57. Upgrading Your Podcast Trailer with Arielle Nissenblatt

00:00:00 You would know by now that on this podcast, the Gray my podcast show, my team and I do quite a bit of post production editing on these podcast episodes. I might actually dedicate another episode to the ins and outs of how we do this, but in short, whenever I do a guest episode, I create my narrations like I'm doing right now. I record them and then Karen, my editor, will slice and dice and edit it all together, make it sound amazing. Well, for this episode, I do have a very special guest on someone who I've actually had on this podcast already. Arielle Nissenblatt, who is the founder of Earbuds Podcast Collective and the head of community and content at Squadcast.

00:00:41 Arielle had recently launched a show called Trailer Park, all about the art of the audio teaser. The teasers or trailers that we see right near our show descriptions on podcast players. And as I was thinking about how I was going to position this episode and what I was going to narrate and specifically what it was that I could learn and implement from Arielle's advice, I thought it would be cool to listen back to my own trailer because I'd actually forgotten what it was that I had put into it. So I picked up my phone, I went to Spotify, scrolled up to the top where my trailer is, and if I'm going to be honest, I slightly smugly pressed play. Now, why the smugness?

00:01:23 Because I like to pride myself on doing things really well. And I thought that surely, surely my podcast trailer was one of those things. And I kid you not, I made it to 13 seconds. That's all. I made it before I had the urge to throw my phone across the room to get it away from me.

00:01:43 I actually couldn't listen to it any longer. It was making me cringe. And even though we've swapped the trailer out by now, I will be providing you the immense pleasure of listening to it, because I've done this episode a little bit differently. I'm going to do a before and after. So what it is that our trailer was before listening to aerial advice and then after.

00:02:08 So if you, like me, have been wondering how you can create a compelling trailer for your podcast. Either a brand new one because you may not have one already, or an updated one because you could only make it through 13 seconds of your own before throwing your phone across the room, then you have come to the right place. This is exactly what I'm going to be diving into with Arielle Nissanblad. My name is Deirdre Tshien, CEO and co founder of Capsho, the fastest way to market and grow your podcast. And this is The Grow My Podcast Show.

00:02:41 Yay.

00:02:52 You well? Yeah. This topic was long overdue, let's just say, given the sorry state of my own trailer. And so I was really glad when Ariellele reached out about this topic and also really intrigued because she had created a whole podcast around this specific topic. If anyone was going to be passionate about podcast trailers or really anything podcasting, it's going to be Ariellele.

00:03:19 She sure is a force in this industry. So how does one even become passionate about podcast trailers? I spend a lot of my time trying to introduce my friends to podcasts on road trips when we're hanging out in real life through text, through the Internet. And I'm always thinking about what might make somebody love a show. The easiest way to introduce somebody to a lot of podcasts quickly is through trailers, right?

00:03:45 So when I went on a road trip last June with my friend, we drove from Chicago to Omaha, 6 hours in the car. We've always been podcast friends. The two of us have always been podcast listeners. This is my friend Abby, who actually edits Earbuds Podcast Collective, the newsletter. She's been editing it for six years.

00:04:01 Shout out to Abby. She has not listened to a lot of new podcasts lately. She's been listening to the same ones. This American Life 99% Invisible for years and she's not very experimental with her taste in audio. So I was like, you know what, let's find a new show to listen to.

00:04:15 Let's go to Apple's. New and noteworthy. And for each show that has a trailer, we'll listen to the trailer. So we just started hitting play on a bunch of different trailers. And while that was happening, I noticed that some of the trailers were awesome, some were not so awesome, some were awesome but then didn't really translate to the rest of the show.

00:04:34 Some were not so awesome, but then the rest of the show was awesome. So I had a lot of observations about that and I think somewhat after that, a few months after that, I tweeted something like, there should be an entire show dedicated to trailers. There's so much content out there. But mostly I was thinking about trailers that were made for podcasts that don't necessarily exist. So the reason I thought of that is because a year and a half ago, almost two years at this point, I tweeted my life as tweets.

00:05:00 I tweeted there should be a podcast where parents try to explain what their adult children do for a living. And I ended up making a deck for that possible podcast and I ended up making a trailer for that possible podcast. And I was pitching it around. It didn't amount to anything yet. I'm not going to say it will never amount to anything.

