Untangling the Holidays

Sarah (Voiceover) 00:00:01
Welcome to the podcast super friends. Five podcast producers from across North America get together to discuss podcasting.

Matt Cundill 00:00:13
Welcome, everybody. It's the podcast super friends. There are four of us today. It is Jag, who is not going to be joining us. He's not called in sick, though, I'll tell you that.

Catherine O'Brien 00:00:23
No, he's on assignment. We can say he's on assignment.

Johnny Podcasts 00:00:27
His PTO doesn't kick in for this.

Catherine O'Brien 00:00:29
That's right.

Matt Cundill 00:00:32
So let's just go around and see who's with us today.

Johnny Podcasts 00:00:35
I am Johnny Podcast, sporting my 7 and 0 TCU Horn Frogs. Number seven in the nation. Go, Frogs. Coming to you live from Fort Worth, Texas, I am a full time podcast producer focusing on audio and video production.

Matt Cundill 00:00:50
And from Alabama.

Catherine O'Brien 00:00:52
From Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I'm wearing purple for LSU Tigers. Go Tigers today, and we'll see about that, Johnny Podcasts. My name is Catherine O'Brien. My company's Branch Out Programs, and I'm a podcast producer here in beautiful Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Matt Cundill 00:01:09
Massachusetts, hello.

David Yas 00:01:11
Hello, Massachusetts. David Yas, Boston Podcast Network, pod617.com, full podcast production services. Not wearing a Patriot shirt today because we suck. We didn't do so well last night.

Matt Cundill 00:01:24
I believe you're up next to quarterback.

David Yas 00:01:28
Seriously, anyone working at Burger King now can just suit up as far as we're concerned. Yes, we have problems.

Matt Cundill 00:01:35
We're recording this. It is October 25th of the year 2022, and on planet Earth, it doesn't really matter where you are. The word recession has come up. And so the idea was sort of tossed out there by myself, how do you recession proof your podcast? And the one answer we will not accept is, we're going to cancel our subscription with you, Matt.

Catherine O'Brien 00:01:58
Okay.

Matt Cundill 00:02:00
I think when we talk about that, we want to find ways to avoid putting the podcast aside. Because I think in a recession, one of the things that I learned in radio and being in media is that the first budget to go before a recession hits is the advertising budget. I think we know that it's the wrong thing to do, but it's just what we do. I could always see that the sales department could see this coming when it happened. And so what are some of the things that you might think of off the top of your head to recession proof your podcast? As we look at your podcast being a form of marketing and business, start with Johnny.

Johnny Podcasts 00:02:41
I guess I'm approaching this more from the production side. So I guess recession proofing, meaning, like, I look at it more from a cost saving standpoint. So I wouldn't say necessarily you need to go out and fire any one of us and learn how to produce a podcast on your own because that's just going to add a whole slate of stress on top of the plate that you're already dealing with. So if you're thinking about upgrading equipment, maybe you're pushing that off six months, just making do with everything that you have, but really just streamlining the process as much as possible to save time. Maybe not so much on the money side. I'm sorry, I don't really have a great answer for you, Matt, but in terms of saving time, it would be maybe focusing more on solo episodes rather than guest podcasts, really shortening up episodes potentially in order to give yourself more time to focus on the things that do bring in dollars or even restructuring your show. Because one of the things that I hit on most probably of all the content that I talk about, is that you need to have a goal for your podcast. And so for talking about recession proofing your podcast, it's about what is the best way that I can now monetize my podcast directly? If it's not currently monetizing, maybe it's not necessarily pursuing the advertising route because like you said at the beginning of that, maybe there are some advertisers that are tightening their belts and they steer away from podcasting. So what are ways that we can alternatively monetize our podcast? Whether that's offering extra content behind a paid wall, maybe that is indirectly streamlining money into your pockets, providing services for your own business, your own company, something that you do outside of the podcast, offering that as a service out to your listeners for your show.

Matt Cundill 00:04:22
Well, for somebody who said they weren't too confident in their answer, I'm going to give you nine out of ten because you went right to expenses and I think that's the first place to go when you want to try to create a little bit of a cushion when it comes to running your business. Catherine?

Catherine O'Brien 00:04:39
I'm going to say lean into the fact that a podcast is a relationship builder. And one of the things I talk to with clients all the time is that the- one of the things that sets podcasting apart from other things is that you feel a relationship with the podcasts that you listen to. So especially if you're a business, not only are you facing a recession or maybe some tough economic times, but the people who are listening to the show are facing those same economic conditions. So I'm going to say that this is the time that you really lean into that relationship. And if you haven't been thinking about your podcast as a way to really connect with your listeners, maybe this is the chance to do that. You're going to be asking for engagement, asking for feedback, explaining the landscape as you see it, putting yourself in the shoes of your audience and taking a walk around there, seeing what your audience is facing, and maybe bring all of those things to the forefront of what you're talking about on the podcast to strengthen that relationship. Because economics cycles come and go. They go up and they go down. And if we're going through down, you want to still be in connection with people on the other side of that. So I'm going to say just this is like a time to refocus on the relationship aspect of your podcast and go for that.

Johnny Podcasts 00:05:58
I think that's an amazing point, Catherine. Sorry, Matt, to jump in, but in terms of like especially if you're doing a guest focused podcast, it's really the interview focus. You know exactly, as the host, who your audience is. You can now tailor your guests to do exactly what Catherine said, to help your listeners through the recession. Maybe it's bringing on people. So let's just pick an industry. Let's say Catherine with Bob, let's do the grocery industry. Let's say that a lot of your guests or a lot of your listeners are working in the grocery industry. So maybe you now tweak the types of people you're bringing on and not necessarily talk so much about the industry, but people that are owners of grocery stores or grocery related businesses, food providers, farmers, people in that, all of the branches of the tree that lead up to the overall grocery industry. And again, this is going to be different for your podcast, but bringing on people that are experiencing different parts of the supply chain, experiencing the recession in different parts of the supply chain, how are they tackling it? What are things that they're seeing? How are they trying to strengthen their own businesses? Because it's likely that your audience are going to be people in a lot of those same field and that information is going to be super valuable to them.

