April 7, 2025 • 31 mins
Thanks for your patience as we get your a fresh new episode next week - in our defense - Mike, MacKenzie and Todd were all out at events last week!
We’re bringing this one back because it’s just too good — and still so relevant. As we roll out Guest Match Pro, we’re reminded of all the "bad advice" that still floats around in the podcasting world. In this episode, we tackled the Top 10 Worst Pieces of Podcast Advice and explained why you should steer clear. Whether you’re booking guests, looking to grow your audience, or just want to avoid common pitfalls, this rerun is packed with clarity and no-nonsense guidance. Give it another listen — and share it with a podcaster friend!
Today's Hosts: Mike Dell and MacKenzie Bennett
#10: “All You Need is Passion, Equipment Doesn’t Matter”
Why it’s bad: Yes, passion is crucial, but listeners can tell if you’re recording with a low-quality microphone or in a noisy room. Bad audio is a quick way to lose listeners.
Better advice: Invest in at least decent equipment and learn basic soundproofing techniques to keep your passion sounding professional.
#9: “More Episodes = More Success”
Why it’s bad: Releasing multiple episodes every week won’t matter if the content isn’t good. Quality over quantity is the key to success.
Better advice: Stick to a manageable release schedule that allows you to create quality content consistently.
#8: “Don’t Bother with Editing, Raw is Real”
Why it’s bad: While authenticity is important, long pauses, filler words, or awkward moments aren’t entertaining. Editing helps tighten the flow and keep listeners engaged.
Better advice: Edit for clarity and flow, even if you want to keep it conversational.
#7: “You Don’t Need Show Notes or a Website”
Why it’s bad: Show notes and a website improve searchability, provide additional resources, and make your podcast more professional. Ignoring them means missing out on growth.
Better advice: Always include detailed show notes and have a basic website to direct listeners for more information.
#6: “If You Build It, They Will Come”
Why it’s bad: Simply launching a podcast doesn’t mean people will magically find it. Marketing, promotion, and networking are essential to grow your audience.
Better advice: Have a solid marketing plan, including social media, collaborations, and consistent outreach to grow your listener base.
#5: “Monetize Right Away!”
Why it’s bad: Jumping into monetization without a solid listener base can turn off potential fans. Ads on day one can feel forced and inauthentic.
Better advice: Focus on growing your audience before considering monetization strategies, and make sure the ads fit your content and audience.
#4: “Just Copy What’s Popular”
Why it’s bad: Trying to mimic the format, style, or content of other successful podcasts rarely works. Listeners want originality and authenticity, not a poor imitation of their favorite shows.
Better advice: Find your unique voice and perspective; that’s what will draw in listeners.
#3: “Focus on Going Viral”
Why it’s bad: Chasing virality often leads to gimmicky content that doesn’t retain a loyal audience. A single viral moment doesn’t guarantee long-term success.
Better advice: Focus on creating consistent, high-quality content that builds a loyal following over time, rather than aiming for a viral hit.
#2: “Make Your Podcast for Everyone”
Why it’s bad: Trying to appeal to everyone often means your content is too broad and doesn’t resonate with a specific audience. A niche is key to growing a dedicated following.
Better advice: Focus on a clear niche or target audience. Being specific will help attract the right listeners.
#1: “Don’t Bother with Marketing—Just Focus on the Content”
Why it’s bad: While content is king, marketing is essential to getting that content in front of listeners. Without marketing, even the best podcast can go unnoticed.
Better advice: Always include marketing as part of your podcasting strategy.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Podcast Insider.
I'm Mike Dell, VP of customer relations here
at Blueberry.
And I'm Mackenzie Bennett, marketing specialist at Blueberry.
Today, we're going in a bit of a
different direction. We're gonna give the worst advice
you can take to heart when it comes
to podcasting.
If you've ever followed any of this advice,
don't worry. We'll have some fun tearing it
apart. You're listening to podcast insider hosted by
(00:23):
Mike Dell, Todd Cochran, and Mackenzie Bennett from
the Blueberry team,
bringing you weekly insights, advice, and insider tips
and tricks to help you start,
grow, and thrive through podcasting.
With all the support of your team here
at Blueberry Podcasting, welcome. Let's dive in.
(00:43):
This is our opinions. We're not gonna get
too bad with it. So this is the
top 10 worst podcast advice that I've heard
and Mackenzie has heard.
So starting at number 10.
Yeah. So all all you need is passion.
Equipment doesn't matter.
And, yeah, passion is
a big thing in podcasting because if you're
(01:03):
not passionate for the topic, you're not gonna
keep doing it and
all that. But if you're recording with a
really low quality
microphone
or in a bad location, a noisy room,
people can only tolerate so much bad audio
before. It doesn't matter how good the, the
content is. It it just
grinds on people, and that's not great.
(01:26):
And, just imagine recording in your bathroom with
a $5 mic telling listeners, hey. It's all
about the passion, but not realizing
that all the toilet sounds
has ruined your entire episode.
This is a moment where we say
you get in what you put out. You
can't
(01:46):
you can't fix garbage audio at the end.
Right. So you might have the best content
on the planet,
but
people are not super forgiving with just audio.
They are a little more forgiving with that
audio and video,
but a podcast is not where you wanna
play around with this. I think I have
dogs barking in the background. I don't know
if you heard that.
So speaking of bad locations
(02:08):
Yeah. I have people going through the dumpster
by my house right now. So
That's nice.
So, you know, the better advice when it
comes to, equipment and passion and all that
good stuff is invest at least some decent
equipment, and it doesn't have to be a
lot.
You can get a decent
dynamic microphone that plugs into your USB port,
(02:30):
and it's gonna sound infinitely better than the
little stick microphone that you may have may
have come with your computer back in the
nineties
or the laptop
microphone
built into your laptop. Those sound
bad most of the time.
Number nine, more episodes equals more success.
There is a limit to this. So why
(02:52):
it's why we think it's bad? Releasing multiple
episodes every week
will not matter if your content is not
good.
I have been saying this over and over
and over again doing this podcast that quality
over quantity
is the key to success to any podcast
out there. Yeah. I know people that, that
will say, well, if you if you get
(03:12):
a hundred downloads per episode and you only
do one a week, well, if you do
two a week, you're gonna get double that.
Maybe not. Some people get tired of you.
I they're just being
Including yourselves. Honest. You you gotta limit. And
I I go in fits and starts when
I do my show. I'll do one show,
(03:32):
and then I'm like, oh, I wanna do
another one tomorrow. And I I have to
hold myself back because, a,
not everybody that's gonna download that last episode
has downloaded it yet.
And if I put out another one, then
that one's
gonna go down a little bit, I think.
It just the the funny take on this
would be release seven episodes a week who
(03:54):
needs sleep. That sounds like what is it?
In November, Nepod, Pomo? Yeah. I Those episodes
are not necessarily great. And I failed at
that several times. Yeah. I did do it
once completely, but speaking of which, that's coming
up here shortly. We'll we'll we'll be talking
about that. I might have Jennifer on here
to talk about it. But We will talk
(04:14):
about it. We will not do it. Yeah.
