- When you first start podcasting, you're bound to make a couple of mistakes. It's just par for the
course, everyone does it, but there are certainly
some things that you can do to avoid the mistakes
that most podcasters make and really set yourself up for success. So we went through the podcasting Q and A and 5 Minute Mondays' archives, and picked out the top 10
things that we wish we knew before we started podcasting. (bouncy electronic music) - 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
gonna 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 gonna see unless you're recording
video like this one. Wherever you can just to muffle the sound is gonna be really, make that
difference between eh quality, and good quality. (bouncy electronic music) - Now when you're creating
your podcast intro, there's a couple of things that you wanna make sure that you cover, a couple of things that you
wanna make sure that you say. The first one is, who you are, specifically like, what is your name? So you can start your podcast as, "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 wanna make sure that you mention that. If you went to school for something, if you have a job doing something, if you have clients that you
work with, you wanna 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 wanna make sure to include in your podcast intro is what your podcast is about. And this podcast for
instance, podcasting Q and A, at the very beginning,
we talk about, well, one, what is it that we're gonna 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 wanna 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 gonna continue to listen, not just to the one episode,
but to every single episode that'll actually turn into a subscriber that then goes on to download
everything that you have. And then the third thing that you'll want to make sure you mention
in your podcast intro, is why someone should care. Why should anyone care
that your podcast exists? Are they gonna lose weight? Are they gonna be happier? Are their relationships gonna get better? Are they gonna make money? Save money? What is it that you are offering to them? What does the end result
look like for them if they not only listen to your podcast but then also put it into practice? (bouncy electronic music) - So is there an ideal podcast length? Short answer, no. 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 that we need just a quick, little
something to listen to, and there are times that 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. (bouncy electronic music) - Be a guest on other people's podcast, 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 wanna 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 entrepreneurial life, because those are the groups of people that have already self-selected and said, "Hey, I wanna 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 the already trust the podcast host of the podcast you're guesting on 'cause 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 gonna get a good number
of people from that podcast to come over and subscribe to yours. (bouncy electronic music) - 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 wanna make
it as easy as possible for them to promote the episode, so some things that you can do are creating an audiogram
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 when 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 the 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 wanna have no reason for them not to share the episode and promote it. (bouncy electronic music) - 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 a brand-new email 'cause 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
gonna save you a ton of time. (bouncy electronic music) The show notes, is the section
of your podcast episode that allows you to engage
with 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. The majority of podcast players like Apple Podcasts,
Google Podcasts, Overcast, they support HTML formatting, that means you can 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, 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 wanna find the
link, they wanna learn more, they wanna 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 your show notes, on your episode description, is they're not sure that they
wanna 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 wanna learn more, and they go to your show notes, to see some amplifying information, to see, is this something
that I really wanna listen to? (bouncy electronic music) - 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's 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 directors like Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Spotify if they wanna go listen
and subscribe there, and you can also use your own domain name, so it can look and feel like
your own podcast 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. (bouncy electronic music) - You may think that the best strategy is to put your entire episode
up on a social media platform, but actually you wanna
create teaser content, and teaser content gives
them a little sound bite, just a little snippet
that whets their appetite to wanna go listen to
the rest of the episode, wherever they listen, on
Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or what have you. So we're gonna talk about what three things are included in every good social media post. The first thing that you
need is a visual element. 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, the visual element, helps them do that, so
this can be a graphic, it can 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 wanna 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 captions to help encourage people to
go check out the full episode. And finally, a link. You wanna 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 post as well. (bouncy electronic music) - Batch production of
your podcast episodes. So any time 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. Well, it 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
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. (bouncy electronic music) So I hope this video has
been super helpful for you and that you can take at
least one thing away from it to help your podcast moving forward. And if you're an independent podcaster, that's trying to grow your audience, become a better editor and marketer, and even make some money
on the side with your show, make sure you subscribe to the
Buzzsprout YouTube channel, 'cause every single week
we put out multiple videos specifically geared towards
helping independent podcasters grow their podcast. Whether it's podcast equipment reviews, software tutorials, or even
podcast strategy videos. We cover all that and more here on the Buzzsprout YouTube channel, so if you haven't yet, make
sure that you subscribe. Well, that's it for today,
thanks for watching, and as always, keep podcasting.
