Podcasts owe much of their popularity to being on-demand audio programs. Even with video podcasts, listeners can engage with the content while doing other activities. However, the main feature that contributed to make podcasts so popular can be a barrier for those with hearing issues and for those who are not understanding the host's language.

While audio may be the backbone of a podcast, there can be many valid reasons why podcasters should expand beyond just sound and include written content in their work.

Transforming spoken content into accessible text format has never been so easy: you can easily produce a podcast transcript.

New to podcasting? Let's understand exactly what podcast transcription is, what it serves for, its benefits, and how to get it.

What is podcast transcript?

Podcast transcript is simply converting an audio file into written text.

When transcribed, a podcast results in a document that reports word-for-word the whole episode.

This should not be confused with translation, which the episode would be transcribed into any other language different from the original.

Transcriptions for podcasts can exist in various formats: .pdf, .doc, or .docx.

Why is it important to transcribe podcast content?

There are several reasons:

1. Understanding and Inclusivity

As mentioned earlier, understanding audio content can be a serious challenge for those with hearing impairments. In the United States, about 50 million people, or just under 15% of the total population, have hearing problems.

Consider that 42% of Americans between 50 and 64 and 28% of those over 65 listen to podcasts. Being these age groups sensitive to hearing loss, not transcribing content could mean a significant reduction of audience.

Moreover, we live in an era where cultures blend, and in particular contexts, like big metropolises, large communities of people do not speak the same native language.

For instance, in the U.S. in 2022, about 45 million residents spoke Spanish as their mother tongue; this total represents over 13% of the U.S. population, almost as much as the entire population of Spain and more than the entire population of Argentina.

About a third of these residents speak or understand English sufficiently, while many understand it minimally.

Providing a transcription of your content is therefore a significant advantage for the user and also for the podcaster, who can expand their program to a much more varied audience.

Recently, SiriusXM, Stitcher, and Pandora, three very popular digital media platforms, were sued by the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) and Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) for not producing transcriptions of their podcasts on their streaming platforms.

The lawsuit aims to limit or end the exclusion of deaf and hard of hearing Americans. These associations argue that the failure to offer transcription services violated the American with Disabilities Act and other laws concerning the civil rights of American citizens.

It is best not to treat this issue lightly or with total disinterest.

Moreover, if your podcast transcripts are translated into other languages, you will increase your engagement rate by allowing listeners from different countries to enjoy sharing your content.

This might seem unimportant if you run your podcast in the USA, but consider that if you cover a very niche topic, your domestic market alone might be insufficient.

Even if the content is broadcast in English, you could benefit from significantly large markets, such as Chinese or Arabic, if you use software that supports these languages.

2. Increased Visibility

As you may already know, search engines cannot currently detect keywords in audio content.

Therefore, using them within the written texts you produce from your content can be very effective.

The presence of keywords or key phrases in titles, transcriptions, and your blog articles represents what we know as an SEO strategy.

By implementing your SEO strategy,  you will improve the communication with the search engine to enable it to find and positively evaluate your content, and subsequently make it visible to the public (ranking).

Transcription can thus be a valid aid to help you generate SEO-Friendly texts for your blog, which will help you increase your visibility.

In 2014, the podcast "This American Life" published research based on data collected over about three years.

It resulted that all factors analyzed in that research benefited significantly from a targeted SEO strategy.

Although this research contains outdated data, it can still help you understand how crucial it is to communicate correctly with search engines.

Here's a chart with the percentages:

3. More Control Over Content

Evaluating content through transcription and not exclusively in audio format can be of great help:

• If the episode is extensive, you can quickly locate the content segment you are looking for.

• If there are murmurs or filler words (like "um") spoken during the speech, seeing them transcribed could help you improve the overall flow of the content.

• If you interrupted excessively during a debate or interview, the transcription will show it.

• If you are not the one editing the episode, providing a transcript of the content can be a great help to your collaborator.

4. Transforming Transcription into Snippets for Social Media

Transcripts are an excellent basis for producing material for social media.

You can extract short and incisive phrases (snippets) and pair them with captivating images to promote your content better.

5. Creating Material for Newsletters

If your mailing list has enough numbers to allow you to create a newsletter, the transcription of your podcast content could be a life saver.

That alone could be the extra value you need to give your followers as the incentive they deserve for their loyalty.

This will not only be a welcome bonus, but will also ensure that your listeners, now readers, happily open the emails you share, including those with the call to action that you occasionally use to monetize your podcast.

6. Improving User Experience

Some users prefer reading to listening, and others unfortunately cannot rely on a reliable internet connection.

Then there are those who are not interested in the entire content and prefer to skip to the point of interest, or those who are looking for a particular moment, such as the sharing of a promotional code, and do not want to re-listen to the entire episode. Podcast transcription thus offers significant benefits in terms of user experience, also increasing the likelihood of generating leads after listening.

