Category Archive : Content

The Basics of Podcast Editing in Audacity

Learn the basics of podcast editing in this comprehensive guide. From choosing the right software to removing unwanted noise, we’ll cover everything you need to know to get started.

Since its start, podcasting has seen massive growth. Edison Research’s Spoken Word Audio Report shows that the U.S. population listens to spoken word audio daily. On average, podcast listeners will listen to around eight shows per week. This leaves room for everyone to be on their audience’s roster. 

With the increasing popularity of podcasting, the expectations of a quality, well-produced show is on the rise. The podcast content itself is undoubtedly the most important aspect but poor audio quality will not only lead leaders to click off the episode but may also lessen the host’s professionalism and trustworthiness. While we can expect podcast quality to improve over the course of a show’s lifetime, it is important to get the hang of it quickly to increase potential listenership. A well-produced podcast is a sign that the host takes their content seriously and wants to provide a well-rounded experience for their listeners. 

With anything, you can get incredibly granular when it comes to editing techniques and I’m sure we’ll expand on that in the future. Today my goal is to show you everything you need to know the basics of podcast editing from start to finish in a simple, tangible, and easy to understand framework. 

Why Is Podcast Quality So Important?

The Basics of Podcast Editing

In this guide, we will walk through the following steps:

  1. Preparing for Editing
  2. Basic Podcast Editing Techniques
  3. Additional Editing Techniques 
  4. Finalizing Your Podcast Episode 

Preparing for Editing

In culinary terms, ‘mise en place’, a French phrase meaning “putting in place” refers to the setup required before cooking. This may include familiarizing themselves with the recipe, collecting tools, gathering ingredients, and completing basic prep work. Now, you may be wondering what cooking has to do with editing a podcast but it is the preparation that we really want to focus on here. Ask any chef and they will stress the importance of mise en place for a successful recipe execution. 

Simply put, just like a chef needs to know their recipe and organize their ingredients, you’ll want to organize your files and get familiar with the audio you’re working with. This pre-editing phase is just as important as the editing itself when we are looking at the basics of podcast editing.

Creating a Quality Podcast

Organizing Your Files

Before you begin editing, it is important to have and maintain a well-organized folder structure. You’ll thank yourself later on when don’t have to backtrack and sort your increasing collection of files. 

I find it works best to have separate folders for each of the clients I work with and subfolders within those for each new episode. This way, if there are multiple versions of the episode, you can quickly and easily find the most recent version. 

PRO TIP: When labeling your files, it is best practice to label the file by podcast name (or abbreviation), episode number, and version number. Not only will this avoid confusion when searching for the most up-to-date version, the chances of you pulling and uploading an incorrect file drastically decrease. 

To be extra safe, I’ve gotten into the habit of saving my files to an external hard drive and/or an online file hosting service such as Google Drive or Dropbox. 

Understanding Your Recording

One of the first steps to editing is understanding the piece of content you’re working with. You’ll want to start by spot-checking your audio and making a note of any background noises, tech glitches, or other problematic areas so you know how best to repair and edit. 

There is a handful of repair software at different price points including Izotope RX, SpectraLayers, Acoustica, and others that can help you repair the quality of the audio before getting into the nitty gritty of editing. 

Remember, while there is a lot that can be repaired in post-production, the software is not magic and cannot fix everything. It’s important to first and foremost record (or have the host record) in an optimal environment. 

For more information on improving the audio quality of your podcast, listen to episode 34 of the Listeners to Leads Podcast: Tips for Better Podcast Audio Quality with Lisa Zawrotny

Basic Editing Techniques

Once you know what you’re working with, have prepared your mise en place, and are ready to edit, you’ll want to import your audio into your editing software of choice. I personally use Audacity as it is a free, user-friendly option, but feel free to use the software you like best. 

Other popular editing software includes Garage Band (for Mac), Descript, and Adobe Audition

As you get into the groove of editing, you may be able to do all (or most) of your editing in one session but if you’re just starting out, I suggest taking a few passes on the episode focusing on different areas each time. The two main areas you’ll want to focus on are editing for context and editing for clarity and cleanliness. It is totally up to you which order you decide to edit in. The most important thing is finding a workflow that works best for you. 

