Anatomy of a great podcast

Hey this is Fritz. Early when I started podcasting I admit, I fell into the “ego trap” of “all I have to do is make a show and people will come listen to it. Eventually.” Sort of borrowing the famous line from the movie Field of Dreams: “If you build it, they will come.”

Fact is: a lot of times they don’t. Not unless you know what makes a good one.

There’s something about a good show that makes it resonate for people. It’s what keeps listeners coming back. It’s been a long road but the lessons I’ve learned have 100% gone into podcastify.me, and now I’d love to share it with you.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is: People have notoriously short attention spans.

It’s no secret that our attention spans have dwindled in the last century. Technology has been training us–whether good or bad–to only have about 15-20 minutes of solid attention that can be devoted to consuming a single piece of content.

That can pose a problem for a podcast episode (which is a single piece of content). What do you do if you have a 30 or 60 minute episode and you want to keep listeners engaged and attentive?

Break up the episode into pieces.

For a 30 minute show, whether audio or video, it’s good to split it around the halfway mark, around the time that the guest is done saying something, and the host is getting ready to start talking again.

Fade out nicely, and then put a midroll segment in, with a different pace, little bit higher volume, and some music in the background. Change up what’s being heard and “cleanse the palate” for 30-60 seconds before diving back into the show. Fade back in and pick up where you left off.

For a longer show, such as a 60 minute episode, you can do this twice, ideally at the 20-minute and 40-minute mark, so you still keep it at that ideal 20-minute length per segment.

For video podcasts, you have more than just audio you can work with. Really good video podcasts will switch camera views between host, guest, and side-by-side. You can also get creative with the midrolls and include short videos or ads right there where they can be seen. It might also be good to tell listeners to, hey, come back to this Youtube tab, because you’re not gonna wanna miss what I’m showing you. You have the freedom to be creative about how to re-engage your listeners and get them to take some kind of action.

Also, for midroll segments, you can change up who is talking. If you’re a man and you have a woman voice over for your midroll segment, it’s a change in expectation and gets people to take notice. And then there’s another change when the next part of the show starts up, so you get to get ’em twice.

There are all kinds of ways to edit shows and experiment to find out what works well and what doesn’t. Most of these are things that our botlets do automatically–and more botlets are being built all the time.

If you’re ready to find out whether you’d be a fit for podcastify.me, and how it can bring more business to you, we’d love to talk! We can start for FREE with you filling out the form by clicking that giant pink button below, and we’ll find out more about you, your business and your goals.