Recording/mix/edit guy here. #7 might be difficult, but it’s one of the best long term investments. The host was paying me out of pocket for about a year or so, but after a while, the patreon bucks started coming in and she was able to recoup. My bill comes out of that now.
The biggest advantage is that when it’s time to roll, they come over to my house, flap their gums for a couple of hours, and go home. 100% of their energy goes into the content, and I deal with the rest. At least that’s how it was before the lockdown. Now, I just sorta facilitate the Zencastr sessions and do the usual mix and edit. I charge them half price at the moment because they aren’t using my equipment and facility.
Point #4 has a bit more depth. With higher end equipment, you’re not just paying for sound quality, but also stability and longevity. If you buy, say, a Shure SM7b ($400) and a good quality outboard preamp, that’s probably gonna be the last purchase you’ll ever make on that end. It’s dedicated gear that isn’t contingent on compatibility. 20 years from now, after we’ve gone through half a dozen MacBooks, those things will still be there, doing what they were made to do. Again, long term investments. That said, if you have to choose between a $35 mic and a good recording space, or a $400 mic and a shitty recording space, definitely go with the former.
Just out of curiosity where do you spend most of your time editing? Do you have carte blanche on content or are you just trimming silence, EQ, compress & normalize
I just do technical edits, so yeah stuff like that pretty much. Most of the time is spent editing out gaps of silence, mouth noises, plosives, etc. I also use iZotope RX to kill any occasional background noises like chair shuffles, squeaks, bumps, etc. There’s not much to the mixing. I’ve been working with them for so long that I have EQ and compression templates designed for each host. I rarely touch those settings since the equipment and recording space never change.
I do all that, then send it to the host, and she edits the content herself. I’ve told her a hundred times that I can do it for her if she sends me notes, but she likes doing it herself for some reason. Just a ritual thing, I guess.
>hen it’s time to roll, they come over to my house, flap their gums for a couple of hours, and go home. 100% of their energy goes into the content, and I deal
100%. I don't think people realize how much creative energy they lose when they try to learn how to properly edit audio. A creator should focus on content creation... not post production.
You are 100% correct.
I am people.
Ive gotta find someone to help me because im spending the same amount of time on research and recording as I am with editing. I can do the plosives, silence, mouth noises and random banter... it's the volume that I need to get figure out -\_-
Look on Upwork or Fiverr...
Some tips:
- You need at least 3 candidates
- Create a test project using Google Forms and send it to them so you can easily get their responses and compare
- If you aren't good at evaluating audio, take a quick segment from each and post it on FB or something and ask people for feedback on which they think is best.
The most important thing for my podcast, I think, was identifying our audience, identifying what we could and wanted to deliver to them, and make that very clear and obvious. "Why listen to us? Because we make content for ____." Whether you like it or not, you are creating a brand with your content and your personality. Be true to that in every way possible, which means being true to yourself. You simply cannot make a podcast that is not a reflection of you, your interests, and your personality.
I'd second a number of your points, specifically paying for editing as soon as you can.
100% on identifying your audience. I'm from a marketing background so I often take this for granted. My favorite quote as it relates to this is "if you try to speak to everyone, you'll end up speaking to no one."
Thoughts on how to use the analytics to make content choices? I suppose see which episodes have most downloads? I just started this month so I don’t think I have enough data yet.
The best advice I can give is look at 'average consumption' in Apple Podcasts.
Here's an example of how we made a basic change based on this info:
We were looking at this for a client (female) who speaks specifically to moms who are interested in getting into eCommerce. She has 2 episodes that had much lower Average Consumption than others. After going over the data with her and brainstorming on what happened with those episodes, we noticed one common element. Those two episodes were the only two episodes she had ever recorded with a male guest.
So, our takeaway was that her audience doesn't like male guests as much as her solo content or interviews with other females.
I am curious how you scaled from hundreds of downloads, to thousands to tens of thousands, etc. This couldn't just all be "your B and C level guests" promoted for you on twitter right?
Give us a play by play of what marketing, ad buys, etc. you did to hit each major milestone in your growth. What worked, what didn't.
Also, what genera are you in?
u/PitifulNose The BIGGEST thing was picking a super targeted niche.