Editing for Context

Editing for context is a matter of removing tangents that do not provide value to the overall topic, incorrect information that has since been fact-checked, and cutting any dialogue that may allude to past events that are no longer relevant to the time of posting.

Whether it be to educate or entertain the listener, each podcast episode has a purpose. While you’re editing it is best to always consider what information or bits of conversation are going to be valuable to the listener and feed into the overall storyline that the episode is trying to accomplish. 

Editing for Clarity and Cleanliness

Once you’ve cut the episode down to the most valuable pieces of content, it’s time to clean up the episode to provide an overall positive listening experience. 

Enhancing Audio Quality – Two of the basic tools you may use for every podcast episode you work with to enhance the overall quality of your audio is the noise reduction tool and the compression tool.

Compression – You’ll use the compression tool when your piece of audio is filled with peaks and dips in audio to achieve consistency in volume across the track. You may use this on the entirety of the track or just in select areas that need a little more help to even out the noise. 

Noise Reduction – Noise reduction is exactly what it sounds like. This tool removes unwanted background noise that may be appearing on your track. Say there’s a lawn mower or a fan running in the background of your podcast episode, the noise reduction tool will let you select an area with the problematic noise and either remove it completely or lessen the harshness of the noise on your track. 

Removing Unwanted Sections 

Every piece of content you work with will need some work to clean up things like long pauses, heavy breaths, filler worlds, and misspeaks. While you may not notice these things when having a natural conversation with someone, I guarantee you notice when your favorite podcast host stumbles over their words or cannot stop saying ‘um’ between every thought. When in doubt ask yourself, “Will this be distracting to the listener?” If so, it is best to remove it. 

There are a couple of techniques you can use to remove unwanted sections of audio. Either you can select and cut or delete the entire section or you can highlight the area you want to get rid of and silence it. What I choose depends on where and how long I want the pause in the dialogue to be. 

PRO TIP: You may notice when you’re cutting out unwanted sections that the areas that you clipped are not as smooth as you would like. To fix this you can use the fade tool to smooth out any of these areas for a seamless transition.  

While the fade in and fade out tools do exactly what you’d imagine, in some situations you may also use the crossfade tool. With this tool, you can select two clips and have one fade out as the other fades in, simultaneously. 

Additional Editing Techniques

While the basic podcast editing techniques can be very supportive in editing your podcast, there are a few more elements that I believe are important to have a well-rounded and cohesive show. 

Adding in the intro and outro clips

Most, if not all podcasts will have an intro and outro that sets the tone for the podcast’s overall brand. The intro tells your listeners what you’re about and hooks them into sticking around to listen to the content of the episode while the outro likely has a call to action (join the community, review the podcast, find the host on social media, etc.) and thanks the listener for tuning in. 

If you don’t already have an intro or outro you are currently working with, you can find great free or low-cost royalty-free music at sites like Neosounds, Soundstripe, Audio Jungle, etc. You want your intro, outro, and music to be a reflection of your brand and how you want your listeners to feel when tuning in. 

For Example, If you have a true crime podcast, you might consider a serious, tense, and somewhat spooky music clip while if you have a health and wellness-based podcast, you might look for something more playful, joyful, and inspiring.

When you import your intro or outro segments, you’ll want to work with them on a separate audio track. While most software automatically imports the audio onto a new track, you may have to manually add an additional track on others. When you’re working on separate tracks, you can easily overlap the end of the music from the intro into the beginning of the podcast episode for a smooth transition into the content. 

Incorporating Transition Sounds & Sound Effects

While transition sounds and sound effects are not as common as some other audio elements and really depend on the genre of your podcast, I felt it was important and worth noting. Adding clips of music or sound effects to your episode can help add to the atmosphere of the storyline or break up the episode into different segments. 

Similar to selecting the intro and outro music, when selecting audio clips to add to your podcast episode, you’ll want to make sure the sound you select is royalty-free. You can find a variety of stingers (short pieces of music, often lasting no more than 5 seconds) to use as transition sounds. 

