Podcast outros - those things at the end of your episodes that statistically half of your listeners will skip or ignore.

So if so many people are ignoring your outros, is there any point in including them?

In this episode, we discuss why having a podcast outro is still important for your podcast episodes and what to include in your own outro.

We will also answer the following questions:

• How Long Should Your Podcast Outro Be?
• Should I Use the Same Podcast Outro Everytime?
• Should I Include Music In My Podcast Outro?

Whether you're just starting a podcast or have been in podcasting for sometime, there is something for you within this episode to help you create the best outro for your show.

Read the Blog Post >> How to Write Your Podcast Outro (+ 3 Free Templates)

Takeaways:

• Podcast outros are an important part of your show, even if many listeners tune out before they hear them.
• Keeping your outro concise is key; aim for a maximum of two minutes to avoid turning it into a snooze-fest.
• Sprinkling your call to action throughout the episode can boost listener engagement and remind them what to do at the end.
• Thanking your listeners at the end of each episode creates a connection and shows appreciation for their time.

Episodes Mentioned in This Episode:

• Ep 5: How to Create Your Podcast Intro

Other Links Mentioned in This Episode:

• Blog Post: How to Create a Podcast Intro
• Pond5: Get music for your podcast



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Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Podcasting for Indie Podcasters with myself, Verity.

This morning when I'm recording, I am fully embracing the whole indie podcasting vibe.

I'm actually currently sat on my daughter's bedroom floor recording in her room because the two places that I normally record are out of access.

They're in use for various reasons.

But it is Sunday morning.

It's actually quarter past seven in the morning when I'm recording this.

I have nothing recorded to put out on Wednesday.

So here we are living the life of an indie podcaster and recording wherever we can, really.

In this episode, we are going to be looking all about podcast outros, how to include calls to action within your outro appropriately.

And we're also going to answer three key questions.

How long should your podcast outro be?

Should I use the same podcast outro every time?

And should I include music in my podcast outro as well?

Well, I wanted to talk about podcast outros and whether or not you should bother with a podcast outro, what you could include in your podcast outro.

Because I think a lot of people put so much effort, and rightly so, put a lot of effort into their podcast outro, but then they don't necessarily see the results from them that they want.

And what I mean by this is that a lot of the time people will save their outros to say things like, join my newsletter or subscribe to the show or download this freebie or join this course or join my coaching program, whatever it is, whatever your call to action is.

But around half of your listeners are never going to listen to your outro because basically your listener has come for your content, you've delivered your content, and as soon as it's obvious that you're winding down on the episode and you're going into an outro.

Most people, unless they're, you know, listening passively in the car and skip to the next episode, whatever, what a lot of people do is just stop listening.

They'll tune out or they'll turn off the episode.

They'll go search for another episode because they kind of think all the content that I want is over with and there's nothing else that I can be doing given or that I can get from this episode.

So statistically, around half of your listeners are never going to listen to your outro.

That then might get you thinking of, well, what's the point of having an outro?

And should I have an outro?

And I would say yes, because what about your nearly 50% of listeners who are going to stick around and are going to listen to that.

But you need to be strategic in how you have your outro and what you do with your outro as well.

So I'm already mentioned call to actions, and what you'll find a lot of the time is that people or podcasters will try and stuff as many calls to action within that outro as possible.

And I've been guilty of this before.

I've signed off episodes being like, you know, subscribe to this and then do this and sign up for the newsletter and check out all these links in the show notes.

And it's overwhelming for listeners and you might think, oh, the more I put in, the more people are going to do, when actually, the more instructions you give people, the more requests you give people, actually, the less they are likely to do.

So you want to keep your calls to action to an absolute minimum.

And it's also useful if you sprinkle the same call to action throughout the episode as well.

So, for example, if you want someone to subscribe to your show, yes, include that in your outro, but include it in maybe your intro and maybe within your podcast episode as well.

So there's a nice reminder, if you aren't subscribed to this show already, please make sure you're subscribed on whichever platform that you listen to.

I'm going to try remember to replicate that in my outro now.

