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Looking for tips on how to make your podcast successful?
Wondering about the ways that you can repurpose your podcast or how to repurpose it?
In this article, you’ll learn the top six mistakes that I made when I first began podcasting and how you can avoid them.
Background
Before I begin, I’m going to expose myself and say that it’s been half a year since I’ve posted a new episode of my podcast. My podcasting run started in March of 2020 and ended shortly in July of that year. During the brief period when my podcast, “Turn Your Followers Into Clients”, was running, we had lots of success with it.
In the beginning, we were getting around 5000 to 10,000 listens a week! It was a great lead generator. I actually had quite a lot of students enrol into my program The BOSSGRAM Academy because of it. For a completely new podcast, we were also charting in the marketing category. This was along with other experts like Amy Porterfield, Jenna Kutcher and everyone else like that.
Soo… why did I stop? Why did I stop being consistent and go into podcast hibernation?
Now, this episode is going to explore why podcasts fail. If you’re thinking about starting a podcast, there are the top six mistakes that I made that you can avoid!
If you prefer to listen to the podcast, make sure you check out the latest episode here and I would love to know if today’s episode resonates with you.
But if you prefer to read, then keep scrolling to learn more about the reason why I paused my successful podcast. This episode will help you avoid making the same mistakes I did when I launched my podcast.
Podcast Mistake #1
I rushed into creating a podcast because of FOMO (fear of missing out)
The first mistake I made was rushing into creating a podcast because I felt like I needed to be on another platform. It was silly, but I was scared of missing out on the opportunities that came with having a podcast.
The reason why I launched my podcast, to begin with, was because during that month in March, I actually guested on a podcast episode with Mike Stelzner over on the Social Media Examiner. I realized during my chat with Mike that there’d be lots of online traffic sent my way as a result of me featuring in their podcast.
Thinking strategically about this, it would have been a missed opportunity if I didn’t have a podcast of my own that I can direct those potential listeners to.
So I timed my podcast to launch around the same time my feature episode was being released.
But there were a few very important factors that I didn’t consider before launching my podcast:
- Am I ready for the extra workload?
- Do I have a team that can assist with the workload? Or is my existing team ready to take on this project?
- How many platforms am I on already? And can I move onto another platform and stay consistent?
- Do you know your strategy for the podcast? And what it’ll do for your business?
These are the questions that I SHOULD HAVE asked myself, but I didn’t.
Now I’m posting them here so you can ask yourself these questions before starting your podcast.
I didn’t actually have a content plan when I first launched.
My strategy at the time was to film a few episodes and get that up and running in time for my feature podcast episode with Social Media Examiner.
Even though it was strategic because I was timing it with oncoming traffic. I forgot to consider the other elements of my business and how it will cope before adding on another platform.
Because of this rush to expand onto a new platform, I didn’t create a foundational plan that would set up my podcast for long term success.
So, when considering starting a podcast you have to be honest with yourself.
If you can’t be consistent on Instagram…. If you can’t be consistent on YouTube….
Then are you really ready to start another platform?
One of the most common reasons people fail as content creators is because they get FOMO. Then they start trying to be on every platform.
One of the most common reasons people fail as content creators is because they get FOMO. Then they start trying to be on every platform.
But because they’re spread so thin, they end up not being consistent with them or mastering any of them. That’s when they fail.
So if you’re trying to do everything but you don’t have a system or process in place to keep things running on autopilot…. then it will be very hard for you to stay consistent long term and achieve the success that you’re looking for.
Word of advice: Always master your existing platforms first, before you add on a new one.
Podcast Mistake #2
I didn’t outsource when I should of and I burned out
The second mistake that I made was that I white-knuckled everything! And by that, I mean, I didn’t outsource anything and tried to do everything.
One of the main tasks that took away a lot of my time and energy was podcast editing. During my first podcast launch, I edited almost every single episode except for the first few.
Why did I make that decision? It was because when I first launched the podcast, I outsourced to an agency to edit the videos.
But they messed up so many times.
There were times where they put the wrong ad breaks in the episodes. Or times where they didn’t adjust the volume. Or times where they uploaded the wrong episodes. Or instances where in some episodes, the audio played from one ear but not the other! So if you were listening to headphones, the audio would only play on the left side and not the right side.
As a result of that experience, I ended up having major trust issues. I developed the mentality of needing to do everything myself. I was so stubborn at the time in not taking another opinion or asking for help. This was not the right mentality to have when you’re running a business. I should have hired another agency to help me because having to edit a bunch of podcasts along with running a business led to me burning out.
My tip for you is:
A) If you have the funds for it and
B) You are a content creator or a business owner
Then you’ll definitely want to consider outsourcing tasks for your podcast.
For me, the editing and shownotes creation take up the most time so I’ve outsourced those tasks this time around for the re-launch.
If you can outsource, then do it. Because trust me, a bit of help can go a long way. It’ll help you maintain a balanced workflow and staying consistent.
Podcast Mistake #3
I made my podcast a solo shows (the guests were me, myself and I)
On top of white-knuckling the editing, another thing I white-knuckled was solo shows. I felt like I didn’t want any guests on my podcast. Not because I thought guests are unworthy of being a part of the podcast. It was that I had the mentality of, “Hey, you know what? This is my podcast. I want all the episodes to come from me.”
A lot of it also came from me projecting my own podcast listening preferences onto my podcast. For example, when I listen to someone else’s podcasts, I often prefer solo shows way more than interviews with guest experts. But I didn’t take into consideration that there are also lots of people who DO enjoy listening to interview-style podcasts.
