3 Creative Decisions That Dictate Your Show's Success… or Failure

How long should your episodes be? What’s the best format for growth? Plus... the single most important decision you can make if you want to grow. 

Before you launch a new show, you have to make a number of creative decisions that set the course of your show. 

Will you do an interview, solo, or co-hosted show? How long should your episodes be? How often will you release new episodes? And who is this actually for? 

These structural decisions tend to get made once, sometimes without much thoughts… but they cast a long shadow over the growth potential of your show forever. 

So how do you ensure you’re making decisions that align with your goals and give you the best chance at success? 

📊 What did you think of this episode? Click to cast your vote:
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Topics Covered

00:00 Intro

00:53 How much does a podcast's structure matter in terms of its success? 
03:26 Breaking down our recent episode length experiment
10:12  A better question than “how long should my episodes be?” 
19:03 Which show format is best for growth? 
23:48 The impact of podcast format for success and audience growth 
25:22 What makes for a great interview show? 
25:43 The art of crafting compelling interview shows 
29:45 What makes for a great solo podcast? 
33:31 What makes a great co-hosted show? 
37:01 How we would design a show to get to 50k downloads/episode

⭐️ Get a free podcast marketing audit with personalized recommendations to help you grow: https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit ⭐️

Resources

Akimbo
You're Wrong About
How I Write
Essay - Hide Your Work
Tanner Campbell - Practical Stoicism
Pod Save America podcast
All In podcast

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Episode Transcript

Jeremy (00:02):
So, Justin, a few weeks ago on the podcast, we did a bit
of an experiment here where wereleased 2 versions of the same
episode. 1 was about 60 minutesand the other was a condensed
version that was something like37 minutes. And my question to
you is which of those episodesdo you think did better and why?

(00:24):
Welcome Welcome to podcastmarketing trends explained. I'm
Jeremy Enns from PodcastMarketing Academy.

Justin (00:30):
And I'm Justin Jackson from transistor.fm. And
together, we're digging into thedata behind the podcast
marketing trends 2023 report tohelp you understand what it
means for you and your show.

Jeremy (00:43):
Our goal is to help you make better informed decisions
about the way you create andmarket your show so you can
spend more time on what actuallymatters for growth and
accelerate your

Justin (00:52):
results. Let's get into it.

Jeremy (00:56):
Some of the most common questions that a lot of
podcasters have related tothings like how long should my
episodes be? How often should Ipublish new episodes? Should I
have a co host? Should I dointerview shows? Should I do
solo shows?
A lot of these structuraldecisions actually have a big
impact on how listeners engagewith your show and and whether
listeners are likely to engagewith your show. So So I'm

(01:17):
assuming that you encounterthese questions pretty regularly
as well, and I would be curiousto know from your perspective,
how much do these structuraldecisions matter?

Justin (01:27):
It really depends. The the answer is, like, it matters
a lot, and then also it mattersless than you think it does
because, ultimately, what reallymatters is the product, the
podcast. And if it's good and ifit's good for that particular
audience. So in products, wetalk about product market fit.

(01:50):
There's this other element thatwe talk about in startup land,
which is founder market fit andfounder product fit.

Jeremy (01:57):
Yeah.

Justin (01:57):
And in podcast terms, that would be host market fit
and then host podcast fit. Sothere's lots of dynamics at play
here, and it's hard to give ageneralized answer.

Jeremy (02:10):
Everybody's favorite response, it depends. So, I
think let's work our way throughsome of these. And we'll look at
some of the data from the reportabout the most successful shows,
what some of these structuraldecisions they were making here.
And let's start by digging intoepisode length and kind of close
the loop here on the questionthat I posed to you to open up
the episode. We ran thisexperiment a couple of weeks

(02:32):
ago, 2 episodes based on theexact same content.
1 was 60 minutes, 1 was roughly40 minutes. So 2 thirds the
length. How do you think thisplayed out, both on a downloads
and a kind of retention basis?And and what is your reasoning
behind your response?

Justin (02:47):
Okay. My guess is the shorter episode got more
downloads, had betterconsumption, so people went
through more of the episode. Thereason is that I think when
you're looking for episodes tolisten to or you're looking at
your cue or someone recommends apodcast to you, asking for an
hour of someone's time is abigger ask than asking for 37

(03:11):
minutes of their time. And soit's a better entry point. It
matches up more with, like, thelength of a commute or, in my
case, the length of a walk downto the office.
So that's kinda what I'mthinking is that the shorter
episode performed betterprobably in all metrics.

Jeremy (03:29):
Okay. So we don't have a ton of data under our belt yet
when it comes to this,experiment. And for a little bit
of context on how I set this up,I released both episodes
basically 1 minute apart. Soreleased them at about 5 AM
Eastern. So most people, theywoke up to these 2 episodes and
I recorded a dynamicallyinserted ad at the start of the

(03:50):
intro.
It was about 30 seconds longthat basically said, hey, we're
doing an experiment this weekand we've released 2 versions. 1
is 60 minutes, 1 is 40 minutes.Listen to whichever one you like
and let us know what you think.So I was really curious to see
how this would play out becauseI think we all suspect that
maybe if I did a longer episode,that would do better. Maybe if I
did shorter episodes, thosewould do better, but you kind of
have to commit to them.
And I thought, okay. Well, we'realready editing down a shorter

(04:12):
version for YouTube anyway.Might as well export that as an
audio version and just test thisand see what happens. And so
we've got, about just over aweek of data here, so there's
not a ton of data yet, but theearly results are fascinating to
me And so much like you saidthat you would expect within the
episode release window, weactually did see that the

(04:34):
condensed version of theepisode, the shorter episode,
got more downloads within thefirst day or couple of days
here. And so we're hosted onTransistor.
And so the way that, you guysbasically calculate this release
window is the first 2 days, thefirst kind of 48 hours of an
episode being out. And so therelease window, 199 downloads
for the condensed episode, 188for the full length episode. And

(04:58):
so this was kind of likeimmediately. I was like, wow,
this is way closer than Ithought. I kind of was hoping
that there'd be some definitiveanswer.
Like either just one does waybetter and be like, okay, I
guess we should do the longepisode or I guess we should do
the short episode. But this wasvery surprising that it was,
like, pretty even. And I willsay that there is some nuance
here where people had to chooseone to start with and so I'm

