How to Build a Content Vault for Endless Podcast Ideas
Ever feel stuck staring at a blank screen, wondering what to talk about next on your podcast? I’ve been there, too. No matter how long you've been podcasting, coming up with fresh, engaging content can feel like a constant challenge. But what if I told you there's a way to never run out of ideas? In this post, I’m sharing my ultimate guide to building a content vault that ensures you always have something valuable to share with your listeners.
We all know the importance of consistent, valuable content, but how do you keep those great ideas flowing, especially when you’re deep into your podcast journey? Today, I’ll show you how to create a content vault that not only sparks endless ideas but also aligns with your business goals and keeps your audience coming back for more. Let’s dive in and make content planning simple, strategic, and sustainable!
Start with Quarterly Planning to Stay Ahead
I get it—planning can feel overwhelming. The thought of planning an entire year of content used to make my head spin! That’s why I switched to quarterly planning, and it has made all the difference. When I plan quarterly, I can focus on what's most relevant and impactful in the near future without feeling like I’m biting off more than I can chew. This approach not only keeps me on track with my business goals but also gives me the flexibility to adjust as needed.
When I sit down to plan my quarter, I start by looking at my marketing schedule and my audience's needs. I think about what I want to promote, what my listeners need to hear from me right now, and where those two elements intersect. This is where the magic happens! If you haven't tried quarterly planning yet, I highly recommend it. It will not only help you feel ahead of the game but also keep your content focused and results-driven.
Understand Your Podcast Audience Deeply
One of the biggest secrets to never running out of content ideas is having a deep understanding of your audience. I know, I know—you've heard this before, right? But it’s not just about knowing who your audience is; it's about engaging with them regularly to understand their evolving needs and challenges.
Think about it: if you don't know where your audience is struggling or what they’re excited about, how can you create content that truly resonates? This is where engagement comes in. Consider conducting surveys, hosting polls on social media, or even setting up coffee chats with your ideal clients. I did a bunch of these coffee chats over the summer, and let me tell you—they were a game changer! Hearing directly from my audience about their podcasting struggles and desires helped me generate a ton of fresh, relevant episode ideas.
Create a System for Podcast Idea Generation
Now that you’re engaging with your audience and getting great feedback, where do you put all these ideas? You need a system! I call mine an "episode bank" or "content vault." This is where I store all my potential episode ideas—no matter how rough they might be. I’m not worried about scheduling them just yet; I’m simply collecting ideas so I never have to start from scratch.
You can use tools like Notion, Trello, or even a simple spreadsheet to keep track of your ideas. The key is to have a place where you can quickly jot down ideas as they come to you. When I’m feeling stuck, I pull up my content vault and immediately have a list of topics that I know will resonate with my audience. Trust me, it’s a lifesaver!
Leverage Tools like ChatGPT for Inspiration
Another tool I love for content inspiration is ChatGPT. Yes, AI can be incredibly helpful in brainstorming ideas! I like to tell ChatGPT about my audience, my podcast, and some topics I’ve already covered. Then, I ask for new content ideas. While these suggestions are never perfect, they often spark new directions or angles I hadn’t considered. Remember, the goal here is not to replace your creativity but to enhance it. Sometimes, all you need is a little nudge to get the ideas flowing.
Organize Your Content Vault for Maximum Impact
Having a content vault is fantastic, but it’s even better when it’s organized. I like to categorize my ideas into themes or content pillars that align with my marketing goals. For example, I might have categories like “Audience Growth,” “Content Strategy,” or “Monetization.” Another method I love is the Hub, Hero, and Help model. Hub content builds community and shares stories, Hero content showcases my strategies and hot takes, and Help content is all about solving specific problems.
By organizing my ideas this way, I can ensure a balanced mix of content that keeps my audience engaged and coming back for more. It also helps me see at a glance where I might need to add more variety or where I’m hitting the mark.