To add a transition effect, import the file onto a separate track and drag it into its placement. You may need to adjust the volume of the audio and use the fade tool for a smooth transition. Be sure to overlap the transition sound with your spoken content for a seamless flow.

Finalizing Your Podcast Episode

Review & Revisions

After your editing is complete, it is time to review and proof-listen to the episode. Listen through one more time to be sure you made all of the necessary edits and didn’t leave anything undone. This may be the time you write the episode’s show notes and pull out audio clips or quotes that can be repurposed. 

PRO TIP: Repurposing your podcast content is an incredibly valuable way to ensure the time and effort you put into your content stretches further and reaches more people in different ways.

Check out these podcast episodes on repurposing your content:

Three Ways to Repurpose Podcast Content

14 Ways to Repurpose Your Podcast Content 

Repurposing Past Podcast Content Using SEO Strategy with Erin Ollila

Exporting

Once you’ve reviewed and made the necessary revisions to the episode, it is time to export! Be sure to check into which format your hosting platform requires. If you use a hosting platform like Buzzprout, export your episode as a .WAV file as Buzzsprout will automatically convert the file into the correct format. Hosting platforms like Anchor require your file to be exported as an MP3. 

*The difference between a .WAV and MP3 is the file size. MP3 files are compressed into a smaller sized audio file while WAV files are uncompressed and much larger. 

Final Touches

The last step to finalizing your podcast episode is adjusting the loudness of your episode. This is important because, as mentioned at the top of this blog, listeners are constantly switching between shows and shouldn’t have to adjust their volume every time they play a new episode or switch to a different podcast. By adjusting your loudness to the podcast standard, you are also proving consistency which is incredibly important to listeners. 

The standard LUFS (loudness units relative to full scale) for podcasts is between -16 LUFS and -20 LUFS

*You can either adjust this in your editing software or use a tool like Auphonic for post-production finishing touches. 

Like anything, there is a learning curve that comes with the basics of podcast editing. Use this article as your starting point and begin applying new techniques as you grow and get more comfortable. What feels like a step-by-step procedural process now will become second nature over time. 

The future of podcasting is now! So whether you have a podcast of your own or edit for someone else, there is so much opportunity for growth in this industry. 

Check back in on our resources page for additional tutorials and information to improve upon your skills. 


Using Chat-Based AI to Support Your Content Creation with Andréa Jones | Listeners To Leads

ChatGPT and AI are hot topics in the online space right now. But how will these applications that quickly and efficiently generate content change how we market our podcasts? And how can we best utilize them for our social media content? Today, Andréa Jones joins us again to talk about all this and more! This week, episode 101 of Listeners to Leads is about using chat-based AI to support your content creation! 

Andréa Jones is fiercely committed to helping businesses and podcasters build profitable online communities through simple social media solutions. She’s the host of the Savvy Social Podcast, creator of the Savvy Social School, a digital platform designed to teach its 100+ members (predominantly small business owners) how to implement organic social media strategies, and named one of Social Report’s top marketers to follow.

In this episode of Listeners to Leads, Andréa Jones shares the importance of adding your voice to AI-generated content and actionable steps you can take right now to get useful information from chat-based AI applications like ChatGPT. 

Andréa and I also chat about the following: 

  • Why people are hesitant to use AI.
  • How AI is impacting how we market our podcasts.
  • The importance of keeping the human element of your marketing, even when AI is doing the initial work.
  • Questions to ask Chat AI so we get useful information back.

Be sure to tune in to all the episodes to receive tons of practical tips on turning your podcast listeners into leads and to hear even more about the points outlined above. Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag me! And don’t forget to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!

Learn more about Listeners to Leads at www.listenerstoleads.com

CONNECT WITH ANDRÉA JONES:

Instagram

The Savvy Social Podcast

Website

CONNECT WITH ALESIA GALATI:

Instagram

LinkedIn

Work with Galati Media! 

