Batman’s utility belt. The Doctor’s Screwdriver from Doctor Who. Tommy Pickles’ toy Screwdriver1. These things could get our heroes out of whatever pinch they found themselves in.

They were a tool for any occasion. And that’s what Descript is for Podcasters.

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I am one of the unholy people who commits the seasonal crime of listening to Christmas music too early. I get the itch around early November, but exercise restraint until a week before Thanksgiving.

Every year, I set aside some time to review and update both of my lists: the family-friendly one, and my personal list — a combination of classics and slightly more vulgar songs from my youth. This year, I came to a realization…

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I actually think there are two misconceptions here. The first is we have shorter attention spans. TikTok increased its video length to 10 minutes, and the sweet spot for YouTube appears to be 12-20 minutes. People’s attention spans are short when they don’t care about the content. But when it’s good content, we can capture their attention.

And Podcasters can absolutely leverage short-form content, with just a little extra effort. They can keep the camera on while they record their podcast, and with some planning, make clear, succinct points to the camera…then repurpose those clips on social. OR after they record an episode,  they can recap it in short form video OR audio.

Plus, episodes can be less than 5 minutes — and daily short podcasts are increasing in popularity.

I had a rough weekend a while back, my friends. One Thursday I started to feel sick with the plague my children brought home from school. And I thought I had successfully avoided it.

Still, I was feeling well enough to write scripts for one of my solo episodes before resting up. I figured I'd record it on Saturday...after I did rest.

And I did. But it was a disaster. I was rambling, coughing, getting winded, and stopping...a lot. It was not quality content.

I could have just released that, knowing I had an arbitrary deadline of Monday at 2am ET. But episodes like this —long, no single focus, hard to find a clear story — needed to be tight and helpful. This was not.

So I decided to take Sunday and rest some more, hoping Monday would see me with more energy and stamina.

Which it did! I re-recorded the entire episode and released it later than usual...but in much better shape.

You don’t always need to hit your arbitrary deadlines. And while most of this show is dedicated to helping you build a system to not be in the same position I was…well, sometimes it doesn’t work out.

When that happens, it’s better to take a moment and prioritize quality content over a deadline most people won’t notice you missed.

One of my least favorite things in the whole world is traffic. Mostly because traffic without a big causal event (like an accident, or road work) has always been super confusion to me. It seems like there no traffic, then traffic for NO reason, then all of a sudden it's gone. But the truth is, traffic is usually not due to one big event. It's a bunch of little things that add up to one big bottleneck. 

Your podcast process can be similar. Here's how to prevent the bottleneck. 

I'm a huge Friends fan. Like...watch the whole series multiple times per year. 
Did you know they did something in Season 1 to grow their viewership 25%? 
Season 1, Episode 16 was called, “The One with Two Parts, Part 1,” it was the first of a crossover event with two other NBC shows.
Before landing the role of Phoebe on Friends, Lisa Kudrow was a waitress named Ursula on NBC’s hit show Mad About You, also set in NYC. 
The show wrote them as twin sisters, and Ursula was introduced to the Friends audience in Episode 16 when Joey started dating her. 
Helen Hunt and Leila Kenzle, who played the main characters on Mad About You, also make an appearance, mistaking Phoebe for Ursula at Central Perk, a common hangout in Friends.
But it doesn’t stop there. At the end of Episode 16, Rachel falls and hurts her ankle. Episode 17 opens with her and Monica at the Hospital, where they meet two young doctors, played by George Clooney and Noah Wyle, the stars of ER. 
The results of that cross-over event? 
The most-viewed episode before that arc had 26M views and guest-starred Morgan Fairchild as Chandler’s mom. 
After that, the average viewership was 29.8M per episode. 
What can podcasters learn from this? Get in front of other people’s audiences. 
The Friends team knew that pulling in Mad About You and ER cast would bring the fans. 
After all – they were similar shows (daily lives of young people in big cities), at similar times, on the same network. 
You can replicate this strategy 2 ways:

1. Going on other people's podcasts as a guest
2. Doing podcast swaps, where you and another podcast plug each other shows I did each of these and grew my own show from 33,000 monthly downloads to 72,000 monthly downloads in 10 months. Not bad, right? Now it's your turn. Write back and let me know: what are 2-3 podcasts you can work with on a podcast swap?

I want you to think about the times you make introductions to people. Maybe you’re introducing a coworker to your spouse, or a friend from one area of your life to a friend in another area of your life. 
You likely say something like, “Bob, this is Jean. Jean, Bob. Bob is one of the best copywriters I know! And Jean is fantastic at graphic design.”
What you don’t do is say, “Bob, Jean. Jean. Bob. Now tell each other what you do,” because they’d both be caught off-guard. 
If you ask me, “What is the worst question podcasters commonly ask their guests,” you’ll get one, unequivocal answer from me:

So tell us who you are and what you do.

And while I’ve spoken about [why podcasters shouldn’t ask that question], if you go on podcasts, chances are you’re getting it.
So how, as a podcast guest, do you turn that into a way to stand out?
Let’s start with what not to do first. 
Perhaps the worst answer you can give is a rehash of your bio. It’s likely that the host already told people who you are, reading a provided bio or recording an intro after your interview. 
Plus, people can just read your bio. 
Instead, what you want to do is deliver value right out of the gate. 
What I try to do is tell a story that clearly illustrates how I help people — which means I need to know the topic and audience ahead of time. 
If we’re talking about podcast sponsorship, I’m telling people about how podcasting saved my business. 
If we’re talking about workflows, I’m telling people how I knew something needed to change when I completely burned out in 2020. 

