Travis: When you first get started in podcasting, it's
almost guaranteed that you're going to make a handful of rookie
mistakes, but that doesn't mean that you have to make all the
mistakes. So in this special bonus podcast episode, we went
back through the archives of the podcasting Q and a show, and five
minute Mondays to pull together the 10 things we wish we knew
before starting our very first podcast . Now, as you're
listening to this episode, you'll hear some sound effects pop in
from time to time. And that's simply because we pulled these
clips from our YouTube channel, where we add animations and
different sequences to help visually communicate the things
we're discussing. So when those things pop up, that's what that
is. If you are wondering, but they're not overly distracting.
So you'll still be able to get the gist of what we're talking
about and hopefully be able to take one of these things and
implement it. Moving forward for your podcast to help you reach
your goals, that much faster
Sarah: Creating good audio is really key to keeping your
podcast listeners engaged because no matter how good the content
is, if your audio quality isn't good. It's unfortunately just
going to turn them away. I know what you're thinking is you
probably think you have to spend thousands of dollars on equipment
or rent a podcasting studio just to make sure everything sounds
great. And I'm here to tell you that's not true at all. I have
created some pretty good audio from mic's that costs less than a
hundred dollars. And I have also recorded in places like in my
home office, even in the closet. Yes, no. One's going to see you
unless you're recording video like this one , um , wherever you
can just to muffle the sound is going to be really make that
difference between air quality and good quality.
Travis: Now, when you're creating your podcast intro, there's a
couple of things that you want to make sure that you cover a couple
of things that you want to make sure that you say the first one
is who you are specifically, like, what is your name? So you
can start. Your podcast is, Hey, welcome to my podcast. My name is
Travis, Albritton, and then your credentials. Why should someone
listen to you? So if you have experience in whatever you're
talking about, you want to make sure that you mentioned that if
you went to school for something, if you have a job doing
something, if you have clients that you work with, you want to
mention the things that lend credence to your advice. This is
a specifically important. If your podcast is centered around you
and your expertise, the next thing that you want to make sure
to include in your podcast intro is what your podcast is about in
this podcast. For instance, podcasting una. At the very
beginning, we talk about, well, one, what is it that we're going
to discuss? And then our opening tagline is that we're giving you
tips and strategies to launch, grow and monetize your podcast.
So if you're a podcaster that speaks directly to you because
you're listening to this, or you're watching this because
you're looking for those tips and you want to think through, for
your podcast in a similar way, what is it that people are
looking for? And then how do you make sure that you address that
in your intro? So they're going to continue to listen, not just
to the one episode, but to every single episode, it'll actually
turn into a subscriber that then goes on to download everything
that you have. And then the third thing that you want to make sure
you mentioned in your podcast intro is why someone should care.
Why should anyone care that your podcast exists? Are they going to
lose weight? Are they going to be happier? Are the relationships
going to get better? Are they going to make money, save money?
What is it that you were offering to them? What is the end result
look like for them, if they not only listened to your podcast,
but then also put it into practice.
Gilon: So is there an ideal podcast length, short answer?
Nope. Joe Rogan has some episodes that are three hours long, but
then there are other podcasts that do just fine and are very
successful at 10 minutes or less. The reality is we love podcasts
because of the content that they're presenting. And so if it
takes you 10 minutes to get out great glorious content, amazing.
If you have some podcast episodes that are on the longer end, maybe
up to three hours, that's okay. Too. People come to the podcast
to get the content, to get what you say weekly. And to be honest,
there are times when we need just a quick little something to
listen to. And there are times when we have a lot of space in
our day to listen to something. It really just depends on what
you're trying to accomplish and what you're trying to get across.
Travis: Be a guest on other people's podcasts, but not just
anyone's podcast podcasts that have a similar target audience
that you do. So let's say for example, that you talk about
online marketing. For instance, you want to find other podcasts
in your space where they talk about online marketing, where
they talk about how to grow your business, where they talk about
the entrepreneur life. Because those are the groups of people
that have already self selected and said, Hey, I want to hear
this kind of podcast content. If you can pitch yourself as a guest
to be on those podcasts, then they will immediately trust you
because they already trust the podcast host of the podcast
you're guesting on because they listen to it every week. And then
when you're able to demonstrate your expertise and say at the end
of the episode, Hey, by the way, I also have a podcast where I
talk about X, Y, and Z. You're going to get a good number of
people from that podcast to come over and subscribe to yours.
Gilon: Interviewing noteworthy guests that have a significant
audience is actually one of our favorite marketing strategies for
podcasters. The only thing is the guest has to promote the episode.
Ideally, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to
promote the episode. So some things that you can do are
creating an audio gram or a social media graphic for
Facebook, for Instagram, whatever social media platform you promote
on. That's a really easy way to get them to share that episode
when you have that created and it's made right there for them
and you give it to them. The second thing that you can do is
create a blurb for them to include in their newsletter about
the episode. Hey, this is an episode about X, Y, and you send
that over to them. They can push that right out to their people
via email. The other thing that you can do is provide a direct
link where people can listen to the episode. The idea is that it
should be as easy as copying and pasting and pushing out to their
people. You want to have no reason for them not to share the
episode and promote it.
