9 Easy Ways to Create Content That Connects With Your Audience

 9 Easy Ways To Create Content That Connects With Your Audience

The main way to foster that connection is by consistently producing quality content that highlights your unique personality and engages your listeners throughout the conversation. 

Speaking and connecting with your audience or “your people” is an art and can seem like a difficult, tedious task at first.

However, once you learn to do so in a way that draws your listeners or readers in, connective content is a game-changer and can quickly help you stand out among other content creators!

The media world contains over 1.7 billion websites and 48 million podcasts, and your unique style, vibe, voice, and perspective are your most handy-dandy tools to help you rise to the top.

Below, you will find the ultimate guide for new and aspiring podcasters (that’s you, right?!) to create engaging podcast content. Here’s where you can learn how to keep organized and create action-oriented, relatable, craveable podcast content your people will be clamoring to hear!

Use a Content Calendar To Keep Your Blog Post(s) and Podcast Episode(s) Organized

If you didn’t already know, influencers, podcasters, and small businesses don’t spend every minute of every day driving engagement on their social media accounts, editing their website, writing blogs, and recording podcasts.

Many use content calendars to plan out which content they want to share on which dates so they can batch their creative work ahead of time. 

They pick a publish date for each piece of content on each platform. Then, they work backward toward a date when they can do their make-up, visit the studio, schedule a photographer, peacefully write in their brand voice, etc. This way, they spend one day or a certain block of hours creating multiple pieces of related content all at once.

From there, the podcast and website content gets edited and scheduled out to their desired platform for the publish date they chose in the first step. You can do this too! For instance, let’s say you want a podcast episode, a blog, and a related YouTube video to post to your channels Friday morning for all your subscribers.

How to Use a Content Calendar Effectively

To work toward this goal, on Monday you’d write up your outlines for each piece of related content, draft social media posts, and write down some potential titles. Tuesday could be your podcast content creation day where you take pictures, record the podcast, and shoot the video. That would allow Wednesday and Thursday for edits, review, and scheduling the content to go live. How beautiful is that?!

Ideally, you also trickled out some teaser social media posts throughout the week to jazz-up your audience in anticipation of the podcast content arriving at their fingertips on Friday.

Using a content calendar can help you organize and visualize when each post, page, podcast episode, or teaser will go public, leaving you with more control and more freedom over the production process and your own time. Effectively using a content calendar is essential to help you not only attract new followers but, in time, potential sponsors will notice your consistency as well, which could lead to some serious income!

Reduce Your Stress

If you are sick of the last-minute hustle and stress, then you need to get on the content calendar train. Planning weeks and months in advance helps keep you from scrambling each day and each week to figure out what to record or when to post. We all know being active on multiple platforms is essential to growing a brand, but it’s stressful and unsustainable when you have to come up with promotional material on-the-spot day after day. 

You are probably already aware of the topics you want to hit and the perspective you want to share in the upcoming months. However, as the creator, you may decide to change it up, edit it in specific ways, or share it in a different order than you first thought based on how things move along.

Your faithful use of a content calendar allows you to focus more on the quality of your production and your content rather than panicking over what you’re going to post today. By looking ahead and planning your content topics and posting dates ahead of time, you are removing a tremendous amount of anxiety from your entrepreneurial plate! 

Create More Opportunity 

No matter what type of content we’re talking about here – podcast, video, or copy – and no matter the topic, when you plan ahead, you allow yourself the time and space in which you can research, invite, and arrange the best guests, resources, and connections for your audience. 

Just imagine, there’s this AMAZING presentation you saw at a conference last year and she would be PERFECT to feature in your upcoming podcast episode about money mindset. BUT you haven’t planned ahead and you haven’t yet invited her to even be on your show (she probably doesn’t even know who you are, right?) and you don’t know what else to record for your episode that’s supposed to go LIVE tomorrow morning! 

Typing that out gives me a little anxiety, so I know that reading it is enough to get your heart pounding. You don’t want to be in that situation, do you?

Now, flip the script and imagine you planned your content months ahead of time using a content calendar. You can think about speakers or guests well in advance, your content creation process is batched and produced in a calm, orderly manner, and your show goes up on time, every time without your needing to record the night before or stay up till 2 am editing (That’s my job, not yours ?). You have time to source and reach out to the perfect guests, gather their bio, do your homework on the topic, etc.  

Presenting well-researched facts, an organized topic and related subtopics, plus featuring a notable guest or other related podcasts will help your show retain existing fans, engage new audience members, and become highly searchable when done well with complete and thoughtful episode descriptions. All of which will help increase your chances of turning random listeners into potential audiences. 

