115: Podcast Episode Ideas for When You Feel Stuck
What’s This Episode About?
Years Podcasting: Nearly six
Total Podcasts Hosted: Four
Total Episodes Released: Over 400
If you think in all that time I’ve never hit a content idea block, you’re very wrong.
But one good thing to come from all that podcasting, and helping podcasters like you with their shows for the past 5+ years, is that I’ve picked up a trick or two to help get past those blocks.
In this episode, I’m sharing some of my go-to podcast episode topics and ideas so you can have them ready the next time you’re feeling a little blocked when trying to plan out the content for your own podcast.
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Google Podcasts | Audible | iHeartRADIO | Android Devices | RSS
Transcript
0:07
Welcome to podcasting for coaches. I'm Britany Felix and I'm a podcast launch consultant who specializes in helping Coaches and Consultants utilize the power of podcasting as a way to build brand awareness and generate new leads for their business. I realize not every new coach or consultant can afford to hire someone to help launch their show. So I created this podcast as a way to guide you through the process of launching and utilizing your very own podcast to help you grow your business and reach a new audience of adoring followers and potential clients. If you're ready to get your voice and podcast out into the world, head over to podcasting for coaches.com to learn more.
0:48
Welcome to Episode 115, of podcasting for coaches. I am really excited to bring you this episode today. Hopefully I keep the short and sweet although I feel like every time I say that it goes for like almost 30 minutes. So we will see. If you're listening to this in real time, it might be because you saw me speak it she podcast live over the past weekend. And I appreciate you checking out the show and hopefully we got to connect. If not, please feel free to reach out. You can find me on Instagram at podcasting for coaches, you can go to my website podcasting for coaches.com. And there is a contact form on the main menu. I am not going to be sharing any takeaways from G podcast live in this episode. And if you don't know what that is, by the way, it is a podcasting conference basically, for those who identify as female or non binary, and it is an absolutely amazing event. It's my favorite podcasting event to attend. It did happen this past weekend in Scottsdale, Arizona. However, I am recording this the week prior because I had to travel for that conference. And the day this episode goes live. I'm actually flying to Orlando to be in one of my best friend's weddings this weekend. So for the meat of this episode, I am going to follow up from last week's episode, where one of the common podcasting fears that people have is that they're not going to have enough content to talk about, or they'll run out of it and not be sure what to do next. So in this episode, I want to give you some ideas because I have been podcasting for I don't even know how long at this point five and a half years when I published my first episode, but I started working on my first podcast about six years ago. And if you think I haven't hit some content blocks, at some point throughout those six years, you would be completely wrong, because I absolutely have. The good news is is I've been doing this long enough. And I've been helping other people with their podcast long enough that I have a couple of go to strategies for whenever this happens. So one of the strategies that I actually utilized with my own show with this one here, because this is my fourth podcast. And it's something that works really well for when you're in the launch phase. But you can absolutely pivot and do this at any point in your show, even if you've already launched. But I love to think about my clients journey. So that's what I want you to do as well. Think about your ideal client. And where are they at when they start looking for the types of things you offer, when they start realizing they have a problem of some kind an issue that needs to be solved. Whatever it is that they come to you for when do they start realizing that they need some assistance. That's where I want you to start with your first episode, helping people to recognize the problems they have. Because as you know, as a coach or consultant, a lot of the people that come to you probably don't even really understand what their problem truly is. So I want you to think about the very start of that journey as they're doing some research and gathering information and make every single episode a different step in that journey until their work with you is completed. So what this looks like in my own show is all the way back in those very first episodes, I talked about what you needed to know to start a podcast how much time it takes how much it costs, again, all of those kinds of information gathering questions that people have. And then I took them through every single step of the launch process. And then even beyond that to growing an audience, bringing on guests, being guests on other shows what to do when you reach pod fade and burnout, how to become more efficient. And honestly going through that whole journey with my client gave me almost a full year's worth of content. So for the first basically year of the show, I didn't even really have to try to think of an idea because it was all mapped out for me because I just broke down every step of what I do with my clients into its own episode. And then a couple of things that I do when I am feeling just a little bit of a block and I'm like okay, I'm not really sure I want to talk about right now. Nothing's really standing out to me. I've covered everything already. What am I going to talk about, I like to take a look back at some of my most popular episodes, and see if I can expand on any of those topics some more. Because if they are your most popular episodes, something about that topic, especially if they're all related to a particular theme, really resonated with your audience, and it might be something that they're interested in learning even more about. So you can take a deeper dive into whatever your most popular episodes are about. You can ask for topic ideas from your audience. I know this seems kind of crazy, because it makes it seem obvious that you don't know what you're going to talk about. But this is a really great way to get feedback and gauge where your audiences at that moment in their journey, are the vast majority of questions, kind of these like newbie starter questions. Are they more advanced? Are they all about one particular topic and see if anything in those suggestions that you get from your audience sparks any ideas for you for some episodes? How you can phrase this question is What topics do you really want me to cover on the podcast? What are you most struggling