But the point is, is that be strategic about your calls to action.

And yes, okay, I get it that as a podcaster, you've probably got a lot of freebies where you want people to sign up to your newsletter, you want people to go to your blog, you want people to do all these different things, but sometimes it's better to say, right, I'm just going to concentrate on this call to action within this episode, but I'm going to replicate that or repeat that throughout the episode and then put it into my outro as well.

So it might be that for that episode you were just going to try and get people to say, subscribe to your newsletter or to subscribe to your show or sign up to your course or whatever it is.

The other thing that I like to do in my outro is thank the listeners because, you know, people have sat around with you, even if your episode's only five, ten minutes long, even if it's two hours long, whatever it is, somebody has taken that time to actually sit and listen to your show.

So I always think it's nice to thank your listeners at the end of your episode.

So those are my two kind of main points as to what to include in your outro is a call to action.

But as I said, just one.

And make sure it's sprinkled throughout the episode already so that you've got that repetition.

People more like to then follow that call to action and also thank your listeners.

But to follow that up then I think that kind of creates around three questions.

The first one, how long should your podcast outro be?

The next one, should you use the same podcast outro every time?

And the third one is, should I include music in my podcast outro?

So I want to address each of these separately.

The first one is how long should your podcast outro be?

And I would say it needs to be long enough to cover what you need it to cover without being too long.

What you don't want it to do is turn into this infomercial which is significant percentage of your absolute.

That's just going to be a waste of everybody's time.

So it needs to be as long as it needs to be.

And I wouldn't bother dragging it out a minute, two minutes, absolute tops is absolutely brilliant.

Should you use the same outro every time?

So what I mean by this is because some people like to have pre recorded outros.

I've used prerecorded outros previously.

I don't bother with that anymore.

I also don't bother with prerecorded intros.

In episode five I talked about how to create a podcast intro, but there's a blog post which goes with that which is more updated.

I'll have it linked down in the show notes, which is all about why I don't bother with a prerecorded podcast intro anymore.

And it's kind of the same idea as to why I don't bother with a pre recorded outro anymore.

I prefer to just keep it dynamic and in the moment as well.

But some people like to have pre recorded outros.

And what you can do in the kind of luxury of that is you can have a different call to action each time.

So you could have an outro which focuses on getting people into your newsletter.

You could have an outro which focuses on getting people into a program that you're running or to your blog, whatever it is.

And then you can switch out these outros either dynamically.

Some hosts allow you to dynamically switch out an outro.

So then it covers every single episode.

Or you might want to rotate them and manually insert them yourself for your different episodes.

And then that brings us on to the third question of should you include music in your podcast outro?

And if you want to, absolutely.

Great.

Again, I know a lot of podcasters who have kind of moved away from using music in their outros and their intros actually, but mainly their outros because that's what we're talking about this episode.

In recent months or recent years, it's just an extra thing to do to edit and put music in.

But if you want to use music, make sure that it's royalty free music.

Make sure that you've got permission to use that commercially on your podcast.

Even if you're not making money through your podcast, there are still rules that have to be followed.

If you do want a good recommendation for where to get very low cost royalty free music, Pond 5 is an absolutely great resource.

I'll have it linked down in the show notes below.

You can pick up music that you can use royalty free and commercially as well for literally a couple of dollars.

I hope that this episode about podcast outros has been useful to you and has helped you think a little bit about how to create your own podcast outro.

If you want more information on this subject, I will have the blog post related to this particular episode down in the show notes and has got some templates for creating a podcast outro.

You don't need to enter your email address, you don't need to download everything, it's all just there available on the blog for free.

But just to recap those key parts of an outro, I think it's really important in your outro to thank your listener to recap as well what you've talked about in the episode to give a call to action as well, such as subscribing to the show, to the newsletter, or whatever is relevant to your particular show.

Thank you so much for joining me.

If you are not already subscribed to Podcasting for Indie Podcasters, I would love it if you could hit subscribe on whichever platform you are currently listening to and otherwise I will see you next episode.