45: How to Avoid Podfade
“Not every podcast is meant to go on forever.”
The dreaded podfade. Why is it that so many new podcasts don't make it past two months? If it takes all this time and energy to create a podcast, why on Earth would someone give up on it so quickly?
In the episode, I explain the common reasons for why a podcast might podfade, provide some tips for how you can avoid it, and get real about knowing when it's time to say goodbye to the show.
Screenshot of my content scheduled in Airtable (Plus, a little sneak peek at my upcoming guests and solo episode topics):
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Transcript
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. Welcome to Episode 45 of podcasting for coaches. In this episode, we are going to talk about the dreaded pod fade. And some tips for how to avoid that, if you're not familiar with the term pod fade, is a term that us on the podcast industry have given to shows who just kind of die off, there's no real Goodbye, there's no real conclusion to the show. And eventually, these shows just literally fade away, they may still be available to listen to, but episodes haven't been released in months, or sometimes even years. And the shows are put in a podcast graveyard, a very, very, very large chunk of the podcast that are currently available on all of the different platforms today. Our shows that have pod faded. And you may have noticed this, you find a new show that you think is fantastic, and you're super excited about it. And then you notice that they haven't released an episode in two years. So you're probably not likely to get any new ones anytime soon. Some of the major reasons for pod fade is that people jump into podcasting, they're super excited by it, they're really geared up, they get launched, and then they don't really understand the amount of time or energy or effort or even money in some cases, it's going to take to continue that show week after week after week. For the average person who is putting on a show by themselves, it takes about four hours for them to complete a one hour podcast episode. And that is very general terms. That's not including if you have a narrative show with sound effects and music, that's not including if you're doing interviews, the time it takes to vet these guests and find them and get them scheduled and then actually conduct the interview. That doesn't even take into account the social media promotion. So it can be a lot of work, which is of course why I advocate outsourcing certain parts if you can. The statistic for the past few years is that most podcast will pod fade out about eight episodes. So they will make it eight episodes. If you release weekly, that's only two months. And then they just eventually let their show Go and die out and fade away with the creation of anchor, which is a super, super, super, super easy podcast hosting platform. So instead of Lipson. Some people choose to go with anchor because you can literally just have an app on your phone press record, and it publishes it for you. I do not recommend using anger. If you're podcasting for part of your business. If it's a hobby thing, and you just want to try it out sure it's fine. But no serious podcasters should be podcasting on anchor. And as evidenced by that, I believe it is around half of all shows currently listed on anchor, since it was released last year have already pod faded. And that number now is honestly probably even larger because it was a few months ago that I saw that statistic. So now that you understand what part of it is and why it might happen. Let's talk about some ways to avoid this. If you have not yet started your podcast, and this is something you're concerned about, then I would very strongly encourage that you start off with a fewer number of episodes than you might have originally planned to release. So if you had originally anticipated releasing one episode per week, maybe scale that back to every other week until you really find out how much time and effort and energy this is going to take. And for some people, it honestly may even be only one episode per month is all that they can handle up front, it will be a lot easier for your audience to adapt to increasing your publishing frequency schedule as opposed to decreasing it. It's kind of like if you give a child a toy, and then you take it away. They're not very happy. But if they didn't have the toy to begin with, and then you give it to them, then they're ecstatic. It's the same concept with your podcast. However, if you have already started publishing your episodes, if you're already launched, and you're now finding out oh my gosh, this is so much more work. I did not anticipate it to take me this long. I cannot keep up with this. I'm feeling burnt out. You can absolutely scale back, you might have a few listeners who may leave because they want content on a regular basis every single week. But losing those few listeners is nothing compared to stopping your show completely because you just can't keep up with it. now in this situation, I would advise that you tell your audience though they are scaling back. So in the last episode before you change your publishing schedule, just add a little segment prefer To the beginning, since not every listener listens all the way through to the end of every episode, and just explained that it's a bigger time commitment than you originally anticipated, you're still devoted to giving them quality episodes. So in order to not sacrifice on that quality, you're scaling back how many are going to release and then announced what your new publishing schedule is, I do recommend whether you have already launched or whether you are getting ready to launch and you're determining the schedule. bare minimum, you should absolutely be doing one episode per month, I would very strongly recommend that you do at least two if you can handle it. The reason for this is because the average podcast listener only subscribes to about six shows at any given time. So if you're not releasing content on a regular basis, chances are they're probably going to find someone who is. Now obviously there are exceptions to this, they may really, really really enjoy your show, they may love your content. And if they are aware of the schedule going in, or they're aware of the change, they may be perfectly okay with that because they know that at least they will get those episodes from you on those days. Now, if you do feel compelled to stick with one episode per week, so that you don't lose any of your listeners for that reason, you can always switch to seasons. So this basically means that you