Rasmus Kidde, Audience Researcher at Danish Radio, spoke first in this
third part of the Podcast Summit.
Rasmus moved through the first part of his talk quickly. Be
distinctive but adhere to the tried-and-tested formats… Make your
podcast as long as it needs to be, and no longer… Produce great
sound design, but keep it simple.
And the final part of his talk about presentation about presentation
had the audience enthralled. Podcast description is one of the key
things. It should be short, it should be full of words which help with
SEO, and it should focus on the most important aspects of the
programme.
Podcast makers need to focus on the arc of the programme: the initial
impact, retention, and the outro of the podcast. Listeners decide
whether to listen to the podcast within the first minute of the
programme, people skip boring content in the middle of the podcast,
and then the outro is often a turn off too (so keep it short).
Tom Webster, from Edison Research, spoke next, focusing on how to make
a successful in 2022 (instead of 2021 or 2023).
The most important thing? Habit!
Introducing listeners to something that they are going to do regularly
as a “habit” is key. When the pandemic upset people’s routines, our
listening habits changed. So, how can we ensure that listeners return
to listening to podcasts habitually. News podcasts are easier to
develop a habit around, especially when compared to other genres like
comedy and true crime. And, interestingly, short run podcasts are much
riskier as they are less habit-forming.
The next thing that Tom spoke about was familiarity. Talent is one
route to this, so are certain formats and treatments. Tom showed
delegates audience data which showed that sticking to formats was key,
although he was keen to stress that podcasters can break the format.