LINKS MENTIONED:

Listeners To Leads Ep 53: Going Deep (instead of wide) with Your Podcast Content

How to Overcome Perfectionism and be Consistent with Podcasting with Reshanda Yates | Listeners to Leads

Perfectionism keeps so many people away from podcasting. They worry they can’t stay consistent or create content that’s ‘good enough’ to be put into the world. But everyone is capable of podcasting and this week, Réshanda Yates is here to tell you how to kick perfectionism to the curb and create awesome podcast content without stressing yourself out. This week, episode 100 of Listeners to Leads is about how to overcome perfection and be consistent with podcasting! 

Réshanda Yates is an author, educator, and host of the Ending Your Binge Eating podcast. She teaches women leaders, founders and CEOs how to stop emotional eating so they are in control of their food choices and lose weight so they feel more powerful and make the impact they know they are capable of. Réshanda delivers a thoughtful and comprehensive experience for her clients that pulls from her own recovery from emotional eating.  She layers in important habits and subconscious reprogramming to fundamentally change how her clients see their relationship with food. 

In this episode of Listeners to Leads, Réshanda Yates shares the importance of setting aside dedicated time to batch your content and actionable steps you can take right now to overcome the feeling of needing to be perfect. 

Reshanda and I also chat about the following: 

  • Podcasting is a great way to share your voice without societal bias.
  • How batching content is first and foremost about shifting your mindset away from perfection.
  • The benefits of having a running content list to pull from.
  • Batching isn’t an exact science – find a strategy that works for you!

Be sure to tune in to all the episodes to receive tons of practical tips on turning your podcast listeners into leads and to hear even more about the points outlined above. Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag me! And don’t forget to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!

Learn more about Listeners to Leads at www.listenerstoleads.com

CONNECT WITH RÉSHANDA YATES:

Instagram

Facebook

The Ending Your Binge Eating Podcast

CONNECT WITH ALESIA GALATI:

Instagram

LinkedIn

Work with Galati Media!

Imposter Syndrome and Podcasting with Brittney Quinn | Listeners To Leads

Every entrepreneur and business owner has had feelings of imposter syndrome before. When we’re starting our businesses, there are a lot of unknowns, and uncertainty can be scary. But today’s guest, Brittney Quinn is here to tell you why using your platform and privilege to do good is anything but, and how to change your negative belief systems. This week, episode 98 of Listeners to Leads is about imposter syndrome and podcasting! 

Brittney Quinn is the founder of PowHer, where she teaches executive women and corporations how to build a better table by enabling women to take control in their professional and personal lives. A Fortune 500 executive-turned-entrepreneur, Brittney hosts The PowHer House podcast, where you’ll hear what real and honest female success looks like; how women are working to create change in their personal and professional lives – without the fluff. 

In this episode of Listeners to Leads, Brittney Quinn is sharing the importance of listening to your own thoughts on your business and actionable steps you can take right now to dismantle imposter syndrome in your own life. 

Brittney and I also chat about the following: 

  • Basing your podcast around impact and value for your ideal customers.
  • Showcasing your expertise and story on social media – you don’t have to hide it!
  • Listening to your own intuition is more valuable than surrounding yourself with other people’s voices on how to run your business.
  • Using your platform and privilege to defeat imposter syndrome.

Be sure to tune in to all the episodes to receive tons of practical tips on turning your podcast listeners into leads and to hear even more about the points outlined above. Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag me! And don’t forget to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!

Learn more about Listeners to Leads at www.listenerstoleads.com

CONNECT WITH BRITTNEY QUINN:

The PowHer House Podcast

Website

LinkedIn

CONNECT WITH ALESIA GALATI:

Instagram

LinkedIn

Work with Galati Media! 

LINKS MENTIONED:

The PowHer House Episode 26: Debunking the Term Imposter Syndrome

Listeners to Leads Episode 97: Repurpose Past Podcast Content Using SEO Strategy with Erin Ollila

Repurpose Past Podcast Content Using SEO Strategy with Erin Ollila | Listeners to Leads

SEO is more important now than ever before and that won’t be changing any time soon. But podcasters often forget to emphasize SEO when putting their content out into the world. So what if you could take the contest you already have and optimize the SEO to improve traffic to your podcast? That’s exactly what Erin Ollila is here today to talk about. This week, episode 97 of Listeners to Leads is about repurposing past podcast content using SEO strategy! 

