Quantity vs. Quality Podcasting – PCI 369

Speaker 0 00:00:00 You can really geek out on its subject and you can, you know, beat it to death and spend an hour on it if you've got an hour's worth of something to say about it. And if you tried to do that daily, it would drive you nuts.

Speaker 2 00:00:12 You're listening to Podcast Insider, hosted by Mike Dell, Todd Cochrane, and Mackenzie Bennett from the Blueberry team, bringing you weekly insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks to help you start, grow and thrive through podcasting. All with the support of your team here at Blueberry Podcasting. Welcome. Let's dive in.

Speaker 3 00:00:32 I'm Mackenzie Bennett, marketing specialist at Blueberry. And

Speaker 0 00:00:34 I'm Mike Dell, the, uh, VP of Customer Relations here at Blueberry. Had to think about my title there.

Speaker 3 00:00:42 today we are talking about quantity versus quality. Can you produce a daily podcast and keep the quality or is it better to go weekly?

Speaker 0 00:00:54 Yeah, the decision between daily and weekly is depends on your goals and totally what you want to do. And of course it can be the expectations of your audience, but there's a lot of advantages to doing daily and there's a lot of advantages or disadvantages of that. And we'll go over all of that stuff. And when we say weekly, we just mean less than daily .

Speaker 3 00:01:19 Yeah, it's a very broad Yeah. Idea of less than daily .

Speaker 0 00:01:24 Right. Because a lot, a lot of podcasts are weekly. Some of 'em are biweekly, some of 'em are twice a week, stuff like that. So when we talk daily, we're just meaning daily. And that could be five or seven a week. I've got, uh, a few podcasts I listen to that go seven days a week. And some of 'em that go twice a day, seven days a week. It's crazy.

Speaker 3 00:01:45 Okay. So let's get into some of the advantages of doing daily podcasting like that. Starting off with routine engagement, being part of your listeners' daily lives and routines such as during their morning commute or their workout or mowing the lawn or dishes or whatever can really help you get a active audience.

Speaker 0 00:02:08 Yeah, I build, I build in the daily ones that I listen to. I've got a, a special playlist in my podcast app that updates with all the dailies. And that's what I do when I'm drinking coffee in the morning, sitting in my easy chair. I don't watch tv, don't watch the news. I put in my, uh, podcast playlist. So get some news and some other, you know, things. And if one of them's missing, I notice it. So that will definitely get your audience engaged if you're doing daily.

Speaker 3 00:02:37 Yeah. That goes right into topical relevance of, you know, it, it is relevant for today, which is why people are going to listen to it today.

Speaker 0 00:02:46 Yep. For sure. It can help you with the growth too. 'cause the more content you produce, the more opportunities people are gonna find it. That isn't absolutely true, but it definitely gives them more of a chance. If you've got seven episodes this week or five episodes this week, they're more than likely gonna find one of them if they're looking on your subject matter.

Speaker 3 00:03:09 Yeah, exactly. And then also to me that kind of signifies that they are serious about this and that they're going to be consistent in something that I could like rely on.

Speaker 0 00:03:21 Right. The funny thing is with me is, you know, I'm the king of inconsistency . Mm-Hmm. except for this podcast, but on my own shows I'm terrible at that. So that's why I don't have a huge audience. And I think being consistent is a big deal. We talk about that a lot. One thing, ironically, since I'm the king of inconsistency, I'm gonna be doing a daily for the month of November.

Speaker 3 00:03:45 Okay.

Speaker 0 00:03:46 I get to experience the seven day a week.

Speaker 3 00:03:49 What's that called? nep Pod Pomo,

Speaker 0 00:03:50 Yeah. Nap Pod Pomo And Blueberry's a sponsor of that this year. Go check that out@natepodpomo.org. I have a link in the show notes. Of course. Yeah. I'm gonna attempt that. I, I successfully did it once and I've attempted it probably five times. , it's been around for like 16 years.

Speaker 3 00:04:10 I think. You're not alone in that. Some

Speaker 0 00:04:12 Of us, uh, from the blueberry team will be on the live show, uh, every morning. Uh, not every morning, but once a week probably with Jennifer that the founder of an Apod Pomo. But, uh, anyway, go check it out. Sorry. Sorry to derail it here, .

Speaker 3 00:04:27 That's okay. One last advantage that we have for daily podcasting is the monetization opportunities. When a potential sponsor or ad agency or whatever sees that you are doing episodes every day, they, they just see dollar signs .

