117: How to Take a Summer Break without Losing Momentum in Your Podcast
In this episode I talk about summer! Downloads are slower, people are on vacation and maybe you need a break too. Breaks are great, and I encourage everyone to take their time! But how can you prepare for your break so that your time off does not affect your podcast’s progress?
Two weeks off might be okay, but two months starts looking inconsistent to listeners. Let’s discuss how to batch your episode recordings, re-air old or popular episodes, doing shorter episodes, and many tried and true ideas to keep your momentum moving forward.
Less listeners? Less downloads? No problem.
Personally, I am not listening to as many podcasts as I want during the summer. We also see this trend in December into January. It's interesting because downloads going down coincide with holiday seasons, when people tend to be super busy. Here at Wild Home Podcasting, we are not as busy in December or January, and the summer usually slows down a little bit for us as well. This follows the trend of podcast listeners and podcasters! Look at your podcast numbers and see what are your busy seasons and slower seasons. With this information in mind, you should ask yourself: What should I do with my podcast? Should I keep it going?
Listener Engagement Mode
There's a lot more that goes into listener engagement when you are on a break. It's not just about making sure something shows up in the app, but letting listeners know, Hey, I'm going on a break. Do this on social media, where you like to hang out - Twitter or Facebook. For me, it’s Instagram. Do a series of lead-ups (“I'm going on a break.” / “I'm going to be on vacation.” / “I'm not going to be posting as much as I can be sharing as much.”), and while you’re gone, schedule emails and a few posts, if possible, that talk about the podcast episodes that are going out. The reason? To avoid completely shutting off.
Breaks can happen any time of year, and that includes summer. We're not stopping all of the work that we've done on our podcast, our podcast strategy and building our momentum. We're going to have a plan in place. This means that while we're away, there is still motion and actions happening; consequently, people can still stay engaged.
So you want to take a break from your podcast…
Here at Wild Home Podcasting, we have been working really hard since last year (last summer!) building up my Podcast Your Business listenership, getting more engagement, and getting more people excited about the podcast. So, that was not the time to take a break!
So, that is what you need to ask yourself: Should I take a break with my podcast? What phase of my podcast journey am I in? Am I in a building phase? Do I have momentum then?
Maybe a two month break is not a good idea, but am I in a position where, if it slows down, that's okay. Maybe I can do a couple of re-airs because I want to work on some things behind the scenes. Where am I in the process? What feels right for me? One of the things I believe is that inconsistent episodes lead to inconsistent listeners, and that proves itself time and time again.
So if you are really in this stage of building (e.g. if you've recently relaunched or come back from a break or if you have recently shifted gears), now is not the time to be taking a break. A solution to combat the desire to take a break is to batch record! Plan and work ahead for the summer, and then the following weeks can be slower or more flexible.
Summer Planning for Fall Business
So look at your schedule, look at your calendar and see what tweaks you need to make in your podcasts that are going to help with that drive and that push in the Fall. Maybe you need a new outro, maybe you need a new trailer. This is the time to do that. Maybe you need to update your call to actions. Or in all of your blog posts, you have old ads and you finally figured out a way to automate that. Now is a good time to go back and update those posts. In a couple of months, you can always look back at the summer episodes and reshare them. Resharing episodes and referring back to them is a very underutilized tool of podcasters, and by relating them to new episodes and linking to them, that will also drive more traffic.
The point, which I discuss more in the podcast episode, is that you want your podcast to grow, improve and come with you into that new season. That way,, if you can make that plan and work on all of this now, you're going to see an uptick in engagement and downloads in the fall.
Are you ready to start strategizing your podcast and simplifying your marketing? Download our free guide to do your Podcast Audit!
Links:
Ep. 99: Creating Content That’s More Impactful and Less Overwhelming with Gracia Ostendorf
Ep. 96: How to Set Goals for Your Podcast
Ep. 67: Ditch Inconsistency for Good: Key Tips for Consistent Podcasting
Join the waitlist for the Strategic Podcast Academy!