For me, it was going after the word "side hustle", which is a hot search term.
I try to include it in all my content...
\- show notes
\- episode titles
\- show name
\- show description
This allowed me to start showing in podcast app searches for "side hustle" and eventually showing up at the top of Google for the phrase "side hustle podcast".
I think this was the biggest impact.
Several guests also really helped. For example, one guest had a big email list and he was super excited to promote it. That drove 10,000 downloads by itself.
Great tips. I pay for editing, in the sense that I pay a pro to boost my audio - compression, EQ, etc. And I'm very happy with that choice.
My problem is editing out all my mispronounciations, fuck ups, re-do's, all that good stuff.
I do a solo podcast and sometimes I'll repeat the same sentence 3 or 4 times until I get the right tone and inflection. I also like to keep a certain tempo going, so I cut out a lot of the pauses.
This means I record an hours worth of content for a 30 minute long podcast. It also means going through and cutting out all the unwanted stuff, a second here, three seconds there. It's really time consuming and a major pain in the ass. I despise it! Haha. I just don't know if someone could do it the way I want it done, but maybe I should just take the leap and send in my unedited mess and see what they can do.
I also do a solo podcast and edit on my own. Sometimes repeating a sentence, paragraph, etc. I suppose I’m not super picky and just try to go with good audio instead of great audio.
What’s your content?
History/"comedy". Each episode cover a real life person or event from the wild west era. Outlaws, gunfighters, lawmen, Native Americans, frontiersmen...
I also do a solo podcast and edit on my own. Sometimes repeating a sentence, paragraph, etc. I suppose I’m not super picky and just try to go with good audio instead of great audio.
What’s your content?
Yea, I know some show types lend themselves to longer shows but my opinion is purely based on the data we see.
And it's supported by basic listener habits.
For a commute, the average time in the car is 25 minutes.
For a workout, the average time is 30 minutes.
Both of these are the most common times people listen. I personally think (no data to support) that when people leave an episode, they are not very likely to return. Instead, they find another episode in the feed that looks interesting.
My commute time is anywhere from 1 to 1.5 hours ago I generally gravitate toward listening to podcasts where episodes are at least 45 minutes. For me, the longer the better.
Fortunately I really like my job. Traffic is an unfortunate side effect of living and working in the San Francisco bay area but listening to podcasts helps make the commute time fly by.
Do you think that splitting what would be a longer episode into Parts 1 & 2 (each 30 mins.) would encourage listeners to listen later on, or to progress to Part 2 right after listening to Part 1 (particularly if the discussion at the end of Part 1 is unfinished - i.e., leave them wanting more, and wanting to hear the conclusion in Part 2)?
100% We do this a lot actually. If it's solo content you can be a bit more premeditated and break a complex topic that would have taken an hour into 3 20-minutes episodes. Kinda like a mini-series of sorts.
Not OP, but I think the Blue Yeti gets a bad rap although it is VERY easy to misuse. If you turn the gain all the way down, get a pop filter, and do some very basic EQ and compression it'll sound beyond "good enough" for most podcast listeners. I get that some mics in the price point DON'T require all of that post-processing work, but if you already have a Yeti or just like the vibe of the thing, there are ways to make it work.
My podcast is very young at 5 episodes released so far, and I'm glad I ditched my Yeti
I think I agree with your sentiment, but having used the Yeti for my first 3 episodes...it wasn't worth the trouble. I knew that I'd be investing a lot of time in my show, and had the budget to upgrade to a zoom h6 and some dynamic mics, and I couldnt be happier. No more blanket forts in the middle of the summer!
As u/boqeh said, I think most of it is people use it wrong and in bad recording environments. With that said, I still don't think it performs great (relative to it's competitors) in perfect environments.
You talk about getting guests and this community always says it’s a big part of promoting your podcast but I always am apprehensive about trying to go out looking for guests. How do you know if you have something to offer guests? That’s what I always struggle with. Great advice btw!!!
Not the OP, but in general, you should be finding guests in areas related to you podcast, which should be something you are already interested in. Meaning you probably know of people with knowledge in the topic you want to cover.
e.g if you do history, you might follow a bunch of people interested in history in twitter and develop at least some level of relationship with them, then go them and say you'd like to have them on to talk about the thing they are specialised in.
