How to Use Research and Reports to Guide Your Podcast with Megan Dougherty – Episode 70

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CLIP – MEGAN: It’s definitely not prescriptive. Like, it’s not a guide to how to have the best business podcast. It helps guide our decision making in terms of, you know, should we be on YouTube? How should we be approaching social, how long should episodes be? What is a good deal for sponsors these days? There’s no, like, definitive answers in the report, but it’s a great jumping off point. It’s so much better than starting from scratch when thinking about how to make strategic decisions for the podcast.

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<< Ghosthood Featuring Sara Azriel “Let’s Go” BEGINS >>

MARY: Welcome to the Podcaster’s Guide to a Visible Voice.

<< WOMAN SINGS: Let’s go >>

MARY: Reveal and define your voice to speak your truth through the power of podcasting. And I’m your host, Mary Chan.

<< WOMAN SINGS: So so so so let’s go >>

[INTRO MUSIC END | MUSIC IN]

MARY: Hello. Hello! Welcome to episode number 70, How to Use Research and Reports to Guide Your Podcast with Megan Dougherty. We are on the home stretch for the rest of 2023, whatever remains of it. And even for us, as podcast producers and podcast production companies, we are also on a podcasting journey of our own. You know, I have my own podcast. Not only do I produce others for my clients, but I do use my podcast as sort of like a little playground, a little testing ground for the podcasting journey so that you know, in some ways, I can make the mistakes so you don’t have to. And so with the end of the year, always comes out more reviews, right? Uh, the industry, whatever industry you are in, will have some sort of year end review. They might have some stats and reports that come out with this. But what does all of these reports and numbers mean in terms of how you can use them to benefit or guide you towards what you want to do next? Whether that be for something specific in your career, in your industry, in your business, or especially in your podcast. And in the podcasting space specifically, there are so many stats and reports because it’s still such a new industry relative to traditional media. I’ve talked about this time and time again, right? Podcasting is new because of the pandemic, it has skyrocketed, and everybody and their dog wants a podcast. [LAUGHTER] I say that because I hear so many dogs barking in podcasts sometimes. So what do we do with all this research? What do we do with all this information? 

Today, I’m going to bring in the expert. Megan Dougherty is a digital marketing strategist with a background in online business development and course creation. She co-founded One Stone Creative in 2017 to create high value podcasts for business owners, marketing managers, public speakers, and nonfiction authors. She’s also the host, um, of The Company Show talking all about podcasting, and is also the creator of the Podcasting for Business Conference. And throughout all of that work, she has also been producing the State of Business Podcasting Report. And this report just came out for 2023. It is the year end, after all. So we dive deep today into this research report and analysis. What does this all really mean and what can it do to help drive your growth for your podcast? We also highlight the role of thought leadership in podcasts and what that really means and how this report plays into what we’re going to do for tweaking our shows for next year. So, you’ll have to tune in to find out what’s going to be new on our podcasts for 2024 so that we can test things and play around with some of these trends and see what’s working and what’s not working for podcasting. So, I’m excited to share this conversation with you because it will be the last interview episode of the year before I wrap it all up in my next solo episode after this one. So let’s dig in to Megan’s podcasting journey and then all her insights into the state of Business Podcasting Report for 2023. Enjoy the show.

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MARY: Megan, thank you so much for coming on the show as we wrap up 2023, I’m excited to have you on.

MEGAN: Ah Mary, it’s a pleasure to be here. I love listening to you. And so getting to chat is even more fun.

MARY: I know we’ve been following each other for quite a while now, so I was like, oh my gosh, why haven’t I had her on my show yet? So let’s get a little bit first into the background. Like, you have a podcast production company. I’ve got a podcast production company. So why was podcasting such a big thing for you?

MEGAN: I have a confession, 

MARY: Mhm.

MEGAN: It wasn’t. I got into podcasting because of my business partner, the wonderful Audra Casino. And, uh, we had done work together at a marketing education company in the past. And in 2017, she came up to me and she said, well, she called me out of the blue, really, and said, hey, do you want to start a business together? And I didn’t even think about it. I said okay.

MARY: Anything you say. I’ll go, yeah, exactly.

