This week, I’m celebrating the 500th episode of the Sound Off Podcast by turning the spotlight on why so many shows underperform—and what you can do about it. After nearly 10 years and 500 episodes, I’ve seen the same mistakes again and again, so I break down 10 big ones: blaming a vague “discovery problem” instead of doing the work of promotion, skipping a proper trailer, tolerating shit audio and lazy editing, and relying on weak interview structures that don’t respect the listener’s time. I also get into overlooked essentials like artwork that actually stands out, using metadata wisely, putting your show everywhere listeners expect podcasts, and not obsessing over video at the expense of audio. Finally, I tackle the myth that you need 10,000 downloads to monetize—reminding you that you don’t monetize a podcast, you monetize an audience.

Things I promised to put in the show notes:

Here are the levels that Apple and Spotify recommend for your podcast. But I found this that shows those and a few more.

Want to make your guests sound studio quality? Waves Voice Re-Gen is a favourite I am using now.

Adobe has a free and paid tier in their podcast tools.

James Cridland keeps a running list of places you should submit your podcast.

Please sign up for the SOUNDING OFF Newsletter. All the things that went unsaid on the show.

Also we added the Sound Off Podcast to the The Open Podcast Prefix Project (OP3) A free and open-source podcast prefix analytics service committed to open data and listener privacy. You can be a nosey parker by checking out our downloads here.

Thanks to the following organizations for supporting the show:

Megatrax - Licensed Music for your radio station or podcast production company.

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