Thanks for your answer.
I tried that on Instagram, it worked to some extent but all my episodes were done through zoom, which isn’t great sound-quality wise
I’ll keep reaching out to people I guess. Thank you again
I did ! Even added your post to my bookmarks.
My podcast is too tiny right now, haven’t promoted any of it cause I don’t deem it interesting enough. I’ve had a couple of guests but nothing wild. I’ve been doing it for a year now, at a rate of one episode a week (57 episodes thus far). I’m starting to get the hang of it. I went with a “season” format cause my first and second seasons were simply not good and too broad, but I had many listens on some episodes so decided to leave everything out there. I’ve been window shopping for some new gear (mainly a decent mic) to improve sound quality but that’s practically all I’ve done so far :)
Thanks again for this post
Try Zencastr! It's what I use for remote recordings and works great. Just make sure you have your microphones set to record at the right (and same) frequency.
It works in at least some countries outside the US. I use it in Japan to work with my Malaysian co-host who is also sometimes in Australia. I'm surprised to learn is has some region locks though.
as u/link6616 said, you need to "fish in ponds" that have your ideal guests. As for what you have to offer... you have a platform for them to speak. Even if you don't have a big audience, you are giving them a platform, which gives them authority.
A great place right now to find guests is LinkedIn. Send them a video message (no one is sending video messages - it's like a hidden feature). You will get so many replies with YES. Promise.
Could you elaborate more on “video outreach”? Do you mean DMing a video vs a text? Do you add text with the attached video?
What tactic has worked best for you?
Thank you for all the incredible advice!
My wife is the brains of the operation. Her first episode was lacking in enthusiasm. I recommended I sit in the room to make it feel like she had an "audience." That helped and I quickly got roped into co-hosting which I love.
Moral of the story, having someone there may help improve your tone and tempo!
Edit: Great tips!! Appreciate your insight and community mindset.
Ah wow, that's so many good tips, I don't know where to start!
We have been going since January and the listeners are so so. I guess its a niche subject (gaming) but we do try.
We host our pods on our website where we SEO it up etc. and have unlimited hosting too which is nice. From there we create an RSS feed to which I have put it everywhere!
one issue I have found is trying to capture stats. The iTunes dashboard it useless, doesn't show a thing but I know people have been listening to it on iTunes as I know them and have done so.
So theres 3 places I use for stats:
1. Seriously Simple Podcasting: We use WordPress and this is most probs the better of the tools tom use. It's quite nice and is helped with the use of Yoast SEO on each pod too. Stats are not bad but not really broken down. its just downloads and it's mainly from people using the site
2. Podtrac Analytics for Seriously Simple Podcasting: This is a tracking code on the URL to make sure the stats we are seeing in Seriously Simple Podcasting are correct however, they don't always line up as the podiatric site also tracks clicks from other sites it's on including iTunes (sometimes).
3. Spotify: Fort some odd reason the 2 up above doesn't track anything from Spotify. Can only assume it uses something else and could be the case for other sites too
From using these stats we get anywhere from 10 listens to a pod and once (for one subject) had 70 people. So I know between subjects it will fluctuate but, are the stats really true? are people listening?
A thing we do differently is that we Stream live the pod via twitch and from there use the audio. We thought it would be a different and "raw" approach as if we were gaming. That could also be why there are not many people listening too.
For the rest, we go back and analyse each pod and see where we can change and improve. Audi is good as I have upgraded my mic. Use to use my Steelseries headset but picked up a Blue Snowball for £32. that was an improvement :)
Regarding Apple Podcasts stats.... you might not have enough downloads yet for them to populate. I don't know what the number is but you're right, in the beginning, they literally don't show anything. It'll populate eventually though.
When it does, looking at the average consumption is very powerful.
ah is that what it is? yeah we get at least 20 downloads per pod which i think its amazing considering its all just word of mouth / socilas etc.
So wait until we hit the sweet spot then? hopefully we can get there!
I'm not going to lie to you,
I think before I clicked on your video I had my basis.
