Spring Cleaning Your Podcast!
Spring is upon us and as you gear up to prepare for the warmer months we urge you to take some time for spring cleaning your podcast!
As with our home, car, and hidden junk drawer(s) our podcasts should be given a good ‘clean’ at least once a year. Periodically refreshing your podcast to optimize performance is crucial in keeping and gaining new listeners. As well as for attracting sponsors, monetizing, and making your life as the podcast host/producer as easy as possible.
Spring cleaning your podcast allows you to audit and update the quality of your audio, ads, show structure, marketing, and more! Just as you wouldn’t expect your car or house to run properly without regular maintenance, your podcast may not be operating efficiently without auditing. That’s why we suggest doing regular audits to consistently improve performance.
Do a yearly podcast audit!
Spring cleaning your podcast helps ensure you’re meeting your goals, keeping up with trends/marketing, improving quality, and most importantly - engaging your audience! A yearly audit will allow you to track all of the trends, feedback, and analytics from the past year and get a big picture of what is working or not. While spring cleaning your podcast, it’s as if you are taking a step back and more easily visualizing how these changes affected your listenership, monetization, and more throughout the year.
When spring cleaning your podcast and taking a step back to overview your show, be sure to analyze the performance of past episodes by:
Identifying top-performing content:
Pay close attention to listener favorites as well as episodes that flopped
Reevaluate content strategy for relevance and audience engagement
Review Stats
Take a close look at how each episode performed: episodes that had a spike in listens, what did you do differently? Those that flopped and had low numbers - were your listeners uninterested? How was the audio quality? Was the episode promoted?
Use this information to help you plan your future episodes. Learning from past episodes can help ensure stronger outcomes in the future
If you are monetizing or have ads in your show: look at the stats on performance of ads per episode in tandem with your monetary outcome. Can you make adjustments to ads, ad placement, sponsorships, etc. to promote more cash flow?
Analyze promotional success: are you promoting episodes? If yes, look into the correlation of promotion tools with the number of listeners per show. Did you receive more listens when promoting on Instagram vs. TikTok? Or fewer viewers when not promoting at all?
use this data to implement a promotion plan that encourages listeners from your ideal demographic to find your podcast.
Review listener feedback (and ask for more!)
Feedback! Feedback! and MORE Feedback! Data alone can not express the words or thoughts of your listeners. Analytics can let you know a number of viewers and track outcomes of promotions and more but it can not verbally tell you what aspect of the show your listeners loved or hated. So get the information from their mouths. Use your listeners’ feedback to learn what they love in their favorite episodes and hate in the least.
If you are not getting feedback - ASK! At the end of an episode, on your social media/promotions, in your show notes, anywhere you can - let your audience know that you need their feedback to make the show better!
No podcast is perfect, every show needs adjusting as we grow our audience base, try new topics, and gain additional tools. We can consistently improve upon our podcast and spring cleaning supports us in doing so!
Dive deeper into episodes
As mentioned, data alone will not tell you what needs to be kept or changed. It only advises on what episodes may need review! You don’t have to review each and every episode but by focusing on the episodes with the best and worst outcomes you can dive into them and learn.
When spring-cleaning your podcast and reviewing the top and bottom-performing episodes consider:
Do scripts need updating?
Are you seeing a trend in high-performing episode(s) scripts vs low performers? What is the difference and can you continue to duplicate the high performers?
you can use the episodes that did well to create templates for your future scripts.
How do you know what needs to be kept/changed in the episode? Other than feedback from your audience, use yourself. It’s often said that we are our own worst critics and sometimes that can come in handy. So listen to your episodes! Listening to yourself is also a great way to make yourself a better host 😉. When listening pay close attention to:
How is the intro? The music?
Is the intro too long/short?
Do you have music? Is it too loud/quiet? Does it match the vibe of your show?
If comparing high and low-performing episodes - was there a difference that may have affected performance?
How was the audio quality?
Pay attention to background noise and minimize it as much as possible. Can you hear yourself and or/your guests well? Is there crackling in the audio or any other distractions?
Adjusting your audio to make it as appealing as possible is crucial. As discussed in this LinkedIn article, “Poor audio quality can lead to frustration, decreased attention, and even a lack of desire to continue listening to a show.”
Does the episode structure need help?
Like writing an essay, your podcast episode structure should be clear and flow well. If not easy to follow you may see a decrease in listeners or an inability to gain an audience.
What is the average length of each episode? Too short? Too long? Just right?
consider your audience - what is appealing to your demographic?
are you seeing higher views and retention for shorter or longer episodes? Maybe your listeners like a mix of both!
Ensure your episode does not ramble on or cut off abruptly - as always ask for feedback but also, if you’re bored or feel the information is missing it’s likely your listeners feel the same.
Is your call to action clear or need to be changed?
Are your listeners completing your calls to action? If yes, take notes of what you did, and when they do not so take notes of what was different. Make adjustments and try new ways of encouraging your audience to complete your requests.
What about your ads?
If you don’t have any could you add some - even for your own services?
if you’re new to ads, as with everything else, trial and error is your friend. Pay attention to feedback and analytics to see what may be working or if you need to adjust
Are the ads you currently have performing well? Are listeners buying or viewing the product? Are they giving you feedback?
sometimes it may be an adjustment of ad placement that is all that is needed. But it may be that the ad does not relate to your demographic or needs a script change.
