One of the most overlooked ways to increase the success of your podcast is to improve your podcast quality. It doesn’t matter if you get the best podcast guests or share highly sought-after knowledge. If your podcast is poor quality, it will distract your listeners from the value you provide. There are two types of podcast quality that podcasters should focus on – content quality and audio quality.
If you’ve listened to this podcast before, you know I talk all the time about the importance of having quality content and audio for your podcast. As the industry is growing, this is only becoming more imperative when it comes to showing up and providing value for your audience. This week, episode 78 of Listeners to Leads is about why podcast quality is so important!
In this episode of Listeners to Leads, I’m sharing the importance of taking the quality of your podcast seriously and actionable steps you can take right now to improve the quality of your podcast and stand out to your ideal listener.
How to Improve the Content Quality of Your Podcast
There are over 5 million podcasts that people can listen to, including podcasts that are no longer publishing episodes. That’s a lot of content that your listeners can consume. So, what value are you offering listeners to stand out from other podcasts?
If you are a business owner using your podcast to generate leads for your business, content quality is especially important. Your listeners will see the quality of your free content as a reflection of what you offer in your paid services. You can’t do a subpar job of educating your audience and then expect great results.
I think where the problem lies is that, as business owners, we feel pressure to create vast amounts of content every week. I used to think that in order to have a successful podcast, you needed to constantly produce new, exciting podcast content. However, looking at the direction that podcasting is going and the trends, I don’t think that a limited series podcast is the worst thing. In fact, I think it is better to have a limited-series podcast packed fill of high-quality, high-value content rather than a weekly podcast that is a bit hit-and-miss. The benefit is that you can also repurpose your podcast content to replace some of your other content creation.
We had a client who is no longer publishing, but they harnessed their podcast to very specifically educate their audience. The way they were able to do it resulted in their listeners binge-listening to all of their episodes and then immediately after book a call to discuss working with them. It was a great lead-generation tool for their business. But it only worked because they were delivering an immense amount of value to a very specific type of person – their dream client.
How to Improve the Audio Quality of Your Podcast
The next aspect of podcasting quality is audio quality. Now, if you’ve read my blog or listened to my podcast in the past, you will know I am passionate about audio quality. It has a huge impact on the listening experience, to the point where poor audio quality can sink an otherwise excellent podcast.
Here are some tips to improve the audio quality of your podcast.
- Use a quality microphone – Quality doesn’t mean expensive. Personally, I don’t think some of the more expensive microphones are all that great *cough, Yeti, *cough. For my very first podcast, I used a small $20 microphone.
- Record in a quiet space – Find a quiet time and place to record your episodes. That may mean you need to wait until you’re the only one home or wait until your kids are in bed. I have blackout curtains in the room where I record to dampen any noise from cars driving by or neighbors mowing their lawns.
- Re-record if necessary – Sometimes, even if you have tested your microphones, you notice after listening that a section was muffled or your microphone had problems. If this happens, don’t be afraid to re-record sections to improve the audio quality. It’s not fun to do this; believe me, I have had to re-record my parts in three episodes because I chose the wrong mic, but it is worth it for the podcast quality.
- Have a human edit your podcast – There has been a rise in automated podcast editing recently. It’s great for cleaning up the audio quality of your podcast recordings, but nothing beats a human ear. Whether you edit your podcast yourself or hire a podcast editor like me, a human editor can do things like cut out tangents or rants.
Start Now
Start improving your podcast quality now. There is no rule that says you need to wait until a new season or year to make a change. You can start a new season now if you want. You can announce to your audience that you want to improve the quality of your podcast and solicit feedback from them. Or you could just make small changes moving forward to consciously improve the quality of your podcast. This could be something as simple as hiring someone like us to edit your podcast. It could be something as simple as buying a new microphone or recording software. Do whatever you need to in order to re-engage your audience.
Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag me! And don’t forget to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!
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LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Ep 22: Creating a Quality Podcast
Ep 34: Tips for Better Podcast Audio Quality with Lisa Zawrotny
