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Podcast Playbook: Helping Coaches & Advisors Convert Podcast Content into Clients
These Title Formulas Will Get Your Episodes More Clicks
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It's happened to me more than once. I poured time into creating a podcast episode with killer content, stuff I know will help my listeners. I hit publish, and I'm excited to watch the downloads roll in. But a week later, to my surprise, the episode downloads are trending below average. Actually, I looked at the retention charts and they look solid. So I know the people who are listening are getting value. But why aren't more people pressing play? Maybe you've had episodes like that too, where you know if someone just gave it a chance, they'd walk away with exactly what they needed. So how do you keep your best content from going unnoticed? After doing more research and talking to fans of the show, I realized what the problem was for that episode. It was the title. Sure, it was clever, but it didn't clearly show the value of the content. And at the end of the day, I wasn't giving a potential listener a compelling reason to hit play. And here's the truth. In a crowded podcast feed, you could have the best advice in the world, the best content in the world. But if the title doesn't spark curiosity, your listeners may never hit play. That's why learning how to write strong titles is just as important as creating great content. In this episode, we'll cover four simple titling formulas that coaches, advisors, and service based podcasters can use to create must listen to content and get more downloads. Let's dive in. So we're about to jump into the four simple formulas that you can use to create stronger titles for your content. But first, I want to make one thing clear. This isn't about clickbait. Nothing kills trust faster than a title that promises one thing but doesn't deliver. The whole point of creating this podcast is to build authority for you and to position you as an expert and, and ideally, turn a casual podcast listener into a client. And you're not going to do that by using clickbait titles that don't actually have content. But assuming that you're already creating great content, the right title simply amplifies your message and gets it in front of more people. So let's get into exactly how to do that. Today, I'm going to be walking you through four of the different formulas that I use, and number one is the Problem plus solution formula. All you have to do is simply call out a problem that your episode faces and then show them the solution in your title. You will demonstrate both the problem in their terms and their words, and a solution that will be helpful. So if I applied that to this episode in Particular, it might sound something like Struggling with podcast titles. Four formulas to get more clicks. Struggling with the podcast titles is the problem with. Or it could even have been something like not getting enough downloads on your great content and then you're gonna present the solution as well. In this case, it was four formulas to get more clicks or four ways to title episodes to get more listeners. Why this works is that people are wired to solve their problems, and whenever they see their problem in a title and the solution to that potential pain point, they can't help but click and listen to the episode itself. So if we're going to walk through another example here, let's assume that we are working with a financial advisor right now and they have a working title for an episode called Money Tips for Retirement. And my personal opinion, that's a terrible title. You're going to got to be competing against a lot of other generic tips for retirement type episodes, and it doesn't necessarily convey or really create a compelling argument for why I should listen to this. If I were to reword that using the problem plus solution, I would probably write it something like this. Worried about running out of money in retirement? Here's how to plan ahead. Or here is the plan that you need. It could be anything around that. Once again, the problem is running out of money in retirement. The solution is the plan that you're about to present in this episode itself. So that is the problem plus solution. Formula number two is the what, why, and how formula. This is honestly one of my favorite formulas to use. If I'm just like stuck on the title itself, I'll write out what, why, and how, and then I will start to try to title the episodes using those as the starting words. Why this works really well is that these are really powerful words. They signal clear, actionable insights that listeners know exactly what they're about to get. So let's look through this episode title through the lens of what, why, how, and that would be I could do something like what makes a podcast title clickable for the why, I could do why some podcast titles get clicks and others don't. Or the how could be how to write podcast titles that actually get clicks. This works really well because you can see the clear, actionable insight in each one of those titles. It evokes enough curiosity because what, why, and how are all curious type question or words, and you're almost forced to either tell what they're going to get from the episode, why it matters to them, or how to do it. You're removing the guesswork While also building curiosity, which is great. So let's take one more example. In this case, let's say we are working with a wellness coach and they are working on a title that they roughly have as tips for sleeping better. Not bad. Lots of people are trying to figure out how to sleep better. But let's use the what, why, and how approach and create a few more title options for this episode. So in this case, for the what, we might do something as simple as what you're getting wrong about sleep. The why could be why you're still tired even after eight hours of sleep. And how could be how to sleep through a night without waking up. Once again, if you're not entirely sure where to start, writing down what, why, and how, and trying to generate some formulas based on those three words are a really great place to start. Next up, we have the third formula, and that is specificity. It's really hard to go wrong with this one, especially in a crowded podcast feed. The podcast titles that are specific are really going to stand out here. So in order to add more specificity to your titles, use numbers, timelines, or details so listeners know exactly what to expect. So in this episode, I somewhat took that approach on this. But if I were to reapply it, it could just be something as simple as four formulas to write podcast titles that actually get clicked. Everybody knows before they even tune into this episode that I'm going to be talking about four formulas, and it's gotta be about writing podcast titles. Very specific, very to the point. This works really well because specific titles feel concrete and achievable. It's not gonna be lofty or we've all listened to a podcast episode that on the onset, it sounded really great. But then they didn't leave us with anything that was really concrete or achievable. And it wasn't really the episode