00:05:16 I think it will be a show eventually. But I made that trailer for a show that doesn't yet exist. And my thought was there are probably other trailers that were made as proofs of concept just for fun to experiment with audio or that exist just for being an intro to fully fledged shows that have seasons and seasons of content behind them. So I wanted to make a podcast dedicated to the art of trailers, to the art of the audio teaser. What does it mean to distill down your content into 30 seconds?

00:05:45 60 seconds? 90 seconds? Hopefully not much longer than that. What a fascinating way to use a trailer as a proof of concept for a podcast. For anyone trying to monetize their or a new podcast, pay attention here.

00:05:57 This is exactly how we startups start. In fact, Ron Beethyong from Pod Machine talked about this in episode 34 of this show by creating proof of concepts to see what it is that potential customers will be willing to pay money for. So, given this, do we all need trailers? If our podcast has been going for. A while, I believe that every show should have a trailer for a few reasons.

00:06:21 The first is it challenges you as a creator to distill down your content, to distill down the mission of your show into 30 seconds. If you can't explain it in one sentence, some people will say, if you can't explain your podcast in a sentence, that's a problem. If you're like, oh, well, I think it's about blah, blah, blah. So you need to be able to let us know what the show is about and what is the unique value proposition for it. Why am I tuning into the show when there are millions of other shows out there?

00:06:46 So the trailer allows you to have a little bit more flexibility with that, show it off a little bit. Maybe you play some clips from the show, maybe you show off some music. Maybe you show off your hosting prowess. So you can do that with a trailer. You can do that.

00:06:58 Like I said before, it could be 15 seconds, could be 30 seconds, could be 45 seconds, could be 43 seconds. Hopefully not much longer than two minutes. 90 seconds to two minutes. It's never too late to do a trailer. By the way.

00:07:11 I actually only did my trailer when I was maybe nine episodes into the podcast. And at the time, the best advice anyone could give me in creating a trailer was find one you like and model it off that. So it's still sound advice, but given what Ariellele will be taking us through, I think we can do a little bit better. So here's what I'm going to do. You know that I'm all about taking action, so I'm going to do this with you on this podcast.

00:07:35 Yes. I'm going to go through the steps and tips that Ariellele has for us, myself and create a new trailer. And then you get to vote. You get to tell me which one I should keep. So when we come back, I'll play you my original trailer.

00:07:50 We'll hear what advice Ariellele has for all of us, and then I'll play you my updated trailer based on her tips. Sound good? Awesome. Excited to get into this with you. In 2018, I found out that one of our employees had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars from the business.

00:08:08 It was that circuit breaker that prompted us to make the move from Sydney to New York City and embark on an entrepreneurial journey I would never have thought was possible. From building multiple seven figure hospitality brands in Australia to starting and failing a fashion tech business to creating an agency brand transitioning into coaching, and now building an AIpowered software that helps experts who podcast generate their Podcast episode. Title player description, show notes, social media captions and promo emails instantly I'm going to lay it all out so you can learn from my mistakes and my journey, especially in how I was able to use podcasting to build my audience and my business. In fact, I was able to make over $200,000 in my first year of podcasting and I'll be taking you through the journey of how I did that. If you are an expert who podcasts and you're looking to grow your podcast show, then you are in the right place.

00:09:04 My name is Deirdre Tshien, cofounder and CEO of Capsho software that helps experts who podcasts create their Aigenerated promo content and I will be sharing every step of my journey as I recreate with more intention and strategy the success I had with my first podcast using a strategy I call content Honey Traps. All so that you can have the blueprint to growing your own podcast, grow your business and create the life you want. I will also have expert guests on. This podcast who will share their own expertise in order to help you with exactly this goal. People who have been there and done that or are going there and doing that themselves so that we can all learn from each other.

00:09:47 Ultimately, you are not alone on your journey to growing your podcast show. We are right here beside you every. Step of the way. Hit subscribe so you don't miss a thing. There's a new episode that drops every Tuesday no matter what platform you're listening on.

00:10:01 Let's get into it. Okay. What did you think of my OG trailer? Actually, don't tell me yet. Let's first get Ariellele's tips about creating a compelling trailer and then let's talk about where I could improve.