Increased Monetization Potential 

It should go without saying that when you set up a content calendar, you become more clear on your plans. Better plans mean better guests, more targeted content, more consistent production, and more subscribers! Sounds great, right? 

There’s one more thing that most podcasters, bloggers, and YouTubers eventually want – Monetization. Sponsors, affiliates, and even platform-run ads don’t happen without a specific, on-target message, an engaged or large (or both) audience, and without a clear statement on the value that you’re bringing to the table for the sponsor. 

Essentially, when you use a content calendar to plan, you’re also opening yourself up to crafting holistic statements about your content’s purpose and value, which will give you an advantage during monetization opportunities. 

How To Generate Topic Ideas Easily

You might be reading this thinking – sure, monetization, great guests, and less stress pounds great, but coming up with solid, interesting podcast topics is HARD! How can I possibly make coming up with ideas easier?

All content creators struggle with this at some point. It’s like writer’s block, it just happens sometimes. Maybe it hits in the early stages of your podcast or maybe it hits after a year or two. Either way, it happens to the best, and it’s important to know that it’s completely normal. 

When you get stuck, look inward and evaluate what’s going on personally. If you and your best friend just had a falling out, your kids are on summer break, or you’re afraid to share what you really think in the open air, you’re carrying excess stress that is hampering your ability to create freely. 

If any of the above scenarios or anything similar sounds like what you’re facing, you just need some “space” and inspiration – it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true.

Depending on the central theme of your podcast, you can see influence and ideas almost everywhere! Here are some of the best ways to generate topic ideas:

Get Outdoors

Even if you’re not the outdoorsy type, just a simple walk around the neighborhood, a visit to the nearest nature preserve, or some time sitting on your porch with a hot cuppa can be enough to let your mind wander. 

You can read a book outside, listen to your favorite podcasts, or walk and talk with a friend, for instance.

If you’re up for some activity, that’s fantastic! It’s proven that when your body is engaged in movement (like walking/jogging/riding a bike) your brain processes ideas more quickly and you’re able to gain clarity on previously-foggy perspectives. So, leash up the dog for a walk, jump on a treadmill, or bust out the bicycle and get moving!

Pro tip: Have a small notepad and pen (or the notes app on your phone) in tow so you can write down the amazing podcast content that comes to mind while you’re out.

 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had “the most amazing podcast idea” while outside, only to forget what it was by the time I got back. The idea generation plan worked, but it took me a while to learn to carry a note pad, lol.

Peel Back Some Layers

You might not realize it yet, but your personal interests are essential, and using your unique interests and perspectives in your content creation process will help you remain consistent. Who in the world wants to produce podcast content about topics they’re not interested in? Nobody!

If you aren’t absolutely passionate about your overall podcast theme/topic, content creation will feel like hard work, listeners/readers will feel that there’s an invisible disconnect, and those struggles combined will have you falling off the wagon again and again.

Sometimes you have to “braindump” anything and everything that’s inside your head to kind of clear the path for the good stuff. Then, keep going!

How To Conduct A Proper Braindump For Your Podcast’s Content Creation Strategy

Take a plain white sheet of paper and a pen to a quiet space where you can exist quietly and uninterrupted for at least 30 minutes. Fix a hot coffee, pour a glass of wine, fix a bowl of ice cream, make a gorgeous snack that features all the colors of the rainbow, or whatever tickles your fancy. 

Now, scribble anything that comes to mind on that sheet of paper. No constraints, no limits. Let the grocery list, the “I hate my boss,” the to-do list, or whatever else begins to pour flow onto that paper. Eventually, podcast and blog content ideas will start to form. 

Flip the paper over if you have to and continue brainstorming ideas you want to talk about, subtopics they trigger, and how you might effectively communicate your (potentially unpopular) opinion, perspective, supporting research, and more to your audience. Free-flowing writing like this brings your unique brand, ideas, style, and perspective to the surface and sets you apart from other content creators, even if they’re in your same category or genre.

You might discover a topic that you are so passionate about that you feel like you could talk about for days. Take notice of this passion-fueled podcast topic and incorporate it into your content calendar. 

Your audience will feel and hear your interest in the podcast content you create as a result of this brainstorming and planning process and might even share your episode with a friend – the greatest compliment to a creator!

Explore Month/Day Designations

Throughout the calendar year, nearly every day is a celebration of something somewhere. I’m talking French Fry Day, National Spaghetti Day, and National Carrot Cake Day – yeah, seriously. There’s something for everyone.

