Designing your podcast is one of the most important things you can do when you create your podcast master plan. It’s all about making so key decisions about your show that will determine what it looks like when you launch.
So you want to spend a lot of time on it as a badly designed podcast will suck at turning your followers into customers for your music business.
Which is the whole point at the end of the day.
In this post, I’m going to share with you why designing your podcast is important, and talk about 5 key decisions you need to make to ensure that you launch with a podcast that is loved by your fans and makes selling your stuff a breeze.
Why it’s important to design your podcast before you launch it?
So why should you design your podcast? Why not just skip this part altogether?
The main reason is consistency.
Consistency creates familiarity and this is key to creating a show that your fans will love and want to share with their friends and family.
People love things that they are familiar with after all.
This is why I recommend you spend some time designing a podcast where each episode has a familiar look and feel to it and fans have an idea of what to expect.
Otherwise, your podcast episodes are going to be all over the place and boring to watch, and this could cost you listeners or worse, cause your show to fail.
Consistency also makes your podcast look professional, which is great for attracting potential sponsors to your show.
Nothing screams amateur like a poorly designed podcast, and no business wants to associate themselves with an amateur.
5 Things to do when you design your podcast
There are 5 main things you need to do when you design your show, and getting these decisions right will put you a on solid path towards creating a show that your followers love.
Something that’s crucial to turn them into customers for your music business.
They are:
1. Come up with a great name
The name of your podcast is important.
It’s typically the first thing new viewers see about your podcast, and it should tell them what the show is about and what they can expect from it.
However, coming up with the right name for your show can be tricky.
You may find yourself unhappy with any of the names you come up with or the one you want has already been used by another podcaster.
Happens all the time.
What I like to do is brainstorm a couple of names and send them to my friends, asking them which one they like the most, and the name that comes out on top wins.
2. Establish the format of your podcast
This is another important thing you’ll need to decide on when designing your podcast.
To put it simply, the format of your podcast episodes is how you structure the content of each episode.
Without a strong format, your show will seem messy and all over the place.
Podcast formats also create consistency for your fans.
When you stick to one format for your podcast, your fans will know what to expect anytime they check out a new episode.
There are different types of podcast formats that you can choose for your show and in another post, I’ll be walking you through these. So look out for that in your inbox soon.
3. Determine the structure of your episodes
Every podcast episode is made up of segments and how you arrange these segments in your episodes is what is known as podcast structure.
When designing your podcast, it’s important to come up with a structure that is easy to follow as this will leave your fans listening all the way to the end and wanting more, every time!
A great podcast structure will also make it easy and natural to turn your fans into customers.
Which is ultimately the goal of your show.
4. Come up with a publishing schedule
When and how often you publish each podcast episode of your show is another important decision you have to make when designing it.
You could choose to publish your episodes weekly, twice a month, or even once a month.
Heck, you could go all out and do multiple episodes a week if you have the time for it.
The key phrase here is time. It all comes down to the number of resources you can afford to give to your show.
As for what day to publish your show, there are no set rules, but I like to publish shows either on a Tuesday or Thursday morning at 8 am.
But you’ll need to experiment with it and see which works best for you.
5. Decide on the length of episodes
How long each episode of your podcast should be is another decision you’ll have to make when you design your show.
Just as there are no rules with choosing a publishing schedule, the same applies here. It all comes down to how much time you can afford to record each episode or how enjoyable the content is for your fans.
Personally, I prefer watching shows that are less than an hour-long, but there’s a particular show that I watch that goes for three hours, and I watch the whole thing at a go because the content is that good.
Wrapping up
As you can see, designing your podcast is a critical part of creating a show that your fans will love and want to share with their friends and family.
And if you’re able to do that, it will be so much easier to turn your fans into customers and you’ll a lot closer to achieving that dream of doing music as your full-time gig.
As always, if you have any questions or need anything clarified about designing your podcast, let me know in the comments and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.