How to Create Podcast Bonus Content

Image it: You’ve launched your podcast, printed some episodes, and gotten good evaluations or optimistic suggestions out of your viewers. What could possibly be higher? When your viewers desires to assist you, reward them with some podcast bonus content material. We’ll talk about what to make, find out how to ship it, and find out how to make your podcast bonus content material as efficient as attainable. 

The Medium and The Message 

Like advert health and model suitability, the very best bonus content material enhances the podcast it helps. When brainstorming, keep constant whereas constructing on the podcast’s present materials. When you have a tennis podcast, don’t reward your supporters with a 45-minute lecture about coal mining. Not solely do you need to hold your matter in thoughts, however you additionally want to think about your present’s:

After getting these nailed down, think about the medium you need to use to your bonus content material. This can have an effect on your podcast workflow sooner or later. Within the meantime, let’s take a look at totally different podcast bonus content material sorts. 

Audio Bonus Content material

This differs from early entry to episodes. Your bonus content material audio received’t be accessible wherever else; it’s solely accessible to your present’s supporters. Some could also be materials you recorded for an episode however couldn’t use. Different choices are materials recorded particularly as bonus content material. Let’s take a look at some choices and find out how to make them simplest. 

Outtakes or “Bloopers”

This sort of bonus content material audio is the best to come back by. Each podcast recording has moments the place somebody stumbles over their speech or says one thing odd. However, when you’ve ever watched film blooper reels, you already know {that a} lengthy string of errors adopted by “sorry, let me strive once more” isn’t wildly attention-grabbing. 

However chances are you’ll discover some gems. As soon as, my husband walked in whereas I used to be recording an episode of ADWIT to inform me that dinner was prepared. My co-host, Sarah, requested what’s on the menu. As an alternative of hitting “cease,” I handed over the mic and let him inform her what he’d cooked and the way. She was so enthusiastic about my husband’s cooking that she proceeded to share each element of her recipe for crispy jacket potatoes. Is that this related to a podcast about writing methods for audio drama podcasts? No. Is it invaluable, humorous, and rewarding? In hindsight, sure. So, I’ll save that audio for bonus content material.

Don’t overlook to keep up your viewers’s expectations. Use the identical requirements and modifying clean-up (similar to noise discount, quantity leveling, and so on.) that you’d use to your podcast’s printed audio. Sure, Hollywood film blooper reels usually have the naked minimal of clean-up. However you need your supporters to know your podcast bonus content material, so ensure it’s clear. 

In case your present is “clear,” don’t use specific materials whenever you decide deleted audio. Although they occur ceaselessly and could also be humorous in the meanwhile, an expletive in the course of a children’ podcast isn’t humorous sufficient to be price utilizing in bonus content material for supporters. 

Whether or not this audio comes out of your typical recording periods otherwise you write and report it individually, extras improve the viewers’s understanding of your podcast’s matter. Take into consideration how a film’s “DVD extras” or “Blu-ray extras” are materials from the film that’s been minimize for time. They could shift focus from the principle plot but in addition assist the viewers perceive the story and characters. 

For instance, the end-of-season episodes in David Tennant Does a Podcast With… are montage episodes. They embrace interview materials outdoors the interview’s throughline. For instance, in Tennant’s interview with James Corden, they talked about Corden’s previous tv reveals. However, the Season 1 montage episode consists of how James Corden feels about Oasis’ album “Be Right here Now” and why. Corden’s emotions a couple of pop album from 1997 can be superfluous to the informal listener. However, to an viewers emotionally invested within the podcast’s conversations, Corden’s capsule album overview is a pleasing shock.

Not solely do montage episodes of visitor extras make nice bonus content material, behind-the-scenes materials displaying the way you make your podcast could be invaluable to your viewers. Does your podcast have terrific authentic music, or meditative sound beds? These could make good podcast bonus content material, too. 

Printables

What facet of your podcast’s matter advantages from written descriptions and footage? Are you able to kind it up, create some pictures in Canva, and put it aside as a PDF? Whether or not you name it a printable, a template, or a PDF, these sources are easy to make and share. 

Recipes, exercise routines, coloring pages, knitting methods, classic maps, or articles you used for analysis make good podcast bonus content material.

As printable bonus content material, I created a written and illustrated information to how I plan an audio drama story arc for a season. After saving this as a PDF, I gave it away as a reward to members in our viewers survey.

These PDFs are easy to share, so ensure your podcast’s identify and URL are seen within the doc. If somebody will get supporter’s regret and tries to repurpose your PDF, ensure the recipient is aware of who made it. Canva can assist you watermark your images for no further value.

No matter you do, ensure the knowledge on that PDF is one thing you’ve created, purchased the license to share, or is within the public area. Don’t copy and paste different individuals’s materials into your podcast bonus content material. It’s one factor to share your grandmother’s recipe for fig bars and one other to repeat a Martha Stewart recipe. At worst, you’ll get a stop and desist order, and at finest, you’ll destroy your popularity. 

Tangible Bonuses

Tactile objects can really feel like particular presents. This podcast bonus content material possibility doesn’t must be advanced. By no means underestimate the nice feeling of actual mail from an actual particular person. 

Now that we’re deep within the digital age, private mail you possibly can maintain in your hand feels particular. Handwritten thank-you notes, postcards, and letters are all easy methods to indicate gratitude to your viewers’s assist.  It’s also possible to ship the identical bonus content material sources you’d use for the printable PDFs talked about earlier. Print them on high quality paper that feels good to the touch, and embrace a private be aware to say thanks. 