(05:22):
assuming there's a lot ofoverlap here where somebody
listened to that short episodefirst and they were like, oh,
there's a long listen to that orthey listened to the long one
first and they're like, oh,there's a short one. I'm going
to listen to that. And so Yeah.
The way that we can kind ofactually look at this was then
in the chartable retention data,we can actually see that the
full length episode was thefirst one that I published and

(05:42):
so we can then see how manypeople listened to that episode
and then the subsequent episode,which was the shorter episode.
And so Interesting. We can't wecan't see vice versa,
unfortunately. We can only seethat one direction. But what we
see here is that this is by farour highest retention, next
episode where in chartable, ofall the people who listen to the
long episode, 76% of those atleast clicked play on the next

(06:07):
episode.
So Interesting. To me, I'm kindathinking like, okay. That seems
to suggest that a largepercentage of people listen to
the long episode, the first bitat least, and then they went to
the next one. They were like,oh, actually, I prefer the
shorter one. And so I'm gonna goover there.
Now Mhmm. There's lots morenuance here. We don't know if
there's auto downloads going onthat people didn't actually

(06:28):
listen, but they downloaded bothof them. Some of the early first
impressions there were a littlebit mixed. I don't know what
your kind of thoughts are on onthat data so far.

Justin (06:36):
Yeah. I mean, I love that you were doing this
experiment, and it's reallydifficult to do these kinds of
experiments in podcasting. It'scool that you tried it out and
just to see. But even justintroducing that choice, you're
gonna play with people's minds.Like, some people might be like,
well, I can't listen to theshort version.
I might miss out on somethingimportant. Or so you're you

(06:58):
know, there's some mentalgymnastics that the listener
would have to go through asopposed to what I think would be
interesting is walking around aconference and just saying,
based on these episodes, whichone would you click on first and
why? And I think you'll seepeople will start to mention,
well, this one's only 30 minuteslong, so I'll check that one out

(07:18):
first. So I think there's otherways you could try this
experiment. And I think thepoint is it's good to do these
kinds of things if you can.
Like, just in whether it's inperson or doing it the way you
did it. Yeah. It's it'sinteresting to me.

Jeremy (07:33):
Now there is also a further twist. And so what we
saw here in the data in thefirst release window here was
that there seemed to be a slightpreference towards the shorter
episode.

Justin (07:44):
Okay.

Jeremy (07:45):
But with each day outside the release window, so
from day 3 onwards, the longerepisode has actually had more
people click through on it.

Justin (07:53):
Oh, wow.

Jeremy (07:54):
And so there seems to be a longer tail on the longer
episode, which is interesting tome. So part of this could be
maybe people listen to the shortepisode on the release window.
And they're like, actually, I dowanna listen now. I've got some
more time later in the week. Iactually do wanna listen to full
episode.
Yeah. That could be onepotential explanation. And so at
at this point, the longerepisode actually has more

(08:15):
downloads overall and seems tobe gaining more kind of momentum
than the the short episode is.So that's interesting. And then
the other kind of fascinatingthing here is that I looked
further into the chartable dataand what we can see is that
there's actually a preferencefor newer listeners, people who
have not listened to as manyepisodes.
They prefer the shorter episodewhereas long time listeners

(08:36):
actually preferred the longerepisode, which this makes total
sense to me, but it'sfascinating to see it in the
data.

Justin (08:42):
That's it. That is the insight right there. And this is
the tension is that who are youserving? It's like, are you
serving long time listeners? Areyou serving new listeners?
This is why it's actually niceto have a member's only podcast
or a, you know, listenersupported feed where it's like,

(09:03):
if you're a fan and you want thelong version, subscribe here. If
you're a brand new, here's theshort 20 minute version. That's
the public version, but there'salways, like, a pushing people
to who are fans to consume thelonger version.

Jeremy (09:19):
Yeah.

Justin (09:19):
That's fascinating.

Jeremy (09:20):
And I also heard some anecdotal evidence from people
who were familiar with me in thepast. I already had a
relationship with them. They hadconsumed my content maybe for
years and all of them say, no, Iwant the full. I want as much as
you'll give me. And I thought,oh, that is really interesting.
And what's also interesting iseven the 60 minute version was
edited down from 80 minutes orsomething like that. It was like
an hour 20 minutes. And so thatwas already cut down quite a bit

(09:41):
from our original raw recording.And so even that was a somewhat
condensed version. And then the40 minute was even more
condensed.
And the final kind of piece thatI'll throw in here relates to
retention, which I thought forsure the longer episode is going
to have a lower retention rate.And it does not. We actually see
that, currently, as of rightnow, it has a 67% consumption

(10:03):
rate in Apple Podcasts, and theshort version has a 64%
consumption rate. So,interesting. Just fascinating
insights all around here, butthis is a very, kind of quirky,
unique experiment that we've runhere.
But thinking about more broadly,when you were talking with
somebody about episode length,when you get this question, how
do you begin to approach thattopic from a, this is probably

(10:27):
the best fit for you in yoursituation?

Justin (10:30):
The truth is almost always people's episodes should
be shorter. Almost alwaysbecause they they need to be
editing them down. There's toomuch in them. And this also has
to do with pacing. This has todo with keeping things
compelling, keeping things, youknow, entertaining and
interesting the whole time.

(10:51):
And the truth is it takes a lotmore effort to produce something
that's nice and succinct. Andmost people don't put in that
effort. Most people, it's like,you know, 3 funny guys on a
couch recording a 3 hourpodcast, and they pub they just
publish it. And, in most cases,that's just not interesting

(11:12):
enough. Generally, I tell peopleyou should probably edit this
down and then probably edit itdown again.
Jason Fried is this business guyand writer I know, and he has
this task where he says, I wannayou to write a full page
version. I want you to write a 1paragraph version, and I want
you to write a tweet sizedversion. And the point of the

(11:35):
exercise is that you can getmore and more succinct and cut
away all the things that areunnecessary, and it generally
gets better as you get kind ofdown to the essence. Yeah. What
about yourself?
What do you normally tell folks?What are your your thoughts
there?

