What I actually learned
Nearly 10 years producing other people's podcasts taught me more than I ever expected.
In this video, I'm pulling back the curtain on what almost a decade in podcast production actually looks like. The patterns I kept seeing across hundreds of shows, the mistakes that kept showing up no matter the niche, and the things that actually move the needle for creators who want to build something worth listening to.
Whether you're just starting out or you've been at it for a while and feel stuck, there's something in here for you. I've worked behind the scenes on a lot of shows, and the lessons I picked up along the way are ones I wish someone had handed me on day one. Pull up a chair. This one is worth your time.
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SPEAKERS
Chris Hall-Franzkowiak
Chris Hall-Franzkowiak 00:00
I have spent nearly ten years sat behind other people's podcasts, producing them, structuring them, creating them. And in that time, I've seen lots of examples of really successful shows and shows that just nothing happened to the way it should.
Being that person behind the scenes of podcast, which is definitely my happy place, means that I've seen pretty much everything. The decisions that people make that can impact whether the show is a success or not happen very early on
And will dictate whether it's still running after six months.
There are some very common mistakes that get repeated. No matter what industry, no matter what type of podcast, no matter what format.
And I wanted to go through what those mistakes are. So I'm going to go through some of the key things that I've learned that will definitely help you to have a long lasting podcast.
If you're thinking about starting a podcast or you already have one and it is not quite doing what you hoped, then certainly some of this stuff is going to help you to go into it knowing what you should do or what you need to change.
It should also help save potentially a lot of time when you are starting a show to really get going in the right way and potentially save you quite a bit of money in terms of not making mistakes that quite a lot of people
None of this is just plucked out of the air from nowhere. It is all stuff that I have seen with small businesses, big brands, individual coaches and entrepreneurs on their shows.
So let's get to one of the key things I have learned over the last ten years is that the quality of a show is often determined before you even start recording. It's not dictated by the quality of the microphone you have, the quality of the editing that you do, but how clearly you are creating your brief for the show that can dictate everything that comes from
So that means who you're making it for, the type of episode you're going to create, the clips that you're going to choose from, the episode to be your hooks, to go out on your social media. All of this stuff is dictated by that brief right at the beginning.
When a client comes to be knowing exactly who their listener is, what problem the show is going to solve, and what action they want the listener to take next. From the episodes, the production is almost always better and smoother for it. It will give the show far more chance of succeeding and growing because you have that basis for everything. And those are the shows where people stick it out far longer than people who are unsure, unstructured and don't know where they're going. After four weeks of doing I've seen it when the clarity of that brief is not there. And after that first month, the host is already questioning what they're doing, the format they've chosen, the type of episodes, and they haven't given it enough time to really find out how that format is working with their audience. And that's where it becomes inconsistent in the quality of the episodes, because they're not going back to that brief. They become inconsistent in releasing episodes because they're unsure of what they're doing, and what they'll see as a production problem isn't really a production problem. It's actually a strategy problem around sticking to that original brief and who their ideal listener is.
So before you spend any money on platforms, equipment or anything like that, or even start recording, you've got to get that brief right so that everything feeds off of that.
