Even celebrates learn from their mistakes. For example, comedian Paula Poundstone started her first podcast as Live At The Poundstone Institute and after several months then retooled with her highly successful Nobody Listens To Paula Poundstone independent podcast. Showing keen analytic skills, the Poundstone team decided to keep what works – her interaction with co-host Adam Felber – and “entourage,” a zany book club, and real experts who can roll with Poundstone’s improvisational humor.

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Here, we will review some common mistakes that podcasts – and podcasters – make and how they can be avoided to improve their shows.

Too Much Happy Talk
Like a lot of enthusiastic podcast listeners, I make my listening decisions based on feedback from other listeners. A month ago, I tried a podcast about TV shows, broadcast and streaming. I listened to three episodes that ran about 40 minutes. For the first 25 minutes of each episode, the three enthusiastic and appropriately witty co-hosts discussed their previous weekend leisure activities such as bar-hopping, and, for some reason, engaged in a spirited back-and-forth on the right water temperature to wash your clothes. Maybe for loyal listeners, this preamble was engaging, but for a new listener like me, I was dazed and confused. I don’t know these hosts, don’t care about their weekend, and were pleading for them to talk about the new Games Of Thrones prequel instead of their preferred laundy sorting techniques.

Poor Sound Design

Here’s the internet equivalent to poor sound design on a podcast. Numerous studies have shown that most internet users will wait only 1.2 seconds for a website to load. If the circle spins and little or no content is displayed, they’re gone and the website has lost a view and possibly a read.

Similar research on podcasts reveals, not surprisingly, that poor sound quality is one of the most common reasons that listeners will drop a podcast. Research via Adventurous Audio indicates that poor podcast sound quality—such as background noise, echo, and low volume—is a major driver of listener abandonment, with studies showing that 78 percent of listeners may stop listening due to bad audio. High-quality audio is directly linked to increased listener trust, credibility, and engagement, while poor audio reduces the perceived intelligence of speakers.This lack of sound quality is especially critical for new podcasters because podcasts have a lower barrier for entry – both financially and technically – so there is greater temptation to take a shortcut not available to film or TV producers.

While the obvious response to poor sound quality is to buy better equipment, podcast sound consultant Danny Catalano observes, “Better equipment means nothing if you don’t know how to use the mic properly or your software package.”

The most common mistakes include Podcasts sound "far away" mainly due to poor microphone technique (being too far from the mic), recording in a large or echo-prone room, or improper audio gain staging. This creates high levels of ambient room noise (reverb) and low voice volume, often compounded by over-compression during editing. Catalano recommends numerous trial runs before going live to work out any audio bugs before your first episode.

Poor sound design doesn’t simply refer to the quality of the voice of the podcasts hosts or guests. It refers more broadly to how sound – including music – is used in the show. There is a glut of free podcast music available, so appropriate intro and outro music isn’t a stretch, even for the most modest of indie podcasters.

“Some podcasters fall in love with sound effects and overuse them, driving away listeners,” says Danny Catalano. “For narrative podcasts, using background music during narration can enhance the show, but you must balance volume properly so the music doesn’t interfere with the spoken word.”

Some independent podcasts have developed original music for their show, such Friends Talking Shop or Feed the Queue to great effect.

Doing the same type of podcast as everyone else

Let’s suppose your passion drives you to podcast about a topic that has been as overexposed as the Kardashians. If you choose a topic that has ample coverage, success can still be yours. You’ll need excellent hosting skills, a slick podcast format and strong production values. After all, sports teams like the Dallas Cowboys, Manchester United and Real Madrid spark thousands of podcasts hosted by face-painting fans that attract many listeners who are like-minded fans.

While taking on densely-covered topics in your podcast is courageous, the odds of success approximate those of a 100-1 horse at the Kentucky Derby.

“If your passion is the Golden State Warriors and you want to do a podcast on the team,” begins Catalano, “and you want to attract an audience larger than your circle of friends who are also fans, you really have to deliver a podcast of such quality to distinguish your podcast from the thousands of others covering the same topic.”

Catalano recounts the story of a new podcaster who loved the Denver Broncos and produced a podcast in which he covers a different season in Broncos history.

