Top 3 Do’s and Don’ts When Starting Your Branded Podcast
You’re thinking of starting a podcast for your brand, or maybe you’ve already released a few episodes…congrats you’ve made a great decision!
A podcast can be a great natural extension of your brand and audio allows you to connect with your audience in a ways that other mediums simply can’t. There is a level of intimacy and authenticity inherent to the audio medium, and when utilized correctly it can be a powerful tool for growing your business.
While the podcasts space is still relatively new and there aren’t many “rules” when it comes to things like format, length, and release cadence, there are some general best-practices to ensure your brand’s podcast actually accomplishes what it intends to. Below are the top 3 Do’s and Don’ts when getting started with your new show:
Top 3 Don’ts
Don’t treat your brand’s podcast like an advertisement.
Want to know the quickest way to get a potential new listener to press the stop button or your podcast? Make it sound like an advertisement.
Your podcast is not the place to push products or repeat your brand’s slogan 50 times. Podcast audiences want to learn. Podcast audiences want to be entertained. If you accomplish one of those two things on your show, you are on the path to success.
Your podcast is a chance to establish your company as a thought-leader in a particular area. You’re in the hospitality/travel space? Create a show that educates travelers on the newest destinations and throw a bit of humor in along the way. Your company is a leader in the financial world? Create a show that provides timely updates on the stock market that brings real value to listeners’ lives. These are just a couple examples of ways you can bring value and entertainment to your listeners.
Don’t think of it as just a podcast.
Sure, it’s a podcast. It’s also a powerful SEO tool, it’s a way to connect with potential clients, it’s content for your website and social media.
Your podcast can be used in so many ways, it’s like a Swiss army knife for your brand. Adding embedded audio to your website with a transcription of each episode is an amazing way to increase organic SEO and bring high-quality traffic to your site.
The relationships formed through inviting and having guests on your podcast can be an extremely valuable way to connect with some of your top prospective clients. It can also be an ice-breaker or reason to reach out to someone that may have previously ignored your cold sales email.
Don’t get too caught up in numbers early on.
Building an audience takes time and consistency. Don’t obsess over analytics the first few months the show is getting started.
Consistency and quality are the name of the game. Shows can grow from hundreds of downloads a month, to thousands, to millions…but it does not happen overnight. These shows put out episode after episode of high quality content over a long period of time, which ultimately rewarded them with download numbers.
If getting millions of downloads to your podcast over a couple month span is your goal, you’ll want to think about attaching a substantial advertising budget to that plan, or perhaps re-thinking that approach altogether.
Top 3 Do’s
Do think through release cadence and strategy.
Why plan ahead when you can just wing it, right? Wrong.
As mentioned in Don’t #3, consistency is key when trying to grow a new podcast. Planning a release schedule and production calendar ahead of time will ensure your listeners get episodes when they expect them. Podcast audiences expect release cadences to be consistent and regular, and shows that deliver on that point are the ones that grow fastest.
Don’t have the time to record an episode every single week? That’s ok, there are still ways to keep release cadence regular while not letting the podcast take over your entire life. Splitting episodes into seasons can be a great solution for some shows, which can be planned to “drop” at strategic moments or times throughout a given year.
Do put care into the sound and production quality of your podcast.
Would you listen to a podcast that had terrible audio quality, long pauses of silence, and was so quiet you had to put your volume on high just to barely make out what the host is saying? Your listeners don’t want to either.
Putting a little care into the recording and production process can go a long way. Always try to record in a quiet, non-reflective space with the highest quality microphone you can. If your guest doesn’t have a microphone, try to have them record a voice-memo on their phone as a back-up recording, or use a set of wired earbuds which can get better results than other options.
Editing your podcast for unwanted content and noises is a great way to solidify a professional sounding show. The final steps of mixing and mastering will make your audio sound crisp and play at the volume your audience expects when they hit go.
Do add specific calls to action in the outro.
If you do want your audience to perform a specific action after they listen to an episode of your show, the outro is the place to tell them where and how to do it.
We live in a give and take society. If you give me entertainment or value in some form for 10-15 mins of my day, I’ll be a lot more inclined to do the thing you asked me to do in return. This can be a call to action such as “rate and subscribe to our show” to something like “visit our website to learn more about X”.
This may seem to go contrary to Don’t #1 (Don’t treat your brand’s podcast like an advertisement.), but if it’s done only in the outro and done in a tasteful (subtle?) way, your listeners probably won’t mind at all, and may even reward you with completing the action you asked them to take.
As we said earlier, making a podcast for your brand is a great decision, and if you follow these guidelines you will be well on your way to creating a podcast your audience cannot get enough of!
by Mitch Bluestein
Founder/CEO | MODRY MEDIA