The Most Important Things We’ve Learned About Making Successful Podcasts with Brands

This is my last week at Pacific Content.

After more than six years of working with this amazing team of creatively brave podcasters, I’ve decided to take on some new challenges.

In related news, my colleague Jonas Woost has also decided to leave Pacific Content to pursue new opportunities in podcasting.

Big life changes are a great opportunity to look back at lessons learned.

Jonas and I have been reflecting not just on what we’ve learned during our time at Pacific Content, but how we’ve learned, and the community we’ve learned alongside: our colleagues, clients, industry partners, and the broader podcast industry. As Jonas shared on LinkedIn, the overwhelming feeling for both of us right now is gratitude.

There’s no recipe for podcast success, but certain ingredients help. With that in mind, we wanted to share the most important lessons we’ve learned about branded podcasts, with the hope they might be useful to you, too.

Make the show only you can make

Podcasting privileges creative differentiation. What stories can you tell that nobody else can tell? What guests can you book that nobody else can book? What topic or subject are you uniquely qualified to talk about? What point of view can you share that’s uniquely yours? Mark Schaefer calls this the “only we” of podcasting. Smart podcasters consider their moats.

Podcasting listening is transactional

This may sound crass, but podcast listening requires an exchange. Podcasters want listeners’ most precious resources: time and attention. In exchange, podcasters need to offer listeners something in return: entertainment, information, companionship, etc. Understand listener motivations and key drivers of appeal, then offer your listeners a show that adds value to their lives.

The bar for brands is higher

Podcast listeners are savvy. They know when they’re being marketed to. In many cases, branded shows need to be even better than comparable non-branded shows, just to escape the gravitational pull of listener skepticism. For brands, the competition isn’t other branded podcasts — it’s every other media product a listener might choose instead, branded or otherwise. Branded shows need to stack up favourably next to non-branded shows on their own merits.

Don’t make it all about you

Don’t be the person at the party who only talks about themselves. Many of the most successful podcasts from brands aren’t about the brands themselves. Instead, they’re about the common interests of the brand and its intended listeners.

Listeners hire podcasts to do jobs for them

Successful podcasts solve problems for listeners. Savvy podcasters understand their listeners’ jobs to be done. Savvy brand marketers understand the job they’re hiring a podcast to do.

A show for “everyone” is a show for no one

If your intended audience is too broad, it becomes difficult to effectively market your show. If your intended audience is too narrow, you leave potential listeners on the table. Solve this Goldilocks problem by designing your show for multiple audiences, rather than a single monolithic audience. At Pacific Content, we recommend starting with well-defined core, adjacent, and transformational audiences.

Podcast marketing is about sampling

The job of podcast marketing and promotions is to encourage listeners to sample your show. To hit play. To give it a try. After that, it’s the show’s job to keep listeners engaged. Don’t expect your podcast marketing efforts to immediately convert first-time listeners into super fans. That’s the show’s job.

Pick the low-hanging fruit first

In descending order, the best bang-for-buck in podcast marketing is:

• Internal — if you can’t convince people inside your organization to sample your podcast, how will you convince people outside of it? Your team should be the strongest word-of-mouth advocates for your show.
• Owned — brands have audience development superpowers — large owned channels that nobody else gets to use. Take your loudest megaphones and point them in the same direction.
• Earned — podcasts travel by recommendation. Other people’s newsletters, best-of lists, and in-app editorial placements can be difficult to secure, but can help you reach new prospective listeners.
• Paid — Use paid media to reach audiences you otherwise can’t reach.

Eyes first, ears second

Don’t forget about the non-audio parts of your show. Most prospective listeners experience new podcasts with their eyes long before they listen to a single second of audio. Your show’s artwork, copy, and marketing materials should be an accurate and enticing reflection of the audio product within.

Don’t confuse marketing with marketability

If your downloads aren’t as high as you’d like, you probably have a marketing problem. If your engagement isn’t as high as you’d like, you probably have an editorial problem.

There are no magic beans

Podcast audience development is a mindset and a toolkit. It’s a set of best practices that, when applied consistently over time, tend to yield successful results. Beware of anyone selling shortcuts, growth hacks, or magic beans.

You can’t trick someone into loving a crummy show

Podcasting is a medium based on loyalty, habit, and an ongoing opt-in relationship with your listeners. No amount of slick marketing can trick people into these things.

Downloads aren’t the whole story

Measure success relative to your goals, not someone else’s. If you’re a brand marketer with a podcast, measure things that matter to your business: awareness, favourability, consideration, etc. If you care about winning the hearts and minds of a specific well-defined audience, resist the temptation to compare your download numbers against those of ad-supported shows. Downloads aren’t the whole story.

Things change, and that’s OK

The podcast industry is dynamic. The best advice, tools, and strategies from last year likely won’t work today. Don’t get hung up trying to replicate what worked well for somebody else in the past. Your time is much better spent figuring out what’s next.

Hands-down, the best part of working at Pacific Content have been the people: our team, our clients, and our industry partners. We feel tremendously grateful for the opportunities we’ve had to work together. Thank you.

What’s next for me and Jonas? Podcasting still feels like such a nascent industry. There are many challenges ahead, and we look forward to being a part of our industry’s future.

As they say in the circus, see you down the road! 🎪

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The Most Important Things We’ve Learned About Successful Branded Podcasts was originally published in Pacific Content on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Jeff Vidler from Signal Hill Insights calls YouTube “the elephant in the podcasting room.”

A lot of podcast listeners go to YouTube for podcasts. As a podcaster, you can choose to ignore that reality or embrace it. Wishing it away isn’t a workable option.

Meanwhile, Tom Webster cites data from Edison Research that suggests YouTube is the third most popular podcast platform in America. Tom’s been nudging podcast creators to think about YouTube for a while now:

The fact that most people listen to audio-only podcasts doesn’t mean that consumption of podcasts on video platforms doesn’t happen. It happens a lot.

What’s more, YouTube is reportedly incentivizing podcasters with funding:

The company is extending offers of $50,000 to individual shows and $200,000 and $300,000 to podcast networks, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. The money could help producers create filmed versions of their episodes or make other kinds of videos.

