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Episode 250 - How to Start a Podcast in 2025
23 Plays28 minutes ago
Today's interview is with podcast expert, Jacob Bozarth, and when I say podcast expert, I mean it. We're chatting about what makes a podcast successful in 2025 and we hope you enjoy this interview.
This episode is sponsored by BDOW!, formerly Sumo, the very best intelligent form and pop-up tool for your website. Deliver the right message, to the right visitor, using our advanced targeting rules. Whether you want to display a pop-up to only new visitors, or generate a unique discount code for those who subscribe to your list, you can get the job done using BDOW!
As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check 'em out over at https://daveyandkrista.com/how-to-launch-podcast-2025-btb-250/. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts.
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Transcript
The Evolution of Podcasting
00:00:00
Speaker
I think that's the beautiful thing about podcasting in the medium there is like it's an evolving medium and there's a lot of freedom and flexibility to really find what works best for you as the host is your personality is your style.
00:00:15
Speaker
You're listening to The Brands That Book Show, a podcast for creative entrepreneurs who want practical tips and strategies to build engaging brands and craft high converting websites. We're your hosts, Davey and Krista, co-founders of a brand and website design agency specializing in visual brand design and show it websites. You're listening to The Brands That Book Show.
Interview with Podcast Expert Jacob Bozarth
00:00:38
Speaker
Today's interview is with podcast expert, Jacob Bozarth. And when I say podcast expert, I mean it, Jacob's been a full-time podcast professional for the last 10 years, executive producer of two number one podcasts, and has launched three companies in the podcasting space, including Resident Recordings, which has worked with over 3,500 podcasters, including 16 number one shows in all of Apple and brands like Honda, Amazon, Twitter, and Salesforce.
00:01:05
Speaker
He's also one of the figures behind Culpable, a podcast show that went on to get over 45 million downloads and hit number one in Apple Podcasts. And then he later on started Resound, an AI audio tool for podcasters, currently helps over 15,000 creators automate the tedious parts of podcast production. And if that is not enough,
00:01:28
Speaker
He recently launched Podcast Primer, where he offers resources and consulting to help you grow your brand through podcasting. Today, we're chatting about what makes a podcast successful in 2025, and we hope you enjoy this interview. As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check them out at davianchrista.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts. It really does help. And now, onto to the episode.
Promotions and Tools for Podcasters
00:01:55
Speaker
Today's episode is sponsored by Badal, formerly Sumo, the very best intelligent form and pop-up tool for your website. Deliver the right message to the right visitor using our advanced targeting rules. Whether you want to display a pop-up to only new visitors or generate a unique discount code for those who subscribe to your list, you can get the job done using Badal.
00:02:20
Speaker
One of my personal favorite features is the show a tab function. Basically how this works is when visitors close the popup, it minimizes to the bottom of the page so that visitors can open it back up if they'd like, but it also remains out of their way while they browse. You can check out how that feature works over at the Davey and Krista website. Also use the code Davey and Krista to save 20% on your subscription. Create an experience on your website using Badao.
00:02:49
Speaker
All right, welcome back to the Brancet Book Podcast. Really excited about today's conversation because we are talking about podcasting, and that's something that's been on my mind as we head into the new year. Really been thinking about revamping this podcast, maybe starting another podcast. There's no better person to talk with than Jacob Bozarth, who has founded a number of different businesses and agencies, but right now running Podcast Primer. So excited to chat with you, Jacob, about podcasting.
00:03:16
Speaker
Yeah, no, so excited to be here, Davey. And yeah, love your podcast. Have benefited from listening to that and getting some great advice there and excited to dive in and talk podcasting with you.
00:03:28
Speaker
Yeah, well, I was excited to get connected with you through mutual friend, Andy Maurer, who's also been on the podcast here. And like I said, thinking a lot about podcasting as we head into the new year, and that's your background. But before we get started, I'd love to hear a little bit more about your background. I feel like, like many of us, lots of different twists and turns over the last few years, and now you're running podcast primer. So
Jacob's Journey in the Podcasting Industry
00:03:53
Speaker
give us a backstory. How'd you, how'd you get here?
00:03:55
Speaker
Yeah. Great question. Like many, I would say entrepreneurs kind of didn't go as planned or like expected, you know, it kind of stumbled into it to some extent. So I have an audio engineering background with the school for audio engineering at Middle Tennessee State University and really love like the studio environment, the recording environment. There's something I always just very special that felt very special about that. And so,
00:04:20
Speaker
Yeah, I was going to school actually to be in ministry. I was in seminary and ended up in Louisville, Kentucky, reconnected with a friend. Long story short, and we started doing some production. We're like, hey, we both have degrees in audio engineering. And so we started helping a friend with their podcast.
00:04:38
Speaker
And yeah, it it kind of took off by word of mouth and then started helping other people as well. And I kind of just, you know, listening to different podcasts, podcasting was in its kind of infancy stages back in, this was in 2014. And I would listen to a lot of podcasts and And it was really frustrating, like whenever it was great content, but the quality of the audio was really bad and distracting. And so myself as an audio engineer was like, man, I i really feel like there's an opportunity here to help people and to kind of remove that distraction or remove that piece.
00:05:10
Speaker
And so we started Resonate Recordings and it and then really leaned into the podcast industry at the time. And that just continued to grow over time. The first company I started was Resonate Recordings. And we grew it to work with about 3,500 podcasters, had a great opportunity to work with a lot of big brands and well-known True Crime podcast. That was kind of what really helped us kind of kind of grow organically.