So our our advice
is to
stick to a manageable release schedule that works
with your own lifestyle
that allows you to create quality content over
consistent
Yeah. Okay content. So some of the this
isn't necessarily bad advice, but some of the
advice that I've heard and also given
(04:37):
is
a lot of people will pick a format.
They'll say, oh, my episodes are gonna be
exactly thirty minutes long.
And if the day you record, you only
have fifteen minutes worth of content that's worth
of crap. Mhmm.
Stretching it out to thirty minutes is gonna
make it boring.
Yes. It will. Seriously. A lot of filler.
(04:58):
We we we say that this show is
gonna be somewhere around thirty minutes, thirty, forty
five,
but you'll notice that certain topics take longer
and certain topics take less time, and don't
sweat that. But, you know, as far as
your schedule, again, just make sure it fits
in your life.
Because
if you are constantly
running up against what do you call it?
(05:20):
If you put deadlines on things yourself,
and then it just starts to become drudgery.
We took a couple weeks off at the
beginning of the month because, well, one, we
were traveling.
And then Quite a bit. And another one,
yeah, quite a bit. You were on vacation
after traveling for business. So
so every once in a while, we do
take a break. We ran some reruns. Hopefully,
(05:42):
they weren't too bad. I I think they
were good episodes.
But sometimes
keeping on a rigid schedule
can be bad if
you do it too much. There's also
positive things and rerunning episodes because we chose
ones that
are still very relevant and that we think
(06:03):
maybe you haven't listened to an episode that
was released over
twelve months
ago. It can be definitely a good way
to make sure that your content stays a
little more long tail,
evergreen and just Yeah. We're lucky with this
show. A lot of this stuff is long
tail.
It doesn't some of the more
topical stuff, I guess, would would not age
(06:24):
well, but some of it does. Yeah. Here
here's one that I think we get a
little argument from Todd, but, don't bother with
editing. Raw is real.
Which cracks me up because our company name
Yeah. Legally is Raw Voice. But there's some
pros and cons to that.
There definitely is. Authenticity,
that's a word,
(06:45):
is important,
but long pauses, filler words, awkward moments, they're
not as entertaining
to some people. Some people like that. Gauge
your audience on that too, but editing helps
tighten up the flow, keeps the listeners engaged.
What's the
it says cue a mock conversation
full of umms, likes, and a thirty second
(07:07):
awkward silence.
Now this podcast, gold. Right?
Right. If if you love this stuff. If
you love your your awkward moments, put it
into a blooper reel because people do love
that, but they don't wanna hear your mistakes
every episode.
So it it's definitely
edit for the clarity and the flow
(07:28):
and and make sure that you're keeping things
conversational if that's the type of show that
you have. Mhmm. Shows such as, like,
fiction,
drama,
journalistic,
those types of things, those are probably gonna
be very heavy heavy handed editing.
For a show like this,
we do definitely keep in some of those
uhs and likes, and we keep it we
(07:49):
keep it pretty
real in the sense, but we don't wanna
sound like idiots. So that's what Kate helps
us out with. Right. Yeah. Kate over at
blueberrypro.com.
She she makes us sound smarter. I love
it. Yeah. Yeah. We love her for that.
Thank your podcast
editor, including yourself, if you are your own
podcast editor.
(08:10):
This one
this one, number seven, you don't need show
notes or a website. That one that one,
like, cuts to the core at Blueberry because
that is one of the things that we
tell absolutely
every podcaster is that, yes, you should have
your own website. You should have your own
name out there somewhere on the Internet so
that people can associate
(08:30):
your show
with yourself, with your brand, whatever you want
to designate.
Yeah. And then show notes, I tell people
sometimes you don't over obsess about show notes
because they're like, well, I want this space
to be here, and I want that. Sometimes
it just doesn't work out on the different
platforms.
(08:50):
But, you know, most people,
believe it or not, don't ever read that
stuff. But they're the ones that want to
give them the place to do that. And
and and don't just say, hey. We we
had a podcast today. We talked about x,
and that's it. Yeah. It it's
I don't know. It's just
I
I listen to a couple of shows where
(09:11):
it's a one line show notes.
It's annoying. I still listen to the show
because content's good. But, of course, talking about
overproducing,
this guy does two episodes
every single day, seven days a week.
That is
too many
in my opinion. And he does them on
on YouTube as well. There are exceptions to
the rule.
(09:31):
Yes. There are always exceptions, but I am
a person that that wants links
in the show notes. Like, I wanna go
learn more about whatever it is that they
talked about or whatever guest it was.
That is generally what I care about. And,
yeah, I think you said it. Like, a
lot of people don't end up actually reading
the show notes, but you know what? They'll
read it.
(09:51):
Google. Oh, yeah. Bing. Every search engine out
there, it's gonna read it if it is
available. And if you did it well, it's
gonna bring this episode or your show up
when people are searching for whatever your content
is about. And don't go to the other
extreme. People will do transcripts, and then they'll
put that as the show notes. Yeah. Yeah.
That's just a block of text. And They
(10:13):
can't do anything with that. Yeah. And even
Google doesn't
they look at that and say, well, it's
just a blob of text. We're not gonna
index this. Or
so
somewhere in the happy medium, have detailed show
notes, but don't
go
completely crazy. And just have a basic website,
landing page, whatever you need to have, but
(10:34):
make sure that, that it has enough information
in the show notes that if those that
wanna go to links you mentioned or or
just or if they're going through their app
and some people do that, they'll they'll look
at the show notes to decide whether they
wanna hit play or not.
Yeah. Always do that. And website's always better
because it gives people a place to go
(10:54):
if one of the apps messes up.
And if you are a Blueberry podcaster and
don't currently have a website,
if you are hosting with us, you get
a free WordPress website. So you know what's
gonna be in the show notes? A link
to learn more about PowerPress sites from Blueberry.
Yeah. There you go. So we will have
that link in the show notes.
(11:15):
Here's something that was really good advice in
02/2005.
If you build it, they will come,
but that doesn't happen anymore. No. It does
not. When Todd, Barry, myself, and Sean all
started podcasting, we were in the first one
hundred podcasters ever.
And listeners of podcasts, which were mostly other
(11:38):
podcasters or geeks, would
was starving for content. It wasn't unusual that
some really crappy podcast would come online, and
it would get 5,000 downloads an episode.
But that was probably 90% of the podcast
audience at that time.
It doesn't happen that way anymore. There's, what,
4,000,000
something podcasts out there depending on who you
(12:00):
ask.
Right. So simply launching your podcast doesn't mean
people will just find it. You gotta market,
promote,
network,
and all that stuff is essential to get
an audience.
Your your audience will grow
more organically when you have really good content
and you already have a base of an
audience.
(12:21):
Because those people will tell so and so,
and then it will just spread from there.
To this day,
word-of-mouth is still the biggest
way
that podcasters grow
grow their show. And so, yes, your content
is important to
making sure that people come back, but they
have to find it in the first place.