release episodes once a week for a certain period of time, and then you take a break where you're not releasing any in in that off time, you can work at your own pace, to go ahead and put the content together for the next season. That way, when the new season starts, all you really have to do is promote the show you're not trying to create and schedule guests and promote the show all at the same time. So seasons can vary wildly depending on the individual host and the individual podcast. Some people choose to do a month on that a month off, some people choose to do three months on three months off, some people choose to do six months on six months off, some people just do nine months on three months off. And they choose to vary this maybe with the schedules of the year. So during the holiday season, that's when they're going to be in between seasons. Or if they have kids, and they like to travel in the summer and be home with them. You know, while they're off from school, that's when they take their break between seasons. So it's just whatever works best with your schedule. But again, just make sure that you are communicating this very clearly with your audience. So they know exactly what to expect. They know exactly how many episodes are going to be released when the seasons going to start and end, there's no confusion and they know that they can still rely on trust on you. As a caveat to this same with releasing fewer number of episodes per month, you are likely to lose at least some subscribers in the offseason, they might find someone else who is still continuing to produce content. But again, losing those few subscribers because you took a break in between seasons is obviously not going to be as much of an impact as no longer producing any episodes period, and losing all of your subscribers. So besides the general publication schedule, it also is going to help you feel less burnout if you can work more efficiently. So if you are sticking with a weekly schedule, or even bi weekly, if you're not doing seasons, you're going to be doing this all year long consistently. We need to make sure that you're doing things as efficiently as possible so that you are not wasting a lot of time or spending too much time on things when you don't have to. In Episode 42 of this podcast, I actually gave some tips and tools for making your podcast workflow more efficient. I am going to link to that episode in the show notes so that you can take a listen to that I'm not going to run through them all again here, because it would be like having an entire repeated episode in this one. But again, you can find those in the show notes. So go to podcasting for coaches. com, click on the podcast tab in the main menu and go to episode number 42. Or of course just scroll back to 42 in whatever app you're listening to this in right now. So one of the things I did actually touch base on in that episode, I'm gonna go over here in just a little bit. Because it is this important, I want you to plan out your content and batch the work. It is less work and less time for you if you're not scrambling each week and doing these tasks from scratch every single time. So I want you to have a content calendar, I personally use air table, I will have a screenshot of what my content calendar looks like in the show notes for this episode. And I want you to batch record interviews. So only do interviews, you know one or two days a week or one or two days a month even and record multiple on one day. Because that's going to be so much more efficient than you having an interview every single day of the week. And so once a day, you're setting up your recording equipment, you're getting all of your software programs set up on your computer, you're getting your recording environment set up, you're making sure your dogs are put away. You're scheduling things around when packages might be delivered. If you can just designate one whole day so that you set everything up in the morning, you knock out four or five interviews in a day. You're good for the next month or two months if you release bi weekly, and then you're done at the end of the day. And you don't have to do that again until you know maybe one other day that week or one other day that month. When you batch record interviews, you can also batch the post production work. So if you work with an editor, you can send them all five interviews at once. And then just let them take over from there. If you're working on your own, again, you can do the same thing you can batch work on all of these, with the way that our brains work, we have to activate certain parts of it, we do certain tasks, the part of your brain that sits and listens to audio and edit that is not the same part of your brain that sits down to write shownotes. Or to create graphic images. So if you can take care of each one of those sections for four or five episodes at once, you're going to get into a flow and you're going to accomplish each one of those things much faster than you would if you were doing one complete episode from start to finish at one time. So this works for the editing. This works for writing the show notes, this works for tagging the files of metadata, this works for uploading them to Lipson. This works for scheduling your social media post, creating the image of all of these things can be batched. Another thing is, I also want you to do Boomerang, if you use Gmail, this will allow you to pre schedule all of your emails to your guests to let them know that the interviews are alive. So if you're batch working on these things, and you knock out all of your podcast episodes for the next month, you can go ahead and schedule those emails. So you don't have to come back to them later. You already know what episode number they're going to be, you already know what the URL is, for the shownotes, you already have the images created, you already have everything you need for that guest. So why not go ahead and schedule their notification as well. Okay, so to not continue to beat the batch horse, we're going to go ahead and move on to automation. Now, automation can be literally something that's automated, or it can be outsourcing to someone who can help you have a process that runs smoothly. So if you are working with an editor, then the process can just automatically be you record an episode, you send it off, and then they take over their steps. The workflow is automatic. On the other hand, you can actually do some things that really are automated. Like if you're doing interviews, you can set up a scheduling system if you're not using one already. And this makes the product of scheduling your guests