Why a PODCAST is your personal brand on steroids — CATALYST Communications Choreography

Let's face it - putting a voice and personality to your brand is probably the biggest step you could take in terms of your marketing and building authority - but podcasts are no small commitment.

I’ll preface this by saying that in no way, am I advocating that EVERYONE needs to start a podcast! Quite the opposite, they can be time intensive, tech heavy and focus pulling endeavors. I often consult with people on if HOSTING or GUESTING on podcasts is their best course of action to build their authority.

That said….

I’ve done a lot of interviews, so I wanted to share a few insights from a HOSTING perspective:

What’s important for your brand

What will appeal to sponsors

How to build the right audience

I’ll start with the biggest three questions before you even begin to be asking yourself and your team;

Why are we doing this?
Did you spend time on production / artwork?
Have you nailed your audience?

Example of not nailing your audience description: “A podcast for entrepreneurs.”
Example of nailing your audience discription: “My podcast deals with the issues that (specific group of) entrepreneurs face, and the (three, main, priorities) that will help them succeed.”

Next, let’s make sure you really have the time to take this on. As all of my marketing and communications experience has taught me,

it’s best to choose your few TOP channels and focus on them in order to produce quality content that builds your audience and creates following and authority

- which is simply harder to do across 5 or 6 channels rather than 1 to 3.

OK, to put things in perspective for your audience building, some key stats:

Typical podcast episode loses 20-35% of the listening audience in the first five minutes.
25% of podcast listeners spend 1 to 3 hours listening to content each week.
16% of podcast listeners tune in to less than one hour of content.

Now, for those of you still willing to wade into the murky waters of “hosting on air" I'm going to lay down my top suggestions that will save everyone (including your listeners) a lot of time and frustration:

Let’s hurdle over the main issues that will hurt your podcast’s success:

DO: HOOK YOUR AUDIENCE FROM THE START

This starts with knowing exactly who you are attracting and crafting the most engaging message and episode descriptions that will speak directly to that group.

…here’s where most amateurs fail! They wish to appeal to all people in all categories. What they must remember is that the more you narrow in, the more credibility and loyalty you can assume per listener, and therefore more staying power.

You aren’t limited by geography, and the boarders are wide open. 1% of 1 million is still 10,000 potential people tuning in!

Also worth remembering, is that you will be more appealing to a certain groups of advertisers and other supporters if they can clearly align their target audiences with yours.

DO: INTRO LIKE A PRO

An encouraging stat: 80% of people are listening to the entire podcast or MOST of the podcast - even if that’s true, first, you need to get them to want to stay!

We’ve all listened to podcasts that come across more amateur than others. For the most part, it comes down to who is the host here for - themselves or you?

Amateurs can sound self-serving and aren’t able to provide clear value from the experience, whereas if you want to be taken as an expert, you’ll need to deliver consistent value each and every time.

A simple rule to follow is have an INTRO (the first 2-3 minutes of a podcast) that will lock you in as an expert:

Share your why.
Tell them what they’re going to hear about.
Share what they’ll get if they stick around.

…and here’s where things fall apart for most amateur hosts! - - They don’t have the planning, outline and foresight to promise this off the hop.

There are too many variables;

What if we aren’t able to answer all of their questions.
What if my guest is terrible?
What if I’m off my game and lose track of what I’m talking about?

All of these are the responsibility of the host. Full stop. Not anyone’s fault but yours.

I’m telling you that if you do the work of narrowing in, not only on your audience, but on YOUR expertise and what you are offering and bringing to the table, you will be able to step into your intro and WOW people right off the top.

A mediocre episode with a good introduction will almost always perform better than a great episode with a poor intro.

DO: AVOID THE 5 MIN DROP OFF

Most studies agree that 18-30 minute podcasts seem to hit the sweet spot for holding the audience’s attention, I would lean on the 30-40 min mark. What is also important to remember is that first statistic - about 25-30% of your listeners will drop off in the first 2-5 minutes. Let’s lessen that shall we?

Now, following the “intro” rules above are going to give you a huge advantage - a strong intro will definitely keep people hanging around. But there are other factors to improve listener retention;

Guests:

If you have a guest - make sure they are well-matched for the episode. Now, you may not be able to land Bill Gates or Greta Thunberg as your ‘opening act’ but I’m sure there are some local superstars, regional Association reps and or even city officials who may be willing to tune in for an informal chat and add to the ‘expert’ or wow factor of your podcast off the bat.

If the guest is quite ‘new’ on the scene - be sure that you highlight one specific topic or even one specific question they can help answer. If they can prepare for that one topic, they’ll likely be more able to pull out some valuable takeaways and leave sounding like a true expert.

Banter:

Try to introduce the guest within the first 5 min. - this doesn’t mean the interview portion has to commence off the bat - but it gives audience the visual of having a guest interacting with your opening banter or in-studio, listening to your Introduction or story can draw in engagement from listeners.

Keep banter light, but not veering off down too many unrelated paths.

Giveaways:

If you are going to be offering or giving away something, mention it in this first section. But make sure you deliver at the end! These shouldn’t be empty tips or throwaway tools that they can find on your website, but serious offers - something they would normally have to pay for, consider using Coupon codes (both for tracking and future marketing purposes).

Editing:

The best way to avoid awkward pauses and banter that goes ‘no where’ is in post-production. If you have post-production and editing ability you can play with the formatting to ensure the podcast maintains energy and continues to move forward, which could also help to improve retention.

All for this first topic - bottom line: it's important to hook listeners off the hop with those first few episodes. So putting your brand forward with these steps in mind will up your expert rating and help you land on people’s SAVED lists.

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