Rebranding Podcast: Is Changing Your Show Name A Wise Choice?

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Hey, everyone. Welcome to Feed you'd Brand. I'm Tom Hazard, your host for today, and we are going to talk about podcast rebranding or going through a podcast rebrand. In particular, changing your show name, which a lot of podcasters don't end up doing at some point in their podcasting journey. So even if you are not in that place where you need to do this now, you know, everybody considers pivoting their show name if they podcast long enough. Do you need to? No. Should some people consider rebranding their podcast name? Yes. And, you know, I want to talk about really the qualities of a good podcast name and, and I'll talk about why we might want to pivot our name. And I'm going to use myself as an example with some of our show names that we've done in the past. I mean, sometimes pivoting your show name just means the direction you're taking a podcast has changed and the old name is just no longer in alignment with where you're going with the podcast going forward. I mean, before feed, your brand existed and the idea was kind of a play on words between feeding your brand with content, which is what recording a podcast can do for you and obviously does for all the people we work with at Poditize, but also was a play on a podcast feed, which is the mechanism. And I know a lot of people don't really realize this, but an RSS feed is the mechanism that the distribution method, podcasts are syndicated to all the listening apps. That was a plan where it's a little fun, maybe more of an inside joke. Maybe not everybody gets that, but more the idea of feeding your brain brand with content I think makes more sense. Before that, we had a different name, which when I look back on it now is terrible. And we had a different version of the show called more about podcasting Community, a name that was like, you know, I think at one point, podcast peeps or something. And it was. I mean, I hate to even admit that now.

Other people pivot their names. Like, I'm going to use an example, but I'm sort of gonna Change the names to not embarrass somebody. Okay. Right now, although I am going to give you some real examples here in this podcast, too. But in terms of this name, we had somebody who has a show, and the show was their name. It was the, let's just say, John Smith show. And the show was about sales. Nothing about that name said anything about sales. And as this was a prospect, and I said, look, I want to help you get the most you can out of your podcast. You're going to buy some production for us, really recommend we rebrand your podcast and change the name to be something that actually, when people hear it, gives the idea that it's going to be about sales and the John Smith show, unless they know who you are, it doesn't say anything about sales. And now in this moment, I'm completely forgetting what the rebranded show name was. But I'm going to be looking that up as I talk to you here, because I owe you that. It was. I thought it was going to pay off quicker, and it didn't. But it's a killer show name, and I'm going to find it. And now I'm not finding it. Oh, well, anyway, I thought it would be right there, but it's not really. It was. The name ended up being something more specifically about sales, something about closing sales or something like that. Bad example. And now just recorded that in the podcast. So you're getting a glimpse of, hey, you know what? You have a plan, something comes to mind, you talk about it. And if you're not prepared with that example, you get egg on your face. And I just got some on mine. But seriously, though, having a podcast that's all about you, if it's your name and your show. Look, if you're well known in your industry or a celebrity, that makes perfect sense because your name is what it's about. But when your show is about a subject or if your name doesn't really talk about why people would want to listen, it's not going to be very effective for you. And unfortunately, Tracy has this show called the Binge Factor, and she has interviewed all sorts of successful podcasters about what makes them successful, but she also takes that opportunity to provide them some, I would say, constructive criticism about their show and how they could make even more improvements and achieve even greater success than they've already achieved. And I'm going to show you a few of them. And it really gets to this issue of the podcast name, because the podcast name, really, you have a podcast name, and it fits you in the beginning or you think it does, and then you experience it and you realize maybe that doesn't really mean to everybody else what it meant to me. And I would do better if I pivoted my name. So changing a name can have a big impact on the success of your name. And like I said, I'm going to show you some examples here. So what I'm going to do here now is share my screen. Those of you listening to the podcast, you might want to go to the blog post@poditize.com where you can then see. Well, I'll have the still images in that blog post, but if you also want to look at the video, you can. So here's a show. Brad Powell, somebody Tracy interviewed on the Binge Factor. And on his left is the old show name. And that's what it was when she interviewed him. And this cover art is what was featured in the blog post on the bingefactor.com the livestream show. Sounds hey, live streaming is big today. Wonderful. Yeah, let's do a show called the Live Stream Show. I'm going to do it live. Let's call it that. Great. Does that tell you really what he's going to talk about? Really doesn't. And so you can see he pivoted his name after the binge director interview with Tracy and called it the standout CEO show. Now that still tells you a lot more. Oh, wow. He's either a standout CEO maybe being a little boastful about himself, but more likely