Sound effects, whether it’s background music, actual effects or audio clips that you insert into your podcasts and audio lessons can change, dramatically, how good your audio lesson or educational podcast will be.
Don’t believe me? Go ahead and listen to the first 5 minutes of episodes one and two from the podcasts Serial and Startup. Pay attention to how different audio sound effects are used throughout, and what the effect does to you as the listener. Does it make you pay attention? Build suspense? Highlight a key point? Change the monotony and pace of the story?
The answer is that all of the above. Great sound effects dramatically improve audio lessons, courses and educational podcasts.
Curios to try it out yourself? Analyze how we use sound in one of our lessons of Pricing Strategy.
So how do you use audio to improve your lessons? We’ve analyzed the first few episodes of Startup and Serial to show you how it’s done. Here are our takeaways from each:
Serial episodes one and two:
‘Startup’ also has great takeaways:
As you can see, it’s critical to use sound effects to improve your audio lessons and podcasts. The difference it makes is tangible to the listener and can make a huge impact on a student trying to learn the material and maintain focus. Luckily, it’s definitely doable. There’s no rocket science involved, just attention to detail and acting along these five principles we’ve compiled from our research (which you can read more about here: Use sound to improve your podcast).