Plug Content Ideas into a Strategic Calendar
Now that you’ve got your ideas organized, it’s time to plug them into a calendar. And here’s where that quarterly planning comes in handy again! I look at my marketing goals, my audience's interests, and what I have going on in my business. Then, I start to plug my content ideas into specific dates. I make sure there’s a logical flow from one episode to the next, so my listeners feel like they’re on a journey with me.
This approach also gives me the flexibility to swap episodes around if needed. If something timely comes up in my industry, I can rearrange my schedule and keep everything flowing smoothly.
Take Your Podcast Content Planning to the Next Level
If you’re ready to create a content plan that not only keeps your podcast fresh and engaging but also aligns perfectly with your business goals, I’d love to work with you. My Podcast Content Strategy Sessions are designed to help you build a comprehensive content calendar that makes sense for your business. Together, we’ll look at your marketing goals, your audience's needs, and all the other pieces of the puzzle to create a plan that works.
Build a Content Vault and Never Run Out of Ideas Again
Remember, a successful podcast is not just about great production. It’s about consistently delivering content that resonates with your audience and supports your business goals. With these strategies, you’ll never have to worry about running out of ideas again. So, start building your content vault today, and watch your podcast thrive!
If you’re ready to take your podcast planning to the next level, head over to wildhomepodcasting.com and book your session with me. Let’s make content planning easy and effective together!
The Transcript for Podcast Your Business:
195: How to Build a Content Vault for Endless Podcast Ideas
[00:00:00] Ever find yourself staring at a blank screen. Wondering what your next episode should be about. You are not alone. I'm believing I struggled with this too. Today, we're going to solve that problem once. And for all, welcome to the ultimate guide to never running out of content ideas for your podcast.
[00:00:16]
[00:00:58] Hello everyone. I'm [00:01:00] Caroline. And welcome back to share strategize and shine. A problem. We solved this week. So when I'm recording this, I just got done doing quarterly planning for my business. This is something that I do and I business group than I am in. And it is always so, so impactful. In fact, I think I'm doing quarterly planning again. In a couple of days with my mastermind, I mean, I can not get enough of it. But let me tell you why it's so impactful. It's so, so impactful. Because it helps you understand what you're working towards in the quarter. And beyond that, which this is actually really going to go into what we're talking about in today's episode. It's really going to help you create impactful content.
[00:01:47] That's going to support whatever. Your goals for your business are. And I always like to start. My quarterly planning by thinking about what I have going on. And then next few months, [00:02:00] and then really thinking about what my objectives are. So, what do I want to accomplish? What am I working on? You know, what are my big goals?
[00:02:08] And then from there breaking it down into smaller chunks. And from there. Going into planning my content. So, if you have not done any kind of quarterly planning, I know when I get too much into this, because I'm actually going to talk about it a little bit in the episode. But I want you to know just how much this has impacted how I work. I used to just fly by the seat of my pants and plan a month at a time. But I found that as soon as I had the month planned, it was almost like another month was beginning.
[00:02:42] I don't know if you've ever experienced that. You're like, oh yeah, I'm going to do this in September. Next thing, you know, it's the end of September. I think that happens to a lot of us with our schedules and just everything we have going on when I'm able to actually sit down and plan quarterly, it makes me feel like I'm ahead, which I feel like really [00:03:00] makes my work. More. Focused and more results oriented. In that I'm actually getting more results because I have a plant. I mean, it just all works really well together. And I don't just use quarterly planning on my business.
[00:03:14] I actually use it in my life as well. So with homeschooling every quarter, I sit down and kind of re look at things, see what we need to just shake up. Maybe what I need to prepare. , and I also love to just do this with my calendar in general. In fact, that's what I'm going to be doing this afternoon. Is doing like personal quarterly planning. Because we have so much going on. The school year and I needed to just get everything on the calendar.
[00:03:38] So highly recommend quarterly planning. I am. I get very overwhelmed by planning an entire year at once. But if I can plan quarterly, then I feel like I'm ahead of the game. So definitely consider it. That's a problem I solved this week and I hope that will help you as well.