Laugh all you want, but I encourage you to look through the calendar linked above and search for a day (or a few of them) that may resonate with your audience. As a few serious examples, I’ll be celebrating International Podcast Day, International Women’s Day, National Rescue Dog Day, and National Entrepreneurs’ Day.

Using a calendar to highlight International and National holidays plus some more arbitrary celebratory days might take the pressure off creating content during those weeks plus add a little silliness and fun to your platform. Some creators use observances as a great way to connect with their audience, promote specific events, educate them, and create awareness around issues dear to their heart.  

Get Comfortable Sharing About Your Podcast

The people in your community want to see you and your small business succeed, but they can’t help you by contributing resources or creating connections if they don’t really know what you’re all about. 

Practice saying what you do, why you’re passionate about it, and how you hope to positively impact others until it sounds smooth and you feel confident saying it.

Then, grab your courage by the throat and begin sharing your mission with your friends, family, neighbors, local moms group, co-workers, and well, basically anyone who will listen. 

Tell Your Community How They Can Support You For Free

Of course, they can listen to the show and provide reviews. They can also share about your podcast or their favorite episode to their friends via text or social media.

But don’t forget to ask them if they know anyone you should connect with over particular topics. Maybe they know someone who might be a fantastic guest feature or maybe they know of someone who can get you featured in a big publication – you never know until you ask outright!

Engage with these close, early supporters of your podcasting journey by asking if anything from your launch episodes resonates with them, if they have any solutions or ideas related to your passion topic, and if there’s a particular angle or perspective they’d be interested in hearing more about.

Allowing your community to contribute great ideas not only helps you with the content creation piece, but it makes them feel valued and involved. By listening to your target audience, you can quickly come up with a wide range of subtopics and weekly content ideas to share!

Include your Business/Life/World 

Your listeners/readers want to get to know you – the real you – not just the superficial content-producing machine version of you. Your mistakes make you human, your struggles make you relatable, and your triumphs infuse inspiration. 

At first, your audience wants to know they can trust the content. Once you get past that hurdle, they want to know why you’re passionate about your topics, what experiences led you here, and how they can see themselves in you. This is the know, like, trust factor talked about in most content creation information out there.

You don’t have to reveal everything by any means, but if it’s a personal (appropriate) story that can be used to convey a lesson learned, by golly share it! Do your best to reveal little details of your personal or work life to support your target topics and to allow your audience to get to know you at the same time. This is a great way to engage with your audience and hopefully benefit from it! 

If you’re creating your first episode and/or have a new podcast, it may seem particularly difficult to decide how much and what to share with the world. You want to share enough to drive comments and connect with your podcast audience, but not so much that the show sounds like it’s all about you.

This is one of the underlying benefits of working with a podcast manager through the launch process – you get guidance through all of this!

Make Time to Plan Your Podcast Content Strategy

Contrary to popular belief, you won’t have more time tomorrow or next week. Future you is SO available and has nothing on her to-do list, right? 

Ha!

You get the same number of hours each day, so you have to MAKE TIME to plan out your content, brainstorm, go for a walk, write up outlines, record videos – every step of the content creation process takes time.

Before your head starts spinning, you can control the amount of time you use for each task by time blocking. This is where you block off an hour or two for various tasks throughout the week to get a certain activity done in each block. One of those time blocks should be for planning out your topics and filling in your content creation calendar. 

Deciding on your content, inviting guests, collaborating with other new podcasters, and creating a solid marketing strategy are all important planning steps that will help you create great podcast content consistently and move you closer to your content goals.

Perform Your Own Quarterly Reviews 

Once you plan out topics for your podcasts a few weeks in advance, it’s very likely you’ll notice a fresh ease or flow as you move through those pre-planned production dates.  One way to generate great content for your audience is to do a quarterly review of your performance. While this sounds like a horrible call-back to my corporate days, it’s not quite like that. 

Your quarterly podcasting review consists of identifying which social media posts, blog posts, YouTube videos, or podcast episodes got the most traffic. Dig into your analytics on each platform and take note of the topic you hit, the types of comments that were made, and anything you can glean from those numbers. Then, you can decide if it’s worth diving into your most popular episode topics again.

Maybe next time you post podcast content related to that idea, you can present a fresh perspective, provide some options for people to overcome a related challenge, or interview an expert speaker on the topic. You can also create blog content, go live on social media, explore Facebook ads, or adjust your strategy to use your most popular and engaging content as a magnet to help you show up in listeners’ search results.

The data provided to you for free on these various content publishing platforms can help you generate even more ideas and fill out your content calendar even further if you know where to look and how to use them!

