Think Inside the Cover Art Box! Creative Podcast Branding Guide for Standout Success

Want your podcast and videocast to be seen, heard, found and rewarded in this noisy digital world, you are not alone. Join the nonprofit community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works. Today, get ready to feed. Feed your brand with smart cut tactics proven to cast your original voice to the world.

Everyone, welcome to feed. You'd brand. I'm Tom Hazard with my co host and partner Tracy. And you know what? Today we're gonna talk about branding and I'm so excited to do this.

I wanna fix that. We're gonna talk about anti branding.

Anti branding, Yes.

I appreciate that our podcast branding guide is really an anti branding guide because it's not as much of what you should do as much as what you shouldn't do.

You know, I agree there are many ways to look at it. Now that that idea of anti branding may sound like we don't believe in branding. That's not true. We believe.

No, absolutely not true.

We believe in branding, really believe in branding. It's just that when it comes to podcasting, a lot of the conventional wisdom does not ring true and is not applicable. According to Tom and Tracy, anyway.

Well, so here's a really great example. There's this guy who's I'm not going to name, but if you have been in my circles before and been to some of the masterminds I've been to, and you know me personally, you know exactly who I'm describing. There is a guy who is a branding expert and he creates trailer videos and self brands. Right. Like brands that. Are you the ones that are for those personal brands. Personal brands, Solopreneurs. Ones that are like coaches and. And where your services are the brand. Right.

Yeah.

And so that's what he does. He specializes in it and he creates these flashy, beautiful produced videos. I mean they're gorgeously produced. And after you've seen the third one, you realize that your brand looks like every other person and every time one comes up, you know exactly who created it. That's why we are defying the conventional wisdom here. That's why we're saying we want you to think about your brand in a different way than those branding gurus out there. And we come from a history of lots of branding. I mean I wrote a column for Inc. Magazine and probably 400 articles in it, probably 100 of them were on branding easily, maybe more. And so this is not something we know nothing about, we know a lot about it. And Tom and I have helped people launch over, I think the last count, Tom's 1200. Like we're well over 1200 shows right now. Yeah. That podcast shows that we have helped people launch. And so we have seen it where they refuse to listen to our advice and the show fails. I can tell sometimes when I do a binge factor, for the most part, before I even listen to an episode, I can tell whether or not someone's going to fail, whether or not they'll pod fade in before they get to 100 episodes. Keep that in mind. If you pod fade over a hundred, I, I don't fault you for that. Your business changed, you got a little bored. I think that's fair. I think if you can't make it two years, you're. You didn't really give it a full effort.

I agree. But podcasts that reach 100 episodes have reached a certain level of success that people their goals, lots of things that happened that they may not continue to get to 3, 4, 500 plus episodes like we have in some of our shows and other podcasters do too. And that's okay. That doesn't mean the podcast wasn't a success. It may very well have been.

Right. And so when I look at their cover art, when I look at the name of their show, when I look at that, what is just the first point of contact, the first touch point with your listeners or potential subscribers before they hit the subscribe button. Right. Once they're subscribers, it's a totally different ball game. This is the. I don't know you, and I'm trying to decide if I am going to subscribe. These are the branding elements. Your title, your name, your show image, your cover art. We call it here, your icon, whatever. Lots of people use different names.

Yeah, I love covering.

You could, whatever it is, we call it cover art. That's what it podcast cover art. That's its industry term here. And the first couple of sentences of your description. The bots care about more than that. But the humans, I'm talking about the human view, the human review of your show before they decide to hit subscribe. That's the brand. That's all. You don't get to control where they see that, how they see it. Those are the only things you have control over. So you have to take them really seriously. You have to make them maximize their value, maximize what you get out of them. So keep them from being repetitive and redundant. And so we're going to talk a Little bit about that too, because that's a part of our guide. And this model has to be aware of. Our true rule for branding, our absolute rule in branding, is that branding is not what you say, who you say you are. Branding is not who you say you are. It is how you are perceived. So I've heard the phrase and it's a quote, and I think it's been attributed to Jeff Bezos. I don't know that I believe that, but it's been attributed to him, is that he says that branding is not who you say you are, it's what others say about you and same kind of thing. But this is an internal, like I see it and I think that's not for me. I've Xed you off my list. That's the perception that I'm talking about. Doesn't matter what you say about you. If it's not matched to what I'm looking for, it's not gonna happen in the podcasting world because it's not push media, it's pull. I have to choose to subscribe.

That is the thing that I think is one of the most. Well, one of the biggest rookie errors in podcasting, really. New podcasters, especially when they think differently about that, they don't realize you're asking people to spend their time with you, to opt into you.

It's more valuable than your money.

Absolutely.

I'm absolutely know that for sure because I will give money before I give time, any day of the week. So your most valuable listeners believe that.

And so you're asking them to trade their time to listen to you and you have a split second to get their attention. I'm going to.

We. We used to sell products, right. At mass market retail. Yeah. You're going to go there. I'm going to set it up if you're going to talk about it. Okay. So Tom and I used to design products that you buy every single day. In fact, some of our products are still on the shelf. So you can walk down the Target, Walmart, places like that, Costco, and see our stuff. And that in and of itself, that brand has to resonate. We only were in charge of the product, not always the. So the product and the brand have to resonate and come through that shelf. What happens, Tom, when someone's walking down that aisle?