[00:03:55] If there is a one thing I know after years and [00:04:00] podcasting, it's not a great episode, starts with a really great idea. And those great ideas, they can be fleeting. Let's be honest, especially when you get further into your podcast journey. Like me and you're getting close to episode 200. You start to go. What should I talk about?
[00:04:18] And how do you keep those ideas flowing? Right. So today I'm going to show you how to build a content vault that ensures you always have something valuable to share with your listeners. We're going to be talking about how to create episode ideas, how to organize them and the best way to implement them.
[00:04:37] Once you have them ready to go. So the first place I want to start. Is by talking about your audience. Having endless content ideas is going to start with having a deep understanding of your audience. And I know this feels like you're probably going, I've heard this before. This is that avatar stuff, but this is really, really important, [00:05:00] especially as podcast creators, because we're creating episodes that are designed to meet people where they are at right now.
[00:05:08] And if we don't really understand where they're at right now, then we're not going to create content. That's going to resonate. So we need to think about like, who are they? What challenges are they facing? What solutions are they currently seeking? And the only way you're going to get this information and have this at your fingertips. Is if you are engaging directly with your listeners, and this is something that we talk a lot about when we talk about podcasts growth is this engagement piece because your listeners, they want to be a part of your world.
[00:05:41] They want to feel like insiders. And so if you can add some kind of engagement. Whether that's through surveys or connecting with your listeners on social media, having a private group. However your engagement works best. I mean, this is really where the treasure trove of topics is hiding. [00:06:00] Right. One of my favorite ways to. Generate ideas like this, and to really get in touch with my audience and what they're wanting and what they're wanting to know. And this is actually something I learned from one of my, mentors and Marie Rose. Is to do. Coffee chats. Which are like little surveys with your ideal clients. And this has been so impactful for me this summer.
[00:06:28] I did a whole bunch of them. If you're listening, you may have been one of them who came into the call with me. And these calls were just so impactful because I got to actually hear from their mouths. In real time, what they were struggling with with their podcast, what maybe they were looking forward to what kind of help they needed. Where they needed support.
[00:06:49] And I think that was really impactful for me because I was working on my offers. But what's really cool about this is from that. I was able to go through and [00:07:00] have a whole bunch of episode ideas coming to me. So think about how you can get listener feedback, whether that is, like I said, through a survey. Maybe you post polls on Instagram. Maybe you have a private Facebook group where you can ask questions. If you have a really engaged newsletter list, you can even do this with them.
[00:07:23] But then if you're like really, really stuck and you're like, I really need some fresh ideas. Think about doing a couple of coffee chats and book them with either people who you've already worked with. People who maybe are in one of your programs and then maybe even people who you don't know. And I kind of just put out, I put it out there.
[00:07:44] I was like, I'm doing coffee chats. And a lot of it where people, I knew. I had a couple of people, I didn't know, which was super, super helpful. And, and really fascinating to get their perspective as somebody who had never worked with me. But I really, really highly recommend doing that, but [00:08:00] this, there really, this all boils down to just understanding your audience.
[00:08:04] So however best you can understand your audience is going to be a real game changer when it comes to actually coming up with ideas. So let's talk about creating an actual system for idea generation. So. I keep what's called an episode bank. , and whenever you work with me, If you do a content strategy session with me, we will work on an episode bank as well. I do this for all of my clients, because I think it's so, so important to just start with a bank of episode ideas. Now where can you get these?
[00:08:41] Where can you store them again? Like. Talking to people. Maybe keeping a journal. I have a notion board. Maybe you want to keep a Trello board. A spreadsheet is really great too, but just having a place where you can just drop content ideas on the regular, we're not putting these into a [00:09:00] schedule. We're not even like thinking about when I'm going to air this episode. We're literally just going, oh, I'm going to put my ideas here. So what I will do when I am thinking about sitting down and I'm like, oh, I need some ideas. Where I'm going to start is thinking about my audience, right?
[00:09:20] What they're going through, what they need. What I'm also promoting. And then I'm going to pull up my content bank that I already have my vault. Right. And my idea, generation spreadsheet, whatever you want to call it. And I will look and I'll see if I have anything on there that I feel like can already apply.