So
(12:42):
you gotta you gotta build that audience
at some point. And and yeah. I imagine
what was that baseball movie from, like, the
nineties or the eighties? If you build it,
they will come. The yeah. It's it's not
relevant anymore. Not the way it works anymore,
unfortunately.
Here's something we should get the AI to
make a picture
(13:03):
of. A picture of podcaster sitting alone in
a room saying any minute now my audience
will just appear.
Yes. And then you hear crickets in the
background.
Don't do this to yourself.
Yeah. Just make sure you have a good
solid marketing plan, and that
doesn't have to be extensive, but make sure
you're on social media. Get into it. As
(13:24):
much as people hate Facebook, there's one good
use for Facebook is the Facebook groups.
So find a Facebook group or two in
your niche and
go in there and be helpful.
Don't don't go in and say, hey. I
have a podcast. Come look at or listen.
You
answer the questions that are asked in that
group, and you you you become a known
(13:45):
entity. And then if someone asks a question
that's relevant to one of your episodes, hey,
I did an episode about that if you
wanna check it out. But don't don't be
pushy. They'll kick you out of the group.
Yeah. You you think Facebook, I think Reddit.
And same goes for that. Don't be pushy.
They will they will love your confidence and
enthusiasm and just general knowledge, but you can't
(14:07):
you can't spam. Yeah. Same idea. Any of
the any of the socials like that that
have special interest areas, that's that's a good
place to go. Used to be forums. That's
how old I am.
There are forums out there still, believe it
or not, but I don't know how used
they are.
Yeah. They're it is not what it was.
(14:27):
Yeah.
Also,
monetizing. Yeah. Number five, monetize right away.
That is absolutely
not a great idea to just expect to
earn money and monetize your show on
episode zero, on episode one? Yes. Can you
turn on programmatic ads with Blueberry
(14:50):
to earn to put in
automated ads in your episodes?
Yes.
Is it going to
annoy listeners if it's done poorly and done
right away?
Potentially.
Yeah. Some some podcasts are worth listening to
with a bunch of ads in them, and
I do.
But, you know, I'm I'm the one that
(15:10):
I'm one that pays for YouTube, so I
don't have to watch all the ads getting
broken into.
Even, like, looking up some obscure how to
video where that has, like, 12 views,
and I get a a freaking ad for
foot fungus cream or
God knows what. Mhmm. Yeah. It's just not
it's not gonna make me want to keep
(15:30):
watching or listening
to that YouTube or podcast.
And the thing is with with programmatic,
yes, you can do that, but it's gonna
take you a little while to build up
enough to even get paid.
If you're you're just starting out and you've
got 12 downloads from mom and all your
cousins, you're not gonna make any money on
that right away.
(15:51):
And I hate to have the ugly baby
talk, but until you have an audience, you're
not gonna make any money with ads.
Yeah. And
and another thing is if you're doing this
just to monetize,
I think you're gonna have to have a
different mindset.
Like, you're gonna have to be going at
this a different way. You're gonna be putting
in potentially a lot more
(16:11):
effort and time and money into the marketing
of the show, into
the editing, the the equipment,
all of these things. If you wanna make
money
right away, you have to spend money right
away.
Yeah. And I I just think for a
lot of hobbyist podcasters, that's a bad idea.
Yeah. I think most of us are hobbyists.
(16:32):
There there's commercial shows and, you know, there's
nothing wrong with that. But getting into podcasting
just to make money
may be a bad plan unless you really
have it planned out and you got a
good way to market and all that stuff.
But putting ads in the first episode, unless
it's for your own stuff, that's here's here's
kind of the the opposite view.
(16:54):
Say you're a book author and you're doing
a podcast about the subject to your book.
Of course, you wanna mention the book.
Yep. That is a great idea. Monetize,
but don't go in there and say you're
doing a doing a show about tech, and
then all you're doing is selling that foot
fungus cream they were talking about
or whatever the what's the big advertiser nowadays?
(17:17):
BetterHelp.
There we go. Oh, yeah. You hear that
ad in a lot of podcasts and must
be working for them. They keep doing it.
But, yeah, it's not applicable to your audience.
That's the other thing. Don't do ads
just for the sake of getting an ad
unless it's really relevant to your to your
audience.
That's it's very inauthentic if you're you're doing
(17:38):
a Mac show and Microsoft wants to advertise.
Don't do that.
Yeah. A lot of the time, like, for
programmatic,
you can decide the categories that you're comfortable
having advertisements with, but you don't get to
pick the actual advertiser. You could say, like,
yeah, I'm okay with talking about
health and wellness stuff, but you can't choose
(18:00):
BetterHelp
over
another
online therapy program. Like,
that's just part of the automated monetization program.
No. We But you're not gonna get into
the nitty gritty. Yeah. We had somebody on
programmatic.
It was a while back, but they their
show was sponsored
externally
by
(18:20):
a particular company.
Mhmm. And their competitor
was buying programmatic ads on that podcast.
So here they are sponsored by
company a, and company b, a competitor,
you had the ad spots,
and that was not cool.
(18:40):
So be careful with that.
Yeah. For sure.
Alright. And we're down to number four.
Just copy what's popular.
Yeah. Trying to mimic somebody's
format
is
just not good. They're doing it already, and
they're you they want your take. That's maybe
(19:01):
somebody that's interested in that subject
doesn't particularly like that host, but they might
like you if you're you and not kind
trying to copy them.
Yeah. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
That's what people say, but
that's great for the person being, quote, unquote,
copied. It's terrible for the listeners, for the
(19:21):
actual consumers.
We don't want that. That's
we do to an extent.
And I think that is one of the
really critical
things that you have to determine. A lot
of people think they know what audiences want,
and they're like, oh, well, I like this.
So obviously, other people want it too. You
gotta really take a hard look at the
landscape of what is currently being provided and
(19:44):
and do that hard take
of, is this already oversaturated
in exactly,
like, this form? The content itself,
probably not saturated.
The way that it's being done and the
exact thing same things being said over and
over again on every
show, yeah, that is overdone. Yeah. I'm guilty
of this one. Back in the day when
(20:05):
I first started, I was listening to Adam
Curry's
daily source code.
Mhmm.
And I tried to mimic that format. It's
just not me.
Yeah. So for two or three episodes, I
said, yeah. That ain't me.
And but, you know, my show
has evolved over the years to many different
formats and
(20:26):
all that stuff. And I have a core
group of listeners. Probably could get them all
in this room,
but
that's okay.
But you're not gonna grow a big audience
by copying somebody else. I saw a tweet
actually yesterday
that someone had looked at the
NBC schedule for fall programming. Mhmm. And they
(20:47):
were like, I knew
pilot season and
new content
and new ideas was dead, but I didn't
realize how dead. And they said, NBC has,
like, seven shows,
six of which are
all the same. It's Chicago Fire, Chicago PD,
Chicago Med, Law and Order, Law and Order
(21:08):
SVU, something else,
FBI,
blah, blah, blah, blah. And then,
like, one other program
slightly different than that. That is, like, not
part of that Yeah. That's that universe, that
world. And it's like, this is exact we
we are so tired of this. Give us
new stuff. You know, it's like CBS. You
can you know, cop show cop show cop
show cop show.