You have to realize what happens at retail. And really, Tracy, it is a great parallel to what happens when people are browsing and searching for what to listen to, scrolling to what to listen to. Okay. In their podcast app, you even on YouTube. But I'm going to really, I want. We're more specifically talking about in the podcast, apps for your audio. Same thing in retail, you walk down an aisle. How many times in Walmart, walking down an aisle of products, do you see a salesperson there to help make sure you understand the products that are there in front of you and which one you might want to buy? Never. It is an unassisted sale.

Exactly.

The product packaging has to be the salesperson and communicate everything about it in a split second. Because as you walk by, you walk by every product in much shorter time than one entire second.

And all that busyness around it, the lighting, the signage, the holiday, whatever, the noise is all there. So it's not any different than the digital noise that we're all seeing on our feeds right now. But it's faster in the digital, right? Because you're scrolling quickly, right. So you can scroll faster than you can walk so. And push a cart so it goes faster than that. And so what Tom and I learned from that was is that if it requires explanation, you're done. Your brand is over. It will never make it. It will require so much dollars to push it to someone to recognize. Now, if you have a big network, you can do that. And it also would require that another option without having a network advertising you. In the old school shopping world, we called it a circular, right? So if you could advertise in the circular, then people would come into the store to go. To go buy it. They would come in looking for it.

That's what you're doing. People actually read real newspapers that had circulars in them.

Yeah, exactly. Some people only read them dwindling. Some people only read them for the circular. Like that was what they pulled out each week. So that's one model of it. The other model of it is you have such a great product and you've done such a good job of your external branding that they're coming into the store to buy it. It's what's driving them into the store. Those are like anchor brands, we call them in the store. So you'd have to be an anchor brand to be able to do that. And every network, like if you think of a podcast network, has an anchor show. Joe Rogan is an anchor show for Spotify. You've got anchor shows. The Obamas have a network. There's anchor show on that that is driving it. But it's really the Obama's reputation that is driving it. It has nothing to do with any of the shows that are on It. It's their reputation driving everyone to the network. That's the idea. So these networks have to buy an anchor and have to spend money to get all the visibility for all the other ancillary products, or in this case, ancillary shows.

Right. Well, most of us independent podcasters are not part of a network and there is no anchor brand. And so really, while we all should be promoting our shows on social media, raising awareness of it, there's a limited amount of people you're going to reach. How many people you're connected with, how many people you're connected with are really going to share it. Most of them are just going to like it and not necessarily share it. So you're not necessarily reaching all of their followers either. Now, you have some people that are influential and are willing to share. Wonderful. That's great. So that's kind of like the circular that would bring people in.

That's the slow burn. Right, Right. And that's why I can identify someone based on their cover art and go, they're not going to be patient for the slow burn. And that's the number one thing that Tom and I find. And this is why it's a part. It goes against. Remember when I was telling you about that branding expert who made it all about this personal brand? Those personal brand rules are huge failures in the independent podcast industry. If you make the brand and the show all about you and you're not Joe Rogan, you're done. You're done before you start.

Not even Joe Rogan. I mean, if you're not ever. I mean, look, Joe Rogan's a unicorn. He succeeded. And if you tried to repeat what he's done, nobody would be able to do that today. Times change and things change. But even if you're not even in your industry, if you're not a standout star who is well known in your industry, then everything we're talking about today applies to you. You will fail if you make the branding all about you and not what's in it for the listener to trade their time.

But I think you even need to be careful if that's your. If that's who you are in the industry, too, because there are a lot of people who are going to eat your lunch. They are absolutely chomping at the bit to take your spot. And there is a perception when you put the brand all about you that it doesn't have anything beyond that. So it hurts you in terms of guests who want to appear on your show, all they want is that trait of name recognition. So it's not a give and take, it's a take. So you lose every which way when you go down that road in an independent podcast world, because you're doing this to get to people who don't know you yet. You're doing this to get to people who are new to the industry, to your niche, to your area, and you want to be the first point of contact for them. The ones who are out there searching at 2am because they're suffering and they need help. That's who you want to be in this world. Because once you get in their ear and they binge on your show, you are the only expert they're going to trust. That's what we're all out there looking for. But if my first perception as I go into the app and start searching is, is that it's the Tracy show and the Tom Show, I know you're not there for me.

There's a reason our faces are not on our cover art. There's a reason it's not the Tracy and Tom show or the Tom and Tracy show. It's feed your brand. That's the name of the show. And honestly, the name itself, while, well, we have. We probably have a lot of differing opinions on the name of the show and some fun things to talk about there, But a lot of ways the name is secondary to this experience because, you know, if people have already heard your name, seen it on social media, that's great. You won the battle. They know the name of your show. They can find it if they want to. You want to attract people to your show who are searching on their needs, their interests, topics, subjects they want to listen to, and have them find your show. And then when your show comes up, you've got to hook them and you have a split second to do it because there's 20 other cover arts that come up in that search right there at the top competing with yours. So.

And show names. Right?

