Your Podcast Trailer Is Your 30-Second Audition - So Hook Listeners And Leave Them Craving More

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community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works.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.

Welcome back. I'm Tom Hazzard, along with my co host, Tracy Hazzard. And today we are gonna talk about amplifying your awesome the Podcast trailer that ignites. And this is a great topic, Tracy, because even people that have been podcasting for many years, like you and me, this is something relatively new in the timeline of podcasting. And it's worth talking about because it is important. It's become more important than it used to be.

Yeah. Let's define it here. So first thing, that what we want you to ignite is more subscribers. Right. Like, let me be really clear. If I were to write a longer title that fit on the YouTube thumbnail, it would be the Podcast Trailer that ignites more Subscribers. And that's what we really want to have happen here, is we want you to get more subscribers. So the podcast trailer's purpose is within the podcast app, and I'll let Tom explain the technical details of it, but within the podcast app, to drive people to click subscribe. So let them take a little sample and then hit subscribe. And it is available in almost every major podcast app. Now, there's a couple. I heart doesn't have it, but Apple, Spotify, and all of the clones that come from those, they all have it. And so there's this. It's pinned to the top, it's a position, and it's the first thing that someone new to your show will see.

Yes. So let's talk about. For those of you who've been podcasting for a long time, like Tracy and I, we've been doing it for more than a decade, which is amazing to think about, Tracy, that we've been doing this for more than a decade now, podcasting, there was no such thing as a show trailer, a season trailer, or an episode trailer. Now, today we're talking about the show trailer. I'm not really gonna get into details on the season trail and an episode trailer, but they're kind of similar in concept, and it's logical. You can probably figure out the others on your own. But the idea being, you know, when we started podcasting, everybody Was like, well, what should our first episode be? Is our first episode a real, full, complete episode, or is it an introduction to the show, letting people know what to expect, but it's not actually one of those full episodes. And then there was the option some people did where they included their introduction to the show at the very beginning of their first episode and then proceeded to have their first full episode all within one. And it was a choice. And your only options as a listener and actually as a podcaster, you can set this up, were to display your episodes in all the listening apps. So the oldest episode is at the top of the list. And then people go to the next one, the next one, the next one going down through the list, or more commonly, and this is the default, is that your latest episode is at the top of the episode list. And if people wanted to go back and listen to the first one, they had to scroll all the way to the bottom of the list and listen to that first episode. So somewhere in the last few years, and I gotta be honest with you, I didn't look it up before recording this. Tracy, when did the show trailer become a thing? When did that happen? I don't know. It's in the last few years.

Yeah, I would say within the last three.

I think it's post Covid. I don't think it existed really before that. And so now you can designate an episode of any length you want in the podcast apps as a show trailer. And what that does is you can still have. And I do recommend, by the way, for all of us podcasters, unless there's a unusual, really good reason why, I really do recommend your episodes be displayed in all the listening apps with your most recent episode at the top. Top. So people are hearing you now. The latest and greatest. Now we all start a little greenest podcasters, and I think a lot of listeners want to go back and hear us from the beginning. But first, they've heard us now at the top of the list.

Yeah. So the only exception is if you've got a show that is really like a limited series or it is a very clear progression of progress that happens. Right. Like things that you want. So we have one show called Product Launch Hazards, where we did do that, we reversed the order on the apps because we want you to go through all of our steps first, meet all of the different affiliates and other people that we introduce in that process, the resources, and then we want you to go into the episodes. And so we did it specifically that way. And also because when somebody comes into it they are coming in wanting to learn and they're going to binge on everything. That's how it works every time. And we now don't have new episodes, so if you're no longer, if you've pod faded, reversing it is a really good way to do that. Again, though, it still is this choice that Tom's talking about. Where is our first episode, our trailer, really? Like, what do we do with that? Do we have a separate trailer? Well, our first episode was long, it wasn't short. And so thinking about that process, and this is what I've seen from a lot of producers, producers of big name shows as we've been doing them for our new binge Factor deconstructed show that we're working on for you. As we've been looking through these shows, so many just pin either their first episode or their most popular guest as their trailer. And so it's got nothing but like, this is the best example. It has no introduction that says this is our trailer. This is what the show is about. It's just an episode. And so there's, you know, like I was just looking and we were deconstructing Mel Robbins and it's an hour and 20 minutes. And so it's like, I don't know if I want to commit to your show yet as a new listener. And so I think the purpose of the trailer is very different than what some people are using it as.

