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You only get one shot to win over a new podcast listener. Which means you need to make your first impression count.
That's where we come in.
In every episode, we roast one of our listener's show's podcast packaging to identify what they're doing well to attract new listeners... and where they're likely turning people off.
Step by step, we walk through the typical podcast listener acquisition process and dissect each show's title, cover art, show description, episode titles & descriptions, and more.
Along the way, we break down the hidden psychology that causes listeners to choose one show over another, offer personalized marketing suggestions, and share our opinions on what works when it comes to podcast growth.
If you're looking to increase your discoverability and improve your podcast listener acquisition, we'd love for you to join us, and—if you dare—submit your own show to be seasoned, skewered, and roasted by leaving us a review with your show name.
I see a lot of people in business and marketing phone it in a little bit when it comes to the podcast. I've been surprised that a lot of copywriting principles seem to go out the door when it comes to writing the podcast description. I would just approach this like this is a client project, and I'm looking to sell this thing. And so I'm gonna use all the techniques that we use in all of our day to day work, and I'm going to craft a narrative that highlights some of the pain points, the opportunities, the alternative solutions, and why those might not be the best fit, and kind of use all these principles that you already know and use and apply them to the podcast. Welcome back to another Podcast Roast.
Jeremy Enns:Today on the skewer is Ella Hoyos of her show Cracking Copy, and she also has a cohost I see here. So shout out as well to Minnie McBride. And today on this show, we are going to be breaking down Cracking Copy's podcast packaging. So we're gonna be looking at the cover art, the title, the description, and the episode titles to find out what you as a podcast creator can take away from our teardown of this show. So, Justin, I think you have got the podcast up in Apple Podcasts, Spotify perhaps.
Jeremy Enns:Okay. We've looks like the Apple Podcast feed from, from my perspective here. What is your initial impression as you pull it up here and start filming through it?
Justin Jackson:So first thing I noticed is the cover art. Especially on mobile, it's spread at the top. Crack and copy, there's a picture of both hosts hosts in in the the cover. Cover. Feels very natural.
Justin Jackson:Feels like real human beings. Their names are there. I can't quite read them unless I, like, look really closely, but feels fun. Feels playful. There's, like, multiple colors on the screen and, approachable, real.
Justin Jackson:That's kind of some of the vibe I'm getting from the cover. How about yourself?
Jeremy Enns:Yeah. I'm looking at it, and I think the the first thing the first impression I get is it feels fun. And I think part of this is the two co hosts, Ella and Minnie, are both smiling, like, very kinda natural looking smiles. They feel casual. It doesn't feel too staged or anything like that.
Jeremy Enns:And then there's also these, like you mentioned, these colors. The one's yellow, one's purple, these kinda blobby shapes. And then each of the, each of the hosts has a kind of, like, little almost speech bubble blob that has their name in it. And so we've got this kind of orange y salmon y color, the purple, the yellow. It just feels like a fun kind of lighthearted show and then the name Cracking Copy Podcast at the top.
Jeremy Enns:And so this is a show that's in the marketing category. So probably there's some kind of implicit context here. And so with that word copy, we kinda get a sense, okay, and and the writing notebook. This is a show about copywriting and, making it cracking, which, I know actually from a little bit of research that the two cohosts are from The UK. Shout out to all of our, listeners across the pond.
Jeremy Enns:This you know, the play on words here, the cracking copy, that's much more of a a British phrase, but I I like it. And, I think that every American as well knows what that means essentially.
Justin Jackson:So you're saying it's a double meaning? Like, on one hand, we're, like, cracking open copywriting, and we're investigating it. And then there's another meaning, which is, like, it's cracking good or something?
Jeremy Enns:Oh, no. This is this is actually really interesting because I initially thought of it as, like, cracking, like, oh, that's really cracking. Like, it's really great. Yeah. And I hear the two Canadians gonna we we maybe we're using the the the cracking wrong here.
Jeremy Enns:But, actually, I like the double meaning here. It actually has two good, I don't wanna say, like, deep meanings, but actually, they're both relevant. And the cracking copy is a nice I I guess you'd call this a double entendre, would you? Yeah. Okay.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. We got the British involved in this. We got the French involved in this. We got the Canadians. We're you know, it's it's all in the mix here.
Justin Jackson:My visual was like, oh, we're cracking open copywriting. Like, we're investigating it. We're opening this up, uncovering it, figuring it out. But, yeah, it's a double entendre.
Jeremy Enns:Okay.
Justin Jackson:And the other thing I would say is that you definitely get a vibe from the cover. Friendly is the vibe I get, approachable, and personal. And this is an underrated strategy. This isn't too stylized. And I think one of the great advantages of podcasting is that people are getting to know us as a host.
Justin Jackson:There's a personality to it. And often, I'm looking for somebody who looks real.