(21:29):
And I don't know why NBC fixated on
Chicago.
It's a it's a winner. It's a great
city. I love it there. But, yeah, it's
it's
it's
done Yeah. To a lot of people. So,
basically, the
the best advice about that is just find
your own unique voice, your your
own perspective.
(21:50):
Most podcast listeners, when they get dedicated to
a podcast, and that takes a little while,
but most of them come because of the
host,
not because of the subject even sometimes. I
listen to a couple podcasts that I'd like
to host to care less about the subject.
And that's weird, but I do that
(22:10):
and others do. Kinda similar
to copying is
focusing on going viral. That is just plain
and simple,
a bad idea.
It's very gimmicky.
It doesn't retain a loyal audience. I am
absolutely proof of that. Mhmm. I am not
a dedicated person who will, like, go back
to your stuff. You have to prove to
(22:31):
me over and over again that I should
try this. Clickbait
has its
time, but it absolutely does not guarantee long
term success.
I watch a YouTube series,
not not a podcast. I wish he would
podcast, but he won't. But I watch a
YouTube series where every
single video is a clickbait.
And
(22:52):
I don't worry about the titles because the
content is good. But,
you know, whatever the title of it is
is click baity or the picture.
And
nine times out of 10, it has nothing
to do with what's actually in the content.
And that's Yeah. I don't know why it
works for him, but it works.
That's the thing.
I don't know. But I'll tell you who
(23:13):
it is. Scotty Kilmer. He does on automotive
YouTube.
And
almost everyone is it'll say,
this is the end, and it shows him
with a sad face. Like, he's gonna quit
doing YouTube or whatever. And he's got, like,
five or 6,000,000
subscribers, so he's not gonna quit.
Or
(23:33):
he'll he'll picture a a Ford on the
screenshot. Ford is firing everybody and going out
of business or something will be the title
on it. It's not, obviously.
Stop that, Gotti.
Yeah. The the better advice is just to
focus on creating consistent high quality content
that will build you a loyal audience over
(23:54):
time. A viral hit will not. It just
won't. It's and it's pretty rare that a
podcast goes viral. I can think of a
couple, but they're not it's not very often.
No. No. It's really not.
It's not viral moments are not good for
long form content.
Yeah. And most podcasts are generally long form
(24:15):
content. So Yeah. Yep. So here's the number
two, and this may should have been number
one maybe, but number two is fine.
It says make your podcast for everyone.
And, you know, my saying I tell people
this all the time. If you're making a
podcast for everyone, you're making a podcast for
no one.
Trying to appeal to everybody just isn't gonna
(24:36):
work.
Not in a podcast. Podcasts are usually very
niche y topics.
Being in a particular category will make you
come up in the search more. So someone's
looking for underwater basket weaving. There might be
only 12 people out there that are interested
in that, but they'll find you. But if
you're chose about scuba diving and underwater basket
(24:58):
weaving and 10 other subjects,
it's not gonna go anywhere. Like my personal
show, it's about everything. And, obviously, I don't
have a huge audience. I just do it
for fun.
But if I was interested in growing my
audience, I would niche down to something that
made sense.
Actually, I think you and I are kind
of a great example of this is we've
(25:18):
known each other for many years now.
We we definitely have some things in common.
We talk a lot about music and food
and and travel,
but I don't think we listen to any
of the same podcasts.
No. Probably not. Like, at all.
But we have
plenty to talk about over over these almost
(25:38):
ten years now. So it's just when we
when it gets down to it, what we
wanna listen to in a full episode is
not gonna be the same thing. Yeah. Exactly.
And if we recorded our conversations, we would
be in trouble.
That's also very true.
Anyway,
so the better best advice is just focus
on a clear niche or target audience. Make
(26:00):
sure you you do a little research in
what what audience would be interested in what
you wanna do. Don't do it the other
way around. Say,
a lot of podcasters, when they first started,
they say, well, what's gonna be popular? I'll
do that. Ugh. That drives me insane. Do
that. Figure out what you wanna do and
then figure out where to find those people
that would also be interested in what you
(26:20):
do. Yeah. People that don't have an opinion
and they're like, what do what should I
just do to make everyone happy? I hate
it
so much.
Number
one. Number one is don't bother with marketing.
Just focus on the content.
That's a no. That is just plain and
simple.
Bad. Content is always gonna be king. That
(26:41):
is that's always gonna be that way. But
like we said earlier, when you're trying to
go viral or
or copying someone else,
you have to market to get the content
in front of the listeners.
Yeah. This is not gonna
build it. They will come. It really is
not. Yeah. Well, it's just like in a
(27:03):
company, if you come out with a new
product and no one knows you came out
with a new product,
it ain't gonna go very well. Same thing
with a podcast. You've gotta get it out
there in front of your listeners, social groups,
and Reddit, and all those stuff like we
talked about before.
And there's there's other ways. Some people like
what's the guy that does the I am
Salt Lake?
(27:24):
What's his name? Anyway, he does a a
local Salt Lake City podcast.
He rents billboards.
That makes sense. In Yeah. In Salt Lake
City. So It's a very creative as well.
Yeah. It's a very niche
show. So that's what he's gonna do. I
remember when I was
driving home from the Outer Banks A Couple
Years ago, and we literally passed a billboard
(27:45):
while still in the Outer Banks that said,
listen to this show about this true crime
episode of that happened in the Outer Banks.
And we were like, immediately, that's what we're
gonna listen to. That marketing worked
in ten seconds.
Yeah. What what kind of budget do you
have to have to put a billboard up
for each episode?
Oh, god. I don't I don't know. But
no. The like, it was a series show.
It wasn't just an episode about an Outer
(28:07):
Banks 1. It was like, no. Here are
12 episodes about
this thing that happened, and we listened to
the whole show because we had twelve hours
to ride home.
So it worked.
Yeah. That's that's great. And, yes, true crime
is hot right now. Don't make a true
crime podcast unless you're actually interested in that
subject.
Yes.
(28:27):
Yes.
Choose your subject carefully. And
that that passion that we talked about in
number 10, I truly hate the word passion.
I think it's incredibly overused
and is more of
a
a descriptor,
I guess, instead of how you actually feel.
Mhmm. It's it's more
(28:49):
I am passionate about this because I get
the satisfaction out of doing this than out
of, like,
here's what I can provide to the world.
So do good content that other people are
going to be receptive of. Yeah. And make
sure that you are marketing that to the
right audience appropriately because you could be do
mark doing your marketing to all the wrong
(29:09):
people, and that's why it's not doing anything.
That's why you're not growing. Here's something that
used to be a big thing and isn't
so much anymore, and I think it could
come back
Mhmm. Is promo exchanges.
Yeah. So find somebody in your same niche.
You know? Because it's not so much competition
is people have have time to listen to
(29:29):
more than one show. It's not like you're
competing ABC at 09:00 and NBC at 09:00.
Okay?