And soon, as slides obtained by Podnews suggest, YouTube may release new features that would make audio-first podcasts feel more at home on its platform:

YouTube is looking at ingesting podcast RSS feeds directly, the slides suggest, with a new podcasts homepage to be at youtube.com/podcasts (a URL that doesn’t work, yet). Podcasts appear to be promoted with familiar, square, artwork thumbnails.

But unless or until YouTube rolls out these new podcast-specific features, “podcasting on YouTube” can often feel like a frustrating hack, with many creators struggling to make audio-first content fit well onto a platform built for video.

Adding to the frustration, a “podcast on YouTube” can mean lots of different things, each requiring different levels of time, effort, and expense. A cheap-and-cheerful audiogram clip is very different from an hour-long live-to-tape multi-camera video shoot. Yet, too often, both approaches get lumped into one big bucket.

So, in an attempt to get specific about what we mean when we talk about podcasts on YouTube, I want to take a look at some of the most popular formats and approaches to podcasting on YouTube. But first…

A simple framework

Here are two of the most important questions when considering what types of videos to make for your podcast:

1. Will we use video cameras?
2. Will we post short clips, full episodes, or both?

Cameras vs. no cameras

I’ve written before about the value of human faces in marketing. Video footage is a great way to add an extra dimension of humanity to a medium that often depends on disembodied voices. That’s the upside.

Plus, podcast videos that use cameras are popular. According to data from the Canadian Podcast Listener, videos that include “audio with full video of the podcast hosts speaking” are the most widely-used type of podcast videos on YouTube.

The downside of cameras, of course, is that they almost always add time, effort, and cost to your podcast production workflow.

For certain types of shows, video footage can add tremendous value. Ask yourself: does my show’s subject matter, topic, or talent lend itself to video footage?

The full meal vs. just a taste

Podcast networks like Wondery, Gimlet, and CBC Podcasts seem to have found varying levels of success uploading full-length episodes to YouTube, often with an audiogram-style treatment. Ford Motor Company took this approach with Bring Back Bronco, making their series more accessible to people who don’t use Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or other audio-focused listening apps.

But full episodes aren’t the only valid use case. Tom Webster reminds us of the value of sample-sized excerpts or clips :

If your podcast is 60 or even 30 minutes, you need to offer that little slice of ham, for every episode, to make it easy to sample your show. Level zero of this for podcasters is to put more effort into show notes. Level one is to create a trailer. But the next level of the maze–the key to unlocking the secrets of the deli–is to always be making samples. Don’t leave it to your listeners to have to become audio editors. Isolate the best moments and share them.

Will your podcast’s YouTube strategy include promo clips? Full episodes? It’s probably not an either/or. Both add value but serve different goals.

Popular YouTube video treatments for podcasters

Live-to-tape video recording of an interview or panel

You’ve seen this one. It uses cameras, but unlike a video recording made for broadcast television, few attempts are made to hide the artifice of the recording process. Microphones, stands, and other gear often appears on screen, as if to signal, “this is a podcast recording.”

Videos in this style are sometimes augmented with additional visual elements (like the still images and video clips in this episode of WVFRM), but the visuals are almost always supplementary because the episode needs to work well in its audio-only version, too:

This video style lends itself well to both full episodes and clips/excerpts. Savvy podcasters (like Marques Brownlee and Andrew Manganelli of Waveform) upload both: full episodes to the WVFRM Podcast channel, and clips to the Waveform Clips channel.

Other examples: WVFRM Podcast, School of Hustle from GoDaddy, Talk Python to Me, The Rich Roll Podcast, Steve-O’s Wild Ride! — Podcast,

A variant of this approach is what my colleague Russ More calls the “streamer model.” These are often recordings of a Twitch or YouTube livestream, which sometimes get edited and released in both an on-demand video version and an audio-only version. Examples include Critical Role and Dimension 20.

Audiograms

With no cameras required, the ever-popular audiogram is perhaps the lowest-cost and lowest-effort visual treatment for YouTube videos built on audio-first podcast recordings. Castos offers a helpful definition:

A podcast audiogram is an image that’s converted into a video and layered with other elements on top, such as a waveform and/or transcriptions. Essentially, it combines visual arts, audio tracks, soundwaves, and text to create a highly shareable marketing asset.

The simplest version of an audiogram requires only an audio file and static image. For example, here’s an episode of Goodnight, World! from Sesame Street and Headspace Studios:

A variation on this approach is the “audio + static image with Ken Burns effect panning and zooming” seen in this full episode of the Panic Podcast. Tools like FusionCast from Guilherme Rambo can make the creation of these videos straightforward. The web-based audiogram tool Headliner offers podcasters an “automatic audiograms” feature, with the option to auto-post to YouTube.

A slightly more complex version adds an animated audio waveform, like this full episode of Bring Back Bronco from Ford Motor Company:

Podnews takes the same approach with its daily videos (static image + animated waveform), and editor James Cridland offers a detailed explanation of his video production workflow, which results in videos like this:

A slightly more sophisticated version of the audiogram includes audio + static image + waveform + looping video. The addition of a video loop adds a sense of movement. For example, check out the clouds in the sky in this full episode of Uncover: Satanic Panic from CBC Podcasts:

Animation

Animated videos add visual interest that’s often missing from podcast audiograms.

An animated approach can take many forms. For example, you could make a full-on cartoon, like the illustrated anecdotes from Office Ladies:

Or motion-graphics-heavy trailers like the visual trailer for When it Clicked:

But remember: just because animation doesn’t require video cameras, that doesn’t mean it’s quick, easy, or inexpensive to produce.

Some people listen to YouTube videos without watching

As a podcast creator, you can add a visual component to your show’s YouTube videos. But just because you include a visual component, that doesn’t necessarily mean your entire audience is consuming with their eyes.

Some listeners will likely disregard your video component entirely, choosing instead to listen to your video. Jeff Vidler of Signal Hill Insights explains:

We asked this question a couple of years ago and, on average, folks who access podcasts on YouTube said that 61% of the time they access podcasts on YouTube they are watching the video, leaving 39% of the time listening, not watching. As someone at Evolutions said, I’m listening to my podcast on YouTube while my phone is in my back pocket.

