5. What Makes a Great Podcaster

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Understanding what makes a good podcaster could be key to your podcasting success

Laura: Welcome to another episode of podcasting for business owners, supporting you to launch and grow your podcast. I’m Laura, your host. In today’s episode, I’m answering the question, what makes a good podcaster? Whether you’re just starting out or looking to improve, you’ll want to stay tuned as we run through the essential qualities and practises that set successful podcasters apart from setting realistic goals and timelines to maintaining consistency and authenticity. So why should you stay tuned? Because understanding what makes a good podcaster could be the key to your own podcasting success.

You need to set realistic goals and timelines for your podcast growth

First up, we’re going to talk about patience. Patience is key when it comes to podcasting. As mentioned in episode three when we spoke about goals, podcasting is a marathon, not a sprint. Success with your podcast won’t come overnight. You’ve got to be in it for the long game. It’s in total contrast from social media. So with social media, you can go viral overnight with just one post. It’s not like that with podcasting. People need to find your podcast, listen to a few episodes, and learn to know, like and trust you. And I’ll be honest with you, it can take two to three years to make any significant money out of your podcast. So you need to set realistic goals and timelines for your podcast growth. So you may want 10,000 downloads per episode and you want to make six figures with your podcast. If these are the only goals you’re setting, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. For example, every olympic athlete wants a gold medal, but only a few achieve it. It’s not the goal that sets them apart, it’s the actions they take. So imagine setting yourself a goal to lose ten kilos and stepping on the scales every day. Feeling disappointed because you haven’t hit your target yet. Focusing only on the end goal can make you sad and demotivated. Instead, set action goals like running a mile three times a week or eating smaller portions. These actions will lead to weight loss and long term success. Apply, uh, the same logic with your podcast. Set goals like getting featured on six other podcasts each month rather than obsessing over download numbers, celebrate the small wins along the way. They keep you motivated and on track to achieving your big dreams. Celebrate your milestones. Whether it’s your 10th episode or your 100th download or a year of podcasting, recognising your accomplishments can boost your morale. Trick yourself when you reach a goal, a small reward can provide extra motivation. You need to learn from your stats and your mistakes. It’s good to analyse your performance and I do this with my clients regularly. We meet every one to two months and I do an in depth analysis on how their podcast is going. So you can do this by going on your hosting platform. In your hosting platforms, there’s stats on download numbers and where people are listening to your podcast. It also shows you what apps your listeners are listening to you on, as well as the demographics, the age of your listeners, and the gender. Unfortunately, hosting sites don’t give you information on consumption rates, but you can get this information from individual sites, such as on your Apple account and on your Spotify account. Also in these accounts, you can see how many Spotify followers you’ve got and how many subscribers you’ve got in Apple. Yeah, unfortunately, the hosting platform doesn’t have this information. So in case you don’t know, a consumption rate is how long someone listened to your episode for. So if it’s 100%, obviously the listeners listened to the whole episode, which is amazing. But if it’s, for example, 70% and it’s consistently around 70%, go back to those episodes and see what you were talking about and why you think they may have dropped off. Or maybe the episode was just too long. In that case, it might be worth you creating shorter episodes and giving those a go, because it’s important to give your listener what they want. So if they’re dropping off at 70%, that’s okay. If it’s a long episode, say an hour long, but if they’re dropping off at 70% and your episode’s only ten minutes, that’s not really great. They’re only listening to about seven minutes of your episode, so maybe the content isn’t resonating with them. Um, there could be numerous factors as to why they’re dropping off, but unless you look at your statistics, you’re never going to know. So it’s good to just keep on top of your analytics so that you can continually improve your content. You can also look at episodes and see what content your listeners really like. If there’s specific topics that you find you’ve got greater downloads for, then you know that this is a topic your listeners are really interested in. So it’s good to always try and improve your podcast so that it’s of high quality and it’s reaching your audience.

