BONUS - 10 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started a Podcast

Enjoy this bonus podcast episode where we went back through the Podcasting Q&A and 5 Minute Mondays archives to find the top 10 things we wish we knew before starting a podcast.

10 Tips (Check the Chapter Markers for time stamps)

1. Focus on audio quality
2. Podcast intros
3. Ideal podcast length
4. Go on other podcasts
5. Guest promotion tips
6. Use templates
7. Format your show notes
8. Do you need a website?
9. Promoting on social media
10. Batch your episodes

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:52 #1. Focus on audio quality
• 1:41 #2. Podcast intros
• 3:39 #3. Ideal podcast length
• 4:22 #4. Go on other podcasts
• 5:21 #5. Guest promotion tips
• 6:15 #6. Use templates
• 7:46 #7. Format your show notes
• 9:21 #8. Do you need a website?
• 10:16 #9. Promoting on social media
• 11:30 #10. Batch your episodes

Transcript

Travis : 0:00

When you first get started in podcasting, it's almost guaranteed that you're gonna 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&A show and five minute Monday's, 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 : 0:53

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 mics that cost less than $100. And I've 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. Wherever you can, just to muffle the sound is going to be really make that difference between quality and good quality.

Travis : 1:42

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 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 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 Q&A, at the very beginning, we talked 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 that will 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 their 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 : 3:39

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. 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 : 4:23

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 guessing 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 : 5:22

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 Z. You send that over to them, they can push that right out to their people. 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 : 6:16

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 so then it looks like it 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 a 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 episodes, 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.

Travis : 7:47

The show notes is the section of your podcast episode that allows you to engage your listeners provides 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. Alright, a majority of podcast players like Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, overcast, they support HTML formatting. That means you could put paragraph breaks bullet points, embed 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 shownotes, 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 recommended. They are looking for a particular piece of information, and they're gonna take action on that. The other reason somebody goes to shownotes 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 to to see some amplifying information to see, is this something that I really want to listen to?

Sarah : 9:22

So let's talk about whether you actually need a custom podcast website. Now for most podcasters. 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 Buzzsprout 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 name so you can look and feel like your own podcasts website. If you're just looking for a place for people to listen to your episodes, chances are you don't need to spend that money to build your own custom website.

Gilon : 10:17

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 wets their appetite to 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 stopped, 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 audiogram 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 can 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 : 11:31

batch production of your podcast episodes. So anytime that you are 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 two recorded on Tuesday and two recorded on Thursday. You now 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 in 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.