Looking ahead

I’m glad YouTube seems to be working on new features for podcasters, and I look forward to the day when audio feels less like a hack, and more like a first-class citizen on the platform. My sincere hope is that YouTube’s podcast features work well alongside other parts of the broader podcast ecosystem.

YouTube is an incredibly important platform for podcasters, but it’s not a panacea. As Jeff Vidler rightly points out, for all its potential in reaching new audiences, YouTube also represents monetization and measurement challenges for podcasters:

Downloads, not YouTube views, are the trading currency used to buy and sell podcasts. You get more revenue per listener from downloads than YouTube views. And you can’t add YouTube views to your podcast downloads. It’s adding apples to oranges and advertisers aren’t interested.

Remember

• Your podcast should probably have a presence on YouTube
• A “podcast on YouTube” can mean lots of different things
• Not all podcasts on YouTube have (or require) the same level of time, effort, or cost
• The most important questions when choosing a visual style for your show’s video treatment are: “cameras or no camera?” and “clips, full episodes, or both?”

Where do your podcast’s YouTube videos fit on this grid?

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The 4 kinds of podcast videos you meet on YouTube was originally published in Pacific Content on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A frustratingly difficult question about your podcast audience is about to get a lot less frustratingly difficult

Apple’s forthcoming follower metrics represent a watershed moment for podcast measurement

For years now, I’ve been disappointing Pacific Content clients.

The disappointment usually sets in after a client asks the simple question, “How many subscribers does our podcast have?”

This is a very reasonable question. It’s especially reasonable coming from brand marketers. If your brand has a YouTube channel, you know how many subscribers you have. If your brand has Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, or other social accounts, you know how many followers you have. If your brand has an email newsletter, you know how many subscribers you have.

Every client who asks me for a subscriber count expects to hear a number — hopefully a big, brag-worthy number — in response.

But for years, my disappointing reply to clients wasn’t a big, brag-worthy number. Instead, it was some variation of, “I know you want one big subscriber number. But that’s not really a thing in podcasting. At least it’s not really a thing in the same way your YouTube subscribers or Twitter followers or newsletter subscribers are a thing.”

Sometimes this response would prompt more questions, and we’d go on to discuss the esoteric reasons why there’s no single unified podcast “subscriber” or “follower” count in podcasting. Sometimes I’d point them to this 2019 blog post where I lamented our industry’s lack of unified subscriber or follower counts.

(Sidebar: I’m not even going to wade into the semantic quagmire that is the word “subscribe” and how it used to mean one thing in Apple Podcasts but now it means something else, and how — depending on the app you’re using — “subscribe” and “follow” are usually synonyms… except for when they’re not.)

Usually, I steer clients away from “subscribers” and “followers” as a reach metric, and towards downloads and listeners. Why? Because downloads and listeners have broadly accepted technical definitions, whereas subscribers and followers don’t.

I can’t think of a single conversation about podcast subscribers or followers in recent memory where everyone felt like they got a clear, simple answer to a clear, simple question. And that’s no fun.

But now, out of this cloud of confusion and frustration, a glimmer of hope…

Apple Podcasts follower counts (finally)

On March 22, 2022, Apple announced plans to share follower counts with creators through Apple Podcasts Connect:

From the Analytics tab, creators will be able to view followers per show and easily measure followers across shows. Once selecting a show, they can quickly view the number of New Followers netted over the last week, month, 60 days, and all time.

This. This was the missing piece.

When Apple starts offering podcast creators a follower count next month, they’ll join the ranks of Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Podcast Addict, and Overcast in offering this type of metric.

That means, for the very first time, every podcast listening app that accounts for more than 1% of downloads and offers a follow/subscribe feature will offer some type of total follower of subscriber count.

Borrowing Buzzsprout’s list of podcast apps by share of downloads in February 2022, we have:

• Apple Podcasts (35.7%) — follower count available through Apple Podcasts Connect
• Spotify (27.9%) — follower count available through Spotify for Podcasters
• Web Browser (2.8%) — N/A, no follow/subscribe feature
• Google Podcasts (2.5%) — subscriber count available through Google Podcasts Manager
• Buzzsprout Embed Player (1.7%) — N/A, no follow/subscribe feature
• CastBox (1.7%) — subscriber count available through the public website (example)
• Podcast Addict (1.4%) — subscriber count available through the public website (example)
• Overcast (1.2%) — subscriber count reported to creators via HTTP User-Agent string (details)

Several smaller apps offer publicly-available subscriber or follower counts, too. Podbean (0.6%), Player FM (0.2%), The Podcast App (0.1%), Podcast Republic (0.1%), and TuneIn (0.1%) all offer this, and Rephonic’s handy subscribers and followers tool can display these public numbers in a single interface.

It’s not 100% coverage, but with Apple Podcasts in play, it finally feels possible to use these disparate sources of data to cobble together a reasonable estimate of the number of people (or users, or accounts) that have opted in to your show.

Apple + Spotify + Google + everyone else

I’m very excited that Apple plans to offer follower counts, and I’m looking forward to seeing how we can use this new metric to help measure the success of our clients’ shows.

Of course, simply adding up all your subscriber and follower counts together isn’t without challenges. For example, there’s the issue of audience duplication, and accounting for people who follow the same show on multiple podcast apps. Simple arithmetic won’t get us unduplicated reach.

Plus, it’s frustrating to have to check several different dashboards and public websites to tally up your show’s follower and subscriber counts. Tools like Rephonic’s subscribers and followers in every app can help, but it can only pull publicly-available counts, not publisher-only metrics that exist in Apple Podcasts Connect, Spotify for Podcasters, or Google Podcasts Manager.

My wish

When it comes to subscriber and follower counts, I wish more podcast apps acted like Marco Arment’s Overcast, which lists a subscriber count in the User-Agent string of its centralized crawler:

Overcast/1.0 Podcast Sync (123 subscribers; feed-id=456789; +http://overcast.fm/

Apple, Spotify, Google, and many other podcast apps use centralized crawlers and report subscriber or follower counts to creators in their own siloed dashboard. I’m not holding my breath, but I’d be delighted to see more podcast apps do the same as Overcast. That way, podcast hosting companies could start including meaningful platform-supplied subscriber numbers in their own dashboards.

Jerod Santo wished for the same thing back in 2018, and a small handful of podcast apps rose to the challenge. But neither of the double-digit market share podcast apps are on the list.