Being consistent builds listener trust and loyalty with your podcast

To be a great podcaster, you need to be consistent

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and you need to be dedicated. You need to have a consistent publishing schedule. Being consistent builds listener trust and loyalty. If you release an episode every week at a certain time, you’re going to be fitting into your listener’s weekly schedule. If you drop off and stop releasing episodes, people might start listening to other podcasts and forget all about you. It’s okay to take a break if you’re feeling overwhelmed or if you’re going on holiday or whatever, but just make sure you tell your audience, don’t leave them hanging because they’ll lose trust in you. It takes a lot of commitment to produce a high quality podcast. I know a lot of people don’t do editing, but I do think it’s really important to do editing. Yes, it can be time consuming, but it really is worth it. I don’t think it’s fair on your listeners or if you’re having a guest on your show, it’s not fair on your guest to release a podcast episode that’s not been edited. So when I have guests on my show, I say to them at the beginning, don’t worry if you stumble or make a mistake, I’ll just edit it out. Which makes them feel more comfortable throughout the interview. And they don’t want to sound silly leaving all their ums and arms. And when they start repeating themselves or going off track, they don’t want that in there. They also want to sound professional, and you don’t want to bore your listener with all that irrelevant information either. So it’s really worth being dedicated to your podcast and editing all your episodes. And if you don’t like editing or you don’t have time for editing, then outsource your editing. As well as having a high quality podcast, you also need a balance between producing enough content to stay relevant while ensuring your podcast remains a high quality. So don’t think that the more episodes that you produce or the longer episodes that you produce is going to be a better quality. I’m going to give you an example. There’s a podcast I really love, and I’ve been a follower of that show for a couple of years. She was bringing episodes out once a week, and then it turned to twice a week, and then it turned to a daily podcast. And I’ll be totally honest with you, I preferred it when it was a weekly episode because I found with the weekly episodes, she was really targeted in her message and they were all really high quality podcast episodes. But when she went to daily episodes, the quality wasn’t there anymore and I’ve actually stopped following her, which is a shame, really. It was such a great podcast, but having more doesn’t mean it’s going to be better quality. Just think of your ideal listener. What would they like? And also for me when she started dropping so many episodes. I haven’t got time to listen to that many episodes. Her podcast didn’t fit into my schedule anymore. It was too overwhelming. So bear that in mind, too. It’s so important that you’re passionate about the topic that you talk about on your podcast. You need to have a genuine interest in the subject that you’re talking about because this will give you an energetic delivery and retain your audience. People can tell when you’re not interested, and you’re going to have to talk about this topic a lot, so you really need to be interested in it. So if this is something you’re struggling with, here’s some ways that you can sustain your enthusiasm with your podcast. Reconnect with your why. Remind yourself why you started podcasting in the first place. Reflect on your mission, such as helping others, sharing valuable insights, or building a community. Stay organised. Use a content calendar to plan your episodes in advance. With my clients, I use Trello. Trello is, uh, a project management tool that works for any type of project. You can download it for free. So we have a Trello board full of content ideas for their podcast. Then we meet and decide which episode is going to be released and when, and we base that around their business goals, mainly. So, for example, if they’re running an event in their business, then a, uh, couple of episodes prior to that event launching, we’ll talk about the subject matter surrounding that event so that they can inadvertently promote that event within their podcast episodes. Then, once we’ve planned what content’s going to be scheduled and when, I make a list of dates when each episode needs to be given to me by. And I know this might sound a bit extreme, but I asked my clients to give me their podcast episodes three weeks prior to the planned podcast schedule date. The reason for this is just to make sure we’ve got it there. Anything could happen. They could get sick, or I could get sick, and just by having it three weeks before, we’re less likely to ever miss a podcast episode being scheduled. And then once I’ve got this episode in, I’ll, uh, edit it, give it back to the client, and give them a deadline of when I need their amends or approval by. And then I make those amends, and then the episodes get scheduled, and there’s dates on everything. So my clients and I know where we are with each episode. And you may not outsource any of your podcast tasks, but I still keep a Trello board for this podcast, and I do everything for this podcast. So it just also keeps me on track on where I am with my own podcast, and that’s something you could

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do too. I’ll put a link in the show notes to the Trello template I use, which you may find useful. So being organised and knowing what’s coming up can reduce stress and last minute scrambling around. Having a streamlined workflow for your podcast production breaks your podcast down into manageable steps, avoiding feelings of any overwhelm. When you can engage with your audience regularly seek feedback from your listeners. Positive comments and constructive criticism can reignite your enthusiasm. Build a community around your podcast, engage with your audience on social media, respond to their messages and create interactive content in Spotify. Now you can ask questions on the app and people can respond to those questions. That’s a great way to interact with your audience. You can also do it on Instagram. You could do Instagram stories, asking questions, asking people what content they want. And also, you can obviously do this in Facebook too. It’s really important as a podcast host to engage with your audience, so it’s not just a one way conversation. They want to feel like they have some sort of say in the podcast. And also, if you’re feeling a bit of a lull with your podcast, try different formats. The three most common formats, uh, interviews, solos and panel discussions, invite a diverse range of guests onto your show. A new perspective can bring fresh energy to your podcast. Another great way to get enthusiastic with your podcast is to build a network of fellow podcasters to share experiences, challenges and successes. There’s a Facebook group I really love. It’s the buzzsprout. Facebook group members on there have lots of questions about podcasting, and people are eager to respond and give them advice. I’ll, uh, put links to that in the show notes and any other Facebook groups that I recommend for networking with podcasters. If you’re finding your podcast challenging, consider outsourcing tasks that drain your energy, such as editing or marketing. These tend to be the first tasks that podcasters hand over to other professionals. This allows you to focus on what you love, creating content, and try your best to maintain a positive mindset throughout, uh, your podcasting journey. Focus on the joy of creating and the impact you’re making, rather than on the challenges and, um, practise gratitude. Be grateful for the learning experience and the connections you’re making through your podcast. By implementing some of these tips, you can sustain your enthusiasm for podcasting, even when faced with challenges, and continue to produce valuable and engaging content for your audience. When it comes to your podcast, you need to be authentic. It’s so important that you’re authentic and genuine in your episode. Your listeners can sense when you’re not truly passionate or invested in the topic. It’s a good idea to be prepared for each podcast episode, have a plan of what your message is and what your listener’s going to gain from listening to each individual episode. If you don’t know what the message is, then your listener’s not going to know either. So it might be a good idea to just have a list of bullet points that you can keep track of when you’re recording your podcast episode. I know this isn’t for everyone, but it’s just a good way to stay on track.

Today’s podcast focuses on what makes a good podcaster

And that’s a wrap for today’s episode on what makes a good podcaster. We’ve discussed the importance of setting realistic goals, staying consistent, being dedicated to high quality content, and remaining authentic and genuine. Remember, podcast is a marathon, not a sprint. Your growth will come with patience, perseverance, and, uh, a clear vision of your why. Thank you so much for joining me today and investing your time in learning how to become a better podcaster. Until next time, keep podcasting with passion and purpose.

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