Catherine O'Brien 00:07:09
That's great. David?

David Yas 00:07:10
Oh, Catherine and Johnny, you're under arrest for larceny because you stole my thunder. So just to put a little bit of different spin on that, I am fascinated with the idea of how you turn a negative into a positive. So something like the recession. And Catherine, I think you actually gave me this idea, but when the pandemic hit and it was clear that a lot of small businesses, particularly retail, small mom and shop, like restaurants and things, they were going to suffer, I immediately put out on social media free podcasts. Essentially what I was doing was welcoming people onto my show. I had the ability to do it because the Boston podcast is really just kind of an interview show. I'll interview anyone who wants to talk about anything interesting. So I had the freedom to say, now we're going to focus on small businesses, come on my show, and at the very least, we'll produce a good episode. Not charging them for this, of course, but what I was doing was, I got some interesting guests on my show that I wouldn't have made otherwise, and did a little solid for these small businesses. So, yeah, like you said, Catherine, lean into it. And yeah, I mean, I think it's easy for us to say, but the worst thing to do is to abandon the plan because podcasting is about continuity, consistency, publishing regularly and being honest with your listeners. If you need to stop the season and say, we're going to come back in three months for the next season, then that's fine, but have a plan.

Matt Cundill 00:08:36
You know, David, you mentioned something that I was going to mention. Now you stole from me, but the podcasts are free. And when you look back to 1980 and why some of those TV shows took off when they did because there were huge gas prices, but everybody went home to watch TV and they watched Dallas, that was one of the shows that really took off in that era because people were at home and they weren't going to movies as much anymore. So podcasts are free. I do feel, though, for the people who have gone and taken the jump into creating subscription podcasts, I would be a little bit worried about subscriptions. Like on Patreon. You might see a little bit go down over there from that side. I think, Johnny, you raised a good point about, how would we replace that revenue?

Johnny Podcasts 00:09:24
No, as soon as Catherine started talking about focusing on your audience, I immediately regretted saying like, hey, you should start a Patreon for yourself because like you said, it's really about the audience. And now the onus is on you because you're right, Matt, people will probably reconsider, okay, do I need to pay this? But on the other hand, there's a lot of other expenses that people could cut. Like if it were me and my position and I needed to cut expenses fast, I would cut Disney Plus. I would cut Netflix, I would cut all of those subscriptions where it's content that I don't necessarily care about because it's just sort of a pile of stuff that I need to sift through. If I'm consuming this podcast every single week regularly and it's $5 a month, I'm probably less likely to cut that out than something else.

Matt Cundill 00:10:09
Yeah, I think the advice for anybody who would consider to do patreon or currently is doing a model like that for revenue is to just evaluate your value that you're giving them for that price. Because at the same time you can still jump into it. But make sure that because they may be cutting something else in their life, like maybe they are cutting TV and they want to go and donate to your podcast or your patreon in order to get their entertainment from there now.

Johnny Podcasts 00:10:38
Or maybe it's increasing the value that you're offering. You have your patreon already set up and you say, hey guys, I know I was doing one ad free episode extra a month. We're now going to two episodes a month because I know again, podcasts are free and I want to give you the most bang for your buck as people start to tighten their belts.

Matt Cundill 00:10:54
And for anybody who is into advertising and relies on an advertising model for their podcast. Now might be the time to create your own ads and start talking about the things that you're selling instead of trying to get other people to sell stuff and pay you money on your show. Maybe double down on yourself or too.

Johnny Podcasts 00:11:11
There's going to be like we saw with podcasting. When the lockdowns first hit. We were all sort of shaking in our boots, going "What's going to happen to podcasting?" And we saw that there are a lot of companies, a lot of businesses and a lot of industries that are, quote unquote, recessionpandemic proof. So while there may be some companies that do cut back on their podcast advertising, I think that there will be companies that aren't as affected. They will jump into the space to replace that void. So if you have extra time on your hands and you are someone that's getting a lot of interest from advertisers, be very particular with who you select. Is this a company that, one, I actually align with and I think would be good for my listeners, but two, is this a company that could be around for the long term, even if a recession becomes even worse?

Matt Cundill 00:11:56
Catherine, anything to add?

Catherine O'Brien 00:11:56
Well, I like all those suggestions and I think, too, the one thing I was just going to add when you were saying about the advertising is back to your adage is advertisers also say advertising is free because it should pay for itself. So this is also a great time to think about, even if you're me just to build your list, if you are doing something where you're relying on advertising and you start to make a change there, your list is going to be ultimately so valuable to you. So this is the time to put an email subscription link in your show notes or something like that. There's plenty of ways you can get creative and start building assets, podcast assets for yourself that will be helpful for you down the line.

Matt Cundill 00:12:40
Final thoughts, David?

David Yas 00:12:41
Yeah, or maybe- this just came to me. Maybe it's brilliant, it probably isn't, but maybe now is the time to offer special deals on advertising. I mean, I've always said when you're trying to get a podcast off the ground, there's nothing wrong with giving away some ads. Quite frankly, the listener isn't going to know that it's a free ad. But you know someone who has a local business, you know, someone who says, hey, or maybe for the rest of the year we're going to do some ads at $15 a piece or something, something ridiculously low. And you could do worse than having the integrity of having a couple of sponsors on your show and you help out some people struggling during this recession. Maybe it creates some momentum.