It is different than that. I mean, clearly all of us podcasters have the ability to use it in a different way. And you can have an hour and 20 minute episode there if you want to. In a lot of ways does kind of defeat the purpose. Unless it's like your marquee episode. You got this major famous guest. You want to make sure everybody that follows or finds your show sees that one first. I guess you could use it that way. But it's real intention is to be really an elevator pitch of sorts of your show for new listeners who are checking out many shows, including yours, and haven't decided which ones to really dive a little deeper into. And this is a wonderful, I think a really wonderful development in the podcast ecosystem. And it really helps people communicate. Here's who I am. Here's what my show is. Here's what it's about. Come on this journey with me.

Click subscribe. Make sure you give them a call to action. Right.

Subscribe so you don't miss the announcements for the new episodes coming up. So the new trailer function will pin it to the Top so you can always have your order of episodes. Your most recent full episode is at the top of the episodes list. But depending on the app and Apple and Spotify does a really good job of highlighting this and pinning the trailer to the top so that it's not misunderstood as your most recent episode. It's really the hey, check this out. If you interested in this episode, it's.

Highlighted in a little box on the app if you've ever seen it and go check it out. Go check out some shows and see how that looks so you can do it. So I think the number one thing is I want you to reframe yourself that these podcast trailers are not episodes, that it is its own thing. So It's a common YouTube trend right now for people to outfit their channels with trailers. And YouTube's done a really good job of presenting it to you in this way that you have a trailer that is for returning subscribers and a trailer that is for new people and they're different and they never get this new one again once they subscribe, right? They're going to get the other one. So thinking about it, like podcast trailer and episode trailer, right? Returning ones might want episode trailers might be something you want to use, or season trailers might be something you want to use. But a podcast trailer is really focused on someone who is deciding whether or not they should give your show a shot. And so we want to do it quickly. We want to excite them, we want to get them interested enough to click, subscribe, follow whatever term is used by the app that you use.

And I want especially the long time seasoned, experienced podcasters to all understand you can create one now, even if you've never created one before. I mean, I've been meeting some people in the last couple of weeks that have been podcasting as long as you and I have, Tracy. And they've got long term shows and they probably never thought of revising maybe their first episode because it's way down the bottom of the list. Hundreds of episodes. In fact, I had someone move to Poditize just this week that has like 350 episodes. They took a break for a few years, they're coming back and they moved the show to Potitize. They did not even realize because they were on another platform that limited their RSS feed to the most recent 100 episodes, that guess what, their very first episode, back when they started before Trail, was not even available in all the listening apps. So there are a lot of good reasons why an older show now may want to use a trailer to have that introductory episode and pinned to the.

Top, especially if your show has shifted. Like, we're going to be taking the binge factor and moving it into the binge factor deconstructed. Right. So that's something we want to definitely pin is that new trailer, which we haven't done yet, but it will be coming because we haven't launched that show. So these are things you want to think about structurally, how are you going to get people excited about your show and what is going to make them do that? So following the same model as YouTube is actually fairly good in terms of doing this. But I want to make it clear here that something that works in audio does not necessarily work in video. We all know that it can be boring in video. Right? But something that works in video might be too, like fly and dynamic. It may be too, and I used this term before staccato. Like, it feels like it's not complete. It doesn't flow well in audio. So do not make the mistake of just saying, I'll just strip the audio off and use it without checking it and making sure it actually does work. So keep that in mind while I am talking about some of these things that we can learn from what's working on YouTube. I do not mean for you to use the same exact trailer in both places.

