Luis Congdon

Welcome to Day Two on How To Create A Podcast.

Today, I’m going to teach what kind of logos and covers work for a podcast, and how to create a podcast show description that works and appeals to your ideal listener and potential client.

All right. Welcome to Day Two on How To Create A Podcast.

Today, I want to dive in with you and talk about cover art and show description.

We’ll talk about why a show description is necessary and some of the things that you should consider when describing and writing about your show so that when other people read it, it grabs them, hooks them, and makes them want to listen.

Also, we’ll dive into what artwork works, what you should choose for the artwork for your show to assure that you stand out inside of iTunes, TuneIn FM, Stitcher, SoundCloud, YouTube, and other places where your podcast is going to be featured.

When you have a podcast, you can post it on thousands of platforms or hundreds of places. There are a lot of places for your podcast to stand out and if you do the artwork right, it’s going to create brand recognition for you. It’s going to help you create authority, stand out, and pop.

If you do it wrong, and people will skip over your show. They’re not going to be interested. Itunes isn’t going to rank it, and it’s just going to be harder for you to get traction with this medium.

Now, if you don’t write the description of your show correctly, then someone’s going to just briefly read the first sentence or two, skip over, and never listen to a fantastic show that can help them.

Luis Congdon

The first thing I want to talk about is your artwork. A lot of people get excited about the artwork. They put all this time and effort. I know people that have spent over $1,000 picking the right artwork, and I know people that have spent zero picking the right artwork.

Somewhere in between, I’ve found the magic spot. Because I know some people have used tools like Canva to create their artwork and most of the time, it doesn’t look excellent. It gets skipped over.

One of the first things I want you to do when you’re thinking about how to create a podcast cover is I want you to go inside of iTunes and start looking at all the different podcast that are out there. Open up iTunes and just start scrolling through the podcast section. Start looking at shows, what pops and doesn’t pop.

I’m going to give a few things to look for.

Luis Congdon

Now, a thumbnail’s all that’s going to appear. People are on their phones and they’re scrolling through all the podcast, it’s going to be a very small little image. Large text on there is going to be better and will stand out.

Small text is not going to read very well. It’s going to such a small little image. That small text just won’t pop out. Too many words aren’t going pop out.

You want to think about the large bold text. So I want you to start scrolling through, and I want you to start noticing that.

The other thing I want you to notice is that a lot of the big shows if you look at The Tim Ferris Show, it has large text. I want you to notice something else though too with shows like WTF with Mark Maron, Joe Rogan show, Jason Stapleton show. There are lots of shows I could name off that maybe you’ve heard of or haven’t heard off, but I know they’re very successful shows.

Luis Congdon

One of the things to notice is a lot of this shows have an image of the host on the cover.

I think it’s brilliant. If you are your brand and you’re a business owner, and you are your brand, then it’s probably really a good idea. It’s a big recommendation from me to make sure to have a good headshot or a good picture of yourself there on the cover of your podcast. It’s super important.

By having that, people will start to notice your face and your brand, just because of that thumbnail. Using your face is something you might want to consider as you learn how to create a podcast cover.  Every time they go into iTunes, Stitcher,  SoundCloud, TuneIn FM and various other pod feeders, they’re going to see your face.

That’s an opportunity for them to connect with you, to connect with your brand, and to recognize you. They go over to Facebook, and there’s your face again with a video or something else that you’re releasing. Then, they go to Amazon, and you’ve got your face on a book cover. Then, they go over to YouTube, and there’s your face again in a video, and they go all to these other places, and there’s your face. There you are, and that’s crucial.

I wish I could remember who did this study but what they found was that the more time somebody is hit with a brand or a company, the more trust they have.

Luis Congdon

We all know that companies like Coca-Cola, Nike, and Adidas are consistently paying millions and billions of dollars year after year to get their brand in front of your face because they know that by putting their name in front of you, soon, you’ll start trusting it. Then you’re going shopping, and you’re like, “Oh, I want that thing,” and you trust it.

Now, that’s all been very calculated, and I want you to use that same intelligence when learning how to create a podcast cover. So put your face on your podcast cover and use these larger texts as you possibly can fit on there, and don’t get too wrapped up in the rest of the menu show around the color and the font. All that stuff is great. You want legible font. You want colors that work stand out, and pops so look inside of iTunes.