Travis: Use templates, make it your goal in life as a podcaster,
to never duplicate your work, whether it's your outlines,
whether it's your audio editing software, your projects that you
work in, your emails that you send to your guests, anything
that you do consistently spend some time really make it
unbreakable, make sure that it's exactly the way that you want it.
And then don't go back and redo that actually leverage that work
you've done in the past to speed up future episodes. So let's say
for instance, that you have a guest that you're bringing onto
your show, rather than writing a custom email from scratch, send
them the one that you sent to your previous guest, but then
change out the first name to them. It looks like a brand new
email because they haven't seen that email before. And you know
that it has all the details that they need to know to make sure
they're fully prepared to come on your episode. Once you finish
your recording and you bring your interview into your audio editing
software, you shouldn't be creating a new project from
scratch. You should be opening up a previous episode, saving it as
a duplicate and then rewriting over the pieces that need to
change leaving, intact , your intro, your outro, and all of
your audio preferences. And then when you're creating your show
notes, they should be copy and paste from your previous episode,
show notes, and then filling out the fields and changing
everything. That's different just by using templates, just by
leveraging your previous work. And previous efforts for future
episodes is going to save you a ton of time. These show notes is
the section of your podcast episode that allows you to engage
for your listeners, provide some next steps for those that are
ready to take action on what they just listened to. And also
persuade someone new to listen to the episode. The number one best
practice is to use formatting. All right , a majority of podcast
players like Apple podcasts, Google podcasts , uh , overcast,
they support HTML formatting. That means you could put
paragraph breaks, bullet points in bed links, all the stuff that
you need to do to make your show notes look nice because when your
show notes are properly formatted, when it's easy to
navigate within your episode description, it makes it easier
for your listeners to find what they're looking for. Right?
Instead of combing through several paragraphs of
information, they can just zip down to the list of links that
you mentioned and click on the one that they're looking for.
Because remember when someone goes to your show notes, your
episode description, they're going for a number of reasons.
First reason they heard you mentioned something in the
podcast and they want to find the link. They want to learn more.
They want to buy that product, that you, they are looking for a
particular piece of information. And they're going to take action
on that. The other reason somebody goes through your show
notes or your episode description is they're not sure that they
want to devote the 30 minutes, 40 minutes hour to listening to the
full episode. And so they see the title is interesting. They're
curious. They want to learn more and they go to your show notes
too , to see some amplifying information to see is this
something that I really want to listen to?
Sarah: So let's talk about whether you actually need a
custom podcast website now for most pod-casters the answer is
actually no, because if your podcast has an RSS feed with a
podcast host like Buzzsprout chances are you already have a
podcast website with Buzzsprouts website, you get a homepage with
links to obviously all of your episodes that your listeners can
listen to. You can also direct them to different podcast
directories like Apple podcast, Stitcher and Spotify. If they
want to go listen and subscribe there, and you can also use your
own domain names . So you can look and feel like your own
podcast website . You're just looking for a place for people to
listen to your episodes. Changes are you don't need to spend that
money to build your own custom website.
Gilon: You may think that the best strategy is to put your
entire episode up on a social media platform, but actually you
want to create teaser content and teaser content gives them a
little sound bite , just a little snippet that what's their
appetites want to go listen to the rest of the episode, wherever
they listen on Apple podcasts or Spotify, or what have you. So
we're going to talk about what three things are included in
every good social media post. The first thing that you need is a
visual element, right? So people are scrolling. They're reading,
whatever. If you post a picture that causes them to stop. And the
idea is that they stop , they listen, they read, they engage.
And the picture of visual element helps them do that. So this can
be a graphic. It could be a headshot of your guest . It could
be an audio gram . The second thing that you need is a good
hook. Think about what can I say to make someone want to continue
listening, to go check out the full episode. It could be a crazy
stat. It could be a really good quote. It could be a couple of
bullet points that summarize the high points of the episode.
Whatever that thing is, put that in the caption to help encourage
people to go check out the full episode and finally a link you
want to include a direct link to that specific podcast episode in
your post. If you nail all three of these elements, you'll not
only intrigue new listeners. You'll also encourage existing
subscribers to share your posts as well,
Travis: Batch production of your podcast episodes. So anytime that
you were producing an episode, there's so much involved. There's
so many moving pieces that need to happen in a specific order in
order for you to create that episode. So you have to start
with generating ideas. Then you have to create outlines or
scripts. If you have a scripted podcast, you have to line up
interviews, you need to record the episode. You need to edit it.
You need to upload it. You need to schedule it. All of those
things take time. What takes even more time If you do every single
episode by itself. But let's say instead that you scheduled all
the interviews that you needed for the entire month in one week,
maybe you had to record it on Tuesday. And to record it on
Thursday, you know , have four episodes to start working with
that Saturday. You create the outlines for the rest of the
episode. You record the narration, put it with your intro
and your outro music, and you export it. You output it to your
podcast host, and now you schedule it out. You've just done
a month of content in one week. So if you're looking to optimize
and streamline your workflow even more beyond templates, the next
best thing to do is to batch your episodes.