Evo Terra:
Making your podcast better doesn't have to be a huge undertaking.
Evo Terra:
Here are five small, incremental additions you can make at the episode level to
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move your podcast from good to great.
Evo Terra:
Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.
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Perfect is the enemy of done, which I'm sure you've heard.
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And it truly is a true statement.
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Shipping a product out the door that's just good enough is almost
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always better than never launching a product because it fails to meet your
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extremely high levels of expectations.
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Now, that's true in podcasting as well.
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But today, I want to focus in on that nagging suspicion that you
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might have that you think maybe I could make this thing better.
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And I want to concentrate, not on the overall thing of podcasting, but
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just at the episode level for today.
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Because I really want to make sure that this episode is actually
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immediately actionable to you.
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So if you want to take notes, there will be five of these things.
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And of course I will detail all five of these things at the
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website podcastpontifications.com if you want the full picture.
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Speaking of pictures, I want you to picture in your mind, that rare
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situation where you've just finished an episode, not just finished recording,
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but actually finished an episode.
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You've tagged it.
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You're ready to upload it.
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In fact, maybe you've already uploaded it to your hosting provider.
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But it's that rare time where you actually have more time than you need.
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It's not going live in the next fifteen minutes.
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It may be days, may be weeks, doesn't really matter, but you have time.
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And so your brain says maybe there's something missing.
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You know, you just listened to it for that final time before you uploaded it, and
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you said maybe it's missing something.
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Well, here are five possible somethings that you might want to think about
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adding to make your podcast better.
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Number one is maybe it's missing a segment.
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Maybe there's a new piece of audio that you need to drop into your
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episode to actually make it better.
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I'll give you three small examples of that.
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Maybe it's a wrap-up.
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I hear a lot of shows that do good conversations, sometimes short, sometimes
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terribly long, and at the end they just say goodbye to the guests and they end it.
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Maybe there's a place for you to add in a wrap-up.
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Tell me what I just listened to and also what's the action
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items I should be going forward.
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So maybe there's a segment in an episode wrap-up.
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Or maybe there's a - you're doing something very long and very deep.
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Maybe you need a good news segment or something else kind of light
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and airy that you could drop in.
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Or maybe a different take from somebody with a different
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opinion on the exact same topic.
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Again, these are going to take time to add in.
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But if you think about your episode, are there individual segments that aren't
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there, that if you added this new segment, it might make the show that much better?
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internal guideposts, especially if you're doing long-ish form
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interviews or monologues that go on for double-digits, sometimes triple-digit
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minutes with long blocks of content where you and the guests are chalk talking.
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Especially if the guest is talking for five minutes at a time, long things,
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you might need some guideposts inside of the episode to lead people through.
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They are things you'll add in later, post-interview or post-monologue when
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you go, we're going to talk more about that in just a moment, but first I
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wanted to ask my guest about this thing.
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That's a trick that really solid live interviewers do on the fly.
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As a podcaster, since we're not going live immediately, we have
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more time to add that stuff in post.
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So those guideposts added in post can really help draw someone along so
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that you keep your retention rates.
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When you look at them on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, when you see people drop
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off listening, that will continue.
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If you can tease in what's coming next - What's next?
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We're gonna get there in a minute, we're gonna get there, we're gonna get there...
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[Number three] Another trick to bring the guests along with you, especially
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for longer form content, is by doing sound design throughout the episode.
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Sound design does not mean dropping bed music track underneath
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everything that's being spoken.
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No.
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I'm talking about using music, using sounds to really underline and emphasize
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and accent the content that's being made.
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Because sometimes either the speaker, whether it's the guest
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or the host or someone else on the show is making a point, there's
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not enough in the tone inflection.
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People are busy.
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People are, you know, we already know that people listen to podcasts
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while they're doing other things.
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So if something's really important, underline it with the right kind of music.
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Takes a deft hand to do that, but it can really bring out the
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true character of an episode.
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Number four, maybe you need a new voice.
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A new voice, a new, additional voice on the episode itself.
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Maybe replacing - if you're doing your intros and your outros and
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you're doing the interviews with your guests, maybe thinking about having
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another voice do your intro and your outros, your openings, and your
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closing, your setups and wrap-ups.
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Maybe that's an interesting way to keep some variety in people's
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ears, and they hear you in the middle talking about the guest.
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Possibly.
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The fifth thing you might add, or one addition you might make,
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is actually a subtraction.
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It's the addition of a scalpel.
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It's the addition of a meat cleaver, perhaps, whatever slicing,
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chopping metaphor you want to use here, something to remove content.
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And what I mean by that is just providing a super solid edit.
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Here's all the content.
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We're all good.
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We've got the content ready to go with this, except not
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all of that content is great.
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Doing the process of editing, not audio engineering, but actually editing
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for content and cutting out the bits that aren't - sometimes rearranging.
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That's okay.
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You can all do that inside of a true edit on a show.
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So sometimes the addition of a scalpel will be helpful to you.
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So five relatively straightforward, I won't say simple, things you can do at
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the episode level when you have time.
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If you bake time into your calendar, just think which of those five
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things, maybe all of them, would you like to do to your episodes so
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that you make your episodes better?
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Now, it's hard for you to do this on your own, figuring out which one is best.
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So the best thing to do, as I am often here to tell you, is
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get some advice from your peers.
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Share this episode with them and ask what they think is missing from your episodes?
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From your most recent episode, what would they do different?
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Give them this list of five things.
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What do they think would be better and how would they do it?
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Always good to have a second opinion and someone else you can
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trust in the podcasting space.
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Kind of like me!
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I guess.
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If you love the information I'm providing for you on this episode and all of the
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episodes of Podcast Pontifications, please go to buymeacoffee.com/evoterra,
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and you know, buy me a virtual coffee.
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That's always nice.
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That's it.
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I shall be back tomorrow with yet another Podcast Pontifications.