[00:09:39] Now, if I don't, then what they will do is do some brainstorming. And this is where I will go back through my feedback from my coffee chats or. Any listener engagement I've got and received. A lot of times you can just go back through there and come up with like 10 episode ideas on the fly. Some other ideas for getting episode ideas is [00:10:00] looking at what's going on in your industry.
[00:10:02] So you can set up like a Google alert for this, or even just going onto social media and seeing what people are talking about. But what is, what is the buzz. What is, what is the hot topic and could that work for your podcast and for your audience? And I will even write those down as well. And again, these are very rough.
[00:10:23] This is not the place where I'm refining titles. This is not the place where I'm like thinking about my schedule. This is just getting ideas. Onto a piece of paper or a spreadsheet or something like that. Then from there, what we might also do, and this is, has become one of my favorite tools is we might also go to chat GBT. And tell Chat GBT about us, about our audience, some podcast. Episodes.
[00:10:49] We've already done some ideas we have and then see if chat, GBT has any ideas for you as well. Now these are never, ever, ever perfect. But again, we're just getting [00:11:00] ideas, right? This is just getting into an idea generation routine. Now I mentioned that. One of the problems I solved this week was quarterly planning.
[00:11:09] So I want to talk about that for just a minute. I am not generating new podcast ideas every month. I think that would cause me severe burnout. And that's why having this content bank. Is so, so key and important to making sure that you don't run out of ideas. It's so much easier for me to do this quarterly than anything.
[00:11:31] So. When I am sitting down. Planning out my quarter. I'll look at my marketing schedule. I mentioned that my promotion calendar, what I have going on, like what I want to sell. I'll think about my audience, what they need from me right now. Kind of where those two places intersect is where I will start to get episode ideas and I will try to get enough down that way.
[00:11:55] If I needed to sit down and plan the entire quarter, I could. [00:12:00] So this is part of my overarching quarterly planning strategy. I am not, again, I am not brainstorming new ideas every month. But what's so great about the content vault is if something comes up and I really want to talk about it. I've got that in my bank.
[00:12:19] I can put it in my bank and I can say, you know, it, I want to plug this in to. Two weeks from now, or if there's something really timely going on in your industry. You can totally rearrange your schedule. And put that episode in. So this becomes a breathing, living document that you're using and looking at throughout the year. Oh, one more idea popped in my head too. You know, sometimes you'll sit down, you'll have something scheduled and you'll sit down to plan it. And you'll go, ah, that's just not the episode I want to do today. And that's also where going into your content bank can be super, super helpful.
[00:12:55] So definitely like step one, if you're listening to this episode and [00:13:00] you're like, I need to do something to get my content going, start a content bank, an idea. Generation place. Set aside some time, if you've never done this brainstorm. Use tools to help you brainstorm like chat GPT, but definitely just start creating a bank of episode ideas.
[00:13:18] So now we have all these ideas, right.
[00:13:20] And that's really great. Having all these ideas is fantastic, but we want to organize them into a usable format. And this is where I mentioned having some kind of place where you can organize all these things like Trello, a sauna, a spreadsheet. This is really where it comes into play. And there's a couple of ways you can organize this information. One is you can do themes.
[00:13:45] So if you have content pillars that you like to follow with your marketing, You can organize them that way. If they're seasonal or maybe you have audience requested episodes. Like even giving them little categories is [00:14:00] really great. One of the ways I really like to organize my content is hub hero in helping contents. And I learned this from am Natasha. She is a YouTube. , strategists. So I cannot take credit for it, but it's been so helpful. And helping me think about the different types of podcast episodes I'm creating. So hub would be like episodes that show community, episodes.
[00:14:23] That show how I work with people. You know, these are like stories, things like that. Hero content is where I'm really sharing my strategies. My philosophies, , my hot takes. And then helping content is an episode like this, where it's like, this is how you do something. Here's, I'm going to help you solve a problem in this episode.