Jeremy Enns:Mhmm.
Justin Jackson:And I get that vibe like, oh, these are real people. Fun, natural, personable. Yeah. I just think they've done a good job with the cover. They do have the word podcast in their cover art.
Justin Jackson:I'm actually I'm conflicted about this. Mhmm. Do you have an opinion on this about putting the word podcast in the cover art or the title?
Jeremy Enns:I'm almost always against it having it in the title. And I think so they don't have it in their title on the actual title tag in their feed. And so that's actually kind of interesting to me. I am also generally not a fan of having it in the podcast cover art. And I think that there is at this point in podcasting, there is a kind of design convention of, like, you can see a square image, and you're like, that looks like podcast cover art versus an album cover or something like that or an audiobook cover.
Jeremy Enns:And so there are distinctions in the format that I think in most cases, most people will be able to understand. When they see a cover art like this, they're like, oh, that's a podcast, and they don't need the word podcast there. In some cases where it's really I I wouldn't say egregious, but where I'm really like, you should remove that, it's because the word podcast is so big that it's taking up valuable kind of screen real estate here. This is pretty unobtrusive. I I still think it's stronger without it.
Jeremy Enns:I would say, like, my one exception to this rule usually is if an author has a book and a podcast of the same name that may be very similar. And this may be true if you have multiple product offerings that are similar and have similar graphics and imagery. Personally, I would I would generally remove podcast. I would usually, from a design perspective, remove anything that is not necessary to communicate what I wanna communicate. And I think the podcast is implicit in the image.
Justin Jackson:The other thing about the cover art is they're in that space where they're saying podcast, they could further clarify who the show is for. Mhmm. And so cracking copy is the brand name, but I don't know exactly what this is for. And you might be able to further clarify that in the cover art. But I think we could probably move on to title Yeah.
Justin Jackson:And description because we'll get more into who the show is for.
Jeremy Enns:Okay. So, I'm looking at the title here. Cracking copy, like I mentioned before, there's no word podcast in the title. And so it's just cracking copy. And so this, as we've discussed in previous roasts personally, so right now for our show, we do not have any descriptive phrase afterwards.
Jeremy Enns:And so somebody could listen to us on these roasts or watch these roasts and say, hey. You keep giving this advice to get more, you know, keywords in there. There's actually a couple reasons based on my experience being in the podcast industry for a long time. It is essentially impossible to rank for anything. Our primary keyword is podcast, but there are hundreds of thousands of shows that have the word podcast in the title, which makes it almost impossible to come up in search for podcasting or podcast.
Jeremy Enns:And so we've already got podcast marketing trends. Our two big keywords are actually in the actual title of the show. But beyond that, I don't know that there's a ton of optimization that we could really get into. We could probably get into data analytics, metrics, maybe some of those things. But at least from my personal perspective and why I have not yet added anything into the title is there's also a bit of branding at play here where I personally like the clean look, and I am, at for this show in particular, kind of willing to sacrifice maybe some additional discoverability.
Jeremy Enns:I feel like at least for me, I and I won't speak for you. Part of the strategy for me, I'm like, this show is of service to my existing audience rather than going to be the front door that's bringing new people in. And so I'm kind of like, this is not a discovery platform for me. This is somewhere I'm funneling people. And so, hence, I actually care less about that with this show.
Jeremy Enns:So I would say that, you know, they have a very clean looking title right here. Cracking copy is really, like, strong and powerful. They could, if they wanted, add in some additional keywords after that title in a kind of descriptive phrase or something like that. I'd be curious to hear your kind of reflection on that and any advice towards, Ella and Minnie.
Justin Jackson:It's so hard to know what a target listener would think. How are they arriving here? If they've been told to search for cracking copy in their podcast app, one thing that's great is cracking copy is unique, and there won't be a lot of other shows with those that combination of keywords. And so it's more likely that people will find it if they are searching for that title. What I do like is that in the description right away, it gives me a little bit more information that tells me who this is for.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. I think they could tighten it up, but I'll I'll just read the first part of it. Crack and Copy is a marketing and copywriting podcast where we lift the lid on writing for business and read between the lines of on Apple Podcast that's now truncated, but I'll click through. Writing for business and read between the lines of effective copy. This is a podcast for creative entrepreneurs and savvy business owners understand the value that great copy can bring to their bottom line.
Justin Jackson:That line I just read, actually, it feels like some version of that should be the first line. Yeah. They we don't need a reiteration of cracking copy is a marketing copywriting podcast. Like, you could just say, four creative entrepreneurs who understand the value that great copy can bring to their bottom line, or some variation of that lets me know right away. It's like, who's the show for, and what's the promise of the show?