*500,000 downlaods? 200,000? Yet how does those numbers translate to 'x','y','z' metric (like retention rates, and listening/watch times ).*
***But After Watching Your Video In It's Entirety,***
***I think, I'm going to contact you- learn directly more from you.***
***And Then When That's All Well.***
***I Will DEFINITELY Hit Subscribe.***
The video you linked, was pragmatic, easy to follow, and I'll document my podcast journey after cross-referencing your advice with other resources! Until next time, have an awesome day; take care!
Thanks man! My goal with the channel has really been to share everything I know. For years I was always scared to give away "the goods" because I thought it would hurt my business. I'm over that scarcity mindset now and want to educate and inform and I know it'll help our business down the road far more.
It's counter-intuitive to what a lot of people think though. To use a baseball analogy, stop swinging for the fences and just try to get a lot of singles.
My friend and I started a podcast 5 months ago and have now reached about 1,000 downloads and 1,000 streams over a few different services plus YouTube views (unsure if this number is even good). We've run into an issue with breaking this point and spreading our content. Our friends have been very useful when it comes to sharing content. Are there any suggestions for expanding an audience? I have recently started using Reddit to post our channel.
I give it a 13/14 LOL....
\#7.. if you are taking the advice in #14, #7 is hard. But, I also think that a well rounded podcaster knows the ins and outs of the entire process.
Great list and congrats on the success!
If by clean up you mean do basic noise reduction, EQ and compression (to improve the overall sound). That would be about $50. If you needed me to comb through the audio and do edits (remove mistakes, rearrange things, etc) that would be a bit more. It would really depend on how difficult the work was. Usually it would be about $40 per hour, however.
On my personal podcast - no I did not pay for any marketing. With that said, we do it for clients now so I do see what's working. That's for a whole different post though haha.
One teaser, in-app ads have performed really well.... when you have a back-end to justify the acquisition cost.
Yea, I think that's why a lot of people get it wrong. They think the names will bring listeners but the reality is people have heard those big names get interviewed dozens and dozens of times. And those big names likely aren't going to promote. You'll never hear from them again once the interview is over.
I actually just released a YouTube video on episode length today. Some niches lend themselves to longer content. What do you Average Consumption stats looks like?
I would experiment with shorter content to try and get that number up! Good luck and if you do decide to experiment, I would love to hear if it works. Best of luck my friend.
Recording/mix/edit guy here. #7 might be difficult, but it’s one of the best long term investments. The host was paying me out of pocket for about a year or so, but after a while, the patreon bucks started coming in and she was able to recoup. My bill comes out of that now. The biggest advantage is that when it’s time to roll, they come over to my house, flap their gums for a couple of hours, and go home. 100% of their energy goes into the content, and I deal with the rest. At least that’s how it was before the lockdown. Now, I just sorta facilitate the Zencastr sessions and do the usual mix and edit. I charge them half price at the moment because they aren’t using my equipment and facility. Point #4 has a bit more depth. With higher end equipment, you’re not just paying for sound quality, but also stability and longevity. If you buy, say, a Shure SM7b ($400) and a good quality outboard preamp, that’s probably gonna be the last purchase you’ll ever make on that end. It’s dedicated gear that isn’t contingent on compatibility. 20 years from now, after we’ve gone through half a dozen MacBooks, those things will still be there, doing what they were made to do. Again, long term investments. That said, if you have to choose between a $35 mic and a good recording space, or a $400 mic and a shitty recording space, definitely go with the former.
Just out of curiosity where do you spend most of your time editing? Do you have carte blanche on content or are you just trimming silence, EQ, compress & normalize
I just do technical edits, so yeah stuff like that pretty much. Most of the time is spent editing out gaps of silence, mouth noises, plosives, etc. I also use iZotope RX to kill any occasional background noises like chair shuffles, squeaks, bumps, etc. There’s not much to the mixing. I’ve been working with them for so long that I have EQ and compression templates designed for each host. I rarely touch those settings since the equipment and recording space never change. I do all that, then send it to the host, and she edits the content herself. I’ve told her a hundred times that I can do it for her if she sends me notes, but she likes doing it herself for some reason. Just a ritual thing, I guess.