Catherine O'Brien 00:13:23
David, to write on that suggestion, one of the first things I did when I was very first starting podcasting is I would do stuff for nonprofit organizations that I wanted to support. And it was amazing how many times I heard from people when they actually heard the promos. It was like they're like, oh, it sounds so professional. Like there is something about seeing it in actually demonstration, seeing a live version of it that makes people able to conceptualize it, get it, get it, whatever you want to call it. And then if you're able to do it for nonprofit organizations, that's just sort of an extra little bonus there.

Matt Cundill 00:14:03
All right, so Johnny wrote about this recently, and it's about your podcast going stale. So the question is, what do you do when your podcast feels stale? Johnny, some background.

Johnny Podcasts 00:14:14
So I was writing about this on my newsletter and it went out on Monday. You can find it on my Twitter page if you want to read the whole thing. But essentially what I got down to thinking about was you get to a certain point in your podcast where you start to feel like you're on autopilot, not necessarily with the types of guests that you're having on if you're doing an interview show, but it just sort of feels like you're doing the same thing over and over and over again. And with a lot of things in life, whether that's Facebook, seeing the introduction of Instagram, or Instagram, seeing the introduction of TikTok, there's always a next shiny new thing on the horizon to take your listeners attention away from you. So after a certain point of doing your podcast, I pitched it around the two to three year mark. I think it's time to think about starting injecting some Fresh blood into the podcast. Whether that's bringing on a co host, that's a big change. Don't do something like that's. Something not to take lightly. But some of the ideas that I just wanted to throw out there are introducing a new recurring segment. If you have high listener engagement, start a mailbag. You can create a Gmail account really easily. Have listeners submit questions, stories, life advice, things like that. Those are some of my favorite segments on podcasts that I listen to is getting to actually interact between the host and the listener base, changing up your show's, music, intro outro, things like that. Just so that's sort of a cosmetic tweak that you can it's like putting a fresh coat of paint on the podcast. You're not necessarily changing the DNA of the show, but you're adding something new and fresh to keep listeners sort of interested and engaged so they're not skipping through things all the time just to get to the content. You can also broaden the range of the guests that you're bringing on. I know that we always talk about going niche, niche, niche, but you can start to move those walls out a few inches. That can really bring some fresh blood, some really interesting new content to talk about on your show by broadening the range of guests that you're going to bring on. And then finally it's just adding more content, giving your listeners more, dropping a bonus episode every month. And then you can approach that from one of two ways. If you do an interview show, consider doing a solo episode where it's just you and the listener. It's very intimate. You get to talk about something that you're really interested in at the time. Or if you're doing a solo episode, you can really change things up. Bring a guest on, someone to, again, bring some fresh blood into the podcast.

Catherine O'Brien 00:16:31
This is great. Good suggestions, Johnny Podcasts.

Johnny Podcasts 00:16:35
And these aren't things that you need to- like, you don't need to just go, all right, I'm going to go add a new segment. I'm going to start a mailbag. I'm going to do new intro. Just- you don't have to do this stuff all at once and you don't have to do it all right away. But you're the host. You know your show the best. You can start to feel when things are getting stale because you're starting to care about it less. You and your own brain. You're starting to feel the cobwebs build up. And we need to dust those cobwebs off. So just take some time, think, sit down, pause for a second. What is something interesting that I actually care about putting into the show that I can see? Being something that's part of the show's DNA for a really long time going forward until it's time to do the next thing.

Matt Cundill 00:17:14
David?

David Yas 00:17:15
Yeah, Johnny almost cleared the board there. Few squares left on the Jeopardy board after all those terrific answers. But one thing came to mind is we recently did a survey for the music podcast that I do. So this would fall into the category of try something different and maybe even ambitious. Although since me and my colleagues are pretty lazy, we figured out the quickest way to do it. It's a music podcast. We did a simple thing, survey monkey and put it out there to try to let our listeners vote on the 50 greatest songs of all time. And then as a sort of added value to us, we added a lot of questions about the show and that actually gave us some answers to do you like this segment? Do you like this segment? Is it too long? We were delighted to find out. They don't care how long we go. That's nice. They'll listen for hours. For some reason, our readers, our listeners have a lot of time on their hands. But then there are a couple of segments. Like my favorite segment on the show ranked the lowest in terms of favorability. So we are cutting that segment from the show. Too bad. So that's sort of a combination answer there. So try something. If it can be connected to listener feedback sorry, I used to be in the newspaper business. Reader feedback. If it can be connected to listener feedback, all the better help change the direction of the show. And I agree. Maybe once a year I encourage my clients to declare a new season. It doesn't even matter what time of year it is. Declare a new season and we're going to create a new intro for season three. It'll be kind of similar in spirit, but it's something new and shiny and it can kind of reengage you.

Johnny Podcasts 00:18:59
And like you said, David, if it doesn't work, you can throw it out. It's just because you try something and it bombs, for lack of a better term, doesn't mean that you have it now. Has to be a permanent part of the show. And again, if you find the best way to interact with your listeners, they'll let you know what they like and what they don't like, and you can find out pretty quickly what works and what doesn't. And maybe you don't need to change anything. Maybe they're like, hey, go back to the old format. That's what we love. Keep this thing rolling.

David Yas 00:19:24
But are we all looking for- pardon me, Catherine- are we all looking for a way to attract a new area, a whole new audience that maybe wouldn't try something different that might catch the attention of others? All of a sudden you're posting some audiogram about this survey you just did where you just found out that 75% of people actually hate their pets or something. That's terrible. It's not true, of course, but it would be scandalous. And then all of a sudden you get people's eyeballs that maybe you wouldn't get normally.

Catherine O'Brien 00:19:56
That's all I was just going to say. Condolences. I totally know that feeling of, like, this is my favorite part, and everybody else is like, thumbs down.

