After sharing multiple considerations for refreshing your podcast branding, it's time to wrap it up with the big question: how?
This is my last episode in my miniseries about refreshing your podcast branding. Please review these past episodes/articles for more information:
Reminder: What is “podcast branding”?
Your “podcast branding” is one or more features that uniquely identify your podcast. It's the first impression for new audiences, and it's how your loyal audience recognizes your podcast distinctly from others.
Podcast branding is more than only your cover art. It could be the logo inside your cover art (and that logo can be used for all kinds of things)—and a logo is difference from cover art. It's the audio and video elements you use throughout your episodes. It's your podcast description. It's in your repeated phrases. It's even in how you communicate and host your podcast.
A “branding refresh” would then be updating any or all of these elements, but keeping the core of your podcast the same. A “rebrand” would be if you change much more of your podcast, including what you talk about and whom you try to reach.
1. Evaluate the needs
Do you actually need to refresh your podcast branding, or are you merely bored with it?
Most likely, your needs will fit within one or more of the benefits to a podcast branding refresh that I've previously shared:
- Attract a new audience
- Increase your perceived quality
- Adapt to the latest trends
- Strengthen or reset your podcast's identity and message
- Infuse new energy for your audience and yourself
- Stand out from others
Your actual needs should be the biggest influence over all your other branding-refresh decisions. For example, my now retired Once Upon a Time TV aftershow podcast got me a friendly call with one of Disney's lawyers because my visual branding looked so much like theirs, that they actually thought I was using their images. So all I needed to do to satisfy the almighty Mouse was refresh the visual branding and make some more prominent disclaimers that we weren't affiliated. That was an immediate and important need for that podcast's visual branding, but it didn't change anything about how we ran the podcast (and the Disney lawyer was clear that they did not want us to stop our podcast).
2. Understand your own podcast
You've seen the cliché plot line before: you journey up a mountain on a path to self discovery and you're met by some sage who helps you discover that the magic was within you all along.
Understanding your own podcast won't have you climbing mountains, but it does mean trying to step out of your own position and objectively look at your podcast as both an outsider and as an audience member. Seek to understand what makes your podcast unique. What are your recurring elements? What is your podcast known for? What does th