00:10:13 So where do we start? I am a big fan of when podcasts tell us what to expect from the show. I think that especially for a show like yours and a show like probably a lot of the ones that people are making that are in the Capsho universe, I do think it's helpful to not really be hiding behind cliffhangers and hiding behind not even hiding, but using cliffhangers in order to keep people around. I think it is important to build trust to let your listeners know what to expect, give them that and then recap what they just received from your show so that they see you as an authority in this space. I am a fan of that when it comes to trailers as well for most of the shows that I listen to.

00:10:51 So Neuroversity, which is the show that I mentioned, the first episode that we did, in it, the host, Jessica Kidwell, defines the term neurodiversity and she tells us that it was coined in 1998. And I didn't know that before. I kind of assumed that it had been around forever. I don't know, I've been hearing that term for a really long time. Of course, it seems like it's been popping up more and more lately.

00:11:11 But she defined that for us. And I asked her in the voice clip, I said, why did you choose to define that for us in the trailer? And she said something along the lines of it was a way for me to really orient people as to why I am doing this, why I'm doing the show, and establish the denominator for the folks that I think are going to be listening to the show. It might be some people that are very familiar with neurodiversity, but it's also going to be for people who have neurodivergent people in their lives and don't necessarily know all the ins and outs, all the nuances. So that was the precedent that she decided to set and I thought that was really smart thing to do.

00:11:47 Okay, so we should get into what it is our listeners can expect from us. I think one of the biggest reasons why I couldn't bring myself to listen past 13 seconds is because I have no idea why I started my story so far back. No one needs to hear about what happened back in 2018. Let me know. Did you care about hearing that?

00:12:07 Or to Ariellele's point, do you just want to get straight into what to expect now? I'd love to know. You can leave me a message via the show notes. So tip one, tell people what to expect. What is Ariellele's next tip?

00:12:22 I think creators have a unique opportunity when they are putting out a trailer, to introduce themselves to their audience and to tell us who they are, to tell us why they're making this show, but not to tell us too much. Because, first of all, you don't have that much time. But also, we can get to know you over the season. So I think a very brief understanding of who you are, why you're making the show, and then give little bits and pieces throughout the show. But don't assume that anybody knows anything about you.

00:12:50 So I think in my first teaser episode, so before the show actually launched, we had three teasers that went out. So we had teaser, teaser trailer, then episode, episode, episode, episode up to eight. It's going to be maybe even a little bit more because we have bonus content in the three teasers. We did different things the first one was 34 seconds and it was just me saying, hi, my name is Ariellele. I'm going to be one of the co hosts of the show.

00:13:11 This is a pretrailer and we're just doing it so that we have a placeholder in here that was an experiment. So I would be curious to hear what folks think of that. That was was just an opportunity for me to get the feed live and not really tell that much about myself other than my name. And if you know who I am, great. If you don't, then you'll learn more later in our next episode.

00:13:30 In the next 1 minute trailer, Tim and I ourselves, just a bit, not too much. And then in the real trailer, that was three minutes long. Like I said, I don't really like to go over that, but we did. Hey, sue me. But we treated it more like a pilot so that you could learn more about us, learn more about our goals for the show.

00:13:45 And in that one you are hearing about who we are and why this is our mission. And then we're pointing you to more resources where you can learn more about us, like our website and our social media and things like that. But I think as long as you are clear with people about where they can go to get more information and you're not kind of leaving a black hole of why this person is hosting this show, you are setting yourself up for success. Some trailers decide to be really explicit with what season one or what the show, if it's ongoing, will contain. So some might say on February 14, we are dropping Trailer Park, the podcast trailer podcast, and then every single week after that, for the rest of our lives, you will get an episode of this show.

00:14:28 And then I might also say, we might decide to lay out the entire season for you. Episode one is going to be this. Episode two is going to be this. And I might mention the shows that we are going to be featuring, but I decided not to do that for a trailer park. What we did for the Trailer Parks trailer was we said, here's a general outline.

00:14:46 We are going to be having eight episodes for season one plus some bonus content. And we did not define that bonus content. We said just bonus content. You'll get what you get and you won't get upset. You'll hear more about it as time goes on.

00:14:57 And we left ourselves open for that. So we gave them enough to let them know it's going to be at least eight episodes plus some bonus content. But we did not then explicitly say bonus content is going to be advertiser content. It's going to be interviews with people. It's just too much.

