Prologue
Shorter = Better? In this case, yes.
My book on podcasting, Big Podcast – Grow Your Podcast Audience, Build Listener Loyalty, and Get Everybody Talking About Your Show, is 463 pages.
That intimidates a lot of people. So they skip it.
The same is true for "long" podcasts. Yes, there are some very popular exceptions to this rule, but for most people, when they see a podcast that's 2-3 hours long (or longer), they skip it. And those that do listen to these "long podcasts" have them on in the background, not really listening.
But a short and to-the-point podcast – that gets attention.
The Small Podcast Challenge
This is going to sound crazy, but it can be done. It happens all the time on broadcast radio and television.
Just for fun (you don't to publish this), go through a 30-minute interview or episode and try to create a complete episode that's five minutes (or less).
How would you do that? Here's a simple framework:
- Intro
- A single big idea
- Outro
By recording a new intro and outro, you can easily guide in a few soundbites taken from a longer interview and make a short segment fit. Again, this happens in broadcast radio and television all the time, so listen to a shorter NPR segment or a typical evening news story for examples.
The important thing about this exercise isn't that you finish with a perfect recording, but that you start to think about edits in a new way. This will completely change how you do interviews and episode outlines and get you better tape to work with, even if you never edit to this level on the podcast episodes you release.
Try it. This ability will come in handy for quick bonus episodes, trailers, and social media videos.
RELATED: I eat my own cooking and have a brand new, much shorter book on podcasting coming next month, as well as some other book projects coming later this year. I'm looking for more indie podcasters to feature, so if you're interested, watch this space and follow Big Podcast on Instagram.
Podcast Marketing
Want More Podcast Subscribers? You need a good "landing page."
I love this "swipe file" of landing page examples. Whether you have a newsletter you want people to sign up for or you're looking to get more subscribers for your podcast, you will find some great design and copy ideas to get you the results you're looking for.
RELATED:
Check out my "mobile podcast subscribe page" that makes it easy for people to subscribe via phone. This $19 tool can build something similar for you.
If you need a way to send an email newsletter, SendFox is a deal for only $49!
7 Ways to Niche Down (and Level-Up) Your Podcast
I talk about the power of this for podcasters in my book on podcasting and I just wrote about it a few days ago, because this is where the business of podcasting is headed.
This guy gets it. Here are the seven ways he recommends:
- By industry (X for healthcare startups)
- By demographic (X for middle-aged women)
- By physical location (X for Chicago)
- By digital platform (X for Twitter)
- By price (X for free)
- By distribution (X but delivery)
- By problem (X but w/o Y)
If you really want to go big, you can take your same basic content and do different podcasts for different subsets of a group. For example, if you've got a "Christian" podcast, you could do three different variations of it, one for Methodists, one for Baptists, and one for Presbyterians. Or separate a regional podcast into cities, or a "city podcast" into neighborhoods within a city.
You get the idea. This is how podcast networks are being built with great success, so if you have something that's working, considering adding another variation of it to make it even bigger.
Podcasting Tools
Make your podcast artwork stand out with this free tool
This free tool will help you take your podcast and social media graphics to the next level. It's a great way to make profile photos stand out, as well as guest photos.
I'd love to see how you use it with your profile and social media images. Take it for a test and send me your image via Twitter.
Podcast Production
Never run out of podcast episode ideas!
Here are the Top 6 Content Curation Tools for 2022. You will find them very helpful for discovering new episode topics as well as organizing the ideas you discover.
The Business of Podcasting
Shopify vs. Amazon – A Lesson for Podcasters
This is interesting to podcasters for one reason ...
Little things add up when it comes to your podcast.
Want a lot of traffic? Those little episodes with just a few hundred listeners stack up. And those little podcast apps and directories add up too.
When it comes to sending people somewhere to listen to your podcast, I recommend something like this that directs people to one of two places – Apple or Google. As far as your podcast being listed in smaller podcast directories though, why not?
Here's a BIG list of where to submit your podcast. It's easy to be in all of these places with a simple submission form. And these places (collectively) will bring you more listeners. But if you're letting people know where to go, focus on the "big two" – Apple and Google.
You'll notice that the mobile subscribe page mentions Spotify. I am always testing things and the theory with this was, because so many people have Spotify on their phones, it made sense to mention it on a subscribe page designed for mobile. But, at least for the podcasts I've worked on, very few listeners subscribe to podcasts via Spotify. Even "Spotify-exclusive podcasts" are losing listeners compared to what they had before going exclusive.
The best place to send people to subscribe to your podcast may differ, depending on the subject of your show and the demographics of listeners. But the "big ideas" here still apply:
- Send people to one of two places, depending on which phone is being used. iPhone users always need to go to Apple and Android users should go somewhere that is focused on Android.
- As far as your show being listed in any directory, do it.
The Wrap Up
The Wrap Up
My goal is to better empower podcasters to be more successful spreading their messages and make more money with their podcasts.
I'd love it if you'll help me spread the word about this newsletter by sending your podcasting friends to bigpodcast.com/newsletter.