he's interviewing standout CEOs. So if you want to hear about business topics, you want to hear about what makes a standout CEO or people that are standout CEOs and what makes them so great, you probably are a little curious to give this show a try when you see the name so you can see how different it can be and what a name can do for you. Although I'm showing you a visual here on the website. And for those of you watching the video where you see these two cover arts, I'm really talking about more of the name. Actually, later in this episode, I'm going to come back and talk a little bit about the COVID art because there are some different things to consider there and people pivot their cover art more often than they pivot their show name. Sort of the bonus in this episode I'm going to give you in a few minutes toward the end here. Okay. But definitely I want to really just have you realize when you make a show, either your name or about something that may be on trend, like live streaming. Hey, that's on trend. I mean, you want to do things on social media and you want to do things on social media. You want to get attention on social media. You want to be seen by the most different followers you can on social media. Live streaming is the way to do it. So, I mean, that's been a popular subject in recent years. So, I mean, is that going to catch some people's attention? Sure it is. But when you want to really think about is your name going to really speak to the needs of the listener you want to have on your show? And since his show, the new one called the Standout CEO show, does tell you much more about what he's going to talk about. And he may be doing it live stream, and that's great. But the reason people are going to listen is more about the subject of these standout CEOs than it is being live. Being live is just sort of one aspect of his show, one characteristic, one quality of his show, not really the main one. Okay, so let's move on to another one before and after the Brilliance and Brilliance and Passion Podcast. The Brilliance and Passion Podcast, okay, that's an interesting name and in some ways I actually think there's something there. But Brilliance and Passion in what? Right now, if you've got a good, well written podcast description about what your show is really about, which in his case is Business Creators, and you type something that's in alignment with creating a business and it comes up with the Brilliance and Passion show, you know, depending on who you are, you might click that and give it a try. Probably more likely the Business Creators Show. And in this case he's called the Business Creators Radio Show. More about that a little later. That's a footnote I'm going to come back to. At least Business Creator show really does speak more to what you're talking about now. Business Creators Brilliance or Business Creators Passion, if you wanted to throw one of those words into it, you could gets a little long and wordy. But Business Creators, it's the same show. I mean, he was talking about business creators in the beginning, this guy Adam. And you know, again, those of you listening to the podcast, you want to go check out the image of these cover arts to see what I'm talking about here. The Brilliance and Passion Podcast. And it became the Business Creators Radio Show. You definitely, I think, are going to get more people clicking and trying who are who you want to try it by revealing what more of what the show is about here. While I do have issues with the COVID art and issues with calling it a radio show, even if it is a radio show. All right, so here's the footnote. Even if this is a radio show that's done live on Internet radio once a week, or even if we're live on terrestrial radio once a week and you're repurposing it as a podcast, your listeners who prefer listening to podcasts are going to hear it here first. Your radio show, people hearing it live or on that radio network, they're not going to go listen to it as a podcast. Why you call it a radio show kind of indicates old school a bit. And I would just say business creators podcast. You're distributing this to the podcast ecosystem. Even if you call it a radio show, where it is a radio show, where it's a podcast, let's call it a podcast. That's just little friendly advice in my opinion, on that one. Let's not call it a radio show. All right, third example here. Scale With Joy is the old show name. The new show name, Next Level Leap. So Scale With Joy says something a little different. Now, my first question before I read the fine print, I wondered, since this woman had shot on her cover art, I was like, is her name Joy? Because that was the first thing I thought. Scale with Joy meaning more about her, or is it Scale with Joy meaning happiness? And that communicates something very different. And I think what Joy found after, especially having a bench factor interview with Tracy, by the way, all these examples had a bench factor interview with Tracy. If I hadn't made that clear already, Next Level Leap. That actually, I think builds a lot more anticipation to get people to click to learn, even if they're not sure what that leap is. It's like, all right, I'm not so sure what that means, but I want to check it out. That's a successful podcast name. I think I'm more successful than Scale With Joy now. I think in this case, because I had a little insight. Scale With Joy was her idea of what she thought people would want to listen for, but when, after experiencing the podcast for a while, realized, really, she's talking about taking your business to the next level and how to have the confidence to make that leap. So it actually, she changed her name to be more in alignment with not only the content she was creating, but why people were listening. And so that makes sense. I like the idea of Next Level Leap. That's great. Okay, so you can see how names can make a big difference.