The Transcript for Podcast Your Business:
117: How to Take a Summer Break without Losing Momentum in Your Podcast
[00:01:10] Caroline Hull Are you ready to start a strategic podcast for your business and share your message in a way that feels wildly authentic? This is the place. Welcome to Podcast Your Business, where each week I share the strategy behind having a podcast that helps grow your business. I'm Caroline Hull, podcast manager, strategist and consultant, and I've seen the power of podcasts can have for your business. Let's get started.
[00:01:40] Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast where we talk about podcasting for your business. Today I want to talk about Summer. I know we are all kind of getting into summer mode and usually I do an episode or I've done an episode in the past where I talk about how to take a break and I'm realizing not everybody is going to want to take a break. I don't want to take a break this summer from my podcast. I have way too much momentum going right now, and so I wanted to talk about the trends we see and listeners seasonal engagement and what you can do with that time if your engagement and listenership seems lower. So usually in the summer we do see a trend of less listeners, less downloads, I should say less listeners, less downloads, and that's not a bad thing. It just means that everybody is at the pool. They're going on vacation, their kids are home. I know for me that definitely reduces my podcast listening time. I usually listen to podcasts when I'm in the car driving my kids to and from their activities in school. And so when I'm not doing that, I typically am not listening to as many podcasts as I want. We also see this trend usually in December into January. It's really interesting because it really coincides with holiday seasons, people being super busy. But then it's so funny because that's also when we are busier at Wild Home Podcasting is usually not in December, not in January, and the summer usually slows down a little bit for us as well. Just kind of following the trend of podcast listeners and podcasters, Right?
[00:03:35] So with that information in mind, you may be asking, okay, what should I do with my podcast? Should I keep it going? And so let me share with you what people have typically done. Now, I have seen people take breaks completely from their podcast, and I think that that can work sometimes, especially if you have built your podcasts to have breaks in it that long, such as if your podcast is in seasons, maybe the end of a season happens to coincide with your summer break, or if you've really primed your audience for that and they know that it's coming, it can work. It is not my favorite thing on the planet to do because I do feel like once you take a long break and I'm talking like a couple of months here, not a couple of weeks. If you take a long break, it's really hard to reengage that audience. And so I typically don't recommend that you take a super, super long summer break. Now, if you need a break, don't worry, because there are ways to take a break where it can work. We have done a series of re-airs for our clients. So instead of not having an episode go live, you might actually re-air an episode that you want to bring more attention to or feels really timely or was very popular. I don't love sharing an old episode and not re-airing it because we're not getting any new downloads because it's not popping up in their app. And so I really do love like actually doing a rerun and having it go live, recording an intro saying it's a rerun and linking back to the original episode. And then you could also do a series of shorter episodes. So if you're typically doing a lot of interviews, a lot of long episodes, one really great option is to say, okay, I'm going to do a series on these topics. Let your audience know it's a special series and have the episodes be shorter than usual. And this is like something you can batch at the beginning of the season and can run while you're off on your cruise or at the beach or whatever it is you're doing.
[00:05:53] In my case, I'll be here at home. No vacations for me this summer, but you can do that in a way where, okay, we're not necessarily working while we're on vacation and we have a plan. How to keep our listeners engaged. There's a lot more that goes into listener engagement when you were on a break and it's not just about like, okay, making sure something shows up in the app, but letting them know like, Hey, I'm going on a break. However, that is, wherever you hang out, wherever people communicate with you away from the podcast, like for me that would be Instagram. So even like saying like, Hey, on Instagram, I'm going on a break. I'm going to be on vacation. I'm not going to be posting as much as I can be sharing as much. But what I do recommend doing is scheduling ahead emails and some posts, if possible, that talk about the episodes that are going out. And so we're not completely like shutting off. We're not stopping all of the work that we've done on our podcast and our podcast strategy and momentum and everything like that. But we're going to, you know, have a plan in place. So that way when we're away, there is still motion and action happening and so people can still stay engaged. Now listen, if you need to just take a break and step away and not do anything, I think that's totally acceptable. Like you have to do what's right for you. But I do think that there is a way to keep listeners engaged, to get people excited about your podcast and not be having to record a new episode every week or every other week, whatever your recording schedule is, right? So I think there's a couple of questions you really need to ask yourself when you're deciding, okay, how am I going to proceed this summer or whenever I'm getting ready for a vacation or break. So I'm going to share an example for me, which was when I had my hip surgery at the beginning of the year.