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Once I began supporting Long Cat Media on Ko-Fi, I acquired a theatrical program for his or her podcast, The Ballad of Anne and Mary, and a duplicate of Chart Toppers journal, a satire of British pop music fan magazines from the Nineteen Eighties. The previous enhanced my expertise of listening to their musical, and the latter gave me a nostalgic twinge. These additionally confirmed the standard of their non-audio work, which made me extra possible to purchase their posters or tote luggage.

Enclose an introductory be aware with tangible supplies. Significantly when you produce a real crime podcast, mailing printed analysis supplies with out an introductory be aware may scare your supporters. And, you don’t need to ship something a lot heavier than a regular letter, as it will possibly get costly. This brings us to the important thing problem of podcast bonus content material…

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Supply Strategies

Keep in mind how I mentioned earlier that the medium you select to your bonus content material will have an effect on your manufacturing workflow? I wasn’t kidding. 

Let’s say you will have a crowdfunding marketing campaign to your podcast, during which everybody who pledges $20 will get bonus content material. If that bonus content material prices you greater than $20 to make and ship, chances are you’ll as nicely not have bothered. As soon as you understand how a lot it’s going to value (not simply cash, but in addition time) to make and ship the bonus content material, work out how a lot your viewers ought to pledge to get it. 

Ensure you can get the bonus content material to them in a well timed style. If sufficient time passes, not solely will your supporters really feel ignored, however by the point they obtain it, your supporters may not care. 

Listed below are some methods for delivering your podcast bonus content material. 

Delivering Audio Privately

A easy methodology is to make use of a non-public RSS feed to your supporters. Publish the bonus content material to the non-public RSS feed, and ship them the RSS feed URL. You could need to embrace a quick rationalization, in order that they know how to use that RSS feed with their favorite podcast listening app. 

One other supply methodology favored by many podcasters is to embed a podcast player in a password-protected web page of your podcast web site. Test the data base or assist paperwork of your web site platform to discover ways to password-protect a web page. Then, embed the episode’s participant within the web page, and set the password. Share the net web page’s URL and password together with your supporters, to allow them to hearken to the bonus content material. 

You may additionally add bonus content material to YouTube and set the video as unlisted. This manner, solely individuals with the video’s hyperlink can open it. Then, electronic mail the YouTube hyperlink to your bonus content material to your supporters. This doesn’t stop the supporter from sharing your hyperlink with non-supporters, but it surely’s a simple possibility for you and your viewers. 

Delivering PDFs or Printables

Whereas this will likely appear too apparent to incorporate, my expertise with podcasting has taught me that nothing is totally self-explanatory for everybody. 

Just like the aforementioned password-protected web page for audio bonus content material, it can save you a doc as a PDF, make it a web page in your podcast web site, and arrange password safety. It’s also possible to save the PDF doc in Google Drive, and make it solely shareable to sure electronic mail addresses. Or, you would merely electronic mail it.

Delivering Tangible Rewards

Once more, don’t make bodily rewards considerably heavier than typical mail except it’s a must to. Murphy’s Regulation dictates you’ll abruptly be taught that you’ve got fifty followers dwelling in distant places on the alternative aspect of the planet.  And, when you’re making bonus content material for a true-crime, thriller, or horror podcast, don’t make the envelope or packaging too genuine. The very last thing you want is to your viewers to complain that they by no means acquired their podcast extras since you stamped it throughout with “WARNING: CRIME SCENE EVIDENCE” or one thing alongside these traces.  Let your podcast bonus content material journey incognito and shock your supporters once they get it. 

Above all, don’t make podcast bonus content material you possibly can’t ship! Within the early days of crowdfunding, blue-sky pondering would take the reins and invent unrealistic stretch objectives for high-dollar-value pledges. To make $100 pledges appear extra sensible, some creators would promise exorbitant rewards for large pledges. One creator provided, “Pledge $10,000, and I’ll have dinner with you and paint your portrait.” Rewards like this take effort and time that may take you away out of your podcast workflow. Extraordinary rewards received’t show you how to make extra episodes of your common podcast, not to mention bonus content material.

Once more, bonus content material that enhances your present, enhances the viewers’s understanding of your matter, and isn’t costly or tough to ship will make your podcast’s bonus content material reward your viewers. 

Easy methods to Make Your Bonus Content material Go Additional

When you’ve produced your podcast’s bonus content material and are able to ship it, ask the recipient to submit on social media that they received it and tag your podcast. This confirms that they acquired it and makes your supporters’ social media followers and buddies marvel what the mysterious reward is and the way they received it. Flip that supporter reward into future promotion. 

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Bonus Content material is a Return on Your Supporter’s Funding

Consider your viewers as a fairy godparent, making it simpler so that you can make your present. They’re doing it as a result of they need extra of your concepts. So, share the ideas, strategies, or tales that solely probably the most devoted followers of your present will get pleasure from. 

Once you plan to create your podcast bonus content material, don’t begin what you possibly can’t end.  As an alternative, hold supply strategies in thoughts as you intend your marketing campaign. This manner, you received’t have to alter techniques after your marketing campaign is underway. 

Have you ever ever created bonus content material to your podcast? Have you ever ever signed as much as recieve bonus content material from one other? We’d love to listen to your tales, classes, and opinions on bonus content material within the IndiePod Community!