David Yas 00:20:05
It was so clever. Everyone killed the segment.

Catherine O'Brien 00:20:08
We hate it. We hate it.

Matt Cundill 00:20:11
Catherine, is there anything left to clear the board on this?

Catherine O'Brien 00:20:13
Yeah, okay. And I'll say this is not an original idea with me, but I have found it very helpful, is especially when you've had a very long run as a podcast, is to revisit some of those original tent pole kind of topics that you have. Because if you're doing podcasting right, you never, ever, ever want to listen to those first episodes you did. Because by the time you're 100 episodes in, 200 episodes in, you're so much better, your rapport with your audience is so much more there. Your stage presence, your podcast presence, all those things are going to be at such a higher level than where you started, but you probably started with a lot of episodes that dealt with, like, the core of your issue. So I love having clients go back and maybe redo those basics and 300 episodes down the line. And there really is something there, especially because if you are bringing new people in, you don't necessarily want to send them back to the original. The very start of your catalog, I would say. I think most people, they listen to the most recent episode first and they decide if they want to go in or they are looking for a particular topic. But it's always great to revisit those original episodes of those core topics. That could be a thing to just get you back into why you're doing the podcast to begin with and you now have that perspective of what you've learned from all those episodes that you've made in the meantime.

Matt Cundill 00:21:40
And I want to be clear here that what we're talking about here is making some aesthetic changes. It's kind of like a little renovation to the podcast. I've been undergoing this on two podcasts right now. One of the ones, this is not a renovation. This is kind of like where you take the house down to the studs and give it a new title and everything is new and even right down to a new web domain. And I think I really didn't have I still haven't. I mean, most of the things that you mentioned go into action next, which is going to be finding voice talent, finding music. The artwork is done. I'm going to try to share the artwork here in just a second so you can take a look at it. But originally this was the Hot Air podcast with Matt Cundill and it was really just a lot of journaling and some audio. But I really didn't feel it had any podcast purpose because it didn't make any sense. And when I said the term hot air, people thought I would be yelling and screaming or it would be some sort of verbal diarrhea. Nobody really knew what it was because it was so vague, which is kind of the way when you don't really know where you're going with something is what you're going to call something. Right? So in the end, we have now landed on something here called You May Also Like.

Johnny Podcasts 00:22:53
I really like that cover. It's very simple and bright. It will catch you out clean. Yeah, I like that a lot.

Matt Cundill 00:23:01
Yeah. And why did I start with the artwork? I find that funny that I started there, but I felt like I needed to.

Johnny Podcasts 00:23:07
I think it makes sense. While we are audio professionals and we're in an audio profession, you kind of need to visualize what you want the show to be before you can make all these other tweaks and changes to the show.

Catherine O'Brien 00:23:22
Yeah, well, and can we pull the curtain back a little bit? One of the most important things I've ever gotten from the Podcast Super Friends is I have a long term client who has a great podcast and we had one of the first meetings that we had, I pulled up the artwork and everybody told me that is not clickable. And we have since redone the art and it is now clickable. And everybody really pointed out to me, I think I was just being naive and a little bit in denial about how much clickable is important to your podcast. That is clickable. What you're showing us right there. I would click that. It's totally critical to whether somebody new is going to be listening to your podcast.

Matt Cundill 00:24:05
Well, David, do you like it?

David Yas 00:24:10
I like it, but I want to know more, which is kind of the point. This whole time I've been staring at that logo trying to determine exactly- You May Also Like is a phrase for this generation, and I know what it means. It means when I'm watching Netflix, I'm watching this thing and then tells me, but I want to know what it means for your podcast. So what does it mean?

Matt Cundill 00:24:33
Basically, I'm trying to create enough latitude so I can interview whoever I want. So if I bring on somebody who likes fishing, you may also like in the title of the episode is going to be fishing and we'll talk about that person. I'll give a background. I can do a little bit of personal documentary on them. I was kind of doing that anyway. Interviewing is what I do best. And so I thought. Can I create a little space here and have an interesting podcast sort of outlet where people can come to it and get some interesting stories in the end.

Johnny Podcasts 00:25:02
It's sort of your bowl of clay that you just want to set yourself up with and just sort of mold it as you see fit. Which is sort of the opposite of what we teach with niche-ing down. But also at the same time, this is a creative endeavor. So you are building out a niche of the niche of what Matt finds interesting.

Matt Cundill 00:25:25
Well, it's Matt's storytelling.

Johnny Podcasts 00:25:26
Exactly. Your audience is listening to you, because a big part of why they tune into the podcast is because they enjoy listening to you, and they'll likely have the same interest as you. And so I think that that is a smart way of approaching it.

David Yas 00:25:40
I wonder if a lot of podcasters have this challenge, Matt, because I have the identical challenge as you, because I have a show, the Boston Podcast, which is, to borrow a phrase from a popular ninetys TV show, a podcast about nothing. It's about whoever I interview and kind of along lines of what you're saying. I want to interview interesting people. And to be quite transparent and honest about it, I use it as a vehicle to kind of keep my business going and to spread the gospel of podcasting generally. So I have labored over this thought for years now. How can I create a show that has a different guest who does something different every time and have the listeners still want to come back? Because it was that good a show and I've thought about turning it into a game show. There's kind of a point to it. There's like a beginning, there's a challenge in an end, and they get a grade or something, but I'm still not there. So if you come up with the magic answer, you and I should talk offline about this.

Catherine O'Brien 00:26:36
Both of you are trying to circumvent, like Johnny said, you're trying to circumvent what we tell other people. But I would say both of those podcasts are satisfying their mission. They're doing their job. The podcast is doing its job. So that is fine. But you're right, in general, we would be telling people something different about you can't have a show that is just this is for everybody. That's the classic one is like, you can't say, who is the show for? Everyone is not an answer.