MEGAN: Yeah exactly a chance to work with Audra again. I would take it no matter what it was. But since her background was broadcast audio, mine was digital marketing. We’re like, we can do podcasts. We can make them for businesses. It’s going to be a lot of fun, and it has been ever since then.

MARY: That sounds like a match made in heaven. Because I have the radio background as well. I did a bit of marketing just with promotions and stuff within the radio station. Um, but to have your digital marketing brain must really elevate the business and podcast for you.

MEGAN: It’s been a really great partnership because I think especially because our skills were complementary and not competitive. You know, I never was interested in arguing with Audra about this design element or this sound element. She knows. She knows best. And when it came to marketing, it was kind of the same deal. I had the really good insight on it. So our skills were so complementary that, uh, you know, growing and working together has been an unmitigated pleasure.

MARY: And of course, then having a podcast is essential to having a podcast production company. And the Company Show, your show, was actually rebranded earlier this year, and the original podcast is called the Business Podcast Blueprint, which ran for about a year. So tell me about the pivot point where you decided you needed to change the show.

MEGAN: Well, I mean, we had gone as long as we possibly could as a production company without our own show. Uh, two behind the scenes people do not make a podcast if they can avoid it. But when we couldn’t, we decided, okay, what’s the most important thing that we do? And we thought it’s the Business Podcast Blueprints. This is the framework that we develop and conceptualize and produce and evaluate shows on. So that’s what we do. That’s what we should call the podcast. Unfortunately, it’s also a terrible name for a podcast. It does not really explain what it is. It’s not very sticky, it’s hard to remember. Uh, so while it was accurate to the content of the show, it wasn’t, uh, particularly memorable and didn’t have any of the other characteristics of a good podcast name. Uh, so we decided early, early this year or last year at this time when we were thinking about changing it to go with something that was a little easier to say, a little more intuitive to understand, which is how we landed on The Company Show.

MARY: You said characteristics of a good podcast name. I think a lot of people have. Different variations on what, uh, good podcast name means. So like, quote, unquote good. So what was your definition of good?

MEGAN: Uh, well, this first one is stickiness. It has to be something that you can hear and then remember without having to hear it. A lot of times there are some podcast names that you’re just like, what’s it called? What’s it called? What’s it called? We don’t want that for our show. We wouldn’t want that for our client shows. So something that is easy to remember, easy to say, and easy to tell someone else about. And, uh, the other characteristics I think are important are it, you know, should be reflective of the podcast. Someone shouldn’t hear the name and then think, what on earth could that possibly be about? You want it to be, uh, self explanatory in terms of this is, you know, the name, this is what it is, and it should at least be in line with the other things that you’re doing, your other branding elements. And that’s where The Company Show for us divers is a little mostly we talk about podcasting for business, but there’s a lot of other podcasting for business podcasts. So the company show helps us stand out a little bit more.

MARY: Nice. Yeah, and it’s got that stickiness because it’s short and to the point 

MEGAN: That’s what we’re hoping for.

MARY: Okay, now that 2023 is coming to an end, though, it’s been almost a year, we’ll say like six months, right? What did you learn from making this branding change that was beneficial? 

MEGAN: That not very much is in a podcast name, other than, you know, making sure that it does sort of meet the requirements of a good podcast name. It was not super hard to change, except my Pod link, link, which is the same, but everything else in terms of, uh, our audience changing the RSS feed, the hosting company, the branding, the art, it was all quite easy to do. So this is, of course, easier for a smaller show. We’ve never been one of the top 100 podcasts, but, uh, changing the name is not the big deal. I think people often fear it is when they’re getting into things. It’s your podcast. You can just change things. You’re the boss of it. If you want to change it, you can.

MARY: I know, I tell my clients that too. I’m like, you know what? If you decide six months down the road it’s not what you thought the name should be, then change it. You still have the same audience, you’re still using the existing RSS feed. So why not? If you see the issues with what you’ve originally come up with? That’s why I always call it, podcasting is a journey. We learn and we grow from each episode. So now that we’re coming to the end of the year with the company show, what are your podcasting goals then for it, for next year?

