If your podcast feels a little off lately, it may be time for a simple but powerful refresh.

As your voice, message, and confidence evolve, your podcast should evolve with you. Small elements like your intro, outro, CTAs, and ads can quietly impact how your audience engages with your content. When these pieces no longer feel aligned, your listeners can feel that shift too.

Refreshing your podcast does not mean starting over. It means refining what is already working so your message lands more clearly and connects more deeply.

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Hey, hey, hey.

This is Kim Parkinson, and you are listening to Podcasting for your spiritual business.

If your podcast is still sounding like it did when you first started it, maybe it's time for a refresh.

And this is the perfect time of year.

This is spring.

This is a new quarter.

This is a new month.

It's.

Everything is new.

We.

Right.

But let me also preface this with, you can do this anytime.

So if you are catching this mid July, mid December, you can do this any time.

We are entering a new season, and maybe it's a new season of your podcast.

That's possible too, right?

So right now, I'm kind of just reflecting on how it is that I start my intros in my podcast.

So typically, I start with, hey, beautiful women.

It is Kim Parkinson you're listening to.

And then I go into it, and today we're talking about.

And I know that that is not a fab hook, right?

That is not something that people.

Maybe you guys are like, yeah, I'm used to her saying that.

That's.

That's cool.

I like that.

But, you know, podcasting isn't.

It isn't static.

It is something that evolves as you evolve.

And I think in this particular case, I'm ready for a little bit of an evolution of my intro.

If you are thinking that maybe what worked at the very beginning is maybe something that needs to be tweaked now, this is really normal, and this is a really good sign that you're evolving and you and your listeners are ready for the next rendition, the next part of your podcast in the early days when we first get started.

So if you are just launching your podcast, this is very typical.

You're gonna probably have a little bit of a script.

You might have sticky notes everywhere.

You might be trying to remember your cta, your intro.

Don't forget to ask them to subscribe.

Send them to your newsletter, whatever it might be.

And you might be feeling overwhelmed.

So you have everything all written out, or you have a canned intro or a canned outro.

Now, I still recommend a canned outro, especially because a lot of times we have a tendency to forget to talk about ourselves when we're doing an interview.

And so having a canned outro is actually really a good thing, because at least then it will still have in there, you know, whatever it is that you want your listener to move on to.

So typically for me, it's join my newsletter now that you've got a few episodes under your belt, right?

Because you're.

Maybe you're not in the early stages.

Maybe you're not launching, and you've got maybe a couple months even.

You are feeling more natural.

You're definitely feeling more confident.

You're feeling.

You're feeling like, yeah, I got this, okay, the very beginning, I was scared, but now I'm doing this.

And now maybe it is just ingrained in you.

You're like, yes, I am always going to mention a previous episode, or I'm going to mention to join my newsletter, or I'm going to mention whatever it might be, you know, whatever that or might be.

You've already got that down.

You know what that is.

You have a direction.

You know, every time you start an episode, you are going to introduce yourself, you're going to introduce your show, you're going to have that hook, you're going to have the cta, and you're already got it down.

It seems like a lot at first, and this is why all the sticky notes.

But now that we've got a couple of months of episodes, this is where that shift happens.

And you're like, you know what?

Maybe I'm not saying this right.

Maybe I want to change this up.

And it could be that you really start with, hello there, beautiful women, or you start with hey there.

Or.

Or you start with some kind of a intro, and it really wasn't hitting.

It wasn't really what you wanted, but it was good enough at the beginning.

And now you've kind of started to talk and you've gotten more relaxed with yourself.

You know more about who your listeners are.

And so perhaps you just change your wording and that's okay.

And that's actually perfect because that really tells the listeners that you are listening to them, too, and that you want to really connect with them individually, personally.

This is when you kind of go from that learning how to podcast to owning your podcast.

Right?

What I want you to take a look at is, is your intro still aligned with your message?

Is it too long now?

I did have a client one time, and she had a canned intro and a canned outro, and then she would have these mini hot seat coaching sessions in the middle.

Sometimes the intro and the outro were longer than the hot seat coaching pieces in the middle.

The intro that she had was a good 2 minutes and 50 seconds, 2 minutes, 30 seconds, something ridiculously long.

This was a couple years ago, and her outro was maybe a minute and 45 seconds.

It was so long as well.

What ended up happening was, again, people aren't listening to those pieces.

They're just pushing it Right along, Right.