00:05:35
Speaker
ah but So we had some ads on these different podcasts kind of swapped out some like discounted services for these just organic, Hey, if you need help with your podcast production, check out resonate recordings. For me, that was like a testimony of like, Hey, podcasting, man, this like just in and of itself, the ads, the marketing, it works because overnight, like no joke, we, once we started getting those, those shout outs or ads in those podcasts, it really started to grow organically. And then.
00:06:03
Speaker
Yeah, in 2021, I spun out another company called Resound, and that is basically an AI audio editing platform that ah was built as ah to really solve an internal problem at Resonate, was we spent a lot of time editing out these tedious parts of the podcast, ums and ahs, mostly. And so we decided, hey, let's train these AI models to find and recognize these audio discrepancies.
00:06:29
Speaker
and cut down on that. and So I still ah still do run ReSound as well. It's been a lot of fun. It's grown grown organically. We have a a lot of users that are using ReSound to automate the tedious parts of the editing and enhance the quality of the audio.
The Role of Video in Podcasting
00:06:43
Speaker
and then Yeah i started recently podcast primer where i'm like really just kind of strategically consulting with brands and businesses and helping them kind of give them guidance really like podcasting can feel really overwhelming and so helping them automate different parts of the process and like kind of.
00:07:01
Speaker
refine their process, really find the right tech stack for their needs and train their team and just kind of give some guidance there on how to grow a successful podcast that ultimately helps them grow their business. So yeah, it's been a lot of fun.
00:07:14
Speaker
yeah Yeah, and love the ah the unexpected start to the story. you know Studying at seminary, and then now you're you know doing a lot of audio engineering type stuff through podcasting and running an agency. I've said on the podcast a number of times, my my major in college was theology, and then you know now I'm running a design agency and a SAS business. you know so Funny how we get to where we're at right now, but also interesting how I feel like God doesn't waste anything along the way. Absolutely. Yeah.
00:07:41
Speaker
Well, I'm excited about this conversation, mostly because I feel like we're in a weird spot when it comes to podcasting. On the one hand, you know I started my podcast back in 2018. Since then, Krista has joined me on the podcast as well. you know I feel like even though you know you were an early adopter in 2014, I still feel like in 2018, there just wasn't as many people doing it.
00:08:02
Speaker
And I still think now podcasting to a certain extent is still in its infancy a little bit, but it's definitely growing and becoming more popular. But podcasts aren't as ubiquitous as blogs or something like that, right? So what we've been thinking about is basically our podcasts going forward. So far, we experimented a little bit with YouTube early on.
00:08:26
Speaker
but never really found that most people listen to the podcast via iTunes or Spotify or something like that. They listen to the audio only version. So we dropped YouTube, but now it seems like so many podcasts are video podcasts. So that's something that we're we're considering moving back toward. But basically I'm trying to figure out like what are the trends heading into 2025? Where is podcasting going? Should people be moving to video?
00:08:54
Speaker
that's um i mean That's a lot already, so I'm going to leave it there. I feel like I just you know i just threw up a lot of information. Yeah. Oh man, video yeah video and video podcasting and definitely the increase of popularity with video has been, I don't want to say like a controversial topic, but somewhat a controversial topic in the podcast industry, especially With podcasting being, you know, an audio, arguably an audio first platform, you know, I think it kind of begs the question now of like, what, what is a podcast? You know, you know, you have a lot of podcasts on YouTube, like is, is a video, you know, like arguably there's a lot of videos on YouTube that you could say, these are podcasts, you know, and people talking or having conversations or interviews or historically more of.
00:09:41
Speaker
Yeah, more quoting more, not a, like not described as a podcast. They're not distributed through an RSS feed and distributed to Spotify and an Apple podcast and all those different platforms. And so, man, yeah, I, I am of the camp that I believe i believe video is a complimentary asset to podcasting and something that is just going to, has just really allowed the, the medium to continue to expand and grow and Another great way just to distribute content and to get it out to more people and so whenever i have those conversations with people of like should i should we add video should we not add video right. I think there's some questions you have to ask yourself of like yeah number one like do you have the capacity to do it now there are since even starting in like.
00:10:32
Speaker
whenever I first started my first agency in 2017, I remember meeting Josh, who's the CEO of Zencaster, the tool we're using now. They were the only remote recording platform out there that had high quality recordings and they didn't even have video at the time. And so these platforms have grown and expanded. Now there's also Riverside and Squadcast and Zencaster and they all do high quality video and audio locally. And so I think now like Historically, I would have said like, yeah, don't do video because it's just like you're going to add a level of complexity and that's not worth your troubles in most cases. But again, it really kind of depends on your unique scenario and your unique situation.
