181 | What Makes Podcast Content Truly Memorable? 7 Tips to Keep Your Audience Hooked

[00:00:00] Do you ever wonder what separates good content from the kind that truly connects? Stick around because today we're diving into the best practices to make your episodes unforgettable. Let's get started.

[00:00:20] Sound matters. Be heard. Welcome to the podcast where you get exclusive behind the scenes tips to make your own show sound truly spectacular. This is Podtastic Audio.

[00:00:36] What's happening? How are you doing today? Thank you so much for being here. Happy holidays. We are in the thick of December.

[00:00:45] Christmas is just around the corner. Can you believe that? We are in December now? Amazing.

[00:00:52] This show, Podtastic Audio, was designed solely to create an amazing show for you and help you create an amazing show for your audience.

[00:01:02] That's what it's all about. It's about giving back. And I love to help. And this show was only designed to help you out.

[00:01:10] And like I said, Christmas is right around the corner. So today we're diving into how to create content that not only resonates with your audience, but also more importantly, keeps them coming back for more time and time again, episode after episode.

[00:01:31] You know, getting the plays on an episode is fine and dandy, but you really want them to stick around. You want them to follow your show.

[00:01:41] Hey, here's a little fun fact. Did you know that podcasts with highly engaged audiences grow 30% faster than those that don't focus on any listener feedback at all?

[00:01:54] Let's make sure that your podcast is in that growth category. Yeah. Wouldn't that be nice?

[00:02:01] So to help you make that happen today, what things we're going to cover are audience research, planning versus spontaneity, sticking to your theme, audio quality, engaging listeners, and repurposing your content.

[00:02:22] Now, I've said this once that I'm sure a lot of podcasts about podcasting preach the same exact thing is that if you are a podcaster, you need to know exactly who your audience is.

[00:02:40] And more than just that, you need to know them inside and out.

[00:02:45] And the reason why this even matters, because some people will say, well, I like the podcast to everybody.

[00:02:51] My show is for everybody that walks on this earth. Anybody can listen.

[00:02:57] In fact, I want everybody to listen to my show. It's for everybody.

[00:03:01] Truthfully, no show on earth is for everybody. It does not exist because everybody is different.

[00:03:08] Us humans have different experiences, different values, different things that we care about.

[00:03:14] So the reason why it matters to your show to know exactly who your audience is, is because, like I said, your podcast isn't for everyone.

[00:03:23] It's for someone.

[00:03:26] Knowing who that someone is will guide every single decision you make about putting the content on your show.

[00:03:35] So people always like to talk about the listener avatar or your ideal listener or listener persona, however you want to say it.

[00:03:46] It's basically creating the ideal listener that your show is intended for that one person to listen to.

[00:03:54] So a good way to figure that out is to think about what is the age of the person that I want to reach with my podcast?

[00:04:03] What are their interests?

[00:04:05] What are their pain points?

[00:04:08] What do they hope to gain from listening to this podcast?

[00:04:12] When they finish listening to my show, what are they going to learn from it?

[00:04:16] Maybe it's an entertainment show.

[00:04:19] Maybe your show is merely just, you know, funsy giggles and funsy times.

[00:04:24] Great.

[00:04:25] Maybe they're going to be entertained and the entertainment value that you deliver is the thing that they're interested in.

[00:04:33] So you need to know exactly what they're interested in.

[00:04:37] And if you are just throwing episode ideas out there, like one week we talk about this, another week we talk about something completely different, and it just bounces around maybe a different guest from a completely different genre, talking about completely different things.

[00:04:51] Well, possibly using your own analytics of your show, maybe you can kind of see like one episode is doing a little better than another.

[00:05:01] And sometimes this can be a little tricky to see when you have a guest interview.

[00:05:05] For example, let's say you have a really bigger guest name, and that guest decided to share that episode, which does not always happen, but let's say they did.

[00:05:15] They shared their episode with their massive audience.

[00:05:18] So you see this big, massive bump in your downloads for that one episode.

[00:05:23] Now, could it be the content?

[00:05:25] Or could it be the fact that they shared it with their big, massive audience?

[00:05:30] That's kind of a tricky one to see.

[00:05:32] But it will give you a rough idea of what shows your audience actually enjoys listening to versus ones that don't.

[00:05:41] I mean, there are some times you make a show and you think this episode is going to be amazing.

[00:05:45] It was great content.

[00:05:46] I loved it.

[00:05:48] It sounded great.

[00:05:49] It looked great.

[00:05:49] Everything was amazing.

[00:05:51] And then you put it out there, and it's like crickets.