Yours, show names and cover arts. But human brain responds to visuals, images, and graphics faster than they read words and interpret them. So this is why cover art is so important.

That's right. And so there are three things that are a component of your brand in the podcast branding space. I'm being really specific here. Remember, this is a podcast branding guide, not a general branding guide, not a product branding guide, not a website branding guide. Like, it's just different here, right? We're talking about podcast branding.

And just to put a huge red flag here, context is incredibly important here. That's why What Tracy's saying here, that context is your broadcast branding within the podcast listening apps. This is critical, right.

And this is what Tom and I learned from designing all those products at mass market retail. If they're going to be on the aisle, this is where it is. If they're going to be on a showroom floor, it's a different model. If they're going to be sold in a catalog, it can be a different brand, a different product, even have different features. If it's a, you send out an email, you do what we, you know, in the old school, we do like the whole commercial, like that would be a totally different brand. Right. You can sell something completely different based on its context and the branding matters. So in this particular case, there are three components that we look at. Message, reputation and style design. It is the same aspects in every set of branding that we do that. That's what we're doing. I just reverse the order. Usually you do style, design, reputation, message, that's how it goes. Or product features. If you want to think of it like that way. If it was a product, right. But I'm doing it in reverse because the message matters more. What does the COVID art, the title of my show convey in that perception brand model to the listener and lets them know what they can expect from my show that they're looking for. Right. It's gotta match to what they're looking for. So that message that it sends is both visual and written and we gotta do both at the same time. So again, the only thing you can control are the three main things that are right there. The COVID art, your name, how your author name appears, the title of your show. That's the first things the description comes next. And the description has to also is extremely important because you won't even show up in search if you didn't get the description right. So Tom and I actually like to tackle that first. And that's a lot of how we decide. If you are looking at an AI driven world today and you're going to create your cover art with AI or you're going to use Fiverr or you're going to use someone who is not super sophisticated brand expert because you can't afford it, frankly and honestly, I've seen people pay too much money for brands that just don't work anyway, right. They overthink them. Which is one of my.

That graphic designer source that you hire doesn't understand the full context of artwork within the podcast apps and leads you astray and again applies branding principles that are really intended for a different context to podcasting. That's where a lot of people go wrong. But you're right, Tracy. The description of the podcast is super critical, and we've talked about that in different episodes. It's not a brand issue with this the same way. It's just an algorithmic discoverability issue, and you need to get that right to come up in more searches. But it's. When you come up in the search.

Then those three things are the only thing.

They're super critical. And those three things the only thing that matters.

Yeah. So when you look at those three things in the visuals, we're going to talk about that last because I want to talk about some of the other. The message perception. The reason I put that first is because that was what. What we want to get across. Right. We're trying to get across it now. We may fail at getting it across. Right. Like, it's not what we thought we were putting out there is not how it's perceived. Right. So that can happen. But we want to bring it out there as best we can. So the name is the main thing that we have to get right, the name of the show, because it shows up usually on the COVID art. It shows up right below it, very bold. And so we have to get that name right. So a lot of times I like to take the description and drop it into the AI image creator and see what it sees, because AI is generic, general thought. So if I want to see what I'm saying, looks like I get a sense of what it thinks we. We should do. Now, I'm never gonna use that. Never gonna use that from the first off, but it gives me a sense of how, like, mixed up, messed up my messaging might be. Right. Because it gets confused by it a lot. Right. Tom's laughing.

I'm laughing because I'm seeing the princess brighten my mind. And Iniga Montoya is saying, I don't think it means what you think it means.

That's right. And this is the part. Right. And the other problem that we do when we screen the name and the visuals is we like it, we fall in love with it, but it's not what our target audiences needs and resonates with.

Tracy, this is really hard for a lot of people to do.

It's so hard.

Gets past their own, outside the perspective, outside of themselves. You're right. They get this idea for a name, they fall in love with it. It's their baby. And you and I often, and I probably more than you, consider these power Podcast appraisals every day. Just did one this morning where I was talking to about their cover art. And actually this person was very coachable and I showed them how their cover art really needs to be redone and be something very different from what it is. And they took that very well. But most of the time it's like I'm telling people that their baby is ugly, and that's a pretty tough place to be. Who is it? Bernie Dorman always used to say people are in love with their dolphin, right? And I know that's not going to mean a lot to people who don't know him, but it really is just about people getting attached to something and being unwilling to be truly open to consider something else that might work a lot better for what you're trying to accomplish.