Speaker 0 00:04:45 Right, right. So you're more aptt to get more advertisers or if you're doing programmatic advertising, there's just more inventory.

Speaker 3 00:04:53 Yep, exactly.

Speaker 0 00:04:55 It, it should be good. Of course there are drawbacks. One thing is producing a daily show is really time consuming, especially if you want it to be a quality show.

Speaker 3 00:05:07 I think that's one of the things that really, uh, trips people up when they're doing N Pod Pomo the every day in November because it's just doing something like that every day is quite a bit of effort and leads into the potential for burnout for sure. I'm

Speaker 0 00:05:23 Calling my series Phoning it in .

Speaker 3 00:05:26 Yeah, . Yeah. That's kind of what you gotta do if you're doing it daily, like every single day, seven days a week, that's kind of bound to happen for some people

Speaker 0 00:05:36 And, you know, watch out for burnout. If you're gonna be doing a a daily show, it's really easy to get just burned out on the whole process. I've done dailies before. I did one that was so simple. I'd get up in the morning and read the weather forecast. That was it, 30 seconds to a minute long. And I did that specifically for the Talking Tubes, Amazon devices and Google Home devices and that stuff. And I did that for about a year. And even that was hard to do, especially 'cause it took me 30 seconds to a minute to record it, but then it still took the same amount of time to publish it.

Speaker 3 00:06:14 I remember when you did it and I was like, are you enjoying this? And you were like, I'm not gonna do it forever. .

Speaker 0 00:06:21 Yeah. I mean, it was fun for a while. Uh, yeah. And, you know, had medium success. My folks listened to it on their Alexa. Mm-Hmm. . So . So there's something. But yeah, just be careful about burnout, you know, if, if you're publishing too many times in a week back that off, there's nothing wrong with starting daily and then maybe cutting it back and then go back to daily if you feel like it. That kind of thing. Uh, although I don't know how much your audience are gonna be along for that ride, so be aware that burnout is a thing.

Speaker 3 00:06:54 Yeah. As well as the quality concerns that one might have or run into when they're doing this on the daily. You have a very tight turnaround, like you were doing yours with the weather. That makes sense that that changes daily. It's incredibly simple. You could do it all in 30 seconds, but for shows that are generally longer, even if they're five minutes doing a 5, 10, 15 minute episode every single day with the research, the edit, the production, all of that is has the potential to slide when you're doing it day in and day out. So look for that. Just set your expectations of what you think you're actually capable of there so that you're keeping that high quality episode with this frequency

Speaker 0 00:07:42 On the weekly or other frequency of podcasting.

Speaker 3 00:07:47 Yeah. Some of the advantages to weekly, or just less than daily, is it is a consistent but manageable schedule. So they kind of strike a balance with that consistency in giving podcasters ample time to produce the high quality content while also giving listeners time to, if they're busy that evening, listen to the episode the next day. Something like that.

Speaker 0 00:08:13 Right, right. And another thing I I like about doing it less frequently is you can really geek out on it subject and you can, you know, beat it to death and spend an hour on it if you've got an hour's worth of something to say about it. And if you tried to do that daily, it would drive you nuts. You can really dive deep into a subject, get your research in there and do longer episodes, all that good stuff.

Speaker 3 00:08:39 Exactly. That deep dive can really do a number for your actual listeners. And also the reduced burnout that quality goes up if you are at your best as well. A weekly schedule is less intense than a daily one or even a bimonthly don't even get me started on bimonthly or biweekly and what people think that means. . Yeah. Yeah. But just reducing the, the risk of burnout for both the creators and the listeners is probably a good thing overall.

Speaker 0 00:09:13 Yeah. I I, I, I know a guy, what is it? His name's Dan something he does, uh, a history podcast. He puts out an episode about once every three months. Mm-Hmm. , but it's like six hours long . It's crazy. Yeah. And, uh, you know, he breaks all the rules and he is very popular.

Speaker 3 00:09:30 He is. He, I saw him speak, um, a couple years ago I for hardcore history.

Speaker 0 00:09:36 Yeah. Hardcore history.

Speaker 3 00:09:37 Blanking on his last name. But yeah, he spends so much time on the research for those episodes and recording them exactly how he wants them to be, but that is why they are so successful.

Speaker 0 00:09:49 Right. You know, and that goes into the next point, you know, higher production value and Dan's podcast is super high production value for something that's five hours long. Nobody sits there and listens to all five hours all at once. So they continue it later and might take 'em a month to listen to the whole thing. But it definitely sounds good because he's editing it, he is doing all the things that he has plenty of time to do.