[00:05:54] It's like no one's listening to this episode.

[00:05:56] But on the other side, you make an episode, you just pull it out of your butt out of nowhere, and you kind of put it together last minute, and it goes off the charts.

[00:06:07] And everyone's loving it.

[00:06:08] Everyone's talking about it.

[00:06:09] Actually, that happened to me recently.

[00:06:13] Okay, and the second thing that you can do to create content that's amazing, that makes your listeners not only want to listen to your show, but keep on listening to your show, is if you do a little planning, but, you know, staying a little bit flexible.

[00:06:30] Okay, so you have to kind of balance those things out.

[00:06:33] You want structured enough to stay on track, but flexible enough to keep the conversation organic and authentic.

[00:06:42] And that's the thing with podcasting.

[00:06:44] Some people will just stick to the script and read word for word.

[00:06:49] Now, even if you do an interview show, I've seen this too.

[00:06:53] They will have a guest on, and instead of having like a regular natural conversation, the interview will sound like a job interview.

[00:07:02] They're just reading down a list of questions.

[00:07:05] So tell me where you're going to be in seven years, or did you like this or like that?

[00:07:11] And the guest will say something like, well, I just had to put my dog down, and I ran it over with a car last week.

[00:07:19] And the host will say something like, great.

[00:07:22] Tell me about a time that you did.

[00:07:24] Then move on to the next question.

[00:07:26] You're like, what about the dog dying?

[00:07:28] What about that?

[00:07:29] So you kind of have a balance of staying on somewhat topic, but also at the same time, keeping it fresh, keeping it like a regular normal conversation.

[00:07:41] You know, the one thing about podcasting, at least audio podcasting, not talking about video here.

[00:07:47] I'm talking about audio podcasting in its truest form, is that with audio, you have a much personal, deeper relationship, a deeper connection with the host of that podcast than any other form of media.

[00:08:03] With podcasting, we're talking directly to you.

[00:08:08] So I know that back in the old days, everybody used to say, ladies and gentlemen, hello, everybody listening out there in podcast land and everywhere else.

[00:08:18] There's a good chance.

[00:08:19] I'm always willing to bet that you're not listening to this episode with a group of other people gathered around the speaker.

[00:08:28] I doubt that's happening.

[00:08:30] You're probably listening to me alone.

[00:08:32] Look around you right now.

[00:08:33] Is anybody else around you?

[00:08:35] It's just me and you having a conversation.

[00:08:38] And that's the beauty of an audio podcast.

[00:08:41] People usually listen to these things alone.

[00:08:44] And it makes for a much intimate, a more direct connection between the host and the listener.

[00:08:52] So you want to make sure that when you're talking with the listener, not so much like at the listener.

[00:08:58] You're not like, you know, a random speech is spilling out data and facts directly at them.

[00:09:05] You want to make sure the listener is a part of the conversation to make them feel welcome.

[00:09:10] Make them feel like they want to participate in the podcast.

[00:09:15] If you've ever done that when you're listening to a podcast and you're almost finishing what the host is saying or the guest is saying, you're almost finishing their lines for them.

[00:09:26] You'll like say it out loud.

[00:09:27] I've done that.

[00:09:28] It's because I'm so involved within that episode, within that conversation.

[00:09:32] I'm like sucked into the conversation that I feel like I'm part of it.

[00:09:37] But it's also good to have some kind of structure for your episodes, whatever that structure is.

[00:09:43] I know when we did the Chris and Christine show, although we had guests a lot, we did have somewhat of a structure to the episodes, like all of them.

[00:09:50] And this dated back, probably way back when we first started doing guest interviews, because we had a lot of things we wanted to talk about.

[00:09:59] But we also had a guest interview to do.

[00:10:01] And we were going to do like five episodes a week.

[00:10:03] We only did one episode a week.

[00:10:05] So we kind of mashed them both together.

[00:10:08] And that became the outline for the episode.

[00:10:11] So in the beginning, it would be us talking about the things that we wanted to talk about for the week.

[00:10:15] And then we insert the guest interview section, which was already pre-recorded.

[00:10:20] Because when you interview guests, you may know this, it's not always at the exact same time you record every day.

[00:10:26] So you have to book the guests, get them scheduled, record those interviews, set them aside.

[00:10:32] So then when they're ready to be played on that episode, we would have our talking part, our stuff, insert guest interview, come out of the interview, do a quick wrap up.

[00:10:42] And that would be the formula or the format for our episodes when we did the Chris and Christine show.