MEGAN: The thing that we’ve done with the podcast, even when it was called the Business Podcast Blueprint Show, we’ve always used it as a mechanism more than anything else to test different types of podcasting and test different things that we would have that information available to share with our clients. Um, so in 2023, we really started experimenting with an every other week release rather than in the shorter seasons that we’ve done in the past. And for 2024, we’re going to make it a weekly show, uh, at least for the first half of the year, and see how that goes.

MARY: Oh, I love that. Yeah, when I started my podcast too, it was solo, still every other week. But then I wanted to bring in the interview aspect because that’s where everything was headed. And so I was rotating. And I think that’s one of the greatest things is that we do get to test different things to see what is working and what isn’t working. So what did you see as the big difference maker when you went from short seasons to every other week?

MEGAN: Well, with short seasons, I loved being able to really aggressively batch all of the work involved and just kind of, you know, do this rush of interviewing for a month and then release it over the next couple of months. It was really nice to be able to have that as kind of a set part of the year and then go back to doing other things for other parts of the year with an ongoing show. This was when it was a biweekly show. I started to appreciate having the workflow be a little bit more staggered over time. It gave me more time to follow up with people, more time to think about repurposing content. And I really found there was kind of more of a leisureliness to the process that created a lot of kind of creative energy. I think it helped inspire, uh, trying new things and other ideas. And it didn’t completely overwhelm me with the amount of work that it would be in four weeks, six weeks to get everything ready for the next season. So that’s one thing I really, really liked about it. And it gave us a lot of time and my team a lot of time to focus more on different types of editing, different types of content repurposing, different kinds of show notes. Uh, so that was really, really fun. And now that we’re kind of looking at making it a weekly show, that time pressure is going to come back a little bit. But we’re all more experienced at it, at least for our own show. Uh, as I’m sure you know, it’s always harder to do your own show than it is to do someone else’s. It’s so much more difficult. 

MARY: It’s always the last thing on my list. But I’m like, I love it, it’s still great. But, I got to do all the client work first.

MEGAN: Yeah, exactly. So it’s always, always, getting back burnered. But looking at next year, being able to have different episode types and being ready to kind of introduce new forms of content and really get focused on what’s going to be the value of this particular episode, I’m feeling super excited about making it a weekly show next year.

MARY: What do you mean by episode types?

MEGAN: Oh, so one of the things I like to experiment is different styles of podcast episode, uh, because that can vary so much from podcast to podcast. So in the 2024, we’re looking at doing a mix of solo content where we talk about kind of data analysis from our research projects and expert interviews to teach specific skills and topics. And I’m also hoping to introduce a case study, episode type, really digging into how different podcast fit within the businesses that run them. So I think that’s going to be really interesting. And those are all going to be slightly different in terms of how the episode is structured from beginning to end and the notes that go along with it and where we’re promoting it. So I’m expecting to learn a lot, uh, in the first part of next year.

MARY: Oh, that case study one sounds really interesting to me. I can’t wait to hear how that one all plays out.

MEGAN: I will make sure that you are informed. 

MARY: You mentioned research projects. And I know one of the biggest ones you do for the year is your State of Business Podcasting Report. So for 2023, uh, it’s out. What were some of the big surprises for the industry as a whole? 

MEGAN: Oh God, well, we were talking about this a little bit in pre recording, but it seems like hooks are out. Uh, this has been really interesting. We started doing this report in 2020. This is our fourth year of it. And, uh, this is the first year that hooks, um, so that’s the clip of the audio, uh, set before the intro that kind of introduces the topic and the idea of the show or what’s the curiosity a little bit. Uh, they are just not present in the top 100 shows in the way that they have been in previous years. So they’ve been replaced by within the structure of an episode, a standard produced intro still for the most part, then followed by an intro that is read live by the host with music, and that’s kind of taken the place of the hook within episodes. Um, so that was a really big change this year. There was a huge dip, uh, in the number of shows that actually still had hooks from last year.

MARY: I wonder too, though, those hooks, because in some ways, those hooks could still be used just within the intro, though. So it’s not like you take the actual piece out of the interview and you put it in the front. That’s what normally a hook is. Right? But in this case, that the host themselves is hooking the listener still within that intro.

