Beth Worthy
7/16/2023
In a world buzzing with audio content, standing out and holding the attention of your audience requires more than just a captivating voice and interesting topics.
So what makes a podcast successful?
To answer this question, we've gathered insights from ten industry leaders, including Chief Product Officers, Founders, CEOs, and Executive Creative Directors.
So read on to check suggestions ranging from creating thematic content to making every second count, and discover the top ten factors that contribute to a podcast's success.
Thematic content and storytelling play a pivotal role in the success of a podcast by captivating and engaging the audience.
When a podcast has a clear and compelling theme, it provides a focused direction for the episodes, ensuring consistency and coherence in the content.
A well-defined theme allows hosts to explore specific topics or genres, catering to a target audience's interests.
By weaving a captivating narrative around the chosen theme, podcasts can transport listeners into different worlds, evoke emotions, and keep them eagerly coming back for more episodes.
We're naturally drawn to stories as they help us stay focused, empathize, and remember the teller long afterward. In the competitive world of podcasting, great storytelling helps create a "stickiness" that keeps listeners coming back for more and slowly deepening their commitment to the show.
Designing every episode around a standard story arc can help you see success. Consider the setup, confrontation, and resolution as you plan your episode content and create that addictive content!
Read Also: 10 Podcast Genres and Topics in High Demand Right Now
The biggest factor that contributes to a successful podcast is good production value, especially if the members are being recorded on video. High-quality mics, good set design, and lighting make podcasts so much easier to consume. No one wants to listen to people talk on their $10 mics on Discord or Zoom.
The podcasts on YouTube that have hundreds of thousands of views are the ones that look and sound like professional talk shows.
It doesn't matter if you create the best podcast with original quality content if no one knows about it. A successful podcast requires not just fascinating and entertaining material, but also effective marketing to attract listeners.
As a result, advertising your podcast is critical to its success. To promote your podcast, use all of your social media outlets as well as your company or personal newsletters (if you have any). Another effective strategy to drive listeners for audience growth is to get loyal podcast guests to cross-promote on their channels.
However, the first step would be to ensure that your podcast has a memorable title, a captivating description, quality cover art, relevant keywords, and categories. To boost your visibility and exposure to diverse audiences and devices, you may also upload your podcast to prominent directories and platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and TuneIn.
I'd say keep experimenting until you find your authenticity. There are numerous podcasts now for people to listen to. It is impossible to thrive in this occupation without finding your brand's value.
I suggest you collaborate with other fellow digital content creators to see what could be done to add some new value to your podcast. People want to listen, but they will only listen to something they haven't heard or known already.
In this digital era, it has become easy to go viral, but only a few deliver quality material to consume with consistency, which eventually transforms into success.
If you're already publishing good content, the number one factor will be consistency. If you already have a good audience you want to make sure they keep coming back for more, and one way to have a solid schedule of when your next episode will come out.
Regardless if it's every Tuesday, or twice a month, it's important to have a set schedule so your audience knows when to expect to see new content and free up their time to dedicate to you.
Your audience relies on you and it's crucial that you show up for them when you say you will. Of course, exceptions can be made, but that shouldn't be the norm.
Read Also: 9 Podcast Ideas for Beginners in 2022
One of the biggest factors that contribute to a podcast's success is if it has a unique perspective. This sets it apart from other podcasts on the same or similar topics so listeners will have a reason to choose to listen to your podcast in addition to ones they already subscribe to. It also makes the podcast more interesting, which entices people to become subscribers and listen regularly.
By offering a unique perspective, you're also giving yourself a better way to market the podcast and draw more attention to it. You can use that perspective as one of the key elements in your marketing strategy which differentiates you from your competitors in an obvious way.
One key factor that contributes to the success of a podcast, in my experience, is the strategic use of multiple marketing channels. I've noticed that successful podcasters who generate over $50,000 per year typically leverage more than four marketing channels. They do this 2.8 times more often than those struggling with monetization.
Being active in promoting your podcast is essential if you want to see it succeed. It's not enough to produce great content; you need to ensure that this content reaches your target audience. In other words, you need to be proactive in deploying multiple channels to put your podcast on the growth trajectory you desire.
While the specifics of these channels can be a topic of discussion on its own, the takeaway here is to diversify your marketing efforts across multiple platforms. It's an approach I highly recommend for anyone looking to expand their podcast's reach and increase its success.
At PRLab, one factor we've found instrumental to the success of a podcast is really understanding the competition. Knowing who you're up against and what they're doing right can be a game-changer.
This isn't about copying them but rather gaining insights that can help refine your own approach. I regularly dedicate time to listening to competing podcasts, making note of their winning strategies, as well as areas they might be falling short. Tools like Chartable.com have been a great help in identifying competition, making this task much easier.
By understanding the landscape, you can position your podcast to stand out and truly resonate with your listeners.
Edit, re-edit, and then edit again. Respect the value of your listeners' time by making every second count in your show.
Tools like Descript's "Remove Filler Words" are great automated ways to start the process of trimming the fat, and from there, you should continue to edit ruthlessly so your final episode never has a dull moment.
While some great shows like Rick Rubin's can get away with epic, 3-hour episodes, the rest of us should generally aim to produce a final edit that's a half hour or less. For branded podcasts, that's even more key.
Read Also: 10 Best Podcast Promotion Tips
As a podcast creator, you must carefully consider the above factors to make your podcasts stand out in this competitive landscape with so many creators.
Do you know incorporating podcast transcription into the production brings numerous advantages to your podcast?
Whether you're an avid podcast enthusiast seeking an enriching experience, or a content creator aiming to reach a broader audience and maximize the outreach of your content, using podcast transcription is a clever move.
By providing accessibility to a broader audience, improving search engine optimization, and much more, transcription will be a valuable investment for you as a content creator and benefit your listeners.