Erin Ollila is a conversion copywriter, copy coach, and word slinger. She believes in the power of words and how a message can inform—and even transform—its intended audience. When she’s not working with big brands and small businesses to marry strategy, storytelling, and SEO, you can find Erin hosting the Talk Copy to Me podcast or exploring southeastern MA with her family and friends.

In this episode of Listeners to Leads, Erin shares the importance of utilizing search engines on podcast directory sites and actionable steps you can take right now to get more traffic by repurposing content. 

Erin and I also chat about the following: 

  • Lessons Erin has learned from podcasting and her business.
  • Podcasting as a means of reflection on yourself and the skills you learn.
  • What podcasters need to know about SEO – and how it should be implemented.
  • Increasing your podcast traffic by repurposing content with SEO in mind.

Be sure to tune in to all the episodes to receive tons of practical tips on turning your podcast listeners into leads and to hear even more about the points outlined above. Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag me! And don’t forget to follow, rate, and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!

Learn more about Listeners to Leads at www.listenerstoleads.com

CONNECT WITH ERIN OLLILA:

Instagram

Talk Copy To Me podcast

Website

CONNECT WITH ALESIA GALATI:

Instagram

LinkedIn

Work with Galati Media! 

LINKS MENTIONED:

Listeners to Leads: Three Ways to Repurpose Your Podcast Content

Listeners to Leads: 14 Ways to Repurpose Your Podcast Content

The Truth about AI and Podcasting | Listeners to Leads

The 5 AI and Podcasting Tools Used by Podcast Managers 

AI is on the rise as the hottest new productivity tool, but there seems to be conflicting information about how much AI podcast tools can do. On the one hand, Podcast.AI has shared stats saying that AI-powered podcasts have grown 500% in the last year. On the other hand, Google has released a statement saying that content that is clearly written by AI will be considered spam or inaccurate and therefore penalized in search rankings. As podcast managers, we help a lot of podcasters find the right balance between saving time using AI podcast tools and keeping the human elements that your listeners connect to. Here is everything you need to know about using AI for your podcast. 

What Is AI?

AI stands for artificial intelligence. It learns from the data that humans input, including user habits, to make decisions and solve problems. We have been using AI far longer than we realize because it has been behind the scenes in the technology and programs we use. For example, diagnostic tools, smartphones, and self-driving cars all use AI technology. With the hype around Chat GPT, we have become more aware of AI tools and how they can make some tasks more efficient. 

How to Use AI and Podcasting Tools to Save Time 

Before you turn your entire podcast production over to AI podcast tools, it’s important to understand that AI works best in a supporting role. Its strength really lies in gathering and analyzing information, not in tasks that need creativity or discernment. 

So, for example, many podcast editors use AI podcast tools to shortcut simple tasks, like removing “ums” or cleaning up the background noise. This makes the editing process quicker and allows them to focus on the tasks that really benefit from human insight. For example, a human editor can make suggestions on which sections to remove to fit the ideal podcast runtime. 

Another limitation of AI podcast tools is that there have been cases of AI technology returning incorrect results. AI is only as strong as the content or data used to “train” the technology. So if that content is outdated, incorrect, or displays unconscious bias, then the AI tool will return incorrect or misguided information. As podcasters, we have a duty to our listeners to ensure that what we’re saying is accurate, so AI tools are best used for small tasks or when checked and edited by humans. 

The 5 AI Podcast Tools We Use as Podcast Managers 

We use AI podcast tools here at Galati Media to make producing podcast episodes more efficient. Here are some of our favorite AI podcast tools and how we use them: 

Otter. AI

Otter.ai is a transcription tool that creates transcripts of our podcast episodes. It uses voice recognition to show who was speaking in each section, and we’ve had it remember guests who had been on past podcast episodes. Otter.ai can also create a timestamped summary of the conversation, which is really useful for adding those timestamps to the backend of Buzzsprout. 