So remember how I told you all that Tom and I had launched over 1200 shows for clients and with clients. And what we really learned there is that when they let go of the preciousness of the name and the COVID art itself, embrace the opportunity for change, embrace their shows take off when they're open to this idea that maybe it's not resonating with my audience the way I thought it was. So Tom and I like to practice something we call hypothesis branding. And any branding expert will tell you that's not the way to go. You have to make your choices, your decision, because you're locking in your brand. But podcast branding is flexible. It's a feed. I can change it tomorrow and it changes everywhere. That's the fabulous part about podcasting. So let's embrace what it can do really, really well and let it let its flexibility shine so we can change and pivot and make adjustments and go where we need to go. So we start with this hypothesis is I think this is who my audience is. So this is who I'm crafting my message and my name and my show design for. You might be wrong. We thought that our very first podcast was going to be for 14 year old boys in their garage 3D printing. We were speaking to seniors, and I don't mean seniors in high school, I mean retirees. We were speaking to women engineers in the Midwest and school teachers teaching middle school. Yes, stem. It was just. It was amazing. And luckily our brand did resonate with them. We made some design adjustments over the years and we've refreshed it because it got old to us, even if it wasn't old to others or it got old stylized in context. Imagine if Target left the style of their logo in their store and their shelves. It starts to age after a decade. Right? So ours would age too. So we would refresh it. But that's the flexibility of the brand was to say, this is our hypothesis. We think this is who it is. And if we're wrong, that's okay. We're going to change the name, we're going to pivot. We're not going to invest anything but the podcast information and a little bit of graphic work into it. We're not going to overthink this brand. That's the number one rule I want you to embrace. Do not overthink your brand. That means abandon all this branding advice. Stop getting too much information, stop asking too many people what they think about your brand. Ask the target audience, someone who doesn't know you, but who is the right type of person. Because, look, Tom and I are real techies. If our brand wasn't. Feed your brand, if our brand was about, like, set up your podcast feed, like, you know, there's a play on words here for somebody who knows what a feed is, right?

But it's more just. I think it was more for you and me. It was.

It was quirky for the industry because we also have a lot of industry pros who listen to our show, so it was really for them. So we had to have a dual layer to our show. But the reality is everything we were doing was out there for someone who didn't understand all the technical things that were going to be required of them. Podcasting. Because if we did have a show that was about that, the only type of people we would attract would be people who already could do this on their own, didn't need us. That's so often what I see in independent brands out there is that they go for who they are because they go for this personal branding of who they are, not what they represent to the person they help.

So.

So if we stop overthinking it and the only people we ask are the people who we want it to resonate with, to make sure that it's resonating with them, and then maybe throw it into AI just to see if it's getting confused or if it got clearly our message, if it clearly understood our message, then we're good, right? Like, that's all we need to do. Think about. I know there's some people even in the podcast industry who talk about starting ugly. Some of us aren't comfortable with ugly. I put my lipstick on before we do our show. I'm not comfortable leaving the house without that. That's okay, if that's who you are. But what starting ugly really means is be raw and unfiltered and then refine. That's what that means. It doesn't mean be gross. Right. It doesn't mean that you don't have to put any effort into it. It just means you don't have to be perfect. Authentic versus perfection. Authentic will win every time. Perfection is hard to sustain.

We see way too many people who try to make it perfect and they have this aspiration to launch a podcast. And because they feel it's not perfect to stay in this place of permanent potential, and two years later, they still don't have a show launched, I guarantee you you will be a lot better off. You will make more progress in your life and in your business goals to actually begin and start podcasting now with maybe a podcast brand you're uncertain of or other things that you feel may not be perf perfect. First thing I tell a new podcaster is I want to get you recording as soon as possible. I want to prepare you to do that as great as you can, as best you can. And then let's get this podcast brand done to the best level that we can now. Because like Tracy says, we can pivot, we can update, we can adjust at any time on the fly. Not that hard.

Absolutely.

So don't stay in this place of permanent potential because you're just not gonna get anywhere closer to achieving your goals.

The other thing is that when I say this don't overthink thing, what I mean is, is that, like, don't get too cute about stuff. Don't get too, like, focused on making this as quirky and as special as you can. Like, what is that woman on the NBC News that has that stupid podcast name called the Drink?

I forgot her name.

Oh, yeah, she used to host the Sunday night version of the show anymore.

Anyway, her show is called the Drink.

Terrible. Terrible podcast name, in my opinion, for what she's doing.

Right. If you have to explain what the show is about because the name is so awful and opposite and doesn't make sense and doesn't resonate, then you've done.

Something wrong that was going to bother me. It's Kate Snow.

Trace Kate Snow. And I like Kate. I think she's great. I like she has a great voice. So. But to name the show that is terrible.

It brings up all sorts of imagery, connotations, makes all sorts of impressions that are not at all in alignment with what she is sharing with her audience through that show. In my humble Opinion maybe not so humble in my opinion.

Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, so when I say this is it, it just needs to be more straightforward. It needs to just be simpler, more easy to explain. It should be easy to be spread word of mouth. If I have to say, like, oh, the show's really about this. Look, I love Dax Shepard, the armchair expert. That says everything right there as to what you're going to get from the show. It gives you kind of his personality in it. Like it gives you so much about what it is. It's like the guy kicking back in his lazy boy going, yeah, I'm an expert in everything, I'm going to give you my opinion on it all. And he does. And it's beautiful.

It's kind of a bit self deprecating at the same time. Right. I mean it's, there's wonderful things about it, but the best thing it does, you may think you know what an armchair expert is, you may, you know, it may communicate all sorts of things to you, but what it really does is it piques curiosity, it builds anticipation. I'm not sure what he's going to talk about, but I got a click to give that a try. And to me, that is an incredibly successful podcast brand that does that.