Jeremy (11:50):
I think it's only been more recently that I've really
thought a lot more. And this isinteresting because I've been an
audio engineer and editor for along time. But a lot of that
editing was not content editingso much. So for clients, it was
more like cleaning it up from atechnical perspective, umms and
ahs and that kind of thing,removing obvious mistakes and
all that. But recently I've justkind of become obsessed with a
little bit like the, the craftof editing to highlight and

(12:12):
bring focus to certain ideas.
And a lot of that is by removingstuff that does not serve the
main theme of the episode. Andso that's what I've been doing a
lot with this show is oureditor, Chris, will do a pass at
the episode that cleans up a lotof the technical stuff. And then
I'll go through mainly for thevideo version and say, I if it's
gonna be on YouTube, it can't bean hour and 20 minutes. Like,
that's not gonna fly on YouTube.So for me, part of the creative

(12:33):
challenge has been like, whatcan I cut out of this and still
retain the essence?
And I think of this idea asvalue density. And so in a
given, let's just say 60 minuteepisode, how many moments are
there where I'm thinking as alistener like, oh, that was that
was really interesting. I neverthought about it that way. And
on a high value density episode,you might have 5 or 6 of those
moments where it's like every 10minutes, there's something new

(12:54):
that you're like, oh, wow. Likethat was a real interesting
idea.
Whereas a low value densityepisode, you maybe have one. And
I've listened to plenty of showsthat there's nothing that gets
my ears to perk up in a wholeepisode. And so it's it's
extremely low kind of peaks ofwhatever the the show's kind of
job is, whether it's insight orhumor or entertainment, whatever
the listener is coming toreceive, I think we want to

(13:16):
condense that and compress thatto a point where they have all
the relevant, like, context thatthey need for it to make sense.
We're not just like cutting to,you know, the punch lines. Those
need to be set up, but we'reremoving some of the stuff that
isn't necessary to serve that.
And so this is something that,like, I've just kind of become a
little bit obsessed about, and Iknow a lot of people who work
and have worked on really largeshows that people are familiar

(13:37):
with that might be 2, 3 hourlong episodes, things like that.
And a lot of times what peopledon't realize is they actually
recorded for 6 or 8 hours, andit actually got cut down to 2
hours. And so what you'rehearing is a quarter of the
total recording. It's not thatjust that they went out there,
press record for 2 hours, andthen that was it. And I think
that, you know, that's part ofthe value of good editing is you
don't realize that as alistener.

(13:58):
We've talked about, David Perellbefore on the show, and so he
has a podcast called How IWrite, but he so he's very
writing focused and he has ablog post. I think it's called
Hide Your Work. And he basicallytalks about how, you know, your
creative work is done when theaudience feels like they could
have done it themselves, butit's something that you have
slaved over for hours. And so itfeels so simple that you look at

(14:19):
and you're like, oh, I could dothat. How hard could it be when
really the work is hiding howmuch work has gone into it?
And I think that by nature ofthat, the really great shows,
they do that. And we as anaudience don't really
understand. And so we think Icould do that. And then we go in
and we think we're doing thesame process when really we're
we're not quite at that levelyet.

Justin (14:37):
Yeah. I I love that idea of value density, thinking about
how many takeaways are in thismoment, how many shareable
moments are in this episode, howmany if you're doing a humor
episode, like, how many chucklesare there? Like, you you wanna
create the density of the thekind of thing you're going
after. Like, if you're aneducation podcast, it's like,

(14:58):
how many notes do people takeper episode? Thinking about it
in that way, like, figuring outwhat your value metric is for
your show and then looking ateach section of the podcast and
going, okay.
How can we increase that valuemetric? Whether it's chuckles,
shareable moments, insights,notes, whatever it is, increase

(15:21):
those for every section of theshow. Yeah.

Jeremy (15:24):
And I think that part of the job here is in editing and
part of it is in structuringyour episode in preproduction
and thinking, like, what are thethemes that we're gonna talk
about here and what are themoments that we know are going
to be interesting that we wannaspend more time on and what are
the moments that we wanna spendless time on? And so I think you
can fix some of this in editing,but you need to have the
material there, the raw materialfrom the start. And so that's
going to come from the the prepand the planning beforehand.

(15:46):
Now, before we move on fromepisode length, I do want to
bring in the data from thereport here, which was a little
bit interesting. And so what wesee here is that the largest
shows, the shows with over10,000 downloads an episode,
they were actually the longest.
And so they were an average of43 minutes per episode, which is
is still kind of on holdsomewhat on the shorter end than

(16:06):
I might have thought. The middletier shows, so the shows from a
1000 to 10000 downloads anepisode, they were 37 minutes,
and the shows on average, withless than a 1000 downloads were
35 minutes. And so the overallaverage was 37 minutes right in
the middle. And so this waskinda actually interesting to me
where the maybe up and comingshows, the shows that were lower
down in in terms of total numberof downloads were shorter. And I

(16:28):
think you almost look at thisand you might be like, oh, I
need to do longer episodes togrow like successful shows are
longer.
But I think that this is kind ofhinting at what we just talked
about here, where perhaps theseshows actually record way longer
and edit it down to this pointwhere, like, it is a dense value
packed episode of 43 minutesthat happens to be longer than

(16:49):
some of these shorter episodes.I don't know if that's any other
takeaways that you would havefrom that.

Justin (16:54):
Asking how long should my episodes be and that being
the only variable is, like,asking a chef how long should I
boil the water with no otherinformation. It, like, it just
depends on what you're cooking,the ingredients, everything
else. And so people ask thesequestions, and I can understand
why they're asking. But it itdepends on what you're cooking

(17:19):
up. It depends on your skilllevel.
It depends on who this is for.It depends on so many things.
And so for some audiences andsome show concepts, your
episodes should be 3 hours long.And for some shows, your
episodes should be 15. Ingeneral, if I had to generalize
it, I I just always say, youprobably should be editing more

(17:41):
and cutting things down more.