So you don't have to think that way
anymore. It's not competitions.
Do a promo exchange. So, you know, hey.
If you like this show, check this other
one out. They play it on their podcast.
You play theirs on your podcast.
I think that should really come back. Yeah.
(29:50):
I do too. And I think a lot
of people might be nervous about doing that
because they're like, oh, what if they like
their show better than mine?
People love They'll probably listen to both. Yeah.
People love to hyper fixate on things that
they like. They're probably gonna listen to two
different shows about whatever it is that they
enjoy. Yeah. Always make marketing part of your
podcast strategy.
Social media, collabs, collaborations, I guess that would
(30:13):
be promo exchange.
Of course, word-of-mouth.
Tell your audience, hey. If you like this,
someone else that might like this, tell them.
That's a simple thing, little call to action
you can throw out at your audience. And
not everybody will do that, but somebody will.
No. But it is important to
have a call to action in your episode,
in your show notes, whatever it is that
(30:35):
you want them to do. Whether that is
coming back to listen to the unit next
episode, you finish the episode by saying, thanks
for listening today. We'll be back next Thursday.
Go subscribe to Podcast Insider on your preferred
podcast listening app. I think that about covers
it. This one's a little longer episode than
normal. Cool. Think it was worthwhile.
Yes. I hope you enjoyed this tongue in
(30:56):
cheek episode.
Check back next week for another episode. If
we did this alright, you will hear a
panel of raw voice slash blueberry
employees said that we're here from the beginning,
talking about twenty years in podcasting.
Thanks for joining us. Come back next week.
And in the meantime, head to podcastinsider.com
(31:19):
for more information,
to subscribe,
share, and read our show notes.
To check out our latest suite of services
and learn how Blueberry can help you leverage
your podcast, visit blueberry.com.
That's Blueberry without the e's.
We couldn't afford the e's.
Welcome to Podcast Insider.
I'm Mike Dell, VP of customer relations here
at Blueberry.
And I'm Mackenzie Bennett, marketing specialist at Blueberry.
Today, we're going in a bit of a
different direction. We're gonna give the worst advice
you can take to heart when it comes
to podcasting.
If you've ever followed any of this advice,
don't worry. We'll have some fun tearing it
apart. You're listening to podcast insider hosted by
(00:23):
Mike Dell, Todd Cochran, and Mackenzie Bennett from
the Blueberry team,
bringing you weekly insights, advice, and insider tips
and tricks to help you start,
grow, and thrive through podcasting.
With all the support of your team here
at Blueberry Podcasting, welcome. Let's dive in.
(00:43):
This is our opinions. We're not gonna get
too bad with it. So this is the
top 10 worst podcast advice that I've heard
and Mackenzie has heard.
So starting at number 10.
Yeah. So all all you need is passion.
Equipment doesn't matter.
And, yeah, passion is
a big thing in podcasting because if you're
(01:03):
not passionate for the topic, you're not gonna
keep doing it and
all that. But if you're recording with a
really low quality
microphone
or in a bad location, a noisy room,
people can only tolerate so much bad audio
before. It doesn't matter how good the, the
content is. It it just
grinds on people, and that's not great.
(01:26):
And, just imagine recording in your bathroom with
a $5 mic telling listeners, hey. It's all
about the passion, but not realizing
that all the toilet sounds
has ruined your entire episode.
This is a moment where we say
you get in what you put out. You
can't
(01:46):
you can't fix garbage audio at the end.
Right. So you might have the best content
on the planet,
but
people are not super forgiving with just audio.
They are a little more forgiving with that
audio and video,
but a podcast is not where you wanna
play around with this. I think I have
dogs barking in the background. I don't know
if you heard that.
So speaking of bad locations
(02:08):
Yeah. I have people going through the dumpster
by my house right now. So
That's nice.
So, you know, the better advice when it
comes to, equipment and passion and all that
good stuff is invest at least some decent
equipment, and it doesn't have to be a
lot.
You can get a decent
dynamic microphone that plugs into your USB port,
(02:30):
and it's gonna sound infinitely better than the
little stick microphone that you may have may
have come with your computer back in the
nineties
or the laptop
microphone
built into your laptop. Those sound
bad most of the time.
Number nine, more episodes equals more success.
There is a limit to this. So why
(02:52):
it's why we think it's bad? Releasing multiple
episodes every week
will not matter if your content is not
good.
I have been saying this over and over
and over again doing this podcast that quality
over quantity
is the key to success to any podcast
out there. Yeah. I know people that, that
will say, well, if you if you get
(03:12):
a hundred downloads per episode and you only
do one a week, well, if you do
two a week, you're gonna get double that.
Maybe not. Some people get tired of you.
I they're just being
Including yourselves. Honest. You you gotta limit. And
I I go in fits and starts when
I do my show. I'll do one show,
(03:32):
and then I'm like, oh, I wanna do
another one tomorrow. And I I have to
hold myself back because, a,
not everybody that's gonna download that last episode
has downloaded it yet.
And if I put out another one, then
that one's
gonna go down a little bit, I think.
It just the the funny take on this
would be release seven episodes a week who
(03:54):
needs sleep. That sounds like what is it?
In November, Nepod, Pomo? Yeah. I Those episodes
are not necessarily great. And I failed at
that several times. Yeah. I did do it
once completely, but speaking of which, that's coming
up here shortly. We'll we'll we'll be talking
about that. I might have Jennifer on here
to talk about it. But We will talk
(04:14):
about it. We will not do it. Yeah.
So our our advice
is to
stick to a manageable release schedule that works
with your own lifestyle
that allows you to create quality content over
consistent
Yeah. Okay content. So some of the this
isn't necessarily bad advice, but some of the
advice that I've heard and also given
(04:37):
is
a lot of people will pick a format.
They'll say, oh, my episodes are gonna be
exactly thirty minutes long.
And if the day you record, you only
have fifteen minutes worth of content that's worth
of crap. Mhmm.
Stretching it out to thirty minutes is gonna
make it boring.
Yes. It will. Seriously. A lot of filler.
(04:58):
We we we say that this show is
gonna be somewhere around thirty minutes, thirty, forty
five,
but you'll notice that certain topics take longer
and certain topics take less time, and don't
sweat that. But, you know, as far as
your schedule, again, just make sure it fits
in your life.
Because
if you are constantly
running up against what do you call it?
(05:20):
If you put deadlines on things yourself,
and then it just starts to become drudgery.
We took a couple weeks off at the
beginning of the month because, well, one, we
were traveling.
And then Quite a bit. And another one,
yeah, quite a bit. You were on vacation
after traveling for business. So
so every once in a while, we do
take a break. We ran some reruns. Hopefully,
(05:42):
they weren't too bad. I I think they
were good episodes.
But sometimes
keeping on a rigid schedule
can be bad if
you do it too much. There's also
positive things and rerunning episodes because we chose
ones that
are still very relevant and that we think
(06:03):
maybe you haven't listened to an episode that
was released over
twelve months
ago. It can be definitely a good way
to make sure that your content stays a
little more long tail,
evergreen and just Yeah. We're lucky with this
show. A lot of this stuff is long
tail.