So know who the show is for what it does for them, and then what you want them to be able to do as a result of listening to your episodes. The second fundamental thing, and by far one of the biggest indicators of success of a podcast, is that consistency beats quality every single time. I have worked on shows where the production values were incredible. The final product of the audio and the video looked absolutely beautiful, but it was really inconsistently done. Recorded the episodes, came out sporadically and compared to other shows where they were a bit more rough and ready, got the recording done. There wasn't such a massive focus on the production values of it, but the fact that they were releasing episodes every week consistently meant that their show did what it needed to do, and built income from it for the person's business. this is something that sounds very obvious and people will talk about being consistent. There's always something very easy to do. It's not, but you just have to go into knowing what you are able to commit to. So your release frequency is a really important factor here. Don't commit to weekly. If you're not going to be able to do weekly, you're very quickly lose the love. If you overcommit from the beginning, rather than going down to like a biweekly release where it's much more manageable and you're going to get that consistency right, The audience is far less likely to notice a drop in production values if your episodes keep continuously coming out, rather than you aiming for that really high level and not achieve it. The frequency that your business needs you 00:05:29:25 - 00:05:45:02 Unknown So always remember that a podcast that comes out every two weeks over a two year period, because it was a manageable thing for the host, is going to far outperform a weekly podcast that stops after about a month or two months because the host burnt out over 00:05:45:07 - 00:05:53:22 Unknown So the third thing is that there is definitely a gap between what is a good episode and what is a useful episode. 00:05:53:22 - 00:06:00:16 Unknown So I've seen this kind of thing happen quite a lot across different industries with different podcasts. 00:06:00:18 - 00:06:26:13 Unknown The host thinks they found a great guest to bring on to their show because they are potentially a high profile name in whatever industry they are in. But again, it doesn't quite fit with that original brief. So they're bringing in a person who will be, yes, an interesting conversation, but it doesn't actually add to the listeners experience of what you are all about and what they want to get out of it. 00:06:26:15 - 00:06:44:26 Unknown So you can have all of the great quality video, audio, all this kind of stuff with that guest who on paper looks great, but if they don't deliver something to your audience that is related to what you are all about, then what's the point in 00:06:45:01 - 00:07:09:19 Unknown Because ultimately you want the listener to do something from your episode, to take action, to do something that is going to buy another service from you, a coaching hour or whatever it is. And if the guests aren't talking about something that fits within that world, then the listener is not really going to go, oh, that was a great conversation. 00:07:09:21 - 00:07:16:23 Unknown I'm going to go buy something from your services. They're just going to think, oh that was a great conversation and that's it. Just move 00:07:16:25 - 00:07:43:25 Unknown one example of this, is when there is a host that lives in a particular social media world. So whether that's Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, whatever it is. And they think that by getting other high profile people from that platform on as guests, that automatically they're going to have a successful show and it doesn't work like that. 00:07:43:27 - 00:08:15:26 Unknown Yes, they might be high profile people on LinkedIn, but they're not necessarily going to be able to have the conversation that your listeners need to take action to buy something from you. It might not be relevant to your service, the things you're talking about. So you've got to think about whether your podcast is going to be something that has to work for your niche and get people on who are related to that, or if you are just going to be having a podcast that is more about the personal stories and that kind of thing. 00:08:15:26 - 00:08:19:16 Unknown And does that actually relate to your businesses mission? 00:08:19:16 - 00:08:32:12 Unknown So my experience, the types of episodes that actually get people to take action from them are the ones that are related to that brief that you set at the beginning. It all comes back to that. 00:08:32:15 - 00:08:50:18 Unknown So again, always think, is this episode hitting my brief? Is this episode hitting what my ideal listener wants to hear about? That is what's going to make people take action far more than a high profile, personal story that doesn't fit within 00:08:50:18 - 00:08:51:24 Unknown your businesses niche. 00:08:51:24 - 00:09:01:09 Unknown Now, this last one might seem strange coming from me as a production company owner and producer of podcasts, but ultimately 00:09:01:12 - 00:09:04:29 Unknown the production is the last thing that matters. And 00:09:05:00 - 00:09:06:20 Unknown what I mean by that is that 00:09:06:22 - 00:09:14:02 Unknown the content of the episodes is fundamentally the most important thing for your podcast to succeed. 00:09:14:02 - 00:09:34:10 Unknown I can make the podcast look amazing, sound amazing, do all of the right things with the edits in terms of how it looks for your brand, make it look as though it's an extension of your brand in video, in audio, all this kind of stuff. But if the content isn't there to back that up, then none of that really matters. 