How is the format?
This goes in tandem with all of the above. If there is music, ads, etc. the format in which your podcast is structured affects much more than an ability for your listeners to understand the topic at hand. For example, if your episodes are an hour long do you:
have your ads placed during a point in your episode where a break makes sense?
are you adding music to connect the different topics of your show? Is the music abrupt or fades in/out?
Listening to your own episodes gives you the ability to understand your listener’s feedback. While they know what they enjoy or don’t you have a much deeper knowledge of what goes on behind the scenes to make the show. It also allows you to understand what you need to do differently. Maybe your audio quality sucks; is it because you need to record in a more quiet space or do you need a better mic? Can the audio be enhanced by more editing?
Make the changes you think will enhance your episode but remember spring cleaning your podcast doesn’t end there.
Dive deeper into promotion
Now that you’ve reviewed your analytics and episodes to review quality, structure and format, length, ads, and more - how are you promoting your show? Spring cleaning your podcast also includes reviewing and cleaning up your promotions. Are there bigger changes that need to be made?
How is your cover art? Recently we discussed cover art, its importance, and how to “Create Stand Out Podcast Cover Art”. Is your cover art reflecting your show’s energy, enticing new listeners? Is it used to promote your show on social media platforms?
Speaking of social media platforms - use them! Promote your show on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, your blog! Promoting on platforms other than those made specifically for podcasts can be a great way to bring in new listeners who may not have listened to any podcasts before or maybe none in your genre.
When spring-cleaning your podcast’s promotions be sure to pay attention to what, when, and how you are promoting your show.
Is the branding consistent?
Are you using platforms that your demographic often engages on?
Have you had successful promotions? How did they differ from those that were not?
Use this time to audit these promotions and make a template of your success to use in the future. If none were very successful, adjust and try something new. Pay attention to the feedback and data after each change and use what works while ditching what doesn’t.
What about the show notes + SEO?
Do you put in ample effort on your tiles and show notes? While spring-cleaning your podcast take note of how your show notes and SEO efforts are helping listeners find your show.
Review episode titles + descriptions for SEO and optimize for discoverability
Are the show notes serving their purpose?
Blog style - increase SEO traffic by using keywords/phrases to improve your podcast’s chances of being found via word searches
i.e. helps find new listeners
or summary-style - help listeners find links
i.e. great if you are focused on pointing your listeners somewhere else (like a storefront or educational sites).
View our blog “Show Notes: 5 Key Elements” for more support in building your show notes.
What improvements could you make to your show notes? How could they make this a smoother process? Can you use a template to ensure you are including all the information and structuring it well?
Create a template with all of the information that does not change such as your podcast’s name and the structure of your notes.
What about on your website -
Are there areas you can add recommended podcast episodes to (such as blogs or on program pages)
Is there a place you can add “most-loved episodes” to help lead people to it?
What about your podcast page itself - is it still doing its job? If not, how can you adjust to improve it?
remember to always keep your ideal demographic in mind. What are the age ranges you’re seeking? Based on who you are seeking, your podcast page should be structured to attract your demographic. Maybe it needs to be more educational and straight to the point or it should have frills and music with plenty of links, etc.
Check-in with listeners
We will always come back to feedback and how important it is, especially while spring-cleaning your podcast! Have you been gathering listener feedback that you could incorporate? If not, start incorporating this into your show, show notes, social media, and/or podcast website.
Now that you’re collecting feedback how are you addressing their common questions and pain points? There’s no point in gathering feedback if you don’t plan to use it to make any adjustments. Listen to the feedback, both positive and negative. Lean into the positive and continue to incorporate it if you can. Use the negative feedback to learn, can you adjust the music or the background noise to suit your listeners’ preferences? Do what you can!
Of course, remember feedback is subjective and one person does not necessarily speak for all. That being said, take a step back and listen with an open mind. Is this listener just being negative or are they being constructive? Can this adjustment make sense for your demographic? Focus on what you can do and address what makes sense in your shows.
Spring Cleaning Checklist and Action Plan
Consolidate all the identified areas for improvement. e.g:
Show Itself
Social Media
Website
Create a step-by-step action plan for spring-cleaning your podcast
Review data/metrics and identify episodes that may need close review
Review feedback
Create templates
Audit podcast-related sites
branding
promotions
etc
Set realistic goals and timelines for implementation
Setting goals for the next season/the year
Define clear attainable goals and objectives for the upcoming podcast season
Conclusion
Yearly spring cleaning of your podcast ensures that you are optimizing your show’s performance. Allowing what works to continue and what is negatively affecting your show to be changed for the better. By doing so you may increase your audience, and your ability to monetize, as well as become more efficient in creating, editing, and releasing episodes without wasting your time on efforts that do not work.
Change is growth and spring-cleaning your podcast supports your ability to learn what needs to change and to grow from it. This is no small feat and may take time! If you need help with spring cleaning your podcast or any podcast audits - get in touch with us! We are here to support you and your podcast’s growth. 😊
