Episode 6 - Tips for a Successful Podcast Launch

In this episode, Jon focuses on the content plan section of the podcast strategy workbook, explaining how it serves as a brainstorming tool for mapping out your podcast. He highlights the importance of jotting down episode ideas, guest lists, key questions, and creating a schedule and layout for the first five episodes. Jon stresses that having multiple episodes ready for launch can significantly boost listener retention. He also encourages flexibility in the content plan to allow for adjustments as the podcast grows and reminds listeners to rate, review, and share the show to help increase visibility.

Takeaways

• The content plan is a vital part of the podcast strategy workbook, used for brainstorming episode ideas, guest lists, and questions.
• Launching with multiple episodes can help retain listeners from the beginning.
• Keep your content plan flexible, allowing for shifts as you develop your podcast.
• Encourage your audience to rate, review, and share the podcast to help increase visibility and attract more listeners.

Chapters
00:00 - Introduction to the Podcast Strategy Workbook
01:00 - Creating a Comprehensive Content Plan
05:14 - The Importance of Multiple Episodes for Launch
07:25 - Curating Guest Lists and Questions
08:25 - Tips for a Successful Podcast Launch

Resources

• Download the Wayfare Podcast Strategy Workbook
• Need help with your podcast? CLICK HERE
• Need help starting your podcast? CLICK HERE

Versions

• Check out our video version of the podcast.
• Check out our audio version of the podcast.

Acknowledgments
A big thank you to:

• Kath - Creating the podcast artwork (You can find more of her work here)
• Anna - Wayfare's Admin Assist.
• Matt - Graphics creation for the show
• Dan - Post-production work

For any additional questions, please reach out through this link.

Thank you for listening!

Transcript

Jon (00:01.246)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Wayfair podcast. Today we are going over the content plan section of the strategy workbook. for those who are just jumping into this episode randomly, or you're kind of going through our videos and just kind of seeing what's out there, getting a, getting an idea of who I am and what this channel show, whatever is about.

we are going through the podcast strategy workbook that my team provides for potential clients. people who are just interested in podcasting in general and really whomever, this, material is relevant for, if you're interested in downloading this and you want to check it out for yourself, there's a link in the show notes or the.

description down below, depending on if you're listening to the audio or the video, version of this podcast. yeah. So for this particular episode, we're going over content plan. It's a couple of pages long, a little bit longer than, most other sections in this workbook. But the reason why is because this is much more of a brainstorming note taking ideas and.

A ton of lists. So if you're going through, let's say the very first page of the section, which would be page 12, if you're going through this, it's literally just like a list of. I wrote down brain dump episode slash topic ideas. That's kind of just the headline of the section. And really you could write down whatever you want. like for this, show in particular, cause, if you're again, just jumping in on the seven.

sharing that I'm working through this workbook with you alongside you. And for me, I've been writing down for like a list or list numbers one through 10. I've been really just going over the headlines of this workbook. So for this particular episode, think it's like line five or six, I wrote down content plan for, the first line I wrote down, ethos.

Jon (02:27.828)
And so on and so forth, you know, technology, scheduling, et cetera, et cetera. And for. Let's just give another example for true crime is usually the example that I've been giving, because that's like one of the bigger genres and podcasting. could write down. Crime topics or whatever you could write down, like arson theft, grand theft auto.

Or you can get more nuanced. if you're going through documentaries, you could write down the documentary title, for example. so yeah, you're really just like brain dumping, just like what, what could be an episode for your show? for the next episode or for the next episode, for the next page, we have podcast guest lists. So this one's going to be much more curated for interviewers, people who are going to be doing.

their podcasts with interviews in mind, networking in mind. Again, it's the same idea as like the episode ideas, but you're just like, you're just writing down like, people's names. you could write down their phone numbers associated with them. You could write down their businesses associated with them, or you could just write down the businesses. And again, this is, there's no right way of writing this all down. You're just, you're doing it for you. So what do you need out of this whole section? The.

Next page is questions to ask guests. again, this is mostly for interview based podcasts, but if you're doing a true crime show and you are going to be interviewing maybe like, a victim of a, you could write down their name. If you're doing more of a B2B type podcast and you're trying to get a broader network or trying to

show more of your thought leadership. could write down again, questions for those people that you're interviewing and it doesn't have to even be just them exclusively. It could just be your general, like, these are the questions I ask in these interviews. and again, for, the last page, this is going be a very quick episode because again, this is much more for.

Jon (04:45.526)
you to fill out, there's not much really explanations that I need to do for this one, except kind of clarifying kind of like what the intent is behind these pages. But for the last page, this one is going to be going over your whole schedule and layout for your first five episodes. I guess I can kind of go a little bit more into detail for what the first five episodes are, or why that's important to have the first five episodes figured out the first five.

Episodes are really important for your podcast because you want to make sure that you have five episodes prepared and launched for a launch day. again, there's not really any rules for like podcasting, but, there's, and I don't think I'll be able to right off the top of my head, look for these particular data points, but there's data out there that shows that, listenership retention is much higher. If you have several episodes ready to go for.

your podcast. and that's really kind of in the head space of, know, if you have five episodes to provide a, listener, that's five episodes that they'll be able to put more time and investment into who you are as a host, what your show is. And if you only have one episode, there's a higher probability of the listener to just like fall off or fall off your show, like not really show interest in your show anymore, or, just simply forget.

about your show because you're only giving them like, you know, 30 minutes, you know, a relationship is built over time. And when you create a podcast and you have a personality behind the host, some sort of like, some, some sort of like relatability for the listener to cling onto, you want to make sure that you give them that time for them to invest in who you are as a host. And so that's really the only reason why, like I have five episodes listed here. I could have done one. I could have done.

10. I don't have a lot of pages to do 10. I could have just added a page, I guess. But yeah, it's just more so kind of laying out the structure of like how you want to organize your first five episodes. So some people like to have the first episode.

Jon (06:56.596)
kind of like hitting the ground running for your show, like who's a really powerful guest to have on to the show. Who's a really good guest to build, to build my credibility for the listener to show that I have a good network. Again, if you want to do something more B2B oriented for the interviews, or really simply like it doesn't, you could just ignore the guest portion of it you can just list out your five episodes and just kind of get a general idea of, know, how you want your,

Your episode listing to look, it's just really mostly to like, have it laid out for you, to see. So yeah, again, this is a little bit shorter of an episode. just, take time, make sure you kind of think strategically, about how you want to approach it. and you can always change it. You can always switch it up, in case things don't work out, like, you know, maybe a guess that you were hoping.

To show up, couldn't show up, whatever the reason is, this is mostly for you to brain dump, you know, throw, throw stuff on the wall and see what sticks and what resonates with you. but yeah, other than that, we'll just jump right into the next episode. So we'll all see you over there. again, just a quick little reminder, if you could rate and review the show, that would be super helpful. just to kind of.

Get some traction going and show the distributors, Apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube to show that people are interested in the show. if you share it with other people, that'll help get the word out. It'll help, you know, people to get more informed on that podcasting isn't super challenging. It just takes a little bit of thought and practice and yeah. See you in the next episode.