Justin Jackson:It's like, oh, if you're a business owner, if you're an entrepreneur, and, you wanna figure out ways that you can improve your copy so that you get more customers, improve your bottom line, this shows for you. And, to have that below the fold, to have to click through and get that description, it feels like that could be the top line. Yeah. What what were some of your thoughts on the description?
Jeremy Enns:Yeah. And I'll even pair this with the title and the description. And so going back to the title, I think as I'm thinking about it more with our title, Podcast Marketing Trends Explained, is a kind of title archetype that tells you exactly what it is. And it's very clear. Podcast marketing trends explained.
Jeremy Enns:And so we already understand, okay. There's gonna be trends data oriented. It's about podcast marketing, and it's explaining the data. So you don't really need much more information. And so anything else is almost superfluous beyond that to some extent.
Jeremy Enns:We don't need that context. We already got everything we need. With cracking copy, I think that I would probably want to add at least a a couple of descriptive words to the title itself. Copywriting is a huge field. There are so many types of copywriters.
Jeremy Enns:There are email copywriters and sales page copywriters, and there are, you know, different, niches that you might, work in and different industries. And there's all these different levels of specificity that this still leaves it pretty wide open to who this is. And so I wrote an article, it's part of the slowly developing podcast growth guide that I'm creating. And this, I think it's part two of it, which is called, sharpening your idea. And so as an example for this guide, I was kind of taking an example hypothetical show, and I was saying like, okay.
Jeremy Enns:If I was gonna take a show about some topic, how would I go through this? And by chance, the example that I picked was a copywriting podcast. And so in that article, I did a bunch of competitor research, and I was like, okay. What are the shows that are out there? What's the tone of them?
Jeremy Enns:What's the description of them? Which audiences are they for? And so there's many different types of copywriting shows. Some are for copywriters, and so it's about improving the craft of copywriting. There are other shows for copywriters that are about growing your copywriting business, not about the craft, about the business, but for copywriters.
Jeremy Enns:Then we've got another the other distinct segment of copywriting shows is for business owners who are not copywriters but know that they need to use copy and write better copy. One of the things that they could do here is call out in the title and that first line of the description, which segment of people interested in copy is this show the best fit for. I would put that right in the title because you don't always see the description, where a show might show up in a social feed or something like that, but you're always gonna see the title. And so I would wanna have some kind of contextual clue which aspect of copywriting is this show serving. And so that would be my big thing with the title.
Jeremy Enns:And then I think to your point, some of this actually, the the creative entrepreneurs and savvy business owners might be obsolete if something to that effect gets added in the title. But I do like that they give some of that additional context here in that first line of description right now. So a marketing and copywriting podcast. But, again, I think that's still broad. Marketing and copywriting could apply to either camp of of potential listeners here.
Jeremy Enns:They flesh this out a little bit more further down where they talk about, you know, this is for business owners who understand the value that great copy can bring to their bottom line. We dive into a different aspect of writing for business in each episode, debunk the myths about how we should write, and explore the ways that writing can be fun, conversational, and creative while also being high impact for serious results. And then they talk a little bit about Ella Hoyos and Minnie McBride, our freelance copywriters with thirty plus years of copywriting, PR, and marketing experience between them. Focusing on relevant topics and giving you useful hints and tips, we aim to help you become better writers for your business. So it's a pretty, like, concise description.
Jeremy Enns:I think it's pretty solid. What I might lean into a little bit is some of the fears and doubts and pain points that their audience has and so that they can address in the description like, hey. We understand how you feel about copy and why you might be hesitant or some of the challenges that you have. They kind of talk a little bit about that with this line. We debunk the myths about how we should write and explore ways that writing can be fun, conversational, and creative.
Jeremy Enns:But I would actually contrast that with some of the actual current state that their listeners are feeling of, like, I know I need to write better, but I'm not a creative person. I can't write. All those things. And I would say, you know, you might have been told this. You might have feel this.
Jeremy Enns:But just because it hasn't worked for you in the past, we're gonna show you how actually there is another way to do it, and this podcast will will teach you how. So that would be some of the kind of, like, contrasting ideas that I might include in this and bring a little bit more specificity to it.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. Even I mean, this is just my first take on it. But in your title saying cracking copy and then a pipe or a dash and saying write better for your business
Jeremy Enns:Yeah.
Justin Jackson:Something that lets me know this is for people who wanna write better for their business and just seeing if that helps people immediately recognize who the show's for and what it's about. Yep. Worth experimenting with.
Jeremy Enns:Yeah. The other thing that I will just add here is I don't know why, but I have looked at a lot of copywriting podcasts, descriptions, and things like that, maybe through my my research before. And I'm not commenting on Ella and Mini's show here, but in general, I've been surprised that a lot of, like, copywriting principles seem to go out the door when it comes to writing the podcast description. And I think we've talked about this before where I think a lot of times, the description is, like, the last thing you've, like, got your episodes lined up and you're, like, ready to publish them and you're like, oh, crap. We we need to write a description to, like, submit our our show to Apple and all the different directories.