Yeah, absolutely. And there's some really great ones out there. So like that, that's just the idea that we need to, you know, we need to get across is like if your name really explains what they're getting and it actually delivers on that, right, then you're perfect because then it's going to be so easy from a word of mouth for me to rave about your show like I just did. Right. I could easily described it, it wasn't difficult. I can't even really tell you what Kate Snow's show is really about, except she interviews people and they have a drink together. It tells me nothing. And that's problematic because I'm not going to share that because I sound dumb when I share it.

Yeah, it actually has. It more often communicates something that's not what you can expect from the show and it just not successful.

So I want to also put in these two other message thoughts. Sometimes our show are for the guests. We have shows where the whole point is to have really great guests because the guest association, the guests sharing it, we want premium guests, we want to attract celebrities. We have to be careful of the name of our show, that it doesn't turn them off, that it's not worth them sharing. So like if I'm a, if I don't want to be associated with that show name. It's done. So it has to be of value to that type of level of pro person. Like I'm not going to go on a starter podcast show except to talk to that audience. It does nothing for my brand. So you're not gonna get me on that show unless you have an audience and I know you won't. So like, you know, it makes it harder. So you have to have something that's of value. Means that when I go and press and use the press side of it, the association for me is valuable because of the name of the show. Because I know you don't have an audience yet. You're new. Like, it's just most of us know that. So you can create that perception of something I want to be a part of and I want to be one of the first people into when you have a good show name. So that's something you could do. The second is if your show is a funnel, then you darn well better resonate with the target audience. Because if it is not the perception of what I want to be associated with, then there is no way I'm coming through your funnel and you're going to get all the wrong people. So we have to be really careful with that as well. So the next big branding rule I have is called defy expectations. Like it's just simply your brand should do more and defy what people think they're going to get.

So what does that really mean? Does that mean deliver more, serve more? What are you saying there?

Yeah, I think it means to me it means three things. Over deliver. Absolutely over deliver. And then it means be a standout in the genre. That's what we did in 3D printing when we had our WTFF. Everyone else was talking about news and like wanted to be the cutting edge tech jargon and we said no. We're gonna be for the person who doesn't wanna admit they have a lot of questions, right? Like they're just dabbling it and they have lots of questions and we're gonna be the safe space to ask those questions and we're gonna ask them for em and look dumb and that's okay. We're gonna make the failure. We're gonna do all of that. That's the message that we sent by calling it what the fuse Filament fabrication. What the fff. Like it allowed us to have that attitude about it. So our name really resonated with people and they were like, that's how I feel about my. I wanna kick my 3D printer one day and I wan.

That's the kind of people we had listening to our show. It worked out. We had 100,000 listeners a month. So it definitely resonated. That's where we like we set ourselves apart in the genre because we provided that space that was missing that opportunity gap and make sure that the name, everything about the brand fits that gap, fills that gap. Don't try to be like everybody else out there. Also don't be the opposite. If you can't live up to it, that's not authentically you. If that's not what you're gonna deliver, then don't do it. That's where I call Pattern Interrupt. Now a lot more Pattern interrupt works. You can do it visually so you don't have to do it with, you know, being contrary to the marketplace. But if it fits, do it. One of the shows that I thought was really best was called Hack the Entrepreneur. I don't even know if it's still live or if he's still recording it. John Nestor. And he only would let you go on his show and talk about your biggest failure. I didn't love the name of the show cause I thought it didn't do that. But he would go on and he would talk the opposite. Everybody else at that time talked about leadership. Everybody else was an entrepreneur on fire. Like how'd you succeed? Like where was the big win? And he was talking about the big fail. It was really great as a guest on that show to talk about something different. And so that I really wished he had a better name for the show. Cause I felt like hat the entrepreneur. I didn't feel like promoting that. It just wasn't great enough. But the show had a pretty decent reputation at the time and so I did share it. But it's the one thing I think was missing from his brand. Like it just didn't resonate with how great the show was and how great the sort of pattern interrupt to all the other podcasts out at the time was. So those are the main things that you're messaging your name and somewhat your visual. It'll go to some of the visual things. And then the last kind of big rule that we have is another sort of don't do what the expected. Don't over promote, don't concentrate on the sales side. Don't like think about it from being the unexpected. How can I be unexpected and yet simple, like straightforward and keep it simple. So we adopt a promotion, adopt a under promote model. Because every other podcast who's talking to you out there who haven't started your show yet does all pushy sales. And we say we do help people podcast, but unless you are ready to step up and come to us, you're not ready yet. You're going to start a podcast and fail. As we see it all the time, competitors who have 90% failure rates never make it past 20 episodes. I don't want those. Clients like Tom and I have made a concerted effort. So we under promote here because we know you're going to get it 10 episodes in the binging from us. You're going to be like, I don't feel like I could do this without Tom and Tracy's support. All I got to do is pay $29 and sign up for their subscription and I could talk to them live each week. That's. I'll start there. That's how we do it. Because we. That's unexpected. The expected thing in the podcast industry is to push everything into you. And we. That doesn't match the media, so we do the opposite. You can too think about what that unexpected thing is. Not again to be contrary, but to be true to who you are and what provide and how you want to be perceived in the world. Tom and I do not want to be pushy sales. This is never who we want to be. It's not what you're going to get from us. And it's how many times, Tom, when you do a podcast appraisal, or when we used to even call them podcast audits, which sound a little daunting and scary.