Buzzsprout

Buzzsprout uses AI to help podcasters find the best place to place their ads. It may not be a huge task, but it is just one other thing that podcasters and podcast producers can take off their plate, and instead of finding the best place to place an ad in the whole podcast episode, you can pick the best of the suggested places to put an ad. 

Chat GPT

Chat GPT works best as an AI podcast tool for brainstorming. It is great to give you ideas or make suggestions if you get stuck. However, I do not recommend using Chat GPT to automate entire tasks. For example, Chat GPT is great for creating a list of podcast content ideas or suggesting alternative title ideas so you can pick the best one. It should be used in conjunction with human insight instead of replacing it. 

HeyFriday.ai

HeyFriday.ai is a new AI podcast tool that we’ve started using to provide title suggestions for our YouTube videos. It can check if our title ideas are SEO-friendly and provide alternative options. We have found that it is not always 100% accurate, so again, this is where you need to use your human insight before posting. 

iZotope RX 9

There are a number of AI podcast tools for audio editing. The one we use is iZotope RX 9, which has different pricing tiers. We love the repair assistant because it cleans up the background noise, pauses, and “ums” really well. Then our podcast editors can make tweaks based on the repaired audio. 

I also chat about the following: 

  • AI-powered podcasts are NOT completely created by AI.
  • Ways to utilize AI in your podcast creation.
  • The AI tools the Galati Media team uses on a regular basis.
  • Why you shouldn’t rely on ChatGPT to write your episodes.

Be sure to tune in to all the episodes to receive tons of practical tips on turning your podcast listeners into leads and to hear even more about the points outlined above. Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag me! And don’t forget to follow, rate, and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!

Learn more about Listeners to Leads at www.listenerstoleads.com

CONNECT WITH ALESIA GALATI:

Instagram

LinkedIn

Work with Galati Media! 

LINKS MENTIONED:

Podcastle.ai Blog post

Otter.ai

HeyFriday.ai

Descript

How to Optimize Your Podcast for Greater Visibility with Joe Rockey | Listeners to Leads

Growing your podcast audience can seem like a challenge, but there are tools and strategies that can make it easier. Today’s guest has two distinctly different podcasts and is sharing his strategies to help you grow your show! This week, episode 91 of Listeners to Leads is about how to optimize your podcast for greater visibility! 

In this episode of Listeners to Leads, Joe Rockey is sharing the importance of organic traffic to your podcast and actionable steps you can take right now to improve your podcast visibility. 

Joe and I also chat about the following: 

  • The relationship dynamics of a co-hosted podcast.
  • How organic growth will get you found when you start out.
  • Titles and chapter markers are your best friends.
  • Resources you can use to make your optimization go more smoothly.

Be sure to tune in to all the episodes to receive tons of practical tips on turning your podcast listeners into leads and to hear even more about the points outlined above.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag me!  And don’t forget to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!

Learn more about Listeners to Leads at https://galatimedia.com/podcast/ 

Links mentioned in today’s show:

Isitwp Headline Analyzer

Otter.ai Transcription (Referral Link)

Tubics

CONNECT WITH JOE ROCKEY:

Website

Father and Joe on Apple Podcasts

Local Football Flavor on YouTube

CONNECT WITH ALESIA GALATI:

Instagram

LinkedIn

Work with Galati Media! 

Improving your Cognitive Functions with ST Rappaport | Listeners to Leads

The way our brains work plays a huge role in our daily lives, from our ability to start projects to the way we prefer to process information. And because every person’s brain works differently, knowing how your own brain works is the key to growing in all areas of your life and even your podcasting! This week, episode 90 of Listeners to Leads is about podcast listening and your cognitive functions!

In this episode of Listeners to Leads, ST Rappaport shares the importance of knowing how your brain absorbs information best and actionable steps you can take right now to switch from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. 