A boy can dream.

Follower ≠ listener

Finally, it’s worth taking a moment to think about what we mean when we use the word “follower” or “subscriber.” According to Spotify for Podcasters, a follower count:

Measures the number of Spotify users who clicked follow on a podcast in your catalog.

I can’t find platform-supplied definitions of “follower” or “subscriber” from Apple or Google, but I presume their metrics are roughly equivalent to Spotify’s: the total number of unique users who chose to hit the “follow” or “subscribe” button.

Words matter. It’s important to avoid the trap of conflating “follower” and “listener.”

I can subscribe to your YouTube channel, never watch one of your videos, yet still count as a “subscriber.” Similarly, I can follow you on Twitter, never see any of your tweets, and still count as a follower. Or I can subscribe to your email newsletter, never open a single message from you, and still count as a subscriber.

Followers and subscribers are a useful way to gauge the overall number of people who have opted in to hear from you and your podcast. But they’re not the same as download numbers, listeners numbers, or average time spent listening. As always, use the right yardstick.

Remember

• Follower metrics are coming to Apple Podcasts Connect in April 2022.
• Follower and subscriber metrics are a useful way to gauge the overall number of people who have opted in to your podcast but aren’t the same as downloads or listeners
• Aggregating subscriber and follower counts is possible but comes with duplication challenges
• Aggregated subscriber and follower counts may help put podcasting measurement more in line with online video and social measurement

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A frustratingly difficult question about your podcast audience is about to get a lot less… was originally published in Pacific Content on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Last week, I met with a group of true crime podcasters. They were working on a new season of their show, so we wanted to better understand the true crime podcast landscape.

We started by looking at a true crime podcast neighborhood:

As we explored the neighbourhood, we were struck by the breadth of the genre, and all the different “flavours” of true crime contained within. For example, we spotted:

• Documentary-style investigations with original reporting
• True crime buddycasts (AKA “Wikipedia and a bottle of wine”)
• Paranormal and supernatural true crime
• Violent true crime
• Non-violent true crime
• Location-specific true crime (e.g. Canadian True Crime)

… and many more.

It can be difficult to wrap your head around true crime podcasts, partly because the category includes so many different types of shows. Despite this wide variety, all 10,000 true crime shows get lumped together into one big True Crime bucket.

So I got curious.

Aside from podcast neighbourhoods, how could I find a way to segment a broad genre like true crime into more manageable pieces to better understand the competitive landscape?

Turns out, there are clues hidden inside every podcast’s metadata. 🔍

The value of assigning multiple categories

Every podcaster can assign their show one (or more) of Apple’s 100+ categories. Apple says:

You can choose up to two categories or subcategories that best reflect the content of your show. The primary category is used to display your show in each category page, Top Charts, and personalized recommendations in Listen Now. The secondary category also helps your show appear in select category pages, in editorially curated collections, and in search.

Interesting.

True Crime is a broad genre. Not always useful on its own.

But if a show is categorized as True Crime + Comedy, well, that tells me something interesting and useful and could help me make a decision as a listener.

And if a show is categorized as True Crime + History, that tells me something very different about the type of stories I might expect to hear.

It’s not quite at the Netflix level of categorization, but these secondary categories can certainly help disambiguate podcasts.

Crunching the numbers

I wanted to understand the relative popularity of various combinations of categories among true crime shows in Apple Podcasts.

So I collected metadata for 9,536 shows listed in Apple’s True Crime section and counted all the combinations of various categories.

Unsurprisingly, many podcasters choose a single category and call it a day without specifying any additional categories. 75% of the True Crime shows in Apple Podcasts list True Crime as their only category. But many shows go farther, and specify secondary categories:

“Comedic true crime” feels distinct from “historical true crime.” Which in turn feels distinct from “news-flavoured True Crime.”

I was slightly perplexed by the Fiction + True Crime shows. But then I remembered this.

This works on other categories, too

Of course, this approach — breaking down a podcast category by examining secondary categories — works well outside true crime, too.

For example, Pacific Content works with the Environmental Defense Fund and Podcast Allies on Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers. It’s a show about careers and sustainability, and as such, its primary category is Careers.

But Careers is a big, broad category, with nearly 30,000 shows. Indeed, many of the shows on the Apple Podcasts Careers chart are broad and of general interest. If you’re looking for a show about careers in, say, nutrition, that’s very different than a show about careers in marketing, or technology, or education.

If you’re looking for a careers podcast related to a specific industry, the Careers category in Apple Podcasts is so broad it borders on unhelpful.

But thanks to podcasters who’ve assigned secondary categories to their show, we can see the breakdown of various career-focused series:

Unsurprisingly, Careers +Entrepreneurship is the most popular combination of categories, but there’s a lot of variety father down the list.

Presumably, a show categorized as Careers + Education is meant for a different audience than a show categorized as Careers + Management.

A wish 🤞

The more I dug into this data, the more I wish that secondary categories were more visible to listeners.

Under the hood, many podcast feeds contain more than one podcast category. For example, Inside the Breakthrough identifies Science as its primary category. But it’s also a show about History, told in a Documentary format. The show’s RSS feed reflects that:

<itunes:category text="Science"/>
<itunes:category text="History"/>
<itunes:category text="Society &amp; Culture">
    <itunes:category text="Documentary"/>
</itunes:category>

However, many podcast apps (most notably Apple Podcasts) only display the show’s primary category:

Wouldn’t it be great if podcast apps meaningfully exposed secondary categories to listeners? Wouldn’t it be great to search for (and discover) shows based on the intersection of categories?

That way, I could more easily search for podcasts at the intersection of Science + History.

Or I could find a list of shows that fit in Music + True Crime.

Or Technology + Swimming.

I’d love for some enterprising person to build a tool that could help me find shows at the intersection of multiple categories.

Remember

• Every podcaster can categorize their show into one (or more) categories
• Your podcast categories are an important part of your show’s product packaging
• If you’ve only specified a single primary category for your show, consider adding a secondary category. Even though they’re not prominently displayed, Apple Podcasts says secondary categories are used within their app.

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The mysterious case of the overlapping Apple Podcasts categories was originally published in Pacific Content on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Two of my favourite words in podcasting are, “only we.”