Yeah, we changed that because people want an audit. Like they want to go to the, you know, their tax accountant.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But either way, like how many times when you're in there, there'd be like, wow, you really didn't sell me.

Yeah. Well, the thing is, you have to serve first. And this is true, I believe, of a great independent podcast. You need to serve first and earn the right to sell. And if you're doing it well, you don't really have to sell. And the customer will ask, well, how can I work with you? What do you have to offer me? And that's honestly what happens most often. I blow people away with some things they didn't realize about their podcast. And they're like, oh my gosh, my show would be so much better if. If I could do these things. And they also think usually, well, unless they're really bootstrapping it, and they have no choice but to do it themselves. And I respect that. And that's fine. They'll go and do what they can or they really don't have time and they'd rather just pay us to do it for them. And that, that's great, that works too. But usually they're asking by the end of call, well, how can I work with you? What's your QC information and on your pricing or they want to know it right then. And so yeah, it's really a serve first model. And then the people that are the right fit are gonna ask, okay, well, how do we get started? I mean, honestly, it's like that because.

We don't expect our show to do all the heavy lifting, especially in the beginning. Our blog is doing that, our long term SEO strategy, our video strategy on YouTube, our YouTube shorts, our social media clips, like all that stuff is doing the sales and branding visibility for the people who just wanna sign with us like they're out there. The content is a means to a sale out there, but the show itself itself is service.

Right.

And the brand that you put out there has to make that clear because otherwise I think I'm coming in and every show is a webinar and that would be terrible. Right? And there's no mentorship, there's no, there's just a, like, I'm giving you this, but you can't do it because you didn't buy my product. I want you to be able to do this. Do you remember early on when I said to everybody out there, go ahead, hire a designer on Fiverr. You don't have to hire our designers to, you don't have to pay us to set up your show. You can go to Fiverr and set and do your cover art. Do they have experience doing 1200 podcast show cover arts? No. You're going to get more with us, but that doesn't mean you can't pay five bucks for that. If that's what your budget is and that's what you need, I'm going to give you what you need. I'm going to give it to him right now. So should we dive into the visual part of branding?

Oh yeah, let's do it.

Let's do it. Okay, so we talked about the name not being you being a little quirky and offbeat. Well, our cover art needs to maybe express that a little bit and we need it to be stand out amongst the others. So the best way to do this is simply go type your major keywords you want to show up for, your major message that you want to show up for, and go find your competitors and take a screenshot of it. It's that simple. And then stick yours in the middle of that and say, how does it look like? That's how you're going to judge your cover art. How does it look next to everybody else? How does it look on the shelf? This is our model for it. That's how we used to actually map our products and lay them out on the shelf in digital format, way, way, way beyond before we ever made the product, before we even made a prototype.

Yeah, you got to make sure you stand out in every way. Now, we can't teach you about graphic design and art right here in this episode, but in imagery, graphics, colors that you see. If every other show has a red and white logo, you want to stand out. Don't have a red and white logo. Right. I mean, and I know you may have branding colors that are important to you and for your business or your personal brand. Obviously, you have to make some choices and some decisions here. But your podcast does not have to necessarily be identical to everything in your brand guidelines. If you have them, your podcast can be an ingredient of your brand. It can be a little different. And by the way, this exercise we're telling you to do, it's not just you people starting a new podcast. It's for, you know, we used to do it every year because guess what? The logo for this show used to be black and green. And then one of our other competitive podcasts in our space came out with a black and green logo. And we're like, all right, time to pivot. And we chose the new colors and redid our cover art. We've redone it four times at least in the history of this show, I think.

Yep. And we're going to redo it again next year. So, I mean, it's just going to happen. Right. The binge factors, going through its rebrand first. So it'll happen in January, actually. Already starting. You can see little pieces of it filtering through if you're catching December shows. The thing about the visuals are that there are a few graphic rules that do not apply to normal graphic rules. And that's again, why, if you don't get somebody who knows what they're doing in the podcast branding space, you have to provide the guidelines. And that's why I'm telling you screenshot the ones that look the best and screenshot your genre so that you have something to provide them, to give them that context, because they're not going to go out and research it. They're only spending five Bucks worth of time on it. So for those of you who go into Canva and then go like podcast cover art, like, I've seen it happen. Like, and then they like, oh, change this and make my picture here and do this. That's where you're going to get the you brand. Like, it will be always that. It'll be a picture of you. That's what they provide up there. It looks like everybody else's, so be careful with that. Make changes. You can start from a template. You can use a template to give you ideas, make sure it's going to resonate in your space, and make sure you make enough changes to make it work. Now, when we say context, we also mean go to your website, make sure you drop that cover in there and it looks okay. Because, look, I have podcasters united as red, white and blue for obvious reason. United we pod, right? Like, it just makes sense in the way that we do it and what we're about and where we're going in the future. Like, we know that. Luckily the binge factor is predominantly red, white and blue. It's red, right? Black and blue, but it's close enough and it's just a slightly different blue. And so even with the changes we're going to make, I still have to make sure that it looks good on that website. So I can't make the blues start to conflict with each other. So I might need to make some adjustments to what I think to make sure it still fits the website, but it still stands out in contrast against it, so that it stands out there as not being a corporate brand and so that matters as well. And then making sure that you are thinking about the background color imagery that are underneath it. Some people just go straight for the words in a color that's okay too. I prefer a little bit of depth to it. So if you want that style, what I recommend is you take the background image and then colorize it the color that you want. Make it all like shades of orange or something like that, or shades of gray, whatever it is that you want it to be, and then put your words on top of it. The words need to be the most impactful. They need to stand out. They need to be look good and readable at a half an inch.