Social Media and Podcast Discovery
00:11:17
Speaker
But now with all these different great platforms and you don't have to rely on a tool like Zoom, which is arguably going to have like low quality video and audio for most of the recordings, like it's it's kind of like, why not? Like, why not have another
00:11:31
Speaker
another distribution channel that you can reach potentially millions of listeners and viewers, right? And also now with Spotify adding in like the ability to distribute video episodes. I think most people probably aren't watching the videos, but it's kind of one of those things of like, why not? And i i that that's kind of what I've said. It's like, it's It's a great way to like continue. It's another medium. it's another The way I think about it, it's another distribution. It's another directory like Spotify, like Apple Podcasts, like Amazon, like all these different platforms that whenever you set up your podcast typically, you do distribute it to. And we had shows in the past kind of before video were popular where we would essentially just publish a video file with like a a thumbnail onto YouTube just to use it in that way. So sorry to go off on the rant about video, but I feel like that's kind of a hot topic and a question. I've seen a lot of people really leverage video. And like you said, I think even in just in the conversations, it's helpful to have to see people's facial expressions and their
00:12:37
Speaker
body language and all those things that you miss out on whenever you don't have the video if you are doing remote recording. But I think it's also really a great tool to to leverage for like, and and I'm sure there's a lot of overlap there of like, with what you all do with websites and branding is like, it's just a great assets like social assets to be able to post video grams to be able to post clips online,
00:13:00
Speaker
to give the listeners that visual component. You know, it's, it's really cool. Like I think I listened to a lot of true crime podcast. And so you develop a picture, like an image of what the host looks like. And as the story's going on, right. And most true crime podcasts don't have the video. And then whenever, sometimes whenever you see what that person looks like, like it changes that view. So I don't know, to some extent, I really liked video for that reason. I think it is more of a helpful tool to grow and market your show.
00:13:30
Speaker
Rather than like completely shift over to like everyone should do video i do think a lot of times especially if you're doing in person podcasting video can add a level of complexity that makes it yeah like makes it harder to maintain.
00:13:45
Speaker
things that are more important like consistency of and getting your stuff out there. I was watching one of your videos and I heard you say like content is key. I think it was content is king and consistency is queen or something like something to that effect about SEO and growing that. And I would say the same thing with podcasting. Like it's more important that you're consistent in your release. And so whenever it comes down to like, should you do video, should you not do
Defining Success Metrics for Podcasts
00:14:09
Speaker
video? It's the questions, not really that I would say is like more of, yeah, what, what's your capacity and what do you have the, what is your team, internal team have the ability to maintain the consistency because that's a lot more important. I would say over having video that are not having video.
00:14:27
Speaker
Yeah. And you know, one of the things that I've noticed in my own viewing habits or listening habits to podcasts, like I used to have certain podcasts that I listened to, I'd wait for the episode to come out, right? Like each and every week when a new episode drop, like I'd listen to that episode. I don't have a lot of podcasts like that anymore. Maybe, maybe none at all, really.
00:14:44
Speaker
A lot of the podcasts that I listen to, I also follow those podcasts on social media. So I'll see a clip drop and that will sound interesting and then I'll go listen to that while I'm at the gym, right? I have some podcasts that I almost never listen to, but I follow on social media because I enjoy listening to just the the clips that I see.
00:15:03
Speaker
And that's been really interesting to me as well because like a number of these podcasts, like I really enjoy following those podcasts, but I just don't, they're just not either a part of my regular rotation or I very rarely or never actually go listen to a full episode. You know, of course the ones that I don't listen to full episodes of, generally they're like comedy podcasts. So I feel like the clip is kind of the gold from that podcast, right? Whereas if I hear something that's really interesting from a business podcast, I'll for sure go and listen to the whole episode.
00:15:31
Speaker
But I wonder if that's sort of a trend, you know, across the board as we look at our own and evaluate our own numbers for the brand set book podcast, like our downloads aren't as high as they were back in 2020. And there's probably reasons for that as well. Like people are sitting at home and back at back in 2020, right? But we still get a ton of leads from the podcast. So, you know, we haven't seriously considered like shutting down the podcast, but we are kind of figuring out, okay, what's the point of this channel? What does success look like? How can we maximize downloads and views, if we're sharing across social media, like how should we be thinking about those things?
00:16:04
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's, that's a great question. And I think you hit on something there. That's really important for podcasters and people thinking about starting podcasts or that have a podcast to really define before they get into it. And that is like, what does success look like? Because it it really is relative, you know, it's like, there can be a lot of vanity metrics that are out there. Similarly, I'm sure with websites and with website traffic, it's like you have, you know, you're top of funnel. Like we've, we've done blog posts in the past, like best true crime podcasts. And it was very top of funnel we get.
00:16:33
Speaker
a ton of web traffic, but really it wasn't, most of those didn't convert super well. And so I think really, it's really important to define for you, for your podcast, like what is success, right? Is it to get leads for your business? Is it to educate? Is it to provide value to a specific group of people, is it to bring awareness about the specific purpose? And I think that's really, really important whenever you're starting your podcast and these goals and these kind of what you set out to achieve may change and evolve or ah along the way. And I think that's, that's okay. And it's important to kind of assess and look at your metrics wherever you host your podcast. You know, a lot of them provide some very valuable insights around who your listener is, where people are listening from, the general stuff like that, how long people listen.
Meeting Quality Expectations in 2025
00:17:23
Speaker
Most people are listening on mobile devices and so i think whenever i look at podcast and podcast analytics i think it's it's really important to kinda zoom out and look at the big picture as a whole. And then it's really important as well to i think define your kind of ideal listener of who that is to know your listeners to get listener feedback.
00:17:42
Speaker
to kind of hear, you know, so the people that are coming in through your podcast that you're getting leads from, like, I think it's really important to talk to them. Like, what did you like about the show? How did you find the show? Because that's going to tell a story that's, I think going to be a lot less of that vanity metric and really, really valuable insights into the unique value that you're providing to your listeners and the unique, like, the content that resonates the most with your listeners. And I think it's that allows you to really double down on that and to leverage that more. If they found you on social media, right it by all means, like continue to push out those social shorts. And I think you're right. And I think on what you said around finding like not listening to podcasts or waiting for your next episode to drop, like I would say the same for myself. With that being said, I still have like some true crime shows where they are more of that serialized, you know where they're releasing
00:18:33
Speaker
where each episode kinda builds on the previous one but i think by and large podcasting specifically around the episodic style the interviews most people are discovering those more from like you said the social content the short clips.