00:09:34:10 - 00:09:41:23 Unknown What production actually does, and what really good production does is make sure that the content gets in front of people 00:09:41:23 - 00:09:54:21 Unknown it's that ability to stop the scroll so people can see not just that this or this video looks amazing, but also this video is that person's brand. Straight away they can see it and they know that they're going to get something from 00:09:54:29 - 00:10:12:22 Unknown The differentiator whether, again, someone takes action from the socials to go to the show or from the show to your business, and what services you have is going to be the content that is within those clips, within those episodes. So as I keep saying, 00:10:12:22 - 00:10:17:01 Unknown make sure that content is hitting what the ideal listener is going to want. 00:10:17:02 - 00:10:20:04 Unknown And are you giving them a way to take action from 00:10:20:09 - 00:10:36:14 Unknown If you are building a podcast for your business and you're wanting help with all of the production side, and that will help you to be able to really focus on all the stuff I've just been talking about the brief, the content, all this kind of thing. Then I'd love to hear from you and you can book a call in the comments. 00:10:36:14 - 00:10:42:22 Unknown But we also help with the strategy and structure of your podcast right from the beginning. 00:10:42:24 - 00:10:50:15 Unknown So is that description hitting that brief? Is the the artwork the way the channels are set up for you, 00:10:50:15 - 00:11:00:22 Unknown the episodes themselves, the structure of them, what's going to work, what do you need in them? All of this kind of stuff goes into our launch packages and that ongoing support that we have with people. 00:11:00:22 - 00:11:03:11 Unknown So book a call from the link in the comments.
You've chosen to do a podcast, but you've got no idea what goes into it. Should it be 10 minutes? Should it be an hour? Could it be longer? Today we're going to go through episode structure, Episode format, Episode length, all the good stuff that makes people not want to fall asleep. We'll be going through interview based and solo based episodes to find out how long what should go in them, and all the different little bit of elements that you could put in your episodes. So let's do it. So I'm gonna start with a little story of my personal journey into loving podcast, and that was through a podcast called the commode and mayo film review. Now this podcast was about two hours long regularly, and I absolutely loved it. It was full of camaraderie, community, just lots of different things within an episode that made it just a wonderful thing to listen to and be a part of. That was that was the important thing. It made you feel like you were a part of it. Now I didn't ever really listen to a whole episode in one go. Never happened, so I would be breaking it up on my commute into work, back out of work, possibly even the next day. All of that. And I stuck with it because I just loved the episode. I loved the hosts. I loved what they were talking about and how they were doing it. I felt like I was part of their world, and that is what you want to do. Doesn't matter if it's 10 minutes long. Doesn't matter if it's two hours long. Make the audience feel connected and part of your community, and that's what your podcast should do. So with all of that said, What does a good podcast length actually look like? Let's look at interview based and solo episodes. Interview based episodes regularly, the average length is a good 45 minutes, because you are really going to want to delve into the topic with your guest. It's going to take a little bit of time to warm up both you and them, and then you really get into that conversation. So you need a decent amount of time to be able to do that. It's also a really good length of time for that commute that your audience might be on, because they could finish an episode potentially in that whole time they're not having to stop and start. Obviously, you will have seen lots of podcasts where the interview episodes go on a lot longer than that. They could be an hour and a half, sometimes even two hours, but you have to be really sure that you are going to be able to sustain the guest with questions that are going to get amazing content out of them and answers, and also that the audience is going to actually want to hear that much stuff, because that is a long time. But if you are a new show just getting started, and you are asking people to stay with you for an hour and a half based on no prior knowledge of you, the show, or anything like that, that is going to be a tall ask. So really make sure that, if that's what you're going for, you're going to be able to keep your audience for that long and keep the momentum with your guest. So that's why a good 35 minutes to 45 minutes is a very common time for a guest interview based podcast for businesses. So solo episodes, on the other hand, generally, should be shorter than that even. So you're going to want to be looking at, say, between 10 and 20 minutes for a solo episode, because it is just you talking to camera about a specific thing, like I am now. So you've got to get into the information quickly. You've got to deliver it and again, still manage to try and build that community aspect with it, so you're not just talking into the void. So the first question you've got to decide is, which format is going to be right for you. Is it going to be the interview based or the