Yeah, I tend to like cover arts that have a little more graphic design behind the words and or an image that is in alignment with the show is about. But yes, I agree with your suggestions there, Tracy. The one thing that I sort of pro tip I want to give to all you out there, whether you're new or you're seasoned at this and you're considering, you know, rebranding your show. When you screenshot those searches of other shows in a lot of categories, you're going to find half of them have the host's face on them. And I'm going to tell you, instead of your natural reaction would be, oh, they're all using their headshot. I need to get a new headshot. I have to have a great headshot in order to have good cover art. Okay, please don't do that. And I'm telling you this is a great news that if you find half or more of the shows have people's cover art, because guess what, it's going to be super easy for you to stand out by not being one of the people in that crowd, adding your face to it.

Be thinking like this, the listeners coming in and going like, that one's about them, that one's about, oh, that one might be about me. I'm going to give it a listen. That's how you're going to get the click there. So we have done this. We rebranded someone who had their face on their cover art. And we usually see a two to three times shift in listenership in one month. Now, there are exceptions to this.

There are. That's true.

I want to be. If you are the only woman in a particular hefty male space, you should make that clear. Right? You should really make that clear. If you're just. They need to see realistically that you are representing a different viewpoint. That's the time when you want to do it. And so I say that because I will get messages from some of the clients we advise to do it. It's like, should I change? No, if we advise you to do it, keep it the way that it is. Because there was a reason for it in the. Because you were. That contrary view had to do with making sure that people know what you looked like because they could identify with you, because your audience is identifying with you, that makes it happen. The other thing is that nowadays the. Another context issue is that the backgrounds flip between black and white. You cannot control it. It used to be that the podcast apps were all white backgrounds and then they were all black backgrounds if you went to Spotify. And now they flip back and forth depending on the user. Like my phone actually flips and forth between day and night. Like it's white during the day and black at night. So like the backgrounds on the apps, everything changes. So we do not recommend a black or White cover art without a colored strike around the outside. And lots of branding. People hate that. They're like, oh, my God, you want me to put an outline? They're like, yes, we want you to put an outline around your. Because what happens is that if the background's white and you were looking at. Feed your brand over Tom's shoulder. Tom, point to that one and say something. So you.

This one here. Feed your brand.

Yep. So the feed your brand part would be diminutive. It would be smaller than everything else because all the white would blend into the background that's part of the app, and the only things that would be standing out are the words. Now, we chose to do that on purpose. There is a blue outline around it on the app. So just so you know that. So it's not in the image that Tom has there, because it's a photo frame, but in the actual.

That's. That's the essence of it. The middle.

That's the essence of it. The middle of it.

The logos and the stuff in it. Yeah.

So if your background's black and it's black background of the rest of the app, your icon is smaller than everyone else's will.

It's an optical illusion a bit, but it makes it look smaller than the others. And that hurts you, I believe.

Yeah. So I rarely. There's specific reasons why we went with a white background and what we're doing here, and next year we're going to change it up. We were doing some tests when we were doing this, but for the most part, most of you need to have a color contrast to white and black. I just recommend staying away from it unless it's essential to the message you're trying to send, such as you want to send your cover artist, like an image in black and white, like a black and white photograph, then it shouldn't be so black that it blends into the background or so white that it blends in the background. So it's good. The other thing is, remember that readability. Do not put the word podcast. Do not put a podcast icon. I rarely.

Oh, my gosh, please don't put a microphone on your cover.

Yeah, don't be that.

Please, please, please. Holy mackerel. Another major rookie error. And what's shocking to me is so many podcast producer producers that are professionals that have launched a whole lot of other shows, they will tell you put a microphone on it and put your covered on it, and those are the two biggest mistakes, quite honestly, especially the microphone. Come. Remember what we said early on. I know, this is a longer episode than usual. Obviously, we're really passionate about this stuff, and so I hope you're getting something good out of this. But. But context is important. Obviously. This is one of my pet peeves, because I jumped right in here and I'm really being forceful about this. But you're viewing. People are viewing this in a podcast app. They know it's a podcast. You don't need to put a damn microphone on it for people to get that it's a podcast. Okay, sorry, rant over.