00:18:49
Speaker
the reels, the different things like that. And so I think it's really important to kind of figure out where your audience is, where your ideal listener are coming from and like, who is your listener? I think that's really important. I think a lot of people go into that beforehand and a lot of businesses, they already kind of know that, right? They've done extensive research a lot of times on who their ideal customer profile is and kind of where they're at and where they spend their time online.
00:19:14
Speaker
And so use that, you know, if you're a brand or business and apply that, obviously it's it's helpful to like confirm that and nothing, get you know, talking to your customers and like doing user research and interviews and speaking with them. But also it can be a great way is like getting feedback from your your listeners. So you could do surveys. If you have an email list, like just leverage the assets that you already have as a brand or Whatever those things are if you already have an audience on youtube or on facebook or instagram or twitter like rax like whatever those platforms are like leverage those to engage with your your current audience you already have.
00:19:50
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah, so if someone's planning on launching a podcast in 2025, how would you recommend that they approach that podcast? In 2018, when I was first getting started, it was I think it was more about just starting. Obviously, just starting ah to a certain extent is always going to be the advice.
00:20:08
Speaker
But again, because you podcasts weren't as ubiquitous, you know I started, I had a pretty basic mic to get started with. I mean, there were no bells and whistles. We had a team member, I think, editing the podcast. That's something that I would highly recommend. I didn't want to edit my own podcast. It would never happen if I had to edit the podcast. So you know if that's the difference between starting or not starting, I would outsource that. But from a production value standpoint, like what's kind of the, I don't know, the benchmark that you have to hit?
00:20:38
Speaker
to enter the podcasting world in 2025 and beyond. Yeah, I think the quality bar has definitely been raised tremendously, right? Like if you have poor quality ah audio or video, right, your podcast is going to get overlooked. And I think the bar has just continued to grow as more of these platforms that have made it easier, you know, honestly to to just like have really high quality audio and video production and There is an expansion of just technologies and tools and with ai there's more content right out there just in general and so i think it's really really important that the quality is you don't cut any corners on that front and. Yeah i do think it's really important to have ah spend time on the post production side think about.
00:21:25
Speaker
have someone edit whenever, hopefully you have, I know, I know you do have someone. So whenever my throat, I've like got a scratch in my throat on this episode. And so like, whenever I clear my throat or I'm like ah pausing, like you edit that out, you know, and maybe you leave it in for the purposes of this podcast. but yeah I think it is important, you know, just to remove those distractions. And it really kind of does depend on the style of show, right? You have someone like a Joe Rogan where they don't do a lot of editing and they leave in stuff whenever they might goes out or they whatever. So I think, again, that comes down really important to like knowing your listeners, who they are and what the style of show is.
00:22:02
Speaker
Yeah. And maybe you can speak to that a little bit as far as style of show goes too. You know, I remember back when I was starting, people were like, oh, you don't want to publish episodes more than 20 minutes. People don't have attention spans for more than 20 minutes, but regularly I would post episodes that were 45 minutes to an hour and people enjoyed that. And of course now there's these long-form podcasts that seem to be really well that are one hour to three hours to four sometimes four hours long that seem to have a lot of listeners.
00:22:27
Speaker
So, you know, how important is like length of the podcast when it comes to planning out your show? Yeah, again, I think that's where it can be really important just to have someone who's really in tune with your listeners and listening, like listening to your listeners, talking to your listeners. And I think that can be a great way just in general to get feedback. You know, if, like I said, I think, I think it's, you have to look at it holistically of like your analytics obviously tell a story. And so like anything, you know, whether you're looking at website analytics, video analytics on YouTube, like, right. You kind of know like how long people are listening. Is there a drop off at a certain point? And so I think thinking about that of like, what is the content?
00:23:09
Speaker
What's the content you're sharing and you know if it's a conversational debate or is it like in more of an an informative are you educating are you giving you all have some short podcast. That I think are really really helpful because it's like some seems like specific topic your share you and crystal sharing.
00:23:27
Speaker
and giving your listeners and educating them and so i would say that the most important thing is like don't putting you know and maybe this is like a life life lesson i've learned over time is like don't put yourself in a box don't put others in a box like really be open and let it give yourself space and freedom to Do what works for you and what serves your listeners and serves your your content the most I think a lot of people can come into podcasting and and candidly like and there still is but there historically it was just a lot of poor information out there Technical and I would say more creative and in content as well I think that's the beautiful thing about podcasting in the medium there is like it's an evolving medium and and there's a lot of freedom and flexibility to really find what works best for you as the host, as your personality, as your style.
Revamping and Rebranding Podcasts
00:24:20
Speaker
You all have different types of interviews, which I think is beautiful about that. like you There's just so much flexibility to really serve the content that you're sharing and then also like thats sort ultimately that's like bringing the value to your listeners and and determining what they like and how they like.
00:24:37
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I want to jump to a little bit of feedback on our podcast for sure, as we think about, you know, potentially like relaunching it or revamping it as we head into the new year. Before we get there, continuing the conversation on launching a podcast, what would you say? Maybe we could just rattle off some equipment that people would would need to look into. And I'm sure if they go to Podcast Primer, you have more information about that, but just sort of baseline equipment that maybe somebody should be ready to invest in in order to launch their podcast.
