Podcast Scriptwriting – Creating Effective Podcast Content

Podcast Writing Services – Writing a Great Podcast Script

If you’re like me, you’ve probably been listening to podcasts for several years now.  
Although the exact time and place podcasts were first broadcast is still up for debate, most people became aware of podcasts around 2005, when iTunes made it easier for people to subscribe to podcasts. Since then, podcasts have seen a constant growth in popularity.

What exactly is a podcast?

A podcast is a series of spoken word, audio episodes, focusing on a particular topic or theme, like business or hobbies, which are made available for downloading or listening via the internet. Podcasts are a great way to grow your business because they allow you to build trust with your customers by sharing your expertise and knowledge. Listeners can subscribe to podcasts with an app on their phone and listen to episodes whenever they like on their headphones, in the car or through speakers.  
 
Since most of us don’t have time to read 5,000-word blog posts, podcasts are a wonderful and convenient way to consume informative, entertaining, and engaging content. Unlike written or visual content, we can listen to podcasts when we’re at the gym, during our morning walk, or pretty much anywhere we want. Podcast statistics indicate that they are an efficient, portable, and intimate way to deliver and create content.

Why Podcasts Can Be a Super Marketing Tool for You and Your Business

You may be wondering what podcasts are and how they can benefit you as an entrepreneur or business.

Well, a podcast is an episodic series of audio files containing spoken words, interviews, music, or other sounds and focusing on a particular theme or topic – such as business, a hobby, or a particular kind of entrepreneurship.

What makes podcasts such an appealing medium for listeners is the ease with they can be accessed. They’re a convenient way to consume informative, entertaining, and engaging content. Unlike written or visual content, people can listen to podcasts whether they at the gym, out for a morning walk, or pretty much doing anything.

But still, you might be asking, why should you care about podcasts?

Why You Should Take Podcasting Seriously

If you’re a businessperson, entrepreneur, or someone with a message or ideas to communicate, a podcast can be a powerful and inexpensive way for you to communicate your message to your target audience. It’s also a fantastic tool for promoting what you have to offer.  
 
With a podcast, you can share your ideas, thoughts, and solutions with potential customers in format that’s easily-consumable. It’s a great way for you to build authority and credibility with potential customers.

Podcasts Create Value for Listeners as Lifestyle Brands

One reason why you should care is because the effectiveness of podcasts as marketing tools. A recent article about podcasts suggests that it might be useful to think of them as lifestyle brands.

The Kansas-based marketing company Limelight Marketing explains that lifestyle brands “embody the values, beliefs, aspirations, and attitudes of their particular target audience.”

Lifestyle brands have emotional connections because they tap into and affect our emotions, aspirations and life beliefs. This connection implants lifestyle brands in people’s personal identities, creating a sense of belonging to a community or a mindset they admire.

A person’s podcast tastes, therefore, can be seen as reflecting their lifestyle and connection with a certain community.

Podcasts: an Emotionally Charged Medium

All of this suggests, therefore, that listeners are attracted to podcasts for much deeper reasons than just a desire to efficiently consume information and be entertained.

For their listeners, podcasts are an emotionally charged media channel. When listeners tune into their favourite podcast, they’re looking to make a connection. They’re seeking community, inspiration, as well wanting to answer their deep curiosity.

A listener’s choice in podcast doesn’t just reflect their personal preferences, it also, a bit like a strategically placed coffee table book, signals to friends and family who they are and what they value as human beings.

Podcasts Build Community

What this means for you and your business, therefore, is that podcasts can a powerful way for you to connect with a wider audience – people who might not know either you or your brand yet, but may possibly become future customers – as well as to a niche targeted audience.

With both types of audience, you can steadily cultivate community through your content offerings and through meaningful dialogue. Listeners belonging to your niche audience are likely to share your content within their niche. At the same time, your wider audience may also be spurred by the value they find in your podcast to share your content.

