The podcast market is exploding, and for good reason. Podcasts give listeners unique, valuable content in an easy-to-consume format while building a personal connection between the listener and the brand.

I can’t tell you how many times somebody I’ve never met has said, “I feel like I already know you!” because they’ve heard my podcast.

How powerful is that?

A lot of brands have figured this out and launched their own podcasts. Many of them have doubled down on their efforts, putting out more and more episodes because the ROI is there. But almost none of them are doing as much as they could be.

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The problem with podcast content

The average 30-minute podcast contains roughly 6,000 words. If you’re lucky, the show notes will include a 100-word introduction and a few bullet points summarizing the interview. But, if that’s all you’re doing, you’re leaving valuable content (and thus, money) on the table.

For every episode of Hubstaff’s Agency Advantage podcast, we create show notes that stand on their own as valuable content, but this is only a 750-1,000 word blog post. What happens to the rest of that content from the interview?

Typically nothing.

We quickly realized that if we were going to maximize our ROI, we needed to get more mileage out of each interview.

If you’re choosing guests who are true experts in their field and asking the right questions, you’re sitting on a treasure trove of valuable content that shouldn’t be limited to the recording and a single blog post.

Podcast tips to squeeze every click, share, and sale out of each episode

Unless you’re still getting your podcast off the ground (in which case you should be focusing on your MVP), it’s time to start thinking about how to maximize ROI. Below are four podcast tips to extend the reach, shelf-life, and value of your podcast content:

1. Show notes

At a minimum you should create show notes that increase search visibility and drive traffic to your podcast. Your show notes should include a transcript of each episode.

You can use the transcript a couple different ways, depending on your objective:

List building — If you’re focused on growing your email list, use the transcript as a content upgrade. You can offer the downloadable transcript in exchange for an email address, or set up a social locker to make it available after sharing on social media. SEO — If you’re primarily concerned about ranking for particular keywords or driving traffic to your podcast, including the full transcript with the show notes is the way to go

If you’re in a pinch, you can use a service like Rev. This is what we relied on for transcription when we first launched The Agency Advantage podcast. It’s fast (turnaround is typically less than 12 hours) and affordable, but don’t expect perfection. Your transcript will almost undoubtedly include several awkward errors.

If you’ve got the budget, consider using Rev or a similar service alongside a freelance editor. This is what we do. After we receive the transcript from Rev, we assign it to an editor that we found through Hubstaff Talent.

Once you’ve got the transcript, writing the show notes becomes a lot easier. Follow these simple steps to write your show notes:

Identify key points Extract relevant sections from the transcript Rewrite them

For more on how to write show notes, check out Step #6 in our guide to starting a podcast.

2. Infographics

Anytime a podcast guest shares a step-by-step process for anything, consider creating an infographic. They are highly shareable, drive traffic to your podcast, and associate your brand with industry expertise.

We rely on freelance graphic designers sourced from sites like Hubstaff Talent to create infographics from our podcast content (like this one).

3. Roundups

If you’ve spent any time on social media, you’ve probably come across more than a few “roundup” posts, very few of which are worth their pixels. You know what I’m talking about: “7 Social Media Experts You’ve Never Heard About on Snapchat Advertising” or something like that.

These types of posts are easily shareable, but are typically pretty light on unique, actionable content. Questions are brief, substance is limited, and commentary or follow-up is nonexistent.

By leveraging your podcast content, however, you can create roundups that people actually care about. Identify interviews that share a theme, and draw relevant takeaways from the transcripts. Explore nuance, add your own expert commentary, and offer readers the opportunity for follow-up by linking to the podcast itself.

4. Meta-Analyses

“Roundups” are great when well done, but you can take them a step further by adding commentary of your own and weaving interview excerpts throughout to create a deep dive into a single topic.

Whether you publish on your own blog or contribute a guest post on another, this is a great opportunity to expand your audience. Your interview subjects will love the free PR and will gladly share your content with their audience — especially if you’re linking back to their own sites.

The opportunity to dive deeper into your podcast content isn’t just limited to blog posts. Below are four advanced strategies for producing in-depth content:

Single source blog post — Your podcasts are a perfect starting point for offering expert analysis of your own in topics that matter to your audience. Here’s a guest post I did on cold emailing that draws upon a recent podcast interview on the subject. Multiple source blog post — Look for common themes among your interviews and tie them together in a detailed blog post. Here’s another post I put together that combines insights from three different Agency Advantage interviews with my own analysis. Webinar — Dive deeper into podcast insights with a webinar for your prospects or customers. I have not done this yet but it’s something on my radar. Book — If you really want to get more mileage out of your podcast content, consider combining interview insights with expert analysis in an ebook — or even a full-blown print publication. Tim Ferriss put together this bestseller based on more than 200 interviews on his podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show.

The real beauty of this kind of “meta-analysis” is that, unlike podcast interviews themselves, which help establish authority by association, adding your own analysis establishes you as an industry authority standing on your own.

What we’re doing

At Hubstaff, we’ve only scratched the surface with these strategies for our Agency Advantage podcast. But with more than a year’s worth of episodes, I know there’s a ton of gold waiting to be uncovered.

We’ve experimented with a lot of different ways to generate more content from our interview library, but, with the exception of the show notes and transcripts, we haven’t made any of these tactics a consistent part of our strategy.

In the months ahead, I want to continue to leverage our podcast interviews to create blog posts, guest posts, and even webinars — content that is easily shareable and amplified by the influencers we feature on the show.

Once we’ve got a more consistent strategy in place, I’d like to produce more “meta-analyses” focusing on different fundamental topics geared toward our core audience of agency owners. Ultimately I’d like to compile this content into more substantial ebooks or even a print book that we can use to further establish our authority in the agency world.

I envision packaging these as content upgrades, lead magnets, and, in the case of a print book, gifts for high-value prospects and longtime clients. We’ve done a lot to leverage our podcast content already, but there’s a ton more we could be doing.

Conclusion

Starting a podcast can be a huge pain in the ass. And recording and marketing the show is just the beginning. Though, if done right, a podcast can drive your startup’s entire content strategy. And if you follow the strategy I outlined above, you don’t need a huge team or a ton of cash to generate content that people actually want to read.