[00:07:56] So I had my hip surgery at the end of February and I knew that I was going to be out or down for, you know, I was thinking three or four weeks turned out to be more like six. But what I did was I planned all of my episodes ahead of time. My team and I have a really great system in place, so I knew what to expect from them. They had all the files and so they were able to just run with it and edit the episodes, write the show notes and work on graphics and things. So literally all I had to do was schedule things those weeks that I was sitting on the couch and you could absolutely like train a team member on how to schedule things and train a team member how to do these things. But I knew stopping my podcast and taking a break was not a good move for me. We have been working really hard since last year, last summer, really on building my podcast listenership, getting more engagement, getting more people excited about the podcast and like that was not the time to take a break. And so I knew that I needed to keep it going because I needed to keep that momentum going. And I think that's a really, really important question to ask yourself when you're thinking about Should I take a long break with my podcast is what phase of my podcast journey am I in? Am I in a building phase? Do I have momentum then? Maybe a fall like two month break is not a good idea, but am I in a position where if it slows down, that's okay. Maybe I can do a couple of reruns because I want to work on some things behind the scenes. And so it really is just about like, okay, where am I in the process? What feels right for me? You know, one of the things I say a lot is that inconsistent episodes leads to inconsistent listeners, and that proves itself time and time again. And so if you are really in this stage of building, like if you've recently relaunched or come back from a break or if you have recently shifted gears, now is not the time to be taking a break. And you know, and to combat that, like definitely batch record, you know, plan ahead for the summer. That's what I'm working on this week as I'm recording. This is actually planning out my summer episodes. And so if there is a week where my kids don't have a lot going on and I don't have a lot going on, we can go to the pool, go to the museum, kind of summer it up a little bit.
[00:10:34] Is your podcast Growing Your Business? And if you don't know the answer to this question or you think the answer might be no, it's time to take an audit. Your podcast can be so much more than a hobby. It can be a way for you to attract your ideal client and establish yourself as an authority. But you need a strategy. And the best place to start is with an audit. And I have a free guide that helps you perform an audit of your podcast, gives you my top tips for having a strategically aligned podcast and a playlist of podcast episodes for more insight. You can head to WildHomePodcasting.Com to download your free audit guide today.
[00:11:12] But the point that I really want to drive home here is, is if you are thinking about taking a break for your podcast, I really want you to ask yourself if it's the right time and if it's not, put some systems in place so you can enjoy your summer and not feel stressed about your podcast. So the other thing I really want to talk about is this. I mentioned at the beginning of the episode how there may be less downloads in the summer, just like there's less downloads usually in December. And so what does that mean for you? If you are building momentum and keeping your podcast going, what can you do during that slow, quote unquote slow time to, like I said, keep that momentum going. After this episode is done, we're going to count up how many times I said momentum and whoever gets this right is getting a prize, just kidding. So one of the things that I love about the summer is it is a great time to take a really deep look at your podcast and your business. This is like the time that we really focus on what's next, what are we going to improve, what do we want to build on? What do we want to prepare for the fall when things start to pick back up?
[00:12:32] And like historically speaking and my business this summer has always been this really amazing time of creativity and finding alignment and working on things. And it's always led to really great results because it's like you're setting yourself up for just amazing things in the fall, right? For things to flow and feel easier and, and maybe launch that new thing you've been thinking about. And this is why we open the doors to the Strategic Podcast Academy before the summer, because I knew going into the summer that the summer was going to be a great time to work on your podcast strategy. And that brings me to my big, really important point. This is the time, like right now and this summer is when you should be working on the things in your podcast to help it work for your business, to help it generate leads for your business. Like this is the moment to start making those tweaks and changes that you're going to test in the fall into next year. And so where I like to start usually in the summer is like doing a full audit of my podcast. How did it do? Where is it? Is it leading to where I want to lead? What are all the things and how are they lining up to create that really clear customer path for my listeners? And so start there. Start with an audit and see where you're at, see what's going on and what you can work on over the summer.