It doesn't some of the more
topical stuff, I guess, would would not age
(06:24):
well, but some of it does. Yeah. Here
here's one that I think we get a
little argument from Todd, but, don't bother with
editing. Raw is real.
Which cracks me up because our company name
Yeah. Legally is Raw Voice. But there's some
pros and cons to that.
There definitely is. Authenticity,
that's a word,
(06:45):
is important,
but long pauses, filler words, awkward moments, they're
not as entertaining
to some people. Some people like that. Gauge
your audience on that too, but editing helps
tighten up the flow, keeps the listeners engaged.
What's the
it says cue a mock conversation
full of umms, likes, and a thirty second
(07:07):
awkward silence.
Now this podcast, gold. Right?
Right. If if you love this stuff. If
you love your your awkward moments, put it
into a blooper reel because people do love
that, but they don't wanna hear your mistakes
every episode.
So it it's definitely
edit for the clarity and the flow
(07:28):
and and make sure that you're keeping things
conversational if that's the type of show that
you have. Mhmm. Shows such as, like,
fiction,
drama,
journalistic,
those types of things, those are probably gonna
be very heavy heavy handed editing.
For a show like this,
we do definitely keep in some of those
uhs and likes, and we keep it we
(07:49):
keep it pretty
real in the sense, but we don't wanna
sound like idiots. So that's what Kate helps
us out with. Right. Yeah. Kate over at
blueberrypro.com.
She she makes us sound smarter. I love
it. Yeah. Yeah. We love her for that.
Thank your podcast
editor, including yourself, if you are your own
podcast editor.
(08:10):
This one
this one, number seven, you don't need show
notes or a website. That one that one,
like, cuts to the core at Blueberry because
that is one of the things that we
tell absolutely
every podcaster is that, yes, you should have
your own website. You should have your own
name out there somewhere on the Internet so
that people can associate
(08:30):
your show
with yourself, with your brand, whatever you want
to designate.
Yeah. And then show notes, I tell people
sometimes you don't over obsess about show notes
because they're like, well, I want this space
to be here, and I want that. Sometimes
it just doesn't work out on the different
platforms.
(08:50):
But, you know, most people,
believe it or not, don't ever read that
stuff. But they're the ones that want to
give them the place to do that. And
and and don't just say, hey. We we
had a podcast today. We talked about x,
and that's it. Yeah. It it's
I don't know. It's just
I
I listen to a couple of shows where
(09:11):
it's a one line show notes.
It's annoying. I still listen to the show
because content's good. But, of course, talking about
overproducing,
this guy does two episodes
every single day, seven days a week.
That is
too many
in my opinion. And he does them on
on YouTube as well. There are exceptions to
the rule.
(09:31):
Yes. There are always exceptions, but I am
a person that that wants links
in the show notes. Like, I wanna go
learn more about whatever it is that they
talked about or whatever guest it was.
That is generally what I care about. And,
yeah, I think you said it. Like, a
lot of people don't end up actually reading
the show notes, but you know what? They'll
read it.
(09:51):
Google. Oh, yeah. Bing. Every search engine out
there, it's gonna read it if it is
available. And if you did it well, it's
gonna bring this episode or your show up
when people are searching for whatever your content
is about. And don't go to the other
extreme. People will do transcripts, and then they'll
put that as the show notes. Yeah. Yeah.
That's just a block of text. And They
(10:13):
can't do anything with that. Yeah. And even
Google doesn't
they look at that and say, well, it's
just a blob of text. We're not gonna
index this. Or
so
somewhere in the happy medium, have detailed show
notes, but don't
go
completely crazy. And just have a basic website,
landing page, whatever you need to have, but
(10:34):
make sure that, that it has enough information
in the show notes that if those that
wanna go to links you mentioned or or
just or if they're going through their app
and some people do that, they'll they'll look
at the show notes to decide whether they
wanna hit play or not.
Yeah. Always do that. And website's always better
because it gives people a place to go
(10:54):
if one of the apps messes up.
And if you are a Blueberry podcaster and
don't currently have a website,
if you are hosting with us, you get
a free WordPress website. So you know what's
gonna be in the show notes? A link
to learn more about PowerPress sites from Blueberry.
Yeah. There you go. So we will have
that link in the show notes.
(11:15):
Here's something that was really good advice in
02/2005.
If you build it, they will come,
but that doesn't happen anymore. No. It does
not. When Todd, Barry, myself, and Sean all
started podcasting, we were in the first one
hundred podcasters ever.
And listeners of podcasts, which were mostly other
(11:38):
podcasters or geeks, would
was starving for content. It wasn't unusual that
some really crappy podcast would come online, and
it would get 5,000 downloads an episode.
But that was probably 90% of the podcast
audience at that time.
It doesn't happen that way anymore. There's, what,
4,000,000
something podcasts out there depending on who you
(12:00):
ask.
Right. So simply launching your podcast doesn't mean
people will just find it. You gotta market,
promote,
network,
and all that stuff is essential to get
an audience.
Your your audience will grow
more organically when you have really good content
and you already have a base of an
audience.
(12:21):
Because those people will tell so and so,
and then it will just spread from there.
To this day,
word-of-mouth is still the biggest
way
that podcasters grow
grow their show. And so, yes, your content
is important to
making sure that people come back, but they
have to find it in the first place.
So
(12:42):
you gotta you gotta build that audience
at some point. And and yeah. I imagine
what was that baseball movie from, like, the
nineties or the eighties? If you build it,
they will come. The yeah. It's it's not
relevant anymore. Not the way it works anymore,
unfortunately.
Here's something we should get the AI to
make a picture
(13:03):
of. A picture of podcaster sitting alone in
a room saying any minute now my audience
will just appear.
Yes. And then you hear crickets in the
background.
Don't do this to yourself.
Yeah. Just make sure you have a good
solid marketing plan, and that
doesn't have to be extensive, but make sure
you're on social media. Get into it. As
(13:24):
much as people hate Facebook, there's one good
use for Facebook is the Facebook groups.
So find a Facebook group or two in
your niche and
go in there and be helpful.
Don't don't go in and say, hey. I
have a podcast. Come look at or listen.
You
answer the questions that are asked in that
group, and you you you become a known
(13:45):
entity. And then if someone asks a question
that's relevant to one of your episodes, hey,
I did an episode about that if you
wanna check it out. But don't don't be
pushy. They'll kick you out of the group.
Yeah. You you think Facebook, I think Reddit.
And same goes for that. Don't be pushy.
They will they will love your confidence and
enthusiasm and just general knowledge, but you can't
(14:07):
you can't spam. Yeah. Same idea. Any of
the any of the socials like that that
have special interest areas, that's that's a good
place to go. Used to be forums. That's
how old I am.
There are forums out there still, believe it
or not, but I don't know how used
they are.
Yeah. They're it is not what it was.
(14:27):
Yeah.
Also,
monetizing. Yeah. Number five, monetize right away.