It really. Context is so important. And that's really. I think what you're talking about, Tracy, is make sure you're looking at or listening to your trailer in the medium. Each different type of viewer or listener will experience it and make sure it works well. Because, yes, I think all too often we're doing things in video that are going to create some awkwardly long pauses and people listening in a podcast won't get. Because guess what? There's no graphics flying across the screen like there is on your video or this subscribe button flashing on the video. Right? That isn't there. You gotta always speak to your. And it's interesting, Tracy. Cause my friends who have known me for longer than I care to admit, since we were in grade school, I'll record them a video as I'm walking the dog to show them something. Cause we're just guys that are friends and we keep in touch and I'll be describing what's happening even though it's a video. My mind, I'm always describing it. Like I'm on a podcast and people can't see it and they've often come to me tomorrow. You put the most detailed descriptions and you realize, oh, yeah, sorry, little Podcast habit. Because I do paint the picture. And sometimes you'll hear me say in feed your brand, hey, for those of you listening, you really want to go watch the video of this Because Tracy's sharing this image of this and so they know to go do it. So context is important. And I'm not saying your trailer should explain things in the video like that. I actually don't think it should. You are right, Tracy. I think a lot of times the YouTube trailer video should be completely different in a separate recording with intention for each different kind of medium.

I think it's like easier in YouTube to have like clips of sounds. You've got to say who it is if you have these special guests and special guests like so and so. But in the video you might have just their name across the bottom and you're flipping to a clip and the sound of their voice. See, it won't work in two places. And so that's why we really have to take a good look and a good listen to what you're producing here for this three minute trailer.

Yeah. And I've experienced some YouTube trailers, quite honestly, going through a montage of photos where they'd show some of those guests. And you don't even have their names, but visually they're recognizable. Right. One of my favorite video intros that does that is for the clip out. They have a lot of montage of actually fan pictures with the hosts at events and things. But you don't get that in the audio at all.

Right. And it won't work as the same. So let's talk about some structural things to this trailer. Because we gotta make it awesome. Right. Like that's what we said at the beginning. We're gonna make an awesome trailer. So I'm obviously an 80s girl for choosing that word as our catchphrase. Awesome. Our kids don't use that, but I do. I still do. So when I'm thinking about this, I wanna think about it not in the same way that I think about my show. So Tom and I, you know. Cause we've done a bunch of episodes recently about intros and outros. We are not a fan of you using your own in the intro outro. We're a fan of an announcer doing that. But in the case of a trailer, I am a bigger fan of you using your own voice because I want it to be much more personally connecting to the listener who's going to choose this. I want them to feel my energy, I want them to feel me, so that they will choose to follow and subscribe. And so I am a fan of doing that. So if you want to use a small piece of your intro, use some music, because then there's a little bit of synergy. But don't use the formal intro and outro on this trailer. First off, it's wasted space, and you only want to to keep it under three minutes. So that's wasted time. I mean, that's for a lot of you. That's way over 30 seconds. So don't use that. But that doesn't mean you might not want a little bit of the trailer music or just you might want to say welcome to feed your brand. And it's the announcer's voice. And then I pipe in and start talking, and Tom pipes in and start talking. So that could be something that you do as well. You can also flip it and a B test it. And Tom could do one and I could do one if you've got co hosts. Or you can do it together and mix it together so you can try some things, because you can put these trailers in and see if your subscribers or your followers go up over a given month. So there's always options to utilizing that as well. But do it in your own voice. And this is a deviation from what we normally say about doing something that's introductory. Right. This is something where it's intimate invitation into our show and it's okay to script. That's the second thing that really deviates from what Tom and I say. Now, I really want you to break it so that it doesn't sound like you're reading it. Like, work on it hard enough. Do it multiple takes if you got so you get it. So that doesn't. It sounds smooth. Remember that you can look at it because nobody's watching you. It's an audio. But it's okay to script this particular thing because you want to make sure you get it as concise and powerful as possible.

That's some great advice, Tracy. I like that. And remember, podcast listeners are looking for authenticity more than anything. They want you to be real with them. And if you are going to script it, which I don't think is a bad idea, or at least have a tighter outline. If you're going to script it, you've got to memorize it. You really do. Otherwise it's going to be very mechanical when you deliver it, and it's not going to accomplish what you want to in getting people to like you and get excited about hearing more from you when you're delivering it in this mechanical and maybe monotone way, because you're reading it and you hear how flat my voice is there, right? I mean, that no one's going to want to listen to that for very long. I'm lucky they want to listen to me at all, because your voice sounds a ton better than mine, Tracy.