MEGAN: The principle is still the same. You want to get people interested in the first 90 seconds, or much less if you can manage it. Um, and I think just people are doing that more now with their own, like hosts are doing it now with their own voices and their own opinions, rather than having it be a guest clip. Uh, I think it’s a good strategy, especially for a lot of the podcasts that are trying to establish themselves as authorities and get their own IP out there, starting with the host themselves, uh, is a really good strategy for that.

MARY: Oh, and I didn’t think about it that way. That is a great point because a lot of the podcasters that I work with, too, are looking for that thought leadership space. And so, yeah, having, I guess, your own voice at the top can make a difference.

MEGAN: This is one of my biggest frustrations when it comes to thought leadership. It’s not thought leadership if you spend the whole time asking another expert questions.

MARY: Yes, yes, yes.

MEGAN: Not your thought leadership.

MARY: Yes.

MEGAN: You got to share that spotlight with the experts that you talk to and have a conversation rather than kind of run down a list, uh, of questions. But it’s so easy to I know I find this as a host, I want to be a good host, I want to be a gracious host. And so I want my guests to look amazing. But that’s not necessarily the business goal, uh, as much as it is the social goal. So I kind of have to balance that sometimes.

MARY: I know that is always the trouble spot too, because you don’t want to just be a talking head, but you still want to be able to reflect some of your messages and your values within that interview. And so I think that’s why I always recommend doing a rotation of a solo episode. And so when you were talking about doing solo episodes with research topics for next year, I’m like, oh yes, because as a nerdy, “stat-y” person, too, I want to hear what your insights on all of that is. So I’m really drawn towards that and I think that’s going to be a really interesting move for you and seeing where that plays out by the end of this time next year.

MEGAN: I’m excited to see too, because I know, uh, I’d love to know if you’ve noticed this in your clients as well. But often I find, uh, when there is, within a podcast, a mix of interview and solo content, often solo outperforms interview content, people love listening to their hosts and  the hosts that they feel connected to. I find like, just typically there’s a little bump whenever it’s a solo episode in the shows that we produce. Have you seen anything like that?

MARY: Yeah, I was looking at stats for that too, with uh, different, uh, clients of mine, and, because some clients usually think, oh, nobody wants to hear from me. No, they always downplay themselves and then I show them the stats after a while and they’re either the same amount of downloads or a little bit more. Right. So the content is still what the listener is looking for. And the other thing too, about an audio only platform, which traditionally is what podcasting is, yes, there’s some video components and stuff now, but in audio only, like, when I worked back in Radio, I was in Radio for like 20 years. It is all about theater of the mind, and how when you are the host of a show and you are bringing in this conversation, people love being that fly on the wall and being able to sit in, in that conversation with you. You know, that conversation isn’t necessarily a conversation with you and someone else, but in that solo episode, people want to be in the room with you. They want to feel your energy, they want to align their values with yours. And so having that solo episode really brings that to the forefront. And I can totally see why that has a little bit of a bump in listenership, even for the clients that you work with.

MEGAN: Yeah, I think it’s nice to remember you made an excellent point, is that, um, many people are so quick to talk themselves down. And, uh, there’s such a focus in the industry of, you must give value, you must give value, you must be of service. And that’s absolutely true. But the world is doing this for business. Not everyone is doing this just for the love of the game or just to serve the community. And if you are out there making a brand for yourself, uh, for your company, and then building real relationships that are strong enough that people are happy to just listen to you talk for 20 minutes? That’s a huge strategic win.

MARY: Exactly how often do we actually get to stand in a room with people and they get to hear you talk for 20 minutes? You know?

MEGAN: Yeah, not very often. As I think you mentioned in a recent episode, you can wear sweatpants. [LAUGHTER]

MARY: I, in fact, uh, are wearing fuzzy sweatpants right now, actually.