[00:10:50] And the next strategy you can do to make sure your content connects directly with your audience is that if you are sticking to a core theme or possibly a core message all throughout your podcast, I'm sure you've heard a lot of people say consistency is everything.

[00:11:08] You need to be consistent with your podcast.

[00:11:11] And what does that really mean?

[00:11:11] Now, some would say consistently keep making crappy episodes week after week, day after day.

[00:11:17] You're consistently doing it.

[00:11:19] No, what I'm talking about is consistency with the type of show you create.

[00:11:25] Consistency builds trust, loyalty, and recognition.

[00:11:29] You know, when your listeners know what to expect within your podcast for each episode, they're more likely to hit play on every single episode.

[00:11:41] Because if your show was a mismatch of all these random things that happen every single day with random guests talking about random topics, like one topic you're talking about firearms.

[00:11:55] The next topic you're talking about tea parties with your daughter and everything in between.

[00:12:01] And it's totally all over the place.

[00:12:04] Sometimes listeners, and I know I've done this myself, is that if a show has gone way off topic and they've bounced all around, jumped the shark as it were, I've jumped off that podcast.

[00:12:17] Now, some simple tips to be consistent with your podcast.

[00:12:21] Basically, the biggest one of all is stay within your niche.

[00:12:27] Stay in your lane, buddy.

[00:12:28] You know, don't be swerving all over the place.

[00:12:30] Your podcast is about topic A.

[00:12:33] Don't be talking about topic Z.

[00:12:34] Because your listeners aren't going to stick around for that.

[00:12:37] They came in for one thing and one thing only.

[00:12:39] You are known for your niche.

[00:12:43] Embrace it.

[00:12:44] And if you possibly want to get a little crazy here, you can take a much bigger topic within your niche and kind of break it up over like three or four or five different episodes.

[00:13:00] Like a series based on that one massive topic that falls under the umbrella of your niche.

[00:13:09] Let's say, for example, if your show is talking about Disney movies on Disney Plus and classic Disney cartoons.

[00:13:18] And possibly, maybe you can do a whole segment, a whole series on Walt Disney himself and how he got into drawing cartoons and how he got into that kind of stuff.

[00:13:29] Maybe do a series on him.

[00:13:31] That's just one example.

[00:13:33] But it's your podcast.

[00:13:35] You can create your show however you want.

[00:13:37] You can talk about whatever you want.

[00:13:39] And you know best of what your niche is, who your audience is, and what they want to hear.

[00:13:47] Okay, moving on to another tip to make sure your podcast listeners stick around and enjoy your show.

[00:13:53] Want to come back to your show.

[00:13:55] Want to subscribe to your show.

[00:13:57] Is if you have amazing podcast audio.

[00:14:01] Now, I've been saying this once and I've been saying it since day one of Podtastic Audio.

[00:14:08] In fact, this show was designed on helping you create amazing podcast audio for your podcast.

[00:14:14] Now, bad audio on a podcast can ruin everything.

[00:14:19] And I know people will swear by this.

[00:14:21] They'll say, Chris, content is king.

[00:14:24] Content is the only thing that really matters.

[00:14:26] Content, content, content.

[00:14:27] But yes, content is king.

[00:14:28] Yes, I agree with you on that.

[00:14:30] But if I can't hear it or it sounds horrible, listeners will turn it off, move on, and go to something completely different.

[00:14:40] Trust me, you are not the only podcast in town.

[00:14:43] You wish you were.

[00:14:45] You think you are.

[00:14:46] But if your podcast has horrible audio, people are just going to leave.

[00:14:52] They're not going to stick around for that.

[00:14:53] And I think that today, December 2024, it's kind of hard to have like really, really bad audio.

[00:15:03] There's lots of easy ways to make great audio for your podcast.

[00:15:08] Some are free.

[00:15:09] Some cost money.

[00:15:11] But it all starts with a basic microphone, a decent microphone.

[00:15:16] It's much easier to actually like record good audio and make it sound better than having to deal with like really crappy audio and spending money on these AI tools to fix the bad audio in the first place.

[00:15:33] Wouldn't it just be easier to have really good audio to start with and edit that versus having to edit bad audio?

[00:15:42] And I know I've got lots of these tools to edit really bad audio because I know you know that if you ever have a guest on your podcast, you don't know what they're coming in.

[00:15:52] You know, you don't know what kind of gear they have.

[00:15:54] They can have anything.

[00:15:56] They could have a laptop, a cell phone.

[00:15:58] They could have anything.

[00:15:59] And yet you want to make sure they sound great.

[00:16:03] That's what I always tell the guests.

