The busiest time in podcasting is happening right now

The busiest time in podcasting - Pump up your pod

When I started looking back at the last few years and assessed what are the busiest months for not only podcasters, but the podcast industry in general, it was clear that October and November are bonkers.

So how do we plan for months like this, and what can we learn from previous years?

One of the best ways to make sure that you're stacking the content that you really want to make sure you get out before the end of the year, is by batching. Yes, I know that's a "dirty word" for most because they find it hard enough to get one episode recorded, let alone a bunch.

But you're going to feel the benefits of this of the next few months if you take the time to plan some content, block out a few sessions and record the things you want to have ready.

October and November are the months in business where everything seems to happen at once. If you're a service based business you're probably encountering a lot more enquiries for your services. Customers want to lock things in before the end of the year, they want to tie a pretty little bow around projects that have been going on for some time.

If you're a product based business, well you're about to get slammed for the holiday period. As much as I dislike the "holiday spend" period personally, it's great for the product based businesses. Be strategic about what you're sharing on your podcasts to give yourselves the best chance of finishing the year strong.

It's not the time to be starting a whole new strategy, but it is a great time to start thinking about what your strategy is going to be for the next year.

There are a lot of aspects to think about as you gear up for the end of the year, but don't freak out. Take half an hour to yourself and think about how you want to attack the remainder of the year.

Then give yourself a break!

Transcript:

00:00
Welcome to Pump Up Your Pod

00:03
Hello, everyone, welcome back to Pump Up Your Pod with me, Brianna, your host. How the flip Are you? I have been an extremely busy bee in the last few months. I believe the last podcast episode I had a chance to do was maybe back in August. And then things went crazy. And that is the point of this podcast episode today to talk about the busiest time in podcasting. When I started looking back through the last few years, and not only download numbers, but just our workload levels, it is very clear that October is always insane, like insane. And the lead up to that is always pretty crazy as well. September I find, and you may have noticed in your download numbers as well, that there was kind of a dip this year, just generally around the podcasts that we work on. We track our clients every month, and we see how they're going and September for pretty much everyone was just tanked. There are school holidays in there so that can be a reason why especially if the content that you're pumping out, or the target that you kind of play in, you will find that when there are school holidays, you may have a decreased listenership.

01:33
I did find September was pretty slow from a podcast listenership perspective. But from a business perspective, it was certainly not slow. We've also hired a couple of people a few months ago, and I found that that required a lot more training than in the past, because I've got such stringent procedures here, and systems at Bamby Media, everything needs to be done in a certain way. And everything needs to be checked. Because there's a quality assurance type thing that has to be done. I mean, when you think about it, if I've got audio editors editing podcasts, even though they have degrees in audio production, they're very skilled at their jobs. It's still making sure that they're editing in the way that needs to be edited for that client. Have they got all the inflection, right? Have they cut the bits, have they put the intro in the right spot. And all those sorts of things happen and when they're new, there's a bunch of stuff that goes wrong.

02:40
And so for the last few months, I've been quality checking as much as I physically could to make sure that every client was still getting the quality that required. Now, it didn't always work out, there was certainly situations where a client would get to something before me and go ahh, this is wrong. And I'd be like, Oh, God, I'm sorry. There is human error involved, especially when you're training. So I really had to take a break from anything really, that was content related for Bamby Media, while I got the team up to speed with what they needed to be up to speed with. So we hired another audio editor, Dan, and we hired a content writer Ellia as well. So there was things happening from both sides there that I was checking, as well as Deb in our team was also checking things as well. And we have another staff member Gina who is off on maternity leave at the moment. So it kind of all just happened at the same time. And so it meant that I really had to take a backseat with all the things that I like to pump out, like Pump Up Your Pod. But I am back.

03:48
So what we're discussing today is the busiest time in podcasting. Now that is about to hit you. It's about to hit you in the face. October and November are extremely busy months for download listenership, new inquiries in your business. People wanting to get things done, get things confirmed, get things out the door before the end of year, people thinking about what they're wanting to do in the next year. So they're starting to plan that first quarter of 2023. And if you have a service or an offering that you feel like you want to put out, then you're working towards that, you have things all happening as well you want to talk about different stuff on your podcast. It's busy, it is a very busy time, and it's something that you need to be prepared for.