I'm going to come Back now to talk about COVID art for a minute. And this is. I didn't intend to talk about this in this episode, but as I'm using these examples and showing them, I need to talk about them. Two of these cover arts make what I regard as the tactical error in most cases, not all cases, and that they're putting their face on the COVID art. And it's not that there's anything wrong with how these people look. Nothing wrong whatsoever. And some people are like, hey, it's my show. I need to be in integrity and put my face on the COVID art. Standout CEO show does that here. Brad Powell has his actually full torso shot on there. I'm glad it's only taking up about a quarter of the surface area of the COVID art. It's not dominating it. But what happens when you put our face on our cover art? Unless we're targeting a specific niche of people and it's clearly we represent that niche in our visual appearance, it can tend to distract people and keep them from clicking to try it because people tend to like people like themselves. It's not a discriminatory thing. It's really just a human nature thing. So if I'm not an older white guy, as Brad is here on his cover art, if I'm a millennial person of color, man or woman, I just may not identify with him. And even though it's standout CEO is of interest to me, there's going to be a few other shows in my search that come up, and if I see one that I relate to more, I'm going to go to that and not even give this a try. So we tend to recommend get your face off your cover art. You'll get more click engagement and get people to try it. With most people, we certainly try to do that. That's what I recommend. In general. Now it's, you know what, I just make a recommendation as a podcast strategist and consultant, I just make a recommendation and it's your show. The best I can do is just share with you what I think is going to get you more click engagement and after that, you make your it's a business decision or creative decision. And after all, it's your show and you can have it the way you want. All right, let's move on to again, the before and after, the Brilliance and Passion Podcast and the Business Creators Radio show. Now, to me, this cover art each makes a similar mistake and that it's almost all about the text and the font. And this is a missed opportunity to have, because here's the thing, there have been studies done, research studies done that show you that people respond to images and graphics faster than they read words. Their brains process images and visual graphics in the smallest fraction of a millisecond, whereas reading words takes reading, interpreting, and processing in your brain and takes longer. Now, it's still, we're talking about a second or two. We're not talking about many, many seconds. But your brain gravitates to the visuals first. So when you have a cover that's all about the words, you're missing an opportunity to catch people's attention, pique curiosity, and get them to click to get to the point where they will read the words. Something visual is going to attract them first. And other cover arts up there that have have other visuals are going to command their attention quicker. So the new one, although I do think the Business Creators radio show is incrementally a better title of a show than the Brilliance and Passion podcast because it tells you it's about business creators and people are going to understand that and the right people are going to click using a microphone as your image. This is sort of the most cliche imagery for radio show and podcasting, and it's unfortunately, I think, a bit of a rookie error and a wasted opportunity. Business Creators show, there's probably a lot of other images that could indicate business creators and make people feel like, oh, I want to be a part of that tribe, I want to be a part of that community, and it would at least attract them to it, to the point where they visually are attracted and read, oh, business Creator show. Awesome. Yeah, that's for me. I want to click and try that. So just a missed opportunity with this one, although not making the first mistake that I said. Now this third one. Scale with joy. Next level leap. Scale with joy before next level leap. Again, here the host of the show is using a headshot in each case, and that may work. In this case, the host is a woman in business. If she's purely trying to attract women in business, okay, that might work. If she's trying to appeal to men, it's a lot of men that are probably going to subconsciously see her show come up in the list and move on to another one. Either one where they see a man they identify with better or something that doesn't have an image at all and talks more about taking businesses to the next level. So it can hurt you unintentionally. But again, it's your show. You can do what you want. So, hey, my staff as I've been talking about this podcast here, about this subject, I want to go back to what I was talking about with that show that remember I talked about the John Smith show. Okay. So that was a sales related podcast. Okay. So we found the name and now I can share it with you. And although I have egg on my face, I'm maybe going to have a little redemption. So it was the show had his. It made all the mistakes. It was the show was his name, the John Smith Show. I'm not really revealing his name. And he had his face on the COVID art. And when we came to rebranding this, I thought we came up with the most brilliant name that really got the heart of what he talked about in his episodes. And that came through a little bit of a brainstorming