00:25:05
Speaker
Yeah, I would say the most important thing, again, it kind of, well, there are different situations, right? It's like, what's your context? Is it just you talking? Is it monologue? Are you doing interviews? Are you doing remote interviews? Are you doing in-person interviews? Do you have a co-host? So really determining first and foremost, like what's the the format or what's the style of how you're going to be recording, how many people, that type of thing.
00:25:28
Speaker
By and large, I would say most people are great with a USB microphone, like I have here, like it's a Shure MV7. There's another one, a Samsung Q2U that's a great USB microphone. And again, with the with the platforms now, with Zencaster, with Riverside, with Squadcast, those platforms are just like really, really top-notch. They record your audio locally, they record your guest audio locally, and most guests have at least a pair of headphones, right? So I would say The second most important thing is like I see you're wearing in areas which are great, having a good high quality pair of headphones so you can hear yourself, you can hear your guests. I think that's really important to hear or to have. There's a lot of other great tools like the RODECaster that you have I know as well. I have over here as well.
00:26:14
Speaker
And those are great tools. I think the important thing is like trying to keep it simple so you don't feel overwhelmed. There's a lot of different tools out there that can feel really overwhelming. You don't you don't need to go to school to get a degree to learn how to use Pro Tools necessarily to edit your podcast. And there's a lot of different great applications out there. Little self-promotion like ReSound is a tool that we've designed. It's simple and easy to use in the browser. You upload your audio and highlights and records. recognizes all the ums and ahs and audio discrepancies it does some enhancements to your audio to make it sound better to level the consistency of the levels so if you don't have an editor like i think you said you all use we had a podcast resonate recordings is the production agency that i started does a lot of editing if you don't have the budget maybe to hire someone like that i would say at the very least use a tool like resound a phonic is another great tool out there that does some
00:27:08
Speaker
noise reduction that levels your audios audio levels out there, right? There's nothing more frustrating to me than listening to a podcast and like having to adjust the levels, whether you're listening at the gym or in your car. And so a lot of those tools, they'll just make sure your guests and your levels or your different co-host levels are consistent. And I think that's really important to have because there's dynamics. There's parts of the audio. There's podcasts where I'm going to talk louder. There's parts where I'm going to talk quieter. Maybe I'm farther away from my mic.
00:27:37
Speaker
But yeah, I would say if you're starting, like just try to get a good USB microphone, good pair of headphones. Most people have a computer that they can use and you can record locally to that in a lot of these microphones. All right. And then the last most important piece I would say is like, get a dynamic microphone. There's a lot of misinformation out there that like the Blue Yeti is a great microphone.
00:27:59
Speaker
I despise the Blue Yeti. It's actually a good quality microphone, but it's a style of microphone that's really designed to be used in a recording studio. It's like a large day frame condenser microphone, so it picks up a lot of the noise. You might have heard this earlier. My heat kicked on in the middle of it snowing here in the middle of one of the interviews. And this is a dynamic mic, and it's not going to pick up as much because it's basically it's think of a balloon coming out the front of the microphone. and so It's only going to pick up like if I lean away like six inches, you know, so so far, it's just not nearly as so sensitive. And so a lot of those condenser microphones require an extra source of power that makes it really sensitive. And they have this big diaphragm where it just picks up a lot of the room noise and the hiss and stuff like that. And also a lot of people don't know.
00:28:46
Speaker
the direction because of the way it's designed. It's more a microphone designed to look cool. Honestly, they speak into the wrong side of it and stuff like that. And so don't be like Blue Yeti, like sorry, Blue, if you're a sponsor of this podcast one day. No, no, it was my very first microphone, but it made such a big difference switching mics.
00:29:06
Speaker
And, you know, as far as like, I mean, the quality of mic really does make a difference, you know, and I think that was like one of the big level ups early on was switching from that like kind of starter mic to this mic that I'm using now. And this is, of course, a relatively expensive mic. And but there are we have a few I forget what they're called road makes them the little pod. They're like the podcaster mic. Do you know what I'm talking about?
00:29:30
Speaker
I should know the name of it off top of my head. Those are great as well. Yeah. I mean, and candidly a little self plugging here on podcast primer. So I have basically a podcast operating system. I have an equipment recommendation list in there and different things like that. And yeah, the road pod mic is a great one as well. So yeah, I'm happy to, I could even share some additional recommendations with you all maybe.
00:29:52
Speaker
Maybe we could create a lead magnet that we could ah use for email capture, you know. Yeah, there's a lot of great microphones, but I would say, yeah, the Rode Pod mic, you're using the Shure SM7B, which ahbel is like an iconic microphone. Michael Jackson used it to record his vocals on, I think, a lot of his records. I've used it in in the studio before.
00:30:13
Speaker
Great microphone and then yeah, the the one I have is basically kind of it's designed to be like, quote unquote, it's not technically, but the USB version of that microphone, it's the Shure MV7. Yeah, a lot of the USB mics, they work as they double as like a XLR mic as well. So you can plug it into like the RODECaster or a zoom handheld zoom recorder, that type of thing.
00:30:33
Speaker
But I would just say like start small, try to keep it simple. I mean, I really, our consult on my website. So if you just need some guidance of like, hey, here's my specific scenario, what equipment would you recommend? I'm happy to put together like custom equipment recommendations for people because it really does depend on your unique situation, your unique scenario. For some people I would recommend like the RODECaster, some people I would say no, like get a zoom H5 or H6. If you're going to be moving around a lot, if you're going to be on the go traveling, that type of thing.