that we were looking for that was going to solve our specific issue. Numbers and details really cut through the noise and force you to really deliver some kind of value and not add a lot of fluff. If you're telling me we're going to be walking through four formulas, I expect by the end of this episode that we're going to be talking through four formulas. So let's talk about a leadership consultant and let's say that he is going to be talking about or creating an episode about how leaders can improve their communication. Once again, on the outside, looking in. Pretty good topic, but whenever I start peeling it apart, there's not a lot of specificity to that. How Leaders can improve their communication. What kind of leaders? What do you mean by improve? What do you mean by communication? Are we talking about email communication? Are we talking about board member meetings? Are we talking about communication with their direct reports, with their superiors? It really lacks a lot of specificity. And as a seasoned podcast listener, I'm going to note that episode also probably lacks a lot of details and value. For me, it's probably just a lot of fluff. Instead, I'd rework that title and say something like five questions every leader should ask in their one on one meetings. All right, now we really have a concrete, specific episode concept here. And what I really love about this kind of taking a step back. If you title your episodes before creating them, it really forces you to actually make more specific content. So in this case, I'm going to have to be talking about the five questions that every leader should ask during their one on one meetings. It keeps me focused and on point the entire episode. And I know I'm going to walk away with one part of improving my communication and that's my communication with my reports during my one on one meetings. All right, number four is the results oriented formula. So how this formula works is that you focus on the transformation or the outcome that you know that your audience wants. If I applied that to this episode in particular, I'd say something like, double your podcast downloads. By fixing your episode titles, I'm focusing on doubling your podcast downloads. I know that is the outcome, the transformation that you as a listener want to get from this episode right now. Why this works is that people don't want information just for the sake of information. They want results. And results driven titles make the benefit clear and irresistible. So knowing exactly what I am going to get or how I'm going to transform by listening to this episode is a great way to win a potential listener over. So let's go all the way back to our financial advisor and. And let's talk about another podcast episode that he is creating called Three Retirement Accounts to invest in. What I expect from that episode is it's going to be pretty information heavy. We're going to be talking about different retirement accounts and why I should invest and how much I should invest in each one of those retirement accounts. But at the end of the day, I don't really care about which accounts I'm investing in. That's not really the transformation or the outcome that I'm seeking by. By seeking out this kind of episode. In turn, it might be something. It could be a whole lot of different things, but let's just narrow in on one particular transformation. What if instead of three retirement accounts to invest in, we instead titled the episode Retire five years earlier with this simple strategy. So instead of focusing on the retirement accounts and which ones to invest in and how much to invest in, we're really talking about or highlighting the transformation and that's retiring five years earlier. You can still talk about the retirement accounts and which ones to invest in, how much to invest in, which ones to invest in first. That's the simple strategy. But what we want to lead with in this particular case is the retire five years earlier aspect. People want to retire earlier and now you're teeing up the episode in order to give them that, and then you're going to teach them through your simple strategy, the three retirement accounts, how to actually do it. So those are my four simple formulas that you can follow in order to create more clickable content as a recap. Number one is the problem plus solution formula that is presenting the problem and the solution in the title. Number two is the what, why and how formula. This is starting out each podcast title either with what, why or how. All curious and strong words to follow. Number three is the specificity formula, and that is getting hyper specific with what you are about to talk about either through the numbers, the timeline, or the details. And number four is the results oriented formula, and that is by focusing on the transformation or the outcome that you hope your listener gets by listening to that episode. At the end of the day, what all four of these formulas do is answer that silent hidden question that every listener is really asking themselves before they start consuming a podcast episode. And that's what's in it for me. If you can't clearly articulate what's in it for the listener while they're searching for their next podcast episode to listen to, well, you're going to leave them wondering should I even spend my time listening to this? One other thing to consider here is to keep your titles between 60 to 70 characters long. That's usually where most of the podcast players start cutting off the title with inside their apps themselves. So that's probably about 10 to 12 words, and you can usually put together a pretty concise and strong title using 10 to 12 words. If you want to have your episode numbers or guest name get cut off on the back end, I think that's totally fine. But your primary title, I'd really focus on keeping it under 70 characters when possible, unless you really need those extra characters. And as a reminder, don't use clickbait people are going to hate you. If you use clickbait. It might win you the listen, it might win you the download, but at the end of the day, it's not going to win you the listener if you just disappoint them immediately by not having the valuable content that will back up that clickbait worthy title. My big challenge for you this week is to pick one of these formulas and use it to transform your next podcast title. Also, don't be afraid to go back and audit your episode titles and update them as well. That is the beauty about podcasting. So much of this content is evergreen and I'm still getting downloads from podcast episodes I did years and years ago. So are my clients. And better and stronger titles are only going to help with some of those backlog downloads. And of course, if you want feedback on your podcast titles, go ahead and email me your feed. Your podcast feed on whatever your preferred platform is@justinimplepodstudios.com that's justin simple podstudios.com Always happy to share my perspective and give you a little bit of guidance on where I think you're doing well and where I think you could use a little bit of improvement. That's it for today's episode. This is your podcast coach, Justin Peters. Until next time, happy podcasting.