Well, but if I sat there and held a piece of paper, right? Like I sat there and hold a piece of paper. Oh, I'm giving you all my notes. I sat there and hold a piece of paper and read it. Like, that's not how I talk. You all know I talk with my hands. And it gives energy. Your listener will receive that in the way that you provide it. So while I do think this is the one case where you could get away with a script, you really do need to work on that and then make sure that you listen to it after. And I would give it to some other people and say, hey, does this sound like me? Because if it doesn't sound like you normally sound, some of your regular fans or some get feedback on it and make sure it does sound and has the energy that you wanted it to have.

Energy is so important here. Tracy, I know we didn't intend to talk about this, but if you'll allow me to take a minute here, I'm not a very woo woo guy.

I was just going to say that I was like, I can't believe you're going to talk about this because you're not woo woo.

We have a lot of podcasters who are pretty woo woo and have some. I mean, we've got podcasters that we support on podcasts who are mediums. I mean, for real medium, like talk with the dead type of thing. Right. And then. Or do readings, things like that. And then we have some that are also talking about afterlife, all these sorts of things. And that's not the only woo woo topics out there. This is a couple I'm remembering off the top of my head. And when some people talk about energy, even on my eyes can sort of glaze over a little bit. Right? But no, I think as podcasters, if you have any experience at all as a listener or as a host, there is an energy that comes through you, delivering your message, your voice. If you're really excited about what you're talking about, the listener can feel it. You can tell when I get excited and about a topic, something that I'm really passionate about, I get excited and I have more energy. A different, not even more, a different kind of energy. This is a real thing. It is about your presence. The Tone of your voice, the speed at which you talk. Are you speeding up because you're excited or are you slowing down to make a point of emphasis? There's all kinds of different energy in what we do. I don't want to say as performers, because I really don't. I mean, you can be a performer as a podcaster, I don't really think the best ones are, but you are. Are presenting something. You are bringing your message to the world, right?

We talk about it as edutainers, Tom. That's like what we typically say here. So you're educating and you're entertaining at the same time, and that's okay. It's okay if you're a certain style, a certain way. But that's why I want it to be in your voice, because that presents what they're going to get going forward. It's inauthentic. If this is so crafted and structured and some announcer. And it just isn't giving them what they're going to and what they're going to get when they hit follow. And that is a letdown for them on the other side of it. So we want to give them some authentic synergy to what they're going to get with the show. Now, of course, you're trying to get them to subscribe, so you got a little bit more excitement and energy, and that's okay. They don't need that sustained through every episode.

Right.

You know, think about a movie trailer, right? And that's how I got to the graphic that was. Is for this episode. So if you haven't seen the graphic yet, on our little preview talk, before we started recording, we were showing everyone the graphics. So take a good look at it because it's AI generated, and it was really fun to do. But I wanted to create this sort of synergy in your mind of this is a movie trailer. You want to get somebody excited and interested in your show. And so I wanted to have some synergy between that and. So it's got a big tractor trailer, which is like a movie van, a movie truck. Right. But the energy, the fire, the power, the sound waves, the electricity that is running through it comes from you. And if you don't provide that in this trailer, why would they follow you? Why would they want to listen?

There's a big difference between not introducing yourself to speak from the stage every episode and making this pitch to your new potential listeners from you, from the heart, with all sincerity and however you want to deliver that. But to be authentically you, it will be much More effective.

Some of the key components, I want Tom alluded to them, we've talked about them a little bit, but I just want to do that. You want to hook at the beginning something that draws them in and excites them, right. Give them your irresistible offer, make it clear what they're going to get. Then you want to go into, or maybe what they're missing and they get with your show. That's also something you can hook with, right? Make sure you name your show. Make sure you say the name of your show again, because they're not looking down at their phone, they're listening. Remember that. So you've got to reinforce these things. Make sure you reinforce the name of your show at the early stage of this trailer and make sure you say your name and pronounce it properly. Because if somebody's going to refer you and refer your show. Oh, I just started listening to this new show with Tom Somebody I'm not sure hazard. I'm not sure how to say their name. Right. So make it clear to them. And so often I see so many of you, like, not pronounce your name. And I'm about to interview you and I don't even know how to say your name. Like, I can't even find it anywhere. So make sure you do that for your audience.