00:31:02
Speaker
and just need that kind of simplicity. So, yeah. Yeah. To a certain extent, too like even the Shure SM7B here, like I got this recommendation. I went from the Blue Yeti mic to this. But then since then, I've gotten a a bunch of Rode Podmics. And honestly, I can't tell the difference between the two. And the Rode Podmics are a few hundred dollars less expensive, or at least at the time of, you know, when I purchase them. So something to keep in mind. I'm sure there's somebody out there that can really tell the difference between those mics. I can't.
00:31:30
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of it too depends on your voice and your profile. And so like, that's where again, I would say like, in podcasting and life in general, there's not a one size fits all necessarily. And so, I mean, candidly, like, so I went to school in MTSU, you know, we had these so much money in the studios and different microphones and stuff like that. And microphones that cost more than my car now, like, expensive, very expensive microphones. And honestly, like a lot of time, and and that's how like all the, a lot of these in Nashville and different studios, they'll try out multiple microphones on different singers and different voices because each person's voice profile sounds different and stuff like that. And so even though you might not hear the difference. Like, candidly, some people's, some microphones sound better on different people's voices. Some microphones have a harsher sound. Some microphones have more of like a warm kind of low end profile that give you more of that broadcast. And so it really kind of depends on the tone of the voice, I would say as well in your voice and different people's voices. That's fascinating.
00:32:31
Speaker
Well, like I've been mentioning in all episode, we're thinking about potentially sort of like relaunching our podcast, maybe even rebranding it, kind of a bunch of ideas on the table here. What are the do's and don'ts? So somebody has a podcast like we do and feel like they want to just breathe a little bit of fresh life into it.
00:32:48
Speaker
What would you say are the do's and don'ts when it comes to doing that? like For instance, rebranding, like changing the name, there's a little bit of risk there. But I wonder if like keeping the ah RSS feed the same, but just changing the name, would that help? Those sorts of things. What would you recommend?
00:33:02
Speaker
Yeah, great question. Again, I think it's really important to kind of get a big picture, look into what's the story that your analytics are telling. Each of the platforms as well have like Apple connect has a, has a lot of great insights into like ah kind of what Well, how people are listening there, how many people were subscribed, that type of thing. I believe Spotify has the same, you know, if you were distributing on YouTube as well, that can be helpful as well. So I would say like, really, it's important to kind of take, take a big step back and just kind of zoom out of being in the weeds.
00:33:35
Speaker
and taking a picture and looking at like what are your analytics telling you because you do have a lot of people that are subscribed to your feed right your RSS feed and and kind of get a big picture of like where are people listening from are they listening from Spotify are they listening directly on your website where you embed the.
00:33:50
Speaker
The media player that type of thing I think that's really important because obviously you want to have the least amount of negative blowback from that of You know all of a sudden you change the feed and then all your subscribers aren't getting the new episodes because there probably still are people out there that Do wait for the next episode to drop on your feed that are already subscribed wherever they listen and so yeah, I would say that's the most important thing kind of zoom out take a big picture look at that and then from there and Yeah i think there is a lot of freedom there if you you have the the current feed already and you kind of have a idea of like that's a very valuable asset that you already have so one thing you can consider is like. What are the different style you all you all do different style of episodes and so you do the short episodes you do the longer episodes.
00:34:34
Speaker
I think it'd be really insightful to see like, which ones are performing better? Which ones do you get more listens on? Is there a specific topic, specific keyword that you're kind of targeting around? I think there's a lot of overlap to like blogging and just in general, like the keyword stuff, the different directories, right? They each kind of have their own SEO. And so that's why I would say like, it's kind of hard because I mean, to some extent, like YouTube is is its own directory. It's its own like Google, you know, or Bing or like Yahoo and stuff like that. And to some extent, these different directories are still like there's not one that's like established as a winner. And even in different countries.
00:35:13
Speaker
If you look at the stats, like Spotify is is more popular in some countries. Apple's more popular in some countries. I had some insights into that. I don't have them pulled up right here, but I believe ah believe that like Spotify leads downloads in all countries except for the US. Don't quote me on that, but there' so there's a report that put out by was published in PodNews. I know that, which is a great podcast newsletter that gives a lot of insights into the industry stuff.
00:35:40
Speaker
So yeah, I think it's, it's really important to kind of know where your listeners are coming from, where they're listening at. And that's going to help you kind of determine where you go with that. So sorry to scale back to the feed, the feeds are really valuable asset. And I would say one of the, the thing that I've learned from the different networks we've worked with is to leverage those existing assets that they already have. It's kind of like that backlink building, right? If you're doing a website.