MEGAN: Amazing. [LAUGHTER]

MARY: But like I said earlier, there is some video component. And so I was wondering, through the state of business podcasting report, you know, video has been talked about for years, being the big thing that you have to do. And I think it helps as a piece of marketing to support your podcast. But it’s not always vital for all podcasters, you know, based on their capacity or their budget, especially even if it is for your business to be able to have such a large marketing budget. And I think people too, that when people think of video, they think YouTube right away, which of course is the biggest player. But what does video look like for this report that you have this year?

MEGAN: I’d love to address that. Um, YouTube being the biggest distribution platform for podcasters. Because we look really closely at video and at YouTube with this report. After the first time back in 2020, when we were also young and innocent and had no idea how big YouTube was going to become, I was like, podcasts are audio. Vlogs are different, keep them separate. And then we did the report and it’s just like, oh, actually, all of these podcasts are on YouTube, I guess we better do it too. So that’s just math, we have to listen to it. But over the last year, when YouTube has kind of taken over as, you know, we are distribution platform number one, my downloads don’t reflect that. The downloads of all of our clients don’t reflect that. Not the downloads of everyone I know personally do not reflect that. So I was like, what is going on with this? How is YouTube the biggest distribution network? And I’ve got a theory. 

So this year when we were doing the research, we looked at, is the podcast designed to be video first? You know, Was it designed to be recorded in a studio with multiple camera angles? Is it a video podcast before it’s an audio podcast. 43% of the shows on the top 100 list are. And these are big shows. They get millions of views and plays on YouTube. They also have RSS feeds that, you know, get lots and lots of downloads. But they get more on YouTube than they do on podcasts. They’re video first, they’re whales and they’re skewing the data for the rest of know they’re really television shows, they’re talk shows for the most part this type of podcast. I mean that isn’t to say that you shouldn’t be putting your podcast on YouTube, you probably should be, uh, especially if you are capturing the video while you’re recording or even doing audiogram style videograms just because there is a large audience of listeners there. Many people use YouTube just as their audio player, you know, if you pay for premium, you don’t have ads, you can create playlists just like Spotify, it’s a nice audio player and I think YouTube is moving more in that direction. 

So 83% of the whole top 100 had YouTube channels. Of those, the vast majority, 94% of them put their whole episodes on YouTube one way or another. And then a lot of them also use shorts. So that’s podcast videograms, where they are sharing podcast content on their channels and that is it’s. The shorts I think that are the key to making YouTube work as a part of a strategy. This is something Tom Fox, uh, who’s a good friend of mine, he was at the Podcasting for Business Conference when we were chatting about this data. He mentioned that his own experience on YouTube was when he started using shorts. That’s when his YouTube channel really started to grow because being in the shorts got you into the algorithm. The shorts algorithm is a little different than the main search one. So if you are active on shorts and you’re engaging there and you’re putting content up, that’s leading people to your main channel, that’s increasing your YouTube views overall. So if you’re making a video play with your podcast and you want to use that as part of your strategy, get in there with the short form YouTube content because that seems to be where the magic is happening on YouTube.

MARY: Yeah, it’s the algorithm that they love to talk about all the time. And so yeah, I think YouTube too is interesting because everyone is saying, yeah, get to be on YouTube, the big shows are on YouTube. I’m wondering though, you know, you said like over 80% of the top shows were using YouTube. What about that 20%? Do you know what they are doing differently to still make it in the top 100?

MEGAN: Some of them are big network shows. So we’re talking, uh, like the Motley Fool, Like NPR, like Harvard Business Review. They create podcasts that tend to be very, very popular and they’ve got the attention, they don’t need YouTube. 

MARY: Right, yes.

MEGAN: It’s not necessary for them. And there are other shows, there’s a significant portion of the top 100 that are brand new. So they were released in like, the three months or less before we did the research report, before we pulled the data often they’re not on YouTube just because their strategy was, we are going to, you know, do a top 100 strategy, which I don’t have a lot of insight on personally. I do know some consultants who do it, but it’s possible to get enough attention downloads and have enough of a launch of a podcast that you can kind of launch to the top 100 without being on YouTube or doing anything else. So it really comes down to kind of where you are in your podcasting lifecycle, uh, and ultimately, is your audience on YouTube watching podcasts? 

MARY: Yes, yes. 