David Yas 00:27:11
Yeah, you're right. But I should maybe leave it alone because the goal of my podcast usually is for the guests to enjoy the experience and have something to share with their audience. Who cares if people come back the next time?

Matt Cundill 00:27:24
Okay, let me throw a crazy question out here and just say: Maybe I don't want people to subscribe and follow the podcast. I just want them to hear the individual episodes that they're interested in, because the episodes will have a strong niche.

Johnny Podcasts 00:27:39
Yeah, I think that's great.

David Yas 00:27:41
Then you're hitting your target. Yeah.

Johnny Podcasts 00:27:44
Because you're not asking someone to say, hey, sorry, David. You're not asking someone to now drop the show into their rotation of what we've talked about. They got about eight podcasts and something's going to get on the chopping block. But if it's something that I'm still going to be I'm still going to be subscribed to the podcast. I'm still going to follow the podcast. I just may not listen every single episode I'm going to see every other week, wow, I actually really want to listen to that one. Boom and click that one.

David Yas 00:28:09
You might get traction from places you don't like. I have had a couple of PR people find me somehow, and now they keep sending me their clients, and usually they're great guests, and maybe each one of them is going to draw a completely different audience every time, but I'm making the PR person happy. They keep sending me good guests, and then I'm inviting more people into my world of podcasting.

Matt Cundill 00:28:31
Yeah, one of the reasons I actually started that other podcast was if I could interview them, I would get them. They would become excited about podcasts and they could possibly, down the road, become a client.

David Yas 00:28:41
Absolutely. Yeah. It gave away my secrets.

Matt Cundill 00:28:46
I'll just tell better stories this time. I mean, listen, deep down I want to become sort of a podcast, like, star and host. I've always wanted to be a radio host. Top of the game, that sort of thing. I still aspire to it at the age of 42.

Johnny Podcasts 00:29:00
Matt, can I ask you a question?

Matt Cundill 00:29:01
Nobody blinked when I said that.

Catherine O'Brien 00:29:03
Excuse me, I'm blinking.

Johnny Podcasts 00:29:05
So you've got the name change, you've got the new artwork. For those listeners out there that are considering doing the same thing. Because I recently did this with my podcast. The total change up, didn't change the name, but new artwork, new music, like new branding. What does the rebrand launch look like? Is there a new trailer that comes out, a short episode that you record? Say, hey everybody, it's Matt. Here's what's happening. Here's what's happened. Here's what's going to happen.

Matt Cundill 00:29:32
I'm so glad you brought this up, because I have thought about this, and I think there will be- using the power of dynamic audio insertion, I will congratulate previous time travelers for going back and discovering those Hot Air podcast episodes. I'll just have a quick explainer. Just mention, hey, thanks for listening. You're going to listen to this episode. It was called the Hot Air Podcast back then. Do enjoy. That'll be for the older episodes.

Johnny Podcasts 00:29:58
And is there a way from the hosting standpoint to have the original artwork on the Hot Air podcast and have only the new artwork on only the new episodes?

Matt Cundill 00:30:10
Yeah, there were about 30 some odd episodes. I just changed the artwork.

Johnny Podcasts 00:30:14
Okay. And it didn't retroactively change the older artwork?

Matt Cundill 00:30:17
No, it will. I haven't done it yet, but I will put it in. It will change automatically.

Johnny Podcasts 00:30:22
Okay.

Matt Cundill 00:30:23
And quite nicely. I'm not too fussed. Sometimes when we want to make changes, we get really hung up about our past. I noticed whenever I want to move people from one podcast host to another, oh, but I'll lose my stats and like we'll print them off and put them in a drawer, write them down.

Catherine O'Brien 00:30:40
Where you never look at them again.

Matt Cundill 00:30:43
Yeah, well, but I have a million downloads. No, you had a million downloads.

Catherine O'Brien 00:30:50
Yes, screenshot that now. Frame it.

Matt Cundill 00:30:54
All right, well, thanks for all that help with that stuff. But by the way, the voice stuff in the trailer, definitely a trailer and definitely looking for some voice talent, too. I just don't know who the person is yet. Who's going to be- it might be me.

Johnny Podcasts 00:31:09
One more thing that I've seen. I don't know how much pull you would have with your clients that you're currently managing, but I've seen this a lot on other podcasts where they will pay to have sort of their trailer episode go out on other shows. And it's always called Introducing X, name of the podcast. And it's the host of that show saying, or it's you and your recording. You just send it to them, but it goes out on their feet and saying, hey, here's a podcast you might be interested in. I've seen it specifically. I saw JJ Reddick has a podcast called The Old Man and the Three, and they did a whole two minute episode teaser saying, hey, here's a trailer for the new Lord of the Rings, Rings of Power podcast that's coming out, totally different audience, but we're promoting it on their feet. So I don't know if that's something that you've considered as well.

Matt Cundill 00:31:58
In fact, I actually did that with the Sound Off podcast. Somebody has a podcast- Jeff Woods launch the Blue Hotel, which is exactly what you think it is. And I came on first, introduced Jeff and mentioned that he was- he has one podcast, but he's starting this brand new podcast and I left it in the feed for a month, and then I wondered what to charge him and how would I go about charging him. We're talking about revenue opportunities for podcasts. Your RSS feed is a place for a feed drop.

Johnny Podcasts 00:32:34
Sure. Absolutely.

Matt Cundill 00:32:35
So the answer, by the way, is: How about a dollar a download?

Johnny Podcasts 00:32:40
I like it. That's- that's good. A good number.

David Yas 00:32:42
It's a good figure.

