automatically created for all recordings made by Pro users.
Once you've finished, our software will convert your podcast audio file to text and your finished transcript will appear above your audio and video files in the recording window. From there, you download it and do with it as you please.
The process really couldn't be easier.
Why use Zencastr transcripts?
Here's the thing, we sound like we're bragging (#WeAre) but we swear we're not the only ones thrilled with our transcription feature.
Kelly Grace said we read their mind, Dave added that Zencastr transcripts are a "real game changer," and J said their podcast is saving $50 per episode. If those don't sound like happy podcasters, we don't know who does.
Simply put, Zencastr transcripts are great because they:
Save time. You don't have to do anything but press "record" to get a transcript made. Not to mention, users report their Zencastr transcripts are more accurate than other services. So, we save you time on the editing end too.
Save money. Transcripts are free for pro users. You don't have to pay $1.25 audio minute like you do with Rev or stick within Otter's three uploads a month, less than 40 minutes each to keep costs low. One monthly fee, a ton of features (including transcripts)
Help maintain your privacy. We own our own language modelling AI — that means that your information doesn't have to go to a third party service at any time during the transcription process because privacy is important.
So, give Zencastr a try (we have a 14 day free trial) and let us know how you're using your podcast transcripts!