with? Right now any of the sort of market research type questions will also help hopefully give you some list of ideas. In a similar vein, I actually really like to do q&a episodes, I actually build these in right around my birthday every year, because I just think there's so much fun to do. And how I do this as I put up a post on social media asking for questions. And honestly, I open it up because I'm an open book to really being about anything. So obviously podcasting, but also my business if they want to know the behind the scenes of it, just my life as an entrepreneur in general, and then even my personal life. So my ghost hunting, my hobby podcast, my travels, my TV show addictions, my experience, volunteering with an animal rescue, like literally anything is on the table for people to ask me. And they do. And I think these episodes are so fun, and my audience has always really, really liked them as well. And one interesting little side note about this is that after making this suggestion to one of my clients, it became such a big hit with her audience that she went from doing an interview episode every single week, to now only doing one interview episode per month, because she has just been getting so many questions from her audience. And this makes it so much easier on her because these episodes are shorter, it showcases her expertise, her audience feels like they're getting a lot of value out of it. And it just has become one of her favorite things to do with her show. And then the next suggestion I have for you is to consider changing up the format of your show. Maybe you're really struggling with coming up with content for solo episodes every single week. And maybe you just need to introduce some interviews into it, just to help relieve a little bit of that pressure on you to always come up with a new topic. And then in that similar vein, you might also consider bringing on some special co host, this can be different from a guest because you could have this co host on for a full season for a limited episode run. I actually did this all the way back in 2016. And it was really, really fun. It wasn't for my show, I actually was brought on as like a limited run co host for another show. And I helped her co hosts it for like four episodes. And it was honestly I can't say any other word, but fun. And it just really kind of shook things up. And you might be able to do that with your show. If there's someone who is a business partner of yours, or just a colleague or someone in your niche that you really really click with and resonate with and your messages online. Maybe you two can come together and have some conversations for you know, four episodes, five episodes, three episodes, you can turn it into a little series. And then another thing that you can do other than having an actual co host is to do something with your actual existing audience. So this could look like live coaching sessions with some of your clients, it could look like doing member spotlights or highlights for your community where they can share their story, and what it's like working with you or being in your community and how much you have helped them even if they're not actually a paying client. So these are all great for giving you content for the show. But bonus, they are fantastic for converting listeners into actual customers or clients, or the very least community members. And then the last suggestion I'm going to give you is to think about the content you already have. So this is obviously for people who have already released episodes or already launched, maybe they've been going for a year or two years, and they're just kind of starting to run out of these ideas. Think about ways that you can use what you already have. Now I know I talked about looking at your most popular episodes, but I want you to take it a step beyond that even and look at just the body of work that you have as a whole. And see if you can't create a couple of quick start guides Two episodes. So as an example, Episode 74 of my Podcast, the podcast quickstart guide episode is me realizing 74 episodes into the show that I put out a lot of content. It's been well over a year since I had started. And new people discover my show all the time. And they may not necessarily go all the way back to the beginning. And there is a lot of episodes for them to sort through. So I created this quickstart guide episode to break down every step of the podcast launch process. And then let them know which of my other episodes corresponded to that step. So see if there's anything you can do with your content like that. Is there some kind of a guide, a little cheat sheet, a quickstart thing you can put together for your audience, where basically, all you're doing in that episode is breaking something down into very simple steps. And just letting them know which of your other episodes goes into that
10:57
step further. You can also look at this as breaking this up into topics. So maybe you rerelease some of your old episodes, and you do it by, you know, this month, we're going to talk about all my episodes on marketing. The next month, we're going to talk about all of my episodes on branding. I mean, whatever it is that you do, you can break up those topics and those episodes into different categories. And you can look at repurposing them re releasing them just to give yourself a little break. But you're still putting out content, because I don't want you to assume that every single person listening to your show has listened to every single episode, because I promise you, they have not. There will be some that have, we all have those super fans who've been consumer content, and they are amazing, and we love them. But most people don't do that. So don't forget to re release or repurpose that old content. So you're getting in front of all of your new listeners. Okay, hopefully that kind of helped spark some creativity and give you some inspiration to come up with some ideas. If you have any special techniques, or tricks or hacks that you like to use whenever you come up against this kind of content block. And I didn't mention it here in this episode, please feel free to reach out I would love to learn about them. And I'm sure others would as well. That's gonna wrap it up for this episode. I hope that you have a fantastic week, and I will see you back here in two weeks for another new episode. And that wraps up another episode of podcasting for coaches. If you'd like to connect with me further, you can do so on Instagram at podcasting for coaches. If you know it's time to finally get serious about starting your podcast, go to podcasting for coaches.com and click on the work with me tab in the main menu to learn more about my one on one launch consultation packages or my self paced online course. And I look forward to seeing the podcasts that you create and put out into the world.