This does a couple of things:

1. It helps people learn a little bit more about me without me just rereading my bio.
2. It makes people emotionally invested in my story. The people I help can empathize with stories I tell.
3. It illustrates the kind of transformation I can do for them. So how can you do this? The answer is tell a story. I write [all about digital storytelling here]. Your goal is to tell a story of transformation, make the listener the hero, and position yourself as the guide. You want to communicate to the listener that:
4. I see you
5. I’ve been where you were
6. I know the way out
7. I can help you Why does this matter? Because a great podcast interview can do a lot of things for you. It can grow your authority. It can get people onto your mailing list and reach new clients. It can be a gold mine for creating your own content. But a bad one is basically just wasted time. It won’t be good for the podcast, and it won’t be good for you. But if you start strong, win over the audience early, and steer the conversation in the direction you need it to go in, it can be a huge boon for you in both the short- and long term.

Let’s talk about memberships….specifically the platforms. In the last few years, setting up a membership has gone from “hire a developer to build a custom site” to “I barely need a dedicated website anymore.”

So let’s look at a few options that are good for podcast memberships.  Memberful. They are really trying to corner the market on podcast memberships, and they’re doing a good job. Rich features, lots of integrations, and is free to start.

The only drawback in my eyes is the price: $0 + 10% transaction fee or $25/mo + 4.9% transaction fee. Both transaction fees are higher than you should pay. 

Patreon, on the other hand, pretty much only charges you if you make money. They are also the first major membership platform for creators and have added lots of great features, including private podcast feeds. 

LemonSqueezy  +  Transistor.fm : This one takes a little bit of duct tape to work perfectly, but since you can sell subscriptions (and a members-only newsletter) with LemonSqueezy, you can use a tool like Zapier or Make to connect those purchases to a podcast host that supports private podcasts, like Transistor. When someone purchases via LemonSqueezy, you can have Zapier create a private subscriber.  

ConvertKit has ConvertKit Commerce, but if you're considering this route, be aware: it's only really good for a premium newsletter. 

One of the many WordPress membership plugins. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention WordPress…but to be honest, I wouldn’t recommend starting with it. If you’d like to see an in-depth comparison,  my friend Chris did one. 

Membership…that is, charging a listener monthly for bonus content…is a great way to make money with your podcast. 
But you need to be cautious. 
It’s tempting to offer a TON of bonuses to make the membership seem more valuable.
But what if no one…or even worse…ONE person…signed up. 
If one person signs up, you’re on the hook for all of those extras.
Instead, take this approach:
First, test the waters. Ask your mailing list or listeners what they want to see more of. Don’t ask them if they would pay (most people will say yes to theoretical spending). Just ask what they want to see more of. Guage response. If no one responds, focus on building your audience first. But if a good number of people respond, it’s time to start thinking about your perks.
Start with low-hanging fruit. I like to call those things low effort, high reward. In my membership, it’s an extra 10-minute conversation with my guests that’s for members only. It’s removing ads. 
It’s an extra video or episode. These are raw, but they are behind-the-scenes looks that only they get. 
Come up with 2-3 of these perks that won’t take you a TON of time. 
Then email the people who responded with a special price. If you want to price it at $6/mo, offer it to them at $5/mo for a limited time. Tell them you’ll even extend it to friends and coworkers. See how many people buy in. Then announce it to the world — your mailing list, on your podcast, on social media. 
And make sure you deliver. Low effort and high reward perks make it easier for you to do that. 

“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Aaron Eckhart’s version of Harvey Dent said that in Christopher Nolan’s penultimate Batman film, The Dark Knight.

Since its release in 2008, that quote has been referenced and misappropriated to fit situations because, let’s be honest, it’s a cool quote.

Well, you can add another reference to the pile because it’s the first quote that came to mind when I thought about prolific podcaster Matt Medeiros: “You either podfade or you podcast long enough to try every format.”

Matt has certainly been around the block. He had perhaps the first popular WordPress business podcast, The Matt Report. He has a short-form news podcast called The WP Minute. Finally, he has a locally focused podcast, We Are Here, celebrating businesses from South Coast, MA.

And now he hosts Breakdown, a podcast by the popular forms plugin, Gravity Forms, for Gravity Forms users and web builders.

Even though podcasting has been around for a while, most brands are just now coming around to their importance as part of a greater content strategy.

I wanted to capture Breakdown’s story as it’s starting. It’s easy to say after it’s worked that it was the right decision. We’re still at the point where Matt and the Gravity Forms team are experimenting. And that’s a great thing for brands and podcasters alike to see.

IN THIS EPISODE

• No matter how many downloads your podcast gets, it can be an integral part of your overall content strategy.
• Create case studies from interviews you publish on your podcast — whether you’re a brand or a solopreneur.
• Be open to experiments. You never know what will resonate with your audience.

Read the full article here: https://podcastworkflows.com/branded-podcast-case-study/