It’s a phrase I first heard from Tom Webster, who got it from Mark Schaefer. I love “only we” because it forces podcasters (especially brands) to think about the importance of creative differentiation. It raises questions like:

• What stories can we tell that nobody else can tell?
• What guests can we access that nobody else can access?
• What topic or subject are we uniquely qualified to talk about?
• What point of view can we share that’s uniquely ours?
• What is the show only we can make?”

Your show’s “only we” informs your promise to listeners. It’s at the core of your show’s unique value proposition. And when done well, “only we” can become your moat.

And here’s the thing: “only we” isn’t just about the content choices you make. It should also inform how you market your podcast.

Podcast marketing superpowers

“Only we” is a great way to think about podcast marketing. Start by asking yourself, “How can we let prospective listeners know about our show?” Then ask, “Which of those marketing channels are exclusive to us?”

I’m not talking about your brand’s social accounts. Everyone has social accounts.

I’m not talking about your company’s website. Every company has a website.

I’m not talking about your email list. Every company has an email list.

Instead, I’m talking about your podcast marketing superpowers: unique owned channels that nobody else has, and nobody else gets to use.

Let’s look at a few examples.

In-app messaging

Duolingo is a language-learning website and mobile app with around 40 million monthly active users. They also offer a roster of podcasts, many of which regularly appear on the Apple Podcasts Education charts.

Duolingo drives sampling and consideration of their podcasts directly from within their own smartphone apps:

Only Duolingo gets to market podcasts inside the Duolingo app.

McAfee took a similar approach by marketing Hackable? inside their McAfee Mobile Security app. Tapping the link brought users directly to Hackable? in their device’s built-in podcast app. Only McAfee gets to market podcasts inside McAfee Mobile Security.

Another example: when Mozilla launched IRL: Online Life is Real Life, they used an in-app messaging feature within Firefox called snippets to introduce Firefox users to their new podcast:

It wasn’t just at launch, either. Mozilla continued to use snippets to market specific episodes of IRL. Only Mozilla gets to market podcasts inside Firefox.

In-store retail marketing

Trader Joe’s has 500+ stores and 50,000 employees. They put their retail footprint to good use when launching their own original podcast, Inside Trader Joe’s. Their in-store marketing reached prospective listeners in a highly relevant context with marketing messages that match the company’s tone and brand voice:

Only Trader Joe’s gets to market podcasts in Trader Joe’s stores.

Similarly, Charles Schwab has hundreds of retail branches. They use digital branch signage to market their original podcasts, including Choiceology with Katy Milkman.

Of course, signage on its own won’t get the job done. Podcasts travel by word of mouth, and personal recommendations are still one of the primary modes of new podcast discovery. In-store signage may help with awareness of your podcast, but signage plus a recommendation from a helpful human is where the real magic happens. That’s why Schwab does such a great job of marketing their podcasts inside their company. Employees are in a great position to act as word-of-mouth advocates for Schwab’s podcasts because they know the shows’ benefits and can recommend relevant episodes to customers and prospects.

One more example of in-store podcast marketing:

Dave Ambrose on Twitter: "first I've seen: after finishing your meal at @figgirl, there's a small marketing placard (on your check) to listen to their weekly podcast hosted by the owner about food + wine across Sonoma and Napasmart 👏🏻 pic.twitter.com/9ip7Hid1v5 / Twitter"

first I've seen: after finishing your meal at @figgirl, there's a small marketing placard (on your check) to listen to their weekly podcast hosted by the owner about food + wine across Sonoma and Napasmart 👏🏻 pic.twitter.com/9ip7Hid1v5

Love this.

Out-of-home

Citrix is a software company. Citrix Cycle is a bike-share program in Raleigh, NC, sponsored by Citrix.

Who gets to advertise their podcast at the Citrix Cycle stations? You guessed it: only Citrix.

These are high visibility placements, and an amazing example of how brands can help grow the denominator in podcasting.

Physical products

SciMar is a life sciences company working on the prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes. They also sell a supplement called NuPa Daily. When SciMar launched their podcast Inside the Breakthrough, they promoted it on the physical packaging:

Only SciMar can promote a podcast on the physical packaging of NuPa Daily.

High-traffic web pages

As Jay Acunzo points out, many podcasters miss an opportunity with their own websites:

Jay Acunzo on Twitter: "Marketers: Put. Links. To. Your. Podcast. On. Your. Website.This is so bizarrely missing. The main + footer navs + the most-trafficked pages should make the show obvious to find.Don't complain about podcast discoverability when people cant discover it from your OWN website. / Twitter"

Marketers: Put. Links. To. Your. Podcast. On. Your. Website.This is so bizarrely missing. The main + footer navs + the most-trafficked pages should make the show obvious to find.Don't complain about podcast discoverability when people cant discover it from your OWN website.

Smart podcast marketers know exactly how to use high-value real estate on their websites. For example, Mailchimp offers listeners a variety of entrepreneurship-focused podcasts under its Mailchimp Presents banner.

Look at how prominently Mailchimp markets podcasts using two of the highest-trafficked parts of their own site: the front page and login screens.

This is the opposite of hiding links to your brand’s podcast in the junk drawer section of your site’s mega menu.

This isn’t just a marketing tactic. It’s a posture that says, “We made a show for you. It’s a real show. We’re proud of it. We think you’ll like it. We hope you’ll check it out.”

These are just a few examples. Every brand has its own mix of unique owned channels. What works for Charles Schwab won’t necessarily work for Ford Motor Company or vice versa.

One of my favourite parts of working at Pacific Content is helping brand marketers identify and unlock their own audience development superpowers.

What are the “only we” marketing channels for your podcast? What’s in your toolkit that nobody else gets to use?

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The “only we” of podcast marketing was originally published in Pacific Content on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In April 2021, Apple rolled out significant changes to Apple Podcasts Connect, a tool many podcasters use to manage and measure their shows.

Among the changes: publishers can now specify an “Update Frequency” for their shows. According to Apple, this setting:

shows up in Apple Podcasts and lets your listeners know how often you plan to update your show with new episodes.