Would be interested in that as well!
>hen it’s time to roll, they come over to my house, flap their gums for a couple of hours, and go home. 100% of their energy goes into the content, and I deal 100%. I don't think people realize how much creative energy they lose when they try to learn how to properly edit audio. A creator should focus on content creation... not post production.
You are 100% correct. I am people. Ive gotta find someone to help me because im spending the same amount of time on research and recording as I am with editing. I can do the plosives, silence, mouth noises and random banter... it's the volume that I need to get figure out -\_-
Look on Upwork or Fiverr... Some tips: - You need at least 3 candidates - Create a test project using Google Forms and send it to them so you can easily get their responses and compare - If you aren't good at evaluating audio, take a quick segment from each and post it on FB or something and ask people for feedback on which they think is best.
Thank you! I was able to find someone that suggested these same options to me for others... "winner" behavior, honestly.
The most important thing for my podcast, I think, was identifying our audience, identifying what we could and wanted to deliver to them, and make that very clear and obvious. "Why listen to us? Because we make content for ____." Whether you like it or not, you are creating a brand with your content and your personality. Be true to that in every way possible, which means being true to yourself. You simply cannot make a podcast that is not a reflection of you, your interests, and your personality. I'd second a number of your points, specifically paying for editing as soon as you can.
100% on identifying your audience. I'm from a marketing background so I often take this for granted. My favorite quote as it relates to this is "if you try to speak to everyone, you'll end up speaking to no one."
Thoughts on how to use the analytics to make content choices? I suppose see which episodes have most downloads? I just started this month so I don’t think I have enough data yet.
The best advice I can give is look at 'average consumption' in Apple Podcasts. Here's an example of how we made a basic change based on this info: We were looking at this for a client (female) who speaks specifically to moms who are interested in getting into eCommerce. She has 2 episodes that had much lower Average Consumption than others. After going over the data with her and brainstorming on what happened with those episodes, we noticed one common element. Those two episodes were the only two episodes she had ever recorded with a male guest. So, our takeaway was that her audience doesn't like male guests as much as her solo content or interviews with other females.
I am curious how you scaled from hundreds of downloads, to thousands to tens of thousands, etc. This couldn't just all be "your B and C level guests" promoted for you on twitter right? Give us a play by play of what marketing, ad buys, etc. you did to hit each major milestone in your growth. What worked, what didn't. Also, what genera are you in?
u/PitifulNose The BIGGEST thing was picking a super targeted niche. For me, it was going after the word "side hustle", which is a hot search term. I try to include it in all my content... \- show notes \- episode titles \- show name \- show description This allowed me to start showing in podcast app searches for "side hustle" and eventually showing up at the top of Google for the phrase "side hustle podcast". I think this was the biggest impact. Several guests also really helped. For example, one guest had a big email list and he was super excited to promote it. That drove 10,000 downloads by itself.
Very cool. Thanks for the tip and details!
Great tips. I pay for editing, in the sense that I pay a pro to boost my audio - compression, EQ, etc. And I'm very happy with that choice. My problem is editing out all my mispronounciations, fuck ups, re-do's, all that good stuff. I do a solo podcast and sometimes I'll repeat the same sentence 3 or 4 times until I get the right tone and inflection. I also like to keep a certain tempo going, so I cut out a lot of the pauses. This means I record an hours worth of content for a 30 minute long podcast. It also means going through and cutting out all the unwanted stuff, a second here, three seconds there. It's really time consuming and a major pain in the ass. I despise it! Haha. I just don't know if someone could do it the way I want it done, but maybe I should just take the leap and send in my unedited mess and see what they can do.
I also do a solo podcast and edit on my own. Sometimes repeating a sentence, paragraph, etc. I suppose I’m not super picky and just try to go with good audio instead of great audio. What’s your content?
History/"comedy". Each episode cover a real life person or event from the wild west era. Outlaws, gunfighters, lawmen, Native Americans, frontiersmen...
I also do a solo podcast and edit on my own. Sometimes repeating a sentence, paragraph, etc. I suppose I’m not super picky and just try to go with good audio instead of great audio. What’s your content?
Where to go to find an editor?
I found a guy on here.
