080: Getting Clear on Your Podcast’s Purpose with an Audit and Refresh
Welcome to the new and improved podcast!
You may have noticed that I took a short break from podcasting recently. I did that because I was feeling like it wasn’t clear who this podcast is for and what we do. So I did an audit and Refresh and now we are back better than ever.
In this episode, I’m sharing a behind-the-scenes look at the thought process behind the change, why we decided to rebrand the podcast, the new direction we will be going in with the content, and some of the things that I’m going to be doing differently. You’ll also learn more about how we do Podcast Audits and what is included when we do a Podcast Refresh for clients.
What’s in this episode:
The history of the podcast and how it came to be what it is today
Why I decided to rebrand and change the name of the show
The new strategies that I will be using for the show
The audit and refresh services that we offer
What you can expect from the Podcast Your Business Podcast
Links:
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The Transcript:
080: Getting Clear on Your Podcast’s Purpose with an Audit and Refresh
Welcome to Podcast Your Business, where each week we share how to start a podcast and make sure it's working for you and your business. I'm Caroline Hull, podcast manager and consultant, and I've seen the power of podcasts can have ready to share your voice. Let's get started.
Hello, everyone. It's so good to be back behind the microphone after a little bit of a break. I decided to take a break over the summer because we just had so much going on. My daughter went to space camp and we had been sick a lot this summer and we were getting ready to start the school year. And I thought to myself, you know, I really just I need a break. I need to take a pause on the podcast. And so I did. And in the back of my brain before that break happened, I kind of knew that there were things I wanted to change about the podcast. There's a lot that happened with the podcast simply because of the pandemic and then me having a baby. And now that we're kind of moving into a new phase of life, the baby is now, too. Even though we still have a baby and my kids are getting very involved in activities and things outside of the home, I felt like, I don't know. I just felt like there was a lot of movement forward and it felt like the podcast needed to move forward as well.
And so what started out as just a little tiny break for me for the podcast ended up being a break so I could rebrand the podcast. And that's what you're listening to is the new and improved Podcast Your Business, formerly the Wild Home Podcast, and I'm really excited to dive in today into the thought process behind this change, why we decided to rebrand the podcast, why we decided to go in a new direction with the podcast content as well, and some of the things that I'm going to be doing differently. But I really wanted to kind of start with the beginning and how this all started. So my podcast has been doing really well. I really cannot complain. I feel like it operates pretty well for the business. I feel like people listen to it and they understand who we are and what we're about and they seek us out for us to help them with their podcast. But the thing that bothered me the most was I felt like it was very unclear what the podcast was about and who it was for when I originally had this idea for the podcast. I think it was kind of in the middle of like when we rebranded several years ago from Caroline Creates to Wild Home Podcast. I wanted like I had this really grand idea that it would be a podcast that my husband and I would do. We were talking about bringing him into the business, which is still like a very far down the road plan. But, you know, we were trying to make things happen really fast before they were ready.
And so I had this idea for the podcast to be about more than just podcasting, and I'm not sure where my head was at with that. I think I really just wanted to have somebody do the podcast with me. But that's not what happened. What happened is that it became the podcast for the business as it should have been from the start. I just I love it. I had this idea, you know, sometimes we have really grand plans and they don't work out and that's probably for the best. So it became the Wild Home Podcast and originally I had I would have guests on those kinds of things. But when I became pregnant with my daughter, my days were not. I couldn't tell you the exact times I could sit down to record podcasts. It was also during the pandemic when we didn't have help or anything like that. I know a lot of you understand what I'm saying. And so because of circumstances, I went to all solo episodes, which was totally fine. I enjoyed them. I've been doing the solo episodes for a couple of years now. I will be honest with you and say there is a huge download difference between podcast interviews with guests and solo episodes, which again, I'm fine with because in my brain I'm thinking that and in what we know about podcast listenership, is that those people who are listening to those episodes, like they're really here for it as opposed to.
The people who are listening to interviews may not necessarily be here for me, but for the guests, that kind of thing. So I definitely think by doing also episodes are really neat, niche down and kind of honed in on who my listener was, which has been really great and it really helped me refine and define what we're about here. Wild Home Podcast. So flash forward now to where we are now, which is I've grown my company to an agency. I have a team, a very small but very, very mighty team who do a lot for our clients. And we're servicing a different client than we were five years ago. And so it really I felt like the podcast just wasn't hitting the mark anymore as far as who I wanted to be talking to, what I wanted to be saying and the conversations that I wanted to be having.