Speaker 3 00:10:16 Yeah. It's honestly kind of feels like he's producing like short films a couple times a year.

Speaker 0 00:10:22 Yeah. Called specials like he used to do on tv, you know, they'd have a special once every six weeks or something. And , yeah. Not really a series, but this is a, a regular podcast just diff done differently and there's nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 3 00:10:39 So as far as some drawbacks, there is slower growth. We discussed that one of the advantages of every day is that people are gonna be able to come back and say, this has a new episode, or this was regularly updated. It's fewer opportunities for new listeners to discover your show for an episode titled that's gonna pique their interest. But that's just one of the things that you need to consider when when choosing your topics.

Speaker 0 00:11:07 Another disadvantage is it's less routine. Listeners might not really incorporate you into their daily routine as easily as a daily podcast, but Mm-Hmm. , I, I have both. I, I listen to a couple shows that are twice a week and I listen to, you know, a couple shows that are weekly and I know basically when they're gonna come out. And so I do kind of build them into my weekly schedule, but it's not as easy as a daily. I know every day I'm gonna get this one at this time and it's great. So what do you, what do you guys think listeners and or podcasters, what do you think you would like to do as far as a schedule? Or what would you like your podcast host that you're listening to

Speaker 3 00:11:54 Yeah. To offer to, to provide for this creative corner of the world and getting your voice out. How exactly do they want to receive it that you are also interested in doing the, the quality versus quantity. You really just are choosing high quality potential for

Speaker 0 00:12:20 If you got a lot of time

Speaker 3 00:12:22 Yeah.

Speaker 0 00:12:23 Daily. So you're retired or uh, independently wealthy or just have a lot of time on your hands. A daily can be high quality. There's nothing preventing that.

Speaker 3 00:12:34 Yeah. My preference is I have, I've never listened to a daily show like on a regular basis. I just don't see it as part of my lifestyle. Sure. But I do enjoy being able to go to a show, like if there's something I'm really interested in learning about that is going on in the news right now, knowing that there is an episode that's going to talk about it and then two weeks from now when that news item is back and there's an update, they will probably do an update about that. But overall, I probably will listen to shows more often that are releasing like once a week or twice a month or do like a series. Yeah. I do enjoy the series where it's just, here are 10 episodes about this thing and we're done , I really enjoy those.

Speaker 0 00:13:30 Well, friend of ours, Evo, he's now really pushing podcasts that are scripted fiction.

Speaker 3 00:13:38 Mm-Hmm. ,

Speaker 0 00:13:40 It's not new, it's been around forever, but he's really now championing these things and I've listened to a few of 'em. They're great. They have 10 episodes or eight episodes or something like that and it's like going to a movie only it stretches out over eight, 10 hours. That's kind of cool. And the, the people that produce it, you know, it's really, you know, hard to produce and that's why they don't try to do them weekly or daily. They just do a series. So that, I guess that's a third option. for podcasting. , we didn't even mention that in the notes,

Speaker 3 00:14:12 But I think it definitely became more popular with the boost in general of true crime shows.

Speaker 0 00:14:19 Sure, sure. Yeah,

Speaker 3 00:14:20 Because you could only talk about this one case for so long. Right. So that's a really good use for it.

Speaker 0 00:14:26 Yeah. But how often you podcast is totally up to you. If you do it too often, your quality can suffer. If you don't do it enough, your audience can suffer. So just find what works for you and balance that quality versus quantity thing.

Speaker 3 00:14:43 Yes. Be mindful of your own lifestyle and specifically since this episode is airing in November, consider that as well and give yourself some grace with the holidays.

Speaker 0 00:14:55 Yeah, for sure. You, you know, our best advice is to record ahead or something if you can, to not take time off during the holidays. But because podcast listeners might be bored at their family

Speaker 3 00:15:10 And their family gathering. Yeah. They're like, let me escape into my phone. . Right. That's exactly be that for them. .

Speaker 0 00:15:18 But again, you don't have to. And everything again is up to you. I think we about covered it.

Speaker 3 00:15:24 I think we did. Alright,

Speaker 0 00:15:25 Well we'll catch you everybody next week.

Speaker 3 00:15:28 Thanks.

Speaker 2 00:15:29 Thanks for joining us. Come back next week and in the meantime, head to podcast insider.com for more information to subscribe, share, and read our show notes. Check out the latest suite of services and learn how Blueberry can help you leverage your podcast. Visit blueberry.com. That's blueberry without the ease because they can't afford the ease.