Jeremy (17:43):
What I like about that idea of the value density is
that you can have a 10 minuteepisode that has one great
takeaway or a 5 minute episode.And if if it does that, that's a
extremely dense 5 minutes. Andif you do that every single
episode for 5 minutes and givepeople one takeaway and they can
rely on that, that is aninsanely valuable show versus a
show that's 60 minutes and alsocontains one similar takeaway.

(18:04):
Like, that is just kind ofobjectively a worse use of a
listener's time to some extent.And so I think that that is
like, how much value can youdeliver in a given amount of
time?
And it's just like, however longI'm going to pick my episode
length that I just need to makesure that I am keeping people
engaged and delivering valueregularly. And so I think that
that's a really good metric to,like, think about as you're

(18:25):
going through this. And even ifyou can convince some some
listeners to give you somefeedback on that, I would
actually present this questionof just, like, how many moments
got you leaning in in theepisode? And just, like, ask for
brutal feedback from somebodywho you know is at least in your
target audience and say likeokay I want you to listen to the
show give me honest feedback andjust I want you to make note of
these things. When did you feellike it was dragging or you were

(18:46):
zoning out?
When did you find your attentionwandering? When were there
moments where you were liketurning up the volume to like or
replaying it or listening in,where you wanted to do a
bookmark? Those are the thingsthat will then they can give you
a list of notes with timestampsand you can be like, oh,
interesting. Now I have anobjective view now of the kind
of quality of my episode that Ican take this and make
improvements on.

Justin (19:05):
Yeah. I like that.

Jeremy (19:07):
Alright. So the next structural decision that people
have to make about their show isthe format that they're going to
go with. And so, you know, theinterview format is probably the
most popular in podcastinghistorically. That's kind of how
a lot of podcasting got itsstart. We've also got solo
episodes.
We've got people who do mixes offormats. We've got co hosted
like the show we're doing, andthat can be either co hosted

(19:27):
with guests or just a pair of cohosts who they're the same ones
on every episode. And then we'vegot some other formats like, you
know, fiction, narrative, mayberound table, things like that.
I'm curious how you think aboutthese kind of decisions and when
you're deciding, to create a newshow, what informs your decision
about, like, how I want tostructure this? Does it stem

(19:47):
from the concept?
Or do you are you like, I wantsomebody to discuss this with. I
wanna interview people. What'sthe thought process there?

Justin (19:54):
When I did my first podcast, it was an interview
podcast, and we also gotadvertisers. And I remember
eventually not liking thepressure of having to find a
good guest every week so that Icould serve more downloads and
then please the advertisers. Iloved it when I could talk to

(20:14):
somebody I really wanted tospeak with, and, you know, I
just had all these questions.I've generally been, like,
reading all their work. So lovedthat.
But my favorite shows in termsof podcaster podcast fit, so,
like, a podcast that fit me andkind of my life, are shows like
this, where it's the same cohostevery week. We schedule it. We

(20:38):
can show up. We eventually buildup a rapport, and it's just so
much easier. There's noscheduling guests.
There's no having a guest showup, and they don't have the
right equipment. It's, like, allof the variables are more
reliable.

Jeremy (20:52):
Mhmm.

Justin (20:53):
And I've found that more enjoyable. Yeah. So there's a
lot of questions to ask here interms of what you wanna get out
of it. I'm glad I did thatinterview show. I think
interview shows are incrediblypowerful.
I've also done solo shows thatwere quite fun as well.
Actually, more work, though,required way more editing. But

(21:16):
solo shows, can be great fun aswell, especially if you really
wanna get in. And, you know,often in solo shows, I'd pull in
a lot of clips and, you know,I'd be editing a lot. So it
depends.
It really depends on what youwant out of it. The only other
factor I'll say is thatinterview shows are generally

(21:37):
easier to, in my experience, tobuild an audience with. Because
if you're getting guests thathave a following and people are
looking for, you know,interviews with that guest,
they're curious about what'sgoing on in their lives and
stuff. The biggest episodes I'veever done are guest driven
shows.

Jeremy (21:57):
To me, interview often feels like the default choice,
and I think people should look alot more closely at other
formats. Yeah. I think a lot ofus who have been in the the
podcast industry or coming inthe past few years, we kind of,
you know, grew up, so to speak,with shows that tended to be
interview based. We learned alot from them. Certainly, I did.
And so it's like, that's thenatural type of show you're
going to create because that'sthe example that you've seen.

(22:19):
But I think that interviews aremuch harder to do well than
other types of shows. I thinkthe average person is not a good
interviewer and there's noreason any of us should be
unless you have prior experienceand training in that regard. So
in the report here, interviewwas by far the most common
format of episodes. So 40% ofall shows, basically, or close

(22:41):
to 40% were interview shows.
The next best was around 20% atsolo. Around 20% as well were
also had multiple formats thatthey engage with, and then co
hosted with guests a little bitless than 10%, maybe around 8%.
Co hosted without guests was asimilar size, maybe 6 or 7%, and
then we've got fiction narrativeround table, which were were
smaller number numbers there. Somore than a third of all shows

(23:04):
are interview. And if you thinkabout, like, am I a good enough
interviewer to stand out in themost crowded type of show
format?
I I don't think most people are.And I think, you know, there's
no way to get to that levelother than getting in your reps
and and practicing. And so ifthat's like, if there's a
compelling reason for you to doan interview show that you want
to grow your network with otherpeople, great reason to start an

(23:25):
interview show. And that's a asuper valuable outcome that is
non download growth related. Andso Yeah.
That is a good reason to dothat. And that's a big part of
why a lot of people start shows.But I think if you're thinking
about, like, what can I do toset the show up for the most
success as a show itself? Idon't know that interview is the
best format. And I think if itis, you should take the craft of

(23:46):
interviewing seriously.
But otherwise, I think it's it'sreally interesting to me, like,
looking at some of the thetrends here, the show's over
10000 downloads an episode. Theywere significantly more likely
to be co hosted, specifically cohosted without guests. And so
that was a clear kind oftakeaway away to me. And I think
if you look through any of thecharts, it's kind of you see
that regularly that there are alot of co hosted shows right

(24:08):
now. And I think this is thefirst co hosted show that I've
done.
And it's it's fun. There'schallenges to creating it
certainly, but when you havesomebody you're comfortable with
and you're both on the same pageand you can you know how the
other person thinks, you canthrow stuff at them and you can
kind of know a little bit wherethey might take it, but you also
know that there's gonna be somerandomness that gets thrown into
it. Whereas with, like, ascripted solo episode, you're

(24:29):
really reliant on how good yourscript is. And with an interview
episode, the interviewee needsto be good. You need to be good
as an interviewer, which is ishit or miss.
And so I think it's easier tomake a high quality value dense
episode with a repeat partner,whether that's a roundtable or a
co host. And I think more peopleshould be experimenting with
those types of shows.