fairly automated. Once they've agreed to be on the show, all you have to do is send them a link, then they pick the time that they want, then the scheduler automatically sends them a confirmation email with all the information that they need for the call. And then it automatically sends them a reminder email. And depending on what schedule you're with, and what plan you have, it can even automatically send them a text message reminder. So look for those ways in your process, you can find these little shortcuts where things can be done for you so that you're not the one having to manually send these emails each time. And you're not the one having to go back and forth with a guest and hash out a time for the interview. Along these same lines, scheduling your social media posts is part of this as well. We don't want you to have to hop on Facebook every single day, or hop on Instagram, or hop on Twitter or get on LinkedIn, or wherever you're posting your episodes and share those individually. Let's get you with a scheduler who can schedule all of those things in advance. I have used a buffer in the past and it was okay. I'm currently using later because I am putting a big focus on Instagram at the moment. So if you have not followed me yet, at podcasting for coaches, please do that. But anything we can do where that becomes an automated process is going to really help you out. And I do want to mention actually that I did an entire episode about setting up a scheduling system. So go ahead and check out episode number 28. If you're interested in getting that set up, and getting a behind the scenes look at how I have mine set up for my own show. So the two last things here are essentially kind of last resorts. They're not necessarily things that you can do to get rid of burnout, but they're things that you don't do. And that is release episodes. If you've been podcasting for a little while, if you're feeling burnt out, if you just don't have any ideas flowing anymore, the podcast is becoming a burden, it might be time to take a little bit of a break. Maybe don't switch the seasons, maybe just take a break and see how that feels. Let your audience know what's going on and tell him that you're going to be taking a little bit of a hiatus and that you do anticipate coming back. You're just not sure when that's going to be. But they can follow you on social media to make sure that they stay up to date with the show. And then really take that time to evaluate your podcast. Does it still light you up? Does it still excite you? If you look past all of the mundane tasks that you have to do every week to put the shows out? Do you still enjoy talking to your guests? Do you still enjoy sharing this information with your audience. If that is the case, maybe this little break will just help you feel refreshed and recharged and excited to dive back into it. And you can look for those ways that you can make things easier for you going forward. However, if after this hiatus, you're finding out that it doesn't really let you up anymore. It doesn't serve the purpose that it originally was created for. It's not giving you the results that you want. It's just not something that you feel is a very good use of your time anymore. Or maybe it doesn't align. That was a situation with my very first podcast, I created a travel podcast called Living unconventionally that I have since sold Someone else hosts it now. But I created it because it was my passion and travel still is my passion. But it was very time consuming. And once my business started to take off when it started to grow, I realized that it just wasn't serving the growth of my business anymore. And at that point, I had to make the decision just like you might that it was time to retire the show. Not every podcast is meant to go on forever. So if you're finding this show is not really working for you anymore, then it might be time to make the decision to let it go. If this is the decision that you come to, there are a couple of things I want to suggest. And one is that you do a farewell episode, don't just pod fade, your audience deserves better than that they have been there with you on this journey. They have spent hours and hours of their lives with you. So give them a proper goodbye, do a farewell episode and explain why you're letting the show go. And also explain where they can continue to stay in touch with you. Now if your podcast ever was a part of your business, and if it's not going to negatively impact your business in any way, I recommend leaving that show up. Just because you're no longer producing episodes does not mean that the show needs to disappear completely, you have put a lot of time and effort into creating an incredible amount of content. And that should still serve a purpose. So depending on who you host with. And if you do host with Lipson, as I recommend, you can always just bump your plan down to whatever the cheapest is with Lipson, that plan is $5 a month. And that keeps your podcast live on all the platforms that it's currently on. This way, this content is still out there for you. It's still driving people to your website. It's still establishing your expertise in your field, it's still letting people find you, but you're just not giving them new content. And another bonus to keeping your show going is that if you make this decision to retire the show, and you change your mind later, and maybe you want to rebrand, or even just bringing the show back completely, you still have that option, you're not starting from scratch. So those are my tips for how to avoid pod fade or maybe even come to the difficult decision that it is time to let your show go. If you have any other suggestions for how you have overcome pod fate, I would love to hear about that. Send me a DM on Instagram or comment on one of my pictures I post pretty much every day or send me a message there my Facebook page. Thank you so much for listening in this week. And I want to invite you to come back next week where we are going to have yet another interview with a successful podcaster have a fantastic week. And that wraps up another episode of podcasting for coaches. If you'd like to connect with me further, get additional free resources, receive updates on this podcast and connect with other coaches and consultants who are using a podcast for their business. I'd like to invite you to join the podcasting for coaches community on Facebook. You can either search for podcasting for coach's community on Facebook to find it, or you can use the link that's in the show notes for every single episode of this podcast on my website podcasting for coaches.com