She did have a special intro that would go in the beginning, an episode intro.

So she would have like a little snippet that she would create.

I'd put that before her canned intro and then she would then have the episode and then the canned outro, the snippet people would want to listen to.

But then, you know, if you're driving or if you're walking the dog or you're doing the dishes, having to sit through two minutes, two and a half minutes, we'll say, or two minutes of an intro is, is long, is long.

And no matter how many times I, I mentioned to her that it was too long, she preferred it.

So it stayed there.

But I want you to take a look.

Right?

So here, this, here's the thing.

When I say canned intro, those are the ones that typically have a little bit of music and then it's something you have pre recorded.

And that's because that's what the industry called for.

Now, the industry is not interested in canned intros.

The only time I recommend a canned intro any longer is if you have a disclaimer because you are a doctor, a therapist, somebody, a lawyer, somebody that needs to have maybe a finra, maybe you know, financial advisor, something like that.

If you need to have a disclaimer before every episode, those are the people that I suggest leaving them in.

And again, that's compliance.

That has nothing to do with your listeners, really.

That, that is just your industry's compliance.

So if that is the case, leave it in.

This episode's probably, well, this episode can still be for you, but it's probably going to just deal with maybe your intro snippet or how you introduce the episode as a whole.

So if you are still saying the same thing at the very beginning, is it aligned with who you're talking to now?

And if you are just saying the same thing out of habit and you're not loving it, maybe they're not loving it either, right?

So maybe try a hook at the beginning rather than your formal intro.

You do want to introduce your show within the first couple of moments, you know, within that.

But just keep that really short and sweet, 7 to 15 seconds long and then, you know, have that hook, have that little intro of who you are, what this podcast is, and then continue on with that episode that you planned to talk about.

Now I also want to talk about your CTAs, are you always saying the same thing and maybe not shaking it up a little bit?

Right.

If they are still aligned offers, and here's one that's always going to be aligned, right.

If you would like to join my newsletter list, Please go to kpcreativemedia.com newsletter.

That one is going to remain in my podcast sphere probably for the entirety of my podcast.

Could it possibly change in the future?

Like maybe the link or something?

Maybe.

But what I want you to do is think about different ways that you can add it into your episodes.

You know, maybe, maybe you shake it up right away and you're like, hey, you're listening to podcasting for your spiritual business.

And before we get started, have you signed up for my newsletter?

I send out a newsletter every Wednesday and I really want to make sure that you're on it because I, I have a lot of different tips, tricks, and I also put out special events and special offers sometimes as well.

So if you're not on that, make sure you go to kpcreativemedia.com forward/newsletter.

All right, now today we're going to talk about.

See, that was just kind of like a different.

Something different, something fresh, something new.

Put it at the beginning, put it in the middle, put it at the end, wherever it can go, right?

And maybe it is kind of like a baked in ad, right?

That's another piece.

That's another piece of this.

If you are doing ads, have you been putting in the same ad for the same product for more than six months?

For instance, if you have an ad and that ad was recorded more than six months ago, it's okay if you're still offering the same thing within that ad.

And let's just go with the newsletter, right?

We're going to go with that.

So I'm still offering inside of the ad, whether it's a baked in ad, which by the way, baked in means that your editor or yourself have actually cut the audio, place the ad within the actual audio, and then seamlessly added it the ending part of the audio on or dynamically, which is usually done within your hosting platform.

And that would be, you know, Captivate does an amazing job with that.

Buzzsprout.

I think most of them do dynamic ads at this point.

Buzzsprout has like a weird little tone at the front of it.

And so some people don't like that, so they bake them in instead, which is fine either way.

But if you have an ad that you recorded more than six months ago, even if you are still selling that item, even if you are still telling them to go to that newsletter or to go to that particular link or to whatever it is, whatever the ad is for.

If that ad is over six and you have been using it on a consistent basis, rerecord it.

It's time for a refresh.

And maybe you've changed the wording around.

Or here's another thing.

If you did add a little bit of music to that, because I do recommend adding a tiny bit of music before and after the ad, just so that your listener knows that it was an ad, right?

Use a little bit of a different part of the music.

Now, if you purchased your music or you got it free on Pixabay or something like that, you can go ahead and you can just move that to just a little bit of a different section.

So you're using a little bit of a different snippet.

It just sounds a little bit different, right?

So if you don't know how to do that, please reach out.

I can absolutely give you some suggestions and pointers.