MEGAN: Yeah, it’s kind of the most important consideration a lot are we’ve got the bros who like to talk about sports bets and, uh, how you need to eat only meat. Uh, their audience is on YouTube. It makes perfect sense for their content to be there, for them to be designing it for know, other types of content don’t make as much sense on YouTube. It makes more sense to be on TikTok if that’s the audience, or on Facebook if that’s where the audience is. So it always comes down to where are your actual listeners? The people who are actually hopefully going to become a part of your community where are they hanging out?

MARY: Yeah, and that’s, uh, the next thing that I wanted to talk about was like the whole social media platform as a whole. You know, It’s that double edged sword. You know, you need to be there. Most people don’t like being there. 

MEGAN: We all hate it. Why do we do it? 

MARY: Yeah!

MEGAN: We hate it. 

MARY: So what should we be doing? What is your report telling us that is working in 2023?

MEGAN: So this is another interesting thing. In previous years, we’d seen kind of a broad spread of promotion on the different social media platforms. So you’d have your top podcasts on YouTube, on Instagram, on TikTok, on Twitter, on everything. And this year we’re finding that there are fewer shows on all of the platforms. It seems like they’re being more choosy about which platforms to engage on, but the ones that they are engaging on, they’re engaging on more frequently. So there’s, uh, fewer people on each platform, but the posts have gone, say, from weekly to multiple weekly, or to daily, or even to multiple daily on those platforms. That was really interesting data. And I feel like almost, it feels like it’s given me a bit of a permission. Uh, almost the freedom to not use Twitter is amazing.

MARY: Or X, as they call it.

MEGAN: Ah Jeez. Okay, so last year when we were doing this report for the 2022 report, we pulled the data on Twitter and it was like massive use of Twitter. 99% of the top 100 shows, almost everyone posting at least weekly. Two weeks later, Elon Musk bought the company. And by the time we released the report, the data was completely obsolete. I’m furious. [LAUGHTER] But this year, for reasons I will not speculate. On too deeply. Uh, the number dropped down to the mid 80s for number of shows using it and uh, 30% of those that remained had abandoned their accounts within the last 60 days. So.

MARY: It’s not really the place to be if you want to do promotion, maybe.

MEGAN: I think if you go on to I find on X, if I go on to find the podcasting communities, it’s still pretty nice for the most part, but like, as a professional brand, I’m not necessarily interested in being seen there anymore.

MARY: Marketing is always the tough part. And so I think having your points of view and having this State of Business Podcasting Report every year is really neat to look into. And so how do you see the report being useful for a podcaster? What should they be looking at when they download it?

MEGAN: It’s definitely not prescriptive. Like, it’s not a guide to how to have the best business podcast. We started it originally because, I mean, you’ve probably experienced this yourself, Mary. People ask you questions and they expect you to have answers, like, should I have sponsors or how long should my episode be? Or what day of the week should I release? And I had educated guesses, but I didn’t have a baseline data point for what is generally considered best practice for a business podcast. And so I was like, well, I can make that data, we can do that research. I’ve got a whole team of people who can count. Let’s put this information together so at least we’ll have it as kind of just a way of looking at, you know, what is broadly best practice or on trend and how is that changing year over year. And that really, it helps guide our decision making in terms of should we be on YouTube, uh, how should we be approaching social, how long should episodes be? What is a good deal for sponsors these days? Um, there’s no definitive answers in the report, but it’s a great jumping off point. It’s so much better than starting from scratch when thinking about how to make strategic decisions for the podcast.

MARY: Oh, totally, yes. And I think too, like I was saying before, podcasting is a journey, and I don’t like to call things mistakes. But, you know, after doing this report year after year, what are some of the things you wish podcasters would stop doing?

MEGAN: Oh, gosh. I would like to never, ever, ever, hear anyone refer to sharing and subscribing as paying the fee ever again.

MARY: Paying the fee? Explain that one.

MEGAN: That’s a, I’ve noticed it’s kind of come up in the last couple of years how um, it’s like people will say, we don’t charge for this podcast or we don’t have sponsors, so, uh, pay the fee, like, and share.

MARY: Yes.