Justin (24:47):
I agree. I mean, think about doing a a great narrative
show. It's just a lot of work todo that well. I think more
people should be doing that toobecause I love those shows. But
having just someone that youjust show up with week after
week, you just get in this nicehabit.
You get a nice rapport going.And I I think the audience
starts to build around yourrelationship a little bit. You

(25:09):
start following these two peopleand their interactions. You
might identify with more with 1or the other. Mhmm.
Sometimes rules develop like,oh, this is the good cop. This
is the bad cop. Yep. And that'sfun as well. So, yeah, I think
more people should beinvestigating it.

Jeremy (25:26):
So one more question that I'll ask you on this. Let's
just say, interview shows, soloshows, co hosted shows, the kind
of 3 most common formats here. Ithink there are compelling
reasons to do all of them. Andso I would be curious to hear
your thoughts on, like, whatmakes for a great interview
show, what makes for a greatsolo show, and what makes for a
great co hosted show.

Justin (25:47):
So I'm gonna have a little bit of a spicy take on
interview shows. I actuallythink a lot of the popular
interview shows out there, thehost is not a good interviewer.
Mhmm. What they are is they'reable to attract popular guests
or guests that are interesting.So a good example is Fly on the
Wall, Dana Carvey and DavidSpade.

(26:08):
They have guests on the show.They're not good interviewers.
They're just terrible. But theinteractions between them and
their guests are interesting andcompelling enough that you wanna
stick around and listen to thestories. I think this also
worked for Tim Ferris early on.
He was not a great interviewerearly on, but he was able to

(26:29):
attract really high qualityguests. So that's one thing. Now
you could flip that and be theopposite where you just focus on
being a great interviewer andbuild a reputation as a great
interviewer. And I've seen thiswork as well Mhmm. Where someone
will get interviewed by somebodythat's, you know, not very well
known, but they'll say, wow.
Like, Rachel just askedunbelievable questions. You've

(26:50):
gotta go check out this episode.And so you can build up a
reputation as an interviewer aswell.

Jeremy (26:56):
The thing that I would add on to that, I think the
easiest way to actually dobetter interviews is just just
to scope them way narrower. Andso most of us, we have somebody
coming on and so we know we'regonna be talking about this
topic. And so we kinda wannagive the definitive interview on
that topic. And so we scope itreally broad and it covers both
that person's life. And it alsocovers everything to need to

(27:16):
know about, you know, whateverthe topic is.
I think most times people shouldzoom down at least 1, if not 2
layers, and I find this sooften. I do a lot of podcast
audits and in almost everysingle one, I'll listen to a 60
minute episode. Let's say that'san interview show and there'll
be one question near the backhalf of the the interview. It'll
be like right before the end andI'm like, this should have been

(27:37):
the whole episode. We just spent3 minutes on this thing.
We could have spent 2 episodeson that one topic and a lot of
times you could build a wholeshow on that. And so one
example, since we're talkingpodcasting here, I get asked to
do a lot of interviews aboutpodcast marketing and I've given
50 interviews that are all verysimilar questions. And that
makes it hard for me to promoteto my audience because I'm like,
they've already listened to 49others that are all the same

(28:00):
questions here. And so I'llshare them, but I I don't know
what original thing I can saythat, like, they're gonna get
from this show that they haven'tgot elsewhere. And so sometimes
what I, as people do, they gointo my ears framework that I
sometimes talk about with, withpodcast marketing.
And so that's about exposure,attraction, retention, and
sales. And sometimes I'm like,oh, okay. This would actually be

(28:20):
interesting if somebody pickedjust one of these. Let's say
they picked the retentioncategory. So about how do you
once you get people to listen,what keeps them coming back?
That would be a more interestinginterview than just talking
about the broad thing of podcastmarketing. But we could still go
even deeper into that. Somebodywho's maybe read some of my blog
posts, you could say, okay,within the retention category,
Jeremy, I've heard you talkabout how important the first 3

(28:40):
to 5 minutes of an episode are.Let's do a whole episode on
that. And now we're getting intothe definitive interview that
I've given and maybe thatanybody has done the topic
around how do you nail yourfirst 3 to 5 minutes of an
episode and that now becomes areally really valuable resource
that nobody else has done And Iwould even take this a step
further.
I think you can do a whole show.This is actually a show that I

(29:02):
kind of wanna create, but alsowant somebody else to create
where every single episode, wejust examine the first three
minutes of another podcast andsay what makes it work. I would
listen to hundreds of episodesof that show because everyone is
going to be unique. And, like,that could be a whole show in a
question that somebody elsemight spend 1 question, 3
minutes on out of a wholeepisode. And so I think for most
people, zooming in, scoping yourinterviews much more narrow is a

(29:25):
much better hook than trying togo broad and encompass
everything about that guest andtheir topic.

Justin (29:30):
That's a great tip is if you wanna get a great guest is
just if they're writing, readeverything they've written and
then say, oh, I wanna talk toyou about this essay or I wanna
talk to you about this chapterof your book and just allow them
to go deep on that topic. That'sa great pitch for a guest as
well.

Jeremy (29:49):
Yeah. Okay. So what about, solo episodes? What makes
for a great solo episode in yourbook?

Justin (29:53):
The way I've done them, they've always been, like,
following my journey.

Jeremy (29:56):
So So

Justin (29:57):
I had a podcast called Build and Launch where I was
building and launching a newproject, I think, every couple
months or something. And so itwas just, like, me in the
podcast recording booth saying,okay. This week, I'm gonna do
this. Last week, this happened.And it had lots of, clips, so I
would be recording kind ofpeople with my iPhone throughout
the week and then putting allthe clips into the episode.