Matt Cundill 00:32:43
That'll be $432, by the way. We've seen that happen with serial, the makers of the podcast serial. Sometimes they'll put a feed drop in and because so many people still remain followed and subscribe, that podcast will go to the top of the charts.

Johnny Podcasts 00:33:00
Sure.

Matt Cundill 00:33:01
Even though they haven't put out an episode in seven years.

Sarah (Voiceover) 00:33:08
The podcast super friends.

Matt Cundill 00:33:10
So holidays are coming up. November followed by December, which is consecutive holidays, namely US Thanksgiving followed by Christmas. So how should we be looking at this over the next few weeks? Catherine.

Catherine O'Brien 00:33:28
Let's manage- for gift giving. I think we should be all high expectations. It's going to be a banner year for gifts and Thanksgiving is going to be amazing. Everything is going to be awesome. We're going to be enjoying Halloween, the Christmas creep on November 1, all the Halloween candy half off, you'll be seeing me there. And then the Christmas ornaments will be sitting right next to all the Halloween stuff. That part we can manage. The other part of your expectations that should be extremely managed is what kind of downloads you're going to be getting towards the end of the year. This is one of those mildly related to what I was talking about with David earlier is me as a podcast listener is not typical of what the average podcast listener is. And it's taken me so many years to really just accept that. Whereas I might use that period between Christmas and New Year's to explore and listen to all kinds of shows, you know, go on a huge binge of podcasts that I've never heard before and all the things that people have been recommending to me or whatever, that's not what's happening for other people's podcasts. You are going to see in the same way that we've talked before about summer slumps, it's very typical to have a slump from that towards the end of the year. Let's just start towards the end of the year and I think it's good to prepare for that. You might be listening to every podcast under the sun, but that's not what's happening with podcasting overall. And just knowing that going into it is a relief. So you're not expecting one thing to happen and it not ever materialize. Is that what you're looking for, Matt Cundill? Because that's true.

Matt Cundill 00:35:16
Thank you.

Johnny Podcasts 00:35:16
Can I throw a wrinkle in there?

David Yas 00:35:18
Yeah.

Johnny Podcasts 00:35:19
So from my own experience, I was just on my honeymoon for ten days and I did not listen to one podcast the entire time.

Catherine O'Brien 00:35:27
That is a shocker.

Johnny Podcasts 00:35:28
So you may not see those downloads in the moment, but still build up that catalog because as soon as I got back, I was honestly really excited because I had like 20 episodes that I could choose from to listen to. And I was listening to stuff from two, three weeks ago still listening to because I still love that show. Your listeners still love listening to you. Just because they're spending time with their families or their traveling or whatever it is that they're doing. Don't let that deter you from putting out content because it's still going to be there when they get back to their real lives and they're still going to find time to consume that content. Honestly, I prefer to binge episodes, so it was actually really nice to have like three episodes in a row that I could listen to and just stick the needle directly into the vein and just get all of that content.

Catherine O'Brien 00:36:19
The term that I now use for that, it's delayed downloads. You are going to get the downloads, but it just might not be within the window that you're expecting.

David Yas 00:36:30
I have a theory that is probably- I don't know if it's grounded in science or fact, just from some observations, but that you can almost draw a line in the sand between podcasts you need to listen to, and then podcasts that you just enjoy listening to. And some of them may be both, which is great, but the ones that you tend to need to listen to tend to be business podcasts. Things that things that have the spirit of education, maybe of your industry or things like that. And some of the podcasts I produce are for lawyers and other professionals. And you can tell that people are actually listening at their desk at work because if you look at the stats, the app that people use is their web browser, which is unusual for podcasts as a whole. Typically people are listening on their phone. And the other sort of very anecdotal thing is my aforementioned music podcast. We noticed that over a two year span, the biggest spike came right around Christmas weekend. That was when the downloads actually went up and we figured people have time off. Our podcast is like dessert. It's not the meat and potatoes, it's the dessert. So something like that. Think of it as an opportunity. Also, podcasting is fun. It might be the kind of thing that you actually have more fun doing over the holidays, provided you can find a guest to join you or co host to join you. And it provides a nice excuse for some specialty episodes to do something different. We're just going to talk to people about their New Year's resolutions that may be trite and boring, but it gives you an opportunity to mix it up.

Matt Cundill 00:38:10
And drink eggnog while you're- any kind.

Johnny Podcasts 00:38:14
Of nogging like being absolutely hammered listening to a podcast, there's no better feeling.

Matt Cundill 00:38:21
One tip, by the way, if you release on Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday and you're heading into that Thanksgiving weekend, put it out on the Wednesday so that people can take it traveling with them and keep it conscious on their phone while they go to visit wherever they're going to visit to and they're not talking in an airport.

Johnny Podcasts 00:38:39
Okay, so we've talked about the audience perspective. Let's talk about the host perspective. Just because you have a podcast doesn't mean that you're also not going to be traveling for the holidays. Maybe you've got a big mix board. Maybe you need to have your desk set up at home. And you're going to be traveling to Grandma's for Thanksgiving or for Christmas or for the new year. How can you still get content out there while you're traveling? It's called batch recording. You're going to have to set some time aside now to get that content together, figure out what you're going to do. Get guest scheduled now so that the content is ready to go and you don't have to worry about it putting it together the night before or bringing all of your equipment with you to record while you're on the holiday. Because you as a host, you deserve a break from recording all the time. It's okay to take a week or two off. You don't have to put out content. Obviously, all of us recommend that you do. But if you're going to make sure that you are planning ahead to make sure that those episodes are coming out when they're supposed to, I'm a big.

