Why Your Podcast May Be Failing-And How To Fix It NOW

Listeners tune into your show for a few minutes at a time, and just a few times per morning. They may spend 25-30 minutes a day with their favorite show-total. They don’t get enough of you. So maybe you should start a new podcast.

But then, if you’re like most personalities, your podcast would be a replay on demand of your entire show that aired earlier. If they only have time for a few minutes of your show each day, why do you think your 3-hour podcast would hold their interest?More and more radio personalities are launching a podcast. That’s great. You should! But your podcast can’t be just a replay of your show. That’s not a service to the listener. It’s an ordeal.

Listeners time-starved, and have shorter attention spans than my dog Max.

Podcasts Must Be Bite-Size

One of the first questions personalities ask about podcasts is how long they should be. There’s no answer to that. They should be as long as necessary, and not a second longer.

But if you want to get more engagement with your podcast, keep them short.

Think about your own behavior. Which is more likely:

a) Setting your DVR to record Kimmel and Colbert, then watching them in entirety every day, or

b) Searching YouTube for the highlights of last night’s show, and catching the best 3 minutes.

You’ll have far greater success with a series of short audio (and video) features that are easy to access and easy to share. Don’t believe me? I’ll prove it.

Run this experiment for a month:

Podcast A:

Set up a full show podcast. The entire thing.

Podcast B:

Present individual podcasts of the 2-3 best moments of each show. That’s separate podcasts, not one podcast with two segments in it. However, you can and should cross-promote the other podcast in each.

Promote them both. In a month, check the metrics. You’ll discover that the short podcasts get more traction and more shares.

We live in a short-form world that rewards easily digestible content. It works online. It works for mobile. It works on the air. And it’ll work for your podcast.

Don’t make listeners work so hard to hear your best material (because they won’t do it anyway). Do the work for them by curating, editing and promoting only your best moments.