What makes a good podcast promo?

I have been trawling through the likes of Kiptronic recently listening to some of the worst promos ever created for podcasters, and it got me fired up to talk about my thoughts on what makes a good podcast promo – so here goes!

Be informative - If you’re are interrupting someones listening time, given them good quality information to help them decide whether to choose your show. Asking a leading question can help like: “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to podcast?” Make sure you clearly give the name of your show and your website address. Encourage people to subscribe as well as listen.

Be a personality – make it personal and speak in language that listeners will understand. Too often I hear promos that try to be fancy and somehow completely miss the point. People don’t listen to a show because of fancy sound effects, they want to hear from a person and information that meets their needs. Introduce yourself, keep a smile in your voice and be the personality that people want to hear more from.

Be timeless – Promos can be played anytime by anyone. A timeless promo means that it will be relevant to listeners regardless of whether it’s played in June, November or next January. General information rather than the specifics of a particular show is what’s called for.

Keep your production quality high - By all means use music if it adds to a listeners’ understanding of what your show is about. Make sure your music sits underneath your voice. Use a good quality microphone and make sure your voice is recorded well at a decent level.

Use music well - Music has the ability to lift or lower the impression of your promo, so it’s worth doing right.

The start of your promo should either be voice or music. To start a music track after your opening statement or question will give impact to your words.

If you start your music at the beginning leave one or two seconds before you ‘duck’ your music and start talking. Programs like Audacity have neat “Auto Duck” features, which will automatically drop the music under your voice track.

Music with a definite end (e.g. a 30 second sting) will end naturally. Keep your voice track within the 30 seconds and allow the music to finish with impact. If fading a continuing track, fade in the last second of the track.

Give a call to action – People are used to screening out information, so make sure you give a good call to action, and a reason to listen. What is a call to action? It’s a statement which tells a user exactly what they have to do next. “Subscribing is easy. Go straight to our website at podcastersemporium.com and click the subscribe button”

Negotiating placement - Placement is all about anticipating what other shows your listeners might be tuning into. Normally podcasters will be happy to play a well produced promo on their show, in return for reciprocal airplay on someone else’s show. Talk, forge an agreement and then make sure you stick to your agreement.

Most promos will either be placed pre-roll or post-roll. Some may choose interstitial placement. Let me explain how this works:

A pre-roll promo is one that is played ahead of the podcast. The advantage to you is that your podcast promo is likely to get heard. The disadvantage for the host is that he risks people leaving his show to listen to another one.

A post-roll promo is played after the podcast has finished. This is the most advantageous for the podcast host because it doesn’t interrupt their podcast to get your message across. In the post-roll, an audience may miss your message because they have ‘tuned-out’ before your promo got played.

Interstitial placement is like a tv or radio commercial. This is the least favourite for audiences though. Audience survey data points to audiences not liking being interrupted by ads in the middle of a podcast.

Have you got a question about promos? Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion going!