[00:16:04] When I have a guest on, I say, listen, I want to make sure that you sound amazing the best you possibly can.

[00:16:11] They don't know this, but I do have tools to fix their bad audio if their audio is not up to par.

[00:16:17] But I will want them to have the best equipment possible.

[00:16:21] Now, this does not mean you have to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on equipment and gear for your podcast.

[00:16:28] You can have a great audio for your show with a simple Samsung Q2U microphone, and it only costs maybe 50 bucks.

[00:16:37] I thought I saw somewhere that the ATR 2100 microphone, which is like the sister microphone to that microphone.

[00:16:44] They're pretty much the same.

[00:16:46] That microphone was like 30 bucks on Amazon for Black Friday.

[00:16:50] So all you need is something like that.

[00:16:52] Your computer, which chances are almost everybody has their own computer.

[00:16:56] I mean, my kids have their own computer right now.

[00:16:59] They're not podcasters.

[00:17:00] So most people have a computer, a decent microphone, a regular computer, and somewhat of a quiet place to record.

[00:17:08] Meaning you're not doing your podcast, Super Bowl Sunday, in the middle of the living room, in the middle of a Super Bowl party with all this noise going on.

[00:17:17] That's not a great place to do a podcast.

[00:17:20] Unless that's the theme of the podcast.

[00:17:22] That depends.

[00:17:23] It's all you.

[00:17:23] But normally, you would have a nice, quiet place.

[00:17:26] And when you do edit your podcast, hopefully you do edit.

[00:17:30] Edit to make it sound the best you possibly can.

[00:17:34] But you can go a little crazy.

[00:17:35] I know I have myself.

[00:17:37] You can go a little crazy with the editing and edit a little, just a little too much.

[00:17:41] Where now it sounds a little robotic.

[00:17:43] It sounds a little fake.

[00:17:44] It sounds a little phony.

[00:17:45] You still want it to sound good, but you also want it to sound natural.

[00:17:49] Okay, moving on to the next thing you can do to make sure your podcast gets listeners and attracts them and keeps them coming back for more.

[00:17:57] It's that if you physically, actually engage with those listeners.

[00:18:02] And the engaged listeners are the loyal listeners.

[00:18:08] And loyal listeners keep coming back week after week, episode after episode.

[00:18:15] Podcasting is a two-way street.

[00:18:17] Your audience wants to feel seen and heard.

[00:18:21] This isn't the all about you show.

[00:18:24] This isn't you, you, you, you.

[00:18:27] You want to make sure the audience actually engages with you.

[00:18:32] Because if you put a podcast out there and you're talking and you're doing your thing and you see the downloads coming in.

[00:18:38] Oh, great, all these downloads.

[00:18:40] But nobody ever, like ever writes you an email.

[00:18:44] Nobody ever comments on social media.

[00:18:46] Nobody ever says anything about your show.

[00:18:49] Nobody ever engages with your show.

[00:18:52] Well, do you really have a show?

[00:18:53] If the podcast falls in the woods and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?

[00:18:57] Okay, so here's what you do.

[00:18:59] You always want to make sure you're asking the audience to participate in your show.

[00:19:05] Participate with you, on your podcast, with your podcast.

[00:19:08] So what you always can do within the podcast itself is you can incorporate like listener feedback.

[00:19:15] Maybe some questions that they had questions and you answer right there on the podcast.

[00:19:20] Or something cool like maybe a voice message or maybe the podcast can play like audio that was sent in via the listener somehow.

[00:19:29] Whether it's like, you know, speak pipe or they emailed you something or, you know, a voice message.

[00:19:35] Something somewhere.

[00:19:36] You can play those right on the episodes.

[00:19:38] And in fact, in your podcast, don't feel afraid to actually just ask them for this information.

[00:19:46] Like, send me your questions for next week's episode.

[00:19:48] It's a Q&A.

[00:19:50] Come on and participate.

[00:19:51] We're talking about this one thing.

[00:19:52] If you have a question, let me know.

[00:19:54] And I'll read your question right on the air.

[00:19:56] I'll even tag you in it and all that great stuff.

[00:19:59] You know, listeners actually love it.

[00:20:01] I mean, they love it when they hear their name on the podcast that they listen to is being said.

[00:20:08] Or something that they said to the podcaster is being read right on the podcast that they listen to.

[00:20:15] I enjoy doing it.

[00:20:16] When I send in messages or something to other podcasts and they say it on the show, I'm like, wow, kind of giddy.

[00:20:24] It's kind of exciting.