That is absolutely
not a great idea to just expect to
earn money and monetize your show on
episode zero, on episode one? Yes. Can you
turn on programmatic ads with Blueberry
(14:50):
to earn to put in
automated ads in your episodes?
Yes.
Is it going to
annoy listeners if it's done poorly and done
right away?
Potentially.
Yeah. Some some podcasts are worth listening to
with a bunch of ads in them, and
I do.
But, you know, I'm I'm the one that
(15:10):
I'm one that pays for YouTube, so I
don't have to watch all the ads getting
broken into.
Even, like, looking up some obscure how to
video where that has, like, 12 views,
and I get a a freaking ad for
foot fungus cream or
God knows what. Mhmm. Yeah. It's just not
it's not gonna make me want to keep
(15:30):
watching or listening
to that YouTube or podcast.
And the thing is with with programmatic,
yes, you can do that, but it's gonna
take you a little while to build up
enough to even get paid.
If you're you're just starting out and you've
got 12 downloads from mom and all your
cousins, you're not gonna make any money on
that right away.
(15:51):
And I hate to have the ugly baby
talk, but until you have an audience, you're
not gonna make any money with ads.
Yeah. And
and another thing is if you're doing this
just to monetize,
I think you're gonna have to have a
different mindset.
Like, you're gonna have to be going at
this a different way. You're gonna be putting
in potentially a lot more
(16:11):
effort and time and money into the marketing
of the show, into
the editing, the the equipment,
all of these things. If you wanna make
money
right away, you have to spend money right
away.
Yeah. And I I just think for a
lot of hobbyist podcasters, that's a bad idea.
Yeah. I think most of us are hobbyists.
(16:32):
There there's commercial shows and, you know, there's
nothing wrong with that. But getting into podcasting
just to make money
may be a bad plan unless you really
have it planned out and you got a
good way to market and all that stuff.
But putting ads in the first episode, unless
it's for your own stuff, that's here's here's
kind of the the opposite view.
(16:54):
Say you're a book author and you're doing
a podcast about the subject to your book.
Of course, you wanna mention the book.
Yep. That is a great idea. Monetize,
but don't go in there and say you're
doing a doing a show about tech, and
then all you're doing is selling that foot
fungus cream they were talking about
or whatever the what's the big advertiser nowadays?
(17:17):
BetterHelp.
There we go. Oh, yeah. You hear that
ad in a lot of podcasts and must
be working for them. They keep doing it.
But, yeah, it's not applicable to your audience.
That's the other thing. Don't do ads
just for the sake of getting an ad
unless it's really relevant to your to your
audience.
That's it's very inauthentic if you're you're doing
(17:38):
a Mac show and Microsoft wants to advertise.
Don't do that.
Yeah. A lot of the time, like, for
programmatic,
you can decide the categories that you're comfortable
having advertisements with, but you don't get to
pick the actual advertiser. You could say, like,
yeah, I'm okay with talking about
health and wellness stuff, but you can't choose
(18:00):
BetterHelp
over
another
online therapy program. Like,
that's just part of the automated monetization program.
No. We But you're not gonna get into
the nitty gritty. Yeah. We had somebody on
programmatic.
It was a while back, but they their
show was sponsored
externally
by
(18:20):
a particular company.
Mhmm. And their competitor
was buying programmatic ads on that podcast.
So here they are sponsored by
company a, and company b, a competitor,
you had the ad spots,
and that was not cool.
(18:40):
So be careful with that.
Yeah. For sure.
Alright. And we're down to number four.
Just copy what's popular.
Yeah. Trying to mimic somebody's
format
is
just not good. They're doing it already, and
they're you they want your take. That's maybe
(19:01):
somebody that's interested in that subject
doesn't particularly like that host, but they might
like you if you're you and not kind
trying to copy them.
Yeah. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
That's what people say, but
that's great for the person being, quote, unquote,
copied. It's terrible for the listeners, for the
(19:21):
actual consumers.
We don't want that. That's
we do to an extent.
And I think that is one of the
really critical
things that you have to determine. A lot
of people think they know what audiences want,
and they're like, oh, well, I like this.
So obviously, other people want it too. You
gotta really take a hard look at the
landscape of what is currently being provided and
(19:44):
and do that hard take
of, is this already oversaturated
in exactly,
like, this form? The content itself,
probably not saturated.
The way that it's being done and the
exact thing same things being said over and
over again on every
show, yeah, that is overdone. Yeah. I'm guilty
of this one. Back in the day when
(20:05):
I first started, I was listening to Adam
Curry's
daily source code.
Mhmm.
And I tried to mimic that format. It's
just not me.
Yeah. So for two or three episodes, I
said, yeah. That ain't me.
And but, you know, my show
has evolved over the years to many different
formats and
(20:26):
all that stuff. And I have a core
group of listeners. Probably could get them all
in this room,
but
that's okay.
But you're not gonna grow a big audience
by copying somebody else. I saw a tweet
actually yesterday
that someone had looked at the
NBC schedule for fall programming. Mhmm. And they
(20:47):
were like, I knew
pilot season and
new content
and new ideas was dead, but I didn't
realize how dead. And they said, NBC has,
like, seven shows,
six of which are
all the same. It's Chicago Fire, Chicago PD,
Chicago Med, Law and Order, Law and Order
(21:08):
SVU, something else,
FBI,
blah, blah, blah, blah. And then,
like, one other program
slightly different than that. That is, like, not
part of that Yeah. That's that universe, that
world. And it's like, this is exact we
we are so tired of this. Give us
new stuff. You know, it's like CBS. You
can you know, cop show cop show cop
show cop show.
(21:29):
And I don't know why NBC fixated on
Chicago.
It's a it's a winner. It's a great
city. I love it there. But, yeah, it's
it's
it's
done Yeah. To a lot of people. So,
basically, the
the best advice about that is just find
your own unique voice, your your
own perspective.
(21:50):
Most podcast listeners, when they get dedicated to
a podcast, and that takes a little while,
but most of them come because of the
host,
not because of the subject even sometimes. I
listen to a couple podcasts that I'd like
to host to care less about the subject.
And that's weird, but I do that
(22:10):
and others do. Kinda similar
to copying is
focusing on going viral. That is just plain
and simple,
a bad idea.
It's very gimmicky.
It doesn't retain a loyal audience. I am
absolutely proof of that. Mhmm. I am not
a dedicated person who will, like, go back
to your stuff. You have to prove to
(22:31):
me over and over again that I should
try this. Clickbait
has its
time, but it absolutely does not guarantee long
term success.
I watch a YouTube series,
not not a podcast. I wish he would
podcast, but he won't. But I watch a
YouTube series where every
single video is a clickbait.
And
(22:52):
I don't worry about the titles because the
content is good. But,
you know, whatever the title of it is
is click baity or the picture.
And
nine times out of 10, it has nothing
to do with what's actually in the content.
And that's Yeah. I don't know why it
works for him, but it works.
That's the thing.
I don't know. But I'll tell you who
(23:13):
it is. Scotty Kilmer. He does on automotive
YouTube.