Matt Cundill 00:39:42
Fan of not a big fan of that, I'll tell you. I'm a big fan of holiday messaging. And by that I'm using dai to get the message out that you've taken a break, that you're going to take two weeks off to recharge and whatnot so before each episode. Hey, it's so and so. Thanks for downloading my podcast. I'm going to be back January 4 with a brand new episode. But until then, I want to wish you the very best. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas, happy Harmonica, all that stuff. Okay? Get that stuff out there in front of every episode. And if you don't have Dai, it's okay. What you can do is you can just use the RSS feed. I love happy New Year. Last year, I just put one out in the middle and said Happy New Year, and I thanked everybody who worked for me who contributed to the show, and I use it as an opportunity to thank the producer, the social media people and all that stuff. And it's three minutes and it's a great way just to keep some quick contact.

David Yas 00:40:42
How do you do that using your RSS feed?

Matt Cundill 00:40:44
Just release a bonus episode of following this.

Johnny Podcasts 00:40:46
Right?

Catherine O'Brien 00:40:52
That sounds like a great yeah, I had a great idea. This is what I want to say. Yeah, I was gone. Now it's back. It's back. I just want to give one. This is my early Christmas present to all the podcast makers out there. It is so much harder, so much harder to do a clip show that gets the best. I know some people have techniques. They've got a special folder or whatever. It's so much harder to do a highlights highlights episode at the end of the year than it is to just do a new one. So this would be a perfect chance for you to take on some of those ideas that Johnny was sharing earlier about maybe freshen it up. The ten books you read this year or the top ten, whatever's you consumed, whatever your topic is, you can do something that's fresh and new. A little bit of an experiment, whatever you want to do.

Johnny Podcasts 00:41:45
I got one.

Catherine O'Brien 00:41:46
Yeah, go ahead.

Johnny Podcasts 00:41:47
Behind the scenes horror stories of the podcast tech issues. Guests dropping off the face of the planet. Someone blowing up in the middle of an interview and something happened. Like just a peek behind the curtain.

Catherine O'Brien 00:42:03
That would be fun. Yeah, I thought this was going to be a total smash hit and it wasn't all those different things, but yeah, for the person who doesn't know yet that you think it's going to be so because you're so organized and all the episodes are there that you can just pull clips out, it's so hard to make a clip show and do.

Matt Cundill 00:42:23
It while you're drinking egg dog.

Catherine O'Brien 00:42:27
Yeah, this is just useful. This advice can actually be applied to many situations.

Johnny Podcasts 00:42:32
It sounds like Black Friday blackout episode.

Matt Cundill 00:42:36
We should just do an episode where we just get like blotto and tell each other off.

Johnny Podcasts 00:42:40
We should oh my gosh. Can we do that for like the December Matt?

Catherine O'Brien 00:42:45
Whatever negative things would we ever have to say about each other?

David Yas 00:42:49
We'll come up with something.

Matt Cundill 00:42:52
You leave that time jagged in the show in October for the episode, I.

Johnny Podcasts 00:42:58
Got to go on vacation.

David Yas 00:43:03
Good content for David.

Johnny Podcasts 00:43:05
Go. I put in so much work for this segment for today. We just said we're doing holiday talk.

Catherine O'Brien 00:43:13
Johnny so excited to be married.

Johnny Podcasts 00:43:18
Talk about it.

David Yas 00:43:18
Married guy dropped in the information about his honeymoon. Like we didn't notice.

Matt Cundill 00:43:23
I want to put a little heads.

David Yas 00:43:25
Up for.

Matt Cundill 00:43:28
Just it's going to be busy in the month of November. We talked a little bit about holidays. There's a lot of sports going on, especially in November. If you have a podcast that is going to be centered around a particular market, maybe if it's soccer, the World Cup is going to be on. That's a lot of ears that are going to be shifting. I think there's going to be a lot of shifting. And podcasts listening throughout from November 20 onward around the world. So if you get big downloads in Germany and Germany goes far in the World Cup, that's going to affect you?

David Yas 00:43:59
You may think no, but also that.

Johnny Podcasts 00:44:03
Also is just smart advice to just say to the host, pay attention to what's happening in the world, pay attention to what's going on around you, understand who your listener is and do exactly as Matt said. Look at your statistics, look at your downloads. Don't let that be a big discouragement for you if it's going down. My buddy, Russell Lowry. Russell, we will have the Sacktown Talks podcast. We will be reviewing that. Don't you worry, sir.

David Yas 00:44:32
All right. Johnny, you're going to have to recuse yourself from the analysis.

Johnny Podcasts 00:44:36
Yeah, I would be biased because it's so freaking awesome.

David Yas 00:44:40
Okay. All right.

Catherine O'Brien 00:44:42
Speaking of holidays, can I throw in one other idea? And Matt, you kind of touched on this. We have a lot of clients that have just a variety of front customer facing businesses. If you have an opportunity maybe with a holiday mailing that goes out with any kind of cash register sales, one of my clients, or actually more than one of my clients, we're looking at ways that we can have something that can go in those mailings, that can go out with a QR code in everybody's sales bag. Those are some really great opportunities that come around in a big way this time of year so that you can put something that is promoting the show along with all the sales that are happening this time of year. So this is the time to get creative. I already consulted with Johnny and Jag about some QR ideas, some success stories there. And so hopefully I'll have some success stories of my own of just giving you that little bit extra to people and using those opportunities to get the show on people's minds.

Matt Cundill 00:45:47
I haven't really done QR codes in a long, long time, and I know they've come back, obviously since the pandemic. So if I'm going to do a QR code, let's say I'm going to have a Christmas card and I'm going to send it to people. I'm going to put the QR code from the podcast in it. That QR code should go to the website.

Catherine O'Brien 00:46:06
That's what Johnny and Jack advised me. And I think that's good advice because most of the good podcast websites will have it'll start. You'll get the link that you can list it on whatever app you already have it'll have all the links to the apps. Yeah, that just seems like a safe option to me. Do you have any other suggestions?