[00:14:44] And that has been really helpful in helping me vary the different types of episodes I do. So. Think about as you're creating your episode bank, what categories or themes are you seeing and organize them that way? So next, what you want to do is [00:15:00] really think about how am I going to use these episodes.
[00:15:04] Again, this goes back to like a quarterly planning situation. So we start to say, okay, Now that I have all these ideas, I've organized them into categories. How am I going to plug them into my content? And I love doing this quarterly. If you do a content strategy session with me. What we will do is look at your marketing goals, your audiences interests. And also what you have going on in your world. And then we take these ideas and we start plugging them in. We want to make sure that we have a balanced mix of content.
[00:15:44] That's going to keep your audience coming back in this way. It like having them in categories is so crucial. And one of the things I've been playing with a lot, with my clients and with my content. And then from there, like literally taking it and putting it in the dates and seeing, [00:16:00] does this make sense?
[00:16:01] Does this align. What's really great about doing this quarterly too, is we can also think about things like dynamic ads, social media, if we have anything else going on outside of our programs and services, how can we incorporate that? And as you start to put things in a calendar, you really start to see, is this going to work this way?
[00:16:23] Does it make sense to have this episode here and this episode here? Or should we swap them around? We really are looking for a flow, right. And I think this is where a lot of podcasters make a big mistake is they will have an idea bank and they'll sit down and they'll say, okay, today I feel like recording this episode and they'll record it and they'll post it. But without thinking about the context of the next two months episodes, the next three weeks. The weeks before. And then the flow starts to feel off.
[00:16:56] One thing that I think is really powerful and impactful [00:17:00] for your audience is when they feel like they're going through a journey with you. And one of the ways you can do that is by, I mentioned those themes episodes, right? So like knowing that, like for the next six episodes, I'm going to be talking about content planning or the next four episodes.
[00:17:16] I'm going to be talking about this specific topic as it's related to your business. Right. And that really helps you take your listeners, your potential clients on a journey through your content. And if you're super savvy and strategic, That will lead them right to your offer. And so, as we're thinking about, you know, this is so much deeper. Then content planning.
[00:17:42] This is really creating a bank that you can pull from constantly. So that way, when it comes to actually sitting down and planning out your content calendar, you can be so strategic with it as it relates to your business as a whole. And this really is the sweet spot where [00:18:00] you're going to start to see your podcast working for your business and helping you actually create episodes and content.
[00:18:07] That's going to be integrated with your marketing calendar, but also help you actually make some sales and get leads from your podcast. So. Again, like let's just go over these steps to creating a content system. That's really gonna work for you and having that vault, right. That content vault. The first one is understanding your audience.
[00:18:29] So getting that audience feedback and engagement. then creating a way of brainstorming and creating ideas and in place to house them, organizing those ideas so we can understand how we're going to use them. And then plugging them into a content calendar that makes sense for our business. So, if you are ready to take your podcast planning to the next level, I want you to check out my podcast, content strategy sessions.
[00:18:57] These are personalized. [00:19:00] Sessions where we go through all of these steps together. And then I will actually take all of this and put it into a content calendar that makes the most sense for you. We want to create a plan. That's going to keep your podcasts fresh and engaging. And is also going to help you to feel confident every time you sit down and record.
[00:19:19] So be sure to head to wild home podcasting.com to book that session today. And you can actually book those quarterly in advance, which I highly highly recommend getting on my calendar. So you have that time. This is probably one of my most favorite things that I do. I always say that one of my super powers is taking ideas and turning them into podcast episodes. And a lot of times. When we have an idea, it can be so big that it's almost too much for one podcast episode.
[00:19:47] And having someone with an outside perspective who can help you break that down into multiple episodes is just amazing. And something that I love to do. So if you want to work on that with me, definitely go [00:20:00] check that out. And that's it for today's guide on building your content vault. Now, remember. A successful podcast is not just about great production.
[00:20:09] It is about consistently delivering content that resonates with your audience. And with these strategies, you will never have to worry about running out of ideas. Again. So thank you for tuning. in keep those podcasts rolling. Keep shining. And I will be back. Next week with a new episode.