Jeremy Enns:And so the description actually kinda gets it's this last of the line thing of just this thing that we gotta shoot out the door. I think your description is is pretty solid. I think it it can be tightened up. But I would just approach this as, like, this is a client project, and I'm looking to sell this thing. And so I'm gonna use all the copywriting principles and techniques that we use in all of our day to day work, and I'm going to craft a narrative in this in a really condensed narrative in this short space in the description that highlights some of the pain points, the opportunities, the alternative solutions, and why those might not be the best fit, and kind of use all these these kind of copywriting principles that you already know and use and, apply them to the podcast and maybe give this a refresh.
Jeremy Enns:I'm guessing that both of you two are are better copywriters than me. And so, of course, it's easier to poke holes in something than it is to write it from scratch, but I think a lot of times I see a lot of people in business and marketing phone it in a little bit when it comes to the podcast. And I think it's because we devote most of our attention to the show itself, and it's kind of these other things around the fringes tend to get kind of like, oh, yeah. I guess I'll put something there, and I'll update it later. And it never really happens.
Jeremy Enns:But, really, like, know, this is a big kind of leverage point.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. And good copywriting means having people look at your stuff and edit it and suggest stuff. So they've done the right thing in submitting their podcast to, get roasted by us two jackasses.
Jeremy Enns:One last thing in the description. I always like to hear a couple of example topics, and that just gives me as a listener something to latch on to that kind of, triangulates, okay, what types of specific topics will be discussed here? And I think part of it is saying, you know, we cover these topics, but part of it also, there's something that is implied by the topics that you cover that says more than the actual words there. So I might include some of those things just to make it more concrete for listeners.
Justin Jackson:Great. I like it. Let's do a little scroll test here. So I'm just in Apple Podcasts, and I am just gonna scroll down and see what jumps out at me. First title, honestly, I just skipped it.
Justin Jackson:Felt too long. Didn't there's not any keywords that jumped at me. Podcasting for beginners, they have two episodes on that. Oddly, they they call out the episode number in part two. They say episode 34 at the beginning of that, but not in any of their other episodes.
Justin Jackson:So there's a lack of consistency there. Mhmm. But podcasting for beginners. Okay. I I know what that topic is about.
Justin Jackson:UX writing for a great user experience. I know what that's talking about. Case studies, an expert guide with ham. I I skipped over that one. Working with a writing coach.
Justin Jackson:That's interesting. Hooks and how to hook your ideal customer. I'd probably shorten that up. I'm getting a sense as I scroll through these and do the scroll test, which titles grab me and which ones I skip because they're honestly just too long, too complicated, and we all do this. I've written very long titles as well.
Justin Jackson:And there's a balance here between getting the keywords you want in there and also describing what the episode's about. And the episode title is doing a lot of jobs for your podcast. But the scroll test is important because a lot of folks are just going to scroll through your episodes and see what grabs them. And if your titles aren't punchy enough, if there's not a hook, if there's not something that's like, oh, yeah. I would listen to that.
Justin Jackson:I would listen to that. Oh, that's interesting. You want people to be scrolling through and having titles that grab them. Every second title is grabbing me, but I think these could be improved. They could become, you know, punchier, more compelling, have better hooks to get people in, and to not waste characters again with episode numbering.
Justin Jackson:And especially if you're not going to use it consistently, I would just remove those episode numbers. Yeah. How about yourself? What are you seeing on your side?
Jeremy Enns:What I would sum it up as is there seems to be a lack of a distinct defined kind of title convention where we see this quite a bit here. So something like from freelancer to agency force, colon, the framework that changed the game. So I think if all of your episode titles are similar like that, where you have this, like, first title, colon, or dash or something like that, and then a further descriptor, I think that's kinda fine, but it's a little jarring to me that there's it hops around from, like, some short punchy titles and then some longer ones and then some short ones and then some longer ones. And so this is actually a copywriting principle is how text takes up space on the page, which is fascinating because we want to believe if you're a writer, you're like, well, it's only about the words. Right?
Jeremy Enns:But actually, like, poets have known this for a long time. How the text aligns on the page, the your line length, how your line breaks occur, indents, things like that, all have an effect on how the reader, interprets it. And so in this case, I think when I come into the the episodes here, it just feels a little bit like all over the place. And then to your point as well, they have this episode on February 9 episode. It says EP dot 34 then podcasting for beginners.
Jeremy Enns:And that's the only episode in screen here where there's that episode designation at the start. But then when we scroll back later, back to October from 2023, we see one that says episode 28 fully written out dash making a living as a writer. So it feels like there's a little bit all over the place that could just be tightened up to have a defined kind of convention. It's a little bit interesting. So I I partly agree with your point around punchy titles.