[00:20:25] Even though I've been doing this for a while, I still get kind of butterflies hearing my stuff being said on another show.

[00:20:31] I actually love it.

[00:20:32] So if I love it, I only can imagine what the listener to your show will do if they hear you do the exact same thing.

[00:20:40] Okay, and the last thing I have here about creating content that connects with your direct audience and keeps them wanting to stay for many episodes than just the one they're listening at that exact moment is to repurpose your content.

[00:20:56] But do it strategically.

[00:20:58] Now, why create something once when you can turn it into five different pieces of content?

[00:21:08] And that is something I've been doing for probably the last, I don't know, maybe year or so, or at least definitely since the summer, I think it was.

[00:21:18] What I discovered AI tools to help me take my podcast and make all kinds of different content assets out of it, mostly text-based stuff.

[00:21:31] But for example, let's just say you record your podcast episode with your guest.

[00:21:36] It's a great episode.

[00:21:37] You guys had a great conversation.

[00:21:39] You talked about a bunch of different things.

[00:21:42] Well, you can run that all through AI.

[00:21:44] And AI can come up with all the different kind of text content, like say all of the written text, a blog post, a newsletter, a bunch of different tweets on Twitter X or whatever you like to use, blue sky or threads, whatever it is.

[00:22:01] Different content from that one single episode.

[00:22:06] That way, not only is it only in one spot, this way it helps maximize the value of that single episode across many different platforms, across many different people.

[00:22:20] Because not everybody likes to listen to a podcast.

[00:22:23] And I know it sounds crazy to think about.

[00:22:25] But if the content within that same episode is sprinkled over, say, a blog post because people are reading something, or maybe a short little post on social media, or a meme, or something along those lines.

[00:22:41] Or maybe even like if you do a video style interview and the video is one hour long, maybe dice that up into four 15-minute segments and put those across not only your podcast, but also maybe your YouTube channel.

[00:22:55] You're taking one piece of content and you're kind of like chopping it up and spreading it out, making multiple things out of it.

[00:23:02] So like an interview, I know if some people do this, they'll take a longer interview and they'll spread it out over like two or maybe four or maybe even more than that episodes.

[00:23:12] Because I know that sometimes when we create a really long episode or really long interview, you might think, and that might be way too long.

[00:23:21] I know Joe Rogan does these three-hour interviews, but you're not Joe Rogan.

[00:23:24] And maybe your audience only likes to listen to bite-sized moments.

[00:23:29] Maybe they only like to listen to five-minute clips or 10-minute sections or whatever.

[00:23:35] You can dice it all up and serve it to them in that way.

[00:23:39] Hey, your podcast is your podcast.

[00:23:41] You can do things however you want.

[00:23:43] But these are some ideas, some tips to make sure that your podcast sticks with your audience.

[00:23:50] Your audience actually gets to connect with your show and they stick around for more than just that one episode.

[00:23:57] Because getting someone to push play on a podcast like one time, that's fairly easy to do.

[00:24:04] Almost anybody can do that because it's always like you're kind of curious, like what's this show about?

[00:24:09] Let me check it out.

[00:24:10] I'll push play.

[00:24:11] I'll try it out once.

[00:24:12] I'll try it out for a few minutes.

[00:24:13] Check this thing out.

[00:24:14] You press play.

[00:24:15] You listen to it.

[00:24:16] You're like, well, it's not for me.

[00:24:17] It's not for me.

[00:24:18] So I'm going to not listen to it again and not subscribe.

[00:24:21] But what you really want to do is get them to push play that one time and be so good that they say, oh my goodness, this is the best show ever.

[00:24:29] I'm going to physically subscribe to this podcast.

[00:24:33] And hear what this person is all about and what this show is all about.

[00:24:37] I'm ready to commit to listening more than just that one episode.

[00:24:42] And that's always a tricky part.

[00:24:44] It's always easy to get them to press play once.

[00:24:46] But it's hard to get them to press play twice.

[00:24:49] And it's even harder to get them to subscribe.

[00:24:51] Hey, let me know if any of these tips worked out best for you.

[00:24:55] You always can reach out to me on my website.

[00:24:58] That is podtasticaudio.com.

[00:25:01] And on there, you can do quite a many different cool things.

[00:25:05] You obviously can listen to the podcast.

[00:25:07] You can subscribe to the podcast.

[00:25:09] You can send me a voice note.

[00:25:10] You can send me a regular note, an email.

[00:25:13] All my social media links are right there.

[00:25:15] That is podtasticaudio.com.

[00:25:18] And I will see you on the next one.

[00:25:20] And until then, happy podcasting.