I actually think I might even have a small tutorial on that.

So if you're already a client and you want to know how to reach out, I'll give you access to that tutorial.

If you are not a client, you want to know, reach out, and we can talk about how you do that.

So very simple, very easy.

We make it really kind of fade in and then fade out.

And typically, I don't put the music within your voice, but you can if you want.

I just don't prefer it that way.

I like to hear it clean.

Anyhow, if you have that ad that you have done and you have been using it, let's refresh it.

Let's either change the music, change what you say, do both.

That would be amazing.

And then start adding those in, right?

Update that ad that you're either baking in or you're dynamically putting in to your episodes.

Because that is just going to be another thing.

People have a tendency to tone out, right?

They have a tendency to just go, oh, that's the ad.

Okay, I'm just gonna.

And then what ends up happening is that even though maybe that music has happened at the end of the ad, if they weren't paying attention, they might have still missed a portion of your episode.

And while, you know, maybe that's okay, but maybe that was really the important part.

And here's the other thing.

If they zoned out while they were listening to your ad, they're not listening to your ad.

And so your ad isn't actually working the way you want it to work.

So I definitely suggest it's time for a refresh.

On all ads that are older than six months.

The next one would be your outro.

So how old is your outro?

Can you refresh that?

Can you rerecord it even if you are sending them to the same place?

Like I said, even if you're just sending them to your newsletter, could you re record it and just have it say something slightly different or maybe just more refined or change up the words or you know what, make it a shake up rather than say thank you so much for listening.

Maybe something like, hey, I loved that episode, didn't you?

Now don't miss the next one and join my newsletter to get all of the information, tips and tricks and whatever, right?

Could be something just simple and easy like that.

I really want you to make sure that your intro, whatever that might be, your cta, your ads and your outro are all feeling like you.

They're feeling like they are fresh and they're feeling like they are being effective.

We really don't want them to be out there in the world if people are just going to fast forward through them, right?

They have that fast forward button and people are just click, click, click, clicking.

And you don't want that.

By doing a little bit of a spring renewal freshness, you know, whatever you might want to call this, you're going to end up with people saying, huh, shoot, I didn't hear that.

I gotta go back because I missed that.

That wasn't what I'm normally used to hearing.

So they have that, they have, they had that stop and listen.

That is actually one of the reasons why I love to add in a new testimonial to every one of my episodes because I really feel like it's a, it's a, it's a stop, right?

You actually will stop and say, oh, that's different than last week's.

I didn't hear that one.

Let me go back and listen or I'm now going to pay attention because my brain did not think that it was going to be this.

And so it's just a way to have like a little bit of a pattern disrupt for your listeners.

This is going to be them saying, oh, yep, totally get it.

Okay.

Refresh, renew, create something.

Hey, you know, I didn't touch upon this, but this is what I am not changing.

I am not going to be changing my outro tagline because I really love it and I'm not ready to let it go yet.

But if you don't have a ending way, maybe now's a good time to create one.

Or maybe you have one and it hasn't been landing.

Maybe now it's time for that, for you to refresh that as well.

So that would be that little section right at the end where you just kind of sign off.

For me, it is where your voice flows, your business grows.

And that has been my sign off for a while, and I'm really happy with it.

I'm going to keep that one for now.

Where in your podcast are you being called to refresh, refine, or release?

Maybe you don't want to do that canned intro anymore.

You're like, you know what?

I really needed to hear that.

And I am done with the cannedro.

And that's okay.

It is.

It could be time to release that and just move on to creating one.

Every time you hit record, you just do that 7 to 15 seconds of introducing yourself and the show and then move on from there with the great hook and your content.

Because your listeners are showing up to hear you and to hear what you have to say, they don't need to hear the same intro that's 2 minutes and 50 seconds long.

So if you have one, unless it's a disclaimer, you have my permission to let it go.

All right, thank you so much.

And here's my signature closing where your voice flows, your business grows.

Until next week, this is Kim Parkinson, and you've been listening to podcasting through your spiritual business.

See you soon.

Thank you so much for being here and spending this time with me today.

If you're ready to deepen your visibility and grow your podcast in a way that feels aligned, come join my email list@kpcreativemedia.com Newsletter where I share exclusive guidance, support, and next steps.

And if this episode resonated, I'd be so honored if you left review on Apple Podcasts.

It's one of the most powerful ways to support the show and help other spiritual women discover it.

Until next time, keep showing up and sharing your voice.