process where his show. We came up with the name the Selling Dilemma because it was about sales, but it was about a certain aspects of sales where making tough decisions on how to achieve success with selling. And that was what the podcast was about. And he talked about these dilemmas. Wow. The Selling Dilemma. And then came up with a lot of different graphics imagery for what would catch your attention when you see that cover art. But a name that instead of being all about you and your name. And if people didn't know your name, what is the show really about? They have to click in to read the description. And if you have to wait for people to click in and read the description to find out what your show is about, you've lost a whole lot of people. The description helps in two ways of your podcast. One, to have you come up in searches because it's the primary data point that feeds the search bar in every listening app. So that's why a description is critical. And the only time people really read it is if they've already been attracted to your cover art and then the name of the show and they say, oh, that sounds good, that's curious. Let me now read the first sentence to the description and make sure that sort of is what I think it is going to be about and so it reinforces it, so it's a secondary level of information people go through and then boom, give it a try. Great. But if you're relying on that description to talk about what the show is about and your name of your show really doesn't say what it's about and your cover art really doesn't show what it's about, may want to pivot that podcast name and or cover art. So I know I talked about COVID art here A little bit. And really the primary point was about the name and the effectiveness of the name. So I think I've given you four examples. Three I showed you one sort of stumbled on in the beginning and told you about at the end, which the John Smith show, which was about sales and became the selling dilemma. Much more effective in getting people to listen. So, hey, that's what I wanted to share with you today. Nothing wrong with pivoting your show. And by the way, cover art. One more thing about the COVID art I want to share with you is that even if you don't change your name over the years, I've pivoted my cover art many times on feed your brand. The current cover art is not what it was two years ago, it's not what it was five years ago, and it's probably not what it'll be a year from now. I kind of like changing up and refreshing it. Part of that is also the competition. Who your podcast competition is in your subject area is not going to be the same year from now for what it is when you launched and if for nothing else, to change some colors and if other people have come out with podcasts and using some of the same colors as you, and you look at the search on the subjects you want to come up for, and you see everybody's got similar colors. Time to pivot and at minimum just change some of the colors in your text and your background, whatever it is, so it pops up, so it commands your attention when you show up in a search that it's not the same as everybody else. We originally had a cover art for this podcast that was black and green, and eventually a competitor of ours in the podcast hosting space came out with their podcast and used the exact same colors. And we're like, all right, time to change. So we changed it. Same thing with our very first podcast. This is like a decade ago, but wtfff3d printing podcast. I think every year we change that to freshen it up and have some new colorways. And part of that was due to competition in that space of 3D printing, which is Geeky show, which was our first show. And part of it was also we started to do so many episodes, we ended up putting out multiple volumes like the older ones we put out as their own show that people could go back and listen to the early ones. Because a lot of apps will only show 300 episodes. When you get over 300, your first one as you publish 301 number one falls off of their app. So we need to make those available. And so to distinguish between the volumes, we change some colors, too. So refreshing your cover art, fantastic thing to do, even if you've got the perfect name, and that's refreshing your cover art, I think, is a more common thing than pivoting your name.

Pivoting your name is a little tougher decision and people get attached to their names. And you may have some very good reasons why you don't want to change your name. But I see a lot of shows, shows out there where that name isn't really as effective as maybe you wanted it to be. And maybe even you might realize yourself upon reflection that, hey, maybe your show content or what you do in your show is pivoted a little or expanded a little. Maybe that name's a little too narrow or just not completely in alignment with what you're doing today. Pivot your name. Guess what? Here's the last tip about changing your podcast name. Once you change it in your podcast hosting platform, it changes everywhere. And everybody who is subscribed to your show remains subscribed to your show. Changing the name doesn't change any of that. So you don't lose anything by changing your name. You just hopefully make incremental improvements and hopefully catch more attention and attract new people to your show that weren't attracted to it before. So I really don't see any downside to doing that. All right, so that's the final word I'll leave you with. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. This has been Tom on feed.

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