Apple Podcasts Connect offers seven options: daily, weekly, semiweekly, biweekly, monthly, semimonthly, bimonthly, plus a “no set schedule” choice. The options are listed in a drop-down menu within the “Show Details” section of Apple Podcasts Connect:

Once a podcaster chooses an update frequency for their show, it appears alongside other series-level metadata in the Apple Podcasts apps for iOS and Mac:

This can be a helpful piece of product packaging for podcasts. By listing an update frequency (aka release cadence), you’re helping prospective listeners decide if your show could fit into their lives. Sharing your show’s release cadence helps set and maintain listener expectations.

Apple Podcasts isn’t the first listening app to prominently feature a show’s release cadence. Other apps (including Overcast, Pocket Casts, and Breaker) share a similar feature. But these apps infer release cadence based on a show’s past release schedule, whereas Apple relies on individual publishers to explicitly choose an update frequency.

Three additional implementation details worth noting:

1. Unlike many other elements of product packaging for podcasts, Apple’s update frequency is not configured using a tag in the show’s RSS feed. Rather, it’s set on a show-by-show basis within Apple Podcasts Connect.
2. Apple’s update frequency names are ambiguous. What does “biweekly” mean? Depends on who you ask.
3. Apple’s update frequency setting does not reflect how often episodes of a podcast are actually released. It simply signals the podcaster’s intended release cadence.

What’s the most common update frequency?

Shortly after Apple introduced its update frequency setting, I began to wonder:

• How many podcasters will bother to set this up?
• Among those who do, what will be the most popular update frequency selected?

To find out, I grabbed a sample of 1,896,631 podcasts from the Apple Podcasts directory and dug in.

Of all the podcasts I sampled, 256,635 had a releaseFrequency value set to one of the seven available options (daily, weekly, semiweekly, biweekly, monthly, semimonthly, bimonthly).

As I write this, Apple Podcasts update frequencies have been around for about 10 weeks. So far, about 14% of all shows in Apple Podcasts have set an update frequency.

So which frequency is the most popular choice?

Here’s the breakdown:

Or, for the pie-chart-averse:

With ~76k shows, “biweekly” is clearly the top choice.

But what exactly does “biweekly” mean? Or perhaps a better question: what do individual podcasters think “biweekly” means?

It could mean “a new episode every two weeks.” It could also mean “two episodes each week.” As Mignon Fogarty says of “semiweekly” and “biweekly”:

Most style guides recommend avoiding these words. Instead, just use the phrases “twice a week” or “every other week.”

However, podcasters interpret the word, “biweekly” as most certainly the most popular update frequency within Apple Podcasts.

Remember

• Your podcast’s release cadence is an important part of your show’s product packaging.
• The most popular podcast release frequency is “biweekly.”
• Apple Podcasts now allows publishers to set an “update frequency” for their shows. If you haven’t configured your shows’ update frequency, look for the setting in “Show Details” within Apple Podcasts Connect.
• Consistency over time correlates with podcast success.

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How often are most podcasts updated? was originally published in Pacific Content on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A public podcast is just that: public. You can find public podcasts in places like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, distributed using publicly available RSS feeds. There are millions of public podcasts.

A private podcast is not meant for broad public consumption. Some private podcasts use password-protected feeds. Others grant each authorized listener their own private feed URL. Sometimes, private podcasts require listeners to use a dedicated listening app like Storyboard or uStudio.

It’s an age-old tradeoff: convenience vs. security.

Is there a middle ground? I’m glad you asked.

Unlisted podcasts

An unlisted podcast is sort of like an unlisted telephone number. In the same way an unlisted phone number is intentionally not listed in the phone book, an unlisted podcast is intentionally not listed on the web or in podcast directories.

Unlisted podcasts make sense when:

• Your intended audience is narrow or highly targeted
• The content of your podcast isn’t secret or highly sensitive
• You already have one or more public podcasts meant for broad public consumption and you don’t want to create listener confusion, dilute search results for your public show(s), or otherwise clutter podcast directories

For example, you could create an unlisted podcast as a recruitment tool to help attract new talent. Or you could use an unlisted podcast to share onboarding materials for new employees. Inside your company, an unlisted podcast could be a great way to share news and announcements.

The best part: an unlisted podcast can appear in your listeners’ preferred podcast app alongside their other favourite shows, rather than requiring listeners to download and use an entirely separate app. It’s better to be in the places your listeners already are, rather than asking them to change existing habits or develop new ones.

Example Unlisted Podcast

To demonstrate what this type of podcast can look like, I made a new show called Example Unlisted Podcast. It has everything a publicly available podcast should have:

• A website
• A publicly available RSS feed
• Embedded audio players

But if you search for “Example Unlisted Podcast” in Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts, you won’t find it. And if you do a Google search for “Example Unlisted Podcast,” you won’t find it there, either.

Remember, it’s unlisted.

Here’s the great part: I can send you a link to Example Unlisted Podcast and you can easily follow or subscribe to the show in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or any podcast app that supports subscribing to arbitrary RSS feeds (e.g. Overcast, Castro, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict).

In most podcast apps, it’s simple and straightforward to follow or subscribe to an unlisted podcast. And in most cases, there’s no need to copy and paste cumbersome RSS feed URLs. In Apple Podcasts, for example, you can follow Example Unlisted Podcast in just a few taps.

Don’t believe me? Try it yourself.

To be clear: you can still follow or subscribe to Example Unlisted Podcast in most podcast apps, even though the show isn’t listed in any podcast directories.

What makes Example Unlisted Podcast “unlisted?” A few things:

First, the feed discourages podcast directories from indexing it. This is accomplished by including both <itunes:block> and <googleplay:block> tags in the RSS feed.

Second, the website for Example Unlisted Podcast discourages search engines from indexing it by including the robots meta tag.

Finally, if I want to keep Example Unlisted Podcast from appearing in the Podcast Index, I can add an entry to their private feed blocklist.

Support from Simplecast

Following an unlisted podcast should be as simple as possible. Luckily, many podcast apps offer custom URL schemes that make it easy to subscribe to a show without the need to copy and paste RSS feeds. For example:

• Apple Podcasts: podcast://feeds.pacific-content.com/unlisted
• Overcast: overcast://x-callback-url/add?url=https://feeds.pacific-content.com/unlisted
• Castro: castros://subscribe/feeds.pacific-content.com/unlisted
• Pocket Casts: pktc://subscribe/feeds.pacific-content.com/unlisted
• Podcast Addict: podcastaddict://feeds.pacific-content.com/unlisted

A few weeks ago, I was talking to the team at Simplecast about this. I mentioned how nice it would be if their built-in podcast websites supported custom URL schemes for podcast apps.