Great example of that. And I just was speaking with another customer who we're supporting on their new podcast that's about to launch soon in advance of their book launch, which is another real good reason to start a podcast before you have a book launch. Just FYI, if you haven't thought of that. But this person we were talking about to do a trailer episode or not, and some of these things. But we're talking about a lot of these issues and they're so critical. And I agree with you with stating the name of your show again and your name. And we have some customers that even when we, in developing a show, are having that prerecorded intro recorded by a professional voiceover artist and they mispronounce the name. And we learned this years ago. So when we have a name that's tricky, we make sure we're providing them that phonetic pronunciation. And I'm not just talking about odd names or people that have unusual surnames to pronounce in the English language, things like that. But one of our podcasters name is Adam Markell, M A R, K E, L. And it's often misread and people think Markle and the voiceover artist actually recorded it that way the first Time. So you've been listening to your name your whole life. Don't be the judge of this. Have someone else check with someone else. When you say my name, how would you pronounce it? You know? Or ask somebody who doesn't know you, how do you pronounce this name? And you'll realize, ooh, okay, yeah, that's important. So, Tracy, it's a very good point that I think would be overlooked by most podcasters recording their own say, well, I don't need to say my name.

Well, so you don't do this in a YouTube video trailer. That's why I'm bringing this up to you. Because you're not hearing it. It's okay to have it be in the bottom third and have it shown. So you don't know necessarily. You usually fly in the graphics of your show name. You don't say it again because it's a visual media. This is different. You must say it so they hear it. And that's why that's important. So then we want to give the concise elevator pitch proposition value. What are they going to get from your show? Who is it for? Get all of that really across right then. And that sometimes you can do it with the name and the subtitle of your show if you've got one and you don't need to do this again. But make sure that you're going out and you're just giving that like 10 to 15 second elevator pitch of the show of what this is about, what it's for and who it's for. And then you can go into some highlights like what are the topics and who are your guests? And maybe give a clip from that guest so you can mix in. And that's where you maybe expand into getting closer to the three minutes where you're giving them a little taste of something. So I say keep it short if you're not giving them a taste of something. So when you're first doing your show and you don't have those examples yet, you're talking about what's coming. It's okay to like not have that, but you could then expand in and add that in as you've recorded some things. And you could create a second version of it and then replace it. Cause this is so easy to replace your trailer.

Okay, Tracy, now I want to give all of our listeners and viewers of this episode Tom's tip for when to record your show trailer when you are launching a new show. Now, obviously we were saying if you are an existing podcast, you've been doing it for years. You just never created one. You can create one now, or by the way, you can change it up year to year as things change. And maybe your show is evolving a little bit and being something a little different than it was. That's a good time to rerecord your show trailer. But if you're a new podcaster, you're getting your show ready and you're gonna launch your show. The biggest rookie mistake in this, I believe, is recording your show trailer before you record some real full length episodes. Because guess what? If you're especially new at it, you have not experienced recording full episodes of your podcast yet. You don't know what is going to occur yet in these new episodes. So I always advise new podcasters, first of all, you probably should record a good half a dozen episodes before you launch anyway, so that you can launch with two or three and have some to publish the subsequent weeks so you get a little breathing room to record more. But when you do that, you now also have had five, six real episodes you've recorded. Now you're in a much better place to go back and record that trailer episode because guess what, you've had some experience. You know what's going to occur in some of those episodes. And as Tracy suggested, you can tease to it or you know, foreshadow and really share. Really hope you enjoy going on this journey with me as we talk with some of these guests, like this person and this person, you're going to love it. Come join me, you know, whatever. You can speak with a little more authenticity and reality because you've actually had some experience and otherwise you don't have that experience yet.