Why Podcasts Can Be a Boon to You and Your Business

In April 2022, iHeartMedia and Publicis Media (PMX) shared the results of their “Exploring The Brand Benefits of Trust & Companionship in Audio” study.

Their findings reveal a unique opportunity for you and your business, and the findings highlight the reasons why entrepreneurs and businesses should care about podcasts:

1. Podcasts are the ultimate lifestyle product. Podcasts easily fit into literally anybody’s lifestyle. The easy-going nature of audio listening seamlessly meshes with the pattern of our lives.
2. There’s a podcast for everyone. Podcasts have the capacity to build their own communities, so that there’s really no such thing as “too many podcasts.” Podcast listeners are open minded and curious, and turn to podcasts to find out more about what interests them.
3. There’s a sound scientific reason why podcast ads work so well. The scientific fact is that audio is more memorable and elicits a stronger emotional charge in us than other types of media. Our brains are wired to retain audio messages in story form. This goes long way to explain why digital audio advertisements break through to their audiences so often.

WISE ON WORDS Can Help You with Your Podcast

Podcasts Can Be an Effective Tool to Leverage Your Business

Podcasts can do more than just divert user traffic to your other social media channels. They can also garner loyal audiences for you and your brand.

Podcasts aren’t just for marketing. They also help to educate and connect with your customers at a deeper level while building a community.

At a time when all brands want to maximise their presence across the social media platforms, podcasts are a powerful tool you should be considering very seriously.

Launching a podcast can feel overwhelming if you’re doing it by yourself, but you don’t have to do it alone.

The best podcasts start with a well-written script. Having a professionally written scripts before you produce your first episodes is a great way to maintain consistency in all future episodes. WISE ON WORDS can help you with this.

Interested In How My Podcasts Can Help You?
Get In Contact, And Let’s Find Out How I Can Help.
Call Dennis: Mobile +1 647 915 178

5 Types of Podcasts

The Podcast Scriptwriting Process: From Idea to Audio

If you’re considering starting your own podcast, there are a few popular podcast formats to consider. 

1. Scripted fiction: Scripted fiction podcasts are audio-only theatrical productions. Some fictional podcasts might tell a single serialized story – rather like a TV show or audiobook or they could tell a new story with each episode. My friend David Doucette’s podcast – Dead in Japan – is a good example of this format.
2. Interview: Interview-style podcasts typically have a host or pair of co-hosts who conduct an interview with a person of interest, similar to a TV talk show.
   The NextGen Business Podcast, which I co-host with Linda Ockwell-Jenner is an example of this format.
3. Monologue: This type of podcast involves a single individual who produce monologue or solo podcasts. They might be an expert in a particular field with information to share, a storyteller, comedian, or news anchor.
4. Nonfiction storytelling: One of the most popular types of podcasts is storytelling podcasts that retell true stories. These podcasts may contain interviews with those involved in the story or an expert with knowledge of the story. Criminal podcast is an award-winning true crime podcast which fits within this category.
5. Conversational: Another popular podcast format involves a panel of hosts who record themselves having interesting and entertaining conversations on a specific topic. This could include comedy, sports, pop culture, science, history, and more.

A PODCAST SCRIPT EXAMPLE – From Script to Going Live

The following example presents the of part of a script I wrote for the award-winning true crime podcast The Minds of Madness.

SCRIPT TYPE: # 4. Nonfiction storytelling 

Stage 1: Research Source Material 
 
A_____________ Case – Draft Script for The Minds of Madness Podcast 

Title: TBD 
 
by Dennis LM Lewis  
 
Witnesses still struggling one year after deadly Yonge Street van attack 

Liam CaseyThe Canadian Press 
Published Monday, April 22, 2019 4:38PM EDT 

TORONTO — The survivor guilt settled in moments after he saw all the bodies. Later came the fear of walking Yonge Street again. 

He grew hyper-aware of sounds and people around him, looking for anything out of place. And driving his company’s white van became a struggle. 

“For the longest time I was worried about my brakes,” said Dion Fitzgerald. “If I saw someone crossing at a crosswalk, I would brake like a block away.” 

