How can you design your podcast so you ensure that it becomes a success?

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.