Jeremy Enns:I think that sometimes it is worth having an additional layer on it. And so I look at a title here that is back from August, tenth twenty twenty three, Harnessing the Power of Storytelling. So this catches my eye to some extent because it's actually a short punchy title, and it's a topic that is it's it's interesting to me personally, but depending on the savviness of your audience with a specific topic, this may feel generic. And so to me, I've, you know, read many books on storytelling and all these things. I look at this and I'm like, okay.
Jeremy Enns:This is like basic beginners storytelling one zero one, which is fine. But I think that a lot of times you see a lot of titles like this that are short and punchy, but you may actually need an additional layer of some kind of specificity or a twist on it or something that pulls me in and makes me care about it more. So maybe it's like harnessing the power of storytelling for your email welcome sequence. And now I'm like, oh, I have never thought about storytelling for my email welcome sequence. Even though now I've, like, spent a lot of time studying storytelling, I haven't thought about it in this context.
Jeremy Enns:And so now it's gone from, oh, this is a beginner episode to like, oh, I must listen to this because I already love storytelling. I know a lot about it, but I've never applied it in this way. And so this is an area where I think sometimes you can start with a short title and then a colon or in brackets or something like that that gets into a longer kind of description of it. But, usually, what I would say is each part should almost stand on its own, like that short punchy title, which they're actually doing quite a bit here. So, like, linguistics one zero one, colon, interview with an audience whisperer.
Jeremy Enns:That one actually I don't really know what that means, interview with an audience whisperer. So I would substitute that out for a different phrase of, like, linguistics one zero one. How understanding this can help you do a better job of this or help you avoid this? Where I think then we're getting more to my application of it rather than about a guest who I don't know or care about at this point yet.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. If they were looking for a template to follow, it's almost like topic or general topic and then our take on it. Or so for example, pricing your work. That's a standalone title, short and punchy, but their title is pricing your work for a premium client experience.
Jeremy Enns:Yeah.
Justin Jackson:Oh, okay. So pricing your work might grab me already if I'm interested in that topic, but then their add on there sharpens it up for a premium client experience. I think they could follow that template, and they get the benefit of introducing topics that might grab people during the scroll test and then even sharpening it more and saying, oh, but here's why you wanna, click through is it's pricing your work, but for a premium client experience. Okay. Alright.
Justin Jackson:I haven't seen that. Let's do that.
Jeremy Enns:Yeah. So the other thing that stands out to me here is a little bit of the topic selection and how this shows up and influences my perspective, as a potential listener. And so we actually had a a conversation. You shared shared a link with me in our Slack channel. A guy named, Tony Mastorio, I believe his name is, on threads, he started this this thread about, you know, what causes you to unsubscribe from a podcast.
Jeremy Enns:And what he had said was that a lot of times the thing for him is that it'll be a significant amount of time, maybe several weeks, maybe several months, where there hasn't been a topic that's jumped out at him and drawn him in to come back. And there's they're not necessarily doing that here. But when I look at this podcasting for beginners part one and part two that is recently in their feed, If I'm coming to this as a person who's wanting to learn copywriting, I'm not coming here to learn podcasting. And so immediately, I'm thinking, oh, this maybe doesn't have the highest density of copywriting content. And so maybe I'm gonna go look at another copywriting show where the first 10 episodes are all deep dive copywriting topics that I'm like, oh, every single episode is gonna be valuable here.
Jeremy Enns:Whereas if my first impression is already, oh, they talk about a bunch of other stuff too, so maybe they don't really talk about copy that much, I might very quickly make the decision not to even listen to the first episode and go look for something that has a higher kind of concentration of what I'm actually looking for. And so we we talk about titles a lot, but obviously, the title is tied to the content. And I think that this is something that not enough people think about is what is the signal that your topic selection is sending people when they come to your show for the first time. And I think that this is something that people should really focus on. Whatever the promise your show is making, make sure that basically every episode is aligned with that pretty clearly for a new listener who comes to the show.
Justin Jackson:There's a tension here that I wanna point out, which is I wish you could identify a title for a new person who's never listened to a show and a title for a recurring listener. Yeah. Because we don't know. Maybe their listeners are asking them to do a few episodes on podcasting. Maybe they've developed a relationship with their listener, and the listener wants to hear their story, and they want a few meta episodes on, hey.
Justin Jackson:You've been running this podcast now for a few years. What's your experience been like as you've, you know, produced this show? And this is the challenge of, you know, you could have, like, really esoteric, weird titles that are inside jokes that only your listeners get, or you could have something a little bit more approachable for somebody who's new. And you have to kinda walk the line between serving existing users, giving them something. Existing listeners love it when you have some inside jokes in the title.