Well, it comes across again in that energy that Tom was talking about before. Like this energy of like, well, we're going to have guests who do this. There's always like this little bit of a hesitation in this. It's like, oh, no, I had Taylor Swift on my show, right? You know, like, so it's a different energy when it's happened, or you've at least recorded it, even if it hasn't aired yet. Right? And so that's important as well. And then the last piece that I want to make sure that you end on is this, like, this is not a commercial. There's no get them to buy your book. Don't add in anything else here. There is one call to action and one call to action only. And that is to get them to subscribe, follow whatever it is. That is the mechanism. And so usually like follow and subscribe to my show. If you say that it covers pretty much every app because you don't want to miss anything that I'm going to say. Anything that's coming up, make a phrase like that. But you get them to be afraid to miss out if they don't hit that. Now, that is the only job of this trailer. Do not add anything else in. It muddies it, it confuses it. The minute they hit follow and subscribe, they're going to get your ads, they're going to get your outro, they're going to find your website. All those other things are now going to going to occur. But it will not occur if they get confused by your call to action in your trailer.

The fear of missing out is very real for people. You make a compelling pitch, they are going to subscribe because they don't want to miss out on what the value you're going to provide them, whether that's entertainment value or learning value or anything in between and beyond that. But yeah, Tracy's right. You are 100% right, Tracy, that there is one purpose in this, to motivate them to click that follow or subscribe and nothing else matters in that and it's unique. I also want to say for you up and coming podcasters getting your show ready and you haven't launched yet, this, what we're talking about right here is also why there is really no point in marketing in any way. Whether it's to your email list or just on your social following or certainly if you were ever gonna do any kind of paid marketing of any kind for your podcast. Don't ever do any of that until your podcast is actually live and published on the listening apps and or on YouTube. Why no podcast listener or person who's interested in you and sees this pitch is gonna go put it in their calendar. Oh, yeah, you know what? In two weeks, this show is gonna go live. I wanna make sure I put that on my calendar so I go back and subscribe. It is not gonna happen, folks. No way. You gotta get them to go and click and try it when it's there. Listeners want immediate satisfaction. Oh, this looks like a good show. That's great. Where can I listen? Boom. I want to listen right now. You got to hook them when they're there. Don't expect them to come back and find you later. You lost them at that point.

And that's why I'm reminding you again here. This is why I said again and again that this is not the video trailer. This is not what you put on YouTube. It's not the same thing. It's also not the same thing that you're going to promote your show out on social. When you're promoting the show as a whole. That needs more dynamic looks. You got to get them off of the app and onto the podcast app. So you have to get it to do more work out there. So it has to be structured differently. It needs to work on Instagram, work on TikTok, work on those places in the platform and the way the platforms work. So this is not a universal thing you're going to use. This is specifically for the podcast app itself and for podcast listeners. So keep that in mind. If you are not a podcast listener and a lot of you hosts out there are not listening. I know that because I've talked to you so many times, right? You never listen to your own show. In fact, you don't listen to anybody else's show. You do not consume podcasts in the same way that binge listener, an avid podcast fan does. Make sure you catch one, find one, you probably know one. They're always telling you about their latest podcast that they're listening to. Ask them to listen to your trailer. Get some feedback from someone. Would you then click follow? Would you click subscribe? Would you want to listen to my show? That's the only question. That is all that the purpose of this trailer does. Podcast trailer gets them into your show so you can give them more tomorrow.

I think that's an important thing for all of us podcasters to have self awareness of and to admit it. Are we podcast listeners or am I a podcast listener or am I not? And there are many that are. You certainly are, Tracy. You're a hyper podcast listener and a podcaster. I am less so, but especially more lately I've been listening to a lot more podcasts and not just our customers, but even ones that I want to listen to. For me, there's a difference, Steven.

You've grown into it over time. Like I'm on the other side of podcast listening now, which is kind of funny, but it's a whole nother story. But I'm at this point where like I feel like, like a movie critic. I'm a podcast critic now and so I have such a hard time listening to almost any show because I can't get the structure out of my head. I can't get the.

Yeah, you're kind of picking it apart in your brain. Oh, this would be much better if they did that. And you're not listening to the story that's unfortunate. Like occupational hazard. Pardon the pun.

