Want a Global Audience for your Podcast?
The Era Where Hosts Became Influencers
Do you remember the popular daytime television talk program The Ellen DeGeneres Show? In 2014, The American talk show tapped into a wider audience by broadcasting its episodes to the people of China. It was the first American talk show to air in the Chinese country and was renamed “The Happy Lady Dance Hour.” Even though the show had subtitles and was streaming online, it experienced a massive increase in viewership because it reached a billion viewers in China.
Even though there are numerous cultural differences between Chinese and American culture, the show resonated with most people. Why?
Because it talked about human emotions, feelings, struggles, and other experiences that are pretty universal. This show exemplifies how people can relate to someone despite massive cultural differences. The only barrier that was there was the language barrier. In this case, subtitles and cultural adaptation helped the show break language barriers. They allowed the show to get new audiences and cast their nets wider.
Post-2014, podcasts became a thing with the rise of YouTube viewership and other auditory platforms. Like TV talk shows, the podcast format became extremely popular since people got busier and preferred listening to shows while multitasking. Let me be honest! You would agree with me if I’d say that most people won’t like reading this blog if they had a chance to hear it out loud while driving to work or while having lunch. Do you agree?
Imagine listening to a Morgan Freeman podcast, hearing his smooth, relaxing voice as he shares some of the exciting anecdotes of his life. If it’s Morgan Freeman, you would hang on to every word and might replay the episode multiple times. Right? I mean, who doesn’t love the baritone of Morgan Freeman? During the pandemic, podcasts continued growing with the rise of digital media. With portable audio devices, people can hear experiences and thoughts via audio recording. The podcast network today is also booming because of smartphones. With smartphones, people have a podcast player in their pocket! Hence, podcasts have become a new medium for distributing audio content.
Podcasts: Do All Internet Users Communicate in English?
How Can your Podcast Reach A Wider Audience?
Today, international audiences, primarily the younger generation, have a great affinity for long-form audio content. These include interviews where people share their deep thoughts about specific interests. According to a report published by Reuters, 34% of their respondents (from 20 countries) said they prefer listening to a podcast as their level of adoption for long-form content has increased.
According to Statista, only 22% of users in America knew about podcasting in 2006. By 2021, who knew that the numbers would grow exponentially? There was a 78% rise in the consumption of podcasts. Today, there are 120 million podcast listeners in America! Many forecasts suggest that these numbers will surpass the 160 million mark by 2023.
Podcasts across the globe are witnessing a surge in interest.
From cooking to politics and even UFOs a wide range of topics is available on podcasts. A recent US-based survey by Edison suggests that 54% of podcast listeners are more likely to consider the brands they hear advertised on the podcasts they listen to. If this is used as a yardstick, imagine the global impact! In Asia, podcast downloads have grown by 216% in the past year alone! The news followed by Education, Kid & Family, Social & Culture, Comedy, and Business makes for 73.5% of all downloads.
Even though these podcasting numbers seem impressive, you must remember that not all users on the internet speak or understand English! According to Statista, around 75% of internet users don’t speak English.
Therefore, as podcast producer, podcasters aiming to go global must analyse the amount of potential audience he is missing out on.
Take Podcasts From Niche to Mainstream
The Power of Culturally Relevant Voice-Over Translation
Multilingual voice-over translation of podcasts can have the same effect on podcasts as what “subtitles” had on Ellen’s Show! Voice-over translation can help a podcast reach internet users who don’t speak English, i.e., they can address the rest of 75% of the internet audience! We all know that users love buying from brands that communicate with them in their native language. The same goes for content. Therefore, podcasters can leverage the fast-growing podcast market by using multilingual voice-over translations so that they can engage with wider audiences speaking different languages.
It can help a podcast brand or business reach customers in areas where local podcasts or shows are gaining popularity. An up-and-coming podcast and increase reach manifolds by dubbing their podcasts for Indian and Chinese audiences.
Although voice-over translations can add an upfront cost to the podcast’s production, they will allow the show to reach billions of potential listeners. Avoid relying on online translators if your podcast or business wants to get this diverse and wide audience. Many websites offer voice-over services but relying on them may produce ineffective output. Never rely on average freelancers; always choose professional multilingual voice-over talent who can help you with content localisation.