00:36:04
Speaker
you already have all this like traffic and all this i like really value that's there on that feed and so if you launch a new feed one of the most valuable things you can do is like do a feed drop on your existing feed to get people over a lot of times people will do that as well with other podcasts that they work on you all had a lot of great guest on your show so i would say like make sure if you do launch a new feed like hit up all your previous guest and let them know about this the rebrand stuff like you can honestly trade out your artwork like at any time and it's not gonna like have necessary well there's there's some argument there and i think it kinda depends on the different directories as well but like you know if you just made some minor tweaks to your artwork like you can do that some people actually
00:36:48
Speaker
change out their artwork for different seasons. I know you all do the episode artwork, which I think is is really helpful. But yeah, I think like anything, just definitely taking some time to really yeah look at look at the analytics, what the story's telling, and come on it come at it from a strategic approach, right? And then obviously like keep a pulse on those metrics and kind of seeing what does well, what doesn't do well. I think that's something that I feel like it's easy to not do. I know from experiences like you just put stuff out there and then you kind of forget to like go back and assess and look at things and see like, how did that perform? Why did it perform well? What do we do different? What was the topic there? Again, I think there's a lot of like the
SEO and Audience Engagement Strategies
00:37:30
Speaker
SEO stuff
00:37:31
Speaker
that can be applied from like the website and like the search engine, like written text world that applies over to podcasting. And so with having transcripts, with having show notes, with thinking about what the keyword is, what are people searching? Like there's a lot of overlap there. And I think that again, that's kind of where like having it on YouTube as well. Like the one thing i would I would say to you all is like, it would make sense to post something about the podcast on YouTube.
00:37:58
Speaker
Maybe you do, but I couldn't find anything out there. No, we don't right now. I don't think that's terrible, but it's like you already have these recorded as video, like why not just like republish them on YouTube as well, just as another channel and another discovery because like every episode I would assume has a keyword and kind of a topic that you're talking about.
00:38:18
Speaker
And so over time, you know, that's, that's just gonna get more and more traffic. Plus it's another back link back into the, into the website for your podcast as well. Yes. Back into the web, the web world. Yeah. So I mean, big takeaway then sounds like you wouldn't advise us messing with our feed. We should, even if we rebrand, we should use the same feed because we have maybe some built up authority there. I mean, at least we have past episodes that people still listen to.
00:38:47
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you have a backlog there. And like even a lot of the networks, you know, they'll sell the backlog, you know, so it's like a very, very valuable asset. I mean, if you had more, I'll give you an example, if you had a seasonal podcast, right, where it's like, you got 12 episodes, and then you're done, right? That season is over. Think of it like a Netflix documentary style podcast. Yeah, those feeds are super valuable. And ah and a lot of the true crime shows that we work with and the shows that get you know, millions and millions of downloads, those feeds like continue and stay the same. And then they will start a new feed for a new show under the same network. And a lot of like the season two comes out, they have often like a million subscribers that are going to get that episode and get a note of some people have notifications set up, like they're going to get a notification that a new episode drops. So even if you
00:39:35
Speaker
did do a new like yeah did do a new feed, there's still value in arguably in like keeping your feed up because you have all that historical content and data that's out there. And with that being said, I think there's a lot of optimizations that you all could do around tweaking your description, tweaking the name, if you feel like you want to focus on more things there. But really, I think there's a lot of value there in just going into like kind of keyword research around your topics and around Yeah, who your listeners are, what they're searching for, what the value you're adding in. And I think, again, that's where your analytics and the different topics like can tell a story. you know If the episode on podcasting gets to the least amount of downloads, right like a lot of your listeners may not be interested in podcasting, but they also may be.
00:40:22
Speaker
That's just an example. So I think you all probably already know like what those topics are that your listeners are really, really interested in. And again, I think that's where like the social promotion on, yeah, the promotion on social media, the video grams, the clips and stuff like that can be insightful as well, which ones get the most engagement, which ones get the most comments, that type of thing.
00:40:41
Speaker
Spotify does now have like polls that you can do and like comments, which is really cool. I think that's something that's great. Historically, it was like, I remember whenever Apple was like the most popular, arguably listening directory and we would get reviews on our podcast and we would just have to like, there's no way to respond to them, you know, and there's no way to like,
00:41:01
Speaker
engage or interact and so yeah I think that that would be the biggest thing I would say is like you could do a survey you know you probably already have an email list of a lot of people stuff like that I think that that could be a great way of hey we're thinking about revamping our podcast or we're doing an end of year kind of listener feedback survey you'll be entered to win I don't know whatever you want to give away And I think that can be a really helpful tool and then, you know, even offering to like set up some calls
Monetization and Community Building
00:41:27
Speaker
from time to time. I know that's been helpful for us of just like getting that feedback from the listeners. What would they like to hear more of? What would they like to hear less of and why?
00:41:35
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Well, one more topic I wanna cover real quick, monetization of podcasts. You know, people ask about podcasting in general, but I feel like one of the questions that always comes up is like, hey, is there a return from the content itself? You know, Zencaster relatively recently has rolled out all sorts of like ad insertion features. I know Riverside already has those as well. So lots of different ways to monetize your podcast. For somebody who's just getting started with that, what would you recommend?
00:42:04
Speaker
Yeah, I would recommend putting that out of sight and out of mind if possible. ah Okay, yeah. Now, with that being said, I think, yeah yeah, there are a lot of great ways and that's, I would say, yeah, still kind of a friction piece for a lot of lot of people in the podcast industry and one of the least like mature kind of pieces of of technology and like service offerings and, and like solutions for people to find. I think that's something we realized even at resonate recordings, like we're working with, like we've worked with 3,500 podcasters and we're mostly doing post-production services for them, helping them get launched. We're missing out on a big opportunity there of like, that could be a network of like a lot of ad swaps and like monetization. And that, that arguably is like one of the biggest questions that people ask us, right? It's like, they start getting a lot of downloads and then they're like, how do I monetize? What do I do?
00:42:56
Speaker
What's the different options there? How do I go about this? And so I think again, kind of determine is this answer is determined by like, what are your goals? What are the goals for the podcast, right? If you're a business, yeah, if you already have an existing business and it's more of a branded podcast, like you're probably not going to do ads. You're probably not going to monetize, right? You're looking at the podcast more of it as like a, how you would look at a blog, right? It's like, Hey, this is adding value.