Look at colors that stand out or colors that not everybody is using so that when you’re designing and learning how to create a podcast cover, you’re using maybe colors that not everyone else is using. Maybe you’re using a font, and not everyone is using. But the key thing is that it’s legible in a small size.

I highly recommend that you scroll through iTunes specifically because iTunes is the giant for podcasts. If you want your podcast to be big, put it on iTunes. If you want to keep your podcast small, don’t put it on iTunes.

Luis Congdon

Around 90% of podcast listeners are going to iTunes. If you want a large show, that’s a huge audience that you have access to the inside of iTunes. So make sure that you’re scrolling through iTunes and just look at some podcast covers or ensure that you put your face on the cover and nice big font. From there, you can pick what kind of font you want as long as it’s legible. You can choose colors that you like. You can kind of mess up with that stuff and still be okay as long as you’ve done the few other things that I’ve mentioned.

Now, I want to go into one other piece here with you. It’s creating a description for your show. This part is super important. A lot of people get hang-up on this, and I want to make it simple for you. I want you to think about your avatar.

If you haven’t listened to Day One on How To Create A Podcast, I want you to go back. Listen to Day One and make sure to listen to that episode on How To Create A Podcast Day One because, in that show, I talked about creating your avatar.

If you have already been in business, or you know what this is, and you’ve already done this process, fantastic.

Think about your avatar. Think about what that person like. What is this person like? What is this person going to get out of listening to your show? What are some key interviews, phrases, pieces of education, of content, of information? What are some key things that you’re going to give this listener that will make them want to listen to it?

Luis Congdon

So, your podcast description is short. Don’t have to be too long. It can be anywhere 200-500 words, but it doesn’t have to be very long. The key thing is to the back of a book. The description is your opportunity to tell the person what they’re going to get out of it and not everybody’s reading at length time to figure this out. They’re going to push play and listen to something, but you want to try to create a description that will appeal to them.

Luis Congdon

For example, with Thriving Launch, we say “This is a show that’s going to feature people like Jack Canfield, Marianne Williamson, Robert Kiyosaki,” and I name off some other people. The key thing there is that by seeing names like Jack Canfield, Marianne Williamson, Byron Katie, and so on, the person we want to attract knows who Jack Canfield is. If they don’t, they know who Marianne Williamson is. If they don’t, they know who Robert Kiyosaki is and all of that says spirituality, business, heart-centered business, mindfulness, coaching. That’s all the stuff that we want to include because we’re trying to attract the Toms of the world.

Tom is a real heart-centered entrepreneur who loves coaching people, very motivated, doesn’t just want to listen to a show that only talks about how to make a sale but a show about how to stay inspired, how to stay motivated, how to make sales, how to automate and generate leads.

Luis Congdon

Tom is somebody who is interested in becoming the best possible person he can be so he can give that back to his clients. He’s very driven by his business and his desire to become a better person, and they’re all meshed into one thing because that’s the kind of person Tom is.

Now, I’ll be honest and sincere here with you. That’s who I am as well. Tom and I are very similar. I love listening to shows that offer me an opportunity to learn about how to become a better person. At the same time, teaching me how to become better at sales or enrolling people in my products, services, and how to automate and set-up all that stuff online. I rolled that up into one.

Business isn’t just this thing that I leave, and then I come home. Drop my bags, and I don’t think about my business anymore. For me, business is a part of who I am. It’s a part of my identity. It’s a part of what I give to the world through who I am. You want to consider these things when you’re looking at how to create a podcast. And so, I’ve created a show for the Toms of the world. There’s a female version of Tom as well, and I have her in my head as well.

Make sure you listen to Day one on How To Create A Podcast if you haven’t because I’m going to walk you through that.

Luis Congdon

Also, my other tip for you is to grab the Podcast Launch Guide. Get the Podcast Launch Guide, and it’s going to walk you through the whole process of how to create a podcast. If you already know this stuff, that’s great. You can skip over that. There’s some other fill-in-the-blank homework like the description and picking your logo. I talked about that. I gave you some examples.