Johnny Podcasts 00:46:24
No, I would agree. Sorry, Dave. Go ahead.

David Yas 00:46:26
I was going to say I've done it with using the Apple podcast link, and that way when most people are picking up a QR code, they're using their phone. Right? So you might sacrifice some people who don't have Apple podcasts. They have Android phones or whatever, but the vast majority of people listen on Apple podcast apps. So why not have it go right to the Apple podcast, it'll open their app and take them right to the spot where they can follow.

Matt Cundill 00:46:53
Your podcast advice is applicable for North America only.

Johnny Podcasts 00:46:58
You may not want to like exactly what everyone else said. You may not want to direct it directly to a specific episode because by the time you create the QR code, print it out, it could be three, four weeks. You get it in the mail, then you send it out. You may be four or five episodes ahead by the time that that QR code hits somebody's mailbox or hits their email inbox.

Catherine O'Brien 00:47:23
Go ahead, Cathy. I'm sticking with the trying with a podcast website. I know because when I use my phone to go to my app, which is not Apple Podcasts and is not Spotify, it will say, do you want to open it with your regular podcast app? So it's kind of an experiment so we can see how it goes. I do want to just give a little fun tip though. Canva, which is everybody's favorite, they have a great free program for their graphic designs. They now have a QR code maker right. Built in. So Canva is a great way to make a QR code for free.

Matt Cundill 00:47:57
Nice.

Catherine O'Brien 00:47:58
Yeah, that's what I thought.

Matt Cundill 00:48:01
I know I alluded earlier to people taking breaks for podcasts throughout the holidays. I advise against taking breaks at every twist and turn, of course, because I know people say, well, nobody is listening throughout the holidays, or nobody is. Yes, but they will listen when you get back. Just the way Johnny pointed out earlier is that people return and then they'll download both the episodes and listen to it at a later time. So no breaks, no holidays for podcast creators.

David Yas 00:48:29
Don't ever stop. Well, I mean, just if you think about the way you react, my favorite podcasts, the ones that come out on Tuesday, I want to see it on Tuesday.

Catherine O'Brien 00:48:38
I want it.

David Yas 00:48:39
Yeah, if it's not there on Tuesday, I'm disappointed. And if they took a break or they posted an old episode like The Best of Johnny, it's like, come on, lazy, come on.

Johnny Podcasts 00:48:51
The worst thing you can do is post nothing and say nothing.

Matt Cundill 00:48:56
If you're a podcast creator, think of yourself as Santa Claus. You're just making a regular time delivery. What if the presence didn't show up on the 25 December?

David Yas 00:49:06
And I don't know if this is like a smart thing to do, but we had one week where our podcast was. I was up in Vermont. I thought I was going to be able to do it remotely. It didn't work. And so the best I could do was I wrote a poem, kind of apologizing to the listeners and read the poem and that became the episode. So, I mean, it wasn't great, but it's still got a bunch of downloads because people are like, well, here it is. At the regular time, it was a quick listen and it explained. It said, sorry, we'll be back next week, so at least I filled the space so you can do something different for the holidays.

Johnny Podcasts 00:49:41
But I agree, you were pouring your heart out to listeners, too, which is a sweet thing to do.

Matt Cundill 00:49:46
David, I thought you were in Maine for that.

David Yas 00:49:48
Yes. One of those New England states. What do I know? One of those chattering states.

Matt Cundill 00:49:56
Red Sox fans to the left of me. Red Sox fans to the right of me.

David Yas 00:49:59
Yes.

Matt Cundill 00:50:01
By the way, if anybody does have a podcast involving health, exercise, sports, diet and eating, it's podcast Mardi Gras come.

Johnny Podcasts 00:50:11
January 1, or even the build up before that, here's ten healthy recipes to bring to Thanksgiving dinner. Here's how you can count your macros during Thanksgiving. Here's how you don't kill yourself during Christmas dinner. You know it's wide open.

David Yas 00:50:28
Ten topics to bring up a Thanksgiving dinner.

Johnny Podcasts 00:50:30
Sure.

David Yas 00:50:30
To result in a food fight.

Johnny Podcasts 00:50:32
Exactly.

David Yas 00:50:33
You know, I'd listen to that.

Matt Cundill 00:50:37
I love the holidays.

Johnny Podcasts 00:50:38
It's great.

Matt Cundill 00:50:40
All right, so we do have a handful of minutes left. Where do we want to go with it?

Johnny Podcasts 00:50:45
Why don't we give our time back to the listeners?

Matt Cundill 00:50:49
You know what they say, as long as it needs to be, never longer.

Catherine O'Brien 00:50:54
Good. Because we're in a relationship with our listeners. Because podcast, we brought a full circle there.

David Yas 00:51:01
Yeah. We love you, listeners.

Matt Cundill 00:51:03
All right, where can we find us?

Johnny Podcasts 00:51:06
Follow me on Twitter at johnnypodcast.

Catherine O'Brien 00:51:09
Follow me on Twitter at hello, Catherine.

David Yas 00:51:11
Oh, don't follow me on Twitter. I mean, I'm at pod six one seven, but I'm not a good sweeter. Go to the website PODsix one seven.com for all of our shows and learn about how we can make you the next big podcast in Boston.

Matt Cundill 00:51:29
Follow me on Twitter at Matt Cundill. C-U-N-D-I-L-L. Kundal, rhymes with bundle. We'll also say goodbye to Jack and Detroit for John Gay, who could not be here today.

David Yas 00:51:39
Thank you very much for nothing, Tone.

Sarah (Voiceover) 00:51:42
Thanks for listening to the podcast Super Friends. For a transcript of the show or to connect with the Super Friends, go to the show notes of this episode or go to soundoff. Net. Produced and distributed by the Sound Off media company.