00:15:11 We didn't need to go into all of it. Nobody really cares. They don't know us yet. They're not committed to us yet. So we just gave them the bare minimum of what they needed to know and the general types of shows that we would be featuring.

00:15:22 There are going to be some limited run series, more of like the true crime investigative shows that will tell you, here's what you're going to get out of the season, or here's what we hope to give you out of this season based on the research that we've done. We still have some more research to go though, so you might give them that expectation as well. I think as long as you are not trying to confuse anybody, as long as you are opting on the side of being transparent, the rest will follow and people will understand what you're trying to go after. I think that if you wanted to, if you're listening to this right now and you don't have a trailer and you want to get something up sooner rather than later, what you can do is pretty much a standard. Hi.

00:16:00 My name is Ariellelele Nissenblatt. I host a podcast called Feedback with Earbuds. It's a show about podcast recommendations. On the show you can expect to hear from people around the world about their favorite podcast recommendations. Also on the show, we're going to share podcast news, we're going to share podcast tips, and it all drops every Tuesday along with our newsletter.

00:16:17 You can get more at earbuds audio. That could be a trailer. Off the top of my head, that could be a trailer. Super neat. Okay, so we could keep our trailers short if we wanted to, but bottom line is that if we have to tell our potential listeners about us, about who we are and perhaps why we're doing this podcast, where two from here?

00:16:38 I would add some music. I might decide if I wanted to spruce it up a little bit. I might give some examples of some of the curators who you're going to hear from. I might give some examples of some of the places where we're going to be pulling podcast news and tips from, but that could be a trailer with some music. Amp it up.

00:16:53 I would probably take some clips from prior episodes. I would probably ask the person who does my engineering to make it sound great. He loves very literally using sound effects. So if I say like, leave us a rating and review wherever you get your podcast, he might do like a bell ding type sound, something like that. Oh, I like this.

00:17:13 Let's have a bit of fun with it, shall we? For anyone who isn't quite sure what resources are available to them to help with this, here are some of Ariellele's resources. There are a bunch of different royalty free music websites. One of them is called Pixabay. P-I-X-A-B-A-Y.

00:17:31 It's images and also music royalty free music. So I believe most of the music on there is actually free but some of them you might be able to pay for. If you want more stems or if you want access to the artist in order to ask them to do more for you. There's another website called Epidemic Sound, which is royalty free and not free. You have to pay for it.

00:17:50 But it's amazing. And what it does is you can buy a song on the whole and then you can buy the individual instruments. So it's great. So if you wanted to maybe have the theme song be like six instruments, but then maybe your interstitials are only a few instruments, but it's still in the same tune, beat, whatever. I'm not a musician.

00:18:06 I don't know all the terms. You can do that. Then there is another way to do this, which is that I actually just at Podcast movement. Earlier this month, I interviewed Payne Lindsay and Mavs, who is the person who does music at Tenderfoot TV, which is an Atlanta based podcast studio that has an amazing slate of shows, mostly true crime investigations and things like that. Payne Lindsay was early on doing royalty free music, finding royalty free music, but then after a while, he was finding royalty free music from the same guy over and over again.

00:18:37 And he was like, you know what, it might make more sense if I just hire this person. So he hired this person named Mavs, and Mavs is this person's stage name, but I don't know if it's quite a stage name. Mavs is Matt. His name is Matt, but he goes by Mavs. And now Mavs is just the person who does music in house for a lot of the Tender Foot TV shows.

00:18:55 So if you've got money, if you got time, that is an option too. If you got money, time, resources, all that. But more likely for the folks who are listening to this. I see you, I hear you, I understand. I am in the same boat as you.

00:19:06 Pixabay.com is really great. I've had a lot of success there, and then there's a few more. So if you google the phrase royalty free podcast music, cheap or low cost or free, you'll find it awesome. So many cool tips. Does it have your mind going with all of the possibilities?

00:19:21 Does it have you potentially thinking about your own trailer and wondering if you need to redo it? You are not alone. And the great news, you don't have to nail it the first, the second, even the third time. You can change up your trailers whenever you want. Yeah, you could decide to have a new trailer every time you have a new season.