Because I decided to do solo shows, I actually ended up creating more work for myself because I had to create MORE content from scratch. It put me at capacity because every episode needed to come from me. All the content took up more time, energy and creative juices from me to produce. And that affected how fast I was able to pump out content, which was another reason I burned out.
But, if I had decided on inviting other guests and interviewing more people, I could technically “outsource” some of the episodes. If you did that, then it wouldn’t be that much pressure on you to come up with an hour of content.
I’ve definitely learned my lesson this time. In this year’s relaunch, you can expect a mix of my solo shows along with juicy and fun interviews.
Interview style podcasts create an added bonus of sound more like an organic conversation.
Not only this, but your listeners will also appreciate being exposed to other people in your network and learning from someone else other than you.
It’s so silly to think about this now, but it was these limiting beliefs that I had that ended up killing my consistency and my passion for my podcast.
Solo shows are great but adding in interviews will allow you to not be responsible for all of the content creation.
There are pros and cons to both solo shows and interview shows. But if you’re aiming for consistency and efficiency, then it’ll be best to include guest interviews or have a mix of both within your podcast content strategy.
Podcast Mistake #4
I felt like each episode needed to be at least 30 minutes long to be ‘valuable’
A huge mindset block that made me burn out was thinking that a podcast episode needed to be at least 30 minutes long for it to be ‘valuable’ to the listeners.
So back then, I would force myself to talk for as long as I could. For 40, 60 or even 90 minutes at a time!
And if an episode ended up being less than 15 minutes, I would think, “that’s not good enough”.
This expectation that I put on myself to produce as much content as possible, hurt my results on the podcast. Not results in terms of listenership, but more so in terms of my mental health and made it extremely difficult to maintain work-life balance.
A lot of your listeners are actually going to value variety, so make sure you test it out and play around with the duration of your episodes to find a balance that works well for both you and your listeners.
On top of forcing myself to produce long content, I also felt like each podcast episode needed to be original.
I had a lot of resistance with repurposing. I felt like every episode needed to be original so at the time, I refused to repurpose anything from my YouTube or Facebook lives even though I already had hundreds of videos on those platforms.
I worried that people would see my podcast and think, “Is she repurposing because she’s lazy?” I thought that they wouldn’t want to listen to the podcast because of that.
Thinking back, I screwed myself over with this mindset because the truth is.
Most people won’t even realize it if you did repurpose your content.
Rather than re-uploading a youtube video word for word as a podcast, what you can do instead is take your existing content and use them as inspiration for new content. You can create an updated version of your old content or expand more onto the ideas you’ve already covered on your podcast.
You know, it’s so silly to think about it now, but these were the limiting beliefs that I had that ended up killing my consistency and my passion for my podcast.
Podcast Mistake #5
I didn’t record in a format that suited me
When I launched the podcast for the first time, the format was purely audio. This time, I’ve changed up my format so that I’m recording it with the video turned on.
This new podcast strategy allows me to post all the video podcasts on my YouTube channel, and the audio on the podcast. Doubling the amount of content that I have.
The reason for this change was because I realized that I’m a very visual person. I enjoy being on camera from my years of being on Youtube.
And so one thing that I struggled with a lot when I started podcasting for the first time was filming episodes without a camera.
When there was no video component to the process, I realized that I got very nervous during filming. I was staring at my screen or the wall and that felt super awkward and unnatural to me. This made the filming process a lot less efficient.
So this time around, I added the video element to my podcasting process and it has made all the difference! I realized that I loved being on video.
Even though it’s such a small shift, I felt my comfort level rise as a result. To me, it felt like I was recording a weekly YouTube video and that was what I was most familiar with.
So my advice to you is to record your episodes in an environment and format that works best for you.
That could be adding a video element to the process like I did. Or something small like dressing up or recording in a certain space so that you can feel more confident during the recording process.
Change and tweak things until you find what works best for you and your creative process.
Podcast Mistake #6
I didn’t batch create any content during and after my million dollar launch
Remember how I said earlier that my podcast began in March 2020 and drifted off in July of that same year? So what exactly happened?
In July and August, my team relaunched my signature program The BOSSGRAM Academy. My focus at that time was on updating the program, creating promotions for the launch and all the backend tasks. As a result, I completely neglected my podcast!
This is where mistake #1, not having a concrete podcast strategy or content plan came into play. I didn’t plan any podcast content for during the launch, and I also didn’t plan any content for after the launch. Because of the lack of content strategy and the fact that I’ve been white-knuckling everything when things got busy it became a lot harder for me to stay consistent.
The results from the launch were great, we reached our goal of a million-dollar launch. But, as a result of me not batching content ahead of time, I ended up neglecting my social platforms afterwards.
What I learned over time is that when you are launching a product, yes, it’s so important to do the pre-launch content, which I did.
But you also want to make sure you have content during the launch and afterwards to sustain your platforms and help you stay consistent.
Because trust me, I know from experience that afterwards, you will be tired as heck.
You are going to be too burned out to even think about creating content afterwards. And that was exactly what happened to me.
So for two months after my launch, I just was so done with being on social media. And keeping the podcast consistent became the least of my concerns.
And after two months of not posting anything on the podcast, I was like, “You know what? I’m just going to pause the podcast indefinitely.”
Because guess what?
My YouTube was suffering. My Instagram was also suffering and I needed to take care of those platforms first.
Because the podcast was added on last, it also became the last of my priorities. And that is why the podcast ended up getting pushed back on the back burner until now.
If I were to do it again, for this year I would make sure to create enough content before my product launch.
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Cheering for you, Boss!
– Vanessa
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