ST and I also chat about the following: 

  • Speaking as the expert on your own show instead of just interviewing others.
  • How being a guest on other people’s podcasts can be more beneficial than having guests on your own show.
  • Some brains work better with podcasts, but how do you reach those who don’t.
  • Utilizing TikTok and short-form video content as an introduction to your podcast.

A growth mindset is important in podcasting, but it doesn’t always happen immediately! Take time to work on your mindset, and you’ll see improvements quickly.

Be sure to tune in to all the episodes to receive tons of practical tips on turning your podcast listeners into leads and to hear even more about the points outlined above.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag me!  And don’t forget to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!

Learn more about Listeners to Leads at https://galatimedia.com/podcast/ 

CONNECT WITH ST:

Instagram

Podcast

Website

TikTok

CONNECT WITH ALESIA GALATI:

Instagram

LinkedIn

Work with Galati Media! 

Join the Membership

Setting Achievable and Measurable Podcast Milestones | Listeners to Leads Podcast

As a podcaster, it can be easy to get distracted by the numbers. I don’t like to focus on download numbers and listener numbers. They don’t represent how many listeners are converting into leads or how many partnerships come from your podcasts. It is more important, in my opinion, that your podcast contributes to brand growth and business growth. 

That being said, we all get distracted by podcast metrics from time to time. So here are some podcast milestones to celebrate. 

How to Set Realistic Goals for Your Podcast

For a lot of us, when we start a podcast, we imagine that we’re going to get thousands of downloaders, that we’re going to get hundreds of sponsors that will want to pay us crazy amounts of money. Unfortunately, that is not how podcasting works. Podcasting is a long game. 

It is important to remember when creating your content that podcast listeners tend to absorb a lot of content at once. They tend to listen to about eight to nine shows per week. Keep this in mind when you are creating your podcast content and when you are creating goals for your podcast. Instead of celebrating a certain number of downloads or listens, celebrate the number of podcast episodes you’ve recorded. 

Set Podcast Milestone Based on Episode Numbers 

90% of podcasts don’t make it past episode 3. Of that 10% of podcasts that make it past episode 3, another 90% don’t make it past episode 20. This means that to be in the top 1% of podcasts, all you need to do is make it past episode 21. 

So, forget downloads and listens. Your focus needs to be on how to make sure you are able to show up. When I have strategy sessions with clients before they launch, the majority of the session is dedicated to planning out the first 10-15 episodes so that those clients can be in the first 10%. Regardless of whether that client works with us again, they at least have 10 episodes. 

It is easy to forget that follower numbers don’t always translate to podcast listeners. Setting arbitrary milestones around downloads is unproductive. Even if you have hundreds of thousands of followers, you need more than 50 episodes to be able to achieve thousands of downloads. 

Milestones You Can Celebrate

Here are some milestones I recommend: 

  • 20 or 25 episodes – you’ve already made it further than the majority of people who start a podcast 
  • 50 episodes
  • 100 episodes
  • 150 episodes
  • 200 episodes

And celebrate in a big way. Do happy dances, buy yourself a treat to celebrate, and shout it from the rooftops. When I hit 50 episodes, my friend bought me a shirt that says, “be careful, or you’ll end up on my podcast.” And I love it! Get yourself something that makes you feel like, yes, I did it. I am doing incredible things with my show. 

At 100 episodes, celebrate with your audience. Some of our clients switch up the way they do their podcast at 100 episodes, or they have a special episode where a guest interviews them. Get other people in on it. Email past podcast guests to tell them that you just hit 100 or 200 episodes. Send them the link to their episode to jog their memory. They may share it with their audience. No matter what you decide to do, build hype around your milestone episodes so that you are not celebrating alone. 

Links mentioned:

Reddit thread

Episode 23: How to Create a Podcast Launch Plan

CONNECT WITH ALESIA GALATI:

Instagram

LinkedIn

Work with Galati Media!

Three Ways to Repurpose Podcast Content | Listeners to Leads

As business owners and podcasters, we are BUSY. Not only are we creating consistent content for a podcast, but we are also creating social media content, creating blog posts, having conversations with people, doing client work, meeting with clients, and strategizing with clients. All of that stuff can feel like a lot. So, let’s talk about three ways you can repurpose your podcast content to save your precious time.