Now, in addition to offering support for unlisted RSS feeds, Simplecast-hosted websites (like this one) support custom URL schemes for Apple Podcasts, Overcast, and Pocket Casts:

Remember

• Listeners can follow or subscribe to your show in their favourite podcast app, even if your show isn’t listed in the app’s public-facing directory
• Unlisted shows can be a useful middle-ground between private and public podcasts
• Unlisted shows are a good alternative to private podcasts when you want to share non-sensitive audio with a targeted group of listeners that you already have a relationship with (employees, investors, prospects, etc.)

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Unlisted podcasts: not quite public, not quite private was originally published in Pacific Content on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Last week, I was talking to a Pacific Content client about their podcast’s release cadence. “How often should we release new episodes?” they asked. “Which day of the week? What time of day?”

A podcast’s publishing schedule might seem like a small thing, but it’s worth considering deeply. Podcast listening is often built on habit and routine, so the smartest podcasters design their shows to fit into listeners’ lives in natural, convenient, and predictable ways.

There’s no one-size-fits-all podcast release cadence. But there is a best practice that applies to almost every podcaster out there: consistency over time. That means showing up for your listeners, episode after episode, season after season, year after year.

I wanted to understand how the world’s most popular podcasts handle release cadence. So I pulled a list of the 200 all-time most popular shows from Apple Podcasts and visualized episode releases on a timeline.

Radio-to-podcast shows

Here are the 10 most recent episodes of NPR’s Peabody Award–winning Fresh Air, plotted on a timeline:

At first blush, Fresh Air’s release cadence might look sporadic. But if we zoom out and look at Fresh Air’s 50 most recent episodes, a pattern emerges: new episodes every weekday, plus a Saturday “Best Of” episode:

Every week. Like clockwork.

This same consistency is evident across other public media podcasts. For example, here are the recent releases from TED Radio Hour and Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!

“But Dan,” you might say, “Fresh Air, TED Radio Hour, and Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! are all radio shows. They’re beholden to a regular on-air timeslot. Podcasts represent freedom from the tyranny of the broadcast schedule!”

You’re right. Still, many podcast-first shows display equally rigorous consistency over time. Let’s keep going…

Podcast-first shows

Stuff You Should Know debuted as a podcast in 2008, and regularly appears near the top of Apple’s charts. Its release cadence is remarkably consistent. Here are the 50 most recently released episodes:

Do you notice a pattern week to week?

We see this same level of consistency on other iHeartRadio podcasts like Stuff You Missed in History Class and BrainStuff:

Of course, iHeartRadio doesn’t have a monopoly on consistency.

Here are the release cadences of a few more always-on podcast-first shows, including Oprah’s Super Soul, Savage Lovecast, WTF with Marc Maron, Pod Save America, Office Ladies, Comedy Bang Bang! and Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.

All these shows release new episodes with stunning regularity. Most outliers in these timelines represent additional “bonus” episodes.

Limited-run series and season-based shows

Not every podcast is “always on.” Some are limited-run series. Other shows organize episodes into distinct seasons with breaks between them.

Consistency over time applies here, too. Take, for instance, Dolly Parton’s America from WYNC, which had a fairly consistent release schedule:

Or The Dropout from ABC News. We can clearly see the 7 original episodes, followed much later by a triple episode drop for another ABC News show, Tulsa’s Buried Truth:

Will Ferrell’s The Ron Burgundy Podcast is organized into seasons, and within each, there’s a consistent weekly schedule:

Despite long breaks in between seasons, Someone Knows Something from CBC Podcasts is super-consistent when a new season is in market. The outliers on the timeline are special “bonus” episodes and episode drops from other shows:

How consistent is your podcast?

Every show is different, and every audience is different. Some podcasts are evergreen, while others are topical and timely. Some shows are always-on, while others take breaks between seasons. Some audiences expect a high volume of new episodes, while others savour every episode of a less frequently released series.

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all release cadence for all podcasts. Rather, I recommend that podcasters build a schedule that:

• Sets and maintains listener expectations
• Is manageable and sustainable
• Allows for sufficient time to promote each episode effectively
• Builds and strengthens relationships with listeners over time, drip by drip

How often do you release new podcast episodes?

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How often should I release new podcast episodes? was originally published in Pacific Content on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It can be one of the trickiest questions in podcasting: “Which category should we list our show in?”

Apple Podcasts supports more than 100 distinct categories (e.g. True Crime, Swimming, Alternative Health), and Apple's category list is used by several other podcast apps and directories, too.

Sometimes, it’s easy for me to help our clients choose a category for their show:

• Command Line Heroes is a perfect fit for Technology
• Trailblazers with Walter Isaacson feels right at home in Business
• Bring Back Bronco belongs in Automotive

But sometimes the choice isn’t obvious.

For example, Home. Made. is a show about “the meaning of home and what it can teach us about ourselves and each other.” It could fit inside Home & Garden, but that doesn't feel quite right. Many of the stories in Home. Made. are deeply personal, so perhaps Personal Journals is a fit? Then again, the show is presented in a documentary style, so maybe Documentary is the best choice?

Choose the least crowded category

Any time a show can credibly fit into more than one category — or when you’re stuck choosing between two or three equally appropriate categories — I recommend choosing the least crowded category.

Why? When you choose your show’s category, you’re also choosing which of Apple’s “Top Charts” lists you’re eligible to appear on. The less crowded the category, the easier it is to chart. And as I’ve written before, appearing on a “Top Charts” list can have unexpected benefits.

So, then, which are the most most crowded categories in Apple Podcasts?

After running similar analysis in 2018 and 2020, I recently decided to update my findings. I pulled a sample of 1,651,004 podcasts and more than 38 million podcast episodes from Apple Podcasts. Then I crunched the numbers.

Religion & Spirituality no longer has the most shows

In 2020, Religion & Spirituality was the most crowded top-level category, followed by Society & Culture.