The 43-year-old father was one of many Torontonians whose lives were changed forever that sunny afternoon on April 23, 2018. 

It was 1:27 p.m. when Fitzgerald signed out of Eva’s Satellite, where he worked with about 30 troubled teens and young adults. He was walking down Yonge Street in north Toronto to get lunch when he saw the first body. 

He immediately worried that it was one of the young people he worked with, but as he got closer Fitzgerald realized it was an older man on the ground, one he didn’t recognize. 

“He was already gone,” he said. 

Soon, police arrived at the scene and witnesses described seeing the man get hit by a white Ryder van, which also struck and killed several others. 

“I need to check on my 30 young people, to see if they were hurt,” Fitzgerald recalls thinking, as most of them were without parents. 

As he continued to search for familiar faces, Fitzgerald came across body after body — some of them dead, some of them grievously injured. 

“There was a lot of blood. One woman’s legs were mangled. I had never seen flesh torn apart like that,” he said in a recent interview, choking up. “At this point for me, I’m really seeing a lot of death, a lot of people who were going about their day and unnecessarily died or were injured.” 

As Fitzgerald would later hear on the news, 10 people had been killed in the van attack, and 16 others wounded. Alek Minassian, now 26, was charged in the attack and faces a lengthy murder trial that is scheduled for next year. 

It was only later, once Fitzgerald was back at the shelter and scouring the news for information on the incident, that the guilt settled in. He learned of other witnesses who stayed with the injured, saying they didn’t want them to be alone. 

“What really hit me was I didn’t stay with anybody,” Fitzgerald said. “I kept moving.” 

In the weeks and months that followed, he questioned his actions. He tried to process his emotions through painting, but found he couldn’t finish his piece. 

“It was too difficult,” he said. 

Exposure to a traumatic event can affect people over the short term, disrupting their sleep or causing them to avoid certain areas, said Francoise Mathieu, a psychotherapist in Kingston, Ont., who specializes in secondary trauma. 

It can be particularly difficult when the event is in the spotlight because that brings daily reminders, Mathieu said. 

And when the effects are intense and last longer than a month, that person may meet the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder, she said. 

While research on secondary trauma began in the late 90s, it has taken a long time for the phenomenon to be widely recognized, she said. The fifth and most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which defines and classifies mental disorders, was the first to include secondary trauma, she said. 

“It used to be that in order to develop PTSD you had to have experienced the trauma yourself but we’re now recognizing that that’s not always the case,” she said. 

The first anniversary of a loss or disaster is particularly meaningful, but can also cause certain feelings to resurface in survivors, witnesses and others who are struggling, Mathieu said. 

For them, it may be better to honour the milestone without re-exposing themselves to media about the incident, she said. Support systems are also important in helping people deal with trauma, she said. 

Among those who have begun researching the nascent field of secondary trauma is one of the witnesses of last year’s attack. 

Tiffany Jefkins was out for a picnic with her 10-month-old daughter and two others at Mel Lastman Square when she heard a loud bang coming from Yonge Street. She saw a white van strike four pedestrians. 

She strapped her daughter into the stroller, put her friend in charge and ran for the street to put her first-aid training to use. 

The first wounded person she saw was bleeding profusely from the abdomen but someone else was already stanching the flow, so Jefkins turned her attention to another injured person. That woman had no pulse and wasn’t breathing, so Jefkins started administering CPR. 

She then asked someone else to take over and went to check on the others, instructing stunned bystanders to lend a hand as she carried on. Three of the people she helped died, and Jefkins said she doesn’t know what happened to the fourth. 

Now Jefkins, who is doing her doctoral research at the University of Toronto on secondary trauma, says she’ll interview those who’ve witnessed traumatic events, from mass casualty events to cardiac arrests, to see how they are doing and to identify gaps in care. 

“How can you ask these people to help if they’re going to come away with potential post-traumatic stress-like symptoms?” Jefkins said. “If we know what happened to them, we can give them appropriate help.” 