Justin Jackson:But if we also wanna grow the show, how can we make it, approachable for somebody who's never listened before?
Jeremy Enns:Yeah. And I think that that's the thing that, you know, when you're thinking about growing the podcast, this is who you're trying to win over is people who have no experience of the show so far. And it could be, you know, that there are people who are aware of you in some context and haven't listened to the shows, so they have a little bit more awareness of what the show might be about. But a lot of times, like, we do wanna optimize for that. Somebody comes across the show for the first time, they get what we are are kind of about from the get go.
Jeremy Enns:And I think about this as kind of like podcast or brand coherence kind of. Like, somebody can come to it, and they're like, oh, I get what this is. I can kind of see, how this will help me, how it fits into my life, and it all kind of makes logical sense together. So that is something to think about, and there is this balance between serving your existing listeners as well as winning over new people. This plays out in the structure of your episodes and all these things as well.
Jeremy Enns:A common one is, long kind of host monologues at the start of the episode. I think that those are great for for listener serving content, but usually, you're gonna lose people who are coming in for the first time, and they don't know you and they don't care about you yet. And so one of my, piece of advice with that is, like, keep that, but move it to the back of the episode. It's like the super fans are listening to the last ten minutes. Do your monologue then and chat with them there and similar things with, you know, how you're presenting the show from a packaging perspective, for new listeners.
Justin Jackson:I'll also say, for anybody watching this or listening to this, episode titles are the one thing you can go back and edit afterwards. There there will be no penalty for you going back through all of your episode titles and just improving them or trying something new with all of them. How can I rewrite this to make it more compelling, to give it a better hook? What can I try here? There's no harm in doing that.
Justin Jackson:And to spend a few hours just saying, you know what? I'm just gonna rewrite all of our titles in one go and just see how that feels for a new listener. You're constantly kind of improving that initial new listener onboarding experience by improving your titles. And you would do the same thing with email sequence. Yep.
Justin Jackson:You'd be like, oh, you know what? Let's let's audit this email sequence and really improve these subject lines. You might also do that with your blog post titles. If someone was just scanning, would they click through on any of these? Yeah.
Justin Jackson:So anybody listening right now, my challenge to you, go into your podcast hosting provider and just update a bunch of titles for your last ten, twenty episodes. Improve them in some way, and then see what happens. Maybe, you'll notice that you're getting, you know, more people checking out the show, more people listening. So it's worth experimenting with this in particular.
Jeremy Enns:Yeah. The last thing looking through some of the titles that I hadn't noticed initially is I'm just looking at the release dates here. And so I see it right now as we're recording this on March 5. We see the most recent episode was from one day ago, so March 4. And then we've got the previous one was February 9, then February 1, then January 10.
Jeremy Enns:Then we go all the way back to December 7, November 23, November 9, October 26, October 13, September 14, and then August 25. And so it seems to be a very inconsistent kind of release schedule. It seems like at times, it's maybe biweekly, and then at times, it's monthly. And this is something that I don't know how everybody, all listeners interpret this, but there is something about podcasting that when you're subscribing to a show that is not like a limited run short run series, a lot of times there is some job, I think, that we as listeners want of having some kind of companionship of, like, our real dream if we're we're if we're gonna think about it. It's like, we really want a show that can be there with us every new week.
Jeremy Enns:There's something new. It's relevant. It's up to date. And there are great shows that have, you know, been maybe they produce weekly episodes for three years, and now they're they're done. And sometimes I'll find those shows and I'll binge through them.
Jeremy Enns:But there's something about podcasting that's very unique to podcasting where it is this this reliable friend in your pocket almost where it's like, okay. My copywriting podcast every Tuesday, I can tune in. Maybe it's every other Tuesday, whatever it is, but I know I can count on it in some capacity. And so I don't wanna say that this is a make or break thing, but there is a signal that is sent that I think some people more than others will really want this in a show and may not choose a show that is inconsistent because of
Justin Jackson:This is another one of those podcasting cliches though that I think you should investigate for yourself. And in particular, I would do a listener survey where I'm asking a few questions. What's going on in your world that brought you to this podcast? How do you typically listen? Why do you typically listen?
Justin Jackson:What job is this doing for you in your life? So there are some podcasts where the job is inspire me to do more copywriting in my business as I walk down to the office every Tuesday morning. Well, if through research, you discover that that is the main job to be done that many people have mentioned, then absolutely, you should have a regular release cadence. But you may also ask a very pointed question, which is, in a perfect world, how often would we release this show? What would be good for you?
Justin Jackson:And I think people will be surprised that sometimes people are like, you know, I only wanna hear from you when you have something new to say. Yep. I only want a great episode every month. I only want a great episode every couple weeks. Actually, do the research.