And
almost everyone is it'll say,
this is the end, and it shows him
with a sad face. Like, he's gonna quit
doing YouTube or whatever. And he's got, like,
five or 6,000,000
subscribers, so he's not gonna quit.
Or
(23:33):
he'll he'll picture a a Ford on the
screenshot. Ford is firing everybody and going out
of business or something will be the title
on it. It's not, obviously.
Stop that, Gotti.
Yeah. The the better advice is just to
focus on creating consistent high quality content
that will build you a loyal audience over
(23:54):
time. A viral hit will not. It just
won't. It's and it's pretty rare that a
podcast goes viral. I can think of a
couple, but they're not it's not very often.
No. No. It's really not.
It's not viral moments are not good for
long form content.
Yeah. And most podcasts are generally long form
(24:15):
content. So Yeah. Yep. So here's the number
two, and this may should have been number
one maybe, but number two is fine.
It says make your podcast for everyone.
And, you know, my saying I tell people
this all the time. If you're making a
podcast for everyone, you're making a podcast for
no one.
Trying to appeal to everybody just isn't gonna
(24:36):
work.
Not in a podcast. Podcasts are usually very
niche y topics.
Being in a particular category will make you
come up in the search more. So someone's
looking for underwater basket weaving. There might be
only 12 people out there that are interested
in that, but they'll find you. But if
you're chose about scuba diving and underwater basket
(24:58):
weaving and 10 other subjects,
it's not gonna go anywhere. Like my personal
show, it's about everything. And, obviously, I don't
have a huge audience. I just do it
for fun.
But if I was interested in growing my
audience, I would niche down to something that
made sense.
Actually, I think you and I are kind
of a great example of this is we've
(25:18):
known each other for many years now.
We we definitely have some things in common.
We talk a lot about music and food
and and travel,
but I don't think we listen to any
of the same podcasts.
No. Probably not. Like, at all.
But we have
plenty to talk about over over these almost
(25:38):
ten years now. So it's just when we
when it gets down to it, what we
wanna listen to in a full episode is
not gonna be the same thing. Yeah. Exactly.
And if we recorded our conversations, we would
be in trouble.
That's also very true.
Anyway,
so the better best advice is just focus
on a clear niche or target audience. Make
(26:00):
sure you you do a little research in
what what audience would be interested in what
you wanna do. Don't do it the other
way around. Say,
a lot of podcasters, when they first started,
they say, well, what's gonna be popular? I'll
do that. Ugh. That drives me insane. Do
that. Figure out what you wanna do and
then figure out where to find those people
that would also be interested in what you
(26:20):
do. Yeah. People that don't have an opinion
and they're like, what do what should I
just do to make everyone happy? I hate
it
so much.
Number
one. Number one is don't bother with marketing.
Just focus on the content.
That's a no. That is just plain and
simple.
Bad. Content is always gonna be king. That
(26:41):
is that's always gonna be that way. But
like we said earlier, when you're trying to
go viral or
or copying someone else,
you have to market to get the content
in front of the listeners.
Yeah. This is not gonna
build it. They will come. It really is
not. Yeah. Well, it's just like in a
(27:03):
company, if you come out with a new
product and no one knows you came out
with a new product,
it ain't gonna go very well. Same thing
with a podcast. You've gotta get it out
there in front of your listeners, social groups,
and Reddit, and all those stuff like we
talked about before.
And there's there's other ways. Some people like
what's the guy that does the I am
Salt Lake?
(27:24):
What's his name? Anyway, he does a a
local Salt Lake City podcast.
He rents billboards.
That makes sense. In Yeah. In Salt Lake
City. So It's a very creative as well.
Yeah. It's a very niche
show. So that's what he's gonna do. I
remember when I was
driving home from the Outer Banks A Couple
Years ago, and we literally passed a billboard
(27:45):
while still in the Outer Banks that said,
listen to this show about this true crime
episode of that happened in the Outer Banks.
And we were like, immediately, that's what we're
gonna listen to. That marketing worked
in ten seconds.
Yeah. What what kind of budget do you
have to have to put a billboard up
for each episode?
Oh, god. I don't I don't know. But
no. The like, it was a series show.
It wasn't just an episode about an Outer
(28:07):
Banks 1. It was like, no. Here are
12 episodes about
this thing that happened, and we listened to
the whole show because we had twelve hours
to ride home.
So it worked.
Yeah. That's that's great. And, yes, true crime
is hot right now. Don't make a true
crime podcast unless you're actually interested in that
subject.
Yes.
(28:27):
Yes.
Choose your subject carefully. And
that that passion that we talked about in
number 10, I truly hate the word passion.
I think it's incredibly overused
and is more of
a
a descriptor,
I guess, instead of how you actually feel.
Mhmm. It's it's more
(28:49):
I am passionate about this because I get
the satisfaction out of doing this than out
of, like,
here's what I can provide to the world.
So do good content that other people are
going to be receptive of. Yeah. And make
sure that you are marketing that to the
right audience appropriately because you could be do
mark doing your marketing to all the wrong
(29:09):
people, and that's why it's not doing anything.
That's why you're not growing. Here's something that
used to be a big thing and isn't
so much anymore, and I think it could
come back
Mhmm. Is promo exchanges.
Yeah. So find somebody in your same niche.
You know? Because it's not so much competition
is people have have time to listen to
(29:29):
more than one show. It's not like you're
competing ABC at 09:00 and NBC at 09:00.
Okay?
So you don't have to think that way
anymore. It's not competitions.
Do a promo exchange. So, you know, hey.
If you like this show, check this other
one out. They play it on their podcast.
You play theirs on your podcast.
I think that should really come back. Yeah.
(29:50):
I do too. And I think a lot
of people might be nervous about doing that
because they're like, oh, what if they like
their show better than mine?
People love They'll probably listen to both. Yeah.
People love to hyper fixate on things that
they like. They're probably gonna listen to two
different shows about whatever it is that they
enjoy. Yeah. Always make marketing part of your
podcast strategy.
Social media, collabs, collaborations, I guess that would
(30:13):
be promo exchange.
Of course, word-of-mouth.
Tell your audience, hey. If you like this,
someone else that might like this, tell them.
That's a simple thing, little call to action
you can throw out at your audience. And
not everybody will do that, but somebody will.
No. But it is important to
have a call to action in your episode,
in your show notes, whatever it is that
(30:35):
you want them to do. Whether that is
coming back to listen to the unit next
episode, you finish the episode by saying, thanks
for listening today. We'll be back next Thursday.
Go subscribe to Podcast Insider on your preferred
podcast listening app. I think that about covers
it. This one's a little longer episode than
normal. Cool. Think it was worthwhile.
Yes. I hope you enjoyed this tongue in
(30:56):
cheek episode.
Check back next week for another episode. If
we did this alright, you will hear a
panel of raw voice slash blueberry
employees said that we're here from the beginning,
talking about twenty years in podcasting.
Thanks for joining us. Come back next week.
And in the meantime, head to podcastinsider.com
(31:19):
for more information,
to subscribe,
share, and read our show notes.
To check out our latest suite of services
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