Maz Farsani, co-founder of Outset Studio, has provided London Mums with useful tips for creating a successful podcast.
Podcasts are popular. In the UK, a quarter of us listen weekly, more than a third of us listen monthly. Worldwide, there are more than four million podcasts available, with content catering for even the most niche of interests, produced by a variety of creators. Some create content just for fun, some to boost the profile of an issue they care about, some to build their business, some to pass on expertise, and some to gain knowledge by interviewing experts.
Successful podcasting involves navigating a learning curve. Content needs to be interesting and engaging, and technology and production skills need to be at a sufficiently high level. And that’s just for audio. While podcasts started as primarily audio content, many now combine audio and video content.
But putting in the effort can be incredibly rewarding.
If it’s something you have an interest in, here are a few tips to point you towards positive results.
Cheapest equipment is a false economy
If you’re new to podcasts, it makes sense that you will want to keep costs down at the start. It is possible to produce a podcast using just your phone loaded with various apps (and this is perhaps a good way to get started by producing a few practice pilot episodes), but you need to think about sound quality.
A few people may listen via Sennheiser or Beyerdynamic noise-cancelling headphones in a quiet room, but many are likely to be in the kitchen, garden or in the car. The next time you’re in a car, select a radio station that invites listeners to call in. You will notice a difference between the presenter (talking into an expensive microphone in a custom-built studio with great acoustics) and the people calling in on their phones. There is a good chance road noise will make it difficult to hear the callers. There are plenty of hurdles you’ll need to overcome to build an audience for your podcast, you don’t want the first one to be that they can’t make out everything you’re saying.
By investing in the best equipment that you can afford (good quality microphones, high-quality video equipment, a branded backdrop) you make your podcast memorable for all the right reasons.
Understand Your Audience
Creating a good podcast is primarily about preparation. Before considering content or any technical requirements, you need to understand your audience. Who are you creating content for? What do they want to know? How will they find you?
You need to develop a full understanding of your audience demographics, interests, what niche they fall into, what shows they already listen to, and why they are interested in listening to podcasts. Once you have developed that understanding, you can begin to think about what you will add to that conversation.
One way of finding out is by running a pilot or two past a test audience to gain feedback. This way, you can test different hosts, topics and formats in front of a small, dedicated audience. They will often be more forgiving yet happier to provide feedback. Once you have experimented with your formula to get it right, you can dive into full episodes.
Be consistent
Audience building is a long-term strategy. The average podcast runs for just seven episodes. People don’t see the audience growing quickly enough and they give up. Successful and popular podcasts have over a thousand episodes. The difference is often consistency.
You need to be consistent about when you release your content, what time and what day. It needs a consistent format and quality, a regular host, and even the look and feel need to be consistent. Consider the background you use for the video aspect, the microphone, angles, and so on.
The audience also needs to know what content you explore, what they will get from listening to your podcast, and that the conversation will develop over time. Consistency is about reassuring the audience that your podcast is worth their time and commitment to they keep coming back for more.
Quality Content & Production
Quality is important and can be split into two aspects: quality of content and quality of production.
Quality content is engaging, educational, interesting, possibly humorous, and, above all, entertaining. People can overlook low production values as long as your content is captivating. This can save production costs (especially when you are getting started) but it does mean you need to spend more time preparing and perfecting content.
Quality production is important when tapping into an audience with a low attention span. Given two equal options, people will go for the one with the higher production values. It’s simply more engaging and easier to listen to. If your competitors are producing high-quality podcasts, you will need to as well, so do a bit of competitor analysis to find out what level of production you need to invest in to win your audience over.
Consistently high-quality content and production will lead more people to consistently choose your podcast, growing your audience with each episode.
Consider involving a professional studio
People often try to cut costs by trying to do everything themselves. It is possible, but there are a lot of production elements to get right ? from planning, project management, and research to entertaining hosting to tech skills like cameras, audio, lighting, editing, distribution, collaboration, guests, marketing, SEO, and so on.
Learning everything yourself takes a lot of time and there’s still a good chance you’ll miss something, meaning the audience is left wanting and you don’t make the most out of your hard work. Consider that a professional podcast editor will take around four hours to edit one hour of content. For amateurs, it will take a lot longer and won’t be as polished.
Money saved by doing everything yourself could, therefore, end up costing a lot more in the long run and leave you with lacklustre content. Investing in hiring the right people or a professional studio will mean consistent and high-quality content that captures and keeps your audience coming back for more.
Be patient
So, you’ve published some nicely-edited episodes your audience will love that were recorded on high-quality equipment and you’ve done all the SEO you can, yet your audience is still small.
Don’t give up! Even if you do everything right, your audience won’t magically appear.
Too many podcasts do everything right and still fail because they expect immediate results. When they don’t go viral after five episodes, they assume it’s not working and lose interest.
Give it time. Consistency is the key. Keep making consistently entertaining, high-quality, well-edited content that your audience is interested in and they will show up eventually.