I also like desperately wanted some new branding and I just felt like it needed a freshening up, which I've talked a lot on this podcast about when it's time for refresh and that kind of thing, but it just kind of felt as if it was getting stale. And that can happen, especially when you've been podcasting for years, like I have been. I have podcasts before that. And then I had the podcast under the old brand name, and then I had this one, and we're almost to 100 episodes of this podcast, and it just felt like I wasn't as excited to record. You know, these are the same things I say to my clients when, you know, you're not super excited. When you're doing last minute episodes, it may be time to kind of step back and say, okay, why am I doing this? What am I doing? Is it still working for me? And so that's what I did. And I had a lot of conversations with my team, especially my operations manager, Aliza. She's really great about talking through these things with me. And one of the things that we really wanted was we wanted people to see the title, read the description, and know exactly what the podcast was about right away. Because what we specialize in are CEOs who start podcasts for good business to use as a marketing tool, but to also show their authenticity. It's a way of getting people through the door, right? And that's what we specialize in. And we found that with the past podcast branding back as Wild Home Podcast, we weren't necessarily attracting those clients, even though the content was the kind of surface level that you were seeing was not. And so I knew then, okay, it's time for me to sit down and do an audit of the podcast.
So what is an audit? Well, an audit is basically taking a look at all of the pieces and seeing how they're working together, seeing if it's all working toward that, why that mission of your podcast and when I kind of laid it all out and thought about it and put it all against the why and the mission of our podcast and the point and the purpose that it's supposed to be serving, it didn't all match up. And so I want to kind of talk about some of the things that I saw that didn't match up and why we changed them so top level appearance. I just felt like it was really time for our cover art refresh. If you've been following us on Instagram for any amount of time, you will notice that we've really made a shift in our visual appearance. I'm really happy with how things look right now. I feel like it was such an improvement from the very like white minimalist approach that we had before. And so I wanted the podcast artwork to reflect that and the cover art. And I'll be honest with all of you, like I have not had a headshot taken since before the pandemic started and that headshot was taken by my daughter, and that's the one that I use everywhere and I really need to get new ones taken, but I just haven't been in the place to do that. And so we use the same headshot that I've been using, which, you know, whatever. It's fine, I'm going to replace it eventually, I promise. But I wanted to just refresh the overall set of the podcast.
The other things that stood out to me were the description and the call to action. And so one of the things that I really felt like the description didn't quite hit the mark as far as what I wanted the podcast to be about and where I wanted it to lead people. And so that was a huge thing and I've worked on my description before, but this is definitely one of those situations where a cobbler's children never have any shoes. I mean, we will do this for our clients all day, every day. But I just hadn't sat down and really looked at my description in a while. And when I did, I realized like, there were things in there that did not add up, that didn't describe the podcast content I'd been putting out. So this is also kind of important to talk about too, is I had shifted my content a while back and was really focusing on strategies to make sure that your podcast was working for your business. I would say that would be like the overall encompassing. Topic, but the description isn't really say much about that. And it talked about me talking about our wildlife, which I don't really do that. And so it just didn't make sense. That was also in the intro and outro, by the way, in the trailer. So it's just it was definitely like this moment of, okay, we've really got to update this stuff. So it actually reflects what we do. The other thing is the call to action. So where are we sending people after they listen to the podcast? And this has been something that I've really been struggling with because I think I've been trying to send people that too many different places. And I finally realized that I need to just kind of pick one overarching call to action, which is going to be to connect with me on Instagram.
And, you know, if you're interested in services, go to our service page and then I'm going to start doing ads. So let me talk about my decision to do this. This is something I have not really done in my podcast. We have lots of clients who do this, and I think it's super smart because you have different sales cycles. And so what I like to do is keep my outro pretty consistent, and I'll record one outro and that's what I'll use all year, forever until it's outdated. And so that's the outro that has kind of the main like call to action, like how to connect with me more basically. But as we go through our sales cycles, sometimes I need to change it. I don't necessarily want to record an outro, but it would be really great to have an ad. And so I've decided to start doing ads. And when I see ads, what I mean are promotional little snippets that we're going to put in the episodes that are promoting our services and products. Are you wondering if a podcast is right for you? Podcasting can be a great way to connect with your ideal client and share your authority, but it requires time and consistency to find out if you're a great fit for podcasting. I have a free quiz. It's easy and quick and gives you a few things to think about before you start your podcasting journey. Head to WildHomePodcasting.com/ready to take your quiz today and be sure to tag me on Instagram @WildHomePodcasting and let me know your results.
If you have a podcast as a business owner and you are not talking about your services and products, there really is no point. And you should not be afraid to advertise your own things because it's your podcast. It's basically a sales and marketing tool for your business and so never be afraid to do that. And I think there's several approaches you can record, like a bunch of evergreen ads that you can rotate out or you can record ads when they see fit. So I have one recorded right now that we're going to be placing, and then I'm gonna be recording some more. And so we may swap them out depending on the content or what's going on in our marketing and sales calendar. So that's a huge I think that's a huge shift for me because I've always been very much a minimalist when it comes to my podcast. I just want to get it recorded, get it out there. Like that's just been the goal. I'm a very busy lady. Sometimes it's really hard to sit down and think about these things. And I will tell you that all of this really spurred from I've been working with Melanie Lee, who is an Instagram marketing strategist, and I started working with her just on a few things, literally, like I think she had two stories cause I wanted to do, and then she did a profile. Of course, I'm like optimizing your profile, but in doing these things, one of the things that we really worked on with her was narrowing in on our messaging. What we were sharing when we're sharing it, why we're sharing what we're sharing and having like very specific marketing themes that you're working on and rotating right throughout the marketing calendar. Right. And so in doing that work with her, I realized that the podcast and some other aspects of our business, including our email newsletter, needed some work as well.