00:19:41 I actually recommend that to a certain extent. I think. Again, like I said, it allows you to be newsy. It allows you to say, new trailer just launched for our new show. So especially if you have time in between seasons, I definitely recommend releasing a trailer two weeks before your actual show drops, the actual new episodes start dropping.

00:20:00 It is a great way for you to experiment, right, not only with marketing and promotion, but also with style. So you could decide maybe your first season you're going to really hit it on the nose. You're going to say, you know what, I don't have that much time to make a trailer, so I'm really just going to do hi, my name is Ariellele. This is my podcast. Here's where you can find it, here's why you can find it, and here's when you can find it.

00:20:18 But then for the next time around, once you've got some more content under your belt, you might decide to get a little bit more funky with it. Take some voice clips from your guests. Maybe take some voice clips if it's a solo show from the show itself. Maybe play around with music a little bit, maybe amp up the music, pitch it down a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I think once you play around with trailers a little bit, you will know a little bit more about what you will allow yourself to do that still fits within your style.

00:20:42 I think a big part of this is listening to trailers and hearing for yourself what you like, what you don't like, what you could do without, what you can't live without. And that a great way to find trailers, is of course, trailer park podcast, but also by going to Apple and going to the New and Noteworthy section and not saying that everything on New and Noteworthy is absolutely spectacular, but they're being chosen for a reason. A lot of the time they're good shows. And Apple is doing a great job lately choosing more independent shows to highlight. So I would definitely check those out.

00:21:09 Okay, but you know what? You don't even have to do that because I'm going to play you my new spectacular trailer. And I hope you know I'm just joking, but I would like to get your feedback on what you think about this. Are you an entrepreneur with a passion for podcasting looking to get discovered, get, listens, grow your audience, monetize your show, and make a powerful impact in the world? You come to the right place.

00:21:36 Welcome to the Grow My Podcast Show with Deirdre Tshien, the CEO and co founder of Capsho, an AIpowered podcast content marketer which is the fastest way for you to market and grow your podcast. Join me every Tuesday as I share actionable tips and powerful insights. Our expert guests range from successful podcasters and business owners to marketing experts and industry leaders. They'll share their secrets on growing your listener base, podcast marketing techniques, monetization strategies, and so much more. My messaging framework, The Three Word Rebellion.

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00:22:43 Let's grow your podcast to grow your business. Okay, so what did you think? Did I pass muster? Would you listen to this show based on this trailer? Let me know by leaving a message using the link in my Show Notes, which takes you to the website page for this episode.

00:22:58 Scroll down a bit and you'll see a link that says, leave me a message. So let me know how you think I did. Based on Ariellele's feedback, do you prefer my original trailer or this updated one? And while you're in the Show Notes, I also have another gift for you. When Ariellele first told me she was launching Trailer Park, she also told me some of her download goals, which I totally admired her for.

00:23:19 For example, she was gunning for 1000 downloads before even launching, just with her trailers, and she was oh so close to reaching that. I think she hit around 800. And then even now, being only a few weeks into the show going live, she's already hit 10,000 downloads. What? And so I had her share her strategy with us.

00:23:41 What marketing and PR activities did she do to be able to hit this goal pre and post launch of her podcast? I've left that little gem as free bonus content in the Show Notes, so you can go ahead and grab that now for free if you're interested in hearing how it is that Ariellele was able to get over 10,000 downloads in just a matter of weeks for her brand new podcast. And if you want to follow the fun that she and her co host Tim are having with Trailer Park, here's a little more info on it. The Podcast Trailer podcast is both an opportunity for listeners to find new shows and an opportunity for creators to get better at the craft of audio teasers, really. We're trying to give examples from all over, whether it's audio dramas, whether it's chat shows, whether it's investigative, whatever it is.

00:24:33 The trailers are such a unique way of breaking down your content that could be seasons and seasons long or hours of tape long into something short and digestible that people will get a taste of and then decide if they are going to listen more. Trailers are awesome, so Trailer Park Podcast is an opportunity to explore the art of them. You can submit your own trailer, and I would love that by going to Trailerparkpodcast CRD Co, and we will consider them on an ongoing basis. And if you want to learn more, we also have an Instagram, which is Trailer Park underscore Podcast. There you have it.

00:25:08 I hope you had as much fun as I did with this episode. I. Can't wait to hear your trailer being featured on Trailer Park. My name is Deirdre Tshien. Stay awesome.