(30:20):
So I think when there's kind ofa journey you're following,
those are interesting. Sometimesmonologue shows are interesting.
I actually would listen to aversion of Marc Maron's podcast
that was just the monologue. Ithink he should do that,
actually. Just forget the guest.
To me, his monologue is moreinteresting than the guest.
Mhmm. But I've seen, like, theJourney podcast does really well

(30:44):
with solo episodes. And then youhave to figure out a way to make
it interesting. And I've donethat with clips and editing, and
I've even done, like, littleskits at the end, like, little,
like, SNL's type skits near theend.
So you have these recurring bitsthat make it interesting. That
worked for me. Is there anythingyou've seen for solo episodes

(31:04):
that works well?

Jeremy (31:05):
I think that often, they are much more appealing to
somebody who already knows thehost to some extent. And I think
that they are great. So thisgoes back to the idea of not
what is the job that the show isdoing for your audience, but
what is the job that the show isdoing for your business too? I
mean, we got both angles here,but I think a lot of times,
like, you might be building anaudience on Twitter or your
email list or something, and youmight want to deepen the
relationship with that audience.We've talked about this theme

(31:26):
again and again, and I thinkthat a lot of people, they get
into the scenario with interviewshows where I've heard this
countless times where they'll doan interview with a guest and
really they're doing the showfor their business but people
will go buy the guest productsbecause the guests had a great
pitch and they were reallyengaging and nobody ever becomes
customers or clients of theperson hosting the show.
And a lot of times that'sbecause podcast hosts who do

(31:47):
interview shows tend to removethemselves. And I think we get a
lot of programming from how wethink about journalism. A lot of
us, we don't really understand.We think, oh, I'm supposed to be
neutral. I'm not supposed to putmy point of view in here.
And so they tend to like pushall the attention to the guest.
And so I think solo episodes area great tool for this where if
you're like, okay, I have ideasand thoughts about my topic that
I want to share with my audiencein longer form than Twitter or

(32:09):
LinkedIn or Instagram orwherever. I think a solo show is
a great way to do that, but youkind of have to adjust your
expectation that like, okay,this is more going to be for
people who are already in myinner circle, or I need to find
a very specific topic that I canapproach that somebody will see
this. And it's so specific thatthey're like, oh, that sounds
really interesting and oh, ithappens to be a solo show and

(32:30):
I'm still gonna to listen tothat. So that would be my my one
take on that.
And then I think the other thingthat goes a little bit hand in
hand with this is that I don'tknow how to quantify this, but I
think solo episodes need a hostwho has a great and unique
perspective and a compellingpoint of view. And I think about
like my all time favorite soloshow is Seth Godin's akimbo

(32:51):
podcast, which he is a singularthinker who every single episode
you have some kind of, like,moment where you just think to
yourself, wow. How did he takeus on this journey from this
abstract story or concept thathe opens the episode with you?
Like, where is this gonna go?And then he ends with something
that you're, like, wow.
That, like, really landed withme. And I it's it's both
actionable but alsophilosophical to some extent.

(33:13):
And so Mhmm. He's earned, youknow, the trust of his audience
over 30 or 40 years or somethinglike that of creating content to
be able to pull that show off.But I think that those are my
favorite solo episodes.
There's somebody who I like theway they think and I there is no
easy replacement for them. And Ijust want to hear their
perspective on the world or thetopic or whatever it is. And so
I think that's a a reallyimportant part of solo episodes.

(33:35):
Alright. So last one here.
What are the the hallmark traitsof a great cohost show or
pairing?

Justin (33:42):
So I I've seen shows where people are on a journey,
and they just keep sharing theirjourney. So I know there's a
business show called BootstrapWeb where they've been doing the
show forever. They just gettogether every week, and they
say, here's what happened to mybusiness this past week. Here's
Here's what I'm doing about it.Here's what I'm frustrated.
And it's very much about theirindividual journeys and also the

(34:03):
relationship between the the twoof them. And I like the shows
where it feels like there's 2 cohosts, and I'm showing up. And
I'm, like, on the couch withthem. And I'm just part of the
conversation. And that's whatkeeps me coming back.
It's like, okay. I gotta have myweekly chat with, you know,
Jordan and Brian. So that's whatI like in a co hosted show. I

(34:25):
think a show like we're doing,it works as well where we're
both experts on a topic, andwe're diving deep every time.
And we're pulling from eachother's experience and insights
and accumulated knowledge on atopic.
I think that can be reallycompelling as well. Is there
anything you can think of that'sdifferent, that you've enjoyed

(34:46):
or you've seen work?

Jeremy (34:47):
There has to be some distinction in character or
viewpoint. And I mean, I like Ithink we're very aligned on all
of our marketing ideas, but Ithink we have different
backgrounds. Like, you come frombuilding the SaaS company, but
also podcasting. And I come frommore of the production side of
podcasting and having workedbehind the scenes on many shows,
things like that. And so I thinkthat each cohost brings

(35:07):
something different and eitherhas to be this kind of, like,
chemistry between the hosts.
And so I know so many people whohave had shows that were co
hosted where eventually somebodyleaves and the show just you
bring somebody in, and it'slike, it just it lost the magic.
And I had never I've listened toa little bit of the show you're
wrong about. And so my partner,Kelly, she was obsessed with

(35:28):
this show. And I can't rememberMichael Hobbs is the one cohost,
and it's been one of the mostpopular shows in the world for a
long time and Kelly has told tome, like, yeah, after Michael
left, he was just kinda donewith the show for whatever
reason. Sarah's tried to, like,find a replacement cohost and
gone through different formatsand it's just, like, it's still
a good show, but some of themagic is lost.
And I think that maybe there'ssome risk to that with a cohost

(35:50):
show, but also there's thisintangible thing that is like 1
+1 equals 4. You have these 2cohosts, but it's greater than
the sum of their parts. And Ithink finding that is the hard
part. And so I think great cohosted shows, there has to be
something that is hard tomanufacture in the relationship
with the co hosts. And I wouldsay you find your way to that
too, but there has to be somefoundation for it from the

(36:11):
beginning.