“On any given episode, the podcast covers a season like 1964 where the team stumbled to a 2-11 record with a quarterback, Mickey Slaughter, who threw three touchdown passes with 11 interceptions,” Catalano says. “It’s a different view on a familiar topic.”

The popularity of History podcasts has been well-documented and one major reason for that acclaim has been the myriad ways in which history can be addressed. For example, Raven is a new investigative podcast about Raven Chanticleer, an eccentric artist who founded Harlem’s first Black history wax museum in 1989. History Snacks: Bites of History for Kids delivers short, engaging, and often humorous historical stories designed to spark curiosity in children.

Don’t underestimate the art of storytelling

While it’s obvious that true-crime podcasts live and die on the quality of their narration and storytelling chops, non-fiction podcasts also rely on highly skilled and deftly crafted narration and storytelling.

There are thousands of podcasts about the lives of famous people. It’s a common trope in podcasting. Yet, a show like Famous & Gravy with host Michael Osborne lives and dies on Osborne’s finely-tuned, and well-crafted narrative skills. Moreover, Osborne has taken a familiar genre, biography, and added a twist.

Osborne says: "Famous & Gravy is the show where we look at the holistic life of a famous person, beyond only what they’re known for, and discuss the non-obvious ways they contributed and connected, and went through points of inflection and flow. We look at their historical imprints, both cultural and personal, tiny and large, to give you a brand-new perspective and perhaps change what you thought you knew about them. Even if you have barely heard of the icon we biographize, you’ll get a fresh insight into modern history and a different way to appreciate a life story. You’ll also become pretty excellent at dinner parties."

“So many podcasts are in a rush to tell their story,” podcast consultant Catalano observes. “Compelling podcasts, whether they cost thousands of dollars to produce or a few hundred, all need to set the stage, introduce characters the listener cares about and then unfold the drama like a carefully controlled explosion.”

Catalano insists that podcasts about unsolved murders or about a company rebranding demand the same tools that a novelist or playwright uses to grab attention.

Decide upon the goals of your podcast before you start

After Jenn Trepeck graduated from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, she founded Better Life Now LLC while working full-time in hedge funds. In 2019, she took her practice from side-hustle to full-time self-employment and launched Salad With A Side Of Fries.

Jenn Trepeck has a very specific architectural blueprint of what she wanted her podcasts to be. She did not want to be one of those health and wellness podcasts demanding that listeners wake up at four in the morning to work out for three hours, overschedule your entire day, set multitudinous goals, and eat only kale chips and chomp on meat like our ancestors.

Trepeck discusses the vital need for strategizing everything from content to context. “Setting a goal for the podcast you’re about to record or having a strategy for the content you’re going to deliver is how I honor the listener. Podcast strategy should focus on clarity around why they're creating this podcast, who is the ideal listener and what value the show (and each episode) will deliver to that listener.”

Jenn Trepeck is also the co-founder of the Podcast Professionals Association, which provides its members with resources, networking opportunities, and industry insights to foster innovation, enhance collaboration, and drive professional advancement in the growing podcast industry.

From an industry and career perspective, Trepeck notes: “If you’re a podcaster, it's a challenge to read the label from inside the jar. You must look to your listeners to let you know. One way to do this is speak with your listeners! Surveys, calls, social media all can help create a dialogue with your listeners. Further to that, or if your efforts don't offer as much response as you'd like, look at your podcast data. What's the retention rate through episodes? Explore not just the completion rate as a percentage but over the length of the episode, when are you losing listeners? Look at your listener and subscriber numbers, when someone finds you, do they listen? Do they continue to return episode after episode? Are you keeping listeners who find you or are they listening to the one episode and that's it?”

On the flip side of the coin is Skip Jones who does a podcast for his comic book buddies about comic books they love. The goal is not to have a million listeners – or a thousand – or even 500. The podcast discusses what a group of friends gathers for – comic books they love. It’s a small but loyal following, and Jones wants to keep it that way.

“Starting a podcast requires a lot more thinking upfront than most people believe,” says Catalano. “Is your new podcast for a group of friends? Or is it for your town? Or maybe a farm report? Or a family genealogy podcast? By making that critical decision before you utter a word into a microphone, you will ensure a more pleasant, productive and ultimately successful podcast.”