086 - Your Show's All-Round Packaging

Having a great story and cast, along with excellent recording and production values should be enough to take your show to the top, but that isn’t the case.If you have poor cover art and a website that looks like a 1998 bulletin board, most listeners won’t even give your show a chance.How much thought are you putting into attracting potential fans to your site, and how easy is it for them to subscribe and listen to your episodes once they get there?Attention to detail is important if you want to create an all-round professional image. You can grow your audience by making it easy for listeners to consume your show.Things that contribute to an ‘all round’ listener experienceYour show is discoverable – clearly marked as an Audio Drama in the titleYou own a website that’s easy to find, preferably a .com.Good visuals, not just cover art, but other artwork. Maybe character sketches, maps, or concept artArtworkCover art – needs to be eye catching against hundreds of others in iTunesBut also needs to work well when displayed small, as it will beDon’t cram too much text in there. Best just to have your titleA decent design resource – Canva If someone finds your website when they Google ‘audio drama’, what’s the next steps?Do you have an episode list that’s easy to navigate?Do you have easy and clear subscribe links? iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, etc‘About’ pages are the most viewed pages on most websites, take advantage by putting vital links (listed above) thereMake it easy for people, you want them to listen/subscribe What’s the journey a listener might take after discovering your show?In your credits you’ll send them to your websiteBetter to send them to yoursite.com and not a soundcloud or iTunes link (we’ve made this mistake ourselves in the past, sending people to sites we don’t own)Is there a clearly marked ‘contact’ page with a number of options? On the subject of websitesMake sure your site your site works on a phoneAsk a friend to Google your show, find it, subscribe, and download your first episodeHostingNever host your media (episodes) on your websiteUse a media host like Libsyn or BlubrrySoundcloud is okay if you’re just getting started with one off shows, but avoid using it as a primary media host for a seriesOther tipsLinks page, share the love by linking to your favourite showsMetadata/ID3 tags – make good use of them before uploading your finished MP3Also mentionedBig thanks to our Valenhigh backers as we continue our crowdfunding campaign. And Laurence Fishburne enters the world of Audio Drama with a show that’ll be produced by non other than Kc Wayland.