Justin (36:12):
I like the idea of chemistry and then also tension.
There's chemistry between thetwo people, but there's also,
like I said, that good cop, badcop feel some sort of difference
between them where there's alittle bit of, like, okay. Let's
battle this out. Let's see. And,you know, people like these
shows.
I I don't personally like theshow, but All In is a show where

(36:35):
they they have, like, you know,a very conservative host and
then a very liberal and thenpeople in between. And the
contrast of those points of viewis part of what makes the show
compelling because it's likethey're all in the same room,
but they're friends.

Jeremy (36:49):
Mhmm.

Justin (36:49):
So we're gonna get a debate and something interesting
here.

Jeremy (36:53):
Okay. So to close this one out, I'm gonna put, you to
the test. We can kind of talkthrough this together and give
our our unique, takes on this,but I'm gonna pose a scenario to
you and I would be reallycurious to hear how you would
think through this. And so mychallenge to you is to design a
show here on the spot that hasthe potential to become a, let's
say like 50,000 download anepisode show. So we're going for

(37:14):
the top of all the shows thatwere in our podcast marketing
trends report.
If you were to develop a showthat you were intentionally
designing to have the potentialto get to that number of
downloads, where would you startin terms of your thought process
around some of these structuraldecisions around topic, episode
length, show format, all ofthese things? What are the
pieces that you would start toassemble to give yourself the

(37:36):
best shot at reaching that?

Justin (37:38):
It would be topic and audience would be the first
thing I would think about.Especially if I'm producing the
show. What am I uniquelypositioned to go after in terms
of a topic that might beinteresting? And what has
resonance in the culture. Whatyou know, in the zeitgeist of
what's going on, what has somepull to it?

(38:00):
Where what are people alreadyeither seeking or there's latent
demand where I know if I justuncapped it, people would go
after it.

Jeremy (38:10):
What comes to mind? What are some topics here that you
would think are broadly thatthat have that potential in
today's current climate?

Justin (38:18):
Nostalgia is always big. And so, like, one idea I have is
I grew up playing all these oldPC games.

Jeremy (38:24):
Mhmm.

Justin (38:25):
Sierra online or Sierra Adventures was this gaming
company. And I don't thinkanyone's really done a great job
of kinda doing the definitivehistory of Sierra or even just
that adventure game category. SoMonkey Island and King's Quest
and all these games that bringup nostalgia. So I think that
could be a compelling showbecause nostalgia, there's all

(38:47):
these people in their thirties,forties, and fifties who played
those games and might beinterested in, like, the history
of those companies or thosegames. So it feels like
something like that has legs,and I'm uniquely positioned
because I grew up playing thosegames.
So I at least have some contextthere that I think I could bring

(39:09):
to the show. I I just thinknostalgia is a powerful force.
And so if I had to think ofanything off the top of my head,
I instantly go there. Thingsfrom your childhood, the
nineties are big right now. Sosomething in that vein, I think.

Jeremy (39:21):
Okay. So we've got this this kind of topic of nostalgia,
maybe video games. What's yournext step? You're like, okay.
I'm gonna play in this arenahere.
How do you start to think aboutshow structure, maybe even more
specific topics, episode length,all those types of things?

Justin (39:34):
Yeah. I think it'd be, it would be a narrative, maybe
interview show, maybe both,maybe interviews where I'm
crafting them together into anarrative arc.

Jeremy (39:43):
Mhmm.

Justin (39:43):
It's gonna be a series, which I like. I think we don't
talk enough about series, but Iwould do a series. A lot of it
would depend. And once I startedediting it, what feels
compelling? And if there is anarc, like, where am I so if it's
the history of Sierra, thegaming company okay.
Well, we're gonna have ahistory. So when did it start?
What was the next chapter? Nextchapter. Next chapter.

(40:05):
Next chapter. How long does eachof those chapters need to be?
Depends on the edit. Depends onwhat I what material I have.
Depends on how interesting I canmake each episode.
I always shoot for 30 minutes. Iwish, like, 30 minutes to me is
just the perfect episode lengthin terms of, like, being able to
get people onboarded easily.

Jeremy (40:25):
Mhmm. I guess my follow-up to that then is you're
talking about a series here. Isthere a specific reason with the
objective of making the mostpalatable show to the largest
number of people? Is there aspecific reason you're choosing
series over ongoing or that'sjust where your interest in the
topic you think might end?

Justin (40:40):
Oh, I mean, I think more podcasts should end. I I mean,
even you mentioned akimbo. I Iloved akimbo for the first 100
episodes or whatever. And then,eventually, it was like, I just
stopped listening. Increasingly,I like the idea of a beginning
and an end.
Yeah. Unless there's an ongoingjourney that I'm still, you

(41:03):
know, interested in. But in thecase of this topic, like,
focusing on this old PC gamingcompany, that no longer exists.
Well, it has a start and an end.The the arc is there.
It's not gonna go on forever.And I think those shows are
evergreen in a way that peopleoften don't consider. Like, you

(41:23):
can go back to that history overand over and over again. People
can recommend those episodesover and over and over again.
And so the long tail, I think,of downloads would be quite
strong.

Jeremy (41:33):
Yeah.

Justin (41:33):
And, yeah, I think if I was going after 50,000 downloads
per episode, sure, I want myrelease window to be, you know,
have a significant amount, butwhat I really want for something
like that is a nice long tail ofpeople discovering the show,
people hearing about the show.And, again, with a serial show
where you're going throughepisodes in order, there's a

(41:55):
natural entry point and anatural natural exit point.
Yeah. And I think that alsohelps for downloads. People can
just see, oh, here's where I'mgoing.
And it's like, okay. I'm gonnastart at episode 1, and I'm just
gonna keep going through it. Imight do the show. I'm excited
about it.

Jeremy (42:08):
Yeah. Okay. We got the the seeds planted here. So,
alright. Maybe we've got somelisteners who have some
experience be your firstinterview subjects here.
So Yeah.

Justin (42:15):
If you played King's Quest or, Monkey Island or, Day
of the Tentacle, Those aren'tall Sierra games, but that was
the that was the the era.