Justin Jackson:Investigate. Get into the world of your listeners and see what they expect and see if there are any trends that you might be able to pick up on. I will say I do wanna see generally a recent episode. And so that's one signal I'm looking for. But personally, that's become less of a concern for me.
Justin Jackson:Are they releasing every week? I've got so many shows to listen to. But I do like to know generally, like, what what is the promise here? So if the promise is you know, we've mentioned the Acquired podcast in the past. The the promise of Acquired is every month or two, you're gonna get a very well researched episode that's gonna be about three hours long.
Justin Jackson:Yep. And that's the promise of the show. And it's like, okay. That's great. And so I would do some research.
Justin Jackson:I would investigate this for yourself. Not every show needs a weekly cadence. Not every show even needs a regular cadence.
Jeremy Enns:I will highlight a couple of things that you said in your talk through there, is that Mhmm. You mentioned, okay, every two weeks or every month, it's okay if we have a great episode. And I think that the word great there is the word that matters. And I think that the more time that goes by between episodes, the higher the expected bar for quality is. And there's also another aspect to this is that you have to be offering something that is very singular, that people can't get elsewhere.
Jeremy Enns:Because there are going to be people if you're offering a generic job to be done in a way that other people are doing it, and you're releasing one episode every month, and they're releasing one every episode every week, if that is an important job that people need to get done, maybe they'll listen to your show, but they they also are probably going to be listening to that other show in the meantime. And so I I've mentioned a show in the past called Brains, and it's baked into their premise. It's, I think their premise is something like smart minds from the Internet meet for the first time. We only release when we have something good. It's been two years probably since their last episode was released.
Jeremy Enns:I check on a weekly basis. I refresh. Even though it's at the bottom of my my feed, I know it hasn't released a new episode. I still check every single week because I'm just like, there is no other show like this that I can get this. And I will wait years if need be to get another episode.
Jeremy Enns:And we look at, know, Hardcore History or Acquired. There are plenty of examples here, and this extends to writing and YouTube as well. You can get away with a less regular release schedule, but you need to be releasing something that people are willing to wait for. The one other caveat to that, I would say, is that we don't know what job this show is doing for Ella and Minnie. And so it is entirely possible that they have a regular email newsletter that this podcast is just something a bonus content that they release for their email listeners whenever they have something.
Jeremy Enns:And this is actually a show that I'm thinking about creating for my business where that's gonna be the model, where it's gonna be like, maybe every couple months, it sounds like you have a show like this as well, where it's like, when we've got something good, I'll release that. And it's just pure bonus content. But I'm not making the promise that you are going to come to this to get regular, you know, whatever it is that the promise is going to be from the show. So another kind of nuance there to think about for everybody listening as well.
Justin Jackson:Agreed. There is custom episode artwork here in Apple Podcast that I can see. And in this case, every cover art has the same sort of template. And I'm kinda wondering if if it was me, I would experiment with not having the title of the podcast on this episode cover art and just see how it feels, how it looks. Take a look at it in Apple Podcasts.
Justin Jackson:You'll also notice that Apple Podcast now has these these tiles on the home screen, and your episode cover art shows up there. Look at this in different context. If it was me, I would be trying to make some more bold choices here. If it's a guest that people recognize, just put a big photo of the guest and nothing else. If it's about, like, managing stress as a business owner, have a business owner who's stressed out in the image.
Justin Jackson:Test things out. I know that you're doing YouTube thumbnails, and then you're taking the YouTube thumbnail and then modifying that as podcast cover art. I think that's another great thing to test out, on the episode level is like, wow. What's kinda grabbing people in YouTube? Well, maybe I can modify this and have it grab folks in the podcast player.
Jeremy Enns:Yeah. This is something that we've talked about in previous episodes. And I think that this is something if you're already putting in the work to create these these episode graphics, I would think about more how can they complement the title. I think it would do a better job of pulling people in and kind of like we talked about on the titling side of things, offering some more context through the artwork rather than, just in the title. So maybe you could save some of that real estate in terms of the the titling and keep a shorter title and then also complement that with something on, the graphic.
Jeremy Enns:And, obviously, the graphic doesn't show up in every player, so you may not have that advantage everywhere. But in some places, it does, including some of the the big players that are out there. And so I think it is certainly worth looking into, especially if you're already doing the work of creating custom graphics for the episodes.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. I I think you're actually doing a really great job at this. I encourage people to go look up this show in YouTube, and then just go to all videos or whatever and look at all the thumbnails that Jeremy has created. There is a hook in each of them, and I think folks could follow that template to see, like, here's the title, but then here's, like, this evocative image and then a couple words that are like, woah. Like, check this out.
Justin Jackson:Like, I never thought about this. There's something surprising about it. There's something that opens up a curiosity loop. And I honestly think more folks should be doing this, especially with the changes that Apple Podcasts has made in their app. Increasingly, they're surfacing this cover art in the app in different places and tiles.