Producing translated podcasts requires real skills such as localisation, cultural adaptation, and relevance. A skilled professional can help you translate the podcast so listeners worldwide can understand and enjoy it. While addressing cultural differences, multilingual voice-over talent can help you maintain linguistic accuracy. Therefore, always rely on multilingual experts offering podcast localisation services.
A professional, multilingual voice-over talent allows you to maintain the right tone, context, and dialect. When that happens, your podcast will impact the local audiences more. Hence, you’ll be able to build a stronger connection and achieve more listenership, therefore, more revenue. Let’s briefly specify what steps you can take to translate and make your podcast culturally relevant with voice-over translation.
Practices To Consider During Multilingual Voice-Over
Let’s Help You Get Listeners from All Over the World.
- Rely on Native-Speaking Linguists
A multilingual voice-over talent can be your native-speaking host for your podcasts. Such professionals can ensure that your content sounds local, relevant, and informational to the local audiences. We strongly recommend you avoid the use of free voice-over software. Such free tools sound robotic, disrupt the listening experience, and cannot mimic the exact emotion of human speech. Although you can save time and money, using them may harm your listenership. Native-Speaking Linguists are aware of the correct tones and cultural sensitivities, which allows you to deliver a better experience. Word-by-word translation and mere machine translation can also pose a risk of offending listeners unintentionally. Your content can become extremely unrelatable, making your podcast lose potential or existing listeners. A multilingual voice-over talent can use the correct idiom, phrase, tone, etc., which will help you maintain the right conversational tone of your podcast.
- Try Transcribing Your Podcast
Even before you choose a multilingual voice-over talent, you can try having a written script for your podcast. Having a script can help your brand easily create a multilingual podcast. Scripting makes localisation easier. How? Once you transcribe your podcast’s audio, editors can carefully check and review it. Native linguists can see whether the content is appropriate for local audiences. You can also repurpose the script and convert it into a blog. It will help your website rank on search engines! Your podcast episodes can rank well if you implement search engine optimisation to those scripts. You can add them as supporting text! Hence, it’ll make your investment in multilingual voice-over more profitable.
- Address Cultural Differences
Let’s take Joe Rogan’s podcast example. Rogan has a massive proportion of podcast listeners in the USA; however, his content won’t attract global audiences. Since the content originates in American English, he can solely attract audiences from the states or other English-speaking nations. His podcast may have American cultural references or references from American TV shows. Any American reference may or may not resonate with native audiences from other time zones. Apart from TV shows, there can be references from books, music, news, sports, jokes, dialects, etc. In that situation, a Spanish listener won’t get the exact idea of the discussion. Hence, they won’t return to the podcast again. Seeking help from multilingual voice-over talent can help you localise your episode, which will generate new audiences and a good ROI.
- Always Choose a Professional Voice-Over Talent
Your business might have individuals with great writing skills; your podcast may have an engaging host. However, if your local and native audiences cannot understand the essence of your content, the effort gets wasted! Like Ellen’s Show, your show can have subtitles; however, subtitles may fail to convey the subtleties of the language. If the essence is lost, there is no point in providing subtitles. Your content can maintain the right grammatical and contextual accuracy by leveraging professional translation and localisation. Support from a team that offers multilingual voice services will help you get native-speaking hosts for all your target languages.
Get Multilingual Voice Talent Who Are Subject Matter Experts
Gain the Into23’s advantage with our expertise with Voice-Over Talents in Key Markets
The demand for multilingual voice-over is growing at an exponential pace. Today, TV commercials, games, webinars, marketing campaigns, tutorials, cartoons, audiobooks, podcasts, etc., are trying to reach an international audience. Professional multilingual voice-over can help such businesses get instant recognition and brand visibility. However, finding the right native-speaking voice-over talent is difficult because the industry is full of professionals delivering substandard work.
At Into23, we offer multilingual voice-over services headed by professional male and female voice actors. These actors have an excellent experience presenting your content in the best possible light! They provide clear sound and production, ensuring your content sounds natural to your audience.
We have a professional network of affordable voice talent, offering voice-over services in 300+ languages. No matter your requirements, our team will help you find the ideal voice talent. We have a bench of multilingual voice-over talent ready to address your needs. Contact our team today to know more about our services. Click on the “Get Quote” button to get our submission form. You can fill out the form to get a quick online translation services quote.