Mastering Content Consistency: Lessons from Hallmark Movies

We all want to have a podcast that really engages our audience and inspires them to tell a friend.

So when you get that winning formula, don't mess with it.

Welcome to youo Podcast Consultant.

Small lessons with big Value.

With more than a decade of experience and millions of downloads, this hall of fame podcaster is a featured speaker, author, and mentor to thousands.

Now he wants to work with you.

He's your podcast consultant, Dave Jackson.

There are so many ways to podcast.

There's so many formats, whether it's interview or monologue or whatever it's going to be.

And eventually, hopefully, we figure out what's working, what our audience wants, we give it to them, and they start sharing it with their friends.

And then what happens is you do that for a few years and you go, I'm kind of getting bored of doing the same thing.

And I think we forget how hard it was to get to that winning formula.

And so today I thought I would talk about something as I record this.

It's December 2024, and the hallmark Channel is in all its glory.

In fact, not just Hallmark, but every Christmas movie kind of has the same story.

It's, oh, man, I can't wait for Christmas.

What?

Christmas is canceled.

Holy cow.

Wait, do you think this will work?

Oh, my gosh.

And then it ends with Santa going, merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

We know exactly what we're gonna get.

And on the Hallmark Channel, it's kind of funny because you always end up in some sort of city where the two hottest people in the world are single and they hate each other.

And by the end of the movie, of course, they love each other.

And Christmas is saved and the cabin is saved.

And we all know that if you like about 3/4 of the way through the movie, if somebody goes, oh, my goodness, I haven't seen one of these in the longest time.

My grandfather had an ornament like this, you know, that's coming back.

You just know.

And that's the whole point.

It is completely and absolutely predictable.

And I'll give you an example here of you want to lean into it.

So one of our traditions, my sister in law, by the way, starts watching these movies in October.

She loves Christmas, but it's one of our traditions on Thanksgiving.

We watch one of these movies as she loves it, and my brother and I just pick it apart.

But what I thought was really interesting is a, these movies are really popular to the point that they have their own channel.

And the advertisers know if you want to get to moms, this is the channel you want to advertise on, or at least females, right?

And I thought it was really interesting because it was either Burger King or Nissan.

They had three commercials.

So it was a series to be shown like one at the beginning of the movie, one in the middle.

They treated it like the Super Bowl.

Alexa, stop.

And the first particular commercial said, wait, did you think you're going to have a Hallmark moment?

And they actually somewhat poked fun at the movies.

And by the second one, the brother is taking the extremely attractive sister and pushing her into guys and, oops, you dropped this.

And all the traditional things you see.

And of course, the third one, it looks like she's not going to have that Hallmark moment until the very end.

And I thought that was very cute marketing to say, look, we all know these are the exact same thing.

We know exactly what we're getting.

In fact, I remember one year I had a cousin in from out of town, and so we're doing our tradition, and my brother and I are somewhat picking on the movie.

And she said, look, I got to tell you, there's a reason why I watch these movies.

And we're like, what?

And she goes, I know exactly what I'm going to get.

I know it's safe.

I know there's not a lot of thought involved.

It makes me feel warm and cozy, and I usually end up smiling at the end of the movie.

And so, yeah, we know exactly what we're going to get when we watch a holiday movie on the Hallmark Channel.

We know that her name is going to be Holly.

We know that guy's name is going to be Nick.

We know that it's going to come down to the last minute.

And are they going to be able to fix this?

Oh, my gosh, it's Christmas Eve.

It's going to require a miracle, right?

We know exactly what we're going to get.

And yet people tune into that because that's what they want.

And so when you finally tweak your show and it starts to grow, don't tweak it anymore.

Now, as always, that's up to you, but I call this the AC DC effect.

If you've ever heard the band AC DC and you listen to one of their albums from the late 70s, and you listen to the album that they did say three years ago, it sounds identical.

I always thought they named the band AC DC because those were the three chords they knew.

But yet they have a formula.

People love it, and they stuck with it.

Because when you change your formula I'll give you an example.

Garth Brooks in the probably 90s ish, super ridiculously popular guy.

And he probably got tired of singing I Got Friends in Lone Places.

So he decided he was going to put on a Persona.

Christopher Gaines.

And he had his hair kind of in a 90s thing where it was covering one of his eyes.

And he did kind of pop music.

And you know what?

It failed miserably because people wanted Garth to sound like Garth.

Bon Jovi, another very popular band in the 80s.

In the 90s, they decided to take all of their biggest hits and redo them in a completely different way.

And that album was so hated by the fans that when Bon Jovi did his documentary and they went album by album by album, explained how they did it, they didn't even mention that album.

It's like it never existed.

It was a dream.

So, yes, it can be kind of boring doing the same thing over and over and over.

But if you change your format too much, a people are tuning in to get that thing that they want to get from you in a way that only you are doing.

And so you're going to lose some people.

And so I do.

I switch my format.

I usually do something kind of kooky every 100 episodes, which I realize people have said that's kind of dumb because you're celebrating this milestone and people tune in and they don't get what you do.

And I'm like, you know what?

That's a good point.

And that's going to bring my last point.

In the end, it's up to you.

I just want to remind you that when things are going good and the show is growing, don't miss the work that it took to get it to that state.

Because it's hard.

It's.

It's hard to get that right balance, to really figure out what your audience wants and to really have it resonate.

Maybe it's just time to treat it like a Hallmark movie and give them what they want.

If you need help kind of tweaking things or figuring out what you need to do to get things going in the right direction, I would love to help you.

I run the School of Podcasting, and you can either go over to school of podcasting.com start or if you want, if you've already got a podcast, I've got the deal for you.

Go over to podcast hotseat.com and give me an episode to critique, and we'll also critique your website and you get a free month at the School of Podcasting and of course, that free month includes unlimited coaching.

And if you're like, that sounds a little too good to be true.

I realized that that's actually one of my hardest marketing problems with this particular bundle is people go, I can't be any good.

It's too good to be true.

But realize my background is in teaching, and I absolutely love to help people.

So check that out.

Podcasthotzee.com or come start your podcast.

Help us grow your podcast by joining the school of podcasting.

I'm Dave Jackson.

I help podcasters.

It's what I do, and I can't wait to see what we're going to do together.