Refreshing Your Podcast For A New Season

Who says you can't teach an old podcasting dog new tricks? The start of a new season is a great way to introduce fresh ideas and collaboration opportunities to your podcast listeners.

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Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra. The first week of Season Four of Podcast Pontifications is complete. Or will be in a few minutes when you get to the end of this episode. Thanks so much for sticking with me while I took a much-needed break as I always do in the summertime in-between seasons.

Now, for you who have been listening to Podcast Pontifications for some time now you have likely noticed some changes already. One of them, quite trivial, but something I like to do, and others more foundational.

So let's get the trivial, the small thing, out of the way first, and then we'll jump into the more important things. Brand new theme music! Did you notice? Of course, you noticed. Brand new theme music, and if you've listened to this for a while now because this is the fourth season, you will know that I've changed the music on Podcast Pontifications - this is the fifth change. Five to only four seasons, Evo. How'd you do that? Well, because I did one kind of mid-season. So yeah, big changes.

Let's go back in the way back machine. Here's the first little bit of bed music you probably heard. Way back in the day. [Sweeper swell plays] And I occassionally pull that out from time to time as I'm doing things. That was for the very first thing. And then I went to - [Season 1 music plays] That was fun for Season One. Season Two was - [Season 2 music plays], which everybody liked, and I did too. But then Season Three was - [Season 3 music plays], which I still hear in my head every single time I do the recording of the cold open, which brings us to where we are today. [Season 4 music plays] Yeah, I like that, jazzy and funky.

And what I've done with that new one is I've actually extended it out. There's a full track that I have now, and it plays all the way through the new outro, which you probably have also noticed is something different on the show that wasn't there before. Yay. So that's fun.

Oh, and by the way, no, I do not recommend changing up your theme music every season, or anytime, really. I mean, look all seriousness, branding is important to building your audience so that they know what they're in for. And especially an audience that has no idea who you are. Getting too flippant with the music can really be a detriment to you.

Audio branding is super important, hugely important in podcasting. And to be honest, I sort of picked all of the different theme music for this show at the last minute, without really giving it a whole heck of a lot of thought. So I don't recommend doing that. Instead, if you really want to do bed music the right way, I highly recommend you should choose theme music that is created by a bespoke composer that you're working with.

I've done that for other shows, some of mine, some for clients where we work, I work directly and the client works directly with the composer and we come up with a really cool piece of music that properly encapsulates the overall theme. That's the best way to do it. It's not an inexpensive way to do it, but that, in my opinion, is the best way to really do your theme music.

All right. All right. Enough of the trivial type stuff. Let's get into more of the foundational changes, shall we? You've probably also noticed something at the top of the show. That's an ad. "Oh my god, Evo! You said no ads!"

Well, I didn't really say no ads. I said I don't run ads. But right after the cold open, right before the intro, there's a house ad. It's a house ad, and by the way, thank you very much to the many listeners who have signed up, went to that URL given in that house ad, proving that it works. Sorta, right? I mean, clearly it's me asking for something that's part of the show. I totally get it. But again, thank you very much to them.

The reason you're hearing that ad at the top of the program is I am implementing something that Bryan Barletta from Sounds Profitable, you're reading Sounds Profitable, right? I mean, you know that I'm helping edit Sounds Profitable. So you should be reading Sounds Profitable.

Anyhow, Bryan wrote about it this week, as the week of this recording, in his weekly newsletter. The article is entitled, Never Let an Ad Slot Go Empty, which I highly recommend that you should actually read. It's very good if you're running ads right now, but if you're not running ads as I wasn't running ads, it'll still spark some ideas.

Bryan writes about a pretty complex adtech stack to blend all sorts of ads together. And by complicated, I don't mean that the technology itself is complicated. It's actually quite straightforward to set this up. It's just that for me, and perhaps for you, selling ads isn't a top priority for my show, so I didn't go through the complexity of figuring out where the ad inventory is coming. But that doesn't mean that I'm not making that ad spot available. I am. I'm viewing that spot as a potential for a collaboration with a few of my other longtime listeners. It helps spread some of the awareness of the cool things they are doing in podcasting.

I'm all about making podcasting better. Many of the people who listen to this program are also about making podcasting better or have products or services or ideas that make podcasting better. So we're still hashing out the details between me and the few folks who want to do some collaborations.

Look, I thought it was important, as Bryan tells us, to start off the season with that ad spot running so you're not surprised when you hear other things drop down in that position, or perhaps even in other positions. And yes, that spot is available to you if you wish to collaborate with me. Just simply get in touch with me, evo@simpler.media, and we'll set up a time to chat about your idea and how we might collaborate together.

Now, that's not the end of the changes you're going to see, or I guess hear, or even read with Podcast Pontifications this season, or even with me. I looked at the calendar just before coming on and there are fifteen more weeks, which is roughly sixty episodes. I might take a day off here and there. That's just for the first half of Season Four and I'm going to be making incremental changes to Podcast Pontifications along the way.

So listen closely and be sure - again, sign up for Podcast Pontifications In Your Inbox. That's where I will email you a quick little note every time a new episode comes out, as well as other changes. PPIYI is the best place to go so you're never going to miss a thing that's happening with Podcast Pontifications.

Now, if you like the changes or you just want to help ensure that I keep doing the things that I do, bringing you this show four days a week, you can please go to buymeacoffee.com/EvoTerra and lend me your support.

That's it. Have a fantastic weekend, everyone because, as you know, I do not release episodes on Friday. So with that, I shall be back on Monday with yet another Podcast Pontifications.

Cheers!

Podcast Pontifications is written and narrated by Evo Terra. He's on a mission to make podcasting better. Links to everything mentioned in today's episode are in the notes section of your podcast listening app. A written-to-be-read article based on today's episode is available at podcastpontifications.com where you'll also find a video version and a corrected transcript, both created by Allie Press. Podcast Pontifications is a production of Simpler Media. Find out more at Simpler.Media.

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