In the case of users who engage in a podcast while driving or other types of activities and cannot write it down or can't remember it, finding a promo code or an affiliate link quickly in the transcription can be handy.

7. Support for Affiliate Strategies / Lead Generation

Podcast transcripts lend themselves well as sales support tools. You can insert affiliate links to the products you promote in the text or use them to generate leads, such as by inviting to download a promotional code.

8. Converting Audio into Reports and Briefings

If your podcast is the result of teamwork, or if you are thinking of proposing companies to monetize your content, leveraging transcriptions to produce reports and briefings can be an effective strategy.

Summarizing the episode, or multiple episodes, in a well-crafted report will help anyone who needs it to easily retrieve the data they need to stay updated on the progress of the podcast.

You can also create concept maps that will help visualize and understand the topics discussed even for those not part of your team.

9. Evidence in Case of Legal Issues

It is not a frequent event, but should you ever encounter legal problems or misunderstandings with sponsors, always having a transcript of the content archived and well classified will help you quickly resolve any potential problems.

10. Transcripts can generate a ROI

It is not a particularly common practice, but transcriptions can be presented as exclusive content and offered to users as a paid bonus.

How to Create the Transcription of Content

There are three ways to produce the transcription of a podcast:

1. Manual Transcription: This type of transcript is the most accurate, but it has the disadvantage of long production times.

2. If you do it yourself, you will obviously have to give up a good part of your time available for producing content and dedicate yourself entirely to transcription. Keep in mind that a word-for-word translation could take up to 5-6 times the duration of your episode. If, on the other hand, you commission it to an external transcriber, even assuming you have one on hand, the operation could take a day or even more. Costs can vary: generally, we are talking about $1 - 1.50 per minute for a freelance, but you could easily reach $3 per minute if you decide to rely on a specialized agency. If you are looking for a freelancer, here is the link to the Fiverr platform where you can find several candidates, both for the English language and for foreign languages.

3. 4. Transcription from the Platform: Apple Podcasts offers a transcription service that allows the user to view the entire text, which during listening is synchronized with the audio content. Transcripts are organized by the name of the speaker and divided into chapters when necessary. This service is now available on iOS 17.4 for podcasts in English, French, German, and Spanish. Unfortunately, it is not yet possible to do the same on other important directories like Spotify or YouTube.

4. Transcription with Software: Today, there are many software programs on the market that can produce your transcriptions accurately and quickly. Many offer AI features that allow you to benefit from the equivalent support of a studio assistant. If that's not enough, the cost per minute of transcription drops to about $0.10 per minute. Among the things an AI software for podcasts can help you do using episode transcriptions are:

• Creating Posts to share on social media

• Processing SEO-Friendly articles for your blog

• Short videos of viral moments from audio clips

• Transforming the audio of a podcast into an e-book

• Creating notes for each episode

I tried PodcastAI and found it truly innovative: it allows me to optimize the entire editing process, transcribe episodes, and extract viral moments from my content. But be careful: Podcast AI is not just software for transcriptions. It is a real virtual assistant that takes care of the entire post-production process for me. And as if that weren't enough, it allows me to speak other languages or to create voices alternative to my own. I purchased the Pro plan, more expensive but with more features, but the Basic plan is excellent and has everything you need to make any podcast happy at any level. If you want to see how it works, give it a try today! If you are only interested in transcribing the contents of your podcast, or if you do not need AI automation features at 360 degrees, here are some specific software options:

• Otter.ai: This service offers relatively accurate real-time transcripts. It's easy to use, and its collaborative features allow users to edit and share documents.

• Descript: This software not only transcribes but also offers audio and video editing tools based on the transcript. Descript is particularly useful for podcasters who want to edit their episodes by cutting directly through the transcribed text.

• Sonix: Sonix is another powerful automatic transcription tool that provides quick and fairly accurate transcriptions. It supports multiple languages and integrates advanced features like speaker recognition and export in various formats.

• Rev: Rev provides both automatic and manual transcripts, offering options for those who need greater accuracy. The manual service is performed by human transcribers and guarantees accuracy above 99%.

• Happy Scribe: This tool supports over 60 languages and offers both automatic and professional transcriptions. Happy Scribe also includes an online editor to review and modify transcriptions before finalization.

• Trint: Trint combines automatic transcriptions with a powerful editor that allows you to verify and correct the transcribed text. It is also possible to integrate Trint with other software, such as Adobe Premiere for video editing

Conclusion

Now you know all about transcripts and their utility to ensure greater success for your podcast. All that's left is to decide how to produce the transcriptions, and you're set!

One last tip: Would you like to know how to use your transcript to boost the popularity of your podcast? If so, read our guide: How to Convert a Podcast Episode into a Blog Post