By Mike Newman, Head of UK Content Partnerships, audioBoom
What’s your angle?
There are currently over 500,000 podcasts available in the Apple Podcasts store, so you’re releasing your podcast into a busy marketplace. You need a compelling reason for anyone to listen to your podcast, so think carefully about what you’re offering and how that differs from the 499,999 others out there. Once you know your angle, articulate and exploit it through your show title, episode titles and any accompanying marketing. Compel me to listen.
How will it sound?
The attraction of podcasting is that anybody can do it – get a cheap microphone, download some editing software and start recording…that’s it, right? Not quite! As the number of available podcasts grows, so does the quality threshold, so think carefully about how your podcast will sound. The type of podcast you’re producing will impact your decision making here – aiming for a never before heard, high-end aurul experience? Sell your house and spend the money on audio equipment. Aiming for a few friends having a roundtable discussion? Sacrifice your takeaways for a few weeks and spend that money on audio equipment. You’ll also want to consider if you need studio space for your recording – for those high end productions, it’s advisable to get professional support but if you’re on a budget, a cosy room without too much exposed glass will offer a good space to produce decent sounding audio. Podcasting doesn’t have to cost the earth, but if you’re spending a good portion of your time planning and recording it, you should invest a little in making it sound nice.
Artwork
Much like wine, books and Tinder profiles, podcasts are judged on their looks. Yes, it’s ultimately about the audio, but you’ve got to stand out from the crowd to get noticed in the first place. The Apple Podcast Store is the biggest Podcast storefront of them all, so check out what’s there already and work hard on making yours stand-out. Try to avoid too many words on your artwork, remembering that only 14% of people use a laptop or PC to listen to podcasts; the other 86% are listening on a phone or tablet, so be sure your artwork looks enticing even when it’s shrunk to fit a phone screen. Metadata is also increasingly important so do list your guests and make your show description clear.
Distribution
Ensuring your podcast is distributed as widely as possible is crucial to success. There’s hundreds of podcast apps on the market, both for iOS and Android, but Apple Podcasts is the dominant player, commanding around 60% of all podcast listening. Spotify is one of the other biggest players for podcast listening in the UK, but there’s also Deezer, Stitcher, Podcast Addict, Castbox and many, many more. Hosting your podcast on Audioboom’s servers means we’ll ensure your podcast is distributed to all the places people go to get their podcasts. Once you’re out there, you need to stay consistent with (preferably) weekly episodes, released on the same day at the same time every week. If you want to build a loyal audience, you’ll need to be creating fresh content to keep them satisfied. One prominent piece of research suggests podcast fans listen to an average of 7 podcasts per week, so get yourself into that list and become a part of your listener’s daily routine.
Monetisation
Once your audience starts to grow, you can think about making money from your podcast. In the last year, some of the biggest podcasts in the world have been picked up by TV and movie studios, so there’s money to be made from podcasting. However, if HBO don’t put a call in, there’s still plenty of ways to generate revenue:
· Dynamic ads – the kind of commercials you’re used to hearing on radio. Big brands, mainstream messaging.
· Live reads – if you’re already a podcast listener, you’ll be familiar with these. They are the most lucrative but demand audiences over 10,000 listens per episode. The podcast host reads a sponsor message and integrates it into the podcast itself.
· Sponsorship – a client has the overall sponsorship of your podcast.
· Spin-offs – live tours, book deals and the aforementioned movie deals are all potential future revenue opportunities as you grow your audience.