solo based episodes? And potentially a mix of both works really well, because you are going to be able to mix up your content, which keeps it interesting for the audience as well. Another key question in all of this is, How often should you be publishing episodes? So the most common types of release pattern are weekly, bi weekly, possibly monthly, but weekly is definitely the kind of gold standard in terms of frequency of release, because it signals to platforms things like your commitment to them. If you are looking at Apple podcasts and Spotify in terms of your listener rates and looking at charts, if that is something that is important to you, then weekly releases are going to be able to more consistently keep your episodes at a similar position. And if you take a longer period between episodes to release them, then your show is going to gradually go down the charts until you release another one, where it will go back up again because of the number of downloads or streams. So from that. That you can see that if you release an episode and then wait a month, your show is going to gradually go out and disappear out of the charts before it maybe comes back up again. So it becomes harder and harder to keep getting back up there again. So therefore weekly and bi weekly releases are probably the strongest release pattern to be able to maintain that consistency in things like charts, but more importantly than just the charts, because charts is one thing, but it doesn't necessarily mean your podcast is bringing you in revenue, or working in terms of bringing you money. If you're able to release weekly or fortnightly, then it again, is that building that habit with your audience, someone is far less likely to build a habit around your show if you sporadically release, maybe once a month, maybe longer. It's very hard for people to connect with that. But the thing I say to every single client I ever talked to at the start of their podcasting journey is what is manageable to you, because none of that is going to matter if you go for weekly and it is just too much for you to keep up with. You lose the love because you're constantly feeling, oh my God, I've got to record, I've got to record, I've got to record, I've got to release another episode. You will lose the love very quickly, and that's when you stop doing it, way before you start seeing the benefit and the return on your investment in terms of your business, building that authority, generating that income from what a podcast can give you. So next we can talk about the structure of episodes. Gone are the days where you would have a long intro over some music, where you're talking about who you are, what the show's about, why people are going to listen to you and then go into the episode. If that takes you 45 seconds to a minute to do, then you've lost a lot of people. Now it's more about getting into your episode, quickly, trying to hook them in at the beginning and then get straight into the episode. And this is a key thing for the video aspect as well, because if you've got a very long intro in your video, you're going to see a drop off pretty quickly. So in terms of your episode structures, you want to have some kind of hook at the start. This could be a clip from the episode, something that shows people what is coming up, but connects with what the episode is about, or the show is about as a whole, so they know, okay, I'm going to learn about this. That hook could also be you recording a little bit about here's what we're going to get into today. Let's go if, once you've gone through the hook, you want to have some kind of title music for the show. Then again, it's got to be quick. People are not here to listen to a long piece of music or see a minute's worth of loads of graphics about your brand. Five to 10 seconds. Boom. Get in. Then the main body of the episode. You want to deliver on what that hook has promised. If you don't deliver on it, people are going to be like, Well, that didn't give me what I promised. The title, the thumbnail, that hook, all told me one thing, but the episode gave me another that's going to confuse people, and again, you're going to lose them. So you've got to deliver on the promise of the title of the episode, the thumbnail and that hook, and then at the end of your episode, you're going to have your outro, a call to action. This is a space for you to promote something of yourself, to promote your business, to talk about that offer you've got going to get people to sign up to your email list, to like and subscribe the podcast. But do not choose all of these. Choose one record, different variations of your outro that you can rotate, because people will only ever remember one thing you ask them to do. There could be space for adverts within your own episode as well. So you could record yourself talking about these same things, a particular offer a coaching programme, one to ones, etc, and rotate those adverts part of the way through the episode. So that is a general episode structure, one that works really, really well and consistently across lots of different business podcasts. So there we have it. We've talked about episode length, Episode format, the structure and what works for both solo and interview based podcasts. Try different things. Podcasting is all about experimentation. Try things out. See what's working with your audience. Do more of that.
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Drop any comments down below to ask about anything to do with episode structures in podcasting or podcasting in general. I would love to get back to you and a new episode will be out next Tuesday. See you then.