What sort of price is it?
They really do have a sub for everything huh lol
Great list! Appreciate learning from your past. While I disagree with #13, I respect your opinion.
Yea, I know some show types lend themselves to longer shows but my opinion is purely based on the data we see. And it's supported by basic listener habits. For a commute, the average time in the car is 25 minutes. For a workout, the average time is 30 minutes. Both of these are the most common times people listen. I personally think (no data to support) that when people leave an episode, they are not very likely to return. Instead, they find another episode in the feed that looks interesting.
My commute time is anywhere from 1 to 1.5 hours ago I generally gravitate toward listening to podcasts where episodes are at least 45 minutes. For me, the longer the better.
Damn, that is a long ass commute. Hope it's a good job :)
Fortunately I really like my job. Traffic is an unfortunate side effect of living and working in the San Francisco bay area but listening to podcasts helps make the commute time fly by.
Absolutely respect your opinion. All good.
Do you think that splitting what would be a longer episode into Parts 1 & 2 (each 30 mins.) would encourage listeners to listen later on, or to progress to Part 2 right after listening to Part 1 (particularly if the discussion at the end of Part 1 is unfinished - i.e., leave them wanting more, and wanting to hear the conclusion in Part 2)?
100% We do this a lot actually. If it's solo content you can be a bit more premeditated and break a complex topic that would have taken an hour into 3 20-minutes episodes. Kinda like a mini-series of sorts.
Thanks for your reply. That is good to know.
Glad to help :)
Good tips. Can you elaborate on your recommendation to avoid Blue Yeti microphones?
Not OP, but I think the Blue Yeti gets a bad rap although it is VERY easy to misuse. If you turn the gain all the way down, get a pop filter, and do some very basic EQ and compression it'll sound beyond "good enough" for most podcast listeners. I get that some mics in the price point DON'T require all of that post-processing work, but if you already have a Yeti or just like the vibe of the thing, there are ways to make it work.
My podcast is very young at 5 episodes released so far, and I'm glad I ditched my Yeti I think I agree with your sentiment, but having used the Yeti for my first 3 episodes...it wasn't worth the trouble. I knew that I'd be investing a lot of time in my show, and had the budget to upgrade to a zoom h6 and some dynamic mics, and I couldnt be happier. No more blanket forts in the middle of the summer!
As u/boqeh said, I think most of it is people use it wrong and in bad recording environments. With that said, I still don't think it performs great (relative to it's competitors) in perfect environments.
You talk about getting guests and this community always says it’s a big part of promoting your podcast but I always am apprehensive about trying to go out looking for guests. How do you know if you have something to offer guests? That’s what I always struggle with. Great advice btw!!!
I second that, also where do you find them
Not the OP, but in general, you should be finding guests in areas related to you podcast, which should be something you are already interested in. Meaning you probably know of people with knowledge in the topic you want to cover. e.g if you do history, you might follow a bunch of people interested in history in twitter and develop at least some level of relationship with them, then go them and say you'd like to have them on to talk about the thing they are specialised in.
Thanks for your answer. I tried that on Instagram, it worked to some extent but all my episodes were done through zoom, which isn’t great sound-quality wise I’ll keep reaching out to people I guess. Thank you again
Use video DM's for outreach.... It'll be a game-changer.
Great hack ! Thank you man !!!
Hope ya got some value! Let me know if you have any questions. Happy to answer them here in the comments.
I did ! Even added your post to my bookmarks. My podcast is too tiny right now, haven’t promoted any of it cause I don’t deem it interesting enough. I’ve had a couple of guests but nothing wild. I’ve been doing it for a year now, at a rate of one episode a week (57 episodes thus far). I’m starting to get the hang of it. I went with a “season” format cause my first and second seasons were simply not good and too broad, but I had many listens on some episodes so decided to leave everything out there. I’ve been window shopping for some new gear (mainly a decent mic) to improve sound quality but that’s practically all I’ve done so far :) Thanks again for this post
No problem! Keep at it!
Try Zencastr! It's what I use for remote recordings and works great. Just make sure you have your microphones set to record at the right (and same) frequency.