Podcast Content Repurposing: How to Turn Your Podcast Content Into Social Media Posts, More Podcast Content, and Sales Funnels

1.    Repurposing Podcast Content into Other Types of Content

The first way to repurpose your podcast content is to turn it into different types of content. For example, your podcast or snippets of your podcast can have a second life as:

  • Social media content
  • Blog content
  • A weekly email

Let’s look at social media content. There are 3 main ways we help our clients repurpose their podcast content to produce social media content.

The first is grabbing quotes or questions to drive social media engagement. Especially with questions, this allows you to create engagement with your audience on social media. You can also use this as an opportunity to point people answering the question back to the podcast for more information.

The second is an audiogram or videogram. Most social media platforms are now highlighting short-form video content, so this is a great way to grow. Facebook and LinkedIn will add captions to your video content automatically, but Instagram will not for content that isn’t directly spoken into the app. There are captioning apps like Wave.video or headliner app that can add those captions for you.

Don’t forget to title the audio so people can find your audio when they search for the topic.

The third is a general post about the podcast or episode. This could be as simple as asking your audience if they listened to the podcast episode. Just make sure that each is a little unique in the way you approach it but still on-brand for you.

You can also repurpose your podcast content for your emails, no matter how often you send emails to your subscribers. Your email subscribers may not listen to your podcast or follow you on social media, so how will they find your podcast otherwise? Even if they do follow you on social media or listen to your podcast, sometimes people need a friendly nudge to check out the episode.

2.    Repurposing Podcast Content into More Podcast Episodes  

The second way to repurpose your podcast content is to create more podcast episodes from your current podcast content.

This could be as simple as inviting back a podcast guest who brought a lot of value to your audience. Personally, I would prefer to invite the same guest back multiple times than to throw in a guest who may not be a good fit for my audience. Look at your metrics, especially which episodes got a lot of downloads to find which guests give your audience the most value.

Another way you can repurpose your podcast content for future podcast episodes is to expand on topics you’ve already covered. Look into past episodes, especially the ones where you took a high-level look at a topic and see where you can go deeper into the topic. Think about where you can expand on a topic to make sure your audience is getting the most out of your knowledge. For example, if you have an episode that lists multiple ways to solve a problem, you could do an episode where you dive deeper into each of the solutions. 

3.    Repurpose Podcast Content into Supplemental Content for Clients

If you have a membership or a course, your podcast content is amazing supplemental content. You’ve already spent time and money producing content for your podcast, so rather than repeating it, use specific podcast episodes as extra information.

Don’t just point your members or clients towards your podcast in general, recommend specific episodes that will provide them with more information. For example, if I had someone in my membership who was struggling with podcast content, I would ask questions to find out what the issue was. I may ask:

  • Are you ready to create new content?
  • Are you planning your content?
  • Are you repurposing your content?

That would give me the information I need to recommend one or a few podcast episodes that would give them multiple things to try.

You can also turn your podcast content into client reports. Recently, I had an episode where I talked about the future of podcasting. This is highly valuable content for my clients, but not every client listens to my podcast. I turned the content of that episode into an end-of-year client report. Even if all of my clients listened to my podcast, the report provides them with a quick summary they can refer to when planning their podcast strategy.

After turning it into a client report, I also created a blog post for my website with embedded code for the podcast episode. I turned it into a LinkedIn article and an Instagram carousel too. The Instagram carousel got a lot of traction, and I was able to point people towards the podcast episode to learn more.

After sending the end-of-year report to my current clients, I turned it into a freebie or lead magnet people could download. The report then encourages the downloaders to sign up for a strategy session where we can talk through how they can make the most of their podcast based on the report and my expertise. So, your podcast content can be repurposed into lead generation content as well as supplemental membership content.

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PODCAST EPISODES MENTIONED:

14 Ways to Repurpose Your Podcast Content

Using Your Podcast as Supplemental Content in your Business

Going Deep (Instead of Wide) With Your Podcast Content 

The Future of Podcasting
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