00:43:22
Speaker
lead generation tool, getting things in. So there's, I feel like a lot of just ways that people don't really think about monetization. They want the podcast to directly make them money, but they don't realize like maybe that just generated like 50 new leads to your business, which resulted in like a hundred million, yeah you know, or a million dollars in, in revenue, right? There's just a lot of in measurables there. And I would say that.
00:43:47
Speaker
that was I've experienced that, right? With Resonate Recordings, we had an ad on Up and Vanish, which is a true crime show. And like we got so much business from that. It wasn't even technically an ad, but like we got so much business from that. And so and yeah, that was like that wasn't our podcast directly. But same thing with Culpable was another show that we did internally, actually. like I was one of the executive producers on that.
00:44:11
Speaker
and Culpable like hit number one in Apple Podcast. And at the end of it, you know it's like this show is produced by Resonate Recordings and Tenderfoot TV. And we got a lot of just organic growth and organic traffic there that was not measurable. Now, Culpable, we had a distribution partner in Tenderfoot that we were able to monetize it and they sold a ton of ads on it and stuff like that.
00:44:30
Speaker
But typically until you get to the kind of that like probably 20,000 downloads per episode, Mark, there's not a ton of opportunity for you to monetize it in and of yourself. And so I would say, again, kind of if you have a specific niche that you know, you might get a sponsor for. Right. Let's say I have a podcast on podcasting and it's like really technical and I'm talking and to more like audio engineers and stuff like that. Right.
00:44:55
Speaker
Well, I may only have a thousand downloads per ebi episode, but I could probably go to someone like a road or a sure or an avid or even a resound, right? And like I have their demographic. I have their target audience captive, listening a thousand people. And so it's, you're going to get a much higher. They might sponsor the entire podcast, sponsor the entire episode, right?
00:45:19
Speaker
You all do a great job with your sponsors of like a lot of most of the people listening to your podcast probably have a business and a website and like with bad out is a bad out. Is that right? Sorry. I used it when it was called Sumo more. But yeah, like, you know, everybody could benefit from that. That's listening to your podcast. And so.
00:45:38
Speaker
It's a very, very hyper focused like you're it's it's like the sniper approach rather than just the shotgun. Whereas like on these true crime podcasts, the CPMs, their pain are are much lower, but it's like, you know, they're shooting the the net so wide because it's millions of listeners. So it's like blue apron, like sleep number, like all these, like anyone in like most people in the world.
00:46:00
Speaker
would listen to that. So I think it's really important to kind of know your audience and know like what that looks like. But I would say to start, yeah, if you can not have ads and just focus on providing value to a unique niche of people, a unique group of people and providing unique value, that's going to be what's going to help you be successful. And then monetization is going to be something that comes as like kind of a an added benefit down the road, right? If you're providing value to your listeners, your podcast is going to grow. You're going to build a ah loyal audience and people that enjoy your content. And so whenever you start telling them about whatever you're telling them about, you're going to have built that trust and sense of like loyalty to you, right? They're going to feel that. So whenever you start telling them about whatever product or
00:46:50
Speaker
whatever different thing you're using or you're recommending right it's gonna do well and as you grow that yeah that's gonna be kind of like a ah side thing that comes along the way and sometime and like more than likely if you do that you're gonna have sponsors that that are gonna come to you organically over time but i would say start like start with your your connection and your network and if you can find someone that can kind of like sponsor the show i mean there's so many different ways you can go about monetizing it you could put it behind a paywall like some people we'll do like exclusive content, you know, where you can add, Hey, sign up for my Patreon. And like, you can get the extended content or you get this like additional feed that's like only available to our, our like community, you know, and I think podcasting has proven to be a very, very effective way to build in the community and to to allow that, you know, there's, there's so many other things we could go into on the community piece around podcasting.
00:47:45
Speaker
And I think that's one of the unique things. It provides a sense of community. People feel a sense of connection with the host. The host feels a sense of connection there, and then the listeners feel a sense of connection to each other sometimes.
Closing Remarks and Audience Engagement
00:47:58
Speaker
And there's been a lot of really cool communities built around podcasts to really help a specific purpose do good in the world, from solving crimes to making a difference and impact in some pretty amazing ways.
00:48:11
Speaker
Yeah. Well, Jacob, I appreciate you ask are you coming on the show and letting me ask you wide ranging questions about podcasting, even getting some feedback on our own podcast. Where can people follow along if they want to connect with you?
00:48:26
Speaker
Yeah, definitely go to podcast primer.com. There's several different options on there. You can check out my podcast operating system template through notion. I think it's really important to have, have a tool that kind of helps keep you, you and your team organized in the process of podcasting. So that's kind of what that is. And there's also, like I said, offer a free consult on there. So if you want to just, you know, schedule 30 minutes with me and chat about your podcast or the technology or.
00:48:52
Speaker
maybe some guidance that you or your team needs, feel free to do that on there. I would love to connect with you. Awesome. And if you check out the show notes, we'll link to all of those resources. And if you're thinking about starting a podcast in 2025 or beyond, definitely check out Podcast Primer and reach out to Jacob for help. Thanks, Jacob. Thanks so much, Davey.
00:49:12
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into the Brands at Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, and sharing this episode with others. For show notes and other resources, head on over to DaveyandChrista.com.