Justin Jackson:And if that image is, evocative enough, if it's, like, compelling enough, if it opens up this curiosity, then increases the chance that people might click through.
Jeremy Enns:Yeah. I, my goal with the cover arts is to make you out to be, podcasting's number one villain here, essentially. So, that's that's my mission with the show here on, one of our recent episodes here. We've got Justin kinda shrugging me like, what discoverability problem? And, so Justin's gonna be the troll in chief of the podcasting industry once, I've had my way with the the cover arts here.
Justin Jackson:But you can see how it works with the episode title. You know? It's it's almost like I'm reacting to the episode title. I like that. And, you know, the placement here matters.
Justin Jackson:It's like these this cover is often right next to the the title, and so they can play off each other. They good cop, bad cop. You know? They they each play a role.
Jeremy Enns:Yeah. And, actually, I like that good cop, bad cop. That's exactly what's going on in my brain typically when I'm thinking about, okay. What's the title? And a lot of times the title comes from the cover art.
Jeremy Enns:I know what the cover art's gonna be. And so for this recent episode that I've got up on the screen here, really what I wanted to communicate was like, what discoverability problem? Because that's kinda what we talked about. Like, is this a real thing in this episode? And I was like, okay.
Jeremy Enns:That's the graphic. Now what is the episode title that I can pair that with? And so sometimes you have the title that informs the cover art. Sometimes you have the cover art, and you're like, okay. Well, now what will go with that to create this this tension, this good cop, bad cop kind of dichotomy almost?
Justin Jackson:I've mentioned this before. This podcast does not have a trailer. And the reason I keep telling people to produce a trailer is because it's actually very clarifying for how you're gonna market the podcast. How are we, in a very short amount of time, going to pitch this podcast to someone who's never listened before? And then you can use what you learn in producing that trailer in your title, in your description, in your images, in everything.
Justin Jackson:And I I just think it's a good exercise to go through even if not many people end up listening. But often in these apps, they will highlight the trailer in some way. It gives you another opportunity to give people a entry point into your show. So producing a trailer is worth doing just for the practice of figuring out how am I gonna pitch this show to a potential listener. Because if you can't articulate it, how are your super fans gonna articulate it?
Justin Jackson:And, also, what are your super fans gonna use to share the show with their friends and colleagues? I often send the trailer. Like, if you wanna know what the show's about, listen to this episode first. If it grabs you, you can subscribe.
Jeremy Enns:Yeah. Alright. So what would you say would be your kind of one to three takeaways here for Ella and Mini in terms of what they could maybe do to, improve their show's packaging?
Justin Jackson:I would experiment with adding to the title. So write great copy for your business. I would tighten up that description. We talked about episode titles and how you might be able to come up with that template where it's like UX writing for a great user experience. I and even that could be more compelling.
Justin Jackson:But I like this idea of having the topic and then sharpening up why you you should care about our take on that topic. Yeah. How about you?
Jeremy Enns:Yeah. I think those are the the two main things for me is potentially adding something to that that title to make it immediately clear which aspect of copy this show covers. And then I think the titles are the the other big thing here. And, I mean, the we talked a little bit about, you know, the topic selection here, the role that that might play. That might be something that I would look into as well and think about, like, okay.
Jeremy Enns:How can I make this consistently the best copywriting podcast that there is, for my audience and really keep the topic, limited to that? And I might even if your audience is asking for those things, I might say, hey. I'm actually gonna do a a YouTube live or something like that, and we're gonna talk about podcasting. It's off platform. It's not part of the body of work of the podcast necessarily.
Jeremy Enns:It's more of a standalone piece of content. So that might be something I would look into. And then the other really low hanging fruit here is I would go back up and just update the episode titles where the conventions are not clear. So there we've got this one EP dot 34. We've got another one that says episode, 26 or something like that, 28.
Jeremy Enns:And so I would just bring some consistency to that as that's something that doesn't necessarily reflect the best when a listener comes here and they're seeing kind of things are all over the place. So overall, though, I think the cover art is great. I like the way that you talked about at the start that there's the vibe that it sends that feels really I feel like I get a sense of how this show is going to be from a listener perspective, or, like, what the the tone of the the show itself will be from the cover art. I like the name. The name's really strong.
Jeremy Enns:Cracking copy, it has that double entendre like you mentioned, and both of which are interesting positive connotations. So a lot of great things here and a few things that the screws could be tightened up a little bit, but it seems like they're they're off and running.
Justin Jackson:Well done. If you would like your podcast roasted by Jeremy and I, you can do that by going to Apple Podcasts, looking for the title of this show, leave us a review, and list the name of your podcast in your review, and we may select you for a future roast.