Just I think this is so fascinating how when you start to analyze one piece of your business, it really can affect multiple pieces. And so I just want to like encourage you never be afraid to like dove in and make changes to things. Because I feel like in working with her, which has been a lot about how am I showing up on Instagram, what am I seeing? How am I speaking to my ideal client that has translated so much to the rest of my business? And we see this kind of transformation with our podcast clients a lot. They start working on the podcast, honing in on their episodes. You know, we write that description and they're like, Oh, it's like a light bulb goes off. And that's kind of what happened for me. I just reverse engineered it. Usually we start with the podcast for our clients. For me, I started with Instagram and realized everything needed an overhaul. So that's where I am right now with everything. And as I drove further into the audit and sort of working on my marketing calendar and our sales calendar and all of these things, I realized that the first impression of my podcast did not fit the purpose of my podcast. So the first impression did not fit the purpose. And I think that's really, really important and something to look at and think about, you know, what? What is the thing that people understand or see when they first come across your podcast without reading the description even like what is that first impression? And I really wanted the first impression to be that this girl is going to talk about business and podcasting and how they're related and said that's when we really needed to start making updates. Now, along the way, I also decided to update everything else my intro, my outro, my trailer, my music. I hope you like the music because I was really excited to come across it. I have been into a lot of electronic music lately. That's pretty much all I listen to, and so I was excited to find some that kind of fit that love of mine, but also felt like it was a pretty good piece of music to use for the podcast and felt like it was very futuristic sounding. And as we move into the future of Wild Home Podcast, it just seemed to fit.
So again, this process started from kind of a gut feeling that something about my podcasting, it should change. And then it was confirmed by doing an audit and then it was taken care of, or it was realized by doing a podcast refresh and an audit. And a refresh are two services that we offer here at Wild Home Podcast, and they're actually some of my favorite services because I love taking a podcast that's been in place and maybe hasn't published an episode in a while because they feel stuck or maybe they are publishing episodes, but something feels off and I love being able to dove into the strategy with them and see what what is the thing that's off? Why is it off? And a lot of times it is because the purpose does not match the first impression.
So moving forward to what can you expect from the podcast, your business podcasts? Well, I'm still going to be doing solo episodes like this one, taking deep dives into strategy and giving you tips and information on how to have a podcast for your business. But one of the things I am going to be bringing back our guest interviews, which I am very excited about. Again, you know, my phase of life allows for that. It really hasn't the last couple of years, and that's okay. And this is not like meant to be an admonishment that you have to do interviews, but they are really great for networking, for connecting and for bringing in listeners that maybe wouldn't have listened to your podcast in the first place. So I am going to be having guest interviews. But this go around, I am going to be interviewing a lot of our clients. I'm going to be interviewing some of my friends who are also in marketing the online business space and have something to share about podcasting. So I'm really excited about it. I'm really excited for this next phase of this podcast and Wild Home Podcasting itself.
And again, if you are ready for a second set of eyes on your podcast, we do have just a podcast audio, which is just me doing an audit, giving you a checklist of things that I recommend, as well as a video walkthrough, every podcast with things that I recommend you working on. This is, of course, after you filled out a detailed questionnaire so I can get to know you and what the purpose and mission of your podcast is, and you can find more information about that at WildHomePodcasting.com/audit. But if you know that even before the audit happens that you are in need of a podcast refresh, we do have openings for September and you can book your refresh by going to WildHomePodcasting.com/services and we will link all of this in the show notes.
The last thing I wanted to just let you know is that I have really fallen in love with Instagram. I used to hate Instagram. I used to think it was not the place for me and I feel like the complete opposite. And so one of the things I'm going to be doing on Instagram is creating a close friends list, which is basically like an exclusive list of people who are interested in learning more about podcasting for their business. And in that list, you're going to get access to exclusive mini trainings. As well as any offers or upcoming announcements like you will know about them pretty much before anybody. And so if you want to join that list, I am actually working on getting that going in the month of September. You can head to my Instagram, which is @WildHomePodcasting and just hire me and let me know where you are in your podcasting journey and that you would like to join the Close Friends list.
So a lot of call the actions in this episode, but there's just so many good things going on in our sphere that I wanted to share them all with you today and just welcome you back to Podcast Your Business and just really excited to have you along for the ride of this new phase of the podcast. Until next time. Thank you for listening to podcasting your business. For more podcasting tips, follow us on Instagram @WildHomePodcasting. If you are ready to launch up level or grow your podcast, head to WildHomePodcasting.com to get started today.