Shortly after the attack, a counsellor visited the youth shelter where Fitzgerald worked to help staff and the community process what had happened. 

The counsellor told Fitzgerald he had done his job that day in trying to care for his group — but Fitzgerald said it took a long time for him to believe that. Fitzgerald also spoke to his doctor and a mentor, which helped, he said. He’s open to seeing a professional to discuss his mental health, thinking there could be some symptoms of PTSD. 

It took him a week before he could set foot on Yonge Street again. His first stop: the small memorial for the man he had seen on the ground, the first victim he’d encountered. 

In green marker on a nearby pole he read the words: “Here died the greatest man to ever walk the earth. I love you grandpa.” 

That got to Fitzgerald, being a new grandfather. Yet returning to Yonge Street helped him in his healing process. 

Now he makes a point to walk that stretch regularly, he said. 

“There’s some guilt still lurking, but I do know I was doing my job,” Fitzgerald said. “Nobody else in that mess at that time would have been looking for those young people. It was me that had to do that to ensure they were safe.” 

— With files from Paola Loriggio 

 Judge finds Toronto van attack killer guilty of murder

Adam Carter · CBC News · Posted: Mar 03, 2021 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: March 3, 2021 
 
After the proceedings, Crown attorney Joe Callaghan recited the names of the victims who died on April 23 and recognized the survivors and the families of the victims. He also praised the efforts and work of police, paramedics and other first responders as well as Good Samaritans who saved lives and comforted those who died before addressing Molloy’s decision. 

“The Crown is pleased with her Honour’s thoughtful and reasonable verdict and grateful for her Honour’s careful assessment of the evidence and insightful application of the law,” Callaghan said. 

“Based on all the evidence in this case, this was the fair and just result.” 

Robert Forsyth, whose 94-year-old aunt Betty Forsyth died after being hit from behind by Minassian, said he welcomed Molloy’s decision. 

“It was clear he knew what he was doing.” 

Catherine Riddell, who suffered serious injuries after being struck by Minassian, said her years-long anxiety has abated. 

“I probably will sleep tonight for the first time in a while,” she said. 

Mayor John Tory issued a statement moments after the ruling was announced, calling on residents to stand together “against the evil” seen on April 23 and renew the commitment of preventing a similar tragedy from happening again. 

“Since that day we have been working to help the survivors heal and move forward and to support the families as they mourn. I truly hope that for the victims and their families and friends, today’s verdict will help,” he wrote. 

“Make no mistake, this was an attack fuelled by misogyny and hatred of women and should be treated as such. We must all stand up against this kind of hateful behaviour and those who promote it.” 

Interim Toronto Police Chief James Ramer issued a statement to say he hope the community will be able to “turn a page” and focus on healing. He also thanked members of the service and all the community members who came forward with information and videos. 

“The effects of that day three years ago has stayed with the families and friends of those who were murdered or injured, and those who were left behind to mourn. It has stayed with those who witnessed the horrific scene and it continues to stay with every one of the first responders who attended,” he wrote. 

“The Toronto Police Service will always remember the victims and their families as we move forward together, as a city, further away from this senseless tragedy.” 

The court heard how he told various assessors that the so-called “incel” motive was a ruse, designed to increase his notoriety. He was still a lonely virgin, however, that part was true. 

He went on to tell different doctors different reasons for his attack. He said he had “extreme anxiety” over a new job he was about to start. He also wanted to “set a world record” for kills in order to be atop an online leaderboard of mass killers. 

‘These lives were precious’: Toronto van attacker sentenced to life in prison

Liam Casey, The Canadian PressJun 13, 2022 8:06 PM 

 
Carmela D’Amico, the mother of Anne Marie D’Amico who was killed in the attack, cried for a full minute before composing herself and unleashing a tirade against her daughter’s killer. 

“You took my beautiful baby girl away from me” she said. “She was at the prime of her life, completely healthy and vibrant.” 