MEGAN: It grates on my nerves. That’s just a little one. Um, but, I mean, either in terms of mistakes. Uh, I think the biggest mistake and this is going to be whatever industry you’re in, it’s just not setting goals and tracking your progress towards them, for podcasts. I don’t have insight into what any of these top 100 shows do in turn. Like, there’s strategic decision making, but I do know that for the most part, these are run by really intelligent people. There’s thinking, for the most part behind all of these decisions. And we should be applying that kind of principle to our own shows. We should be thinking about what do we want this to achieve? What is success going to look like for me, for my business, for my show? What will failure look like? What is going to be the sign to me that it’s no longer worth all of this time and energy and money that I’m putting into it? And so I think thinking about that and then being able to look at your own results in the context of here’s, what other podcasts are doing, can be really helpful in evaluating your own success or failure. You still get to decide what success and failure means for your own podcast, but just being able to see it’s nice to be in company with others and just see what other people are doing just to help us benchmark our own work.

MARY: Totally. Yeah. And it is the end of the year, and so I’m always talking about reviewing, and then tweaking, and making shifts along the way so that we are on this learning journey this whole time. And you touched briefly on failure. So then I was wondering, when you look back at your own results for this year, what were some of the failures that you have now shifted?

MEGAN: For me, going on every other week cadence, while it did add the leisure and the creativity I was talking about, too hard for me to keep up the momentum. On a personal level, I either like to be working or resting. 

MARY: Yeah. 

MEGAN: The in-between, not so much for me. So that was a big learning for me. And another thing, I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call it a failure, but a really important learning was I hadn’t really defined what I wanted each and every episode of the show to do. Um, you know, do I want this episode to be the definitive answer on how to do this particular thing, or do I want to thoroughly explore A, B, and C? I think that’s something that I could have put a lot more effort into over the year. And so I’d say, I guess maybe I failed to do that. But at the same time, I also met a bunch of really great people and got some cool content out there and learned a lot. So it’s like, failure is, I think, a harsh term for that particular learning.

MARY: But that’s why it’s called a journey.

MEGAN: Yeah.

MARY: For me. 

MEGAN: And for the first part of the year, until we hired the most amazing social media expert in the entire world. I failed to promote effectively.

MARY: Yes, there’s always that. 

MEGAN: Uh, but yeah, so that’s something we’ve been working on for the latter half of the year, which has been just a delight.

MARY: That’s amazing to hear that that works for you. And that’s something that we’re looking at as well. So nice to hear that from someone else.

MEGAN: I think no one wants to promote their podcast, right? Like, we put all of this work into doing brilliant stuff, and it’s just like, but I’m brilliant. People should just come listen to me now, please. I would like, where is my audience? I’m so smart.

MARY: Content is so amazing. People should just come to it, on its own.

MEGAN: And it could be but as great content and a toonie. You’ll get you a perrier.

[LAUGHTER]

MARY: Oh, man. Megan, this has been such a delight to chat with you. Let’s wrap this up. We got to get going. We got lots of podcasting work to do. So, you know, what are you most excited about podcasting right now in this moment?

MEGAN: I’m pretty excited about, um, the AI assistance that’s becoming available. So I’ve been a little slow to adopt it. I’ve been a little slow to get into it. I’ve been very much on the team. Humans are smarter and better.

MARY: Yeah.

MEGAN: Um, but we’ve started, uh, using more of them, not to write show notes, but to really assist in the process of creating materials and to, you know, breaking down shows into different parts. And so I’m really excited about what the possibilities are going to be for that. I absolutely love to the moon and back Adobe Enhance for helping to balance and equalize audio between speakers in really different environments. Absolutely love that. Uh, and I guess I’m just really excited about the fact that there’s always something new in this industry. There’s always something different you can do with your podcast, and there’s always different ways that you can integrate it within a business, and it just never stops being interesting and exciting. So I’m just pretty generally excited about podcasts.

MARY: Yeah, that is so true, though. And I think that’s where a lot of our clients get frustrated as well, because they’re like, what do I do? There’s so many new things. Or they Google something and it’s just old news by then. Right? So I love that you’re into the industry as much as I am, and that 2024 is going to be quite an exciting year, I think.