Exactly. It's gotten the fun out of it for me. So I have very little. But I never really review the kind of shows that are much more truly entertainment style. So I think I might have to go back to like crime serials or something that I listen to again. But this is why I say to you is like you're going to get to a point where you cannot be the best reviewer of this effectiveness and then let's watch this over time. So Tom and I are trying something new. I want you to be clear. If you go to our podcast and you go to feed your brand for the first time and you go check it out, Tom and I are testing out some advanced things. We're always testing something out on our show. Our podcast trailer's not there. What we've got is the next step. So if you were to actually drop into it today, if you're listening to the recorded version of the podcast, it'll be something completely different. Keep that in mind. Mind. But we've been testing out these episode trailers called NextUp and it tells you amplify your awesome the podcast trailer that ignites and it talks about what that episode is gonna be about. And we break up that content and we use it in YouTube shorts and we use it on social and we use it within the app in the podcast app as a preview to get someone to join the live version of our show. So we're testing with pinning that as the trailer. And then if we see sort of like more people joining and more people doing and that it's actually effectively working, then we may do something much more purposeful that's specifically about the lives in addition to the show itself. So we're just testing out some things. So just keep that in mind when you go and check out our show. That we are always not quite taking our own advice because we're already onto the next thing. We're testing for you.

And in fact there will be people that listen to this episode a year from now, Tracy. And we may no longer be doing that at that point. We may be doing something different. So just keep that in mind when you're looking at this. There's an important context of timing that may not be completely accurate. But I agree. I really enjoy using the tools that we have in different ways and testing them out to try to make things more effective. And you're right. To be fair, probably every other episode in our feed your brand lineup in a podcast app is this next up, which is really to raise awareness of Alive. And you really don't need to pay attention to that if you're strictly a podcast listener of our show. You can skip every other episode and get the full one. And then you're getting, like, what we're delivering to you now in this episode, it has a different purpose, right?

And we're always, like, hacking the tools that we have because there's so much limited tools in the podcast. Ecospace, right? Ecosystem is just so small. Like, there's just so few things that you can adjust in your RSS feed and in the way that things appear in the app, that we're always hacking it to see if there's like an alternate alternative way to use something. So that's what we're doing here. But this is the thing Tom and I learned from art school, is that you must learn from the masters the way that they do it before you're allowed to break the rules. This goes for writing as well, right? You gotta follow the grammatical rules so that you know when you're breaking them. And that's what we're really doing here for you. We're giving you the rules that are most effective for most people. And once you've tried them this way, then you could start to try and break them. Try something effective, try something cool, try something unusual. But keep in mind that most of the people that you're emulating, and this is really where I want you to hear this, the people that you're emulating, whether it's, as I was just pointing out, Mel Robbins show, Joe Rogan show, these have big producers, big money on them, these little details and these little things have no effective results for them, that they're worried about their ad dollars or spending money and getting the effective results. So if they want to highlight a show at the top because they want to make that guest happy, or they want, more likely, they want to make that booking company that they used happy so that they can get these next celebrity on their show, then they're going to do that. They're doing what's in their best interest, not necessarily what's in their listener best interest, because it doesn't. They're not worried about that. But you have to worry about growing your listeners, because every listener might be your next subscriber, might be your next client that matters. Every single one that you can attract and bring in matters. So following a big producer's model is not the best solution for you. And that's what Tom and I bring you every week here on our coaching calls that are Live. And on our episodes of featured brand, we are bringing you the tools, the tips, the tactics, the hacks that are going to do just that nitty gritty work for you.

All right, I think that's a great place to wrap this one up. Remember, you can find the blog post for this episode on podcastersunited.org and anything that we mentioned is going to be linked there. And so it's a great resource. And as Tracy was just talking about, all kinds of tips, we have a great tip library to support you there as well. And you can sign up for our weekly newsletter to find out what's coming up on our next live stream first. So you have the opportunity to join us and actually ask us some questions, which we're going to end this live stream and start doing that with the the people attending her live right now.

And now's the time to do that because next week is something we only do once a year. And it is. Our social media guide comes out next week and that is our next episode.

Unfortunately, by the time people are watching the listening or watching the podcast episode, that will have already occurred. Right, because it comes out later.

Right. But you can still go back to the live because you can still get that in the events.

All right, folks, we'll see you next time.

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 podcasters united.org where podcast hosts like you can get free resources, 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 UnitedWe podcast so you can get feed your brand live. Until next time, keep podcasting.