If your production doesn’t appear to have some effort put into it, you’ll never get new listeners. At least not drive-by listeners. In business, this is the same as having great signage. Look appealing and intriguing. Give off the impression that you’re walking into an experience with clean bathrooms.
For quality content, this means taking it at the very least, one step past “record and publish.” To really take your production to the next level, every episode needs to serve a single purpose. If you don’t know what that purpose is, you’re likely losing listeners.
Top 3 Way To Make Your Podcast Look Like A Quality Show!
- Podcast Cover Artwork – great designers have color pallets in mind, they understand balance, and focus. The focus could be on a subject in an image or it could be on the title. Either way, your eyes should be drawn to one area first, and move around the cover art because of curiosity struck up by the work.
- Title/Show-Notes – at the very least, write well. This means punctuation, and complete thoughts. But be consistent with your approach. All caps should be saved for special single words, not full sentences. Long show-notes will never be read. Think, “how fast can I convince someone to press play?”
- Quality Audio – this starts with a decent recording. You don’t have to do a ton in post to have great audio if you record in a decent room with decent mic technique. Notice I didn’t say anything about equipment.
Top 3 Ways To Produce Quality Content
- Record Good Tape – I understand that nobody uses tape anymore, but its much cooler to say. The point is, don’t sit at your kitchen island. Find a quite room with little to no reverberation (echo). Never have the mic more than a foot away from you. (Film junkies with amazing shotgun mics are the exception).
- Edit A LOT – For a great product you need to cut a crap ton, exclusion for well-scripted material. Most podcasters have an idea and press record. When The Osbourne’s came out, some team member mentioned 100+ hours of recorded material cut down to a half-hour show. Simply put, not everything you put out is worth a damn. Cut, cut and cut again.
- Beginning/Middle/End – Your listener has been consuming their whole life. They know when a show begins, and when it’s about to end. There’s a reason. It’s a production line, or a storyline. We want something novel up front, relate-able in the middle that’s filled with conflict, and resolute at the end. That being said, once your ending is out, stop the show. Leave the listener with some area to fill in the gaps. The happily ever after is how they decide it’s supposed to go.
In the end, podcasting is about entertainment. It comes in many forms; comedy, drama, education, and more – with an expectation for how the product will shift the viewer/listener’s mood. Make a decision and go with it. Fail a few times. Fail a few more. Now you’re closer to something quality.