04:39
So the way we do it in our business is and through the podcasts that we work on is we try and say to them as much as possible. And if you're a client of ours, you're going to be getting an email in the next week, if not less to say hey, you need to batch your content. There needs to be some quality content coming out over this period, because this is where people are really listening and wanting to see whether you can help them in 2023. So batching is very important all the time but most important now. And have your best content coming out during this period as well, because, as I've said, people are interested in what you have to offer. It is not the time to be starting a whole new strategy. It is the time to be talking about what you're good at and having guests on that make sense for that end of year period. It is a great time to be reflecting on what you've achieved so far. Also what you've learned in the year, that's something that you'd stack towards this later period, before December.

05:48
So October and November, are very busy. You really need to start thinking and planning out the content for that period and batch as much as you can. Because December tanks. December around the 10th. And I've got stats up the wazoo that prove this, it starts to really drop down. People aren't really listening to podcasts as much once they're wrapping up their businesses for the year. And they're starting to look at Christmas and shopping and family holidays and travelling, especially this year, there's a lot more travelling happening, because we can. So December is not a big month. And in fact, if you're going to take a break, and I said this last year, if you're going to take a break, take it in December.

06:40
Now if you don't want to take a break, which a lot of our clients don't want to take a proper structured break where they just release nothing, I would do recasts. I would go back through the content that you have from that year and look at the ones that were really high downloads, and recast them and say, hey, you know, for the next three weeks, I'm going to take a break for three weeks, but I'm actually going to recast some old episodes here, put a new intro voiceover in there talking about why they're your favourites, or what was particularly good, and then put them in as recasts. So you still have something coming out. Especially for those that are still listening over that period, they have something to connect with as well. The clients that didn't take a break over December last year from memory, depending on the industry that they were in, there were a few that are the more business coach type content, and there wasn't as big of a lull there. So they still released every week, and they didn't have as much of a decrease as others did. So that could be something again, you have to explore kind of where your genre is at and what makes sense for your genre as to whether to take a break or not. But if you're going to take a break, December is certainly the month to do it.

08:01
October and November is the time to really push yourself into batching the content. And I know that you've got a lot of other stuff happening around this period, we certainly do. But it is kind of something that if podcasting is part of your strategy, marketing, then you need to prioritise it and put it right there for anyone to engage with you. The other thing that I would mention here as well is that this is the part of the year where it's great to get a good strategy ready for the following year. And we've already been doing that with some of our clients. They've been booking in for hour long strategy meetings, where I go in, I listen to some of the stuff that you've been releasing, and then we go through where your download numbers are at. And then we have a look at what's going to change in 2023. Who are you going to have on? What are you going to be talking about? Why does it need to if it needs to change? Are you going to update any gear? All that kind of stuff we discuss in an hour long meeting, and it gives you a really clear picture as to what you should focus on in the next year, versus where you're at now.

09:11
Because there's a lot of people out there that have a podcast that's been kicking along fine. But they actually don't know how to do the next thing. You know, they kind of just release content, it's pretty good content. It's fine. It's chugging along, but they need that push from someone else to go, how about doing this? You know, how about we change this? Maybe we need to update your branding, maybe you need to move to video snippets instead of audiograms. Maybe we need to get you on a different social platform. There's a bunch of things that having someone else involved to talk to you about is really valuable. So even if you're not a client of ours and you want to book in for a strategy session with me, that's totally fine. I love doing them. I absolutely love getting into someone's podcast and going, how can we make this better? But that's what I would say for today.

10:07
So focus on your October November releases, look at that structure over the next month and a half, then decide, am I going to recast some old episodes? Am I going to take a break in December, or what content is valuable for my audience during that December period? There's a few out there. Certainly, if you're in shopping, or if you're in finance, helping people with money tracking, spending, this is a really good time for you because there's a big focus on that. And then there's the ones that are lifestyle based, where there's this period in December where everyone maybe eats too much, or they spend too much or they're not living their best life. They're exhausted, you know, there's content around how to heal from that exhaustion during that December period, as well would go really well. How to give yourself grace. There's so much that you can talk about, but you need to think about it beforehand, and really structure it. That's it for me today. I hope you've enjoyed this little snappy episode all about the busiest period in podcasting, how to prepare for it. And as I said, if you want to book in for a consult before the end of the year, go ahead. I'll put a link in the show notes so you can do that. And that's it from me. Bye