MEGAN: I think so, too.

MARY: All right. Megan, thank you so much.

MEGAN: Oh, thank you for having me, Mary. This has been a treat.

MARY: Ah, so what are you going to be tweaking in 2024? After listening to that conversation, for me, it really is cementing this idea and thought I’ve had all year about wanting to change up my intro. So I do use a hook, which is what we talked about that clip at the front of the episode. And even at the beginning of the year, I thought, I want to have my voice as the highlight at the front. So how do I go about doing that and how do I change the music transition? Because I do like my theme song, so I want to keep that music the same, but just jeuje everything up a little bit and changing it up for the listener. And so because that was bit of a mental hurdle for me, I had other things going on throughout the year. I never made that change. And I think that’s what a lot of podcasters fall into sometimes, is that pattern of ease. This is something I do, the workflow exists. I don’t have to change anything up and think harder about it. Decision fatigue. So you go on and you keep going with what you do. 

So, after talking to Megan, I am definitely going to switch out the hook and using my own voice as the hook in the intro. You’ll be hearing that when I am back from my winter break in February, early March, something like that. That is the plan right now. So I’m game for some testing and changes for the new year. And I think this has really highlighted the fact that I need to do this now. I thought this was something I wanted to do before because there was talk within the podcast editors space about hooks and how it really does take a talented ear to create that hook. It’s not just something that you can look at a transcript, find some words that you want, and that becomes the hook. Because sometimes, although the words are there, the emotion behind it is not quite right, or they don’t end the sentence the way you want it to as you see it on a transcript. 

So it becomes this weird, awkward audio edit that needs to be made. And sometimes the hook isn’t all that great. It’s the piece that gives it all away. And then you’re like, oh, this is not what I’ve signed up for when I’m listening to the show. So hooks are very tricky to do, and I can see why. It could take up a lot of mental energy for those top 100 business podcasts that she’s talking about. And it does take work. You know, you have to think about doing that and adding that into your work process. So the hook is usually the last thing a podcast producer thinks about because they’re like, oh, yeah, right, I have to do the hook forgot about that. So, hooks take a lot of work, and I can see how a year ago, all this podcast editor talk is now translating into the 2023 report that Megan has seen. 

So what are your goals for 2024? What do you want to do with your podcast? Or if you haven’t started your podcast yet and you still have all the ideas building up on a notebook or somewhere online. You have all your ideas in place or it’s just an idea in your head so far and you haven’t quite taken the next step in making it come to fruition. What are your goals? Share them with me. I would love to know so that I can create podcast episodes next year. To help reflect some of these questions that you’re having right now. Send me a voice note. You could do that on my website with that purple send voicemail button at http://www.visiblevoicepodcast.com/. Or of course, as always, I love emails as well. You can send me an email at visiblevoicepodcast@gmail.com. You know, We talked a lot about videos. Are you going to incorporate videos into your podcast? If you are, don’t forget to take a listen to Episode 67, if you haven’t yet, that’s the Organic Discovery full podcast, because I do talk a bit about YouTube and YouTube music there. So if you’ve missed that episode, make sure you go back and listen to that one before you plan for 2024. 

So in the meantime, like I said at the beginning of the episode, this is the last interview episode of the season, and I’ll have one more episode with just you and me, a solo one, coming up next as we wrap up 2023. Thank you so much for listening this past season. This past year. Or if you’re new and you’ve just listened to the first episode here, I thank you so much for spending the time with me and having me in your earbuds, headphones, your speakers, and that hopefully you have some questions for me so that I can answer them and we can continue this conversation into 2024. Here’s to you and your podcasting growth. I’ll be back with one more episode before I take my year end break. So, I’ll chat with you then. 

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<< Ghosthood Featuring Sara Azriel “Let’s Go” BEGINS >>

MARY: Thank you so much for listening to the podcaster’s guide to a Visible Voice. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d love it if you share it with a podcasting friend. And to reveal more voicing and podcasting tips, click on over to VisibleVoicePodcast.com. Until next time.

<< WOMAN SINGS: Let’s go >>

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