How To Make A Podcast Engaging

The popularity of podcasts has seen a meteoric rise over the past decade, with ‘over 19.1 million Britons listen[ing] to podcasts’.

That said, considering that ‘there are over 5 million podcasts with over 70 million episodes between them as of April 2023’, it can be difficult to know how to make your podcast engaging enough to stand out amongst the noise.

There are numerous ways to ensure your podcast is as engaging as possible for your audience.

Ways to make a podcast engaging include, but are not limited to:

1. Find a niche
2. Prioritise the listener experience
3. Get experts on the podcast
4. Encourage listener participation
5. Focus on storytelling

1. Find A Niche

It might sound like a simple tip, but finding your niche is an essential part of making a podcast engaging.

From true crime to film podcasts, the best podcasts are focused on an overarching theme that informs and gives each episode direction. Choosing a topic also helps you to produce regular and consistent content, as it always comes back to your niche.

While you might stray into different territories from time to time, it’s important to stay on topic, as a podcast with no direction can quickly lead to audience disengagement.

Once you have found the niche, be sure to research competitors within the same space. This will help you to highlight any potential areas they’re not covering or are falling short, as this will provide you with ideas for tapping into a demand they might not yet be meeting.

Considering that ‘there are over 5 million podcasts with over 70 million episodes between them as of April 2023’, it can be difficult to know how to make your podcast engaging enough to stand out amongst the noise.

2. Prioritise The Listener Experience

You’re never going to be able to please every listener when starting a podcast, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be continuously be thinking of ways to prioritise the listener experience.

Considering that most people in the UK listen to podcasts for entertainment, to make your podcast engaging, it’s essential that you allow your audience to inform the content you produce.

When generating ideas for episodes, it’s a good idea to research potential topics in a combination of places, from online groups to forums to the comments underneath previous podcast episodes.

From this research, you can begin to compile a list of potential options that would likely resonate with your audience. Additionally, you can even ask your audience directly what they’d like to hear from future episodes.

While it’s good to have a format for each podcast episode, it’s worth noting that you should be open to adapting once you have listener feedback to go off. This way, you can ensure that you’re consistently prioritising the listener and are producing content they’ll engage with.

3. Get Experts On The Podcast

While this might not be financially viable in the beginning, as your podcast begins to gain traction, getting experts on the podcast is a great way to create engaging content that gets people talking.

Although enlisting experts to share insights isn’t new to the podcast industry, opting for unique experts that you know your audience will respond to is a fantastic tip for keeping your listeners interested.

Reaching out to experts and inviting them to speak on your podcast is an effective way to maintain engagement while also helping you to become a bigger authority by association.

As such, getting experts on your podcast will not only keep people listening week after week but will also take your podcast to new heights within your niche.

You’re never going to be able to please every listener when starting a podcast, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be continuously be thinking of ways to prioritise the listener experience.

4. Encourage Listener Participation

An important tip for creating an engaging podcasting experience is to encourage listener participation.

Asking your audience to write in with their responses to questions on specific topics is great for informing future episodes, and can even inspire entire segments that revolve around your audience.

This not only helps your listeners to feel like they’re involved and part of a wider community that you’re building but also encourages them to engage with the questions presented.

You can also provide a safe space by offering anonymity when listeners write in, as this will encourage more people to open up about past experiences. As such, listeners are more likely to engage with your questions honestly, in turn creating a more authentic and interesting listening experience.

5. Focus On Storytelling

Last, but not least, to make your podcast engaging you’ll want to focus on storytelling.

Stories are a fantastic way to connect with your audience, allowing them to relate to you and retain information much better.

This is supported by research that involved 1 in 10 students being asked to use a story within their pitch, while the others included facts and figures. When asked to write what they could remember down, only 5% of students cited a statistic whilst 63% remembered the story, emphasising the significant impact storytelling can have.

As such, incorporating stories into your podcast episodes not only engages listeners but also ensures they can remember and relay what you spoke about to others, too.

Although enlisting experts to share insights isn’t new to the podcast industry, opting for unique experts that you know your audience will respond to is a fantastic tip for keeping your listeners interested.

Hopefully this article has given you a wider perspective on how to make a podcast engaging.

We’re Buffoon Media: a bilingual media production company based in Port Talbot and London, producing and live streaming content across the globe. Learn more about our podcast production services, as well as the other services we provide on our website.

Written by Jemima Thomas for Buffoon Media.