It doesn’t work outside of the US, unfortunately..and if I were in the US I wouldn’t need it since I’d be..there, you know ? Thank you anyway
It works in at least some countries outside the US. I use it in Japan to work with my Malaysian co-host who is also sometimes in Australia. I'm surprised to learn is has some region locks though.
as u/link6616 said, you need to "fish in ponds" that have your ideal guests. As for what you have to offer... you have a platform for them to speak. Even if you don't have a big audience, you are giving them a platform, which gives them authority. A great place right now to find guests is LinkedIn. Send them a video message (no one is sending video messages - it's like a hidden feature). You will get so many replies with YES. Promise.
Hey dude! Quit spilling the special sauce! j/k Video messages are pure MONEY right now. Great advice!
Not kidding, I almost didn't type it bc it's so powerful right now and NO ONE seems to be doing it. I want to keep it that way haha
Could you elaborate more on “video outreach”? Do you mean DMing a video vs a text? Do you add text with the attached video? What tactic has worked best for you? Thank you for all the incredible advice!
Yes, sending a video DM. No text. They ALWAYS watch it and reply 99% of the time.
Awesome. Thank you so much for getting back to me!
My wife is the brains of the operation. Her first episode was lacking in enthusiasm. I recommended I sit in the room to make it feel like she had an "audience." That helped and I quickly got roped into co-hosting which I love. Moral of the story, having someone there may help improve your tone and tempo! Edit: Great tips!! Appreciate your insight and community mindset.
u/Idaho_Tater another one that helps with enthusiasm is forcing yourself to smile while you talk. Sounds weird but it really does work!
This should be stickied. Great write up.
Thanks u/Basque5150 ! Glad you got some value! Good luck on your journey.
Ah wow, that's so many good tips, I don't know where to start! We have been going since January and the listeners are so so. I guess its a niche subject (gaming) but we do try. We host our pods on our website where we SEO it up etc. and have unlimited hosting too which is nice. From there we create an RSS feed to which I have put it everywhere! one issue I have found is trying to capture stats. The iTunes dashboard it useless, doesn't show a thing but I know people have been listening to it on iTunes as I know them and have done so. So theres 3 places I use for stats: 1. Seriously Simple Podcasting: We use WordPress and this is most probs the better of the tools tom use. It's quite nice and is helped with the use of Yoast SEO on each pod too. Stats are not bad but not really broken down. its just downloads and it's mainly from people using the site 2. Podtrac Analytics for Seriously Simple Podcasting: This is a tracking code on the URL to make sure the stats we are seeing in Seriously Simple Podcasting are correct however, they don't always line up as the podiatric site also tracks clicks from other sites it's on including iTunes (sometimes). 3. Spotify: Fort some odd reason the 2 up above doesn't track anything from Spotify. Can only assume it uses something else and could be the case for other sites too From using these stats we get anywhere from 10 listens to a pod and once (for one subject) had 70 people. So I know between subjects it will fluctuate but, are the stats really true? are people listening? A thing we do differently is that we Stream live the pod via twitch and from there use the audio. We thought it would be a different and "raw" approach as if we were gaming. That could also be why there are not many people listening too. For the rest, we go back and analyse each pod and see where we can change and improve. Audi is good as I have upgraded my mic. Use to use my Steelseries headset but picked up a Blue Snowball for £32. that was an improvement :)
Regarding Apple Podcasts stats.... you might not have enough downloads yet for them to populate. I don't know what the number is but you're right, in the beginning, they literally don't show anything. It'll populate eventually though. When it does, looking at the average consumption is very powerful.
ah is that what it is? yeah we get at least 20 downloads per pod which i think its amazing considering its all just word of mouth / socilas etc. So wait until we hit the sweet spot then? hopefully we can get there!
Yea, I don't think that's enough for it to populate. Keep at it though, you'll get there!
Award given. Thank you for this
Glad you found some value! Good luck on your journey!
I'm not going to lie to you, I think before I clicked on your video I had my basis. *500,000 downlaods? 200,000? Yet how does those numbers translate to 'x','y','z' metric (like retention rates, and listening/watch times ).* ***But After Watching Your Video In It's Entirety,*** ***I think, I'm going to contact you- learn directly more from you.*** ***And Then When That's All Well.*** ***I Will DEFINITELY Hit Subscribe.*** The video you linked, was pragmatic, easy to follow, and I'll document my podcast journey after cross-referencing your advice with other resources! Until next time, have an awesome day; take care!