I dive in with that because I know some of you are listening to the show but you also want to get your hands into it as you learn how to create a podcast. You want to read about this. You want to have a step-by-step guide. Not just listen to it but have a guide that goes with it. I’ve got that there for you at thepodcasterssecretweapon.com

The key thing when you’re looking at how to create a podcast description, you want to appeal to your avatar. Some people, they come to me, and they’ve created a narrative that has nothing to do with their avatar. I’m like “Wait.

So you’ve created a show about health and fitness, but you’re talking about like comedy, investing, and all these different things. Why don’t you just say, “Hey! This is a show for anyone who wants to get fit and feel great about their body.

Here are some of the things that we’re going to talk about like how to lose 10 pounds in 10 days.” Whatever it might be so that that person who’s really into health and fitness goes “Yeah, this is the show that I want.” Make sure you know who you’re trying to appeal to and then write a short description for them.

Luis Congdon

I want to give you one more little tip here. You can change the description at any point. How to create a podcast description isn’t make or break. The description is necessary. It’s one piece of a big puzzle, but this is not make or break. You can change it just like you can change your artwork.

If you do your artwork and you like it, that’s great. If you ever want to change it, you can do that too. If you want to make artwork or have someone create the artwork for you, you can go to our contact page on thrivinglaunch.com and let us know what you’re looking for; we have services around that. You need to send us something, and we’ll take a look at it. If you qualify, we’ll message you back, and we can build out all the artwork for you for your podcast.

Don’t do services like Fiverr. I hate Fiverr for logo creation or podcast cover creation because we did that once, and then we end up getting stiffed. Later, we found out that we had paid $5-10 for a cover, but then, I was scrolling through Facebook one day, and I saw her image, and I realize that this was an image that is free online or you pay $5-10 one time. You pay for it one time, and then you own it.

The person that we paid had this artwork, and all he did is he took a little corner of the art. Cut out a small square, then gave that back to us as if that was going to be our podcast cover and it was unique to us, and it wasn’t. Don’t do Fiverr.

Luis Congdon

If you want, go to the contact page on this site, let us know what you’re looking for and have us designed it for you. We’re not going to be the most expensive, but we’re not cheap. You’re also welcome to go to 99Designs.

What’s cool about that is you pay $99, you write up a little thing about what you want, and then a bunch of people will bid for that job. Whoever wins gets that $99 or a percentage at $99, but you could have like 500 people offering to make your art work. They have to submit something and then if you like something, you say “Wow. I like this” and then you kind of start up a conversation with that artist. Then, you and the artist go back and forth until you’ve gone to a point where you’re satisfied, and you choose that piece of artwork with them.

Once you select the artist, you have to stick with them, but still, it gives you a neat opportunity to see a lot of different people bidding for your work and a lot of the various examples of how people interpret what you want to have made.

Honestly, those are my two best choices of how to create a podcast cover. You have us do it. You find your personal graphic designer that you like, or you go to 99Designs, and you have them designed it there.

Luis Congdon

Before you do any of that stuff with artwork, I want you to go to iTunes and look at the artwork. A lot of people miss this, and then they make artwork that doesn’t work well, or they pay a graphic designer $500-800 for artwork, and they don’t know how to guide the artist on what they want. Then, the artist makes them something and then it’s not what they want. It just creates a big headache.

But if you go inside of iTunes and you look, you’re going to have a lot more clarity around what you want. You can say, “Well, I like this one and this and this one.” So when you’re talking to a designer, they go “Great. Now I know why you like this. Can you tell me a little more about that?”

The artist doesn’t have to create something out of thin air which they’re going to do, but they’re not just creating it with some vague, nonsensical idea of what you want. They’re going to go “Okay. These are some of the things they like and some of the font they like.” Then, they can put something together. It’s going to come out beautiful and work for you.

Those are my tips for creating a podcast cover and how to create a podcast show description that stands out, makes you pop, and helps you get those listeners.

If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode Day 2 of How To Create A Podcast, make sure to grab the Podcast Launch Guide. Let me walk you through, and tune into next week’s episode How To Create A Podcast Day 3 where I’m going to teach you how to create a podcast and how to go deeper into that process.