Haneen Najjar, whose father died in the attack, said she worried something would happen to her parents in Jordan when she immigrated to Canada in 2017 with her brother. 

“Little did I know that this fear will materialize here in Toronto, thousands of miles away from their home and in such a horrific and devastating way,” she said. 

Munir Najjar, 85, died that day. He was in town with his wife to visit their children and grandchildren. His daughter said her 15-year-old son discovered his grandfather died after recognizing a lone shoe in the street near a covered body. 

“Can anyone imagine the impact of such a disaster on a child?” she said through tears. 

Fifteen others were injured in the rampage that sent shock waves across the country. 

The judge sentenced the killer to 20 years for 15 counts of attempted murder related to those injuries, with that term to be served concurrently. 

Justice Anne Molloy, who presided over the case, said while the recent Supreme Court ruling prevents consecutive sentencing for multiple murders, the victim impact statements delivered in the case earlier Monday were still important. 

“Every single one of these lives were precious,” Molloy said, choking up, as she delivered her sentence. 

“What you said counts, it matters, it matters to me and it will matter to other people who will have to make decisions in the future.” 

A nine-year-old boy submitted a drawing, without words, as his victim impact statement. Diyon lost his mother, Renuka Amarasinghe, in the tragedy. The sketch, in coloured pencil on lined paper of the sun shining down on the boy and his mother, moved the court to tears. 

“It’s lovely,” said Molloy, who wiped away a few tears as she looked at the image. 

Eight women and two men died on April 23, 2018, when the killer, bent on infamy, angered by women who wouldn’t sleep with him and radicalized in the bowels of the internet, deliberately drove a rented van down a busy sidewalk. 

Molloy found Minassian guilty last year of 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder. 

On Monday, Molloy sentenced the killer to life for the attempted murder of Amaresh Tesfamariam, who was paralyzed in the attack. She lived for more than three years in two hospitals, her heart stopping many times, but eventually died last October as a direct results of her injuries. 

By that point, the judge had already convicted Minassian on the attempted murder count. 

“In reality, this is a murder,” Molloy said. “You killed this woman the same way you killed the other 10 people and I am imposing a life sentence.” 

Tesfamariam’s niece, Luwam Ogbaselassie, described her aunt’s life after the attack. She was paralyzed from the neck down, needed a ventilator to breathe and had to learn how to talk through it after every time her heart stopped beating. 

“Amaresh’s murder was an excruciatingly painful and traumatizing death drawn out over 3.5 years,” Ogbaselassie said. 

The killer remained quiet throughout his sentencing hearing, sitting in an ill-fitting grey suit and staring much of the time at the floor. 

Robert Forsyth told the court about his aunt, Betty Forsyth, who he called a “walking library” of family information. 

“Her presence and many untold stories are lost forever,” he said, his voice catching, as he stared at Minassian. 

Robert Anderson described his own debilitating injuries. He spent four weeks in the ICU with a brain hemorrhage, a lacerated liver that needed surgery and a sliced spleen that needed to be removed. 

“I carry on with my normal daily activities but no longer do my cycling due to dizziness,” he wrote. “My short-term memory continues to suffer from the head injuries.” 

Jun Seok Park, who now lives with permanent brain damage, hearing loss and vision problems, can’t work because of her injuries. 

“I have to worry about having a seizure and stroke every day until I die,” she wrote. 

On top of that, she said her family has since disavowed her after coming from Korea to Canada to help her for 19 months. 

“They broke relationship with me and don’t have contact with me anymore because they think I am the thing that ruined their life financially,” Park wrote. 

Ra So recalled walking with her friend, So He Chung, to the library on the day of the attack instead of taking transit due to the unseasonably warm weather. 

She and her friend were hit by the van. She looked around and saw bodies and blood everywhere but her friend, who was unconscious, was not bleeding. 

Days later, So was brought into a room with a social worker, her parents and friends to tell her that Chung had died. 

“I remember crying and screaming out my denial after her death,” she wrote. 

