Fascinated about refreshing your podcast branding? Earlier than I talk about the “when,” let’s take into account how your podcast would possibly profit from a branding refresh.
What’s “podcast branding”?
Your “podcast branding” is a number of options that uniquely determine your podcast. It is the primary impression for brand new audiences, and it is how your loyal viewers acknowledges your podcast distinctly from others.
Podcast branding is greater than solely your cowl artwork. It may very well be the emblem inside your cowl artwork (and that brand can be utilized for every kind of issues)—and a logo is difference from cover art. It is the audio and video components you employ all through your episodes. It is your podcast description. It is in your repeated phrases. It is even in how you talk and host your podcast.
A “branding refresh” would then be updating all or any of those components, however maintaining the core of your podcast the identical. A “rebrand” would be if you change much more of your podcast, together with what you speak about and whom you attempt to attain.
1. Entice a brand new viewers
Refreshing your podcast branding would possibly assist you to seize the eye of extra individuals by standing out or showing extra related. This would possibly assist you to attraction to new demographics and even recapture the curiosity of people that beforehand scrolled handed your podcast, for no matter purpose.
For instance, in case your podcast focuses on serving to Asian entrepreneurs, then you’ll most likely be extra more likely to appeal to that ultimate viewers by displaying an Asian in your cowl artwork (and that might be your pretty/handsome face!). It may be a robust factor when your potential viewers can “see themselves” in your branding or messaging.
Or perhaps the outline of your podcast is not speaking your content material or objective very nicely, so a refresh of this facet of your podcast branding can higher persuade individuals to hear after they’ve already been attracted by the title and canopy artwork.
2. Improve your perceived high quality
I’ve come to detest the phrase, “do not choose a e-book by its cowl.” I feel that actually solely applies to individuals, whose character may be fully completely different from their unchangeable look (however will be mirrored of their willful changeable look). However we will, do, and I feel ought to choose different issues by their covers! As a result of if the duvet is not good, how will you belief that the contents will likely be higher? As my buddy Mark Des Cotes says, “In case your podcast cowl paintings appears low cost and amateurish, individuals will assume your podcast is affordable and amateurish and select a distinct present to hearken to.”
As an alternative, a well-executed model refresh could make your podcast look or sound extra skilled, which is nice even for pastime podcasts! (Please do not suppose that “skilled” is a unfavorable factor for hobbyists! Hearken to “Labeling Podcasters: Amateur vs. Skilled” for some extra ideas on that.) This could enhance your potential viewers’s first impression and entice them to proceed exploring your podcast.
Some individuals or locations (together with Apple Podcasts) could also be extra to characteristic your podcast when it has higher branding, and fewer when your cowl artwork is ugly or the remainder of your branding expertise is unfavorable.
3. Adapt to the most recent developments
Industries change on a regular basis. What’s scorching or “normal” now is perhaps radically completely different in just a few years. For instance, take a look at the rise and fall of designing apps and web sites to appear like objects from the bodily world (this design precept is named “skeuomorphism”). Apple very publicly moved away from skeuomorphism in 2013 with the discharge of iOS 7.
Or take a look at how a lot wider the choice is for inexpensive audio branding components now in comparison with 2005. Updating your branding might help your podcast meet up with these developments so you are not one more podcast utilizing music from GarageBand, the image of headphones round an RSS icon, or anything cliché!
4. Strengthen or reset your podcast’s id and message
After you have been podcasting for some time, you most likely have a greater grasp on what makes your podcast distinctive and the way you need to do issues. That would imply rebranding to match your podcast’s new path, or updating your present branding to bolster what you have realized your strengths are. For instance, crimson is usually seen as a unfavorable design shade, but it surely additionally has highly effective meanings that I spotted align completely with an audacious perspective. So once I redesigned The Audacity to Podcast‘s visible branding, I deliberately selected crimson as a branding shade as a result of it matches so nicely. Then, I mixed that with strongly contrasting white and black.
I did this as a result of I needed to bolster the core that my branding has had from the start in 2010: supplying you with the heart, the braveness, the facility, the audacity to podcast!
A part of my branding was in a hidden exclamation level in my brand. However that was too hidden in my previous design. (Did you even understand it was there?) My new design makes it extra distinguished.
Plus, the previous font regarded extra playful and labored nice for the Ramen Noodle (my first podcast, a clean-comedy present, now offline). The brand new font is bolder—each in fashion and emotion.
All of this stuff mixed for me to strengthen the id and message I already had. And but I feel I used to be capable of maintain the emblem related sufficient to look as an evolution as an alternative of one thing fully completely different.
A very good branding refresh might help you visually and audibly reinforce what your podcast is about and who it is for, all with out your saying a single phrase!
5. Infuse new power on your viewers and your self
Have you learnt the nice feeling of that new automobile odor, studying a brand new ability, sporting new garments, reorganizing your stuff, or repainting your room? Much like this stuff, a recent model can breathe new life into your podcast, each on your present viewers and even for your self. After I redesigned The Audacity to Podcast‘s video branding, it made me way more wanting to publish new video content material as a result of I used to be so happy with what I made!
Equally, I am a type of sorts who reads replace notes (or “changelogs”) and will get excited when there are user-interface (UI) modifications in apps. It feels “recent”!
Name it no matter you need, most individuals get enthusiastic about new issues (even when solely in sure contexts). Refreshing your podcast branding is perhaps simply the trick you could re-enthuse even your self about your podcast.
6. Stand out from others
By refreshing your podcast branding with distinctive visible and audio components, you may set your present other than its “opponents.”
Contemplate, for instance, if all of the podcasts in your area of interest have predominantly blue cowl artwork. Then making your cowl artwork something different than blue will make it stand out. Or perhaps the opposite podcasts use photographs of their cowl artwork, so that you stick to flat icons or solely styled textual content.
Since your podcast branding may embrace your content-presentation format, that gives one other strategy to stand out from others. Again when As soon as Upon a Time was airing on ABC, there have been greater than a dozen fan podcasts in regards to the TV present. Whereas my very own, ONCE podcast, stood out for being in-depth, there have been another podcasts that stood out by having a decent “5 issues” format and even one which existed solely to make enjoyable of the present. One other of the podcasts stood out by together with a rhyming recap of every episode.
It is like that saying, “After they zig, you zag.”
Prime assets to assist refresh your podcast branding
There are various locations you may rent designers that can assist you with a branding refresh. The 2 I like to recommend most extremely are my friend Mark Des Cotes from Podcast Branding, who’s a extremely expert designer and a podcaster (I earn a fee from referrals who point out they heard about Mark from me or The Audacity to Podcast). I additionally less-frequently advocate 99designs (I earn commissions from qualifying purchases right here, too), the place you may get designers to compete for your enterprise. 99designs gives you extra choices, however perhaps not from individuals who perceive podcasting; and Podcast Branding will work with you to grasp your complete podcast’s branding.
I often advocate towards Fiver as a result of I’ve seen an excessive amount of low-quality work and even intellectual-property theft.
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Disclosure
This put up might include hyperlinks to services or products with which I’ve an affiliate relationship. I could obtain compensation out of your actions by way of such hyperlinks. Nonetheless, I do not let that corrupt my perspective and I do not advocate solely associates.
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