Batch Out Recordings

One of the best tips I can provide as an extreme producer of content (including this massive blog post), is to batch produce your work in every way possible.

Instead of recording a new episode the night before it’s due, it is significantly more efficient to record several episodes in a single day. Batch recording saves an incredible amount of time and helps you “warm up” to the camera and/or mic much faster. Your creativity around each topic will get a boost too! 

Batching takes preparation. If you expect to sit down and record 3 great podcast episodes in one go, that means you’ll need all the podcast content (bullet points, scripts, guest bios, and other interview notes) prepared for each conversation before its corresponding time slot. This means you have to batch your preparation process as well, which could include browsing social media platforms, pulling research from search engines, and gathering guest information for the interview.

In other words,  do all your research, make all your outlines and scripts, gather all your guests’ bios, and then assemble each set of information for each separate podcast recording. Do this for all your future episodes and not only will you gain valuable insights about your production process, but you’ll become extremely efficient at preparing for the conversation.

Record several episodes ahead of time, edit them or send them to your editor (oh, heaaay!! ?), prepare all the related written content like summaries, social posts, show notes, episode transcriptions, and YouTube descriptions (also stuff I can take off your plate), and schedule them to release on your designated drop day. Batching is a god-send according to even the largest influencers and I’m sure it will relieve you too! 

Designate Your Daily Focus 

Anytime you’re working toward a big goal – and this especially works during the bootstrap months of starting a new business (I know, I’ve been there),  it helps to dedicate each day to a specific task rather than trying to gain a little ground on several tasks each day. 

For example, if you decide Mondays are for contracts and finances, Tuesdays are for writing show notes, and Wednesdays are for looking for new guests, you will be at peace as you work through each task completely during its designated focus day. Your brain won’t be inefficiently jumping between multiple tasks and programs and you’ll be able to confidently mark a large task off your to-do list at the end of each day.

Decide what your specific tactic will be to generate leads, create brand awareness, update your website, and promote your new episode. Then, time block those tasks on your calendar consistently each week. Once you’ve categorized your days and planned your tasks in a consistent way, you don’t have to re-invent the wheel anymore! You get to sit down to build your business, handle your social media marketing, and create engaging podcast content easy-breezy. No more feeling lost or confused about what you “should” be doing.

Remain Aware

You should always be on the lookout for potential topics, guest appearances, feature opportunities, resources, relevant articles, and win-win connections related to the content you’re creating and the message you’re communicating to your audience.  Opportunities can be found anywhere from social media to the local community to online strangers to the coffee shop down the street. 

You’ve heard of the six degrees of separation, right? It’s an absolutely mind-blowing concept and I highly recommend you learn about it and lean into it if you’re unfamiliar. Basically, it’s the idea that everyone can be connected by a chain of acquaintances just six links long.

With this concept in mind, you can rest assured the things you want are likely just six acquaintances away. I don’t know about you, but this makes me look at my social media channels and new listeners in a completely different light!

If there’s anything you want – maybe your dream guest interviewee – start asking around for a connection to that interview. It’s highly likely that someone in your circle knows someone in their circle, and eventually, you might just be able to line up that dream guest for your next episode!

The same thing goes for positive reviews and encouraging listeners to share your show with their friends. Not everyone will, but when your show becomes their favorite podcast – the one they always wanted, but could never find – they’ll start providing positive reviews, sharing your show on their social channels, and helping you gain new listeners all by themselves!

How To Consistently Create Content That Connects With Your Target Audience

Don’t be afraid to fully step into this new and exciting world where audio, video, and blogging are your marketing strategy- other creators want to collaborate with, support, and help you – and I do believe you’ll find more camaraderie than competition, if you just allow. As you begin to outline your engaging podcast content ideas and design your own content strategy, lean into who you really are, your passions, and your innate knowledge.

Share your true perspectives and experiences because that’s what people love most – the real you. Design every single episode to provide actionable content to listeners, provide a credible source for the information you’re presenting, and cover topics that will have you and your audience equally engaged. Write for and speak during your recordings as you would in real life, allowing yourself to be as natural-sounding and authentic as possible. 

Your consistent production (either weekly, biweekly, or monthly) of engaging podcast content will help you, as the podcast host, quickly establish a deep connection with your target audience. The more authentic you are, the more people will want to listen to you. If you need more help coming up with a content strategy, getting organized, or getting your content calendar started, I’ve got good news!

You’re invited to sign up for  a 15 minute strategy call (don’t worry, it’s free!). I’ll help you get over the hump and on to a plethora of ideas for new episodes!