Cathy Riddell, who recently graduated toa canefrom a walker after years of rehabilitation, stood by as her niece read her statement — she has lifelong vision issues that making reading difficult. 

“A total stranger out for a walk on a beautiful day — how dare you,” her niece said, her voice rising with Riddell’s hand on her shoulder. 

“Who gave you the right to randomly take lives or seriously injure others just because your life wasn’t working out for you the way you wanted?” 

Betty Forsyth, Ji Hun Kim, So He Chung, Geraldine Brady, Chul Min Kang, Anne Marie D’Amico, Munir Najjar, Dorothy Sewell, Andrea Bradden, Renuka Amarasingha and Amaresh Tesfamariam died as a result of attack. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 13, 2022. 

Stage 2: Timeline of key events and facts

1. After his arrest on Apr 23, 2018, John______ provided an audio/video recorded statement to police. 
2. Born in Toronto, Nov 3, 1992. Resided in Richmond Hill. 
3. Attended Thornlea Secondary School; got diploma in Jan 2011. 
4. Got a B.A. in Software Development in Apr 2018 from Seneca College at York University.  
5. Had Facebook account from March 10, 2018 under his name. 
6. Began planning murders before Apr 2018. 
7. Apr 4, 2018, 11:15 am: made reservation over phone with Ryder for 10-foot panel van. Pick up time: Apr 23, 2018, 1 pm. 
8. Apr 23, 2018, 11:38 am, dropped off at Chapters store in Woodbridge by his father. This is captured on surveillance video. 
9. He lied to his father; told him he was going to meet a friend at Chapters. 
10. John _____ walked 4 km to Ryder Rental, arriving at 12:40 pm. 
11. Matthew Del Grosso processed the rental. 
12. John _____ said he ws goint to put furniture in the van. 
13. John _____ drove to Yonge St., south of Finch Ave. W. 
14. He saw a number of people congregated on west sidewalk of Yonge St, south of Finch Av. W. 
15. John _____ decided to begin his “mission.” 

Stage 3: Basic Outline:

• Intro 
• John ______’s family background 
• John ______’s plan 
• John ______’s mission Begins 
• John ______’s arrest 
• Booking and interrogation 
• Trial and aftermath 
• The victims’ recovery 

Stage 4: First Draft – Intro

Intro: The Internet and social media have opened up entirely new worlds of possibilities to all of us. Social media platforms offer us opportunities to build and maintain relationships, be creative, communicate ideas, express ourselves, and the power to foster a real sense of belonging.  

But sometimes these social media platforms offer people a lot more than they bargained for. And sometimes society pays the price. 

Join me now as we delve into a very disturbing online subculture and the story of a young man who was willing to go to extreme lengths to achieve fame.

Stage 5: Going Live –

Click on the link below and listen to the result. 
The Minds of Madness Podcast – Episode #142 – “7 Seconds”   

As you can see, podcasting is a fantastic tool to promote what you offer. Being a podcaster will help position you as an expert in your field, and this will, in turn, help you to build a client list of fans that already know, like and trust you.  

Hearing a voice from your company will build a connection with listeners. It will create an emotional response.  
 
You might already have a website, a blog, Facebook ads, and posters, etc. But although text and pictures can supply someone with a lot of information, they can still be very flat and dry. The reader has to work for it.

 
Hearing someone speak about things they have a vast knowledge of and display a passion for can often make a much greater impression on someone than if they simply read a quote from them. The listener will get to know you, like you and trust you.  

In 2021, nearly 12 million Canadian adults (38% of the 18+ population) listened to podcasts. And in the US, it’s estimated by 2024 there could be over 100 million podcast listeners.  
 
Globally, there are around 384 million people who listen to podcasts. 
 
WISE ON WORDS can help you on your podcast journey. WISE ON WORDS can help you with the research and the crafting of the dialogue, outline, and action for your podcast. Writing a podcast script is a key way to ensure that your audio is clear, tight, and valuable for your listeners. You don’t have to write out every word you intend to say, but it’s important to have notes for each episode so you keep on track.