Podcast Episode Structure

Podcast Structure is something a lot of new podcasters overthink, and honestly, I get it.

When I first started thinking about how to build a show, I had the same questions. How long should each episode be? Should I do interviews or go solo? Do I need segments? The truth is, there is no single right answer, but there are principles that actually work when you apply them consistently.

In this video, I break down how to think about episode length and format in a way that serves your audience and fits your goals as a creator. Whether you are just getting started or you have been podcasting for a while and feel like something is off, this one is worth your time. Podcast structure is one of those things that quietly determines whether people come back for more or quietly move on. Let's make sure they come back.

• Chapters

  00:00 - Podcast Structure Overview

  01:12 - Why Episode Length Matters

  02:45 - Interview Episode Length Guide

  04:10 - Solo Episode Length Explained

  05:20 - Release Frequency That Works

  07:05 - Building Audience Habit

  08:00 - Episode Structure Hook to Outro

  09:10 - Call to Action Best Practice

• Transcript

  SPEAKERS

  Chris Hall-Franzkowiak

  Chris Hall-Franzkowiak  00:00

  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.