Now, in Spring 2021, Education takes the top spot, just barely edging out Society & Culture. Here’s the full breakdown (click to expand and explore):

The least crowded categories include several Sports categories: Volleyball, Swimming, and Rugby. Also near the bottom of the list: Mathematics and Crafts.

Which categories have the most episodes?

Another way to think about “crowdedness” is the total number of episodes within a specific category.

As in previous years, Religion & Spirituality sits at the top of the list, thanks to a very large number of episodes belonging to shows in the Christianity subcategory. Here’s the breakdown:

Yet another way to think about “crowdedness” is the average number of episodes per podcast, by category.

Or to put it another way: which podcast categories contain shows that produce the greatest number of episodes on average?

Subcategories of Religion & Spirituality top this list, with Judaism, Buddhism, and Christianity among the most prolific categories in Apple Podcasts. On average, News is also a very prolific category. I suspect this is driven in part by high-volume daily news shows.

To stand out from the crowd, you need to understand the crowd

Much has changed since my February 2020 analysis. The total number of podcasts has nearly doubled. The global pandemic has had a significant impact on both podcast production and consumption patterns.

But my advice around choosing a category remains the same:

• Your podcast’s primary category matters. Not only is it part of your show’s product packaging, it also determines the company you keep within Apple’s ecosystem.
• Whenever possible, choose a specific subcategory (Society & Culture: Personal Journals instead of Society & Culture) as your show’s primary category
• Crowdedness applies to both the number of shows within a category and the number of episodes in a category
• Choose your primary podcast category wisely. Don’t forget to consider how crowded your chosen category is.

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The most crowded categories in Apple Podcasts (April 2021 edition) was originally published in Pacific Content on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This week, Apple launched Time to Walk, an “audio walking experience” available only to Fitness+ customers.

I tried it for the first time today. I walked around my neighbourhood and listened to NBA champion Draymond Green tell stories about failure and perseverance.

Though Apple doesn’t use the word “podcast” when talking about Time to Walk, my experience was very podcast-like. So too is Apple’s distribution strategy:

New episodes will appear in the Workout app on Apple Watch from a different guest each Monday through the end of April. Users can browse and enjoy previous Time to Walk episodes when it is most convenient for them.

Time to Walk episodes are automatically downloaded to Apple Watch with a Fitness+ subscription, and users can start an episode directly from the Workout app.

I’m not especially interested in arguing about whether Time to Walk technically qualifies as a podcast (it doesn’t). I suspect most Fitness+ customers don’t know or care about debating the sanctity of RSS feeds.

Instead, I’m interested in Time to Walk as an example of context-specific audio storytelling, which all podcasters (including brands) should consider.

Audio designed for a specific time, place, or activity

As its name suggests, Time to Walk is both recorded and designed to be consumed while walking. But it’s certainly not the only example of a show built around such specific activity.

For example, Gimlet’s smart-speaker-friendly Chompers is meant for children brushing their teeth:

Kids will hear jokes, riddles, stories, fun facts, silly songs and more, that’ll keep them giggling — and brushing — for the full two minutes that dentists recommend.

Podcasts like Sleep With Me (“Bedtime stories to help grown ups fall asleep in the deep, dark night”) and Nothing Much Happens (“you feel good and then you fall asleep”) are clearly intended as sleep aids.

Audio reaches people when screens can’t

One of audio’s superpowers is its ability to reach people when and where screens can’t.

We see this reflected in Edison’s research into the most common activities done while listening to podcasts, which include plenty of situations where screens simply aren’t a great fit: driving, cooking, walking outside, and relaxing before going to sleep.

For brands, these commonly-cited contexts feel full of opportunity.

Which shampoo company makes a podcast specifically designed around the average 8-minute shower time?

Which meal-kit brands could create podcast episodes paired with recipes… meant to be played on a kitchen smart speaker while cooking a specific meal?

Which sleep brands make their own shows designed for bedtime?

A parallel trend in music

In 2018, Chaz Jenkins and Jason Joven wrote about Spotify and The Rise of the Contextual Playlist, describing a shift away from genre-based playlist formats (Pop, Rock, Hip-Hop, Latin, etc.), and towards what they call “context-based (CX) playlists.”

Whether it be an activity (e.g., running, romantic dinner) or time-related event (e.g., Women’s History Month, Lunar New Year, or just a day of the week), CX playlists are quickly becoming the new paradigm in which we experience the music we knew yesterday and will discover tomorrow.

Open Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and you’ll see podcast-specific executions of this idea in their featured collections:

These collections transcend genre. For example, Spotify’s list of “Podcasts that’ll make you smarter” includes shows from several categories, including Language Learning, Social Sciences, History, Documentary, and Philosophy.

A playlist-based-show like Spotify’s The Get Up goes even further, specifically designing a listening experience intended for weekday mornings.

What are the Chances?

What does this look like for brands? Here’s an example. In 2020, Pacific Content worked with Insception Biosciences to create a 3-part documentary series called Cord Blood: What are the Chances.

Prior to working with Insception, I knew almost nothing about cord blood storage. But I soon learned there’s a narrow window of time during which cord blood can be collected, and consequently, a limited window of time during which parents can decide about their baby’s cord blood.

So we designed Cord Blood: What are the Chances for that very specific context: the months leading up to the birth of a child, during which parents are looking for information about cord blood banking.

Empathy and understanding for your listeners

Don’t get me wrong. There doesn’t need to be a 1:1 mapping of content to context. For example, I listen to daily news podcasts while I run. I listen to comedy podcasts while I do housework. I listen to finance podcasts as I fall asleep.

Your podcast needn’t be purpose-built for a specific time, place, or activity — though, for the right show, context-specificity can be a useful framing device.

Here’s the meta-point: your podcast should be designed with a strong understanding of your audience, their needs, and their desires. Who are they? Where are they? What do their daily habits and routines look like? How are they already being served? What show can you make for them that nobody else could make?

Podcasting is a medium based on loyalty, habit, and routine. Great podcasts fit into listeners’ lives and are built to do so.

What role does your podcast play in your listeners’ lives?

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Apple’s Time to Walk and the value of context-specific audio storytelling was originally published in Pacific Content on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.