[00:14:07] One of my favorite things to do over the summer is to work on like graphics and cover art and things like that. I love, like tweaking up how things look in the summer. You know, I have not had headshots done from since before like 2020, maybe a time. Maybe this summer would be a really good opportunity for that. So just really kind of looking at everything and saying, okay, what do we want to tweak? What do we want to add? For me, when I look at my podcast, I definitely want it vary up my episode types. And so that's something that I'm going to be experimenting with this summer, and I'm really excited to do that because there are things that I've wanted to do and haven't had time to do just because of the schedule with my kids and everything. So I'm really excited to do that. The other thing is, is looking at your promotion schedule. So when we think about sales and marketing, we tend to kind of see that slow down during the summer as well, right? So we're not necessarily promoting new things as much or creating new things, says the person who just launched a new thing right before the summer. But generally that's a time to just kind of work on what we have, and then we usually start a push in the fall, right?
[00:15:20] And so look at your schedule, look at your calendar and see what tweaks you need to make in your podcasts that are going to help with that drive and that push in the fall. And so that may be maybe you need a new outro, maybe you need a new trailer. This is the moment to do that. Maybe you need to update your call to actions like use this time, maybe like me. In all of your blog posts, you have old ads and you finally figured out a way to automate that. And so now it's time to go back and update that this is the time to work on these things, because in the fall you're going to be busy, kids are going to be back in school. We're going to have so much going on. Your business is going to be booming. And it's going to be hard to focus on all of these things. And you don't want your podcast to get left behind. You want it to grow and improve and come with you into that new season. And the best part about it is, is if you can make that plan and work on all of this now, you're going to see an uptick in engagement and downloads in the fall. Right. And that's that's what we want. We want more ears on what we're doing so we can share it with more people, so we can help more people. So as you look at the summer and seasonal engagement, I don't want you to be discouraged if you see your downloads go down. They usually do just that a little bit. That's normal. They will definitely pop back up in the fall if you are consistent and if you have a strategy for how that's all going to work together. And so don't forget that over the summer, don't push your podcast to the side and say I'll work on it in August, because if you wait until August to work on it, it's not going to be ready for all the things that you have going on. And the best place to start is, like I said, to do an audit and we will put a link in the show notes for a free audit guide that you can download that takes you through the questions you need to ask yourself as you look at your podcast and also has some other things available for you. Some episodes and best practices. So you can see like, okay, what you can start to formulate a plan. What can I work on this summer with my podcasts?
[00:17:44] And if you get stuck and you feel like I really don't know how to start attacking these things, or if I'm working on the right things at the right time, let us know. Shoot me an email. Hello@wildhomepodcasting.com. Sometimes it takes somebody else's outside perspective to look at your podcast and say, This is where it needs to go. This is what's going to help you get to your goals and what you want to happen for your podcast and for your business. And I hope everyone has a great summer. My toddler keeps talking about the beach, which she's been to once, but I think because she watches Bluey and she loves the Beach episode, she thinks that's what we need to do. So I need to somehow get to a sandy spot this summer. It may just be a lake because we are definitely landlocked here in Colorado, but we're really hoping that I can show her some sand and some water so she can live out her Bluey dreams. And I am not pausing my podcast this summer. My momentum is up and so I definitely do not want to take a break. So it will keep going. So it'll be here for you. And oh, that reminds me of one last hit before I go. When you come back in the fall, you can always look back at your episodes that were there in the summer and reshare them. Resharing episodes and referring back to them is a very underutilized tool of podcasters relating them to new episodes and linking to them, that kind of thing. So be sure to put that in your list for August and September and if you have any questions, hit me up on Instagram or email and yeah, I'll see you next week.
[00:19:33] Thank you for listening to Podcast your Business. For more podcasting tips, follow us on Instagram at Wild Home Podcasting. If you are ready to launch, uplevel, or grow your podcast, head to WildHomePodcasting.com to get started today.