Jeremy (42:25):
So what I like about your thought process here and is
the same way that I wouldapproach this is really starting
with something that, you know,there is high and evergreen
demand for. And so there'sthere's essentially there's 2
ways you could think about this.There's things that people have
always been interested in andwill always be interested in. So
like a relationship show, peopleare always going to be looking
for information onrelationships. And so there's
always potential for that.

(42:46):
I think politics too. We look atself development business to
some extent. These are bigcategories where there's always
going to be interest and therealready is a lot of interest.
The other way to look at itwould be an upcoming wave, which
is difficult to time, but if youare in position already and you
have the experience and you cansee the wave coming, that is a
good kind of opportunity tocapitalize on that as well,

(43:07):
where there's rising interestand you can kind of ride that.
And a lot of shows do this evenwithin the larger categories
where I think about the show,Pod Save America.
I think, like, the the cohostsand founders of, I think it's
Crooked Media as their largerpodcast company. They were ex
Obama staffers and so they hadthis credibility, but I think

(43:29):
that if the 2016 election wasnot happening or was a different
kind of environment, I don'tthink their show ever would have
taken off. I think they rode thespecific wave within politics
and were the right people tocapitalize on it at the right
time. And they had the the rightexperience. So there was a lot
of luck here, but they were inposition and they were like,
hey, we can create a show aboutthis that is uniquely positioned
to talk about these things basedon our experience.

(43:50):
And so they rode that kind ofsub wave within the political
genre. So I think that's it'ssomething that's hard to get
right, But I think the longeryou kind of play the game, the
more opportunities you're goingto have to catch different
waves. But I think the thechallenge here, there's so much
advice about going niche. And Ithink that there it's much
easier to gain traction by goingniche. And so a lot of shows

(44:13):
that you look at like many bigapps too.
You look at, like, Facebook andTinder both started as apps that
were, specific to one collegecampus and they became Mhmm.
Global behemoths, both of themnow, but they started as tools
for 1 college campus. And sohyper niche grew into massive
companies. And I think a lot ofshows start this way too. But I
think if you're looking to,like, okay, we need to hit the

(44:34):
ground running and within a yearwe want to grow a big audience,
I think you do want to actuallystart in a big category but then
the challenge is to bring areally refreshing and unique
angle to the topic that peoplehaven't come across before.
And it can't just be somethingthat you think is refreshing and
unique. Like other people needto see it and be like, well, how
did this show never exist? Like,it should almost feel obvious

(44:54):
that this show needed to exist,but it didn't. And I think that
this is where the big creativechallenge comes in of, like, how
do you create that thing? Andthat's the art of it.
But you have to kinda setyourself up in a place where
there's interest and then comein with some refreshing angle at
the right time and that I thinkis, I mean, the work matters and
the marketing matters but it'shard to make up for a lack of

(45:16):
existing audience interestelsewhere, which is frustrating.
And also something that you cansay, like, okay, if my goal is
to build a 50,000 download show,maybe I need to switch
categories, and I need toapproach this from a different
angle. And if that's my goal,then I'm gonna give myself the
best chance to succeed.

Justin (45:30):
Oh, yeah. I I I say this all the time in business that
your success in business isalmost entirely dependent on the
market you choose. So peoplethink it's the idea. I think
people think it's yourexecution. All that does matter,
but the market so the target ofthe show or the product is what

(45:50):
matters the most.
And when I say market, thatmeans how many people are in
motion or could be in motionright away on this topic. So how
many people are looking forsomething like this or want
something like this, but haven'tbeen able to express that want
yet? What momentum is therealready that exists? And you

(46:13):
wanna capture existing momentum.What you don't wanna do is come
up with a concept that you'reconstantly pushing on people.
Like, please care about this.What you want is people that
already care about it, that arealready seeking it, that are
already moving, and they'll cometo you because they're looking
for a show like that or they'relooking for information on that

(46:35):
topic or whatever it is.

Jeremy (46:36):
Yeah. And I think there's a great example actually
within the podcasting space.And, so people might know,
Tanner Campbell. He used to havea show called Podcasting Sucks.
And, it was a I think a dailyshow for a long time.
He wrote a daily newsletter aswell. Very active in the
podcasting space, and heproduced the show for a while. I
don't know how many downloads itever got. I would assume a few
hundred or maybe a couplethousand, but he has a long

(47:00):
history in podcasting. He's donea lot of different types of work
behind the scenes.
He I think still owns apodcasting studio. He started up
this kind of, like, side hustlestoicism podcast Mhmm. Maybe a
year ago, 2 years ago. And itwas almost immediate that it was
getting tens of thousands ofdownloads an episode. I look
today, it's a top 0.5 percentpodcast in the world.
And it was just like, this guyhad all the skills and he was

(47:20):
playing in a field where, like,our show, we we are never going
to get 10000 downloads anepisode on this show. Like, the
audience does not exist. Wemight get 1 or 2,000 or or 3,000
maybe if we I mean, we need tokeep doing a lot of new
episodes, which this is aseasonal show. So probably
doesn't even have the potentialthere. So, like, we have a cap
on this, which is fine for ourpurposes.
But you kind of have to realizethat and say sometimes, like,

(47:43):
okay, Tanner. He was producing ashow in podcasting, a really
good show that had a solid fanbase, but that was a space that
didn't have the potential tocreate a top 0.5% podcast. And
he switched to stoicism, anotherthing that he knew a lot about
that he could bring a freshperspective to, he had all the
podcasting and storytellingskills and all these things. And
it was like immediately within acouple months that show took

(48:03):
off. And so, you know, here,we're kind of talking about
structural decisions about youryour show, thinking about
episode length and publishfrequency and all these types of
things.
But I think choosing that poolthat you wanna play in is
probably the ultimate structuraldecision that will have the
biggest impact on your potentialfor success, going forward.

Justin (48:19):
Mhmm. Absolutely. Yeah. The structural things matter,
but only in as much as, like, ifyou're a surfer, the wave
matters way more than the surfshorts you were that day or the
surfboard. Everything elsematters, but not as much as the
wave itself.

Jeremy (48:48):
But