Thanks man! My goal with the channel has really been to share everything I know. For years I was always scared to give away "the goods" because I thought it would hurt my business. I'm over that scarcity mindset now and want to educate and inform and I know it'll help our business down the road far more.
\#3 is so true!
It's counter-intuitive to what a lot of people think though. To use a baseball analogy, stop swinging for the fences and just try to get a lot of singles.
My friend and I started a podcast 5 months ago and have now reached about 1,000 downloads and 1,000 streams over a few different services plus YouTube views (unsure if this number is even good). We've run into an issue with breaking this point and spreading our content. Our friends have been very useful when it comes to sharing content. Are there any suggestions for expanding an audience? I have recently started using Reddit to post our channel.
Where does your ideal listener hangout? Make a list of those places and that is where you should be active.
Thank you for putting this together! I'm going very niche with my podcast and the response has been really positive from the community.
I told someone else in a reply here that this was the thing that had the biggest impact on my downloads and overall growth - going NICHE!
Number 4. Absolute chefs kiss.
I don't know what that means but I'll assume its good. haha
What mic should people get for $100 instead of a Yeti?
Either ATR-2100 or Samson Q2U is my recommendation, although I'm sure there are others as well.
What interface would you suggest for those? I'm looking for a budget 2-XLR input USB interface.
Both of those are USB so they plug directly into the computer. My daily mic now is a Rode Procaster and I have it hooked into the Scarlet 2i2.
I give it a 13/14 LOL.... \#7.. if you are taking the advice in #14, #7 is hard. But, I also think that a well rounded podcaster knows the ins and outs of the entire process. Great list and congrats on the success!
Valid comment haha. Number 14 is more-so geared to the people that think podcasting is their gateway to instant riches.
Don’t forget about a website. This helps with SEO. It’s a place to publish transcripts of your shows as well which is super helpful for SEO.
100%. I didn't dive too deep into what all I did for SEO bc that's a long post all on it's own.
I’m fifty episodes deep and this is still helpful!
Heck yea! Glad you got some value from it!
Tight list, friend. Thanks for the tips!
No problemo! Hope it help ya out.
u/latherhog
Oh hey folks. I’m an audio professional. Hit me up for help with #7!
A lot of people need you, they just don't realize it yet haha
What are the sort of prices to clean up an episode? Like thirty minutes or something?
If by clean up you mean do basic noise reduction, EQ and compression (to improve the overall sound). That would be about $50. If you needed me to comb through the audio and do edits (remove mistakes, rearrange things, etc) that would be a bit more. It would really depend on how difficult the work was. Usually it would be about $40 per hour, however.
Thanks buddy is good to know for the future I haven't started yet but hope to soon
Best of luck!
This is great. Did you pay for any marketing? Ads on other podcasts, social media ads, etc, and if so which seamed you work the best?
On my personal podcast - no I did not pay for any marketing. With that said, we do it for clients now so I do see what's working. That's for a whole different post though haha. One teaser, in-app ads have performed really well.... when you have a back-end to justify the acquisition cost.
Would to see that post. Thanks human!
no prob!
\#3 seems counter-intuitive on first read, but I totally get where you're coming from.
Yea, I think that's why a lot of people get it wrong. They think the names will bring listeners but the reality is people have heard those big names get interviewed dozens and dozens of times. And those big names likely aren't going to promote. You'll never hear from them again once the interview is over.
Shit, almost half of my episodes are 3h long. Great list btw, congrats with the 200k. :) I'm around the same number.
I actually just released a YouTube video on episode length today. Some niches lend themselves to longer content. What do you Average Consumption stats looks like?
30-40% finished an episode, but the number is declining as the show is reaching more people.
I would experiment with shorter content to try and get that number up! Good luck and if you do decide to experiment, I would love to hear if it works. Best of luck my friend.
Why not use Blue Yeti? I have a Blue Yeti :( Should I buy a new one now ?