So don't leave room for it either. Like, that's what I want. It's like, don't. Like, I've seen people who do it a second version that they use out on social media, which is totally fine, because on social media, I don't know, it's a podcast. But you could change because in social media, your image is bigger. It fills the space, it fills the feed bigger so you have more room, so you can shrink down your title a little bit. Put the word podcast under it. Put a podcast icon in the corner like. But do not leave space. Fill the space as much as you can with your title and your information. Now, you may not even want to on the podcast app. We're shifting to that in this next year, and our advice to most clients will be the same. But. But you do not have to change it. If you've already got it out there, no one's making you. I'm taking our names off of our podcast cover art. I'm put. Because it is right below it in all the search engines and visuals. So our name is already there. But if I'm sharing it out on social, I want my name on it. So, like, two different.

You're sharing something out on social and you want to have the word podcast on it. Because on Twitter, on LinkedIn, on Facebook or Instagram, they won't necessarily know it's a podcast, necessarily, unless you put the word podcast there. But in the podcast apps, you do not need the word podcast there. It's completely redundant, gets in the way, makes all the words end up being smaller. There's also a good tip, Tracy, about taking multiple words and having them in one line, right? Somebody's brand gut is going to say, hey, the words of this are always together. You never stack one on top of the other. You know what? I want you to consider breaking that brand guide rule right now. Because when you make it this really light. This is the one this morning, Tracy, that I just had an appraisal with. Had a very Long name all in one line. And then. And it was so small in the large square of COVID art, you couldn't read the words when it's on a phone.

So transformation entrepreneur. Like, all of those are too long, but you can.

If you have 2, 3 words, you need to think of stacking them in two lines and making them larger so people can actually read the word.

Yeah. So, like, we have some. We say three to five words is the perfect name for it. Perfect length for a title. If you've got five, two of them better be small. Like, of the. Like, you know, like, my favorite. Really know your customer. The really is tiny. But know your customer. Like, it's, like, it's awesome. One of my favorite shows with Betsy Westhaefer and Tony Bodo. I love the show. And we added the really. And it's just tiny up in the corner. It just adds, like, a little. Little caveat. That's totally fine. But it shows up really well when you see the title underneath it. That's written by the app itself. So on the COVID art, we sometimes downplay some of the words that aren't important because we want the visual to stand out. Right. The impact words.

That one's very effective in putting some emphasis on what's different about that show and the good reason why you might want to listen. It's kind of unexpected. It's like, oh, really? Know your customer. All right. You know, and then, so it causes people to click and try it. So that one is successful, too. I agree.

Yeah. So those are our basic rules. Like, we've really gone, like, full hour today, which is just shocking for us. But the branding is such a big subject, and we really are tackling this. We try to tackle this subject in a broad way once a year because some of the rules change. And like I was just saying, because of redundancy rules, like, where I don't want to have things again and again and again. I'm really careful about what we put into what we cram into the COVID art space. We do not need to have anything more than the title on it. We can leave our name off and put that in the author field. We can have a longer title in the actual title field. So it can say we had this wtfff wasn't very. I mean, didn't explain anything. And so it was WTFFF3D printing tips. So, like, it had dash 3D printing tips. That was the real title of the show by the search engine app. So if anybody typed in the Word 3D printing, we showed up like it was. So we put our keyword in there instead. Now, you don't want to keyword cram. You don't want to do any of that. But if it's natural to explain what the short title is, then go right ahead and do it. And so by doing all those things, we're not being redundant. By not adding the word podcast, by not adding microphones, we're being aware of the context, and we're being aware with who we want to resonate with. Now, that doesn't mean we don't have a second version of it that we use for sharing on social. We don't have. But if it's easy to share, easy to say, easy to use, then more people are going to go out there and share it, and that's. And then. So we really want to be clear about how and where we're using those pieces when we're in the app. It's one particular context.

The COVID art is a hook. It is a hook to grab, lure and grab, pull in, if you will, the potential listener to give your show a try. That's its entire job. Don't worry about anything else.

So I hope this podcast branding guide's been really useful for you, especially as you rethink it. Do not be afraid to change your show. Do not be afraid to shift it. What I can tell you is that the people who do that always say to me, and I've done hundreds of episodes of the Binge Factor where people have shifted their show and they will say to me, I wished I did it sooner. Of course, it's never a failure if you know it's not working, it's not working right. Like, you may not if you're already aware that something's not right about it. Like, if you feel weird every time you say it, you're. You don't even want to share it. Or guests go like, well, what does that show about? Like, you know when it's not working, you do know deep down. And if that's. You reflect a little here and say, you know what? There is no harm in my making changes.

If you're going to fail, fail fast and pivot. If you're going to pivot, pivot fast, move on. Don't get stuck on it. It. Don't keep hoping it's going to get better. Hope is not a plan. It is not a strategy. You've got to take action. Yeah, I guess that's the best thing I can say about this.

Well, let's end this very long episode right now. And thank you everyone for listening. I am excited to see what you do out there. I really hope that more and more people embrace podcasting for what it can do, which is present your message to the world in a way that helps someone help themselves and want them to come back, listen to everything you have, and buy everything you have to sell.

Heard something valuable today, but didn't get a chance to write it down. No worries, we've got you covered. We partnered up with podcastersunited.org where podcast hosts like you can get free resources, free free masterclasses, the largest podcast tip library assembled, and free promotion opportunities. While you're there, don't forget to follow us on YouTube and on social unitedwepod so you can get feed you'd brand live. Until next time, keep podcasting.